“You are not to eat anything disgusting.”-Deuteronomy 14:3
Verse 3 of Deuteronomy Chapter 14 begins a fairly long section dealing with the required holiness of the Israelite diet.
What is key here is distinguishing between acceptable versus forbidden foods…
…or to put it Scripturally…
…clean versus unclean foods.
Here’s an important point you need to get if you really want to understand the Hebrew perspective on this matter.
For the Israelite, prohibited foods were NOT considered food.
In other words, per the Israelite mind, just because something was edible per say did not make it food.
That’s right.
Pork was NOT considered food to a Hebrew and neither were bottom feeders like oysters or shrimp.
This is an important mindset to grasp when reading either the Tanach or the New Testament in dealing with food and kosher issues.
Here’s something else interesting.
God’s instructions to not eat certain foods actually did NOT begin at Mount Sinai with Moses.
Nope…they actually began in the Garden of Eden when the Lord said to Adam and Eve that they could eat from any and all of the trees and vegetation without restriction EXCEPT the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
And speaking of the forbidden fruit and Garden of Eden, this is actually the perfect opportunity to review a principle we studied when we were way back in the book of Genesis.
Let’s get started and don’t worry because this will be quick.
Recall that God instructing Adam and Eve to not eat the forbidden fruit was…
…the first rule he ever gave them.
Before that, no moral laws or civil rules existed for Adam and Eve.
What should be instructive for us is that the very first Torah or instruction that God ever gave to mankind concerned food.
In other words, until the very moment when God said “Thou shalt not eat from the Tree of Knowledge and Good and Evil”, it was NOT possible for Adam and Eve to sin.
Are you catching this?
It’s actually pretty simple if you think about it.
If the definition of sin is breaking a law of God, then wouldn’t it logically follow that if there are no laws to break it isn’t possible to sin?
However and this is a whopping huge “however”, once God gave Adam and Eve the command to not eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, then EVERYTHING changed!
Why?
Because once God gave that first command to Adam and Eve, for the first time in their lives they now had something to break.
God had basically given them a one rule Torah.
And once presented with that one law Torah, guess what?
Adam and Eve just couldn’t wait to break it.
And boy, human nature sure hasn’t changed much since then, has it?
Before that one law was established, Adam and Eve had absolutely zero knowledge of right and wrong and good and evil.
The concept of obedience to God and sin meant nothing to them.
Why?
Because it is God’s Holy Law that gives knowledge of sin.
Unless lines are drawn between what is acceptable and not acceptable to God, the concepts of evil, wrong and sin can’t even exist.
CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
“For by works of the law
no human being will be justified in his sight,
since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”
-Romans 3:10
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