Old Testament Covenant Clean And Unclean Foods – Part 1 of 2

Hello, and welcome to Social Media Ministries. My name is Spencer Coffman, thank you so much for being with us here today. We’re kicking off a two-part sermon series on clean and unclean foods.

I know this is a highly controversial topic amongst a lot of people, where they think “New Covenant, Old Covenant”, where they’re thinking about “Can I eat this or can’t I eat this.” Or if I eat this I’ll be defiled. It’s as heavy of a topic today as it was when Jesus was around. So this clean and unclean food opinionated discussion is not going away.

Now some of you are already upset that I said opinionated, because it’s factually based in the Bible. However, a lot of people have a lot of different opinions and beliefs about it. And until they’re rooted in the Word, that’s exactly what they are, they are opinions.

So my hope and prayer for you after this series, is that you thoroughly take an examination of the Bible, both Old and New Testament. Old and New Covenant, take a look at what Jesus said. Take a look at what you’re believing in your heart and what you’re learning from your conversations with God, in your prayer and meditating on the word. And then make the determination based on Scripture, of what it is you need to believe.

Now, of course, we’re presenting this from a scriptural standpoint of what we believe to be the truth. I’m not saying you can be this way or that way, and if you do one or the other it’s wrong. What we’re saying is, this is what the Bible says. This is what we’re presenting to you, and what you choose to do with that information.

There is something in the Bible that says this is what’s the truth. This is what’s right, this is what’s wrong. Now it’s like anything else in the Bible, there are Commandments. You can either choose to follow them or to not follow them.

If you don’t follow them, what’s going to happen? What happens if you choose to tell a lie every single day? Well, the punishment for sin is death, and if a lie is a sin, or if following these clean and unclean food laws one way or another is sinful or not sinful, the punishment or the wages for sin is death.

What is death? Separation from God. Hell, you can choose what it is. We have tons of other sermons on these topics you can check out, but the point is there’s something written in the Bible. This is the word of God. You can choose to follow it or you cannot.

Now if you’re a Christian and you choose to follow it, or you don’t choose to follow it, or you screw up, guess what? That’s why we have Jesus. He died as the sacrifice for our sins so that we are able to go to Heaven because He paid that price. The wages of sin, He paid for that.

If you don’t know about that then we’d strongly encourage you to reach out to us. You can comment below. You can contact us on our website on the contact us page, or check out any of our other sermons. Jesus died for you. All you need to do is believe in Him, and you will be saved. He’s the way, the truth, and the light. Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.

So with that, let’s kick off this sermon series on clean and unclean foods. We have, like I said, it’s two parts. So this today is going to be the Old Testament food laws. Old Covenant food laws. What did God lay down as the commands for his people?

Who are his people? That’s what we’re going to be going over. Are you part of his people or is it only his chosen people the Israelites, or the Jews, or the people living in Israel today, or who are they? Is it you and me? Is that everyone will get there?

And then next week we’re going to talk specifically about what Jesus did, regarding the food laws and the New Covenant, and whether the New Covenant replaces the Old. Or whether they go together. We’re going to dive into all of that, so I hope you stay tuned for next week’s message.

Because that’s going to be the one where we weave everything together and bring it full circle. And all of those questions that you have right now, about clean and unclean foods and where is he going with this? I really hope he doesn’t make me mad, or I have a strong opinion, save all of that for next week. Because that’s when we’re going to really bring it home.

But today, we’re diving into the Old Testament. Where are these found? Leviticus and Deuteronomy. So there are many verses of what foods you can and can’t eat. There are reasons, God has reasons for everything he’s done. We’re going to get into that. We’re going to get into culture. We’re going to get into religion. We’re going to get into pagans. We’re going to get into his chosen people.

So let’s start reading in the Bible. That’s where these laws are written, so bear with me. There’s a lot of Scripture today, we’re going to break it all down in the tomorrow or not tomorrow next week. We’re going to break all this down and really get into it.

I hope that you continue to read and study this over the next several days. In addition, please engage in discussion with other people, because this is something that we kind of just take for granted in today’s world. Kind of like the Sabbath, is it Saturday is it Sunday? Now we’ve talked about that before. Traditionally yes, it’s Saturday we do. You choose to celebrate it on a different day. is that right is it wrong we’re not getting into that today.

But yes, the chosen Sabbath was a certain day. God set it apart, but as long as you’re honoring a chosen day then you’re following the commandments. Now with regard to the food laws: Leviticus Chapter 11, Verses 1-46. Am I going to read all 46? I’m going to get going right now we’re going to get to as many as we can, we’ll go through it.

Then we’re going to do a recap of it, so again, you need to read this on your own time. But Leviticus Chapter 11, Verses 1-46, we’re going to start in Verse 2,“Say to the Israelites: ‘Of all the animals that live on the land, these are the ones you may eat:’” — so this is what God’s saying.

“This is what you can eat: any animal that has a split hoof completely divided and chews the cud. There are some that only chew the cud or only have a split hoof, you must not eat them. The camel, though it chews the cud, but does not have the split hoof, is ceremonially unclean for you.

“The coney, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof, it is unclean. The rabbit, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof, it is unclean. And the pig, though it has a split hoof completely divided, does not chew with a cud; it is unclean. For you must not eat their meat or touch their carcasses; they are unclean for you.”

Don’t eat them, don’t touch them, nothing. They’re unclean.

“All the creatures living in the water, you can eat any that have fins and scales.” All right. “Any that do not have fins and scales… are unclean.” We’re going to skip down to the birds. Verse 13:

“These are the birds you are to detest and not eat, because they are detestable: eagle, vulture, black vulture, red kite, and any kind of black kite, any kind of raven, horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk, the little owl, the corner, the great owl, the white owl, the desert owl, the osprey, the stork, and any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat. 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 you may eat. Those that have jointed legs for hopping on the ground. These you may eat any kind of things like locusts, crickets, grasshoppers. But any other other winged creature that has four legs you detest. You will make yourselves unclean.

“Whoever touches their carcasses will be unclean until evening. Whoever picks up one of their carcasses must wash his clothes, he will be unclean until evening. Every animal that has a split hoof not completely divided, or does not chew the cud, is unclean for you.”

All right, Verse 27:

“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 until evening must wash your clothes, you’ll be unclean until evening.”

So what’s the theme here? God is being very specific with the food laws. We have animals, split hoof, chew the cud, has to have both. We have winged creatures, okay if they’re winged creatures that are like scavengers, birds of prey, can’t eat them. Of the winged creatures, insects that have wings and jointed legs they’re okay, otherwise they’re not okay.

Of the creatures in the water, fins, and scales. So if they don’t have fins and scales, you can’t eat them. Things like shrimp, crustations, lobsters, crabs, those: nope. Eel, can’t eat that. Okay, fins and scales, they’re okay.

All right, what else? “Of the animals that move about on the ground, these are unclean: weasels, rats, lizards, geckos, monitor lizards, skink, chameleon,” — if you’ve touched them when they’re dead you’ll be unclean till evening. If one of them dies and falls on something that will be unclean. Put it in water and it will be unclean until evening.

Then there are some rules about if they fall on pots or things like that. Read these because this this is how God’s saying, that you need to clean whatever becomes unclean. If it’s a pot it’s got to be broken. Different things like that if the carcass falls on certain seeds or clothing, people if you touch them. If it’s on your hands, how can you make it clean after it is unclean?

All right, every creature. This is Verse 41:

“Every creature that moves about on the ground is detestable; it is 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 is detestable.”

What is this? We already covered some creatures on the ground, walking on paws and legs, this is different. This is things like snakes, they move about on their belly. Detestable. We’ve talked about lizards. those move about on the ground, or rats, things like varmints or rodents, no.

“We have many feet” so this would be like insects, centipedes, millipedes, things like that. “Do not eat them, do not touch them, do not defile yourselves by any of these creatures. Do not make yourselves unclean by means of them or be made unclean by them.”

Then it has the following: “Consecrate yourselves and be holy because I am Holy.” So God is telling you or telling His people “All of these animals are unclean. All of these animals are clean. Do not defile yourselves due to these unclean animals.” He is setting his people apart. You must distinguish between unclean and clean, between living creatures that may be eaten, and those that may not be eaten.

Read that chapter on your own time. If you visit the description, we’re going to have a link to it. If you go to our website, you can hover over it, click on it, it’ll take you right to that chapter. You can read it right there, but read this.

Take a look at it. We also encourage you to go to Bible Hub and read it, because they have a bunch of commentaries that you can also read, which will provide you with excellent extra information.

We’re going to touch more on that next week. Now let’s go over to Deuteronomy Chapter 14, Verses 1 to 21, where it basically says the same thing. It’s clean and unclean food. We’re going to read this, we’re going to go through it. Here we go:

“You are children of the LORD your God Yahweh. Do not cut yourselves or shave the front of your heads for the dead, you are people, holy out of all the peoples on the face of the earth. the LORD has chosen you to be his treasured possession. Do not eat any detestable thing.

“These are the animals you may eat: Ox, sheep, goat, deer, gazelle, roe deer, wild goat, ibex, antelope, and mountain sheep. You may eat every animal if it has a split hoof divided into two and that chews the cud. Those that chew the cud or that have a split hoof completely divided you may not eat: camel, rabbit, cony.

“Although they chew the cud, they do not have a split hoof; they are ceremonially unclean. The pig is also unclean; even though it has a split hoof, it does not chew the cud. You are not to eat their meat or touch their carcasses.

“Of all the creatures living in the water, you may eat those that have fins and scales. Anything that does not have fins and scales; for you it is unclean. You may eat any clean bird.

“These you may not eat: eagle, vulture, black vulture, red kite, black kite, falcons, any kind of ravens, horned owl, screech owl, any kind of owl, osprey, cormorant, the stork, any kind of heron and hoopoe and the bat. All flying insects that swarm are unclean to you. Do not eat them. Any winged creature that is clean you may eat.”

What are the winged creatures that are clean? Well, we just went over them back in Leviticus. Winged creatures that have a jointed leg like grasshoppers, crickets, locusts, things like that.

“Do not eat anything you find already dead. You may give it to an alien living in any of your towns.” What’s an alien? Not like ET, but an alien, like someone who doesn’t live here. Like an illegal alien or like someone from another country or culture.

“If something’s dead you can give it to them, but don’t eat it, not you. They’re unclean for you. You can give it to an alien living in any of your towns and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. But you are people holy to Yahweh your God.

“Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.” All right we have a lot to break down there. First of all, couple points and we’re going to touch more on this next week. God is telling this specifically for His people, these are the Israelites that He brought out of Egypt. He’s saying “I am setting you guys apart.”

So He’s commanding Aaron. Moses, He’s commanding the Levites to tell the people “This is what you are to do, I want you guys different.” Now, if you come upon something later on in Deuteronomy, it’s saying if you come upon something already dead, something that’s unclean.

This is where there’s a controversion or a contradiction for people. They say “Hey wait a minute, in Leviticus it says don’t touch anything that’s dead, but here it says, ‘Do not eat anything find already dead. You may give it to an alien.’

How are you going to give it to an alien or sell it to a foreigner without touching it? If it’s a dead clean animal, even though it’s clean you’re not to eat it because you already found it dead. What is going on here?”

Well, if you take a look at cultures in Africa, or you talk to people that are from there, they say “Hey when the men go out hunting, sometimes they find monkeys that are already dead.” Guess what? They take them back to the camp and they eat them. What happens? They get sick. They get a belly.

They get all kinds of diseases from the monkeys that’s already dead. Why did it die? Probably because it was sick. Now you’re transmitting those diseases into you. God already knew this. He says “Hey, if there’s something dead, I don’t care if it’s clean or not you’re not going to eat it, because I don’t want you getting sick from this.”

You can sell it to someone else who’s a foreigner, who’s not my chosen people. They can get sick, they can do whatever they want, it’s their choice. But for you, I’ve made the choice for you. This is your command: You are to stay clean, you are not to eat this.” You say, “Wow, what a harsh God.” Hey, He’s setting His people apart.

Alright, now for those of you who are wondering “Does this apply to us today?” We’re going to get to that next week, but guess what? It applies to us today in some way. Now does that mean God changed? No, God has a plan all along. There are many animals that you can and can’t eat. We’re going to recap them really quick.

Split hoof — okay to eat. Cows, deer — that’s in Leviticus 11:3. “Any animal that doesn’t have a split hoof or doesn’t chew the cud.” Basically, if it doesn’t eat grass — animals like pigs and rabbits, not okay.

Leviticus 11:6-7. Now you would say “Hey rabbits eat grass, maybe sometimes.” But guess what? It’s split hoof, chews the cud. Of any fish that has fins and scales, you can eat it.

Deuteronomy 14:9. If they don’t have fins and scales, you can’t eat them. Deuteronomy 14:10, any bird as long as it’s not a bird of prey or a scavenger. Leviticus 11:13-19. These rules are for everyone, not only the Jews.

How do we know this? Why are they not only for the Jews? Well because if you go back in the Bible to Genesis, God told Noah about clean and unclean animals when he built the ark. This was long before Jews existed.

Now, of course, God’s chosen people have always existed. They weren’t really called Jews until much later, or they weren’t called Israelites until much later after Noah. Because Israel wasn’t around yet. The person, remember the god of Isaac Abraham, Jacob, Israel, those: they weren’t there. So this chosen group wasn’t there yet, they weren’t termed Jews or Israelites yet.

But God still had clean and unclean animals. How do we know this? Let’s go to Genesis 7, Verse 2, Genesis 7:2 says “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.” God’s telling Noah “Hey, I want to take all of the clean and unclean animals and save them on the ark.”

Now some of you may say “Well why would God want to save all the unclean animals? Why wouldn’t he just save clean animals and then going forward people can just eat whatever they want, clean or unclean because it’s all clean.” Well, that could be a question you ask God someday, but the point is that clean and unclean animals existed before Leviticus and Deuteronomy were written before God gave those laws to his people.

And so these rules, do they only apply to those people, or do they apply to everyone? They apply to all of God’s people, whether they are Jews or Gentiles. And we’re going to get more into this next week.

Why is this done, what is God doing here? This is done to set His people apart from the rest of the people. Historically when this has happened, it was going to the Jews. The Jews were considered clean and holy. Who was the other people? There were Jews and there were Gentiles. Gentiles aren’t clean, they are unholy.

They, typically, or historically, the Gentiles couldn’t be saved. The Jews could be saved. Jesus came for the Jews, not the Gentiles. Now that’s what they believed, and that’s what this was about. But as you know, Jesus came for the Jews and the Gentiles, which is very great news for people like me and probably you. Because guess what? We can be saved.

God wants His people to remain different, whether you are a chosen, you are like in the New Testament. It says you’re part of that original tree. Or like me, I’m a Gentile. I’ve been grafted into the faith. So I’ve come to the faith and they’ve now taken my branch and put it into the trunk, or like Jesus says “He is the vine.”

If we remain in Him, we remain part of the vine in His trunk, and we will flourish. So we’re grafted into the faith. God wants us to be remarkably different. Many pagan cultures back then, in the Old Testament, even in Jesus’s day, and then even today, they worship things like sea creatures. Like shrimp, or fish, or different big sea monsters. We have like the Kraken or the Leviathan or the Lochness Monster.

A lot of people in other cultures like the Norse, the Vikings, the Greeks, the Romans — they saw these creatures as deities. Look at the god of Neptune or Poseidon. Those are creatures of the sea and they deem them to be a deity. So God says “No, if they have a shrimp or if they have a crab, or lobster as something that they’re worshiping, you’re not to even touch it.

“Because guess what? I want you different. I don’t want them to see you.” Who? You. Say no. You have Yahweh as your God. If they see you with a shrimp, they might think “Hey wait a minute, he sacrificed to our god. He’s partaking in our god.” They could have literally believed that by eating that creature, they became more holy to identify with their false god.

So God Yahweh says, “Uh-uh, no way will you associate with any of that. I’m making it all unclean for you, shrimp, fish, sea creatures,” — different things. They had snakes as holy, some of them even had dragons, which is why God says “No lizards, no things that walk along around with feet.” Because those could be misconstrued as something else, you could be unknowingly leading others astray.

We worship the one true God, but then if you’re associating with something that someone else associates with a god — no we can’t do that. Paul even talked about this. He was saying about how people in the New Testament, “Hey if someone is — it’s clean for you and unclean for them, if it’s unclean for them, then guess what? It’s unclean for you, because you’re not going to lead them astray.”

God says you’re different. Don’t even interact with those unclean things, with those things that could be falsely construed or could lead people astray. But the good news is God had a plan all along. Ever since the beginning of time, God had things going on.

He gave the rules to Noah, then He gave them to Moses and Aaron, and they gave them to His people. Then in the New Testament, He had Jesus expand on Him. He had Peter go after Him, He had Paul go after Him because guess what? People still weren’t getting it.

God had this plan all along, and this is a plan to redeem His people. You can’t argue with that. He sent Jesus to redeem His people. In the Old Testament, if you sinned, you had to sacrifice. What did you sacrifice?

Well a sheep, maybe a goat, maybe a cow. They had the scapegoat that they cast out for certain sins. They had doves, they had flowers, they had different things that you had to sacrifice depending on the type of sin you committed.

How much wealth you had, different things like that. Whether it was a sin you knew about, whether it was an unknown sin, you had to pay the penalty. You had to sacrifice.

Then in the New Testament, Jesus already became that sacrifice for us. Did God change His mind and say “No, you no longer needed a sacrifice”? No, He redeemed His people. So what happened with the food laws? God had the same type of plan to redeem His people through this right now in the Old Testament.

This is, this could be seen as a burden if you had to live like this today. It could be a burden. God has a redemptive plan all along to expand His Kingdom on Earth. First the Jew then the Gentile. We’re going to get to that next week.

The Old Testament literally means Old Covenant. The New Testament means New Covenant. This separates God’s people from the Gentiles. He’s saying, “This is the Covenant to the Jews to my chosen people.” The Gentiles are out in the New Testament or New Covenant.

Jesus is coming, saying first the Jews then the Gentiles. He’s going to save everybody. We are all included grafted into the faith as Paul would say. So next week, we’re talking more about Jesus in the New Testament or New Covenant, and what he’s talking about when it comes to clean and unclean Foods.

So I really hope that you stay tuned with with us. I really really hope that you take the time this week to read Leviticus 11:1-46. Keep going if you want, and also Deuteronomy Chapter 14, Verses 1-21, because those are going to be very very important as we continue further next week. So until then have a great week, and God bless.