Why did the Old Testament Law command against the eating of pork?

Never since the flood has man been commanded to be a vegetarian. After the flood Noah was told, “every moving thing that lives shall be food for you” (Gen. 9:3). Nothing at that time was forbidden, except the eating of blood, a matter that has not changed through the ages. However, under law, and under law only, God put strict limits on what animals, birds or water creatures were permitted to Israel to eat. These laws were never put upon Gentiles, but only on Israel. The reason for some being forbidden was simply because of a spiritual significance, not that there was evil in the creature itself. This is clearly seen in Acts 10:9-15 and Acts 10:28. In a vision the Lord told Peter to eat all kinds of animals. Peter objected, but the Lord insisted. Then he realized that the unclean animals were symbolical of people, that is, Gentiles, as Peter says in Acts 10:28, that God had shown him he should not call any man unclean. Before the cross, Israel was strictly separate from Gentiles because Gentiles were considered unclean to them, but the sacrifice of Christ cleanses all who trust Him as Savior, whether Jews or Gentiles, therefore God has removed the barrier between clean and unclean animals, so that “every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving” (1 Tim. 4:4).

Never since the flood has man been commanded to be a vegetarian. After the flood Noah was told, "every moving thing that lives shall be food for you" (Gen. 9:3). Nothing at that time was forbidden, except the eating of blood, a matter that has not changed through the ages. However, under law, and under law only, God put strict limits on what animals, birds or water creatures were permitted to Israel to eat. These laws were never put upon Gentiles, but only on Israel. The reason for some being forbidden was simply because of a spiritual significance, not that there was evil in the creature itself. This is clearly seen in Acts 10:9-15 and Acts 10:28. In a vision the Lord told Peter to eat all kinds of animals. Peter objected, but the Lord insisted. Then he realized that the unclean animals were symbolical of people, that is, Gentiles, as Peter says in Acts 10:28, that God had shown him he should not call any man unclean. Before the cross, Israel was strictly separate from Gentiles because Gentiles were considered unclean to them, but the sacrifice of Christ cleanses all who trust Him as Saviour, whether Jews or Gentiles, therefore God has removed the barrier between clean and unclean animals, so that "every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving" (1 Tim. 4:4).

Under law it is true that certain meats were forbidden to Israelites (Lev. 11); but not because the eating of those meats was in itself sinful. Rather, it was a symbolical lesson to Jews as to their maintaining a distinct separation from the Gentile nations, and impressing upon them the rigidity of the legal covenant. This is plainly indicated in Acts 10, when Peter was given a vision by God in which every type of animal was depicted in a vessel let down from heaven, and Peter was told to "Rise, slay, and eat." When he objected, God told him, "What God hath cleansed, that call thou not common." This was done three times to emphasize its importance (Acts 10:9-16). The dispensation of law was over: its regulations must not be carried into Christianity. The middle wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles had been broken down by means of the cross; and with it, of course, the regulations concerning the abstaining from meats were done away (Eph. 2:14, 15).

One other thing we may remark in connection with this chapter: these distinctions were not made in Noah's day — see Genesis 9:2-3. This fact, we believe, lies behind Paul's statement, "there is nothing unclean of itself" (Rom. 14:14); and again, "all things are lawful for me" (1 Cor. 10:23). In Noah's day all men were in view. In Moses' day Israel only was in question, and these special laws were intended to impress them with the holiness of God, on the one hand, and to help to keep them distinct and separate from the nations, on the other. The first council in Jerusalem recognized this distinction, as we see in Acts 15:19-21.

Chapter 14 forbids that the people, as being the children of the living God, should imitate the profane customs which indicated the devotedness of idolaters to the impure beings they worshipped. God had chosen Israel for Himself. Neither were they to defile themselves by eating abominable things. They were a holy people. The tithes and all the firstfruits were to be offered to God.

The eleventh chapter consists in commandments concerning clean and unclean animals. In chapter 20:24-26, the reason for this distinction is given. "But I have said unto you: Ye shall inherit the land and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey; I am the LORD your God, which have separated you from other people. Ye shall therefore put a difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean; and you shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean. And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the LORD am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine."

All those beasts were unclean which do not both chew the cud and divide the hoof (see also Deut. 14)--those fishes were unclean which have not both fins and scales--and those birds were unclean which are known as birds of prey, as well as insects (with the exception of certain locusts) and flying mammalia. The subject before us deserves a far deeper and more extended study than we can give it here. We are obliged to confine ourselves to but a few hints. We need not to devote much space to the wisdom revealed in these laws. As God is the author of them they must necessarily reveal His wisdom. It is interesting that all civilized races abstain from the use of the greater part of the animals, which this code prohibits. With the exception of a number of forbidden animals, civilized nations partake of only such which these laws permit. And those which are commonly eaten, such as the oysters, the hog and others, prohibited in this code, science has shown to be more or less responsible for certain diseases and therefore dangerous as a food. The discoveries made by science fully demonstrate the wisdom of these distinctions between the different animals. These laws in their literal meaning are, of course, no longer binding; the religious observance of them was not a permanent thing, and is done away with in the New Testament. The church has no such laws distinguishing between the clean and unclean animals. The clean typify the Jew and the unclean the Gentile. Peter's vision on the housetop of Joppa warrants this interpretation (Acts 10). The clean, the Jews, and the unclean, Gentiles, are, in believing, gathered into the one body. Read Colossians 2:16-17, where the fact is stated that Leviticus 11 is no longer in force. (While these laws have no longer a religious significance, it is wise to follow them as much as possible. Orthodox Jews who hold strictly to these dietary laws and keep them are far more free from certain diseases than Gentile races, which ignore these laws. It has also been shown by statistics that the mean duration of Jewish life averages much higher than that of others.)

The second reference is in Lev. 20:25. This is separation in view of purity or holiness. In this case, as will be noticed, it was not a matter of one nation being separated from other outside nations. It was rather a moral education for those who were already in that path of outward separation from the world. In the land of Canaan, where God was so wonderfully known, it was still necessary that God's people should be a people of exercised consciences and minds, and especially in relation to the character of God and the associations which were compatible with that character. Hence the remarkable chapters in Leviticus which form the centre portion of the book, i.e., from Lev. 11 to Lev. 17. Our verse tells us, "Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean; and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast or by fowl or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean." This is a serious part of our spiritual education. No one could think of a camel, a coney, a hare, or a pig, as being creatures morally wrong. The same could be said of fishes, fowl, or creeping things, prohibited by divine law as food for the Israelite (chap. 11). But for certain wise reasons, one of which was their typical application for our learning (Rom. 15:4), Jehovah separated from His Israel certain creatures as unclean, and also added certain natural functions as bringing about conditions in which communion with Himself was interrupted. There is no gainsaying this. The animals referred to were His creation, each perfect in its own way and form, yet for Israel they were set aside as unclean. We may or may not see why: the fact is there. The Apostle Paul in the light of Christianity says, "I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself " (Rom. 14:14), i.e., that even the animals spoken of and prohibited under the law were not inherently unclean, not essentially so; but for wise and, as we see, typical reasons, were forbidden. God had His people's moral education in view in forbidding either contact or assimilation.

The first 21 verses of Deuteronomy 14 stress the fact that Israel as a nation were a people specially set apart to God, and therefore to avoid certain common practices on the one hand, and to be very careful as to what they ate on the other. The avoidance of the things prohibited would doubtless be for their physical good, and help to mark them off from other peoples. Many centuries later, when in Christian circles those from among the Gentiles soon outnumbered those from the Jews, these restrictions gave rise to the "doubtful disputations," of which Romans 14 speaks. In that chapter the Spirit of God does not legislate but leaves every man to be persuaded in his own mind what he should do. We may profitably transfer the thought to what we may mentally read and inwardly digest. Let us take care that we do not feed mentally on what is impure.

As to Israel, almost the whole natural realm — the earth, the air, the sea — was at their disposal for food, but there were certain restrictions. The forbidden things were in general things unwholesome or unsafe for that climate: that is natural and very obvious. But all these things were given to them for ensamples and are typical in many ways. For instance, taking them as types of natures or characters, to be clean an animal required the foot divided — that is, the principle of separation in the "walk" or general conduct, for there is evil in the earth, the foot must not sink into it. But this. feature by itself a swine may have, and this principle without the chewing of the cud only produces the ascetic or pharisee — a hard, rigid, uncomfortable, God-forsaken, religiousness, whose highest reach of piety consists in, "God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men." On the other! hand, the camel or hare, which chews the cud but does not divide the hoof, is equally to be rejected, though perhaps it is not entirely so objectionable_ This indicates a nature that eats spiritual food — that which is unseen is spiritual — and food that has been dead but is now alive again in resurrection (i.e., grass or grain, whereas the carnivora only feed on what is dead), but at the same time a nature which has no principle of stability and separation in its walk.

Now there is perhaps nothing that has so much effect for good or bad on human beings as what they consume for the nourishment of the body, and appropriate for the nourishment of the soul. A foul-eating people will be in most ways physically foul, and a foul-thinking man will be in most ways spiritually unclean. Consequently all that the Jews took into the body by eating, must be cleanly, and all that the Christian takes into the soul should be pure. Some think it strange that the Hebrews' God should concern Himself about the details of their diet. It would be still stranger if He did not; if He allowed those whom He called His peculiar people to eat such loathsome food as was then common, or even such as so civilised a people as the Chinese now esteem delicacies, rats, birds' nests, dogs, and lizards; whilst others eat infinitely worse.