2ndBook Clean Animals
God's name Elohim אלהים means 'God אל separated from man ים by ignorance ה.
Everything God has made and done is to teach us about himself.
All of creation is like 'visual aids' to the teaching of God. Looking at a stone or a picture of a stone while the teacher is teaching does not tell us much.
But the word 'stone' in Hebrew is aben אבן. We learn from what God says about the stone. We learn from his word.
stone aben 𝆑- father ab אב and son ben בן.
We learn that Christ is the stone which the builders rejected. [1] We see the stone in the OT as the visual aid.
When the rock was split by Moses's rod, it was a prophetic riddle of the cross when the Father and Son were separated. [2]
The visual aids help to identify the patterns of prophetic riddle. God doesn’t say things just once. He repeats his prophecies many times so that we do not miss it or misidentify it.
If God said something once, we My not recognize it as being from God. Gideon asked God to repeat himself so that he was sure he was hearing from God and not some other spirit. [3] [4] It does not offend God for you to ask for verification that it is God whom you hear.
God also repeats himself because he knows we must hear something several times and in different ways before we understand. Words have many meanings and are easily misunderstood. People think they know the meaning of "To get to the other side". They think the chicken crossed a literal road in order to change his location. But if I say it a different way, you finally understand: "He wanted to die and go to heaven." Now you know the riddle is asked when you see the carcass of a chicken in the road. "The other side" is a euphemism for death.
It is not the animals in the following pages that we should learn from, but from what God says about the animals. The law is written in prophetic riddle. All the clean animals teach something about the character of Christ. All the unclean animals teach of the sin that Christ took to the cross.
- ↑ ▸ ± Mt 21:42 Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?
- ↑ ▸ ± Ex 17:6 Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.
- ↑ ▸ ± Jud 6:37 Behold, I will put a fleece of wool in the floor; [and] if the dew be on the fleece only, and [it be] dry upon all the earth [beside], then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said.
- ↑ ▸ ± 1Jo 4:1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
