blood

The first mention of blood in the Bible was upon the occasion of the first murder. "And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper? And He said, What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries unto me from the ground. And now are you cursed from the earth, which has opened her mouth to receive your brother's blood from thy hand." From the beginning, blood was identified with life.

Nine hundred years before the Mosaic law, God forbade the eating of blood in any form. He wanted blood drained from the animals as soon as they were killed, those strangled in snares could not be eaten. Also taboo was mixing wine with blood and drinking it as a delicacy. God's admonition to Noah and his sons was that "every moving thing that lives shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall you not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man." Blood here is also equated with life. Under Mosaic law, a murderer was guilty of blood and the avenger of blood was the nearest relative of the murdered.

There was a peculiar sacredness attached to blood, because of the idea that prevailed of its unity with the soul. Blood has the soul in itself, there is no animate life without blood. In accordance with the gracious ordinance of God it is the means of expiation for human souls, because of the soul contained in it. During the Passover of Egypt, the Israelites were to take the unblemished lamb, eat the flesh of it in haste and sprinkle the blood on the sides and the top of the door post. When Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people, saying, 'This is the blood of the testament which God had enjoined unto you.' Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry. The blood of sacrifices was caught by the priest in a basin, and then sprinkled seven times on the altar. The people were in this way consecrated to God.

Saint James wanted the Gentile converts to abandon their old ways, with abstinence from blood and fornication and meat sacrificed in heathen temples. It was the custom to sell sacrificial meat in public market-places. Although harmless, it could be considered the same as worshipping an idol and would be better to abstain as a concession to the weaker brethren. Now this prohibition may have been just for that time and not a problem today but along with the pollutions of idols, blood may have a more far-reaching interpretation and that is the problem of witchcraft and the works of the devil. Blood rites and the drinking of blood is more of a problem today than most Christians realize. I do not believe that the eating of blood refers to the issue of saving one's life in transfusions.

And almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission.
So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. The life is in the blood, as was declared by Moses, and the life of the sacrifice was taken, and the blood offered to God, as representative and substitute for the offered. Jesus is our Passover, as Moses stated that the blood of the sacrifice was the blood of the testament from God, Jesus stated that as we partake of the blood of the communion table together, it was the blood of the New Testament.
Drink ye all of it, for this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.

The writer of Hebrews likened this covenant of the blood as the means by which the Son of God was sanctified. It follows that we are sanctified under the same blood covenant. "He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. Of how much sorer punishment, suppose you, shall he be thought worthy, who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith He was sanctified, an unholy thing, and has done despite unto the Spirit of grace?" And elsewhere, "the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant."
[291, Genesis 4, 9, Exodus 12, Leviticus 4, Numbers 35, BD, Matthew 26, Acts 9, Hebrews 9, 10, 13, Easton's]



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