In recent months, the Holy Spirit has been vastly increasing my understanding of the correlation between the physical foreshadow of the clean vs unclean laws, and the spiritual real substance it foreshadowed—the physical Jews and physical Gentiles were a picture of the spiritual Jews and spiritual Gentiles.
Why does scripture tell us that light is to have no fellowship with darkness? It’s because Yah does not want His children to be in fellowship with His enemies, just as a soldier from one army should not fellowship with a soldier from an enemy army. It is not so much about the individual enemy soldier, but who commands him—where the enemy soldier’s citizenship and allegiance are. In other words, it’s because of whose soldier he is, and whose soldier Yah’s child is.
It is what was foreshadowed under the law by the commandments forbidding physical Jews from associating with physical Gentiles. The spiritual real substance of those commandments is that spiritual Jews (Messiah’s bride) are to keep themselves separated from spiritual Gentiles (the world). The two are to have no fellowship.
Just like an enemy soldier, it’s because of who the commander is of those who are the citizens of darkness—those who have not been adopted into the light. It’s not their physical bodies that cause the battle, but the power of darkness that owns them (the flesh, the world, and the devil ALWAYS work together), as explained in Ephesians 6:12. Those who have not been given the Holy Spirit have nothing but a flesh nature, and the flesh nature is what Yah’s children are told to deny.
Someone who has nothing but a flesh nature has nothing in common, eternally, with someone whose spirit has been resurrected by the Holy Spirit to newness of life. That’s why Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” The person who is given the Holy Spirit has been adopted into Yah’s family out of the darkness of the world, which is comprised of Satan’s children.
This is the basis for what Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:6-12 and 6:10-20. It is also what James warned in James 4:4, that friendship with the world puts one at enmity with Yah. The one who desires to be friends (fellowship) with those of the world makes himself Yah’s adversary. Why would a child choose to be an adversary of his Father?
Just as the animal sacrifice laws that governed the daily sacrifices that took place at the temple are a picture of Messiah’s bride sacrificing her flesh each day, the clean vs unclean laws were a picture of Messiah’s bride not entering into fellowship with those of the world, for light and darkness have no fellowship.
Herein is the mystery of Messiah: what was given to us in the Old Testament were physical foreshadows of future-revealed spiritual real substances revealed in Messiah.
The old covenant (ten commandments) mandated, by physical foreshadow, how Yah’s people are to live in relationship with Him (first four) and with others (final six). The ordinances of the law that were given to those who had the covenant (613 precepts) were essentially a picture of the Holy Spirit’s governance in the bride to sacrifice her flesh, and to remain separate from the world.
Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. Colossians 3:2
For more information: What Are the Old and New Covenants?