forbidding marriage and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.
Which God hath created - The articles of food which he has made, and which he has designed for the nourishment of man. The fact that God had “created” them was proof that they were not to be regarded as evil, and that it was not to be considered as a religious duty to abstain from them. All that “God” has made is good in its place, and what is adapted to be food for man is not to be refused or forbidden; compare Ecclesiastes 5:18. There can be no doubt that in the apostasy here referred to, those things would be forbidden, not because they were injurious or hurtful in their nature, but because it might be made a part of a system of religion of self-righteousness and because there might be connected with such a prohibition the belief of special merit.