Deuteronomy 22:9–11

Firmly, but wisely, God impressed His order on them and forbade the mixing of different kinds. He is a faithful Creator, and He gave each creature its own species. So, just as it was sin to separate what He joined, it was no less a sin to join what He separated. Their cattle had to breed with their own kind. They were not to sow their field with different kinds of seed. And the Israelite was not to wear a garment woven from two materials. For the Christian these words matter greatly. It was Satan who sowed weeds among the wheat, and the Spirit warns against every mismatched partnership (2 Corinthians 6). There must be no unequal yoking with unbelievers, no touching what is unclean, no compromise of the truth by mixed principles. In the matters of this life compromise is kind and right; but where God's will is at stake, it is a trick of the devil.

Deuteronomy 22 encourages gracious and even delicate feeling, forbids mixture of principle, punishes impurity, and protects the weak and innocent against brutality.

Mixed seeds were forbidden. We find a spiritual lesson here. There are two seeds, the good and the bad. The good seed stands for the truth. It must not be mixed with error. The truth must be kept unmixed. The opposite is being done today as never before in the history of Christendom.

We fear there is a terrible amount of "mingled seed" in the so-called spiritual farming of our day. How much "philosophy and empty deceit" we find mixed into the teaching and preaching across the professing church! How much of what is "falsely called 'knowledge'"! How much of "the elemental spirits of the world"! And how little of the pure, unmixed seed of the word of God! How little of the "imperishable seed" of the precious gospel of Christ is sown across the field of Christendom today!

So let all true and faithful ministers of Christ take to heart the principle set out in Deuteronomy 22:9. Let all true workers in His vineyard do the same. Let them refuse, with unflinching decision, to use "different kinds of seed" in their spiritual farming. Let them keep their ministry to "the pattern of the sound words." Let them always seek to rightly handle the word of truth. Then they will not be ashamed of their work. They will receive a full reward on the day when God tests every man's work to see what sort it is. We may be sure that the word of God — the pure seed — is the only proper material for the spiritual workman to use. We do not despise learning; far from it, we think it most valuable in its right place.

The three laws that follow resemble each other as much as they differ from what goes before. They all forbid mixture, so they belong together here. The meaning of the unequal yoke is given plainly in 2 Corinthians 6:14. Christ's yoke cannot be carried by the unclean — the unbeliever — and for the believer there is no other. The garment of wool and linen speaks in the same way of mixed habits. The sowing of seed stands for the need to keep the truth unmixed. Failure in these points is a real robbery, not only of God but of our neighbour. We owe it to Christians and to the men of the world alike to keep our Christian life and testimony simple and single-hearted.

The Old Testament warns against wearing a garment made of linen and wool. It warns against sowing a field with mixed seed. It warns against harnessing an ox and a donkey together. The New Testament shows how foolish it is to patch an old garment with a piece of new cloth, or to put new wine into old wineskins. The seed of the kingdom must not be mixed with the seed of the enemy… In other words, SEPARATION is the keynote of divine life in every age.

The three laws which follow resemble one another as much as they differ from what goes before. As prohibitions of mixture they come naturally under the first heading here. The interpretation of the "unequal yoke" is plainly given in 2 Corinthians 6:14. The unclean — the unbeliever — cannot bear Christ's yoke, and for the believer there is no other. The garment of wool and linen speaks in the same way of mixed habits. The sowing of seed stands for the need to keep the truth unmixed.

Verse 14 contains an allusion to Deuteronomy 22:10. The word itself means "diversely yoked." Of course, if you put together two animals of different nature and form, such as the ox and the donkey, the yoke would prove to be unequal. Any yoking together of the believer and the unbeliever must be unequal, because they differ in their very nature and character. The one is born of God, a child of light. The other is still in the Adamic nature, a child of darkness.

The ox and the donkey are not merely creatures of different habits, but of different natures. To have them in the same field may be all right, but to yoke them together is to subject them to an unnatural strain... They exist side by side in the same world. But there is to be no yoking together, for the church is completely distinct from the world.

Of course we move among unbelievers. We have much contact with them in our daily work, and often even at home. We are to behave with the utmost grace and to let our light shine before them. But we are not to be yoked with them.

The Israelite was not to plough with an ox and a donkey together. He was not to wear a garment of mixed sorts either, of wool and linen. The spiritual application of both these things is as simple as it is important. The Christian is not to link himself with an unbeliever for any purpose at all — at home, in religion, in charity work, or in business. And he must not let mixed principles govern him.

A believer may yoke himself with an unbeliever by a business partnership. Before he is finished with it, he may suffer much spiritual loss, and the Lord's Name may be dishonoured. He has to share responsibility for the evil things his unconverted partner does. But at least he can get out of it in time, even at financial loss to himself. Marriage he cannot get out of except by death — his own or his partner's.

There are yokes which, though unequal, we cannot escape from. If we can get out without doing another person an injustice, then of course we are bound to do so, when the work we have yoked ourselves to is itself evil. If I have married an unbeliever, the oath of the Lord forbids me to withdraw from it. In the same way there may be business ties which, once I have entered them, plain righteousness forbids me to leave.

Firmly, but in wisdom, God pressed His order on them and forbade the mixing of different kinds. He is a faithful Creator, and He gave each creature its own species. So it was sin to separate what He joined, and no less a sin to join what He separated. Their cattle must breed according to their own kind. They must not sow their field with two kinds of seed. No Israelite was to wear a garment woven from two materials... In the ordinary matters of life, compromise is kind and right. But where God's will is in question, it is a trick of the devil.

The law forbade wearing a garment made of linen and wool. It was an unnatural mixture. It pictures the Spirit and the flesh at work in a Christian.

And what did the priest get? The skin of the burnt offering — which represents what Christ is to me — my covering. "He has made us accepted in the Beloved" (an older wording of Ephesians 1:6). I am not to mix one thread of my own righteousness into that. The woollen garment must be unmixed. Now read Revelation 19:8: "the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints." It is a robe of fine linen. That means a holy life, and we are responsible for it. Don't get fine linen threads mixed with woollen.

The Israelite was not to plough with an ox and a donkey together. He was not to wear a garment of two sorts, wool and linen. The spiritual application of both these things is as simple as it is important. The Christian is not to link himself with an unbeliever for any purpose at all — at home, in religion, in charity, or in business. He must not let mixed principles rule him either.

The New Testament tells us the folly of patching an old garment with a piece of new cloth, or of putting new wine into old wineskins... In other words, SEPARATION is the keynote of divine life in every age.

There is a soiled garment which is, at the same time, not a mixed garment — a garment of two sorts, of wool and linen. Our way under the Spirit is to keep our garments undefiled... But still, a soiled garment is not a mixed garment. And a garment with an odd thread of another sort here and there is not the same as one whose texture is woven on that very principle of wool and linen.

The garment Obadiah wore in those days cannot be mistaken. You can see the two sorts, wool and linen, in it from head to foot. His life was of that texture. He did not merely give way at times, or stain his way at times. His whole life shows a man of mixed principles. He was a godly man, but his ways did not match the energy of the Spirit in that day. He cared about the sufferings of the prophets, hiding them in caves from the persecution and feeding them there. But all that time he was the adviser, the companion and the minister of king Ahab, in whose kingdom the evil went on.

The Spirit of God will never have the saint in wool and linen, whatever the pressure may be. But at the same time He would have the pure garment girded. An ungirded garment, though pure, is not according to His mind... and this is our deep rebuke — a pure position kept with little spiritual grace.