The Mosaic dispensation was legal, ceremonial and typical. "The law
having a shadow of the good things to come," says the author of the
Hebrews. But a shadow always points to a substance; and so far as
holiness is commanded, and so far as it is shadowed forth in the
ceremonial law, we shall find that there is a corresponding substance
and reality in the gospel of Christ.
In the first place, if we study carefully the provisions of the Mosaic
law, we shall be struck with the many forms of ceremonial uncleanness
described therein, and with the "divers washings," not only of the
"hands oft," but of the whole body, and of "cups and pots, brazen
vessels and of tables." All these point to the fact that God will have
a clean people, and a clean people is a holy people. The same thing is
vividly exhibited in the distinction between clean and unclean animals,
the one kind to be used as food, and the other to be disused. Of land
animals, only such as both chew the end and divide the hoof, might then
be eaten.
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