THE GENESIS OF DIET AND HEALTH
“Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto Me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself In fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto Me hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.” Isa. 55:2, 3.
To appreciate the importance of this Divine counsel one must first fully realize that in the beginning God created man in His own image male and female created He them. Yes, in God’s own image were they both to live forever as He Himself lives, never to experience pain or death.
To eat understandingly, “that which is good,” and to keep well, however, is to eat only that which the Creator sanctified for man’s use. “Behold,” He instructed, “I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.” Gen. 1:29.
Although given an immense variety of foodstuffs — every herb and every tree bearing seed — the sinless, holy pair, being tempted, and being inexperienced, reached for the only forbidden fruit in all God’s creation, the fruit of the tree that was in the midst of the garden. Having eaten of it, they became subject to that experience which was to exhibit to them and to their descendants the results of both good and evil — joy and sadness, health and disease, redemption and damnation, — all these were henceforth to he the lot of humanity. Consequently, while going through these experiences, death passed upon all men and upon all else that was subject to Adam’s rulership.
Thus, as descendants of father Adam, we naturally came unto this world as first degree sinners, subject to all the good as well as to all the evil that is in it. And now if we choose to practice the good, we shall add no other sin, and eventually our sinful nature will be changed and, guided by Divine Light, we shall be brought to the Edenic sinless state. But if we continue to do otherwise, then as a result we shall acquire additional curses, curses which result from our own sinning. And if we never turn from pursuing such an evil course, we shall suffer even the “second death.” Rev. 20:14.
Now the fact that early in the history of mankind, men were not subject to so much sickness disease, and suffering as they are at the present time, and were capable of living nearly a thousand years, proves that the nations of today have not chosen the good, but rather the evil course — the course which leads to destruction of both body and soul. Thus adding sin to sin, evil to evil, and pain to pain, they are running full speed to ruin in this life, and, except they repent, to final destruction in the life to come; to the second death, a death from which there is no resurrection.