Scripture reading: Leviticus 11:20-22
Let us look at Leviticus 11:20, “All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you.”
The analogy here is bringing to our notice the unnaturalness of a flying creature which cannot fly. This is the type of the Christian which should be spiritual, but is not. He cannot defy the law of gravity and rise above the earth, because of some defect in his nature. God says such a Christian is an abomination. In the category, we find all the carnal Christians who have a doctrine for their carnality, so that they say they are good and fine without any spiritual life. This includes those who say God is a spirit, yet they refuse to admit the infilling of the Holy Spirit, and deny the supernatural in their lives and behavior.
In verse 21, there is a qualification, and it would be good for us to take a note of this.
“Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth.”
Verse 22 names the locust, the bald locust, the beetle, the grasshopper after his kind.
These creeping, flying things show that there are those who are not able to stay aloft in God or in things of the Spirit, but we should not reject them, because these will be able to survive spiritually when they are absorbed into the body of Christ. The reference to the body of Christ is not a reference to a group or a church organization, but a body of people which have entered into Christ through death to self and death to sin, whom the Spirit of God has baptized into the body of Christ. This is NOT WATER BAPTISM, NOT THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST, but the immersion of the man into the mystical body of Christ, by the Holy Spirit.
All creeping things are a type of fleshly, carnal, unsaved man. Christians should not marry an unsaved person. Even in the different levels of Christianity, it is not the perfect will of God for marriages. We find that a sheep is a clean animal, but it does not have union with a cow, nor does the dove with the chicken. To have the perfect will of God, we must obey His orders in all things. Disobedient people will never know the right people to fellowship with, neither will they know the right doctrine, because you have to obey the will of the Father before you know the truth (John 7:16-17).
This does not mean that we cannot talk to sinners, and even love them, but it does mean that we are not to become one with them, but lead them unto Christ.
(Excerpt from The Pattern, pg. 103-104)
Thought for today: We are to talk to sinners, and even love them, however, we are not to become one with them, but lead them unto Christ.
