Leviticus; The Law of Holiness and Grace

Why Ye Will Die

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Lesson: 19

Track: 19

Dictation Name: RR172K19

Date: Early 70s

Let us worship God. Grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father and from the Lord, Jesus Christ. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide in the shadow of the Almighty. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Let us pray.

Oh Lord, our God, unto whom all honor and glory belongeth, we come before Thee rejoicing in Thy government, in Thy mercies, and in Thy providential care. We thank Thee our Father that in a troubled world, we have Thy peace, and the assurance that Thou wilt prevail, that the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. Give us joy in Thy government, and in Thy Word. Make us zealous in Thy service, and strong by Thy Spirit, in Christ’s name, amen.

Our scripture this morning is Leviticus 11:1-8. Our subject; “Why Will Ye Die.” This morning, we are really going to give an introduction to the whole of this chapter, because this is an important chapter with very important implications. And before we go into the chapter, we will take an overview of the subject. “Why Will Ye Die,” Leviticus 11:1-8.

“1 And the Lord spake unto Moses and to Aaron, saying unto them,

2 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, these are the beasts which ye shall eat among all the beasts that are on the earth.

3 Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is cloven-footed, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat.

4 Nevertheless these shall ye not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the hoof: as the camel, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

5 And the coney, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

6 And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

7 And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be cloven-footed, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you.

8 Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcass shall ye not touch; they are unclean to you.”

Chapters 11 – 16 give us a variety of laws concerning uncleanness and the remedy for uncleanness. The word ‘unclean’ (‘tame’ in the Hebrew), is usually defined as meaning “religiously and morally defiling or polluted.” This definition is, to a degree, correct. But all the same, it has implicit in it a Greek idea of the dualism with regard to mind and body. For the Bible, that which defiles a man religiously or morally defiles him totally. He is then unclean. He is polluted. He is then separated from men totally in the physical and the spiritual sense. The total nature of Biblical uncleanness, thus, must be stressed. When the Bible sees a man as unclean, it means that in all his being he is unclean.

There is another problem with regard to this chapter. It deals with dietary laws, and many hold that the New Testament has made void the dietary laws. There are several texts that are commonly cited to justify this opinion. First there is Mark 7:14 and following, the key verse of which is, “there is nothing from without a man that, entering him, can defile him.” Now, this is very frequently used to invalidate the dietary laws supposedly, but the verse proves too much. Did our Lord mean that eating or drinking poison or human feces will not defile us? The idea is preposterous. People take this verse out of context. The context is that the Pharisees and the Scribes condemned the disciples for eating bread with defiled (that is to say, unwashen) hands, according to Mark 7:2. It was not this chapter in Leviticus that was under discussion, but as our Lord says again and again, the tradition of the elders, or the tradition of men, the commandments of men, and so on, repeatedly He uses such expressions. By means of these, our Lord says, “These traditions of men,” they were making the Word of God of none effect; “Through your traditions.” Our modern commentators therefore, are misusing this text. They are also, in discussing uncleanness, separating the moral and the religious from the physical. The Pharisees reduced uncleanness to a physical fact. They supplanted the Law of God with their tradition. Our Lord asserts the priority of the religious in its total application. “That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man, for within, from within, out of the heart of men,” our Lord says, “come all defilements, lawlessness, and sin.” Thus, the disciples were not unclean for disobeying the traditions of men. Uncleanness begins in the heart. The Pharisees were the ones who were unclean.

Then there is a second passage regularly used to say that the dietary laws are invalid. This is the vision of Peter in Acts 10. But again, this is a ridiculous one, because Peter did not see it as invalidating the dietary laws, he saw it rather as the destruction of the nationalistic separation from the Gentiles as unclean. In Acts 10:34, 35, we read, “Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.” To treat all Jews as clean and all Gentiles as unclean is invalid, Peter recognizes. The point of the mission of the vision is not diet, but the World Mission of the Church. Thus, all believers have a common standing in Christ, Peter recognizes.

Then third, there is 1 Corinthians 10:23 and following. Again, the issue is not dietary laws, it is the meat offered to idols and then sold. And Paul says that such meat is clean. He’s not talking about all meats. But these meats which you buy in the shambles, the butcher shop of the time, because they were ritually slaughtered before an idol (an image), were not unclean because the idols are nothing, he makes clear. The idols are imaginary things. So that we do not, Paul makes clear, pay attention to the idols, we recognize they are nothing.

Then there is a fourth verse, Titus 1:15, “Unto the pure, all things are pure; but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving, is nothing pure, but even their mind and conscience is defiled.” In this passage, Paul is not referring to diet. The reference is to Jewish fables, as he terms them, which denied that all things were created by God “very good.” These fables were a product of the infiltration of thinking within Judaism and throughout the Roman Empire, of ideas that came from the Far East. They saw not moral evil in creation as a result of the fall, but metaphysical evil, things were in their nature as created, evil. And this idea, Paul says, is false.

Then there’s a fifth passage, 1 Timothy 4:1-5. But here again, the context is wrong. Paul is not talking about the dietary laws, but he is condemning both ascetic celibacy and vegetarianism; religious vegetarianism. Again, this was a concept which had come in from India. We fail to recognize that at that time, the trade routes of the Roman Empire extended into China, and the China trade was very, very important. And also into India, and ideas from those cultures were flooding Europe, infiltrating into all spheres, including into Judaism. And hence, there were religious advocates of vegetarianism in every part of the Roman Empire, including Israel. And so, Paul is condemning this fact.

So, none of these five texts have anything to do with Leviticus. They have to do with the traditions of men.

The Biblical view of man holds that uncleanness is a religious fact which effects man totally. It is impossible from a Biblical perspective, to have the attitude of Socrates, who could, as he was stretched alongside a banquet table, involve himself in homosexual acts while discoursing about virtue. In the Biblical perspective, this was impossible. The unity of man is upheld throughout scripture. Thus, because the Bible affirms the unity of man, we cannot, as some commentators do say with these laws, that they deal with the moral perspective, or a hygienic perspective, or this or that. We have to say they are total. They are religious. They are moral. They are hygienic, and more, because God gave them, and because man is a unity.

In verse 1, we see something of the importance of this, because we read, “And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying unto them, speak unto the children of Israel.” Only in these chapters that deal with clean and unclean, the various forms of it, dealing with a man’s body, his bodily functions, his health, his diet, only in these passages does God speak to both Moses and to Aaron. Normally, He spoke to Aaron through Moses. This tells us something of the importance of the physical side of life.

These are laws of diet. Now a diet is a very personal, a very private fact. No matter how publically we may dine, it is we who eat the food. And what we eat is governed, in most of history, by our particular tastes. The food affects us personally. When we speak, our words can please or hurt other people, inform them or misinform them. When we eat, our health is not normally a matter of public health. But our words have a public impact. Eating is thus a very private fact. But the significant fact is that in eating, in the fact of eating, nourishing ourselves, we have a central rite of the Church: Communion. The private act is made the public sacrament. We are required to serve God with all our heart, mind, and being, from the privacy of our lives, to our most public acts. Thus, it is significant that eating, which affects us privately, is made a public fact in Communion. Charles {?} has a sentence describing this chapter, “To the Israelite, every detail of life must be governed by the Law of God and lived to the glory of God.” Now the trouble with that sentence is that {?} said, “To the Israelite.” Why not to everybody? Every one of us, in every detail of our lives must be governed by the Law of God and live our lives to the glory of God. So we cannot limit this kind of life to the Israelite, it is all the more applicable to us as Christians.

The concept of holy and unholy (or profane), of clean and unclean, are related, but not identical. To be holy means to be dedicated, sacred, separated; it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit. To be clean means to be free from all pollution, free from sin or from the wrongful use of our lives. There can be no holiness without cleanness. Cleanness, thus, is a prerequisite to holiness. Joseph Parker said, with regard to this chapter, that it shows, “That laws were not bound by local circumstances. Things were forbidden which were unavailable in the wilderness. If we deny the whole of the eleventh chapter of Leviticus, if we see it as unworthy, and as frivolity, then the frivolity is on our part,” so said Parker. But there is more to what Parker had to say. He continued and declared, “A very popular argument is upset by this chapter. There is an argument which runs in this fashion: why should we not eat and drink these things, for they are all good creatures of God? The temptation of man is to find a good creature of God wherever he wants to find one! The very fact that God could take such pains in keeping us back from the use of such animals begins the infinite argument that His anxiety is to save the soul—the life—from poison, corruption, death. Turn ye, turn ye! Why will ye die?” Parker was quoting in his concluding verses, Ezekiel 33:11.

This then is the issue. Why will ye die? All of God’s Law from beginning to end has its purpose that we should live in Him. “This is the way of life,” He declares, “Walk ye in it.”

Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, we give thanks unto Thee for Thy Word, for Thy concern for the totality of our lives. We thank Thee, our Father, that Thou art more mindful of us than we are of ourselves. Be merciful unto us, that we are so heedless of the life Thou hast given, that we are careless of ourselves and of our futures. Be gracious unto us. Give us grace to obey, and to rejoice in Thy Word. In Christ’s name we pray; amen.

Are there any questions now concerning our lesson?

Yes.

[Audience] Ah, Rush, do you know whether or not there’s ever been any {?} study done trying … what is that common factor in the flesh of these unclean animals that we ought to know about? Because it seems to me that, uh, uh, there’s a particular thing about the flesh of these animals or their diet, or their own digestive system or something. There has to be some reason why God decided to create these animals in the way He did, and then thus make them unclean. And I want to … is there … has anyone done any studies that will tell us anything about it?

[Rushdoony] Yes, there have been studies. Last March, Ari McMaster, in The Reaper, had an excellent summary of about four pages of the research done by one foundation. Other men have studied the impact on the digestive system of these meats and the damage they do to the system. So, there have been studies in recent years. The sad fact is that there has been almost no public knowledge of them; they are written up in obscure journals, and then disappear from public sight. We must remember after all, the pork industry alone is a big factor in this country. However, a little bit of this is getting out. Ari McMaster reported on the link between pork and cancer, that it is the major link, according to one research foundation.

[Audience] I wonder what it is … I wondered what it is in the flesh of the animal itself, what precise chemical, or, or the biochemical nature of the flesh, I wonder what it is in the flesh itself and what kind of an impact it has on our system in a specific sense. Uh, I think that’s a crucial area for study!

[Rushdoony] Some work has been done, as I’ve indicated, and I’ve had a doctor to explain some of this to me, but I don’t have the mind to retain that kind of thing; it’s outside my field, I can’t recollect it. It does something, and one term I recall, about the energy or heat, it has a, a bad effect on the human system.

[Audience] Isn’t that the smoking process primarily?

[Cough]

[Rushdoony] No,

[Audience] {?} … ham?

[Rushdoony] No, it’s all pork, and, ah, however prepared.

Yes.

[Audience] There is a {?} however, because there are other injunctions, um, {?} for instance, are they still to be followed?

[Rushdoony] Yes, we’ll come to those there in the subsequent chapters.

Any other comments or questions? Well if not, let us bow our heads in prayer.

Lord, Thy Word is truth, and Thy Word is grace and mercy unto us. Make us joyful in Thee and in Thy Word and make us more than conquerors through Christ. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always. Amen.