Dear Prayer Warriors, Each week will be posted a series of True and False questions, with the answers appearing below. The object of these questions is for you to test yourself--not a test of obscure Bible trivia but a test of whether you are holding to Biblical revelation or myths and legends passed down by ignorant men. You should ask yourself, “If I have believed this myth, what other myths do I believe?” The goal is that you will be challenged to faithfully read and study the holy Scriptures and base your convictions on the holy, eternal, inerrant written Word of God.
True or False - According To The Bible....
God's original plan was that we all be vegetarians (Part Two)
5) In many passages of Holy Scripture, Genesis 9:25, Exodus 16:8 – 13, Deuteronomy 12:20--to name a few--God gives animals to be eaten. It is argued by some that this was not God’s original plan but God allowed this because of sin, much as God allowed divorce under the law because of sin (Deuteronomy 24:1; Matthew 19:8 & 9.) There are three problems with this argument.
First: It is an argument from omission – you are assuming that, because God did not mention eating meat in God’s commands to Adam concerning Adam’s rule of the earth, that Adam did not eat meat. God gave Adam rule over the earth, including animals, but does not mention eating animals. God commands Adam to rest on the seventh day but does not mention Adam sleeping--can we assume from this that Adam did not sleep? God commands Adam to cultivate the ground and the Garden of Eden but does not mention tools--can we assume that Adam did all this with his bare hands? No, God is not bound to list every single thing Adam can do, or did do. Instead, in many cases, God gave Adam broad commands which Adam carried out. One of these broad commands was Genesis 1:28, “God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth’." For one to say that Adam can subdue and rule over fish, birds and animals but not eat them would require a specific passage of prohibition from God. There is precedent for this. In the eating of plants God forbade Adam from specific plants (Genesis 2:16-17 “The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.") God could have added animals to this list but did not do this. We cannot forbid, by spiritual authority, something that God has not only not forbidden but as seen above, commanded.
Second: This theory of vegetarianism as God’s original plan for mankind is not alluded to in Holy Scripture. If eating animals was not God’s original plan but, instead, something He allowed only after sin entered the world, then this would certainly be taught in Holy Scripture. God would definitely inform Christians that, although He is allowing pagans to eat meat because of the Fall, that this was never His plan. There would be exhortations for Christians to live at a higher plane. This, though, is not the case. Are we to assume that pagan atheists, secularists, pantheists and Hindus have a higher standard of diet than God the Father – Genesis 9:1 – 6; than God the Son – Mark 7:15 – 19;l than God the Holy Spirit – I Corinthians 10:25 & 26? The suggestion is ludicrous. The fact that pagans, atheists, humanists, secularists, Hindus and the like are vegans for spiritual and moral reasons points, not to their lofty standard but to their moral and spiritual depravity.
Third: Unlike divorce, God participates, commands and condones the killing and eating of meat throughout the Holy Scripture. This is a very important point. If the eating of meat were not God’s original plan, then, immediately after the Fall and before the covenant made with Noah we would not find God blessing and honoring Abel's animal sacrifices. In Genesis 4:2 – 4 we find God honoring the slaughter and sacrifice of animals and rejecting the sacrifice of vegetation. If God’s original plan was for animals to be protected and man to only harvest vegetation, would not just the opposite be true? Not only this, throughout the Law of Moses, over and over again, God commands, receives and is pleased by animal sacrifices--sacrifices which were to be eaten by God’s holy priests in God’s holy presence. If it was God’s original plan for man to be vegan, would not God have set aside the priesthood as vegans to be an example? God does not do this—instead, God does just the opposite. The temple grounds were a scene of great slaughter of all kinds of animals and this was both commanded by God and pleasing to God.
6) Jesus declared all food to be clean in Mark 7:14-19, “After He called the crowd to Him again, He began saying to them, ‘Listen to Me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.’ When he had left the crowd and entered the house, His disciples questioned Him about the parable. And He said to them, ‘Are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated?’ Thus He declared all foods clean.”
If the vegan lifestyle was God’s original plan, then Jesus Christ would call men back to this. Just as Jesus called men back to God’s original plan for marriage in Matthew 19:7- 9, so, also, would Jesus call men back to God’s original plan for diet. Jesus Christ, however, did not do this. In fact, Jesus did just the opposite, He called men back to God’s original plan for man in terms of diet--to freely eat all food, vegetable and meat with thanksgiving.
(On a side note I recently saw a book entitled “What would Jesus eat?” This should be the shortest book in the world. It would have one page, and on it would be printed this sentence, “Whatever was set before Him with Thanksgiving.”)
7) God the Holy Spirit teaches us that vegetarianism is rooted in spiritual weakness in Romans 14:2 “One person has faith that he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats vegetables only.” and again God the Holy Spirit teaches in I Timothy 4:1 – 4 that it is sin to forbid the eating of meat. In fact, in this passage God the Holy Spirit proclaims that the teaching that it is morally wrong to eat meat or that it is a higher spiritual plane to abstain from eating meat, is a demonic teaching propagated by hypocrites and false teachers.
Conclusion: The teaching, then, is clear. One cannot establish the vegan lifestyle as God’s original plan for mankind. By creation and divine plan animals do not exist in an intermediary plane between vegetables and humans, nor is there an ascending state of creation among the animal kingdom where by some animals “are more human” than others. The fact of the matter is, that to live, man must kill and it is completely arbitrary to say that the killing of plants is somehow moral while the killing of animals is not. There is absolutely nothing moral, righteous or spiritual about the vegan lifestyle. When you eat, not matter what you eat, you choose to live by the death of a living organism. This is neither cruel nor immoral but rather the divine plan of God and His order of creation and life. In fact it is one of the universal blessings and graces of God given to all mankind. By choosing the Vegan lifestyle you are not returning to God’s original plan for mankind. Nor can one argue that although God now allows the eating of meat, this was done because of the Fall of man from man’s state of grace – therefor even though allowed, one can abstain from killing animals and eating them as a voluntary act of righteousness (and therefore more spiritual plan). Killing animals for food or clothing is neither cruel nor sinful in the eyes of God. God has killed animals on many occasions, God has commanded the killing and eating of animals as an act of worship and God has blessed the eating of animals as an act of grace on his part. In choosing your diet you do not have to aspire to be more holy then God the Holy Spirit. In fact just the opposite is true, God the Holy Spirit teaches that the one who is spiritually weak and immature refrains from eating meat. Man is free to eat whatever he wants but he may not attach a moral aspect to being a vegetarian. Last but not least, Jesus went out of His way, during His earthly ministry to declare that all foods are clean and to be eaten with thanksgiving. In choosing ones diet you do not have to aspire to be more loving, kind and compassionate than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. By His mercy, II Corinthians 4:1 Rev. John S. Mahon Grace Community International
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