laws of uncleanness that are associated with child birth and its necessary concomitants, could be used by these

seducing spirits to create an aversion and cause a rebound to a false sanctity. While the seducing spirits lead their

dupes on their vain quest for a superior sanctity that finds its roots only in the flesh, 1 Timothy 4 tells us the only

real sanctity that avails before God is that which `is sanctified by the Word of God, and prayer'.

Here we have the sanction of Scripture intelligently and thankfully endorsed by the prayer and thanksgiving of

the believer. He who has reached this blessed position is indeed proof against the enticement of a specious holiness,

but those who do not see that sanctification, like justification, is in the first instance a gift in grace and can have no

room for the flesh in any of its ways, are the ones most likely to be used as instruments in the hands of the father of

It is a mistake to look upon the word `meats' in 1 Timothy 4 as being a reference to `flesh' and as distinct from a

`non-flesh' diet. This has turned the eyes of many to Roman Catholic and Ritualistic practices and so prevented

them from beholding the possibility of a beam being in their own eye. The word broma means in the first place any

solid food as distinct from drink :

`I have fed you with "milk", and not with "meat"' (1 Cor. 3:2).

The `Meat' offering of the second chapter of Leviticus is entirely devoid of `flesh', and the expression `Grace before

meat' means the giving of thanks before partaking of any meal. The terms `sweetmeats' `greenmeat', &c., further

indicate the range of the word. While therefore a super sanctity would naturally abstain from flesh as an article of

diet, that is not the exclusive teaching of these seducing spirits. The hidden danger in the command to abstain at all

contradicts the purpose of God, for these `meats' God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which

believe and know the truth ... it is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer. `It is sanctified'. Here is true sanctity

as contrasted with the false sanctity of abstention. In the Word of God we learn that at the first, the food of mankind

was `every herb bearing seed ... and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for

meat' (Gen. 1:29). As these words apply to the Garden planted by God before the curse came down on the earth,

there was no need to provide against poisonous and noxious plants, they did not exist. At the expulsion of man, he

was under a necessity to eat bread in the sweat of his face. The earth would no longer yield `of itself' but required

the labours of husbandry, and `bread' made from wheat, barley or rye became practically `the staff of life'. After the

flood, for reasons not stated, but which are implied, flesh meat was added to human diet by Divine command :

` ... even as the green herb have I given you all things' (Gen. 9:3).

To abstain from flesh meat for humanitarian reasons, or for any feeling of superior sanctity is therefore to take a

step in the direction of apostasy. Later, the apostle said:

`All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient ... Let no man seek his own, but every man

another's wealth. Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat, asking no question for conscience sake ...

whatsoever is set before you, eat' (1 Cor. 10:23-27).

The only abstinence commended is that which stoops to yield to the qualms of another man's conscience (1 Cor.

10:29). There may be genuine reasons why an individual should abstain from one form of food or another, because

of weakness, sickness or other infirmity, but even this, justifiable as it may be, can easily become a `cult' and should

be followed with care. How many books and tracts have unwittingly emphasized the abstinence inculcated in the

fourth chapter of first Timothy in an endeavour to deepen the spiritual life! How few have emphasized the liberality

and largeness of 1 Timothy 6:17, `Trust ... in the living God, Who giveth us RICHLY all things to ENJOY'. It is a false

sanctity that would rid the believer's vocabulary of these words and but feeds the vanity of self imposed humility.

Feeding of all kinds, like marriage, is an indication that we are still in the body of this humiliation. There is no

warrant for believing that the spiritual body which will fit the believer for `heavenly places' in resurrection will be

sustained in life by any sort of digestive process at all, but even so, though it be a reminder of our present

humiliation, we must resist the temptation to a specious refinement that while apparently neglecting the body, yet

ministers to the satisfying of the flesh, for this is a covert attack upon our completeness and our acceptance in Christ,

even as the doctrines of demons was an attack upon His sole Mediation between God and men.