Ellen G. White and Her Critics

Charge Number 2

Christ ate meat. Mrs. White, in condemning meat, condemns Him. EGWC 369.2

This charge is virtually answered by what has already been presented. Christ ate the best food that was available. That, we have no reason to doubt. And does Mrs. White’s advocacy of a fleshless diet set any higher standard than this? The answer is No. Of course it might be added that we know next to nothing about His diet. The record does not reveal whether He specially selected one kind of food in preference to another. We know, for example, that in a place where there was no food except a few loaves and fishes, He used this food for the multitude. There is nothing in Mrs. White’s writings that would condemn this. If the record teaches us anything, it teaches us that He simply used the best food obtainable with which to feed the hungry. Mrs. White wrote of her own experience: “When I could not obtain the food I needed, I have sometimes eaten a little meat.”—Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 118. (See also Counsels on Diet and Foods, 394.) EGWC 369.3

But perhaps someone may say, regarding Christ’s having fed fish to the people: “If meat eating is so far from the ideal food, so bad for the body, Christ would certainly have known this and would have worked a miracle, if necessary, to provide better food.” EGWC 369.4

This statement owes its impressiveness to its alleged insight into just what Christ would have done under certain conditions. Mrs. White’s health teachings covered much more than abstinence from meat eating. She had much to say about various features of diet and about bathing, exercise, sleep, fresh air, to mention only part of the teachings. She also said much about the danger of disease from different kinds of foods. Most people will agree that this teaching is valid and that the following of it means better health for people, less disease. They also will agree that Christ knew the value of these teachings, for He knew all things. But can anyone show that Christ spent time lecturing, for example, on disease prevention, the danger of germs, the value of frequent bathing? No. Then why should we be asked to explain why He did not say or do something about meat in relation to health? EGWC 370.1

The simple facts are that Christ, as He hastened about from city to city, dealt only with the most primary spiritual problems confronting man. And as regards their physical maladies, He immediately healed them, thus providing proof of His divine claims. Spiritual work must be done for men’s hearts before they are in any mood to understand that their bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost and that they should glorify God in their bodies. The revelation of the ways of God toward man is progressive. The black paganism that confronted the apostles called for them to focus, likewise, on the most primary spiritual values in all their preaching. EGWC 370.2