Issued: 05/02/22

“Don’t you know that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and then is expelled as waste?”

Matthew 15:17

PLEASE NOTE:  All bracketed material may be authorial comments, attempts at proper syntax, or minimal rewordings of Scripture for the sake of clarity and continuity.  These emendations will not be italicized.  The “/” will be used to signify “and/or.”

   In differentiating between Yahweh of hosts [later Jesus] and Yahweh the Most High God, lower case letters have been used when discussing the former; upper case letters are reserved for the One and Only Highest God.  Since Jesus was at pains to differentiate himself from God the Father, we have followed his lead here.

   The term neo-Christian will be used to differentiate between false Christians and Jesus’ true followers.

   Panned by Jesus [see above], and later by Paul (Romans 14:2-14; 1Corinthians 10:25-31; Colossians 2:16-17; 1Timothy 4:3-5; Hebrews 9:9-10), dietary laws play no role in Christian doctrine.  If we were to venture two guesses as to why they hold sway over the unenlightened, we would argue they provide false cover for wishy-washy religiosity plus the allure of health benefits.

   For example, it is easier not to eat pork, as forbidden by Leviticus 11:7, than to give generously to the poor.  There are other meat products to enjoy; but as God expects men to prioritize the needy, who will always be there (Deuteronomy 15:11; Matthew 26:11, 25:35-46), the latter represent a long-term drain to financial resources.¹ Perhaps by foreswearing pork altogether, brownie points can be accrued with God while rationing the flow of cash—a win-win strategy.  Also human bodies, temples for the Holy Spirit (1Corinthians 3:16), will be “cleaner” without bad cholesterol.  Who knows?  God and Jesus might be tickled pink at the maintenance lavished on their property (1Corinthians 6:19-20).

   It seems unseemly to sound sardonic, but at this late date in the Christian saga, we should know by now what was implicit in Mosaic dietary laws and the danger that observing them poses for Judeo-Christians.  Without further preambles, let us discuss both religious approaches.

Judaism

   After 430 years of exposure to Egyptian living (Exodus 12:40), the Israelites had assimilated all their pagan ways, from idolatry (Exodus 32:1) to eating habits (Numbers 11:4-5).  Because they were a headstrong and recalcitrant lot doing what each one saw fit (Exodus 33:5; Deuteronomy 12:8), there was a need to nip their collective ‘my-way-or-the-highway proclivities’ in the bud.  Thus Yahweh saddled them with laws and rituals intended to be useless as spiritual sustenance (Ezekiel 20:25; Hebrews 7:19), but defining boundaries not to be crossed—or else.  In short, enforced obedience, the very thing God ideologically abhors; yet a necessary experiment in operant conditioning with rewards for good behavior and punishments to extinguish bad ones (Deuteronomy 28).  It is said that drastic times call for drastic measures; and in those “times of ignorance” (Acts 17:30), in order to instill a modicum of godly fear, the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10), the Israelites were subjected to a carrot-and-stick approach.

    Let it be noted in passing that classifying food sources as clean or unclean did not begin with Moses.  The system was already in place at the time of the Flood, as Genesis 7:2 confirms.  In point of fact, part of what was codified at Sinai had been practiced throughout Genesis, as for example, raising progeny for firstborns who had died without issue [in essence, what we do for Jesus (Genesis 38:7-10; Deuteronomy 25:5-6; Galatians 4:19; Philemon 1:10)], or spurning marriage ties with alien races (Genesis 24:3-4; Deuteronomy 7:3—a big to do in Ezra 9:12, 10:2-3).  These traditions were passed orally amongst ‘kosher’ Patriarchs until the Egyptian period, where they were diluted or corrupted.  The Mosaic Covenant enshrined them into law.

   Since Judaism is Christianity loaded with non-essentials, lots of Mosaic teachings are embedded in Jesus’ doctrine, obvious examples being the Ten Commandments [featuring the observance of the true Sabbath—NOT SUNDAY—over which Jesus’ claimed ownership (Matthew 12:8)], which prioritized love of God above all things and goodwill towards all men (Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 22:36-40; Mark 10:18).  The notorious “eye for an eye” dictum, given to Moses in his capacity as judge over Israel (Deuteronomy 19:21), was not meant as carte blanche for anyone to avenge wrongs done to him, since payback is exclusively God’s (Deuteronomy 32:35; Romans 12:19); but a standard given to Jesus, the Judge of all flesh, to be implemented on Judgment Day.  How do we know this?  Because Jesus was the substance that Moses, his early symbol and shadow, instructed us to heed (Deuteronomy 18:15; John 5:46).  And Jesus reaffirmed that standard in his teaching (Matthew 7:2).

Symbolic Eating

   Like everything else in the Bible, the act of eating is shadow to the substance of spiritual nourishment.²  An obvious example was the life-sustaining manna (Exodus 16), the bread that fell from above prefiguring Jesus, “the living bread that came down from Heaven” (John 6:48-51).  [Please pay attention to detail.  Jesus was saying he was the incarnated Yahweh of hosts:  I came down from Heaven; so though born of Mary, I had a pre-existence before 4BC – 4AD.  When I was in Heaven with the Father (John 17:5), Mary was part of the Creation I willed into existence, not I of hers].  The Israelites ate the first and ostensibly expelled it as waste; but Jesus’ body, the “living bread” to be eaten (Matthew 26:26), was absorbed spiritually to nurture immortal life.  Likewise, the waters that the Israelites drank from after Moses struck the rock (Exodus 17:1-7) were eliminated somehow; but it does not take rocket science to realize that this rock symbolized the Jesus from whom “living waters” would issue (John 4:7-10; 1Corinthians 10:4).  And what did these waters consist of?  The Holy Spirit that Jesus would send teaching everything to believers (Nehemiah 9:20; John 7:37-39, 15:26; 1Corinthians 2:11-13; 1John 2:27).

   We find, then, correlations between physical foodstuffs and spiritual nourishment; and thus we comprehend the meaning implicit in Jesus’ Matthew 15:17 claim.  Simply put, a piece of pork in no wise corrupts human souls, however else it may affect bodies to be discarded once mortal flesh is upgraded to immortal flesh (1Corinthians 15:51-54).  Jesus knew this, that is, the living Jesus who needed to die in order to invalidate the Mosaic Covenant and redeem everyone from “the curse” of Mosaic Law (Galatians 3:10-25).  Why curse?  Because no one could observe it totally in order to be justified by deeds, for by failing one point meant failing all other ones (James 2:10).  All the Apostles knew this (Acts 15:10); which is the reason why dietary laws are amongst Satan’s Trojan viruses.

  As a result during his earthly ministry, Jesus walked the fine line between enslaving Mosaic Law and the freedom of Christian faith—freedom, that is, to act in accordance to moral dictates and not laundry lists of rites and rituals.  Jesus could not violate any Mosaic norm:  If he was to invalidate them all, he had to observe them all down to the proverbial “jot.”  By so doing, he could be the embodiment of the Law to be “cursed” [i.e., render no longer binding] by being nailed to the cross.

   Jesus had to make strategic choices in selecting Apostles.  Peter was a die-hard, observant Jew:  Despite three years of exposure to Jesus’ doctrine, we find him in Acts 10:9-16 refusing three times Jesus’ order to eat from a smorgasbord of clean and unclean animals.  Later we find him sidestepping Christian freedoms to encourage Jewish observances, a double-standard Paul called to his face (Galatians 2:11-14).  Whatever personal interpretation we want to make out of these, the fact remains Peter had limitations that Jesus took into consideration.  Thus he charged Peter with spearheading Christian indoctrination amongst Jews (Galatians 2:7).

   When it came to Paul, Jesus struck a home run.  Paul was the inveterate, zealous Pharisee who put loyalty to Yahweh above all things (Acts 22:3-5; Philippians 3:5-6); thus it was Paul whom Jesus hand-picked to preach his name amongst Gentiles (Acts 9:15).  Somehow Paul assimilated Christian doctrine to a degree even Peter had trouble discerning (2Peter 3:15-16).  Some Jewish scholars have given Paul a bad rap and branded him as traitor to their faith; but we “Gentiles” should fall down on our knees and praise Paul for his commitment to the Judeo-Christian family of faith (2Timothy 2:10).  If there can ever be such a rank as ‘Pope’ in Christendom, an act of arrogance forbidden by Jesus (Matthew 20:25-26), Paul, not Peter, is that man.

   At first Paul tried to follow in Jesus’ steps by indoctrinating his compatriots (Mark 7:27); but in time he realized Jewish recalcitrance could not be overcome and moved on to more promising pastures (Acts 13:46).  Like Moses’ veil (2Corinthians 3:14), tradition is the shackle that binds Jewish beliefs; and though Jesus provided a key to discard it, our Jewish brethren will not use it.  One shudders to imagine their reaction on Judgment Day when they realize the Jesus they consistently denied is the Yahweh of hosts they have professed to worship throughout generations; and that with their ethnic elitism, they unfailingly undermined Yahweh’s grand vision of integrating  Judeo-Christians into one nation under Jesus’ priestly kingship (Ezekiel 37:16-22).

Christianity

   Since Paul wrote most of the letters in the New Testament, it is he who addresses the issue of eating more often.  For Paul nothing was intrinsically clean or unclean (1Timothy 4:4).  The weak in faith might think some things should or should not be eaten [Vegans?  Vegetarians?]; and above all, no one was to judge anybody else in terms of diet.  Someone believed some things should not be eaten?  Bully for him:  Let personal convictions not dictate terms to other minds.  In the sense that everyone is responsible for his own actions and decisions, what others think any person should or should not eat is irrelevant, incompetent, and immaterial.  Live and let live; for what each one chooses to do for love of God is between that person and Him (Romans 14:1-19,22).

   The ever self-denying Paul had a caveat:  “Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God.  Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for you to make others fall by what you eat.  The right thing to do is to avoid eating meat, drinking wine, or doing anything else [IF] that makes your brother stumble, upset, or weak” (Romans 1:20-21).  In other words, if as a representative of Jesus eating became a point of contention for some, specifically in cases where foodstuffs became conflated with idolatrous behaviors, revise your position (1Corinthians 9:22, 10:27-29).  Even here Paul defended his freedom of conscience:  “For why should my freedom be determined by someone else’s conscience?  If I eat with thankfulness, why should I be denounced because of what I am thankful [to God] for” (Romans 1:29-30)?  It is always bad policy to let anyone control you (Romans 6:16; Galatians 2:4-5; 2Peter 2:19).

Some Words about Animals

    The divine plan is a loop:  It has an origin [what “Genesis” means], moves in some direction, and conceptually restores what the origin foreshadowed.  As created, all animals were plant-eaters (Genesis 1:29-30):  The predatory free-for-all that nature has become—amazing as it is—was not God’s original design.  Thus we must surmise that when Adam and Eve were evicted from the location known as Eden (Genesis 2) and marched eastwards, the natural world they encountered had devolved into the biomes we are now familiar with.  We are not told who was actually responsible for this devolution.

   That eastward direction is the first indication we have of God’s ‘loop,’ for the return to the Promised Land, be it Canaan [shadow] or the Heavenly Jerusalem come down to earth [substance (Revelation 21:10)], takes place from east to west.  After their 40-year sojourn in the desert, the Israelites did not enter Canaan from the south, [perpendicularly, the shortest route], but veered eastwards to cross the Jordan from east to west (Joshua 3); as did Elisha when he began his ministry (2Kings 2:13-15).  After the Babylonian Captivity, those who returned to rebuild Jerusalem again travelled from east to west.  And in God’s Kingdom, the Messiah will lead his people into the Heavenly Jerusalem from the east.  Proofs of these are in Isaiah 11:15-16; Ezekiel 44:1-2; Micah 2:12-13; Revelation 16:12 (correlate with Joshua 3:16-17).  You connect the dots.

   The return to Eden is further elucidated by the specific reference to the River Euphrates in Revelation 16:12.  The Euphrates runs from Turkey to the Persian Gulf to the east of Israel; and according to Genesis 2:10-14, it was one of the “branches” of the unnamed river that watered Eden.  A further reference to the ‘loop’ involves ”the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” in the middle of Eden, from which Adam was forbidden to eat on pain of mortal death.³  A similar configuration reappears in Revelation 22:1-2:  “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal.⁴  It was flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb and flowing down the middle of the city’s [Heavenly Jerusalem] street.  On each side of the river was the Tree of Life, which bears fruit twelve times a year, once each month; and its leaves are for the healing of the nations.”   Apparently, this Tree can be eaten from with no danger to newly-gained immortality—or to preserve it?

   Let us go back to the animals.  We know that animals communicate by means suggestive of human speech.  Can we say that animals did at one time utter words? Genesis 3:1-5 tells us that of all the animals in Eden, a serpent dialogued with Eve.  We have two possible interpretations.  The “serpent” is a symbol for Satan (Revelation 20:2), whom we know was present in Eden (Ezekiel 28:13); but Ezekiel 31, which conflates prophecies about Assyrians and Satan/angels, trees, not animals, are used to depict their presence in Eden.

   Assyria was the cedar of Lebanon that towered over all trees in the field (i.e., world empire—see Matthew 13:38); but Satan was the cedar in Eden whose beauty “no tree in the garden of God” could match (Ezekiel 28:12-13), and so envied by cedars/trees over which Satan towered (31:8-9).  Consequently, because he was “exalted in stature, and set his top among the thick boughs (31:10),” he became haughty (Ezekiel 28:15,17) and was cast aside by God, slated for destruction at the hands of the ruler of nations (31:10).  And who might that be?  The Most High God (Isaiah 22:15;19; Daniel 4:17, 5:21; Luke 4:6), for vengeance is truly and exclusively His (Deuteronomy 32:35; Psalm 110:1; Revelation 20:9-10).

    Now there is nothing unusual about a cherub—which Satan was (Ezekiel 28:14) —talking to Eve; but a real snake?  What about Balaam and his donkey?  The story is recorded in Numbers 22:21-33.  Balaam is ready to curse the Israelites for money.  The Angel of God [Yahweh of hosts] appears three times in the road ahead; but only the donkey sees him and veers away.  None the wiser, Balaam beats the donkey three times with his staff; whereupon “Yahweh opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, ‘What have I done to you that you have struck me these three times’” (22:28)?

   We have seen evidence of “opening” the senses in 2Kings 6:17, Luke 24:31 and 24:35.  In the first instance, Elisha’s servant’s eyes, which were not closed since he was aware of the Syrians endangering him (2Kings 6:15), are made to see the celestial host protecting him and Elisha.  In Luke 24:31 the Apostles see and talk to Jesus, but their eyes, which were not closed, were prevented from recognizing him.  And in Luke 24:25 Jesus, by “blowing” the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, “opened” some sort of understanding different from normal cognition.  What is the implicit message?  There are capabilities that can be suppressed and/or enabled by divine will.

   Why the necessity to tell us that Balaam’s donkey was capable of human speech?  Why did not the Angel directly confront Balaam instead of subjecting the poor donkey to Balaam’s beatings?  Thankfully, all that Balaam had at hand was a staff:  If he had had a sword, he would have made mincemeat out of the hapless creature (Numbers 22:23).  Is this Scripture’s way of suggesting to us that animals at one time had been capable of speech, but that our ears are prevented from making sense of their species-typical vocalizations?  A moot point, granted.

   Nevertheless in regards to behavioral patterns, prophecy is crystal clear.  In Genesis animals were made plant-eaters; and at the completion of God’s ‘loop,” they will be made plant-eaters again.  Every species that now lives will be destroyed at Armageddon:  Unlike redeemed mortals, animals are not resurrected and taken into Heaven at Jesus’ second coming.  But since everything from a new cosmos to a new earth⁵ will be made fresh from scratch (Isaiah 30:26, 51:6, 60:19, 65:17, 66:22; Matthew 24:35; 2Peter 3:10-13; Revelation 6:13-14), so will animals be recreated as originally conceived:  “The wolf will live with the lamb; the leopard will lie down with the young goat. The calf and the lion will graze together, and a little child will lead them.  The cow and the bear will graze, and their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox.  The nursing child will play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child will put his hand on vipers’ dens.  They will not hurt or destroy on all My Holy Mountain” (Isaiah 11:5-9).⁶

   Predictably, Biblical interpreters and detractors dismiss these revelations as either metaphor or childish musings, but you of faith, rejoice!  If the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to little children (Matthew 19:14) for their ability to believe wholeheartedly what jaded men cannot, then we have a leg up on them.  Remember that they are not to be heeded, for they are fulfilling the role excoriated by God:  Turning His words into lies (Jeremiah 8:8).  Let God’s vision inspire and comfort you.  In due time, He will deliver on His promises and treat us to wonders the human mind has never been able to conceive (1Corinthians 2:9).

The Roles of Animals in Mosaic Dietary Laws

    On to the ‘meat’ of the matter—literally and figuratively.

   Leviticus 11:1-27 is all about eating animals and classifying them as clean or unclean.  In Genesis 7:2 we have noted that the distinctions existed at least in Yahweh’s mind.  When righteous men of antiquity cooked meals or sacrificed animals, they picked from the ‘clean’ lot (Genesis 4:4, 18:7, 22:13, 27:9, 31:38).  This suggests Yahweh had told them which type of meat consumption was pleasing to Him.

   The odd thing about Mosaic dietary laws was the time in which they were given:  At the beginning of desert wanderings that would last 40 years.  If the objective was sustenance, why all the prohibitions concerning clean animals difficult to find in those regions, while proscribing unclean animals in abundance like scorpions, vultures, snakes, lizards, camels, and the like?  Why meats specifically?  Had not Yahweh chosen a vegan-style diet by supplying manna, so bland—and perishable—that the Israelites hated it (Exodus 16:14-20; Numbers 21:5)?

   What did they really lust after?  Meat and savory foodstuffs—lots of it (Exodus 16:3; Numbers 11:4-5); but though zapped for their carnivorous hankerings (Numbers 11:18-33), Yahweh stood firm and kept feeding the Israelites manna until they got to Canaan (Exodus 16:35).  [And in God’s Kingdom (Revelation 2:17)]?  On the way some perennial, human favorites like lobster and pork were forbidden—and not to control cholesterol levels.  While nutrition has become the siren song of our ‘live-to-be-a-hundred’ age, Mosaic prohibitions have to do with priorities like obedience, self-control, self-denial, and acceptance, some of the staples of Christian doctrine.  “The soul gives life; the flesh profits nothing” (John 6:63); and since food by-passes the soul on its way to the latrine, it is of no intrinsic, spiritual value.

   If the Bible is the word of God as we believe, and the Holy Spirit its ghostwriter through men (2Peter 1:20-21), we must expect it to mean more than meets the eye, since it is couched in symbolic language for the specific purpose of keeping unbelievers none the wiser (Deuteronomy 29:29; Mark 4:11-13; 1Corinthians 2:10-13; 2Corinthians 4:3-4).  For example when Elisha was told there was death in the stew, he sprinkled flour on it [see Leviticus 2:1-7 for the role of flour in divine offerings]; the stew became edible; and the men ate on the strength of Elisha’s guarantee (2Kings 4:40-41).  Is this an anecdote about the poison-neutralizing properties of flour, or an example of unconditional trust in divine powers keeping people from harm?⁷  Paul was bitten by a snake and witnesses expected him to drop dead (Acts 28:3-6).  Is this a story about the fast-acting venom of vipers, or confirmation of Jesus’ guarantee that no form of poison would affect his envoys (Mark 16:17-18)?⁸

   Why was salt required on all divine offerings (Leviticus 2:13; Ezekiel 43:24)?  To symbolize Christian preachers promoting God’s work (Matthew 5:13), some of whom would endure martyrdom in order to sanctify the family of faith with their blood, as Jesus’ had done (Genesis 4:10; Romans 8:36; Hebrews 12:24; Revelation 6:9-11).  Which is also the reason why Paul instructed the Colossians to let their “speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt” (Colossians 4:6).  It was never about the properties of sodium chloride in terms of flavoring or blood-pressure control; just as the pleasing aromas issuing from offerings to God were not about stimulating His olfactory cells, but perceived by Him as evidence of the obedience He finds gratifying (Genesis 4:4-5, 8:20-21; Leviticus 3:5,16).  Where God is concerned, obedience, not holocausts, is the sincerest offering (1Samuel 15:22).

   Blood keeps mortal flesh alive, but does it feed the soul?  Does anybody believe that the blood Aaron and his successors sprinkled on the Israelites remitted their sins perpetually?  No, the rite had to be repeated over and over across generations and centuries:  The immediate objective was to teach the Israelites that in regards to sin, they would never be completely out of the woods.  The law perfected nothing (Hebrews 7:19):  It was a means to an end, another experiment in operant conditioning to elicit pious behaviors by feeding the notion that observance counted as brownie points with God.  Which they technically did under the terms of the Mosaic Covenant, but brownie points with expiration dates and no lasting value.

   The whole thing foreshadowed the symbolic objective implicit in animal holocausts:  Pointing to Jesus as the Lamb whose blood would remit sins perpetually—that is as long as believers kept washing their sinful laundry in it by following his example for life.  These truths are the gist of Isaiah 53:7; Matthew 26:28; John 1:29; Hebrews 9:11-22; 1Peter 1:20-23; Revelation 7:13-14.  How do they correspond with Mosaic rites?  The sacrificial animal had to be a firstborn (Exodus 13:2), male and unblemished, otherwise not acceptable (Leviticus 22:18-20).  Jesus was God’s first and only male Son (Genesis 1:3; John 3:16; Colossians 1:15; Revelation 3:14); as to sin, blameless; in obedience, perfect.  Unlike the blood of Mosaic offerings, Jesus’ blood was perpetually potent to remit sins (Hebrews 7:27; 1Peter 3:18), which it had to be, for with the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, the only place on earth where temporary remission of sins was possible (Deuteronomy 12:13-14), no further animal sacrifices would ever be carried out.  In point of fact, those who now sacrifice animals anywhere else in the world do so to demons, not to God (1Corinthians 10:19-20).

   We are dealing here with those “times of ignorance” which God decided to put up with and overlook (Acts 17:30), even when allowing behaviors that displeased Him.  A clear example is the matter of divorce, which was not allowed pre-Exodus and in Christian doctrine (Matthew 19:7-9; 1Corinthians 7:10-11).  Whenever Jesus was at loggerheads with the priests of his time, it was on matters of morality, not diet; for being easier to observe, priests and scribes were fastidious about eating protocols (Mark 7:5; Luke 11:38).  In all probability they did not eat unclean meats, [neither did Jesus or the Apostles, for that matter]; and since observance of the letter of the law was paramount for them (Matthew 23:23-26), Jesus instructed his audience to do what priests told them but not to act as they did (Matthew 23:3).  Like all hypocrites, they did the talk, but left the walking for others to do (Luke 11:46).

   Out of sight, however, abominable shenanigans might have been practiced, as Isaiah 65:2-5 and Ezekiel 8:1-18 contend.  It will not do to say these violations applied to older generations, for in the Bible, what was done in the past will be repeated in future one way or another (Ecclesiastes 1:9-10), perhaps not in exact correspondences as to details, but undoubtedly in terms of immorality and disobedience:  The hearts of the sons of men are given fully to do evil throughout their lives (Ecclesiastes 8:11, 9:3).  How many centuries between Solomon’s time and the times of Genesis?  Yet there the same assessment was true of men (Genesis 6:5); and it will continue being so until the very end (Revelation 9:20-21).

   We have discussed that in the Kingdom to come, animals will not prey on other species:  “They will not hurt or destroy on all My Holy Mountain.”  How then, during the “times of ignorance,” must God have felt at the wholesale slaughter of animals at the Jerusalem Temple?  No matter how ‘humane’ their disposition, the very act of killing them must have been intolerable to Him.  If allowed, it was as a loophole to instill a sense of fear and worship in the Israelites; and to lay the symbolic groundwork for the purpose and mission of the Messiah to come.

   We are talking about these things in a vacuum:  We were not there to gauge how distressing and upsetting it must have been for animal-loving priests to cut throats and exsanguinate carcasses.  The life was in the blood and the blood had to return to the ground (Genesis 9:4; Leviticus 7:26; Deuteronomy 15:23).  Why?  To be “heard” by God as Abel’s blood was (Genesis 4:10—see Matthew 23:35; Luke 11:50-51)?  Because animals were made from the earth and their life essence had to return there (Genesis 1:24-25)?  What does Paul mean by saying that the blood of Jesus “speaks” better than Abel’s (Hebrews 12:24)?

   What is so special about blood in the eyes of God?  Certainly not its ability to keep alive mortal flesh that profits nothing.   Leviticus 17:11 provides the answer:  “Because the life of the flesh is in the blood itself, and I myself have given it to you all so that atonement may be made for your souls on the altar, since the blood itself makes atonement through the life that is in it.”  The “life” being referred to is immortal life, which is only possible by atoning for our souls; hence the spiritual, not the physical, value of Jesus’ blood, the sacrificial Lamb to end all holocausts.

   Because of its power to make salvation possible, Jesus’ blood is the blood being referred to in Leviticus 17:11, for animal blood, no matter how many times shed, lacked that power.  It served no purpose to eat it because material blood could not affect the spiritual soul; and though Jesus’ blood invigorated the soul, his was not to be drunk either, but symbolically in the form of wine (Matthew 26:27-28).  The fact that innocent blood clamors to God in Heaven is Scripture’s way of telling us that no righteous person is ever truly dead (see Revelation 6:9-11), for God is a God of the living (Matthew 22:32); and all the redeemed, at Jesus’ calling, will rise up from the ground that absorbed their blood (Isaiah 26:19; 1Thessalonians 4:16). 

   Implicit in all this is the role Christians play, as sacrificial animals (Psalms 44:22), in God’s divine plan.  Some must die (Luke 21:16; Revelation 6:11); lots will patiently endure until the very end (Matthew 24:13), but all, in their struggle against sin, must resist “unto blood” (Hebrews 12:4).  Blood, then, is the device that makes salvation possible [if asked to die for Jesus or resist sin until the very end] and achievable [thanks to Jesus’ blood].

   In Part II we will briefly discuss the symbolism underpinning Mosaic Dietary Laws.

¹ We make do by giving at Christmas, or intermittently to assorted charities.

²  Why are Jeremiah, Ezekiel and John told to “eat” God’s words, if not to drive the point further that divine nourishment is spiritual rather than physical (Jeremiah 15:16; Ezekiel 3:2-3; Revelation 7:11)?

³ Presumably made immortal, Adam stood to lose his immortality by disobeying God (Genesis 2:16-17).

⁴ Correlate with Ezekiel 1:22,24,26-27; Daniel 7:9, 10:5-6; Revelation 1:13-16.

⁵ No sea or sea creatures (Revelation 21:1)?  Nevertheless, it follows the established pattern.  Let us consider that sea-life did not enter Noah’s Ark with land-dwelling animals, though it must have survived regardless of unimaginable water depths after Mount Everest was submerged (Genesis 7:20).  It could not have been physically possible?  Not for the God Who having made the physical forces governing our world can also subvert them at will (Mark 10:27).

   Now if Noah and his family are symbols for Jesus and his family of faith, the Ark prefigures the transport [i.e., the angelic host] by which the redeemed will be removed from earth prior to Armageddon, the world-wide destruction—this time by fire—that the Flood foreshadowed.  And here again we see that only air-breathing creatures are taken into account (Genesis 6:17, 7:22).

⁶ Something along these lines was at work inside Noah’s Ark.  Obviously animals did not prey on each other; since there was only one unclean pair per species (Genesis 7:2), entire genera would have been wiped out if either male or female had been eaten.  The groupings that entered the Ark made their way out unharmed.

⁷ The flour had to be unleavened, prefiguring yeast as a symbol for religious hypocrisy (Leviticus 2:11; Luke 12:1).

⁸ Which is not an endorsement of neo-Christian sects encouraging snake bites as proof of faith.  What these people are doing is exactly what Satan insinuated Jesus should do:  Test the veracity of God’s assurances (Luke 4:9-12).