(Part I/II)
We find ourselves eating all kinds of food (especially desserts) this time of year. Yet amid the feasting and celebrating, have you ever thought about food Christianly? Is there a proper Christian view of food? Is it merely a means to an end, or is it nobler than that? Is it somehow less important—less spiritual—than, say, Bible reading and prayer?
Over this two-part essay, we will consider five principles regarding Christianity and food. First, all of life is spiritual, including food. Second, food is part of God’s good creation. Third and fourth, food remains a part of God’s good creation even after sin entered into the world and as God redeems the world. Finally, to some extent or another, food will remain a part of God’s good creation after He has eradicated the presence and curse of sin. I will then conclude with some reflections of application.
1. All of life is spiritual.
We’re often tempted to think that certain topics are “spiritual” and that others are not. According to that line of logic, topics such as the Bible, prayer, the Ten Commandments, Jesus, the crucifixion, and the resurrection are spiritual, but topics like work, finances, leisure, sports, the arts, politics, family, and food are not spiritual.
However, we shouldn’t think of reality as either spiritual or physical, immaterial or material. That’s a false dichotomy. Life is simultaneously spiritual and also physical. For example, the Bible has spiritual reality, and yet it is a physical artifact. Prayer is deeply spiritual, and yet we invariably assume a physical posture when we pray. Similarly, food is clearly physical, and yet that’s not all it is.
In the beginning, God created the spiritual-physical world, and He called it very good. Thus food has a spiritual-physical reality. But whereas some of God’s creations are intrinsically spiritual, others are instrumentally spiritual. For example, human beings are the former, because they are spiritual in and of themselves. When God made man, He “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” (Gen. 2:7, nasb). That phrase living being means “living soul.” It’s not simply that man’s body houses his soul; instead he is a soul.
By contrast, food is not spiritual in and of itself, and yet it has spiritual significance; it is instrumentally spiritual. Man’s ontological composition normally comprises a spiritual-physical, or immaterial-material, reality, excepting his postmortem existence prior to the resurrection. As a result, those things with which he interacts, such as food, will impact him in one way or another, sometimes unto spiritual good and sometimes spiritual detriment. Food thus has instrumental but not intrinsic spiritual significance.
We will consider some of the specific qualities of the spiritual-instrumental good of food in principles two through five.
2. Food is a part of God’s good creation.
One of the first things children learn about the Bible is the creation story. God creates the world in six days and rests on the seventh. God creates light, the stars, day and night, the oceans, the dry land, the plants, the animals, and man and woman. Here are God’s initial instructions regarding food in Genesis 1:29-31:
Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.
This passage tells us two things: First, God initially sustained man on a plant-based diet (a point we’ll return to below). Second, God creates everything necessary for the growth of plants in days one through five, and then He creates mankind on day six to eat of it. In a manner of speaking, we are (to put it humorously) born to eat. In all seriousness, God creates us to bless us, which includes the blessing of food.
Quite literally, verse 29 reads that God has given food to mankind. Thus food is a good gift from a good God. Immediately following God’s instruction, verse 31 reads that He looked out on all of His creation, which includes the gift of food, and declared it to be very good. This theme is continued in Genesis 2 where God tells man that he may eat of every tree of the garden excepting the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As James would later state, “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above” (1:17).
What went wrong? Why is food the source of consternation? And why can we now eat meat?
3. Food is still part of God’s good creation in a fallen world.
In Genesis 3 man and woman sin by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, resulting in the curse of sin over all creation. We don’t know how to receive and enjoy God’s good gifts as we should. We don’t know how to interact with food as we should. We overeat. We under-eat. We eat stuff that’s bad for us.
Problems related to food create all kinds of health challenges for human beings, including diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure. Complications related to diet result in more deaths per year than issues related to tobacco, alcohol, and drugs. According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (sponsored by the University of Washington), some 678,000 people die per year in the U. S. as a result of poor dietary decisions.
And that’s to say nothing of the health-care costs that people accrue later in life. Undoubtedly, the church needs more teaching on nutrition than it currently receives. Another concern relates not simply to our practices of food consumption as modern Americans but also to our practices of food production.
However, the primary point here is that food complicates things. The baseline fault is not food per se but rather man’s depravity. What’s the answer? We shouldn’t see food as the underlying problem or refuse to enjoy God’s good gifts in a righteous manner. After all food is still part of God’s good creation to us, even if that creation is subject to sin’s curse.
Several chapters later, the Genesis narrative reprises God’s creation mandates but adds an important caveat: “Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as I gave the green plant” (9:3). Thus God has added meat to the menu of permissible foodstuff. We interpret Genesis 9 in light of Genesis 1, meaning that, even though sin has entered the world, God still gives to men and women the food they consume, which now includes plants and animals, as a good gift. Fortunately, the Bible doesn’t end with man’s sin.
4. Food is a part of God’s good creation even as He redeems the world from the curse of sin.
To “redeem” means to “buy back,” to put things back the way they were. Often times when we think of redemption, we (understandably) think of getting our souls right before the Lord. And no doubt that’s part of it. But remember from Genesis 2: It’s not simply that we have souls; we are soul—living souls. We all need to get our souls right with the Lord. However, redemption (and by extension “getting our souls right”) includes not just the broken estates of men and women but also the whole cosmic order. Redemption is about God making us into the people that He created us to be in the first place. God wants to restore the blessing of food to its rightful telos.
Imagine if you had been born into a world without sin. What would that have looked like? What would your childhood have looked like? What kind of job would you have had? How would you have interacted with food? After all food was a part of the original creation as we’ve seen. That’s what redemption is all about: It’s about being who God made us to be holistically without sin.
Consider the life and ministry of Jesus Christ: He began His ministry with these words in Mark 1:15, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” And yet the ministry that follows includes, and therefore the ministry of the kingdom of God includes, lots of miracles involving food, such as the miracle at Cana where Jesus turns water to wine, as well as the feeding of 4,000 men plus women and children on one occasion and the feeding of 5,000 men plus women and children on another separate occasion.
Have you ever thought about the fact that Jesus’ first miracle is the miracle at Cana? Through that miracle, numerous commentators have attested, Jesus affirms the fundamental goodness of the stuff of creation. Or have you ever thought about the fact that Jesus instructs us to pray that God would “give us this day our daily bread” among the things He mentions in the Lord’s Prayer (Mt. 6:11)? Jesus’ language echoes that of Genesis 1:29, where the triune God of creation states that He has given us the food of the earth as a gift.
Or have you ever thought about the fact that the Lord’s Supper is the Lord’s Supper? Of all the ways that Jesus could have asked us to remember His sacrifice, He used the image of food. The infinite God of creation and redemption could have instructed us to build little wooden crosses in remembrance of Him, or He could have instructed us to stare at the sky for sixty seconds once every week in remembrance of Him, or He could have instructed us to wear sackcloth and sit in ashes in remembrance of Him, or He could have instructed to do any number of things. But He instructed us to partake of the Supper.
No doubt the Lord’s Supper hearkens back to the Passover in the Old Testament, and no doubt the Lord’s Supper points forward to a greater Supper of the future. Food then occupies an important place—indeed, an important spiritual place—in the life and ministry of Jesus. As such, food is a part of God’s good creation even as He redeems the world from the curse of sin.
(Part II/II)
5. Food will remain a part of God’s good creation in the future when sin no longer exists.
The gospel is not simply about redemption; it’s also about transformation. When we who are in Christ die, we will go to heaven, and we will see Jesus and our loved ones who were believers. At some point after that, the Scriptures tell us, Jesus will give us our resurrection bodies. He will reunite our spirits and our bodies.
As it turns out, we won’t simply be spirits floating on clouds. We’ll be physical. And then at some point after that, God will purge the earth of its wickedness, and a new Jerusalem will descend from the heavens onto a renewed earth. Our final destination as believers is this earth—this earth eradicated of all its sin.
In this life, we require food for sustenance. Some debate exists regarding whether we will require food in the age to come. Revelation 7:16 reads, “They will hunger no longer, nor thirst anymore.” Whether or not hungering or thirsting refers to the fact we won’t require food (presumably the case), or whether that we will need it but that God will supply it (less likely), the point remains that food will occupy an important place on the new earth. Even if we won’t require food, we will still enjoy it as a good gift from a good God who desires to give His children that which they will enjoy, which we saw all the way back in Genesis 1. Poverty will no longer plague those lacking.
In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul tells us that Jesus’ resurrection body will function as a model for our own resurrection bodies and that they will be spiritual bodies: “But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. . . . In Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming. . . . So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body. . . . It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body” (15:20, 22b-23, 42, 44a). What then was Jesus’ body like? Luke 24 records that Jesus ate broiled fish (24:42-43; cf. John 21:4-15).
The prophets such as Isaiah also use the imagery of food in relation to the new earth, referring to lavish banquets of refined, aged wine and choice pieces of marrow (25:6) and vineyards that will produce fruit (65:17a, 21b). Jesus prophesies about the day when believers will feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Mt. 8:11) and proclaims, “‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb’” (Rev. 19:9).
Revelation 22 reveals salvation history that has come full circle, echoing Genesis: “On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month” (v. 2). Whether some of this prophecy is figurative or not, it appears to be a figure that stands for something of actual substance, as evidenced by the fact that Jesus in fact ate real food after His resurrection.
C. S. Lewis beautifully captured food in the Eschaton in The Last Battle. To set the scene, Aslan is the Christ-figure. He has gathered all around him, the living and the dead, for the final judgment. After that, those who are judged faithful enter the new Narnia. Lewis describes the scene:
Not far away from them rose a grove of trees, thickly leaved, but under every leaf there peeped out the gold or faint yellow or purple or glowing red of fruits such as no one has seen in our world. . . .
Everyone raised his hand to pick the fruit he best liked the look of. . . .
And they all began to eat.
What was the fruit like? Unfortunately, no one can describe a taste. All I can say is that, compared with those fruits, the freshest grapefruit you’ve ever eaten was dull, and the juiciest orange was dry, and the most melting pear was hard and woody, and the sweetest wild strawberry was sour. And there were no seeds or stones, and no wasps. If you had once eaten that fruit, all the nicest things in this world would taste like medicines after it. But I can’t describe it. You can’t find out what it is like unless you can get to that country and taste for yourself. [1]
Lewis tells us that the very best thing we can eat in the here and now will pale in comparison to that which we will eat in the hereafter. Consider the best cheeseburger or pizza or smoked butt you’ve ever eaten. Compared to the magnificent glories of the new heavens and new earth, it will taste like sawdust.
Application
Hungry yet? Because food occupies an important place in the lives of believers. At least four applications follow:
First, nothing exists beyond the purview of our great God. We should view everything in this world through the lens of the Christian worldview. Some may have never considered a theology of food, and yet Christian redemption entails even that. The Christian gospel addresses the ordinary things of life. It’s all about turkey and ham and lamb and mashed potatoes and turnip greens and squash and chocolate. Think through all of life’s questions Christianly.
Second, don’t obsess over food. Don’t make too much of it or make an idol out of it. Food has an important place in the Scriptures; it has an important place in life. But so does fasting. Moses fasted. Elijah fasted. Jesus fasted. Paul fasted. We might fast for a day, or we might fast for just one meal. We might fast from certain kinds of food for a certain period of time. Food is important, but it must remain in its rightful place.
Third, don’t take food for granted. It is a good gift from a good God. It is something God gives us whence to derive pleasure. God likes to see His children happy. Don’t forget where your food comes from. Pray before your meals. See food as God’s gift to you.
Fourth, celebrate food for what it is. It’s not a mere means to an end. It’s not somehow unimportant. It’s deeply spiritual. See food as a daily reminder of God’s magnificent providence and care in your life (which is evidenced at the creation and the Lord’s Prayer). See food as a daily reminder of God’s ongoing work of redemption in your life (which is evidenced in the Passover and the Lord’s Supper). See food as a daily reminder that Christ will complete His good work of transformation in you (which is evidenced by the resurrection body of Jesus and the numerous prophecies about food in the new earth).
In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul writes, “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (v. 31, italics added). As you look forward to the upcoming events of celebration, and even as you partake of your daily meals, eat and drink unto the glory of God.
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[1]C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle, The Chronicles of Narnia (New York: Harper Collins, 1984), 156-57.
December 28, 2018
Thanks for the fine article, brother. It makes me think and reminds me of many good lessons I have learned across the years. First, it reminds me of my father, who was a POW during WW2. Although he would speak sparingly of those times when I was a child, I was able to learn more as I talked with him as an adult. When captured, he estimated his weight as 180 lbs. He was weighed 30 days after that and was 90 lbs.due to the starvation he experienced. He vowed to never go hungry again, or his family, if he survived. From that, we grew food each year; acres of food. We ‘put up’ all sorts of vegetables so as to eat until next harvest.
Second, it reminds me that wants can teach great lessons. Instead of being greedy, he gave away all that we could not use, and sometimes more.
Third, mealtime is wonderful for the family. Many expect this only at holiday time, but it really should be as often as possible. We try to make birthdays an event at home with our own food. But then, we never really did ‘eat out’ much at all anyway. Families are made for the home, not the restaurant. Build memories there.
Fourth, food represents both pleasure and sacrifice. Although tastes vary, almost everyone has foods that bring them great delight. For meals at home, made there, someone worked to put it before you. This should help us be more thankful for them and their efforts. Beyond that, all food is given to us as you say in the article.
Just wanted to share a few quick thoughts that came from your article.
December 28, 2018
Thanks for your comment and thanks for sharing your thoughts. I enjoyed reading them. I hope the holidays are treating you well.