Law and Grace are difficult to reconcile

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The Law did not make people become better believers

The first five Books of the Old Testament are classified as the Law.

But as the tabernacle was replaced by the Temple, so more laws were added to the Old Testament.

The Law involved many rituals and ceremonies.

The peak of the Law involved the ten Commandments that Moses got from God on Mount Sinai (also called Mount Horeb).

The 4th Commandment is the Sabbath day of rest which is Saturday for the Jews. This is the Commandment that the modern church does not want. They want people to go to church on a Sunday.

To achieve that aim they decide to scrap the Law and do away with it. Then they can ignore the 4th Commandment.

The Law was easily broken. When the 10 tribes of Israel separated from Judah and Benjamin, their new king went away from the Law and all Israel followed him.

II CHRONICLES 12:1   And it came to pass, when Rehoboam had established the kingdom, and had strengthened himself, he forsook the law of the LORD, and all Israel with him.

People foolishly just follow the leader, even when the leader is wrong.

Then Caiaphas the High Priest ended the Law by breaking the Law concerning the High Priest's garments that were not to be torn.

MATTHEW 26:65 Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy;
Moses had told the High Priest Aaron and his sons that they cannot rend or tear their clothes.
LEVITICUS 10:6 And Moses said unto Aaron, and unto Eleazar and unto Ithamar, his sons, Uncover not your heads, neither rend your clothes; lest ye die, and lest wrath come upon all the people:
By rending his clothes, the High Priest ended the Law.

God recognized this because He then rent the Temple veil when Jesus died.
MATTHEW 27:51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;

On the surface it appeared that the Law was over and the Sabbath (which was on a Saturday) was scrapped.

The Law had not made the Jews into better people.

By crucifying Messiah they had really sunk into the abyss of evil.

However, things are not that cut and dried.

The Law also said, "Thou shalt not kill" and that is not a rule that can be scrapped. We need that law if society is to survive.

Yet  the Law was holy and good

ROMANS 7:12   Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.

There was nothing wrong with the Law itself.

Believe in one God only. Make no graven images and do not take God’s name in vain.

Thou shalt honour thy father and mother. Thou shalt not kill, nor commit adultery, nor steal, nor lie, nor covet or defraud.

These 9 Commandments do apply to all Jewish and Christian believers for all times.

There is nothing wrong with any one of these Commandments.

The last six Commandments also apply to non-religious people.

Imagine living in a world where people can murder, lie, steal, covet or defraud, dishonour parents, and commit adultery. Most non-religious people want rules to prevent this type of behaviour.

If you want a peaceful and decent society, these Commandments will be part of the rules.

Honour your parents. Do not kill, nor commit adultery, nor steal, nor lie, nor covet or defraud.

These rules suit any normal person. They are not forced on us because they are against our free will. They define the only society that is worth living in. So, criticizing these 6 Commandments is pointless.

Jesus came to magnify the Law

ISAIAH 42:21   The LORD is well pleased for his righteousness' sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honourable.

Jesus came to magnify the Law.

You do not have to do something wrong in order to sin. Just thinking about doing it is wrong.

MATTHEW 5:27    Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:

:28   But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

In the Old Testament you had to do something wrong in order to sin.

In the New Testament you are not even allowed to think wrongly, much less have a wrong motive.

MATTHEW 5:20    For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

MATTHEW 5:21   Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:

MATTHEW 5:22   But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

"Raca" means worthless.

Christ died for us, so He thought we were of great value.

No part of the Law will be taken away

LUKE 16:17   And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.

MATTHEW 5:18   For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

The entire Old Testament Law will be fulfilled by the time the end comes. Nothing will be discarded.

How does this get done? That will take some spiritual insight.

MATTHEW 5:19   Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

If you try to get rid of any Old Testament commandments, however small, you will simply be demoted in  Heaven because of your wrong understanding of the issue.

Breaking or eliminating any Old Testament Commandment is just not allowed.

So, how do we fit the Law into the Gospel of Grace?

The New Testament of Grace has to unfold out of the Old Testament of Law.

The Law is the shadow or outline of Grace

HEBREWS 10:1   For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.

The Law is vital because it created the shadow or outline within which Christ had to fulfill His ministry.

His hard and dedicated works fulfilled the Law.

By Grace I am saved by His amazing works, not my own works.

How do I know that Jesus is the Real Deal?

Because He fulfilled all the conditions of the Law.

The shadow of an object reveals its outlines.

The Old Testament laws revealed the outline of the ministry of Christ as He redeems the church.

For example, in the Old Testament, there was a Passover lamb slain for the sins of the people.

Jesus became the Ultimate Passover Lamb that was slain for everybody's sins.

I CORINTHIANS 5:7    For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:

The Law is the shadow of God’s Will. As such it creates an outline that Grace has to fit into. You have to fit the outline of your shadow in the sense that your shadow has a head and torso and two arms.

The Passover lamb of the Law was the outline or shadow that Christ had to fit into.

He was chosen on the tenth day, which was Palm Sunday, and killed on the 14^th day which was the next Thursday.

That way He could spend 3 nights in the tomb (Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday night) and rise up on Sunday morning. Just like Jonah was 3 nights in the whale.

So, all these incidents of the Law were perfectly fulfilled in Christ. These incidents or events of the Law cannot save me, but the Christ Who fulfilled the Law and magnified a Passover lamb until it was replaced by the Messiah, can save me.

So, the lives of the prophets were also part of the outline that Christ had to fulfil.

LUKE 24:27   And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

Jesus fulfilled the conditions of the Passover Lamb.

Thus the Law unfolded into Grace.

EXODUS 12:3   Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house:

EXODUS 12:6   And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.

MATTHEW 12:40   For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Thus, if I believe then I actually obey the Law without even trying, because I have a Passover Lamb Who was chosen on the 10^th day and killed on the 14^th day and He spent 3 nights in the tomb. By believing in Jesus, I automatically line up with the Law thanks to His hard work, not mine.

My salvation was bought because Christ's Life fitted into the shadow or outline of the Law of Moses and Jonah. That Law will apply to all believers at all times. Every believer thus has a Passover Lamb Who takes away the sins of the world.

Go back to the first sin.

GENESIS 3:21  Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

You cannot get the skin off an animal without killing the animal. So, God killed innocent lambs and clothed Adam and Eve with their blood-stained skins. They each left Eden under the blood of a lamb which bought their salvation.

That was the Law forming the shadow or outline of God’s Plan.

My salvation was also bought by the Blood of the Lamb so that I could be clothed in His righteousness.

By believing in Christ as my Saviour, I obey the Law that Christ fulfilled by His sacrificial Blood-shedding works. I do not rely on any of my works. All I can do is repent and then walk under His Blood by faith to find forgiveness and direction.

Why did God choose to kill a lamb? Because God could have sheered all the wool off and made them woolen coats to cover their nakedness without having to shed any blood. So God deliberately chose to shed blood.

Sin began when the serpent, a beast or mammal, shed blood when he broke Eve’s virginity. Original sin was a subtle animal shedding blood. To atone for sin God thus required the shed blood of an innocent animal.

Salvation required repentance which produced a cross-over effect.

The guilt of the sinner flowed onto the sacrificed lamb while the innocence of the animal flowed onto the sinner.

But the life of the lamb could not flow into the sinner. The life of an animal cannot live inside a human. Thus, the sinner could not change and become better. That was the fundamental curse of the Law.

The sinner repented of his or her sin but could not lose the desire to sin.

Thus the sacrifices had to be continually offered.

PSALM 19:7   The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul:

The Law is the perfect shadow or outline that the Gospel of Grace had to fit into.

The Law itself has no faults nor mistakes. Every aspect of the Law in some way leads on to the Gospel of Grace.

The Moslem and Hindu faiths do not fit into the shadow of the Old Testament Law. Thus they cannot save us.

The Law has to be fulfilled in a deeper spiritual sense by Christ and His church.

MATTHEW 5:17   Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

That means that the Law has to unfold into a much deeper meaning that people are unaware of when they want to get rid of the Law.

The Law is like an ugly caterpillar that somehow unfolds into a beautiful butterfly of Grace.

But the butterfly is derived from the caterpillar that has been transformed.

The problem with the Law

But there was no mercy in the Law.
HEBREWS 10:28   He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:

The Law does not make better people.

HEBREWS 10:3   But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.

The fact that the sacrifices had to be repeated every year simply means that they were not effective in removing the desire to sin.

Keeping the Law cannot save us. We are not saved by works.

Good works are evidence of our faith but good works cannot save us from hell.
EPHESIANS 2:8    For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

:9  Not of works, lest any man should boast.

GALATIANS 3:10   For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.

The curse of the Law was that it never made people into better people when they did these works.

Another curse is that it was impossible for a person to keep every law, all the time. However many laws you kept, if you broke one law then you were in trouble. Law was like a chain with many links. If one link snapped, the whole chain broke.

GALATIANS 3:13   Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:

The biggest curse of the Law is that it told us what sin was but it never took away from us the desire to sin.

COLOSSIANS 2:14   Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;

Justice is when all laws are enforced.

People have to obey the Law. They have to do things even if they do not want to do those things.

Obeying the Law never made people into better people.

Keeping the Law did not stop people from having bad thoughts and wrong motives.

Keeping the Law did not stop their inner desires from wanting to break the Law.

And God judges us as guilty if we only think wrong even though we never do anything wrong.

JAMES 2:10   For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

Another curse of the Law is that you could keep almost all of it, but if you broke one rule, then you were condemned as if you had broken everything. The Law was like a chain that broke as soon as a single link snapped. The Law had no place for weakness or failure.

We all have our bad days where we fail.

But the biggest curse that counted against the Law-keepers is that it did not make them better believers in God.

Keeping the Law did not stop them from rejecting Messiah and unjustly crucifying Him.

In terms of making people into better believers, the Law was a failure.

What then was the problem with the Law?

The shadow has the correct outline (nothing wrong there) but the shadow totally lacks the reality.

The mistake of the Old Testament Law was that the people had to do the works.

And even when they did all the works of the Law, that did not make them better people.

Notice that nine Commandments were not works that people had to do.

Nine Commandments were works that they were told NOT to do.

Nine Commandments were simply negatives.

The fourth Commandment of the Sabbath was the only positive Commandment.

EXODUS 20:8   Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Here was a mystery.

They could only keep the Sabbath by doing no works.

Then the 4^th Commandment, the Sabbath, which modern-day churches are so anxious to get rid of tells the Jews not to do any works at all on the Sabbath day.

The germ of an idea was being sown. You cannot be saved by any works that you can do.

The Sabbath Rest is the awkward Commandment

This classic mistake of Christians is to try to get rid of the 10 Commandments.

This is very tricky territory. Keeping the Law cannot save us but equally, we cannot just discard all of the Law.

But this is an unhappy process because the last 6 Commandments make perfect sense, even to unsaved people. Do not kill, or lie, or steal, or defraud by covetousness. No adultery or dishonouring parents.

The first 3 Commandments are very sensible rules for any believer to obey. Believing in one God without making images of Him and not blaspheming His name are easy rules to follow for any religious person. They are common-sense rules.

The real aim of the “get rid of the law” churches is their zeal to get rid of the seventh day Sabbath that saw the Jews not working on Saturday.

They do not know what to do with the Saturday Sabbath so they want to scrap the Sabbath by scrapping the entire Old Testament Law, by claiming it only applies to the Jews.

But the law has to be magnified in the New Testament, not scrapped.

The Passover lamb became magnified when Christ was crucified on the cross as the Lamb of God.

The High Priesthood of the descendants of Aaron was replaced by one Man, Jesus Christ Who is the eternal High Priest. The Jewish High Priests offered the blood of animals to atone for sin. Jesus offered His own Blood to atone for sin. The blood of God.

Speaking to the elders of the city of Ephesus, Paul said:
ACTS 20:28   Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers,

to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.

What a magnification from the blood of animals to the blood of God.

Nothing was done away with. The idea of blood was magnified from animals to God.

So, the Sabbath Rest must also be magnified. Sabbath means Rest.

The Sabbath rest is magnified from a Saturday rest from work to the Holy Ghost baptism which makes us rest from our sinful works and unbelief.

Commandment 4.

EXODUS 20:8   Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

This is the problem Commandment because it was never repeated as such in the New Testament.

The church-goers simply do not understand the meaning of the Sabbath of rest.

Has this Commandment been scrapped? No. It must be magnified.

Real salvation involves a cross-over.

Christ died for us. Our guilt flows onto Him and His innocence crosses over to us.

We gain Christ’s innocence by virtue of His works on our behalf. We cannot do those works that He did in order to save us.

The curse of the Law and the handwriting of the ordinances that was against us was the requirement that we could keep or fulfill all the Law with our human works. The handwriting that is against us is that we cannot perfectly obey all the Law. And if we fail in one point, we fail in all points just like a chain that fails if only one link fails.

So, Jesus fulfilled the Law by His works. We did nothing other than believe in Him.

The handwriting of the ordinances was in His favour because it wrote down all the works that He had to establish and fulfill. When He fulfilled all the Law, then He was declared innocent and by Grace He gave us His innocence while accepting our sins in exchange.

Salvation had to be earned by the works of the Law. But only Christ could do those works on our behalf.

We could not do them.

The difference between Calvary and the Law was that Christ was a Man.

The Jews obtained the innocence of the dead lamb but the life of the innocent lamb could not enter a human and make a better person of him. The Jew could stop working on Saturday as a Sabbath or day of rest from work, but he could not stop sinning.

God did His creation works, rested on the seventh day, and never went back to His works again. The Jews could not do that. They had to go back to work again the next day.

How did Jesus magnify the Sabbath Rest?

On Calvary, our sin flowed onto Him and His innocence crossed over onto us.

But because He was a man, His Holy Spirit could flow into us as well.

This is the Holy Ghost baptism.

Notice how the cross is hidden in the heart when the human heart is divided into four chambers. The human heart becomes Christ's throne on earth when you repent and accept Him into your heart by faith. Then His Holy Spirit controls you.

He does not enforce His Laws on you.

His indwelling Spirit gives you a spontaneous enthusiasm and desire whereby you want to live according to His Laws. You also want to uncover the deeper mysteries of the King James Bible in order to know the Truth.

JOHN 16:13  Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth:

The presence of Christ's Spirit in your heart takes away from you any desire to sin and this makes you rest from your sinful works.

And then you never go back to your sinful works again.

HEBREWS 4:10   For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.

The real sin is unbelief in the Bible.

The Holy Ghost baptism teaches us the Bible and makes us believe every word that is written.

This is our most important Sabbath of Rest. We rest from unbelief and believe every word of Scripture.

God never worked, rested, and then went back to His creation works again.

The Holy Ghost baptism makes Christ in charge and He inspires us to cease from our sinful works and we never desire to go back to them again.

The Holy Ghost is the inner teacher Who enables us to understand the Bible truth when we read the Bible or when someone explains the Scriptures to us. Understanding the Scriptures ends our unbelief completely.

Sin is unbelief in the mind. Not believing the Word of God because Jesus is the Word.

JOHN 16:9   Of sin, because they believe not on me;

GENESIS 2:3   And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

The seventh day was not blessed because it was the seventh day. It was blessed because God rested.

So, the blessing lies in the rest, not in the day.

The word Sabbath means rest.

Jesus said:

MATTHEW 11:28   Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

JOHN 14:17   Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

Christ is the Spirit of truth Who dwelled with them and would return in them as the Holy Ghost baptism on the Day of Pentecost. On that day they spoke with other tongues.

ISAIAH 28:11   For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.

:12   To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest;

The indwelling Holy Spirit enabled them to understand the Scriptures. Thus they rested from their unbelief and never went back to their unbelief again.

Nine of the ten Commandments are not ordinances that are against us. They are ordinances that we need and want in a decent Christian society.

It is impossible for a human being to fulfill all the ordinances from the Old Testament prophecies and festivals and types.

The Law could not make us perfect because it gave us the shadow, not the reality.

Christ alone could fulfill the ordinances and then, having kept the Word,

He sent His Spirit to dwell in our hearts so that we would have His desire to believe the Word that He had fulfilled.

We then believe not because we have to but because we want to.

HEBREWS 7:18   For there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof.

:19   For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God.

Disannul the commandment. The Commandment concerning the Passover lamb as an animal that was killed was disannulled at Calvary. It had been fulfilled and magnified and would never be repeated again.

The actual Passover lamb never made anyone perfect.

But Christ was the perfect fulfillment of the Passover lamb.

By believing in what Christ did, we then have the perfect fulfillment of the Passover lamb.

HEBREWS 10:9   Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.

The physical Passover lamb was taken away at Calvary so that He could establish Himself as the Passover Lamb Who taketh away the sins of the world.

The Law is perfect but it needs to be fulfilled in all its details. We could never do all that.

But Christ perfectly fulfilled the Law and by His Presence magnified the Law.

ROMANS 12:2   And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Christ in us, the Holy Ghost baptism, renews our mind into the spiritual dimension. That way our minds are transformed to understand the deeper spiritual implications of Grace that evolved out of the outline or shadow of the Law.

The battleground is in the mind, in our beliefs, not in our works.

If we love God and we love man, then we will obey all the Commandments.

If we love God, He will dwell in our hearts as the 4th Commandment to make us rest from sin. Then the indwelling Spirit of God makes us love mankind.

MATTHEW 22:37   Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

:38   This is the first and great commandment.

:39   And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

:40   On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Love God and love man. That fulfills the Law.

JAMES 2:8   If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:

MATTHEW 7:12   Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

9 Commandments are repeated in the New Testament

Physically, the 10 Commandments of the Law can be divided up as the first 4 concerning God and the last 6 concerning mankind. If I covet what you have got then I want to take it from you and that defrauds you. You are entitled to what you have.

In the New Testament, Jesus repeats all 6 of the Commandments that apply to a person when interacting with another person or persons.

MARK 10:19   Thou knowest the commandments, (7) Do not commit adultery, (6) Do not kill, (8) Do not steal, (9)  Do not bear false witness, (10)  Defraud not,  (5)  Honour thy father and mother.

Commandment 10 says do not covet (or desire what belongs to another).

By using the word “defraud”, Jesus ends the 10 Commandments by giving them a deeper spiritual meaning to magnify the meaning of this Commandment.

We will consider this deeper spiritual meaning later.

ISAIAH 42:21   The LORD is well pleased for his righteousness' sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honourable.

The word “covet” is used by Paul in Romans 7:7.

ROMANS 7:7  What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

ROMANS 7:14   For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.

The Law has a deeper spiritual meaning. But as long as we remain in these carnal bodies we also need to obey the physical meaning of the Law too, as nine Commandments are repeated in the New Testament.

(1)  There is only one God. (2) Do not make graven images. (3) Do not take God’s name in vain or do not blaspheme God’s name as a swear word (5) Honour your parents. (6) Do not kill. (7) Do not commit adultery. (8) Do not steal. (9) Do not lie. (10) Do not covet or defraud.

The first three Commandments are also repeated in the New Testament.

The First Commandment.

God has to occupy first place in our hearts. There is only one God.

EXODUS 20:3   Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

MARK 12:29   And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:

Second Commandment, no images of God.

I JOHN 5:21   Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

HEBREWS 1:3   Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person,

People are not able to make an accurate image of God. Only God can make an image of Himself which is what He did when He dwelled in Christ.

COLOSSIANS 2:9   For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

Commandment 3 involves the name of God which is a mystery

But God the Father has got no name in the New Testament.

The Holy Ghost also has no name in the Bible.

“God the Holy Ghost” and “God the Son” are never written in the Bible.

To further complicate the issue, “God the Father” is never written in the Old Testament but is written in the New Testament.

So, the name of God is a big issue.

Christians do not know the name of the Trinity God because 3 People cannot have one name.

People say, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” but they cannot tell us what that name is. Thus, they search for the name of God in vain.

Sinners never blaspheme in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. But they do blaspheme in the name of Jesus Christ.

Commandment 3 says do not take God’s name in vain or do not blaspheme.

I TIMOTHY 1:20   Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.

Only Commandment 4 concerning the Sabbath of rest is not repeated in the New Testament.

Thus, it must have a much deeper spiritual magnification by becoming the Holy Ghost baptism which is a personal experience between an individual and Jesus.

Grace is the Truth emerging from the shadow of the Law

The Law stated what meat could and couldn't be eaten.

LEVITICUS 11:3   Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat.

Yet Paul allowed us to eat any meat.

I CORINTHIANS 10:27   If any of them that believe not bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed to go; whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no question for conscience sake.

So what is this telling us?

Meat represents sound doctrine on deep issues. Milk represents basic doctrines.

HEBREWS 5:12   For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.

So the Law warned us how to recognize a sound doctrine on a deep issue, for instance the Sabbath.

It must chew the cud. Chewing the cud is a very peaceful process. The cow grazes during the day then in the afternoon lies down and brings up round balls of grass which it then chews thoroughly before swallowing. It does not want to be disturbed during this process. It does not want to be pressured to speed up the process. The cow takes its own time.

LEVITICUS 11:3   Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat.

Clovenfoot. The hoof of the cow is split in half. When it walks in the dust the split hoof leaves a double imprint that represents both the New Testament and the Old Testament.

What does this mean spiritually?

When you encounter a deep doctrine you must be able to track it down in both the New and the Old Testaments. Proving a doctrine from one Testament only means it is false.

Those who try to confine the Sabbath day of Saturday rest just to the Jews and just to the Old Testament are wrong. It did apply as a rest day from work to the Jews in the Old Testament but it also applies as the rest from sin and unbelief in the New Testament as its spiritual meaning unfolds.

You must chew the cud. Think it over at your own pace as you follow the doctrine in the Law of the Old Testament and then see it unfold and magnify in the New Testament doctrine of Grace. And all the glory and focus must be on Jesus and what He did for us.

Nothing counts if we do the works.