SHOWING RESPECT FOR BLOOD

After Cain killed his brother Abel, Jehovah told Cain:  "Your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground." (Genesis 4:10) When God spoke of Abel's blood, he was speaking of Abel's life. Cain had taken Abel's life and now Cain would have to be punished. It was as if Abel's blood, or life, were crying out to Jehovah for justice.  The connection between life and blood was again shown after the Flood of Noah's day. Before the Flood, humans ate only fruits, vegetable, grains, and nuts. After the Flood, Jehovah told Noah and his sons: "Every moving animal that is alive may serve as food for you." However, God set this restriction:  "Only flesh with its soul [or, life] -its blood-you must not eat."  (Genesis 1:29; 9:3, 4)  (note: that means no med well, med rare or rare meat, no drinking the blood, no transfusions-there is a non blood method that can be used now because it is our soul and the animal's )  Clearly, Jehovah links very closely the life and blood of a creature. 

We show respect for blood by not eating it. In the Law that Jehovah gave the Israelites, he commanded: "As for any man . ..who in hunting catches a wild beast or a fowl that may be eaten, he must in that case pour its blood out and cover it with dust. . . I said to the sons of Israel: you must not eat the blood of any sort of flesh.'" (Leviticus 17:13, 14) God's command not to eat animal blood, first given to Noah some 800 years  earlier, was/is still in force. Jehovah's view was clear: His servants could eat animal meat, but not the blood.  They were to pour the blood on the ground- (or cook it well done in this regard) in effect, returning the creature's life to God. 

A similar command rests upon Christians. The apostles and other men taking the lead among Jesus' followers in the first century met together to decide what commands had to be obeyed by all in the Christian congregation. They came to this conclusion:  "The holy spirit and we ourselves have favored adding no further burden to you, except these necessary things, to keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols  and from blood and from things strangled [leaving the blood in the meat]  and from fornication."  (Acts 15:28, 29; 21:25)  So we must keep  'abstaining from blood.' In God's eyes, our doing that is as important as our avoiding idolatry and sexual immorality. 

Next time: Conclusion of: SHOWING RESPECT FOR BLOOD 

From the Book: What Does the Bible Really Teach? 2005 and 2006