3776—Every Creature of God Is Good
By Editor
Will you please explain 1 Tim. 4:3, 4? It reads as if every creature of God is fit for food, if it be received with thanksgiving. O. C. L. There are several points in this passage which should be taken into consideration in the study of the scripture: 1. It is not a prophecy particularly of the last days. It does not say "in the last days" about which the Spirit speaks expressly, but "in later times;" "subsequent seasons," one translation reads. That is, in later times than the apostle's day all these things should come in with the apostasy. 2. It would be among those that once professed the truth of God—they should fall away from the faith. Instead of looking to the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation, they would manufacture various ways of their own. 3. In thus departing from Christ they would give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons. Two of these doctrines of demons are set forth in the very beginning of the Bible, in the temptation under which our first parents fell. The serpent came to the woman and said, "Ye shall not surely die . . . ye shall be as God." Gen. 3:4, 5. The immortal soul and the power within one's self to persist are two of the doctrines of demons, both of which lead away from utter and absolute dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Departing from the faith and giving heed to the delusions and deceptions of the enemy, of course, would lead to hypocrisy and to the hardening of the conscience. 4. There would come into this apostasy forbidding to marry; not forbidding all to marry, but perhaps forbidding some to marry, demanding celibacy—not merely discouraging marriage (sometimes it is proper to do that), but as a matter of religion forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats as a religious matter, authorizing stated fasts. All these things are not of the Gospel. It is an assurance of an apostle that "marriage is honorable" in all. 5. The word from which "meats" comes does not mean flesh food. It is not a mere command to abstain from flesh, but from food. The Greek word is "broma," meaning food of any kind, either vegetable or animal. These commands of apostasy would deprive one of regular food at times, just as apostasy has been doing through all the centuries in its authorized stated fasts. A fast, to be worth anything, must be voluntary. 6. We do not see anything in this passage which would imply that all things are fit for food. God has shown us in His Word again and again that not all things are best. He Himself has separated between the clean and the unclean, as in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14; and science has demonstrated the truthfulness of God's classification in absolutely forbidding the things prohibited of God, as swine's flesh, when one is sick or convalescent; and there are many indeed who from the purely scientific standpoint abjure these altogether. 7. It is better to us, it seems, to understand the text in this way,—that this apostasy commands to abstain from meats which God created to be received with thanksgiving by them that believe and know the truth concerning just what God has given. "For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be rejected, if it be received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified through the Word of God and prayer." There are some things that are sanctified, or set apart, for food. God has told us very plainly that they are good for food. There are some things that are not so given. Those things which He has given for food, we may ask His blessing upon, and receive them with thanksgiving. This is the meaning of the text.