We are receiving, from time to time, questions concerning the matter of food and drink, and we are asked often to explain such texts as the following:
“For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him.” Romans 14:2-3.
“For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.” 1 Timothy 4:4-5.
There are other texts of like import in the New Testament. What we wish to do now is to express in general principles what we believe the Word teaches concerning the food and drink question, and so answer all this class of queries.
God desires the physical health of His people. “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” 3 John 1:2. The same thought is expressed in other scriptures: “Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king is the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season, for strength, and not for drunkenness!” Ecclesiastes 10:17. “When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee: And put a knife to thy throat [an Eastern figure for putting restraint on the appetite], if thou be a man given to appetite. Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat.” Proverbs 23:1-3. From these scriptures, we learn that God desires our physical health and that temperate eating, in due season—regularly—of simple food, is requisite to health. That is also shown in the beautiful record of Daniel and his fellows, as found in the first chapter of his book. Elsewhere still, gluttony and drunkenness are classed together as destructive sins, against which we are faithfully warned (See Proverbs 23:20, 21; Luke 21:34; Romans 13:13, 14).
Man’s original bill of fare was purely plant-based. The diet given was fruit and grains. “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.” Genesis 1:29. After sin, the Lord added vegetables to the diet to help support life cursed by sin. “And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Genesis 3:17-19. It should be noted that in the texts just read, the Lord emphasized that man’s diet was to remain plant-based—”thou eat of it [the ground] all the days of thy life.” Pre and post sin, man ate a wholely plant-based diet, a diet, by the way, which has continuously produced strong men. Would not the Lord’s plan be the better one now?
After the Flood, flesh food was permitted. That was provided as an emergency diet because the face of the earth was still healing from the Flood’s destruction. However, the addition of flesh food carried a stipulation and a curse. “But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man.” Genesis 9:4-5. It was not to be eaten with the blood, and after the Lord excluded fat eating (see Leviticus 3:17). Those who disregarded that instruction were “cut off” from being a part of God’s people (See Leviticus 17:10-14). The consumption of flesh foods would also lessen the lifespan of man—”And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it.” The drop in lifespan can be witnessed in the generations following the Flood.
The permission to eat flesh is further given in Genesis 9:2, 3: “And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.” Yet other instructions limited this permission; the beasts, or living creatures, were divided into clean and unclean classes. Of the former, Noah took fourteen of each species into the ark with him; of the latter, only a single pair of each species (See Genesis 7:2). His food on coming out of the ark could not have consisted of unclean beasts without making extinct the species. While we have not the law of separation, we learn, in the division itself, the fact, clearly established, that distinction between the two classes was defined by the Lord so that Noah knew the difference between the clean and the unclean. Later this distinction was clearly revealed in law to the church of God, the depositary and conserver of God’s truth (See Leviticus 11; Deuteronomy 14:3-21).
But, some may ask, did not the permission to Noah—”every moving thing that liveth”— include all things, clean and unclean? No, it did not. Specific declarations limit general expressions. In Deuteronomy, chapters 12 and 14, the children of Israel are told that they may eat “whatsoever thy soul lusteth after,” and “whatsoever thy soul desireth”; but this did not, of course, include the unclean animals positively forbidden in the same connection. So also, the term “every day” of Exodus 16:4 did not include the Sabbath, expressly enjoined by specific command (See verses 25-27). The general expression meant everything of the kinds and classes permitted. Under this head would come the “all things” of Romans 14:2, and the “every creature” of 1 Timothy 4:4, 5, limited by the expression, “sanctified [set apart] by the of God.” The clean beasts were set apart, or permitted, as food for man, under the direction of God’s Word.
Why did God make this distinction between clean and unclean? Evidently for the good of His people, for the betterment of their health. Among the prohibited foods, for instance, was swine’s flesh —a prohibition in which medical science, experience, and inspiration are in agreement. The restrictions of the Levitical law were doubtless in part ceremonial or typical, no unclean beast, in the nature of things, being a fit symbol of our Lord Jesus Christ and His work.
When the Levitical priesthood expired, the law which stood in “meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances” (Hebrews 9:10) went with it. God knew that the gospel would go to every nation, tongue, and people, living in every conceivable way. Many receiving the gospel would be slaves or so surrounded that they could not change their environment. They would be compelled to handle and eat food ceremonially and essentially unclean, or starve, and in His love and pity, God would not place upon them such burdensome restrictions. To those who would accept the gospel, He would give His good Spirit and His Word and instruct them in the right way.
But the expiration of the ceremonial law did not change the essential nature of the unclean beasts. That is the same. They are still as impure, unwholesome, and unfit for food as when God initially pronounced them unclean; it would be better for the race if their flesh were wholly discarded as food.
More than this, it would be better for the race if man would return to his original God-given diet. Why do we believe this? Because that was the diet given to man, and God knew best. Furthermore, flesh food is not what it once was. The brute kingdom has degraded with man. “The creature was made subject to vanity,” to disease, sickness, and death, because of man’s sin (See Romans 8:20). Much of the flesh meats of the markets are from old, broken-down cows “fattened up,” or young cattle kept and fed and fattened in unnatural conditions, with synthetic food and unhealthful surroundings. Large flocks of sheep, from which come the choice mutton, are proverbially diseased more or less. Beeves have tuberculosis, abscesses, tapeworms, or worse. Dogged, chased, and heated, fatted in unhealthful pens, fed unnaturally, with little exercise, what wonder that the meat of the poor brutes is unwholesome, and the use of such food increases that disease!
We need not speak at length about the drinking of alcohol, caffeinated tea, coffee, and tobacco use. Intoxicating liquors should never be used as a beverage. They are of no good but always ill, with the danger of entailing fearful tendencies and diseases upon offspring and landing the drinker himself in a drunkard’s grave or a criminal’s cell. At best, tea and coffee are unneeded stimulants and frequently feeders to stronger appetites. Tobacco is worse than tea and coffee in its benumbing, paralyzing, health-destroying influences. More than elsewhere (though everywhere), these stimulants and narcotics are ruinous to children and youth. People allow them and then mourn their effects. “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” 1 Corinthians 3:16-17.
The apostle thus states the rule of the Christian: “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:31. God has given man an excellent bill of fare from the pure fruits of the earth. He has permitted flesh food under certain limitations for specific purposes. He has positively declared other flesh food to be unclean and hence unfit for food, which uncleanness must exist in the very nature of the creature itself. Let the child of God select from the food given by his Father that will enable him best to glorify his Creator and Redeemer, which offers the healthiest, strongest body, the clearest thought, the purest mind and soul; and let him use that in praise to God.
But in this, as regards his fellows, let him bear in mind two things: (a) Even though an article of food may be suitable for him, let him not use it if it proves a stumblingblock to a weak brother. “If thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died.” “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak. Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth. And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” Romans 14:15, 21-23. (b) If your brother does not eat as you think he should, do not stumble over that or make that an excuse to lower your standard. “Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.” “Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.” Romans 14:13, 19. “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men.” Romans 14:17-18. That is not license to lust, but the liberty of truth, purity, and righteousness. Let us live to God’s glory and the building up of our fellow men.
