Leviticus 11:7

The inward life and the outward walk must go together. A man may claim to love the Word of God and feed on it — to study it and think it over, the pasture of the soul. But if his footprints along the path of life are not what the Word calls for, he is not clean. On the other hand, a man may seem to walk with the blamelessness of a Pharisee. But if his walk does not come out of the hidden life, it is worse than worthless.

We have been told that animals that chew the cud have two stomachs. When they eat, the food goes into the first stomach. After a time, by some process, it comes back up to the animal's mouth, and the animal chews it a second time with care. Then it goes down into the second stomach, and the animal absorbs it. Chewing the cud stands for full assimilation... if we are to please the Lord we must not only read the Word of God. We must meditate on it, make it our own, absorb it, take it into our spiritual beings.

The swine did not chew the cud. It gulped its food down, though it had cloven hoofs and feet quite split open. It was to be unclean to them. They must neither eat the flesh nor touch the carcass.

The last animal here is very different from the rest, and the very type of uncleanness. The swine made no pretence of chewing the cud, but it had the cloven foot. If you looked only at that, the swine would seem clean. It pictures people who openly slight faith and the Word of God and plead their good conduct instead: "He can't be wrong whose life is in the right." In fact the life is not right. The swine loves the mud and roots up the ground; it is a destroyer by nature. God does not judge as man judges, but His judgment alone is true.

There are some who make a loud case for works. They argue for an upright, conscientious walk. Their constant cry is, "Give and do."... They are something like the clean animal in one point: they have a divided hoof and leave a certain track in the walk. Yet they are as unclean as the swine, because they do not chew the cud. They ignore the testimony of God about man's utter ruin as a sinner, and about eternal redemption accomplished by Christ Jesus for all who believe in His name — the foundation of all true Christianity.

Some people seem able to walk in the right way. They concentrate on moral uprightness, yet have no heart for learning the Word of God, and so never meditate on the person of Christ who sits at the right hand of God. They may have feet that could carry them through the mud of the world. But instead, though they may even be washed (not saved, but cleaned up on the outside), they prefer to return to wallowing in the mud (2 Peter 2:22). The believer is warned not to have any fellowship with such people.

So it is as pointless to rest on inward meditation alone as on outward self-denial alone. By itself either one is only self, an empty boast in the flesh, in total ignorance of both God and man. But His grace meets man — unclean, wilful and proud — in and by His own Son. That Man without sin came to die for him and to suffer for his sins. In resurrection a new condition begins. There He gives those who believe to live by His life and to receive the Spirit of God, so that we may walk accordingly.