WILL WE EAT IN HEAVEN?

WILL WE EAT IN HEAVEN?

WILL WE EAT IN HEAVEN based on Rev. 22:1-6
By Glenn Pease


Benjamin Franklin formed a very close friendship with a Frenchwoman, who was 40 years younger than himself, when he was the American Minister in Paris. They wrote numerous letters to each other and though she refused all his proposals, she did finally agree to marry him in heaven, and live on roasted apples. If that was the best he could hope for, he wrote back and endorsed the plan. In the next world he said, they would eat the apples of paradise roasted with butter and nutmeg and they would pity those who were not dead.

People tend to get fanciful in romantic settings, but the question we want to focus on is this-will the pleasure of eating be one of the pleasures that we enjoy at God's right hand forever? Will there be literal eating in the eternal kingdom? Most people who give the matter any thought feel it would be a shame to waste one of God's best ideas-the sense of taste. This is the sense that gives us, here in time, a great deal of pleasure. The average person eats about one ton of food a year, and this means taste is a ton of pleasure a year. If the other senses will be a part or our resurrection bodies, then why not this one? We will certainly be able to see and enjoy the jewel-splendored New Jerusalem, and hear the joyous praise of the angelic choir. We will be able to touch the golden streets of gold as we walk with our Lord, and smell the perfume of heaven, referred to in Rev.8. Why should it be doubted that we will enjoy the sense of taste?

The reason for doubt is the powerful anti-body influence that began in the 4th century. The heroes of the Christian faith were, at that time, those who were ascetics. They denied the body the pleasures of life, and devoted themselves to a focus on the soul. They renounced sex and stayed celibate. They wore drab clothes, and ate only basic foods, avoiding anything fancy or too tasty. The better saints lived on bread and water. The body was the...

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