Seafood vs. Marijuana, Man's Law vs. G-d's Law

As you know, this blog is dedicated to looking at the world situation from a higher place, a place that is removed from the emotions of the world and set clearly in Scripture. Tonight I wish to speak again about what I call popular and increasingly Evangelical Protestant morality and to compare that morality with the Torah, the only law given by G-d.

Before we start, I want to briefly talk about one of the largest misconstructions in the many false statements found in Pauline writings, because it provides the basis for much of this false morality. In 1 Corinthians, Paul says: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from G-d, and that you are not your own?” 6:19. Now the passage is arguing against prostitution and seeks to convict the believers to avoid prostitutes and argues that a prostitute and person who has the Holy Spirit are incompatible and that believers should not have intercourse with prostitutes, not because it is wrong, but because it defiles or makes unclean the body which is owned by the Holy Spirit. However, in Ephesians, the Pauline writer says that the believer is only one of the many who are being built together into a temple. Ephesians 2:21-22. Likewise, in 1 Peter 2:4-5 we are told that we are living stones being built into a spiritual house. The result of looking more carefully at what Paul is saying is that the believer is not by himself a temple, but merely a stone which may be rough or perfect depending on his spiritual growth. Paul, like the writer of Ephesians and 1 Peter, agrees that we should avoid things that are bad for us, but he does not insist that the State forbid those things which are bad for us. His letter in 1 Corinthians was not a new law, but merely an explanation why believers should not do that which is temporally lawful, because it is spiritually bad for them.

With that said, the Torah tells us some foods which are lawful to ingest and some foods which are not lawful to ingest. Genesis 9 lays down some general laws that are applicable to all the children of Noach, which, of course, all of us are. G-d says: I give them all (meaning the living creatures) as I did the green plants. Genesis 9:3. Moses tells us that G-d forbade to the Hebrews these animals that came from the water: “But the various creatures that crawl or swim in the water, whether in the sea or in the rivers, all those that lack either fins or scales are loathsome for you and you shall treat them as loathsome. Their flesh you shall not eat, and their dead bodies you shall loathe.” Leviticus 11:10-11. Now, Jesus made these laws effective on Gentile believers when he said in Matthew 5:19-21 that the law was still effective and had not passed away.

The Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach says: “G-d makes the earth yield healing herbs which the prudent man should not neglect; … he endows men with the knowledge to glory in his mighty works, through which the doctor eases pain and the druggist prepares his medicines…” Sirach 38:4,6-7. Marijuana comes from a green plant and has many medicinal qualities. Opium, heroin, and hashish come from a green flower and have long been used as pain killers. Cocaine comes from a plant many of us like very much, the coca plant, the source of chocolate. All of these plants are lawful to the believer. Using them and eating them is lawful. On the other hand, shrimp, lobster, crab, mussels, scallops, oysters, squid, and octopus are not lawful and are called loathsome and forbidden to man.

In our society, we have denied the civil rights of persons, we have incarcerated person, we have forbidden the sale of green plants, we have allowed warfare in our streets and neighborhoods and we have brought Mexico to civil war for the sake of interdicting something that is lawful under G-d’s Torah. At the same time, we wring our hands and cry foul against the destruction of the seafood industry in the Gulf of Mexico, an industry altogether loathsome to the Almighty. We want to break a mighty company and limit resources of this country rather than stop this unwholesome and loathsome industry. Evangelical morality makes marijuana illegal and shrimp legal. Evangelical morality makes the murder of babies legal, but the execution of criminals illegal. Evangelical morality seeks to impose its view of what is good against G-d’s view of what is good. From where I sit, high on my mountain, I shake my head and try to understand how G-d’s law is rejected and man’s law is adopted.

The eating of forbidden seafood desecrates the Temple of G-d much more than using cigarettes and marijuana. The eating of forbidden seafood is loathsome to G-d, but marijuana, cocaine, heroin, etc. are not.