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NO
LIBERTY WITHOUT LAW.
PART
TWELVE.
GOD’S DIETARY LAWS.
One has become very familiar with the antinomianist’s
(God’s Law no longer valid) selection of isolated passages in the Gospel
accounts to support their contention that the dietary laws incorporated
in God’s Law given at Sinai were considered of none effect by the Lord
Jesus Christ. They cite the verse in Matthew 15 in which the Lord said:
“Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth
a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man”.
It should be noted that as with Acts 10 and Peter’s
vision of the great sheet, the context reveals that it has nothing whatsoever
to do with God’s Dietary Laws. In the first instance, the Lord reacting
to the charge leveled at His disciples by the scribes and the Pharisees
who asked:
“Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition
of the elders? For they wash not their hands when they eat bread”
(Matt. 15:2).
The Lord answered this by indicating that they (the
Jews) had perverted the Law of God to accommodate their own ways and in
practise, they had made the ‘commandment of God of none effect’. It will
be noted that there is no mention of the food laws - merely the so-called
transgressions of the method of eating.
In considering Peter and the vision of the great
sheet “Wherein were all manner of fourfooted
beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things and fowls of
the air . .” (Acts. 10:12), it should
be noted that the overall context reveals that the chapter deals with human
relationships and not food. In the first instance, ‘Cornelius, a
centurion of the band called the Italian band’ was one of the main
actors of this drama while Peter’s reluctance to entertain him was the
main theme of it. The lesson, for Peter, in the whole exercise is summed
up in two verses which positively indicate that the sheet was allegory
and that
In another verse i.e. the 34th, Peter avers:
“Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter
of persons” or more literally : “Of a truth I perceive that God shows no
partiality to outward appearance”.
Cornelius, it will be recalled was outwardly a Roman
- indeed a centurion in the service of Rome. As such, Peter resisted any
association with him but was shown by the Lord that outward appearances
were deceiving and that he should not reject the man on the grounds of
his Roman citizenship. In point of fact, if one considers the name Cornelius,
it will be found to contain a combination of Greek and Latin words which
mean ‘the horn (Cornu) of Levi (lius)’. Dr. James Strong in his Concordance
intimates that the word “speira” which has been translated as ‘band’ in
Acts 1:1 contains, by analogy, the meaning of ‘a squad of Levitical janitors’.
Be that as it may, one thing is very definite and that is that the vision
of the sheet in no way abrogates the food laws of the Bible for Peter,
it will be noted, despite the command to ‘kill and eat’, did not do so
nor was he reprimanded for non-compliance The Law of the Lord - Food.
“This is the law of the beasts, and of
the fowl, and of every living creature that moveth in the waters, and of
every creature that creepeth upon the earth: To make a difference between
the unclean and the clean, and between the beast that may be eaten, and
the beast that may not be eaten” (Lev.
11:46-47).
To insist that there are foods which can be eaten
and food that cannot be eaten invariably invokes the retort that one is
not a Jew, therefore not obliged to adhere to the Law or that one should
not be a ‘food faddist’ as all foods are hygienically killed and prepared
today. To these retorts, one is tempted to question men’s analysis of the
situation against the Wisdom of God. In considering the ‘food-faddist’
charge, one finds that those who are most vociferous in leveling this charge
at those who keep the food Laws of the Bible, are in the forefront of those
campaigning for the replacement of butter by polyunsaturated margarine
in an effort to ward off the high incidence of heart disease created by
the high level of blood cholesterol. It is no exaggeration to say that
the word ‘cholesterol’ has made margarine a best seller today - so much
so that those who recoil from so-called food-faddism find themselves among
the greatest advocates of margarine as the dietary defence against the
early development of coronary heart disease. Vested interests, with its
tremendous influence through the media, has it that the amount of cholesterol
in the blood is dictated by the amount of saturated fat and cholesterol
in the diet and by way of emphasis, illustrations are drawn from the developing
countries of Asia where the diet is mainly whole grain foods which have
a high fibre content and where heart disease is a rare occurrence. While
no rational person is prepared to argue against proven fact, they are surely
permitted to present other evidence which invalidates the interpretation
of fact by the advocates of polyunsaturated margarine. In Kenya, for instance
where the African tribes live on cow’s milk and meat and where animal fats
supply approximately 60 per cent of the total calorie intake, cholesterol
levels are about half of those in the United States and heart disease is
almost unheard of. A further example could be the farmers in the Swiss
Alps who live primarily on dairy products, yet they too have low blood
cholesterol and rarely die of heart disease. Make no mistake here. No one
is disputing the fact that elevated blood cholesterol is a fact of life
for approximately 29 per cent of men over the age of 40, nor the fact that
a rigid diet could reduce the level by 10 to 15 per cent. The point to
note here is that once the diet has been discontinued, the previous level
once again obtains and the afflicted person is in precisely the same situation
as at the commencement of the diet. Dr. George Mann of the Vanderbilt University
School of Medicine has said in this context: “Foundations, scientists and
the media, both lay and scientific, have promoted the low-fat, low cholesterol
polyunsaturated diets, yet the incidence of heart disease continues unabated,
cholesteremia in the population is unchanged, and the clinicians are unconvinced
of efficacy.” There can be absolutely no question when it comes to the
facts of today when contrasted with the propaganda of vested interests
in the food industry. In the United States alone, evidence shows a doubling
of polyunsaturated fat intake since 1900 with little or no change in the
intake of saturated fat or cholesterol. Despite this trend, coronary heart
disease continues to rise - why? Another question which crops up, but which
cannot be answered here is, is there any relationship between the increased
use of polyunsaturated fats and the hormonal imbalance which is more than
a little evident in the younger generation? If these questions are castigated
as food-faddism - lets have more food-faddism! The United Nations Organisation,
over recent years, has expressed concern over the population explosion
and last month, i.e. June 1978, (as at the time of the writing of this
article), warned that the two and a half per cent increase in the Black
population of Africa was placing a strain on food production. Without commenting
in the implications behind this concern - UNO has its own axe to grind
when expressing ‘concern’ - it is a fact that the world’s food supply is
certainly acute and what there is of it is basically artificial and is,
to a large degree, reacting injuriously on the human organism. Dr. Frederick
L. Hoffman who was connected with the Prudential Insurance Company of America
and with the Biochemical Foundation of the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia,
in appraising the situation of an increased world population in relation
to the available food supply, made the following observation in the context
of chemical fertiliser as the means of stimulating crop production. “As
the result of the introduction of chemical fertilisers, there has been
a marked increase on crop production. The average amount of wheat in bushels
per acre has increased from 9.9 in 1886 to 27.3 in 1958. The relative yield
per acre varies, of course, widely for different sections of the country,
having been as high as 28 bushels in Arizona and as low as 5.3 bushels
in North Dakota . . . Everywhere efforts are made to increase the yield
per acre, but what the effect this hazard is on the mineral or vitamin
content of the food is not revealed.” Having resorted to chemical fertilisers
on order to boost crop yields, men have not looked at the cost - not so
much to humanity today, but to future generations. In the book ‘The Rape
of the Earth’ by Jacks and Whyte, the following extract is a tremendous
indictment against the current trends. “The country which has received
most attention in this connection is the U.S.A. and deservedly so, for
America as usual is out for records. Alarming statistics can be quoted
endlessly. On 56.4 per cent of the land surface of the U.S.A. a quarter
or more of the soil has been lost. The total loss of fertility has been
estimated at 30 to 50 per cent of the total originally available. The amount
of soil annually reaching the sea is between 500 and 1,000 million tons,
representing 2,000 million dollars worth of plant food, or twenty-one times
the amount annually removed in crops . . .” Against this picture, the late
Dr. Alexis Carrel in his work ‘Man the Unknown’ observes: “Man is literally
made from the dust of the earth. For this reason, his physiological and
mental activities are profoundly influenced by the geological constitution
of the country where he lives, by the nature of the animals and plants
on which he feeds . . ” This is undoubtedly true and presents a sorry picture
of the nutritional value of man’s food when one thinks of the rape of the
earth in the attempt to feed the earth’s millions through forced crop yields.
Good Soil the Basis for Good
Food.
If one examines the Creation story, it will be
found that the earth and all things in and on it were ‘good’. The soil
was good; the herb bearing seed was good; every tree was good and every
thing that moved on the face of the earth was good - and all this without
any endeavour by man. In verse five of the second chapter of the Bible
it is stated: “. . . and there was no
man to till the ground” which on the
surface and in the light of present day developments, appears to suggest
a careless disregard for the importance of the soil. Again on the surface
the superficial reading of this verse would suggest that man became lazy
and merely exploited the resources of the region of his domicile, moving
to some other place when these were exhausted. However, when one examines
the Hebrew text - particularly in regard to the word ‘till’ - it will be
seen that, having been given the earth and all its resources, man ignored
the basic principles of stewardship and responsibility. The Hebrew word
‘abad’ which has been translated as ‘till’ indicates service and is used
extensively in the Law in the context of bond-service. Significantly the
Adam of Genesis 2:7 was put ‘into the garden of Eden to dress it and to
keep it’ - the word ‘dress’ being translated from the same Hebrew word
‘abad’ and the word ‘keep’ from the Hebrew ‘shamar’ which indicates to
‘hedge, guard and protect’ it. The overall emphasis in the early chapters
of the Bible in the context of the soil revolves around responsibility
although one is not told the formula by which this responsibility should
be carried out. The absence of this formula should not be attributed to
a lapse on the part of the Lord, but rather to man’s editing of the Word
of God - evidence of which is found in many Books of the Bible, particularly
in the works of Ezekiel. In the first four verses of this Book it is more
than a little obvious that passages are lost - due no doubt to man’s mis-handling
of the text and the omission of things which he considered as irrelevant
to the overall narrative. It is quite possible that the same situation
obtained in connection with the opening verses of the Book of Genesis for
without doubt some body of Law existed which was in operation and was acted
upon by men. The Law, given at Sinai to the children of Israel was a codified
version of that which was in operation at a very much earlier time. In
this version, one may read of the Lord’s stipulation concerning the land
and the soil which is recorded in the Book of Leviticus.
“And the Lord spake unto Moses in mount
Sinai, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When
ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep the sabbath
unto the Lord, Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt
prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof, But in the seventh
year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the Lord:
thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. That which growest
of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the
grapes of the vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land”.
The sabbath of the land in the seventh year appears,
on the surface of it, to have nothing going for it at all, but when one
looks at it through the eyes of modern scientific technology, one is able
to appreciate something of the wisdom behind the Lord’s stipulation. The
soil mantle which covers the land mass of the earth consists of three elements
and is generally classified as (1) the solid rock: (2) the mineral matter
derived from this rock and (3) the organic top soil which results from
the decay of plant and animal matter. It has been estimated that the proportion
of organic matter in the few inches of the earth’s top soil is a bare 4
per cent when compared with the mineral component, but in this meagre percentage
one finds not only the life source of all food, but a whole world of micro-organisms
at work renewing the vitality from which man draws his food sustenance.
Organisms which are so small that they are only visible under the microscope
and others much larger such as the humble earth-worm - all combine to keep
a prefect balance in the fertility of the soil. It has been said that the
lowly earth-worm with its natural function of, among other features, preserving
the moisture content of the soil, has determined the rise and fall of countless
civilisations. Every civilisation, the Byzantine; the Phoenician or the
Roman which has passed into history with its sad tale of political corruption
and decay will, on a close examination, be found to be attributable to
the destruction of the earth-worm. This may, at first glance, appear to
be ridiculous, but think in terms of what today is the Sahara Desert and
which was once ‘the granary of the Roman Empire’! What causes a desert?
Surely every schoolboy knows that it is the destruction of the organic
constituent of the soil leaving only the minerals which, deprived of moisture,
becomes granules as in the sands of the desert. It is the earth-worm, in
conjunction with the other micro-organisms, which keeps the moisture content
of the soil - a balance in nature which when abused by man, deprives him
of his food which in turn creates political situations among the people
who revolt against government opening the way for a new and virile people
to take over. The Lord’s command to His Israel people was that they should
work the land for six years and then allow it to have a complete year’s
rest. However, then as now, the soil was cultivated seven years out of
seven and in many instances using the same soil, two and even three crops
per year were planted. In God’s Law, the seventh year, which began in the
Spring and continued through to the Spring of the next year, one finds
that both the fruit and the leaves of the trees simply fell back to the
earth where the world of micro-organisms took charge of this abundance
of organic matter turning it once again into that vital force which ensured
that the food grown would be highly nutritious and a benefit to those eating
it.
Today however, the cry is for more and more food
and any thought of allowing the land one year’s respite is unthinkable.
More and more artificial fertilisers are ploughed into the fields and as
has been stated earlier, the rape of the earth is gaining in momentum.
Food is being produced, but is it of the character and nature sufficient
to provide for healthy bodies adequately defended against the ravages of
disease which too are on the increase throughout the world? God’s warning
to His people in terms of Law violation is:
“And your strength shall spent in vain:
for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of
the land yield their fruits. And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will
not hearken unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you, according
to your sins . . .” (Lev. 26:20-21).
Make no mistake here. The Law of the sabbath of the
land is a Law the transgression of which is a sin. It matters not that
men contend that the Law is no longer valid - God’s people in Anglo-Saxondom
are reaping the consequences of sin - a tragic testimony to the fallacy
of religious reasoning which presumes to sit in judgment on God’s Holy
Word. The Food Itself
Comment has already been made on Dr. Carrel’s
work ‘Man the Unknown’ in which man insofar as his physiological and mental
activities are concerned, are a by-product of the food which he eats. It
goes without saying that if his food is poor - he is poor in health and
general outlook. However, another dimension is added to the burden of man’s
health in that all things are considered as beneficial for his well-being.
In today’s menu, the more ‘way out’ a morsel, the more desirable it becomes
irrespective of its effect on the human system. Take for instance ‘escargot’
- the snail, which is being consumed more and more in Anglo-Saxon countries
in recent years that ever before. Some twenty years ago the eating of this
slug was considered not only distasteful, but an aberration of the ‘continental
types’. Today however, every menu in Anglo-Saxondom offers this ‘delicacy’
which is consumed because it has become the vogue. It is interesting to
note that in the Bible, while the snail is mentioned infrequently, its
by-product by way of paints and dyes are often referred to. One finds that
the Tent of the Testimony and the High Priest’s garment were dyed with
blue and purple and that in Numbers 15:38, the children of Israel were
commanded to ‘make them fringes in the borders of their garments . . .
and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue’ - in
the original text, the colour blue is preceded by the word ‘tekhelet’ which
is derived from the snail. These dyes were produced from a gland in the
abdomen of the snail and because of the minuteness of the quantity, the
dyes were extremely expensive. Another interesting point in the context
of snails is that in the Hebrew text of Deuteronomy 33:19 in which is recorded
the blessing of the tribes by Moses, that Zebulun whose tribal allotment
encroached upon the Sea of Galilee, would ‘suck the abundance of the seas
and the treasures hid in the sand’. In the English text the ‘sephunei’
has been omitted which has led to the loss of the meaning of Zebulun’s
role. Literally the text according to the Jewish Encyclopaedia was a call
to Zebulun because the people were dependent upon the tribe for the ‘sephunei’
(the snail), because of the blue and purple dye derived from it. By way
of further interest, the snail is considered ‘unclean’ and therefore not
fit for human consumption in Leviticus 11:30 and 42. Drawn from the food
laws in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14, the following is a general list
of both clean and unclean animals. The clean animals which are considered
as good for food are those which both chew the cud and part the hoof, among
which are numbered the cow, ox, calf, sheep, goat, ibex, hart, gazelle,
buffalo and antelope generally. The unclean animals which do not both chew
the cud and part the hoof are found among the camels, the monkey, the hare,
the porcupine, the weasel, the pig, the dog, the fox, the cat family, the
horse in its family and the mouse. Clean birds are the chicken, turkey,
pheasant, quail, goose, dove pigeon, guinea fowl, partridge and grouse.
Unclean birds are eagles, herons, cranes, hawks, the crow, the vulture,
the owl, the swan, the pelican, peacock, cormorant, water hen, stork and
ostrich. There are, of course, others that fall within these separate categories
and which are determined by establishing whether or not they accord with
the principles or clean or unclean food. The general attitude today is
that as the environment of all animals has been improved, the prohibition
against them has been removed and that all are now fit for human consumption.
Let it be said at once that nowhere in the Bible is there any justification
for this contention. That which was unfit, because of its peculiar physical
structure in the Old Testament, is exactly the same today and the reason
behind the prohibition in the context of food, remains identical. God’s
people today are indeed a pathetic reminder of the unhealthy consequences
of departure from God’s Holy Laws and the blame for this - the indictment
against the perpetrators of this sad state - is clearly established by
Ezekiel the prophet who wrote:
“Her priests have violated my law, and
have profaned my holy things; they have put no difference between the holy
and profane, neither have they shown difference between the unclean and
the clean and have hid their eyes from my Sabbaths, and I am profaned among
them” (Ezek. 22:26).
The difference between the clean and the unclean
is the difference between life and death, good and evil - a difference
which God’s people will come to know in a time not far removed from today.
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