In this blog, I want to look at what God commanded Israel concerning blood. Two scriptures set God’s expectation about this issue.
The first scripture is in Gen 9:4 after Noah and his family leave the Ark. God tells them that they are allowed to eat from any plant and eat any meat but with one stipulation. They are not allowed to eat the animal’s blood because the animal’s blood is its life.
“But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is its blood.”
The second time God sets the same expectation is in Leviticus 17 when God gives them the commands about sacrifices and the Day of Atonement. Again we see God repeat the same command.
Lev 17:10-13 “If any one of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. Therefore I have said to the people of Israel. No person among you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger who sojourns among you eat blood.
Because the blood represents the life of the animal, God does not want a man to partake in the animal’s life. When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, God prevents them from participating of the Tree of life as well. I believe the reason God sent an Angel to guard the Tree of Life was that if they partook of it, man would forever live in a state of depravity. God had a different plan for man and his lost condition.
What was God’s plan? God’s plan is Jesus!
Jesus would be the lamb of God. John identifies Jesus as such when Jesus comes to be baptized by John. “There is the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world – John 1:29. Not only would Jesus be the sacrifice, but His Blood would be the reason we have forgiveness of sins.
Matt 26:28 For this is the Blood of the New Covenant which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
Things changed when Jesus came. He comes and asks the people to do something that seems to be contrary to what God commanded them. He commands his disciples to eat his flesh and drink His blood – John 6:53-58. We know that He did not ask them to be cannibals, as they have partaken many times of the lambs they have offered as a symbol or substitute for the real sacrifice God required. Jesus would be the sacrifice that would satisfy sin, but He would add something significant in the New Covenant. Drink His blood.
In the Old Covenant, they were forbidden to drink the blood because God did not want them to partake in the animal’s life(blood). In the New Covenant, we are allowed to participate in the life(blood) of Jesus by partaking in the Covenant meal. Jesus substituted His blood and His body with the bread and the wine. Why are we to do that now?
John 6:54-58 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live forever.
Without partaking in His blood(life), we have no life. The life is in the blood. Without the blood, there is no remission of sin. He has a sinless life, and by partaking His blood, we are participating in a sinless life.
The communion meal is so powerful. God identified with our sin by having Jesus become sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God through Christ Jesus our Lord – 2 Cor 5:21.
Rev. 12:11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
