Eating Meat, Part 3

Restrictions on eating meat for humans were lifted after the Flood. According to Genesis 9:3, God told Noah: "Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything." A similar statement is made by the Apostle Paul in the New Testament: "For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer" (1 Timothy 4:4-5).

Going back to Genesis, God's lifting of the restrictions on eating meat seems to be a concession to the realities imposed on creation by the Fall. By the time of the Flood, the likelihood is that some people had already begun to eat meat. At any rate, death among the animals was clearly established to be for the benefit of humankind in some cases. I previously explained that animals were put to death as "coverings" for human sin. This is what I mean when I say that death among the animals was established to be for the benefit of humankind in some cases. By making animals available to humankind for food, God added one more beneficial use.

God's authorization of humans to eat meat did not cancel out the importance or significance of "nephesh" in animals. Back in Genesis 9, God told Noah that permission to eat meat did not include eating animals that still retained their "nephesh": "But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood in it" (v.5). The word lifeblood in the original is "nephesh". The idea seems to be that eating animals while they still are alive is strictly forbidden. Later on, in the Book of Leviticus, God clarifies the restriction as a prohibition against eating blood. In Leviticus 17:14, God explains: "You must not eat the blood of any creature, because the life (nephesh) of every creature is its blood; anyone who eats its blood must be cut off."

Earlier in Leviticus 17, God also explained that the existence of "nephesh" in the animals is why their deaths could serve as atonement for human sin. Leviticus 17:11-12 states: "For the life (nephesh) of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves (for your nephesh) on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life (nephesh). Therefore I say to the Israelites, 'None of you may eat blood, nor may an alien living among you eat blood."

The prohibition against eating blood was taken very seriously by God's people, the Jews; so seriously, in fact, that the early Jewish Christians required Gentile converts to obey it as a matter of Christian faith. See Acts 15, especially verses 20 and 29.

So the existence of "nephesh" in animals continued to play a role in dietary matters, long after the restrictions against meat-eating were lifted. A little more on this tomorrow, along with one or two other considerations for responding appropriately today to God's creation of "nephesh" on Day 5...