Is Eating Bacon a Sin?

Revealed Apologetics

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Thanks, and I appreciate the support. Now, this video, I'm going to cover a super, super interesting topic, okay?

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Here's the question. Does the Bible really declare, thou shalt not eat bacon?

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Well, kinda, sorta, and no, so stick around for a few moments here to find out the reasons why.

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Does the Bible condemn bacon? This sounds kind of like an odd question to ask, but actually, it touches on a very important issue, and that is, what is the relationship between the laws of the

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Old Testament and the New Testament in light of what Jesus Christ has accomplished through his life, death, burial, and resurrection?

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When you read the Old Testament, particularly those portions which speak of the various laws that God gave to his covenant people,

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Israel, what you'll find is a mix of both clear and understandable regulations of moral behavior and odd and seemingly out -of -place laws that don't make much sense.

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My favorite example of one of those odd laws is found in Exodus 23, verse 19, which says,

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You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk. Now, it never crossed my mind to do such a thing, so, but that's what it says, alright?

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But this is important, remember, all Scripture is inspired by God, as 2 Timothy 3 .16

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teaches us, and it's our job as believers to consider what all of God's Word has to say about any given topic.

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So what does the Bible have to say about bacon? Well, let us take a look at Leviticus chapter 11, verses 1 through 8, bear with me here.

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The Lord spoke again to Moses and to Aaron, saying to them, Speak to the sons of Israel, saying,

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These are the creatures which you may eat from all the animals that are on the earth, whatever divides the hoof, thus making split hooves and chews the cud, among the animals that you may eat.

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Nevertheless, you are not to eat of these animals among those which chew the cud, or among those which divide the hoof.

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The camel, for though it chews the cud, it does not divide the hoof. It is unclean to you.

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Likewise, the chiffon, for though it chews the cud, it does not divide the hoof. It is unclean for you.

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The rabbit also, for though it chews the cud, it does not divide the hoof. It is unclean to you.

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And check this out, and the pig, for though it divides the hoof, thus making a split hoof, it does not chew the cud.

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It is unclean to you. You shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their carcasses, they are unclean to you.

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So there you have it, right? There in the Bible it is forbidden not only to eat pig, and by extension bacon, since bacon comes from a pig, but the

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Bible forbids even touching its carcass. So what's the deal here? Well, why is it that on the one hand the

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Bible seems to forbid the eating of pork, yet on the other hand, Christians go around eating bacon and touching pigskin footballs and all the rest?

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Well, to answer this question, we need to take a closer look into some background issues. Did you know that in the

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Old Testament there are around 613 laws that the Jews had to follow? And that's a lot of laws.

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Typically, these laws have been broken up into three categories. The civil law, the ceremonial law, and the moral law.

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Simply put, the civil law in the Old Testament dealt with issues like what to do if your neighbor's cattle happened to come into your property, or what to do with murderers and criminals, or what is the proper protocol in time of war.

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The civil law dealt a lot with how to deal with disputes between individuals, but these laws expired along with the

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Jewish civil governmental structure that's no longer in place in the same way that it was in the Old Testament.

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The ceremonial law dealt primarily with the priesthood of the Old Testament. What did it take for someone to be a priest?

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What were some of the specific procedures for conducting priestly duties? These laws also dealt with the ins and the outs of the

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Old Testament sacrificial system, and for the purposes of this video, they also dealt with Israel's food laws, which related to the foods that people were and were not allowed to eat.

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However, we learn that in light of what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross, all of what these ceremonial laws represented were shadows and pointers that find their fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

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Now, it is because Jesus is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, we no longer follow the ceremonial law of sacrificing animals.

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Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice. With respect to Israel's food laws, the reason for that was to highlight differences between that which was clean and that which was unclean.

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It highlighted Israel's separateness from the rest of the world as God's covenant people. However, in light of Christ's work on the cross, both clean and that which was previously seen as unclean, the

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Gentiles, the non -Jews, were invited into fellowship with Israel's God. In fact, the

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New Testament itself, in light of this, declares all food to be clean. So, for us who live in light of the

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New Testament and in light of what Christ has accomplished, we are all good to go with the bacon. It's not prohibited.

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Lastly, there is the moral law. Now, these laws are still binding in that, unlike the other categories of the laws that I've just mentioned, the ceremonial and the civil, the moral law is based upon God's own unchanging character.

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For instance, in the Old Testament, it was a violation of God's law to bear false witness, to lie.

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Yet, in the New Testament, it's still wrong for us to lie. So, you see an obvious continuation there between the

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Old and the New Testament application. Lastly, it should be said, however, that while we still want to follow the moral law, this is an important point, we don't follow it for salvation.

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Because the Bible is clear that no man is justified by following the law, Galatians 2 .16. We are saved and made right before God by faith in Jesus Christ, who paid our sin debt on the cross.

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Well, there you have it. I hope that clears things up a bit. If you found this video helpful, please share it, and if you haven't already, please subscribe to the