Under the Levitical law there were four types of animals specifically pointed out as clean or unclean, those that:
1. Chewed the cud and divided the hoof.
2. Chewed the cud, but did not divide the hoof.
3. Divided the hoof, but did not chew the cud.
4. Neither chewed the cud nor divided the hoof.
The first class was clean and fit for food. The three following classes were unclean and unfit for food.
Every part of the Bible is inspired, and these instructions not only had a real and literal meaning to the children of Israel at the time of a hygienic nature—in a hot country these laws are of importance—but there is, we believe, a typical meaning to these injunctions. To find out what that meaning is, is to discover the spiritual meaning of them as applied to ourselves, and we are persuaded this is of the utmost importance. To allow no part of God’s Word to remain a dead letter is to find out the wonderful meaning of truth in all its parts, and its practical application to ourselves.
It is a singular thing that in nature there are animals which chew the cud and divide the hoof, others who do one of these things, and others again who do neither the one nor the other. Evidently God in creating these animals had in His mind a great and necessary lesson to teach us all.
The two passages that refer to this matter are Leviticus 11:1-8, and Deuteronomy 14:3-8.
We have been told that animals that chew the cud have two stomachs, that on eating the food goes into the first stomach, and then by some process it returns after a time to the animal’s mouth and is submitted to a second and careful mastication, finally descending into the second stomach, and is assimilated by the animal. Chewing the cud stands for full assimilation.
We believe there is a lesson to be learned here, that if we are to be pleasing to the Lord we must not only read the Word of God, but meditate upon it, make it our own, assimilate it, take it into our spiritual beings. These are days when Christians do not study their Bibles as they once did, and a general slackening of Christian character is the result.
What is the typical meaning of parting the hoof? We believe it sets forth separation in walk from the world.
An indication of this is seen in the manner in which the Holy Spirit of God descended upon the believers on the day of Pentecost. We read, “There appeared to them cloven tongues as of fire, and it sat upon each of them” (Acts 11:3).
In the early days of the Church there was no difficulty about this separation from the world, for the persecution that the world meted out to the Christian made the line of demarcation between them and the world very distinct. Now it is otherwise. The enemy is trying to blot out that distinct line of demarcation. His first move was to bring mere professors into the kingdom of God, tares so like the wheat that it was difficult to distinguish the one from the other.
Without being puritanical, as people say, there should be the separation between the world and the Christian as seen in the Christian’s whole deportment and ways.
Now where there is the true Christian, drinking in and assimilating the Word of God, accompanied by putting that Word into practice, so that the line of demarcation between the Christian and the world as maintained, we have what answers to the clean animal, that chews the cud and parts the hoof.
What is signified by the animal that chewed the cud, but did not divide the hoof? Are there not those who are true Christians, those who have assimilated the word of God and made it their own, at any rate to the length of receiving Christ as their Saviour, and yet who are so worldly that it is difficult to know whether they are really the Lord’s or not?
It is very sad when it is so. Should these lines reach the eye of any such, may they be used to stirring up their consciences in the matter. Surely the love of Christ should constrain us to a different path to this. The constraining love of Christ should be so great that “they should not henceforth live to themselves but UNTO HIM, who died for them and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:15).
It may be that these lines will reach the eye of one who is in danger of drifting into this world-bordering state of affairs that is so dishonouring to the Lord, resulting in loss in the Christian life.
May the love of Christ be a reality to all of us, may we realize that we owe our all to Him, and that the fashion of this world is passing away. We may gratify the flesh and our own carnal desires for a little, but how soon that sort of thing comes to an end, whilst to live for the Lord and eternity will have enduring results.
What is signified by the animal that parted the hoof but did not chew the cud? Are there not men in this world that are so upright in all their ways, so affectionate in all their relationships of life, nay, even so punctilious in their attendance to religious observances that it is difficult to know whether they are Christians or not? All this goes to show that only faith in the Lord Jesus, only a vital knowledge by faith in what the Scriptures reveal, avails for blessing.
It is sad to know of Christians approximating to the world to such an extent that one cannot be sure that they are Christians, whereas there may be unregenerate men, so careful of their ways and so full of religiousness, that many may esteem them Christians when they are not.
As to the animal that neither chews the cud nor parts the hoof, the moral is plain. It stands for the utter man of the world, the man who makes no pretence of paying even an outward respect to the Word of God, one who has not got the slightest regard for the ways of God, but who simply gratifies the desires of his unregenerate mind.