To find man and the law of his being in normal conditions we must go back to "the beginning."
The soul who is translated will not be hard of heart; he will be content with nothing given or allowed for that reason; he will go to the beginning, to the upper source, to God's pure ordinances given for an eternal race. There he will find God's law in all its fulness in revelation, in nature, in human nature. There he finds the earth "very good." There he finds the Sabbath as it came from God's hand, a delight, a refreshing, even to its Maker. There he finds the true marriage law, the man and woman one. And there also he finds the true law of man's best, purest, primitive diet. What was it?—Fruits and grains. Here is the record: "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 [food]." Gen. 1:29. And then God planted for man a garden, planted with "every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food." Gen. 2:9.
Grains and fruit composed man's ideal, perfect diet. This Infinite Wisdom called "very good," and designed that man should live upon it forever. No creature should suffer, not even a vegetable, that man's appetite might be satisfied. The ripened grain, the luscious, perfect fruit, furnished him all that was needed to make and preserve him a perfect physical man. Partaking of this with the fruit of the tree of life, man would have lived forever.
But sin came in to mar God's fair handiwork. God's laws were perverted. Upon all creation rested the curse. "For the creation was subjected to vanity [death], not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it." Rom. 8:20. When the prince, man, yielded, all below him fell under the curse. God enlarged his diet to take in the food He designed for the lower animals. "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 unto thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field." Gen. 3:17, 18. Compare 1:30. God's appointed and permissive diet consisted of fruits, grains, and vegetables (herbs). Yet, notwithstanding sin, on this simple diet God's servants lived to nearly the age of a mil-5lennium. Read their obituaries in Genesis 5. Note the ages—930, 912, 905, 910, 895, 962, 969, 950.
What was the result of these long lives?—To the few who were faithful to God, of course, long life was a blessing; but to the wicked many years were a curse. Character generally becomes fixed at a comparatively early period; and a fixed wicked character in the antediluvians meant years of transgression and greater opportunity for evil, plotting, planning, concocting, devising more and more wickedness, till in the short period of sixteen centuries "the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every imagination ["purposes, desires," margin] of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. . . . All flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth." Gen. 6:5, 11, 12.
To the great righteous message of reform preached through Noah by the power of the Spirit, that generation turned a deaf ear. They demonstrated that a long life in sinful earth was a curse to man and his posterity.
Then came their destruction in the Deluge. They would not separate from sin and were destroyed with it. And even some of those who were carried through the Deluge in the ark were saved, not because of their own righteousness, but for the sake of Noah and the race. God knew that the same history of sin and righteousness would be repeated. Few would walk the narrow way; many would pursue the broad path to death. Continuance in life hardened them in sin. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." Eccl. 8:11. "Let favor be shown to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness;" but when God's "judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness." Isa. 26:10, 9. So the antediluvian reasoned, "I shall not be moved; for I shall never be in adversity." Ps. 10:6.
Therefore, for man's sake, his life was shortened, and as a help to this end he was given flesh to eat. "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat." Gen. 9:3, 4.
There was at that time a distinction between "clean" and "unclean" beasts. And immediately upon going out from the ark, only clean beasts would have been obtainable, as but one pair of each kind of unclean beasts were preserved, while seven pair of the clean kinds were kept through the year. All vegetation was destroyed. But in a little time after the Deluge the earth brought forth, and the beasts multiplied, and man by divine permission (not appointment) became a flesh eater; and with this came an almost immediate shortening of life, till a few generations after the flood human life was reduced to little over a century; and a few hundreds of years later, to threescore and ten. "And Haran died before his father" (Gen. 11:28), comes in the long muster roll as a note of discord. Such a thing was then strange.
Two facts stand prominently forth in this consideration,—a flesh diet and shortened life. God permitted it that man might more vividly see and know the consequences of transgression,—death,—and, seeing it, turn from the sin. And yet it is probable that in general the true people of God ate only what would be regarded as clean beasts.
Abraham, the friend of God, leaves his father's house, kindred, and country for a better land. He wanders a pilgrim and a stranger in the land of his inheritance. His descendants went down into Egypt, as foretold by the Lord to the patriarch. Gen. 15:13. Here they mingled with the true worship of God the nature-worship and unholy idolatry of Egyptized Babylon, and educated appetite to love the "flesh-pots" of the land of the Pharaohs. At the end of the four centuries of prophecy they had sunken low in slavery, both spiritual and physical. God's promise and covenant, confirmed by an oath, had been given to Abraham (Gen. 13:14-17; 15:4-18; 22:16-18) that at the end of the four hundred years He would deliver them. This promise included ultimately the world (Rom. 4:13), renewed, as God would renew the people, by His creative power (Heb. 11:9-16). That the Lord did not then do this is no evidence that He would not have done it. X.