A Biblical Theology of Redemptive Meals

Before entering gospel ministry, I served as a chef in restaurants on St. Simons Island, GA and Asheville, North Carolina. I have long found the creativity involved in food preparation––together with the combining of meats, cheeses, spices, fruits, vegetables, grains, garnishes, and dressings––to be one of the most enjoyable human experiences. Of all the gifts that God has given us in this world, food is at the top of the list. Many years ago, a friend said to me, “How good must this God be who allows us to experience the blessing of even enjoying the way food tastes after the fall!” Yet, for all the ways in which we enjoy food and drink, we often abuse or misuse these good gifts of God. Additionally, we often fail to adequately understand the role that food plays in the unfolding of redemptive history. From the fall of man to the marriage supper of the Lamb, food form an integral part of the collective human experience. Consider the following:

Scripture opens with a clear statement about food. Immediately upon the creation of mankind, the Lord blessed man and said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.” (Gen. 1:29). Before the fall, God gave men vegetation for sustenance. In His goodness, God gave mankind the right to eat of “every tree of the garden,” with one prominent exception. They were not to “eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” The God who had given man all vegetation to eat prohibited the eating of the fruit of one tree, in order to test the obedience of His image bearers. God is King, and Adam needed to remember his creatureliness. Therefore, the Lord set one created object off limits. In this way, God was teaching Adam the great distance between the Creator and the creature. Thomas Boston, in Human Natures in its Fourfold State, captured it so well, when he wrote:

“Now this fair Tree, of which he was forbidden to eat, taught him…that his happiness lay not in enjoyment of the creatures, for there was a want even in Paradise: so that the forbidden tree was in effect the hand of all the creatures, pointing man away from themselves to God for happiness: It was a sign of emptiness hung before the door of the creation, with that inscription, ‘This is not your rest.’”

Though the Bible opens with a picture of blessing in this newly created world, things radically change. Instead of delighting in God, our first parents rebelled against Him. The first sin of humanity involved food. As C.S. Lewis descriptively portrayed it, “She who thought it beneath her dignity to bow to God now worships a vegetable.”1 Instead of choosing to love and obey their Maker, Adam and Eve disobeyed. By his first sin, Adam brought all sin and misery onto his descendants. Like Eve, Adam chose for himself a piece of vegetation over the infinitely glorious God. The evil of this first sin was not the object of self-pleasure (i.e., the fruit), or even in the quest for self-pleasure (i.e., in eating); rather, it was the rejection of the infinite God who alone can satisfy the deepest needs of the souls of men. The sad story of fallen humanity is that we have “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom. 1:26). The illegitimate worship of created things includes the idolatrous ways we now misuse food and drink––giving them too prominent a place in our lives and failing to thank God for His gracious life-sustaining provisions.

Redeeming Meals

The good news is that the God against whom we have sinned is a God who delights in mercy (Micah 7:18; Eph. 2:4). In his eternal wisdom, the triune God decided to set food apart for His redeeming purposes. In the Noahic Covenant, the Lord permitted mankind to eat meat (Gen. 9:3). He said to Noah, “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood” (Gen. 9:3-4). Why would God give man the right to eat animals after the fall, when He had not given him this right before the fall? The answer is found in the redemptive-historical significance of the animals on the ark.

Prior to the flood, God commanded Noah to bring two of every clean and seven of every unclean animal into the ark––both land animals and birds into the ark. As Genesis 7:1–3 states,

“Then the LORD said to Noah, ‘Come into the ark. . .You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female; also seven each of the birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of the earth’” (Gen 7:1-3).

In the old covenant, God commanded animal sacrifice in Israel’s worship system. He designated clean animals to serve as atoning sacrifices for the sins of His people. This was integral to the unfolding of God’s redemptive plan––a plan that was ultimately fulfilled in Christ. Ceremonially clean animals were types of Christ, when they were offered to God as sacrifices on the altar. Jesus is the “lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Pet. 1:19) who ended sacrifices by the sacrifice of Himself on the cross (Heb. 10:   ). Scripture tells us that immediately after he stepped off the ark, “Noah built an alter to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the alter. And the LORD smelled a soothing aroma” (Gen 8:21). The apostle Paul explains that the sacrifice of Christ was the fulfillment of Noah’s sacrifice, as he is the antitypical “offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma” (Eph. 5:2).

The New Testament also reveals that God designated the clean and unclean animal distinction in the Mosaic Law (Lev. 11; Deut. 14) to be illustrative of two people groups––the Jews and the Gentiles. There was a practical side to the old covenant dietary distinction between clean and unclean animals. It would have been exceedingly difficult for God’s people to mix with the nations if they could not eat the food of pagans. This was a separating grace of God to Israel in the old covenant era.

However, there was also a redemptive-historical dimension to it. These two classifications represented ritually clean and unclean people groups until Christ came. Jesus alluded to the cessation of the old covenant dietary laws when he “declared all foods clean” (Mark 7:19). This indicates that Christ had come to purify the hearts of believing Jews and Gentiles by his sacrificial death on the cross. The Scriptures expressly teach the cessation of the clean/unclean old covenant dietary distinction in the new covenant era (Acts 10:9-11:18). The distinction pointed forward to the moral transformation and cleansing of the hearts of men that Christ would accomplish by his sacrifice, word, and Spirit.

In the Old Testament, there was an anticipatory side to the eating of God’s prescribed sacrificial meals. God gave men animals for food (Gen. 9:3) to be a precursor for the eating of the sacramental meal of the Passover (Exodus 12). It would have been impossible for someone to be a faithful member of the old covenant church while refusing to eat the Passover lamb. With the mandate to partake of the redemptive meal of the Passover, God foreshadowed the spiritual and sacramental eating of the flesh and blood of His Son. Scripture teaches that Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. When speaking of his own sacrificial death on the cross, Jesus appealed to the old covenant sacrificial meals. In John 6:54, the Savior declares, “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life.” As we partake of Christ crucified by faith, we enjoy the spiritual blessings of his sacrificial death. We partake of him as the Israelites were to partake of the redemptive Passover lamb. The apostle Paul directly identified the sacrificial death of Christ with the Passover meal when he wrote, “Christ our Passover Lamb was sacrificed for us” (1 Cor. 5:7).

Scripture further conveys this idea in our Lord’s command to eat his body and drink his blood, as symbolized in the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper (Matt. 26:26–27). Although the bread and wine do not become the physical body and blood of Christ, they sacramentally represent his person and work for the spiritual nourishment of our souls. What food does to the body, the sacrificed body of Christ does for the souls of believers. The clean animals on the Ark and in Israel’s sacrificial system were meant to be anticipatory expressions of the spiritual realities of that appear with the coming of Christ. While the sin of our first parents was in their “taking and eating” of the fruit of the tree (Gen. 3:6), the redeeming grace and blessings of Christ come to sinners when they “take and eat” of the fruit of the cursed tree (Matt. 26:26; 1 Pet. 2:21). Christ drank the “sour wine” (Matt. 27:48) or our sin so that we might drink the sweet wine of his redeeming grace. The blessings of eating of the fruit of this tree are most wonderfully symbolized in eating and drinking at the Lord’s Supper.

Feasting in the Kingdom

Although Scripture speaks of Jesus as being “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” feasting held a prominent place in his ministry. The frequency with which he feasted, and the company he kept, reveal the central role of meals in the ministry of the messiah (e.g., Matt. 9:9-13; Luke 7:36-50, 10:38-42; Matt. 26:20-25). Christ expressed the redeeming joy that he gives by his sacrificial death when he turned water into wine in his first miracle at the wedding in Cana of Galilee (John 2:1–11). In the old covenant, the blessings of the new covenant were represented under the figure of the redeemed drinking new wine in the mountains (Amos 9:13). The symbolism of Jesus’ first miracle is that he is the long-awaited redeemer who brings the eschatological blessings of which the old covenant prophets spoke.

Our Lord enjoyed the festive aspects of partaking of meals with others (Matt. 11:18-19). He did so for the ultimate purpose of revealing himself to be the Savior of sinners (Luke 7:36–50). He was everywhere gathered with others over a meal for the redeeming purposes for which he had come into the world (Luke 10:38-42). Our Lord purposefully ate and drank with tax collectors and sinners (Luke 15). Feasting had such a pronounced place in Jesus’ ministry that he was falsely accused of being “a drunkard and a glutton” (Matt. 11:19). Yet, he was without sin (1 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15, 7:26). Christ’s ministry was often carried out in the community-creating atmosphere of a dinner party. This is not an accidental detail, as Jesus Himself likened the eschatological kingdom to a wedding feast, where Jesus will share table fellowship with His disciples (Matt. 26:29; Luke 12:36).

In the book of Revelation Jesus promises to have table fellowship (Rev. 3:20), a right to the tree of life (Rev. 2:7), and hidden manna (Rev. 2:17) to the one who overcomes by faith. These symbols of feasting point to the believer’s eternal feeding on Christ. God utilizes these culinary symbols to show forth Christ and the blessings of the eschatological Kingdom of God. As Jonathan Edwards explained,

“Christ himself now stands instead of that tree of life that grew in the midst of the garden of Eden. ‘Tis Christ that is meant by “the tree of life, that grows in the midst of the paradise of God” (Revelation 2:7). And we are immediately invited and called to Christ to eat of the fruit of this tree without any sort of terms, but only to come and take and eat.”3

While food and drink are not of the essence of the kingdom (see Rom. 14:17), the church’s mission is often formed around table fellowship. This was true of Christ and his disciples (Luke 24:30; 41-42; John 21:4-14), it was true of the believers in the kingdom of God in the first century (Acts 2:46), and it should be true of our fellowships today. For believers, meals together in this life (both in worship and in our homes) are preparing us for that day when we will spiritually feast together in the presence of God. The food we consume, the table around which we sit, and the companions with whom we gather have as their end the spiritual communion that we enjoy with one another and with the triune God. We have been redeemed for the great messianic banquet that we anticipate when we eat together as a Christian community. As we await that day, we proclaim Christ to others that they might join the feast by faith in him. As we do, we discover more and more the significant place that food plays in the redemptive purposes of God.

1. C.S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost(New Dehli: Atlantic Publishers and Distributers, 2005) p. 120

2.Thomas Boston, Human Nature in Its Fourfold State (Philadelphia: Towar and J. & D. M. Hogan, 1830) p. 28

3. An excerpt from Jonathan Edwards’ sermon “East of Eden” (WJE Online) http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4xNjoxNy53amVv

*This article was first published at ByFaith Magazine–the denominational magazine of the Presbyterian Church in America.