In the book of Leviticus, we were in chapter 10, so if you'll turn back there, we'll take it up where we left off. And you will recall that this very elaborate and detailed instruction of the people as respects the sacrifices required in order that they might be right with God, And the elaborate instructions to the priests regarding the sacrifices that they must make on behalf of the people of God ended with this tragic incident of Nadab and Abihu carelessly carrying unauthorized fire. which he had not commanded, and fire came out from the Lord and destroyed them. And yet, in spite of that sudden calamity that came upon the house of Aaron, the Lord instructed Aaron and his sons, Eleazar and Amar, evidently the two next oldest sons, that they were not to show any signs of mourning because, of course, the offense was a very serious one. God is holy, and no one is to presume to enter His presence in an unauthorized way, and that was the great lesson here. And now we take it up at chapter 10, verse 8, where we have the Lord speaking directly to Aaron. Usually, the Lord speaks to Aaron through Moses, but on this end, in this case, he speaks directly. Then the Lord said to Aaron, you and your sons are not to drink wine or other fermented drink whenever you go into the tent of meeting, or you will die. This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. You must distinguish between the holy and the common, between the unclean and the clean, and you must teach the Israelites all the decrees the Lord has given them through Moses." Now, I want to comment a little bit on this as a starting point of our study tonight. And the first thing I want to mention is the fact that there is some similarity between this and Numbers chapter 6. If you'll turn there, we'll just look at that for a moment. The difference being that the material in Numbers chapter 6 has to do with the Nazirite vow, And that vow was proper for either man or woman to make. It was for a set time, and during that set time certain things were required. Now, I'm going to read it there from the first few verses. The Lord said to Moses, speak to the Israelites and say to them, if a man or woman wants to make a special vow, a vow of separation to the Lord as a Nazarite, He must abstain from wine and other fermented drinks, and must not drink vinegar. Made from wine or from other fermented drinks, he must not drink grape juice or eat grapes or raisins. As long as he is an astronaut, he must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine, not even the seeds or skins. During the entire period of his vow of separation, though razor may be used on his head, he must be holy, etc. And then it says in verse 7, even if his own father or mother or brother or sister dies, he must not make himself ceremonially unclean on account of them, because the symbol of his separation to God is on his head." So there was a similarity. Now, the differences are very important also. The Nazirite vow was one, however long a lot of time it spanned, during that entire time, the Nazirite was not to partake of anything that came from divine, and he was not to have anything cut his hair. You remember that Samson was under this Nazirite vow even in his mother's womb and from his birth. Yet, when the Lord gives his instruction to the priest, it doesn't say that. There's no mention at all of the cutting of the hair, and there's no mention at all of a prolonged period. All it says there is, when you go into the tent of meeting. You and your sons are not to drink wine or other fermented drink whenever you go into the tent of meeting, or you will die. Now, the prohibitionists have tried to maintain that these are a basis for total abstinence. It's really quite ridiculous, because if there was any lasting and binding effect of that ordinance for the Nazarite, it would also say that we couldn't have what I have every morning, and that's Post's Great Nuts Flakes, raisin bran. I couldn't have raisin bran, because the raisins would be forbidden. And also here in this place here, the Lord would have not said, when you go into the tent of meeting, you don't do it. He would have said, you don't do it at all. But this was a prohibition whenever they were officially ministering in their priestly office in the tabernacle and later in the temple. Why? I believe it is because of the fact that in the ancient world there was a lot of the use of wine to induce a kind of contact with the gods. Wine and fermented drink, as this scholar puts it, were often used in the attempt to make contact with the invisible world, and Israel's priests were forbidden to take part in this practice. I think that is probably the reason. And all the way through the Bible, the New Testament as well, there's a sharp contrast between the effects of alcohol and the Holy Spirit. Look at Ephesians 5.18 in the New Testament, if you will. And it's very interesting how it ties in with this, because in Ephesians 5.18 we read do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit." So the opposite of The influence of alcoholic beverages on the mind and the spirit of man is the Holy Spirit of God. And I believe that that's the contrast intended here, probably arising out of this use in the pagan religions of antiquity in Egypt and in Babylon and so on. And so God wanted no artificial inducement of any kind of high, as we would put it, to accompany the priests in their work. Rather, their whole emphasis was to be upon strict adherence to the word of God. And you'll notice that that's exactly what you have there in Ephesians. get high on the spirits that we call alcoholic beverages, but that the Holy Spirit dwell in you, and if you compare that to the Colossians 3.16 parallel, you'll notice that Paul substitutes, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, which I've always maintained refers to those different kinds of compositions that we find right in the Bible. Let the Word of God, in other words, be the thing that regulates you, and let the Word of God be the instrumentality by which you are filled with the Spirit. And that's very appropriate right after this incident. In other words, it's a further reminder that their task is to be very sober, deliberate and careful in taking heed to and fully applying, in every respect, the word of God. Now we take up verse 12 and we come to the beginning of this distinction between holy and common, clean and unclean, a very important thing in the Levitical law. Moses said to Aaron and his remaining sons, Eleazar and Ephemar, take the grain offering left over from the offerings made to the Lord by fire, and eat it prepared without yeast beside the altar, for it is most holy. Eat it in a holy place. because it's your share and your son's share of the offering made to the Lord by fire. For so I have been commanded." Now Moses is giving this instruction, and he is saying that what is left over from these particular offerings that had in them an element of food for the priest and his sons, they were to eat that in a holy place. But, he says in verse 14, you and your sons and your daughters, in other words, it's a wider circle of people now than those engaged in the priestly office, you may eat the breast that was waved and the thigh that was presented, eat them in a ceremonially clean place. Now you get the point, don't you? The priest and his sons, who stood in line for the high priestly office, they were to eat the holy thing in a holy place. The rest of the family of the priest was to eat these other offerings in a ceremonially clean place. They have been given to you and your children as your share of the Israelites' fellowship offerings. The thigh that was presented and the breast that was waved must be brought with the fat portions of the offerings made by fire to be waved before the Lord as a wave offering. This will be the regular share for you and your children as the Lord has commanded." Before I comment further, we'll go on to the end of this chapter because now there's another incident that's quite interesting of a historical nature. When Moses inquired about the ghost of the sin offering and found that it had been burned up, he was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron's remaining sons, and asked, why didn't you eat the sin offering in the sanctuary area? It's most holy. It was given to you to take away the guilt of the community by making atonement for them before the Lord. Since its blood was not taken into the holy place, you should have eaten the goat in the sanctuary area as I commanded." Clearly here then there was a failure to do what the Lord required to be done. Why was there no fire that came out from the Lord to devour these two sons of Aaron? Well, listen now to what Aaron says. Aaron replied to Moses, Today they sacrificed their sin offering and their burnt offering before the Lord. But such things as this have happened to me. Would the Lord have been pleased if I had eaten the sin offering today? When Moses heard this, he was satisfied. Now it's hard to decide there whether we are to understand that as a case in which because they were overwhelmed with grief, but had to suppress it and could not show it in any way, they inadvertently failed to do this, not realizing that they had omitted this duty. That's a very real possibility. The other possibility is that psychologically, emotionally, even physically, they simply were incapable of eating. I'm sure that if you were grieving for two of your sons and yet had to go on with duties like that, you would have no hunger whatsoever. It's hard to decide whether it was a completely unintended omission or whether it was omitted simply because of a psychological and physical inability to do it. But whichever it was, you will notice that the Lord graciously overlooked it. And that shows you that there is a very big difference in the side of God in transgression. The transgression of Nadab and Abihu was one of carelessness and disregard of holy and sacred things when there was no extenuating circumstance to justify it whatsoever. The sin in this instance was one of omission, very possibly not intended at all, and if intended, only because of extreme duress. And so we see that God was not harshly judgmental against his people, but did bear with their infirmities, even in the time of Moses' law. Because strictly speaking, this had been an offense against the Lord Jehovah. Well now back to this distinction between holy and common, and clean and unclean. Now in chapter 11 we're going to go into a number of instances of this, and you'll notice it ends in verse 47 of chapter 11. with this statement to the priests, you must distinguish between the unclean and the clean, between the living creatures that may be eaten and those that may not be eaten. And we've already seen that they were to make a distinction between the holy and the profane. Well, what exactly was meant by these categories? Now I'm reading from a summary by a Dutch scholar and this is what he says. The difference between the two concepts may be described as follows. The holiness of a person, or object, or place, was the expression of the positive force that resided within it if it had some form of contact with the Holy God. In other words, this is my comment now, anything that came into contact with the Holy God was therefore holy. The word holy is thus opposed to the word profane, which applied to all that was excluded. and it designated, that is to say, the holy, concept of holy, a unique sphere set apart from everything beyond it. The Latin word sanctus, meaning holy, expresses the same thing because the verb sanctiri in Latin is derived from that which means to circumscribe or to set off or mark off. Now remember, for example, the ground around the burning bush from which the Lord spoke to Moses was called holy. Why was it called holy? Because the Lord was standing there speaking to Moses. The sanctuary was holy. Why? Because the Lord dwelt in it. And the priests who performed the Lord's ceremonial service were also called holy. That's in Leviticus 21, we'll come to that. Why? Because they were in contact with and in proximity to God. It should be noted here that in Israel, the dreadful and impersonal character of holiness receded into the background while attention was focused on the fact that it was supernatural and beyond comparison with the earthly realm. Because of this, Holiness could not be manipulated as if it were something magical or material. Furthermore, this also meant that qualification as holy did not reflect on the worth of the individual or community, but rather upon the privilege of that community or individual. So the idea of holy is that which is appropriated by God, set apart to him, and brought into contact with him. And one can see that that idea is not even absent from the New Testament, because there we are told, for example, in 1 Corinthians 7.14, that the children of believers are holy. Why? Well, because from birth within the covenant household of God, they are in contact with God. Now, the concept of clean lies on a different plane. It is concerned not with the holy, but rather with the condition that had to be satisfied by a person or thing in order to come into contact with the holy. In other words, without cleanness, there will be no holiness. And so, a thing can be holy and clean at the same time, but it can't be holy and unclean, because if it's unclean, it is excluded from the realm of that which can come into contact with the holy. And so we come to chapter 11, and we have a whole list of things which determines whether or not one is in the category of the clean or the unclean. And here we have quite a number of things to consider. A person would be unclean if that person had any form of contact with a foreign or false god, anything related to death, or decay or decomposition, such as a corpse or a grave or an animal carcass. Also, various bodily functions such as menstruation, copulation or disease cause discharges of the body. and also finally the eating of meat from certain animals. Any of these rendered unclean and anyone who was unclean was for a limited period of time excluded from the fellowship of the congregation and of course from that which is holy. And one of the interesting facts about this is that at all times in the nation of Israel under the ceremonial law, there were some who were necessarily unclean. It's impossible for anybody to be clean all the time. And so it had the schoolmaster's function of creating in the minds of God's people and the church underage a consciousness of the importance of being clean, and this I believe was later used by God as a means of moral teaching in the rest of the Bible. In other words, God used this on a child's level, this type of teaching to induce in the people of God a mentality that was constantly asking the question, is this acceptable to God or isn't it acceptable to God? And that transfers to the Christian in the way that we find it in the New Testament, whether we eat or drink or whatsoever we do, we are to do all to the glory of God. And we are to always be conscious that we need to be cleansed from our sin and so on. Well, now let's look at some of these. The first, then, has regard to the classification of animals. The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, say to the Israelites, of all the animals that live on the land, these are the ones you may eat. You may eat any animal that has a split hoof, completely divided, and that chews the cud. Now we really don't know for sure the proper translation and meaning of every one of these terms on through this chapter. Some are very obscure. We also know that this was not what we would call a modern scientific classification. It was the classification that would be readily usable by an unscientific observer. Any animal that appeared to chew something that it had regurgitated and had a split hook could readily be recognized and discriminated from other animals. Well, what are the animals mentioned here? The ones that the translators see are camel, the coney, the rabbit, the pig, and these are mentioned because they have only one of these characteristics, not both. The rabbit looks like it chews the cud, but it doesn't have a split hook. and the pig has a split hook but it certainly doesn't ever appear to chew the cud so on that ground they were eliminated. So anyone that ate the meat of any of those animals would be unclean and therefore unfit for presence in the congregation and approach to the holy. Now the second is creatures that move in the water. Of all the creatures living in the water of the seas and streams you may eat any that have fins and scales. Now there are animals that have fins but not scales and there are sea creatures that have scales but no fins. And again the same thing would apply, it has to be both. And if they're not both present, they would know that they weren't to eat it. And if they did, they would be rendered unclean. The third classification is the birds. These are the birds you are to detest and not eat because they are detestable. The eagle, the vulture, the black vulture, the red kite, any kind of black kite, any kind of raven, The horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk, the little owl, the cormorant, the great owl, the white owl, the desert owl, the osprey, the stork, any kind of heron, the ho-po and the bat. I don't even know what the ho-po is, if any of you do, but some of those terms are educated guesses. They don't really know exactly what all of those terms in the Hebrew mean. But obviously there was classification there that appears to be in this direction. Many of these, at least, are creatures that prey upon dead carcasses and are generally regarded as abhorrent by people all over the world. And one has to wonder why That is so, and when did it really take its rise? I would like to refer you to Genesis chapter 7, verse 2, to show you the evidence for a statement I'm going to make about this, and that is the following. The Lord said to Noah, go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. Well, you'll notice there that there's already back in the days of Noah, before the flood, some concept of clean and unclean animals. And I regard this as a result of instinctive awareness of natural revelation. There is in the world of nature a revelation of God. The heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament shows His handiwork. And I believe the creatures that God has made are a revelation of many things. And I believe that the serpent does reveal something of the demonic. Now that's scoffed at by some today, but I believe it's true. And I believe that these categories of clean and unclean were not suddenly invented in the time of Moses and placed as a burden upon the people of Israel de novo, out of the blue as it were, but rather it was bringing into clearer profile and understanding what was already instinctively understood and traditionally applied. And that was that these animals that had these unpleasant and detestable characteristics were in the category of the unclean and were to be avoided. And those that were more of the domestic and closer to man were to be regarded as the clean. And then we come to the insects, verse 20. All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you. There are, however, some winged creatures that walk on all fours that you may eat, those that have jointed legs for hopping on the ground. Of these you may eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket, or grasshopper, but all other winged creatures that have four legs you are to detest. I would just have to obey that because God says it. Not because I naturally feel it, because I must say that grasshoppers are not at all attractive to me. Though I have heard that people have experimented with eating them and that they're tasty. I've heard that they're tasty and that they have a high protein content and I wouldn't want to dispute that. I'm sure that God selected those for edibility that would have those qualities. We see that there's quite a lot of cultural influence upon us in these things. You will make yourself unclean by these. Whoever touches their carcasses will be unclean till evening. Whoever picks up one of their carcasses must wash his clothes and he will be unclean until evening. Now it's perfectly obvious that Nobody could hope to always avoid contact with these things. A flying insect, for example, might die, or one of these other animals might die, and you would be unclean until evening. Now, verse 26, every animal that has a split hoof, not completely divided, or that does not chew the cud, is unclean to you, whoever touches Any of them will be unclean. The word the carcass of is supplied by the translators and that's probably a correct addition. It's to be understood from what just precedes it. If you touch the carcass of any of these animals, you would be rendered unclean. Of all the animals that walk on all fours, those that walk on their paws are unclean for you. Whoever touches their carcasses will be unclean till evening. Anyone who picks up their carcasses must wash his clothes, and he will be unclean until evening. They are unclean for you." Then in verse 29 we have the animals that move about on the ground. These are unclean for you, the weasel, the rat, any kind of great lizard, the gecko, whatever that is, the monitor lizard, the wall lizard, the skink, and the chameleon. Of all those that move along the ground, these are unclean for you. Whoever touches them when they are dead will be unclean until evening. When one of them dies and falls on something, that article, whatever its use, will be unclean. Whether it is made of wood, cloth, hide or sackcloth, put it in water, it will be unclean till evening, and then it will be clean. If one of them falls into a clay pot, everything in it will be unclean, and you must break the pot. Any food that could be eaten but has water on it from such a pot is unclean, and any liquid that could be drunk from it is unclean. Anything that one of their carcasses falls on becomes unclean, An oven or cooking pot must be broken up, they are unclean, and you are to regard them as unclean. A spring, however, or a cistern for collecting water remains clean. But anyone who touches one of these carcasses is unclean. Now it's not hard to understand why a spring would be regarded as immune to this defilement, because it is constantly being renewed from an uncontaminated source. Why the cistern? Since in the Bible the cistern is often contrasted with the living water of the spring and unfavorably. I think it's probably because God in his omniscient foreknowledge realized that this would be a vital necessity in towns and villages and that they simply could not do without the use of the water in them. The other possibility is that It was looked upon as being renewed constantly and therefore not permanently defiled. But I rather think the first is the proper understanding. In some of the cities of ancient Israel, they had very large cisterns to collect rainwater because there was no other available source. In recent times, some of these have been uncovered with aqueducts to carry the water through rock to these storage places that are quite elaborate. But in any event, if a carcass falls on any seeds that are to be planted, they remain clean. But if water has been put on the seed and a carcass falls on it, it is unclean for you. If an animal that you are allowed to eat dies, anyone who touches the carcass will be unclean till evening. Anyone who eats some of the carcass must wash his clothes and he will be unclean till evening. Anyone who picks up the carcass must wash his clothes and he will be unclean till evening. I take that to mean an animal that dies by natural causes. or is killed by another animal or something like that. Obviously it did not apply to animals that were sacrificed. Probably not to animals killed by man for food. But if an animal just dies, then it also becomes capable of causing uncleanness. Verse 41, every creature that moves about on the ground is detestable. It's not to be eaten. You are not to eat any creature that moves about on the ground, whether it moves on its belly or walks on all fours or on many feet. It's detestable. Probably thinking there of a centipede and that sort of thing. Anything that was snake-like in its appearance and so on. Don't make yourselves unclean by means of them or be made unclean by them. I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves and be holy because I am holy. Don't make yourself unclean by any creature that moves about on the ground. I am the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God. Therefore be holy because I am holy. These are the regulations concerning animals, birds, every living thing that moves in the water, and every creature that moves about on the ground. So these are the categories and The net result of it was that the Israelite was constantly being conscious in everything he did, everywhere he went, of the need to keep himself, using New Testament terminology but in a ceremonial sense, unspotted from the world. He was not to be defiled by any of these things. And when he was, he was to immediately follow the prescription of the Lord. He had to be unclean until evening and he had to wash his clothes and so on. In other words, he had to do something about it. And then again the privilege was restored to him of fellowship in the congregation and approach to the Holy God. Well, you can easily see that the ceremonial law then was a powerful teaching instrument and that it formed in the minds of God's Old Covenant people an intense awareness that all of life was to be lived in reference to the commands of the Lord. We, under the New Covenant, are not under the obligation of a ceremonial law. And I believe the reason is found in, I think it's Galatians 4 if you look at it for a moment, And it doesn't refer to you and I being higher class people than the Old Testament people were, but it refers to our place in the economy of redemption. In chapter 4 of Galatians verse 8, formerly when you did not know God you were slaves to those who by nature are not God's. Then it goes on down to tell about Hagar and Sarah in verse 21. Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? For it's written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman, the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way, but his son by the free woman was born as a result of the promise. These things may be taken figuratively, for the woman represents two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves. This is Hagar. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem because she is in slavery with her children, but the Jerusalem that is above is free and she is our mother. And the idea that I see there is that we are liberated from this period of minority. Now go back to chapter 4 verse 1. What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he's no different from a slave. Although he owns the whole estate, he is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. So also when we were children, We were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. When we were children, it's a collective, when the Church of God was in its minority, in the early phases of God's unfolding revelation, we were in bondage under the basic principles of the world. God was regulating the life of his covenant people, pretty much the way the life of pagans was regulated, The difference being that the one was a false system, the other was a correct, though shadowy, and typological system, but they were both regulated in the same manner. But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under the law that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out Abba, Father, So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. And that means that we are not under the ceremonial law anymore for the same reason that I'm not under my mother's law anymore. She used to say, Gerald, go wash your hands before you eat. And I usually did it very reluctantly and unwillingly, but I did it. By the time she was finished with me, I had learned to wash my hands and now I do it quite willingly. But I don't do it because I'm consciously thinking of her voice from the kitchen or whatever it is. And I think that it's a little like that with the ceremonial law. The ceremonial law imprinted in God's people a consciousness of God's sovereignty over them and their responsibility to live all of life in obedience to Him. It's translated into a higher sphere for us because the fullness of the time has come and we have the principles of God's law not only explained in words but in a life, the life of Christ And we are therefore now liberated to live by a higher standard. I'll use one other illustration. When I was a kid I took music lessons and you had to practice scales all the time and that was very tiring and sometimes irritating. But once you learn it, it's second nature to you, then you can go on and play, you can even ad-lib and so on. You're using those principles, but you're using them in a higher realm than the one in which you learned them. I believe that's the significance of these laws from which we are now liberated as far as the details and precise prescriptions are concerned, not so far as the great principle is concerned, that we are to live all of life conscientiously before the face of God and keep ourselves unspotted from the world. Is there any question from anybody about this portion of the book of Leviticus? PRABHUPÄ€DA Yes. a medical reason. Now, just a minute here, I might be able to remember where I saw that I'll have to look it up and come back to you on that, but I think there's proof in this material that that is not the case, that it was not medical. Not that God's prescriptions would conflict with that. But there is, I think, convincing evidence against that thesis, that that was the fundamental reason why God described these things. No, not really.