The Clean and the Unclean

Spurgeon opens by dismissing any literal application of the Levitical food laws to Christians, but argues that God had a triple purpose in originally giving them: first, to keep Israel permanently separate from surrounding nations by making shared meals impossible, as a type of the spiritual separation from the world that all believers in every age are equally called to maintain — not by peculiar dress, affected speech, or rigid formality, but by a genuinely different life-aim (Christ's glory over wealth or pleasure), a different spirit (conscious of God's presence in every moment), and different maxims (measuring right and wrong by Heaven's light rather than what is customary in the trade). Second, to keep every pious Israelite constantly aware that sin is everywhere — since the camel on the road, the hare in the field, the coney in the rocks, and the insect in the flowers were all unclean, so that no ten minutes could pass outdoors without a reminder — and Spurgeon applies this to Christians, urging vigilance rather than ease, since even the loveliest landscape carries the slime of the serpent, and sin will intrude even into the prayer closet. Third, to provide a two-part test for distinguishing clean from unclean among God's people — the cud-chewing inner life (genuine feeding on gospel truth, meditation, and heartfelt communion with Christ) and the divided hoof of an outward life visibly separated from the world — and he works through four failing examples: the camel (sound doctrine, corrupt living — the Antinomian), the coney (evangelical in opinion, covetous and earth-bound in practice), the hare (moved by the gospel, too timid and ashamed to confess Christ openly before men), and the swine (outwardly moral and devout, but with no inward grace — the Pharisee) — warning that all four, however close they appear to the clean, will be found on the wrong side of the final great division.A sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon in 1863.