Mike & IWWB team, Hey, I just wanted to say thank you for the tremendous work you guys are doing with IWWB. com. I was curious if part of Isaiahg 66 was addressed on the site, specifically v.17-21. I attempted to use the Google search but couldn’t find anything. Thanks for your time. God’s Peace. J____

Hi J____,
Thank you for your question.
You ask about Isa 66: 17-21. Here are those verses:

Isa 66:17  They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens behind one [ tree] in the midst, eating swine’s flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the LORD.
Isa 66:18  For I [ know] their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory.
Isa 66:19  And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, [ to] Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, [ to] Tubal, and Javan, [ to] the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles.
Isa 66:20  And they shall bring all your brethren [ for] an offering unto the LORD out of all nations upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the LORD, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the LORD.
Isa 66:21  And I will also take of them for priests [ and] for Levites, saith the LORD.

Despite what you may have been taught, there is no scripture which calls the laws regarding clean and unclean meats ‘dietary laws.’ Those laws, as all of the Old Testament, are types and shadows of spiritual realities which we receive in the New Testament. Every word of this prophecy is understood only when it is understood spiritually. “Swine’s flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, all have to do with “their works and their thoughts. They have nothing at all to do with physical swine or physical mice. “The Gentiles, your brethren, Jerusalem, My holy mountain, a clean vessel and priests and Levites, are one and all spiritual and must be seen and understood accordingly.
Swine’s flesh and the mouse represent false doctrines in the same sense that entering into the Sabbath represents entering into Christ and His New Testament doctrines. But we are no longer under the law which “was added that the offense might abound.”

Gal 3:19  Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.

Clean and unclean meats were known to Adam, Cain, Abel and Noah. and not one of those people even ate meat until after the flood when God told Noah this:

Gen 9:3  Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

It has been pointed out that this verse says “even as the green herb,” and it is true that we do not eat every green herb, but the plants to be eaten were never codified other than to say:

Gen 1:29  And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
Gen 1:30  And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

Both man and beast were herbivores before the flood of Noah. All dinosaurs were herbivores before the flood according to these verses.
Yet Noah was told to take seven each of the clean and two each of the unclean, animals onto the ark. So clean and unclean had nothing at all to do with Noah’s diet. The laws of the offerings have to do with spiritual types and shadows of the doctrines of God as opposed to the unclean meats of the swine and the mouse, of the doctrines of Babylon. It is the doctrines we treasure in our hearts which defile us and not what goes into our mouths.

Mat 15:11  Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.
Heb 10:1  For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. 

Clean and unclean meats typify clean and unclean doctrines. Unclean meats are shadows of, and typify what Paul calls “strong delusion.” The truths of God’s Word are what He calls “strong meat.”

2Th 2:11  And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
2Th 2:12  That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Heb 5:14  But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

I hope this helps you to see that the holy spirit teaches us “comparing spiritual things [ swine and mouse], to spiritual.” It does not teach us anything when we think we are being spiritually defiled by physical swine and physical mice. Those who cannot see the spirit in God’s word, consider that spirit to be foolishness.

1Co 2:13  Which things [ spiritual things freely given us of God] also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
1Co 2:14  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike