Our reading today from Deuteronomy 14-16 focuses on holy living. Chapter 14 begins with a heart-endearing “You are the sons (and daughters) of the LORD your God so be holy.” God says these laws celebrate our relationship. For us today, it means these laws point us to the gospel.
Chapter 14 specifies laws on mourning for their dead and their culinary-dietary practices.
14:1-2 prohibits them from cutting themselves and balding their foreheads. One remembers Baal’s prophets lacerating and cutting themselves to get Baal to burn the sacrifice they offered. That world believed Baal and their plethora of gods were moved by bloody sacrifices. The balding should be seen this way too. Someone mutilates their look to get Baal’s attention. God says no to these practices.
14:9-21 identifies what land, sea, and air (winged) creatures could be eaten. The pork was singled out along with the camel, the hare (kuneho), and rat-like creatures for land animals. They could eat fish that has fins and scales. For birds, everything could be eaten except for unclean birds like the eagle and raven, owl, and others of the predatory kind. These birds also prey on dead carcasses. Reading these laws makes us want to know why these were forbidden.
For New Testament believers, we also want to know how these dietary laws apply? The original readers understood these commands perfectly. These prohibitions set God’s people apart from other nations. Think of the prohibition to cut oneself to gain god’s attention. That practice portrayed a blood-thirsty god or a deity who demands appeasement for a favor. God says I am not like that.
Do you see how this prepares us for the gospel? God says don’t harm yourself, thinking this is the sacrifice I require to bless you. The gospel, of course, includes someone shedding blood, but this blood is not the worshipper’s blood. It’s not his bloody head shaved being offered. The blood is God’s bloodshed which covers and cleans the worshipper! See Acts 20:28.
The dietary and culinary laws also whet our longing for the gospel. First, we often notice only the prohibitions but forget those that God says, I created these for food for you. We should be grateful for food provisions.
Second, and more importantly, a clean and unclean theme prepares us for the gospel that cleanses people from the stench and infectious sin. Paul says he is not embarrassed with his gospel because of what it offers: righteousness from God given in grace and received by faith (Romans 1:16,17).
What a beautiful gospel. It is not the gospel of self-effort or self-sacrifice. The genuine gospel reverses the order. In the fake gospel, the worshipper must pass the test before they could connect with god. In the genuine gospel, the worship object offers his own blood to make the unclean clean and acceptable to him.
Next time you take a meal, remember Jesus. Each time you see a bald person or have a balding head remember Jesus, who volunteered to be physically mutilated on the cross, so you and I can be covered with beauty and righteousness.