Eating Meat – Is It Really About Refrigeration?
The
first ten chapters of Leviticus dealt with holiness laws. The next five chapters will deal with
cleanliness and uncleanliness. Today we
start with animals.
I
have heard all the arguments about the animals on this list and how the laws
inherently protect a people who do not have refrigeration and other means of
storing meat. I can accept that. Pigs alone can carry many diseases that if
the meat is not stored and cooked properly can be harmful to eat. This is also true for many of the birds on
this list which are scavengers – such as vultures. So I can understand and accept this
rationale.
However,
I believe there is more to it than just a health code. Remember, the Bible is not a science
book. It is not a book about how the
world was created and how life is ordered.
It is a book about who created the world and who ordered life. So ultimately if all we do is to see these
laws in their very legitimate practical function we are missing the boat. Or rather, we are looking at the life-raft on
a cruise liner and talking about how wonderful the life-raft is without even
paying any attention to the bigger picture.
If all we do is see how the laws about eating animals protect the people
from disease, we’re seeing one possible result without ever seeing God!
An Alternative Look at Dietary Laws
So
what else is there? Well, remember that
above all else God is holy. The word holy
means separate. God has called these
people to a holy status. They too are to
be separate from the world. These
dietary regulations are a continual reminder that they are a separate people
who are called to a unique task among the nations.
While
these laws do serve a very practical purpose, the spiritual purpose these laws
have is to remind the people that they are not “just like all the other people
on the globe.” They are to be separate
and holy to the Lord. God wants the
Hebrew people to understand that they are not like all the other people in the
world. Having a relationship with Him is
special and unique.
Yet, Christians Eat Pork …
So,
why can we eat these foods not? Are we
not also holy? Are we not also separate? Is not our relationship with God unique?
We
know about Peter’s vision in Acts and how God tells Peter “what I have made
clean you shall not make unclean.” So
yes, we are separate. But God has
changed our perspective. What is that
change?
There
is one very significant event between Leviticus 11 and Acts 10 in the story of
God’s work on this planet. It is called
the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. In
Jesus’ death, we are made clean – us and the whole creation. We are no longer only to call people out of
their sinful relationship with the world (the purpose of the law) but we are
also supposed to call people into a relationship with Christ (the purpose of
grace).
While
Christ has made us a holy people, we no longer need the dietary laws to remind
us of our calling out of the world. We
are no longer to be separate and apart from the world. We are to be in the world but not of it. We are to be unique in the world but still
participating amongst it and calling people into a relationship with
Christ. Christ’s death on the cross
irrevocably changed God’s relationship with mankind, and that has irrevocably
changed how we interact with the world.
God
has made us clean through true sacrifice.
Through Christ our hearts are made pure and what God has made clean we
cannot defile. We are to be a holy
people for God, but we are to be holy in a completely different way because
Christ has completely changed our relationship with God.
Beyond the Dietary Laws
As
for the actual verses of this passage, note that the verses go beyond what we
can and cannot eat. The verses talk
about touching unclean bodies, using unclean vessels, etc. While I have just argued that the dietary law
need not apply to us, I can also argue that there is still something we should
learn from this. God wants the people to
be intentional about how they interact with the world. He wants them to be concerned with whether
they are doing something God sees as right or wrong. God wants the people to know what they are
doing, not just go through life uncaringly.
We
should pay attention to this very much.
God wants the same about us as well.
He wants us to be concerned, attentive, and intentional about how we are
interacting in this world.
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