RESPECT THE GIFT OF LIFE

Blood is holy to Jehovah because blood represents life.  After Cain murdered Abel, Jehovah told Cain: "Your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground."  (Genesis 4:10)   Abel's blood represented his life, and Jehovah punished Cain for killing Abel.  After the Flood of Noah's day, Jehovah again showed that blood represents life.  Jehovah gave his family permission to eat the flesh of animals.  He said:  "Every moving animal that is alive may serve as food for you.  Just as I gave you the green vegetation, I give them all to you."  However,  there was one thing that Jehovah commanded them not to eat:"  "Only flesh with its life-its blood-you must not eat." - GENESIS 1:29; 9:3, 4.

About 800 years after Jehovah told Noah not to eat blood, he again commanded his people:  "If one of the Israelites or some foreigner who residing in your midst is hunting and catches a wild animal or a bird that may be eaten, he must pour  out  its blood  and cover it with dust."  He then said: "You must not eat the blood." (Leviticus 17:13, 14) Jehovah still wanted his people to view blood as holy.  They could eat meat but not the blood.  When they kill an animal for food, they had to pour its blood onto the ground.

Some years after Jesus' death, the apostles and the elders in the Christian congregation in Jerusalem met to decide what parts of the Law given to the Israelites  still applied to the Christians.  (Read Acts 15:28.29; 21:25)  Jehovah helped them to understand that blood was still precious to him and that  they still needed to view it as holy.  The early Christians could not eat or drink blood or eat meat that had not been bled properly.  If they did so, it was just as bad as worshiping idols or being sexually immoral.   From that time onward, true Christians have refused to eat or drink blood. What about today?  Jehovah still wants us to view blood as holy.

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