All this is perfectly wonderful; and surely, if we only realized it more fully, we should live a very different sort of life, and have a very different tale to tell. What a holy privilege--what a precious reality, to know that our loving Lord is about our path by day, and about our bed by night; that His eye rests upon us when we are dressing in the morning, when we sit down to our meals, when we go about our business, and in all our intercourse from morning till night! May the sense of this be a living and abiding power in the heart of every child of God on the face of the earth.
From verse 3 to 20, we have the law as to clean and unclean beasts, fishes, and fowls. The leading principles as to all these have already come under our notice in the eleventh chapter of Leviticus;[14] but there is a very important difference between the two scriptures. The instructions in Leviticus are given primarily to Moses and Aaron; in Deuteronomy, they are given directly to the people. This is perfectly characteristic of the two books. Leviticus may be specially termed, The priest's guide-book. In Deuteronomy, the priests are almost entirely in the back-ground, and the people are prominent. This is strikingly apparent all through the book, so that there is not the slightest foundation for the idea that Deuteronomy merely repeats Leviticus. Nothing can be further from the truth. Each book has its own peculiar province, its own design, its own work. The devout student sees and owns this with deep delight. Infidels are willfully blind, and can see nothing.
[14] As we have given in our "Notes on the Book of Leviticus," chapter xi., what we believe to be the scriptural import of verses 4-20 of our chapter, we must refer the reader to what is there advanced.
In verse 21 of our chapter, the marked distinction between the Israel of God and the stranger is strikingly presented.--"Ye shall not eat of any thing that dieth of itself; _thou shalt give it unto the stranger_ that is in thy gates, that _he may eat it_; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien; for thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God." The grand fact of Israel's relationship to Jehovah marked them off from all the nations under the sun. It was not that they were, in themselves, a whit better or holier than others; but Jehovah was holy, and they were His people. "Be ye holy, for I am holy."
Worldly people often think that Christians are very pharisaic in separating themselves from other people, and refusing to take part in the pleasures and amusements of the world; but they do not really understand the question. The fact is, for a Christian to participate in the vanities and follies of a sinful world would be, to use a typical phrase, like an Israelite eating that which had died of itself. The Christian, thank God, has gotten something better to feed upon than the poor dead things of this world. He has the Living Bread that came down from heaven--the true Manna; and not only so, but he eats of "the old corn of the land of Canaan," type of the risen and glorified Man in the heavens. Of these most precious things the poor unconverted worldling knows absolutely nothing, and hence he must feed upon what the world has to offer him. It is not a question of the right or the wrong of things looked at in themselves. No one could possibly have known aught about the wrong of eating of any thing that had died of itself if God's word had not settled it.
This is the all-important point for us. We cannot expect the world to see or feel with us as to matters of right and wrong. It is our business to look at things from a divine stand-point. Many things may be quite consistent for a worldly man to do which a Christian could not touch at all, simply because he is a Christian. The question which the true believer has to ask as to every thing which comes before him is simply, Can I do this to the glory of God? can I connect the name of Christ with it? If not, he must not touch it.
In a word, the Christian's standard and test for every thing is Christ. This makes it all so simple. Instead of asking, Is such a thing consistent with _our_ profession, _our_ principles, _our_ character, or _our_ reputation? we have to ask, Is it consistent with Christ? This makes all the difference. Whatever is unworthy of Christ is unworthy of a Christian. If this be thoroughly understood and laid hold of, it will furnish a great practical rule which may be applied to a thousand details. If the heart be true to Christ,--if we walk according to the instincts of the divine nature, as strengthened by the ministry of the Holy Ghost, and guided by the authority of holy Scripture, we shall not be much troubled with questions of right or wrong in our daily life.