MEATS AND DRINKS | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 13, 1896

MEATS AND DRINKS.

We are receiving from time to time questions concerning the matter of food, diet 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.” Rom. 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.” 2 Tim. 4:4, 5.

There are other texts in the New Testament of like import. What we wish to do now is to express in general principles what we believe is taught in the word concerning the food and drink question, and so answer this class of queries once for all, at least, so far as this volume of the Signs is concerned.

1. 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 2. The same thought is expressed in other scriptures: “Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king is the son of nobles, and thy priests eat in due season, for strength, and not for drunkenness!” Eccl. 10:17. “When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee; for thou wilt put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite. Be not desirous of his dainties; seeing they are deceitful meat.” Prov. 23:1–3, R. V., margin. From these scriptures we learn that God desires our physical health, and that temperate eating, in due season—regularly—of simple food, are necessary requisites to health. This is also shown in the beautiful record of Daniel and his followers, as found in the first chapter of his prophecy. Elsewhere still, gluttony and drunkenness are classed together as destructive sins, against which we are faithfully warned. (See Prov. 23:20, 21; Luke 21:34; Rom. 13:13, 14.)

2. Man’s original bill of fare was purely vegetable. By this we do not mean that he lived on what is now generally termed vegetables. 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.” Gen. 1:29. Man was originally a fruit and grain eater, a diet, by the way, which has always produced strong men. Would not the Lord’s plan be the better one now?

3. After the flood flesh food was permitted, even as later on God “gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul,” and their lives were also materially shortened thereby. This permission is given in Gen. 9:3: “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.”

4. And yet this permission was limited by still other instructions; the beasts, or living creatures, were divided into two classes, clean and unclean. 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 Gen. 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 unclean. Later on this distinction was clearly revealed in law to the church of God, the depositary and conserver of God’s truth. See Leviticus 11; Deut. 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. General expressions are limited by specific declarations. 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 Ex. 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 Rom. 14:2, and the “every creature” of 1 Tim. 4:4, 5, limited by the expression, “sanctified [set apart] by the word of God.” The clean beasts were set apart, or permitted, under direction of God’s word as food for man.

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 that of swine’s flesh, a prohibition in which medical science, experience, and inspiration are in concord. 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.

5. When the Levitical priesthood expired, the law which stood in “meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances” (Heb. 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 ceremonially and essentially unclean food, 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 unclean, as unwholesome, and as unfit for food as when God pronounced them unclean in the beginning, and better it would be 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, by reason of man’s sin. (See Rom. 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 unnatural food and unhealthful surroundings. Large flocks of sheep, from which come the choice mutton, are proverbially diseased more or less. Beeves are troubled with tuberculosis, abscesses, and tapeworm. Not long since we saw a fine-looking lump of suet outwardly, cut open, and the cut disclosed a large, foul abscess three inches in diameter, with its more or less minute tendrils of disease ramifying to every part of the mass, and yet unnoticeable without. Dogged, chased, and heated, fatted in unhealthy pens, fed unnaturally, with little exercise, what wonder that the meat of the poor brutes is unwholesome, and that disease is increased by eating such food!

But it is not always wise for the flesh eater to make a radical change from a flesh to a vegetable diet exclusively. Some cases require more time than others. A few may be able to make a radical change; many constitutions demand that the change should be made gradually, but let it be made surely.

6. Of drinking of alcohol, tea, and coffee, and of the use of tobacco, we need not speak at length. 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 drunkard himself in a drunkard’s grave or criminal’s cell. Tea and coffee are unneeded stimulants at best, oftentimes feeders to stronger appetites. They excite and then benumb the finer faculties of the mind, deaden the conscience, cause irritability, excite passion, while they do no good. Tobacco is worse than tea and coffee in its benumbing, paralyzing, health-destroying influences. More than elsewhere (tho everywhere) these stimulants and narcotics are ruinous to the children and youth. Indulgent parents 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 [margin, “destroy”] the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. Let no man deceive himself.” 1 Cor. 3:16–18.

7. The rule of the Christian is thus stated by the apostle: “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” 1 Cor. 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 certain 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 from the food given by his Father select that which will enable him to best glorify his Creator and Redeemer, which gives the healthiest, strongest body, the clearest thought, the purest mind and soul; and let him use that in praise to God.

8. But in this, as regards his fellows, let him bear in mind two things: (a) Even tho an article of food may be right for him, let him not use it if it will prove a stumbling-block to a weak brother. “But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat [food], 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 anything 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.” Rom. 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 stumbling-block 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 [build up] another.” Rom. 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.” Verses 17, 18. This is not license to lust, but liberty of truth, purity, and righteousness. Let us live to God’s glory and the building up of our fellow-men.