So lesson three is entitled the cleanliness code. We're going to be tackling Leviticus chapters 11 through 16, but most commentators and scholars will call this section the cleanliness code because it deals with cleanliness laws about animals and persons and things. And then it kind of crescendos with the great feast of young people. So that's what we're going to be looking at right now.
Just to recap how this lesson is going to connect with the last lesson because again, it's all connected. We don't want to look at each of these sections as if they're like, oh, it's a new subject. It is a new subject, but it's connected. So what do I mean by that?
Well, in the last lesson, we talked about the priestly code, the sacrifices that Israel was supposed to offer up to God. So is that a tone for sin that those do not a tone for sin, those that expiate it, those that express community with God, those that restore community with God. This kind of concept, we talked about all of that and it's the priests who offer the sacrifices. And so what sacrifices do is they purify and they sanctify, right?
And that's the connection that we're going to talk about here with the cleanliness code. So the sacrifices that we discussed with the priest that we discussed in lesson two flows into this lesson, which is the cleanliness code because sacrifices purify. They cleanse Israel, the priest, the tabernacle, and then they also are going to sanctify and that's going to be the topic for our final lesson next time lesson for on the holiness code. So that's really the method of the madness, right?
That's the golden thread through all of this. It begins with sacrifices because sacrifices purify and sanctify. And so we're going to see like, okay, what does purity mean? What does cleanliness mean?
That's going to be the topic for today. Now, as we jump into this, we look at some introductory remarks here, like, what does it mean to be cleaner, to be pure? What are these cleanliness laws, these purity laws? How does that come up connect with holiness laws?
They're distinct, but they're very much related. So what I want to do is take you to your commentary, the Catholic introduction, the Old Testament. They do, so Berg's mom and Petrie does a fantastic job, I think, and all the various readings that I've done here and explaining the difference between these two things. So let's go to there.
I got these reproduced here in your notes. Now, let's go to the first quote. It's really one long quote, but I want to highlight all of this for you because it's going to be very important, not just for this lesson, but also for the next lesson. Okay, so it begins quote, the cultic system of Leviticus is based on two complimentary but distinct categories of evaluation.
Number one, the cleanliness spectrum, which evaluates things on the range from clean to unclean with gradations. In two, the holiness spectrum, which evaluates things on a range from holy to common again with gradations. Okay, so Leviticus, and again, the sacrifices that are related to them, really Leviticus has these two categories, cleanliness and holiness. So something could be cleaner and clean, holy and common, well, what's the difference?
It goes on. On the one hand, cleanliness is a measure of the, and here, it's italicized in the book, right? This is the definition. Cleanliness is a measure of the suitability of something to be in the presence of God.
It is a measure of the suitability of something to be in the presence of God. So unclean things are not suitable to be in the divine presence, whereas clean things are. Okay, so God is perfection, right? He is holiness.
He is purity. He is like everything that we're not, right? So for something to be in God's presence, it's got to be suitable, right? You just can't have anything just going before God's presence.
Now, there's going to be consequences for that. So if you want to be in God's presence, to be suitable to be in his presence, you got to be clean. Unclean things cannot go before the divine presence. So something can be either common and be cleaner, unclean, right?
If it's unclean, you got to cleanse it. You got to purify it. Now, that's distinct from holiness. It goes on here.
The quote says, holiness, on the other hand, is a measure of the presence of God itself, right? It's a measure of the presence of God itself. It goes on. The holy thing is somehow imbued with or mediates the divine presence, whereas a common thing does not.
So cleanliness is kind of like a prerequisite, almost, right? It's suitability to be in the presence of God, but then holiness is a participation somehow in the presence of God itself. Now, to be holy, we're going to talk a lot about this next week. And as a matter of fact, this lesson is all about the cleanliness laws, what it means to be in the presence of God, suitability to be in the presence of God.
And then the next lesson is about the holiness laws, a participation or a measure of the presence of God itself. They're distinct, right? So a holy thing has to be clean. Nothing can be holy and unclean at the same time.
And a holy thing can be defiled and unclean, therefore must be made clean again. So all the holiness stuff we're going to talk about in lesson four, right? We're zeroing in on the cleanliness. So if you want to be in God's presence, there's suitability to be in God's presence.
That's what we're going to talk about. If you're at the expression, cleanliness is next to godliness. I grew up with that expression. My mom said that all the time.
So cleanliness is next to godliness is actually not rooted here in Leviticus. It just kind of popped into my mind. I looked it up. Apparently it's John Wesley, who was the origin of that.
You had this concept certainly in the Old Testament here in Leviticus and so many other places. But there's something that expression I think really highlights very well, this concept like, if you're cleanliness, suitability to be in the presence of God is next to godliness because godliness or holiness is a measure of the presence of God itself. So wrestle with that. Think about that this stuff is not easy.
It's hard for us moderns separated by time and space. And there's so many complicated things about all of this. But I really like Berg's own in my Peter. I think they did a good job breaking that up.
Well, as a matter of fact, they conclude this quote by saying, since God has come to dwell with Israel in the tabernacle, all the people of Israel must maintain themselves and their camp in a state of cleanliness that is suitability to be in the presence of the presence of holiness. All right. So this is very pedagogical as we're going to see here. So to be in God's presence, God is holy.
God is truly awesome in the capital of A sense. It's not like awesome. Like Pete says awesome or a movie is awesome or a great play on the field on the sports field is awesome. God is just truly awesome.
He is holy. He is pure. He's amazing beyond all comprehension. And so God is going to be teaching Israel as I'm going to share with you this lesson is teaching Israel.
You know, you want to be in my presence. I want to be with you. Right. God loves Israel.
We've saw all this with the book of Exodus. Mount Sinai. God is with his people. He wants to remain in his with his people through the worship of the tabernacle.
The tabernacle is a portable Mount Sinai. We discussed all of that in the Exodus course. He wants to be with his people. But the problem is his people are unholy, right?
They're unclean. So how do you reconcile this? And that's honestly, like I said before, the title of this course, holy people for a holy God. You got to make the people clean.
You got to make them holy to be with God. Okay. So I think that's a really good quote to break down here for you from your Catholic introduction, the Old Testament that kind of distinguishes these two different concepts here. Think about that ruminate over it because again, it's not necessarily perfectly intuitive for us.
There is there is a lot of typological connections here for sure as I'm going to share with you for Paul and some Corinthians. We're ahead of myself. There is a great concept that even we in the new covenant era, the era of the church, we can't go before God's presence if we're unclean and unpure. We can't do that.
We need to be cleansed. And that's of course the administrative is this Christ. Okay. So with that clarification, let's move on and look at chapter 11 is clean and unclean animals.
We're going to look at clean and unclean persons. And then we're like, just cap everything off with a great feast of young kapur, which is very intentionally placed at the end of this clinic. Let's go. So Roman numeral to clean and unclean animals.
That's going to be chapter 11. Now, there are three types of animals under consideration here. The first type are those clean animals that are for a kosher diet. Okay.
We've all heard of the word kosher before kosher comes from the Hebrew kashire. I mean, surprise, surprise to be suitable, right? This is food that is suitable. It's clean food.
It's suitable food for Israel's diet. Now, there's all kinds of distinctions here. Chapter 11 goes through first land animals, then water animals, then birds and insects. So those land animals that are clean, they have a cloven hoof and they chew the cut.
It's kind of gross actually to chew the cut. It means that an animal like, well, chew it like a cow, right? Well, chew up the grass, then regurgitated back into its mouth. So gross.
And then chew it up again, right? So that's to chew the cut. Okay. So you got ox and sheep and go to you like deer.
Now, those are clean animals that are for a kosher diet. The water animals, they have to have thins and scales. So therefore you have the eels and shellfish and lobster, those types of animals, the water, they're bad. They're not kosher.
They're not suitable. And then you got the clean birds. Those would be turtle doves and pigeons. And so, like for example, carry in birds like vultures, right?
They're unclean. Why? Well, because they feed off of dead animals, dead things. And we're going to see that's very, very bad.
And all of this death has no place in the presence of God. So that's going to be a key point throughout this whole lesson. So carrying animals, that's not good. And then finally, insects.
Insects that you can eat that are kosher, that are suitable are all various kinds of land locusts and grasshoppers and so on and so forth. We know John the Baptist ate a locust and wild honey in his ministry. You can't eat spiders, you know, which is good. You can't eat cockroaches.
I wouldn't eat that anyways. So these are the types of animals that you can eat. They're suitable for your diet. But it's super interesting about this.
The Navar Bible really kind of talks about how this really is reminiscent. It's in your footnote, footnote number two. It's very reminiscent of the creation account in the book of Genesis. Now, it's not in the exact same order, of course.
If you go back, you know, the fish and the birds are on day five and on day six you got the animals and the bugs and of course human. And Adam is created and created on the sixth day. So it's not exactly the same order. But I think it's really interesting.
I share a point in just a moment here about a connection here about clean animals versus unclean animals in terms of sacrifice and diet in just a moment how it connects with Genesis. But certainly as Leviticus 11 goes through these types of animals, it does echo day five and day six of creation. I think on purpose here. I know on purpose, but I'll share an idea that kind of occurred to me.
So let's move on. So that's the first category is clean animals for a kosher diet. The second category is clean animals that are permissible for sacrifice. And category two is related to category one.
And so your Catholic Bible dictionary, as a matter of fact, will say this. The objects of the Israelite sacrifice were heads of domestic livestock, cattle, sheep and goats, and a few species of birds, like turtle doves and pigeons. That is only those animals that the law declared clean and permissible to eat. That's interesting.
So the animals that are permissible, that are suitable for sacrifice, are the same animals that are suitable for eating. They're one and the same, right? So unclean animals, the quote goes on to say, included mainly wild animals, which were never placed on the altar of worship. You don't go throw an orangutan, you know, on the altar right there.
You don't even do that monkey or any crocodile, you don't do that type of thing. That's not suitable for worship. It's so fascinating that the animals that are kosher and suitable for diet are the same animals that are suitable for sacrifice. And so the third category unclean animals aren't fit for either food or consumption or sacrifice.
They're on a category all of their own. They're not suitable to eat or for sacrifice. Please keep that in mind. This connection between what we would call table fellowship, right?
What you put on your table and what you offer up to God, they got to be the same. Okay, that's a very interesting connection. Now here's a personal thought of mine. And it kind of was jogged by this quote that I shared with you from the know bar by, but you know, these animals are reminiscent of the creation account of the book of Genesis.
And that's very true. And so you may or may or may not remember, hopefully you would listen to the Genesis course that we have here on ScriptTrind Tradition.com. I talked at length a little bit about, you always talk more about these types of things. But a lot of people will say that Genesis contradicts itself because chapter one and chapter two have a different order of creation.
There's various things that are happening. And long story short, I can't get into all of it right now. It's a contradiction. Okay, so what's interesting is that I shared based on your commentary that chapter one of Genesis God creates absolutely everything from this transcendent omnipotent viewpoint, right?
It's kind of like a wide angle of your creation. But then chapter two, it zooms in. It's the narrow view of creation. It got as more imminent and more intimate with Adam and even the creation.
He speaks to them and gives them a job, right? Check the deal of the garden to keep it. So before marriage, you got to have a job. I would talk about all this stuff.
But what's so interesting here is that when God, all the animals in question in chapter two, and this very intimate chapter, they're domesticated animals, right? So the animals of chapter one are all the animals, all the wild animals of creation. But chapter two is kind of like a snapshot of the sixth and kind of in related to the seventh day of creation. It's all the domesticated animals.
So what I find so interesting, my personal thought with this is, and I hope I'm not here to take my doubt. And my personal thought is that the kosher law, so the food that is suitable for eating and the food that's suitable for sacrifice, is kind of echoing back that time in the garden of Eden when God creates Adam and Eve, very intimate, very imminently. So he walks with him in the cool of the garden as the implication is kind of going back, echoing back to this moment of covenantal peace of Shalom, harmony. I think that's what's kind of going on here.
These sacrifices that are required or permitted and the food that's permitted is making Israel think back to that time in the garden of Eden where man and God dwelt together. I think that there's something to that. And take it to prayer and leave comments in the comments section if you'd like to kind of develop that. But I think that there's a beautiful connection there.
Okay, so those are the types of animals. Then the biggest question is, I mean, the pink elephant in the room is why are certain animals prohibited from Israel's diet when number one, if you go back to Genesis chapter nine, right after the flood, let me flip there here myself, and Genesis chapter nine, right after the flood, God says to Noah, chapter three, every moving thing that lives shall be food for you as I gave you the green plants. I give you everything. Just don't eat flesh with the blood.
We'll talk about that prohibition is actually repeated in Leviticus 17. We'll look at that next lesson. But the point here is that God after the flood gives Noah and his family all humanity permission to eat absolutely anything they wanted to. They could eat their pork.
They could eat their bacon, their shellfish, their lobster. They could eat all that kind of stuff. Well, the wise it prohibited now in Leviticus. Something similar comes from the mouth of Jesus Christ.
The references here in your notes in Mark chapter seven, verses 18 and 19. I'll put there myself here. Mark 17, or sorry, Mark chapter seven verse 18. He says, Jesus speaking, he says, and you are also without understanding.
Do you not see, I love how Jesus maxed down the Pharisees all the time. All these religious leaders, you're without understanding. He's like, you're a bunch of idiots. All right, you're without understanding.
Do you not see that whatever goes into a man from outside cannot defile him. Since it enters not into his heart, but his stomach and so passes on, thus he declared all foods clean. Mark kind of comments on that. So Jesus says, all foods are clean.
It doesn't matter what you eat. It doesn't defile you. And then related to this in Acts chapter 10, this is going to be, we're going to come back to this passage a couple different times here. But in Acts chapter 10, Peter has a very famous vision.
Right, he's hanging out. He gets hungry and he falls asleep because he's hungry and waiting for them to finish the food. He's going to wait a long time, I guess. And he has this vision, this kind of this dream of kind of a sheet descends from the heavens and inside of his sheets.
Well, I was reading here. He fell into a trance and heaven was opened by verse 11. And something descending like a great sheet let down by four corners of the earth. And it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air.
And a voice said, rise Peter, kill me. And Peter says, no Lord, I've never eaten anything that is common or unclean. These are all unclean foods that God is telling him to eat. And in the voice came to him a second time saying what God has claimed, you must not call common.
And this happened three times. It's so funny. In Peter's life, there's always a repetition of three times. Three times he falls asleep in the garden.
Three times he denies Jesus. Three times he reconciles the proclaiming his love for Christ. Three times God says to him, dude, just eat the food, right? But I have cleansed, do not call uncommon or unclean.
And Peter realizes, okay, there's a point to this. He's referring to the Gentiles. I'm going to come back to this in a little bit. But the point here is, hey, God said to Peter, eat whatever you want to, right?
So why? Why now in Leviticus do we have these laws? And there are various different theories about this.