Leviticus 11:44-47, “ For I am the LORD
your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You
shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the
ground. (45) For I am the LORD who brought you up out of
the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am
holy." (46) This is the law about beast and bird and
every living creature that moves through the waters and every creature that
swarms on the ground, (47) to make a distinction between the unclean and
the clean and between the living creature that may be eaten and the living creature
that may not be eaten.”
At the end of this chapter that deals with clean and unclean animals,
we find an appeal to holiness. God calls on the people of Israel to be holy as
He is holy. This may appear to be rather strange and even a bit unreasonable!
Can eating certain types of animals, or even touching these animals be regarded
as sinful, rendering us unclean and therefore unacceptable in the sight of God?
Furthermore how can God declare certain animals as being unclean, when He
created them and declared them all to be good in His sight?
There are three points that we need to keep in mind as we read these
types of passages.
Firstly, God’s holiness is absolute, there is no room for negotiation
or compromise. God is 100% holy and if we are to be accepted in His sight we
too must be 100% holy, not even 99.5 % holy would suffice. God is absolutely holy
and only that with is absolutely holy may dwell with Him.
Secondly, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and chose to sin, their sin
had a far wider impact than they realised. Adam and Eve are not the only ones
that are cursed, creation itself is cursed; disease, suffering and death will
now come to every living thing. Even in our modern age this is still the case.
Over recent years there have been out breaks of bird and swine flu, and in
order to protect us, millions upon millions of animals were slaughtered and
disposed of. God institutes this command for the protection of the people, many
of the unclean animals mentioned are animals that are known to carry diseases.
Therefore this commandment is one of grace, God is seeking to preserve and
protect the people of Israel.
Thirdly, a number of these animals were also used in the worship of
idols, or were seen as sacred by the nations surrounding the Promised Land. In
this respect, this command is similar to the instructions given to Moses to
make a completely unique incense to be used in the tabernacle, and not an
existing one, as these incenses were used in the worship of idols. God is
seeking to protect the people of Israel from idol worship and the various
things that accompany it.
If we bring these three points together, this commandment makes sense
and we are able to understand what is at the heart of it. God is holy, loving
and gracious, He loves life and He loves us. He seeks to demonstrate this
constantly to the people of Israel in commands such as this one. The Israelites
must never lose sight of the fact that God is absolutely holy, but they live in
a sinful, cursed world, one in which people will constantly turn away from God
to worship idols. It is a world that is filled with disease, suffering and
death, and it all comes to every living creature without exception. God desires
to preserve, uphold and protect the lives of His people, He desires to keep
them from disease and suffering. God also desires to protect His people from
going astray into idolatry, for He knows both the heart of man and the
destruction that idolatry brings.
Furthermore, it is in this sinful, idolatrous, cursed world that they
live and it is in world that they are called by God to be holy as He is holy.
The Israelites are to be distinct from the nations around them, including the
food which they eat and the animals that they keep. Holiness is to demonstrated
and strived after in the great and important things, all the way down to the
seemingly insignificant and small. They are God’s people and everything that
they do is to reflect this reality. When the nations around witness this
uniqueness and enquire as to why the people of Israel live in such a way, the
Israelites are given the opportunity to evangelise, to tell them of God.
As believers in Jesus Christ, the same call to be holy as God is holy
comes to us. It is a call that we are to constantly strive after until we are
drawn into God’s eternal kingdom. We understand this call to holiness and many
of us do strive after it, but in our pursuit on holiness we can often be guilty
of focusing on the major, the important areas, but neglecting the smaller
areas. We seek to display holiness on that which is outwardly visible and seen
by others. We do this because we want people to see and think that we are holy.
The words of Jesus remind us that true holiness, true godliness comes from
within. Therefore when we neglect inner holiness, it will lead us to fail
outwardly. We may be able to fool men with our outward pretence of holiness,
but God sees and knows all, in fact it will only be a matter of time before the
pretence fails and the truth is revealed. The key to pursuing holiness lies in
starting with the small, seemingly insignificant areas, in the places and parts
of our lives that are unseen by man. It starts inwardly and then works its way
outwardly. Our pursuit of holiness applies to every area of our lives,
including the manner in which we buy, prepare and eat our food. Eating is
worship, we can worship greed and over-indulgence, we can abuse our bodies and
bring them into compromise through a poor diet, we can demonstrate selfishness
and ungratefulness, we can even be proud and think that what we eat has come
from our own hand and doing. As believers in Christ we are called to be
thankful, humble, generous, kind and holy, even when we eat! We are to be holy
in the great and the small, the seen and the unseen, the important and the
insignificant, we are to be holy as God is holy.
God You are holy, holy, holy. Help us to
better understand and grasp Your holiness, impress it upon our hearts, minds
and lives. May Your call to us to be holy as You are holy, not seem burdensome
to us, but that we might understand that it is the pathway to blessing, that
walking in holiness is to walk on the better path. Help us today to strive
after holiness in the small things and in the big things. May we live more for
Your eyes, than for the eyes of men. Amen.
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