The Bible- God’s Manual for Faith and Practice

This understanding of Genesis 1-9 is an absolute torture of the text and an attack of the gospel itself. The result of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). God created Adam and Eve and placed them in a pristine garden. He commanded them not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:9) for if they did they would die (Gen. 3:3). God set before Adam and Eve the rules of this new world. However, they chose to attempt to define their own rules and ate of the fruit (Gen. 3:6). They immediately became aware of their own nakedness (Gen. 3:7), were not allowed to eat of the tree of life and death became imminent (Gen. 3:22).
Death entered the world because of the fall of man. A necessary predecessor to natural death is sickness. People do not die of old age. Before any natural death at least one part of the body fails to function correctly, it is sick. Sickness is therefore a mandatory condition that befell mankind when Adam and Eve were displaced from the garden.
It is the very fact of the bodily resurrection of Christ that our sins are covered. As Paul told the Corinthians, “…if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:17). It was sin that brought death to mankind and it was Christ who brought us life. In eternity our soul will be reunited with our body. It will be for us as it was for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Malkmus himself cannot separate the ideas of sickness and death. “Sickness and disease and physical problems are not normal! They are the penalty one pays for violating God’s natural laws!” Malkmus thus believes sickness and disease was not a result of spiritual disobedience as Genesis 3 explains. He asserts sickness only came into the world when God gave man meat to eat after the flood. He gives no cohesive explanation for why or how death was a part of the world before the flood. But the fact is, death comes only as the result of sickness. Thus sickness was present before the flood because death was present before the flood.
According to Malkmus “one of the greatest tragedies in history is the change in diet man made from the original raw vegetarian/fruitarian diet God gave to mankind in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 1:29 to one of meat and cooked and artificial foods.” If this is true then the “greatest tragedy” of all time must be credited to none other than God Almighty. It was God who made the dietary change in Genesis 9:3. However, the decree of Genesis 9:3 was not a tragedy.
The giving of meat in Genesis 9:3 is part of a larger pronouncement by God. The first four words of chapter nine are “And God blessed Noah” (Gen. 9:1a). God did not give meat to curse man. He gave the birds of the air and the creatures of the ground as a blessing to Noah.
Malkmus completely tortures Genesis 9:3 by reading his own meaning into the passage and then misappropriates Genesis 1:29 as God’s diet for man. He boldly proclaims, “Yes, heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and a host of other diseases can be eliminated if Christians will return to the Bible and observe the natural laws God gave man thousands of years ago!”
As a pastor Malkmus saw a steady dose of sickness, disease and death. When he was cured of cancer he felt the call of God to take his dietary information to the people of God so that they might not suffer like those in his church. There is little doubt that Malkmus is passionate about his message. However, his use of Hosea 4:6 to substantiate his ministry is completely without warrant.
Malkmus chooses only to quote “my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” The verse in its entirety is “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priests; since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.”
Hosea was not speaking to Israel about the Hallelujah Diet. Israel was not following the law of Moses and were thus being destroyed. God was calling His people back to the knowledge of Him, specifically, the law of Moses.
One final example of his biblical ineptness is found in his interpretation of Mark 5:25-26. In this passage a woman with a flow of blood for twelve years could not be healed by physicians. These are the verses that Malkmus uses as a subtitle in the fifth chapter of his book When Christians Get Sick. In this chapter he warns his readers of the ineffectiveness of the medical community and the drugs they prescribe.
Whatever one thinks of the medical community we can be assured that Mark 5:25-26 does not speak to this issue. The point of the story of the bleeding woman was to show the divine power of Jesus. Man could not heal the woman but Jesus miraculously did. Jesus was God and the people should have heeded His words.