Lambs and Pigs

For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. Mosiah 3: 19

Studying the contrasting natures of the pig and the lamb can be very instructive.

A lamb is very easy to kill. One account I read concerned a butcher who had been asked to slaughter a family’s Passover lamb. The butcher anticipated a routine experience, as he had slaughtered many animals. He related how after slitting the small creature’s throat, the little lamb turned and licked the blood off of the butcher’s hands. This hardened butcher deeply moved and forever changed. In many respects, the lamb is a lot like Jesus. He steadfastly set His face to go to His Jerusalem to die there. He willingly sacrificed His life for us and for our sins. He endured the cross – despising the shame.

Pigs are not like that at all! Compared to the pig – the lamb is almost suicidal – it yields very easily to the blade and its blood is drained with little fuss. Here’s what one writer says about observing the death of a pig.

...As minimal as the apparatus of intelligence is in the pig, the principle of survival is unbelievably tenacious. It took four men to get that animal down, and each able-bodied man was hanging onto a leg as that stubborn thing jerked. It wasn’t at all like a lamb; it was definitely NOT going to lay down its life. Somebody had his foot on its head and neck, and that fat thing was still squirming and jerking. At that point, one of the men looked at me, handed me the knife, and said, “Would you like to —?” There was a sudden and intense repulsion in my soul that took me by surprise. This shrinking back sprang from a strange kind of identification with that animal, down on its face, squealing and writhing and fighting for its life.

The perception was clear and frightening: I saw too much of myself in that animal. I passed the knife to someone who was experienced at this sort of thing, and he knew exactly where to put it. Later, when we had that animal taken apart, all the entrails removed, he took out the heart and showed it to me. The knife had gone right into it, slitting it deeply, and yet the animal did not die immediately. It squealed and made a ruckus and writhed and contorted until practically the last drop of blood was out of its body. I never saw anything DIE so hard as that stubborn, filthy pig, squealing to the end.

(http://www.zeuter.com/~accc/sermons/east2spenc.htm)


The pig is a good type for the natural man.

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. 1 Cor. 2: 14