Everyone wants to be healthy. Everyone desires to walk in good health and feel good. However, spiritual health should be our top priority.

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It is readily available. Spiritual health is God’s promise to us. He revealed to the world multiple centuries ago what it is and how to acquire it. In fact, in the very beginning, spiritual health was the norm.

THE BOOK OF GENESIS

First of all, we know that God is good. He is perfect. He can be trusted to the nth degree. Therefore, anything that God creates is good and anything God creates to sustain life, including food, is good.

In the Genesis account, at the beginning of Life on Earth just after the Days of Creation were completed, everything God had created was pronounced good. This included the good health in general of all living creatures but also the spiritual health of humanity. Yet God created only one life form akin to Himself:

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them… [Genesis 1:27-28]

By this we see that not only is God good but the first people God created were good. He had blessed them abundantly with every form of good health. He had provided for them everything they could possibly need or want. They were living in a good place. Life was good.

As you read the following familiar passage from Genesis Chapter 1, see if you can find any hidden details in the narrative one might otherwise pass over. See if you can ascertain clear facts pertaining to spiritual health and good health in general. The foundational basics are all there. Let’s take a look:

²⁷ God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. ²⁸ God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” ²⁹ 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; ³⁰ 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. ³¹ God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. [Genesis 1:27-31]

According to this ancient narrative, whatever living creature God creates is not only good but God created the beginning and consequent perpetual process that allows for such living creatures to birth new generations. He also created the means required to sustain such living creatures, that is, how each must be nourished and gain the proper nutrients for good health and ongoing life. All of these were good.

In reading Genesis 1, then, we discover that at the end of each Day of Creation, God deemed everything He created on each day as good. The Hebrew word is טוֹב ṭôḇ (tobe). I suggest your own research to discover the full description of this word but Strong’s defines it as: Beautiful, best, better, bountiful, cheerful, at ease, × fair (word), (be in) favour, fine, glad, graciously, joyful, kindly, kindness, liketh (best), loving, merry, × most, pleasant, pleaseth, pleasure, precious, prosperity, ready, sweet, wealth, welfare, (be) well(-favoured).

You get the idea. Regarding such Creation days and specific life forms and living creatures, on the Third Day of Creation God created the Plant Kingdom. On Day Five He created Part 1 of the Animal Kingdom (the creatures of the air and water, primarily birds and fish). On Day Six, the final day of His active work, God created Part 2 of the Animal Kingdom, the land creatures, that which may be termed advanced life. These land animals are listed in three categories: (1) cattle, (2) creeping things, and (3) beasts of the earth. The original Hebrew equivalent of these three are bᵊhēmâ (be-hay-maw’), remeś (reh’-mes), and ḥay ‘ereṣ (khah’-ee) (eh’-rets).

The following brief Strong’s definitions gives us a better idea of these three primary life forms:

(1) בְּהֵמָה bᵉhêmâh (be-hay-maw’); from an unused root (probably meaning to be mute); properly, a dumb beast; especially any large quadruped or animal (often collective):—beast, cattle.

(2) רֶמֶשׂ remes (reh’-mes); from H7430; a reptile or any other rapidly moving animal:—that creepeth, creeping (moving) thing.

(3a) חַי chay (khah’-ee); from H2421; alive; also (as noun, especially in the feminine singular and masculine plural) life (or living thing), whether literally or figuratively:— age, alive, appetite, (wild) beast, company, congregation, life(-time), live(-ly), living (creature, thing), maintenance, merry, multitude, (be) old, quick, raw, running, springing, troop.

(3b) אֶרֶץ ʼerets (eh’-rets); from an unused root probably meaning to be firm; the earth (at large, or partitively a land):—× common, country, earth, field, ground, land, × nations, way, + wilderness, world.

One of the common characteristics of all of these land animals was their food: They were apparently all herbivores—plant eaters. This included the birds:

²⁹ 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; ³⁰ 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. [Genesis 1:29-30] [1]

The first thing which may come to mind here is this: What about the carnivores? Why does the Genesis account apparently either not list meat-eating predators or makes the apparent claim that such predators were actually herbivores at that long distant early time before the fall of man?

This opens up a big box of questions, to say the least, but I will try to stay on point here. Remember, the author of Genesis, as God’s spokesman, was primarily referencing the grocery list of early humans in that God had originally made human beings to subsist on a diet of “every plant yielding seed,” the fruit of “every tree which has fruit yielding seed,” and by extension, “every green plant.”

Now, it is also a fact that the majority of quadruped mammals such as cattle and deer are herbivores. Most birds of the present are not strict herbivores but the majority of their diet is plant-based. Some mammals and most birds are omnivores in that they eat both plant and animal matter. Some birds are carnivorous predators. Scientific studies have shown that animal diets in general have changed over time and location and that the normal process of such change, when it occurs, goes from herbivore to omnivore and in some instances to carnivore.[2] Of course, natural herbivores and carnivores are quite different in physiognomy regarding their teeth and digestive abilities which obviously portends original creation.  

Again, I don’t want to get off point here, but this section of Genesis, while it never mentions it, also brings up the topical discussion of animal death. Some believe there was no death whatsoever on the planet before the fall of man. Others explain that there must have been death as part of God’s original creation or the land would eventually be overrun with far too many animals which it could not possibly support. Death would therefore require predators to keep nature in the proper balance. Death would also require carrion eaters.

But back to our topic. The Genesis account is clear that mankind was originally created to be strict herbivores (no meat or dairy). Our bodies are constructed in such a way to back this up. We have the teeth for it. In fact, the Garden of Eden was actually primarily a fruit tree orchard. Human health, then, depends on proper human diet and if we were originally created to eat only fruits, vegetables (including leafy greens), grains, and nuts (and possibly roots) then a diet of that sort would appear to be far healthier than one that introduces foreign matter not suitable for human biology and digestion.

Sadly, much of our food supply and subsequent diet at present consists mostly of “foreign matter” in that it is predominantly non-organic, factory processed, and chemical-laden/saturated. This makes the very food we need to survive the likely leading cause of disease and general ill health whether people know it or not (or care).

What does this have to do with spiritual health? I’m getting to it. Stay tuned for Part 2.

© 2023 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.

[1] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

[2] www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120416154417.htm