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SHALL WE EAT FLESH ?

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Michigan · Feb 19, 1901

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 78, No. 8.

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SHALL WE EAT FLESH ?

By Clarence Santee

CLARENCE SANTEE (Oakland, Cal.)
The question of the advisability of making flesh a part of our diet is becoming a most serious one. From many places come reports of poisoning from flesh-eating. In cases of any form of scrofula or humors of the blood, the eating of pork is forbidden by all physicians of repute. Cancer is a near relative to this class of diseases. Beef has been found to be a seed bed for tapeworm. The germs of consumption have infected whole herds of cattle, until it is unsafe to use even the milk.
God never intended that man should eat flesh. “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. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.” Gen. 1:29, 30.
We see, then, that not only man, but the animals, were to subsist on the products of the field, and there was to be “no death.” This was God’s ideal, for the record adds, “And God saw, . . . and, behold, it was very good.” Verse 31. Why, then, did the Lord give permission for man to eat flesh? Please turn and read the account in Gen. 9:3-5: “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. . . . 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.”
It will be noticed that one of the saddest protests to be found in the Bible is given in connection with this permission to eat flesh. God says, You may; but He adds, The beast will rise against you, and kill you if it can. The eating of flesh would also cause man to set lightly by the life of his fellow man. A writer, speaking of the time just preceding the flood, has said: “They loved to destroy the lives of animals. They used them for food, and this increased their ferocity and violence, and caused them to look upon the blood of human beings with astonishing indifference.” God allows men to have their own way, but when that way is wrong, He first protests to them the sad results of their course. Notice other illustrations of this.
When Moses was leading the children of Israel through the wilderness, the matter of putting away the wife was so common that some regulation must be made to lessen the evil. Then God told Moses to tell the man to write a bill of divorcement and give it to the wife when he put her away. Deut. 24:1, 2. This bill was to state the nature of the trouble; and then, if the second man, knowing the cause of complaint, was willing to take her, he could do so. God did not wish it so, but it was all He could do for them. Our Saviour, speaking of this, said: “Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.” Matt. 19:8. Could He have said less of the eating of flesh?
In the days of Samuel the people became discontented, and asked for a king. “But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord. And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. . . . Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them.”
When men decided that they would have flesh, God gave them flesh; but He first told them the sad results,—antagonism between man and beast, also lessened regard for the blood of their fellow men. This law of the hardening process in the destruction of animals is recognized by the secular courts of justice; and in most of the States a butcher is not allowed to sit on a jury where the life of the accused is at stake. Such persons can not rightly estimate the value of the life of their fellow men.
Take the experience of the children of Israel as they journeyed through the wilderness. After several months of abstinence from the use of flesh, they became dissatisfied. “And the mixed multitude that was among them fell a lusting; and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat?” Num. 11:4. Why did they weep for flesh? They had all their flocks and herds with them, “even very much cattle.” Ex. 12:38. And they had none of the antipathy against the eating of cattle that was so strong in the bosom of the Egyptians. Why did they not bring in the fatted calf when they hungered for flesh? The reason is evident—God had prohibited the use of flesh to them. So when God said to Moses, “The Lord will give you flesh, and ye shall eat” (Num. 11:18, last part), Moses at once says, “Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them?” Verse 22.
Why did he not think of this before? Again the answer must be, God had not allowed it. God had planned for them a life, if they would accept it, with no associations of death. They would not accept. Jeremiah records their choice, in these words: “For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: but this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you. But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.” Jer. 7:22-24. Then, going back to the summing up which called for the explanation contained in these verses, he says: “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh.” Verse 21.
To sum up, we have these points: The children of Israel wanted flesh, and wept for it while all their herds were filling the country around them. Finally, when the Lord said, “Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh,” they turned at once to their “flocks and herds.” The evidence is positive—they had understood that God had not allowed it. When they decided that they would die in the wilderness, God gave them their choice. They gratified their lust—and died.
In every offer that the Lord has made of freedom from death, passing to immortality without passing through the tomb, he has taken away the flesh diet. Adam had this offer. 2 Cor. 5:4, 5. The children of Israel had this offer (Deut. 4:40); and as we have seen, flesh was laid aside. Again God promises immunity from death by translation. Will He ask less now? Not all the children of Israel who died in the wilderness were lost. Doubtless many were saved by repentance. We know some were. And the Lord admonishes us that “we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted” (1 Cor. 10:6); and when we receive and know the mind of God, we “shall not hurt nor destroy.” Isa. 11:9. This state must be attained here if enjoyed in the new earth. We are not prepared to say that none will be saved who now eat flesh; but we can say that they who continue to do so will not be translated. They will die in this wilderness. If saved, it will be through the portals of the tomb. “Among those who are waiting for the coming of the Lord, meat-eating will eventually be done away.”—Christian Temperance, page 119. Then can we afford to pay the penalty which was paid by the children of Israel for the questionable privilege of eating flesh? Far better to walk in the light and live.