MAN'S PRIMITIVE AND BEST DIET.
MAN'S primitive diet was fruits and grains. This was God-given. After his fall the Lord permitted "the herb of the field," or vegetables. Following the Deluge, flesh meats were permitted, and the average of human life greatly shortened. The holy seed, the ancestry of Christ, is traced from the antediluvian patriarchs through Shem, Arphazad, Peleg, Nahor, and intermediate generations, to Abraham. God calls Abraham, the faithful, out from the world to a better country. For four hundred years his seed are to be pilgrims and wanderers in the promised land, as in a strange country, and in Egyptian bondage and slavery. At the end of that time Abraham is assured that God will judge the merciless slave-owners, and bring his seed into the promised land. This promise to Abraham included the world, restored to its Eden beauty by the power of God. Compare Gen. 12:7; 13:14-17; 15:5-21; 22:17, 18; Rom. 4:13; Heb. 11:8-16. God purposed to fulfil this promise and oath when He delivered Israel from Egypt; for thus Stephen bears witness: "But when the time of the promise drew nigh, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt," etc., to the birth of Moses, and the deliverance of Israel, Acts 7:17-36. So, also, when Israel went up from the Red Sea, they sang in that inspired song (Ex. 15:1-18):— "The Lord is my strength and song,
And He is become my salvation;
This is my God, and I will praise Him;
My father's God, and I will exalt Him."
"Thou shalt bring them [Israel] in, and plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance,
The place, O Lord, which Thou hast made for Thee to dwell in,
The sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established.
Jehovah shall reign forever and ever." Just how God would have brought about this eternal reign we need not curiously inquire. We know this, that nothing was lacking on His part. His mighty power there manifest, of which no such display had been seen since the creation (Deut. 4:32-40), would have purged and renewed the land, raised the righteous dead, and given eternal life to those brought out of Egypt. He was their King, and He designed to reign over them "forever and ever." The responsibility rested with them. If they would yield to Him, if they would receive His agencies for their salvation, they would live. He gave them "right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments," "which if a man do, He shall even live in them." Neh. 9:13; Eze. 20:11. He repeatedly and emphatically told them that He had set before them "life and good, and death and evil;" that the life was not far away, either in the depth or up in heaven, but brought down to them then and there; and He pleads with them to choose life, that both they and their seed might live. See Deut. 30:11-20. Neither was the life a mere temporary affair, to be renewed again thousands of years in the future; only their unbelief made it thus. God desired to give them life in that land forever. Here were the conditions:— "Thou shalt keep therefore His statutes, and His commandments, which I command thee this day, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, forever." Deut. 4:40. "Therefore shall ye lay up these My words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them upon the door-posts of thine house, and upon thy gates; that your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the Lord swore unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth." Deut. 11:18-21. In order that Israel might be physically fitted for that glorious land, God takes them from the diet of Egypt and Babylon, and feeds them upon spiritual food, the "corn of heaven." The law of food was among the statutes that were good. By the Sabbath and the manna God proved them. See Exodus 16. Note a few of the scriptures which refer to this life-giving food of God:— "All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore unto your fathers. And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments, or no. And He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live." Deut. 8:1-3. The Lord took them back to the Eden bill of fare, to the pure water for drink. He "satisfied them with the bread of heaven. He opened the rock, and the waters gushed out; they ran in the dry places like a river." Ps. 105:40, 41. Even in their unbelief their "raiment waxed not old," neither did their foot swell during all their wanderings, and there "was not one feeble5person among their tribes." Deut. 8:4; Ps. 105:37. "Our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat [food]; and did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them; and that Rock was Christ." 1 Cor. 10:1-4. And yet nearly all fell in the wilderness, and those who crossed over Jordan went into the promised land to die. Why?—Because of unbelief; and unbelief came through cherished lust. They were out of Egypt bodily, but in Egypt in spirit. They lusted for the flesh-pots of the land of plague and darkness. They loathed "the bread of heaven," and despised God's wonderful provision. See Num. 11:4-6. Thus writes the psalmist (Ps. 78:16-25):— "He brought streams also out of the rock,
And caused waters to run down like rivers.
And they sinned yet more against Him
By provoking the Most High in the wilderness.
And they tempted God in their heart
By asking meat for their lust.
Yea, they spake against God;
They said, Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?
Behold, He smote the rock, that the waters gushed out,
And the streams overflowed.
Can He give bread also?
Can He provide flesh for His people?
Therefore the Lord heard this, and was wroth;
So a fire was kindled against Jacob,
And anger also came up against Israel;
Because they believed not in God,
And trusted not in His salvation;
Tho He had commanded the clouds from above,
And opened the doors of heaven,
And had rained down manna upon them to eat,
And had given them of the corn of heaven.
Man did eat angels' food;
He sent them meat to the full." God's "salvation" to them was the food He gave them, received by faith; but the psalmist declares that they perished because they believed not God nor trusted in His salvation; tho He had given them of "the corn of heaven," and "angels' food," sufficient for all their wants. Said the Jews at a later date:— "Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat." But Jesus, knowing that they were looking to Moses rather than God, replies:— "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven." John 6:31, 32. Later, referring to Himself, Jesus said:— "This is that bread which came down from heaven; not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live forever." Verse 58. From this and the context we gather that Christ gave Himself in the manna, but Israel saw not Christ; in their unbelief they saw only the mere material manna. And they died. Had they eaten by faith they would have lived. They looked to Moses, not to Christ. From the former they could get only the law; from the latter, faith would have obtained grace and truth. John 1:17. In their unbelief they would not "do" the laws that were good, the statutes which, if obeyed, would have brought life; so God gave them their request as to food and "sent leanness into their soul." Ps. 106:15. He gave them up to their own lusts, and to "statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live." Eze. 20:25. Instead, therefore, of entering the inheritance and rest of God which He had promised and sworn unto Abraham, they did not enter in, because of their unbelief. Heb. 3:8 to 4:10. They would not return to the first principles of healthful living, but preferred the diet of Egypt, and death, to the primitive diet of Eden and life. Clean and Unclean Flesh Foods.
In order, however, that the holy seed might be preserved, the Lord gave explicit instructions as to the better kinds of flesh foods. This is recorded in Lev. 11 and Deut. 14:3-20. But these laws were no part of the perfect laws of God "in the beginning." Like the laws concerning marriage and divorce and slavery, they were designed to ameliorate, as far as possible, unholy existing conditions which, in the unbelief and ignorance of the times, could not be entirely changed. There was also this lesson continually kept before that people in the animals used for food, namely, sin and its consequence,—death. Every life taken told of the condition of sin in which they were, of the death on their behalf of the One to come. When Jesus Christ died upon the cross, all sacrifice of beasts in God's plan ended. In the nature of the foods eaten and rejected by Israel, there could be no change. The clean and the unclean were so, not arbitrarily, but inherently. God declared them so because they were so. The food given to Israel would have been better than a general flesh diet if followed by all the world to the present. Scrofula and cancer doubtless come through the eating of unclean beasts. Dr. Kingsley, a noted cancer doctor, of Rome, N. Y., is quoted as saying that among his thousands of cases he never knew of but one Jew to be afflicted with cancer, and he was a pork eater. The very term scrofula comes from the Latin for sow, the female swine. Yet, notwithstanding the flesh foods given to Israel were greatly superior to those of the nations of earth, Jesus would not put upon the great Gentile world the restrictions which were given the Jews. The apostles declare concerning the converts from among the Gentiles, as respects food: "For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled; . . . from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well." Acts 15:28, 29. "Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat, asking no questions for conscience' sake." 1 Cor. 10:25. The Lord knew that His precious Gospel would go to every part of the earth. It would reach those who knew but little else than a flesh diet; it would come to those who were slaves to "riotous eaters of flesh;" it would enlighten those in part who were grossly ignorant of the simplest laws of life; and the merciful Master would not bind about the poor souls with exacting and discouraging restrictions. He would forbid blood, and strangled beasts, in which the blood remains; for the grossest, most corrupt, and merely stimulating food is the blood, loved most by the fiercest and cruellest brutes, and imparting a like nature to those who partake of such food. Moreover, the Master knew that the day of the Lord, and the coming of Christ, and the setting up of the eternal inheritance, was yet future. God's people, as others, would suffer and die; let them partake of the diet of death and decay. Jesus Himself partook of the same, that He might reach to the lowest depth of human weakness, and show that it was possible to save men through death and the resurrection, whatever their diet. Therefore from the cross forward the diet of Egypt and Babylon, the diet which continually spoke of death, was permitted. But we are not to understand from this that the great All-Father was indifferent to the food of His children, altho He did not count flesh foods of any sort sin to the unenlightened. He said by His apostle: "I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean." Rom. 14:14. And yet He declares in that very chapter, "It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak." Verse 21. Whatever the food, there should be no eating merely to gratify an unholy appetite. "Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things." 1 Cor. 9:25. "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." 1 Cor. 10:31. Whatever God has permitted man's food or drink to be in any age, He is to seek in the use of that food, in quality and quantity, not the lust of the flesh, but God's glory.