4270 - EATING FLESH

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Mar 3, 1914

4270 — EATING FLESH

Some claim that man was allowed to eat flesh in order to shorten his sinful life, but I have found no such statement in the Bible. Can you tell me on what this claim is founded? Luke 22: 15, 16 seems to indicate that the Passover will be eaten in the kingdom of God.

From the fact that flesh was not given to man to eat when he was first created, but he was told that his diet should consist of herbs and fruits, it is apparent that flesh was not intended to be used for food, and therefore that it is not the ideal diet. The fact that after man began to eat flesh, his life was shortened, would indicate that it produced this effect. And after the children of Israel were led out of Egypt, the Lord's evident intention was, to remove flesh from their diet, for He did not permit them to eat it until they were insistent in their demands for it. God might as easily have given them flesh to eat as manna, but He withheld it for their good. "It was His purpose to supply them with food better suited to their wants than the feverish diet to which many had become accustomed in Egypt. The perverted appetite was to be brought into a more healthy state, that they might enjoy the food originally provided for man,—the fruits of the earth, which God gave to Adam and Eve in Eden." "Had they been willing to deny appetite, in obedience to His wise restrictions, feebleness and disease would have been unknown among them." ("Patriarchs and Prophets.") But they murmured persistently, and so God gave them that which was not for their greatest good, because they would not be satisfied with that which would prove most beneficial to them. However, they were obliged to suffer the results of their intemperance. The fact that up to that time there was not a diseased or infirm one among them, proved that their diet was suited to their needs.

Our Lord's statement in Luke 22: 15, 16 does not refer to eating the Passover in the kingdom of God. At the crucifixion, the Passover service was done away. The type met the antitype when Christ, the real Passover, was sacrificed, and the typical service lost its significance.