In Genesis 9 the Lord has given man permission to eat meat, but man must obey this instruction about eating it: "But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it." (Genesis 9:4) This instruction will be included as a part of the law in Leviticus 17, which is a chapter that deals almost entirely with the fact that God has forbidden man to eat blood.
This served two purposes. First, it ensured that no animal was cooked or eaten while it had any life left in it. We discussed earlier in Genesis that the killing of animals had to be done humanely and quickly with a special sharp knife drawn across the jugular so that death was pretty much instantaneous. Leviticus 17 also discusses animals that are hunted, so we see that even when a wild animal was taken down by an arrow the hunter had to immediately go to it to perform the same action with the knife. No animal or human can live without blood running through their veins, and as gruesome as this subject may be, the Lord gave instructions for how to kill animals for food so that no animal would suffer unnecessarily.
The second reason, and probably the primary reason, for forbidding the eating of blood was so that man would regard blood as holy. Blood was used to make atonement for sins. Because man sinned against God, man owed his own blood as payment for sins, but God in His mercy toward humans allowed substitutionary sacrifices to be made on man's behalf. Therefore the blood of animals was to be regarded as a sacred thing, and this is why the Lord told His people Israel: "I will set my face against any Israelite or any foreigner residing among them who eats blood, and I will cut them off from the people. For the life of the creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life." (Leviticus 17:10-11) The Lord said, "Any Israelite who eats blood, or anyone who has converted to the God of Israel and who eats blood, is to be excommunicated. Blood is not to be regarded as a common thing. It is a holy thing, for it makes atonement for your sins."
Because God accepted animal blood in place of human blood, all animal blood was to be considered holy. If it was good enough to be accepted by God, it was good enough not to be treated as something so common that it could be eaten. If people were unwilling to regard as holy the animal blood that granted them temporary pardon from sins, how were they going to regard as holy the blood of God's own Son which grants eternal pardon from sins for those who place their trust in Him? Woe unto anyone who regards the blood of the Son of God with scorn! The author of Hebrews, believed to be the Apostle Paul who had lived his life according to the law of Moses and who was once a member of the strict religious sect of the Pharisees and a member of the council of the Sanhedrin, stated that the fate of the one who rejects the blood of Christ is far worse than the fate of the one who rejects the law of Moses. The penalty for rejecting the law of Moses was being stoned to death, but the penalty for rejecting Christ's atoning death on the cross is eternal separation from the presence of the Holy One. "Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?" (Hebrews 10:28-29)
Regarding sacrificial blood---and by extension all blood---as holy was intended to cause man to regard the sacrificial blood of Christ as holy. If a person does not consider the blood of Christ as a holy thing able to purify the believer forever in the sight of God, the Apostle Paul says it is as if they are trampling the precious Lord Jesus underfoot and as if they are treating His blood as an unclean thing. Nothing could be holier or more pure than the blood of the Son of God who gave His life to pay the penalty we owed for our sins. As the song goes, "What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow, that makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus."
Sacrifices in Old Testament times had to be performed year after year because the blood of animals was not capable of purifying man forever in the sight of God. But these sacrifices pointed toward a blood that was capable of purifying man forever in the eyes of a holy God. Therefore blood could not be considered a common thing. It had to be looked upon as a sacred, holy, purifying substance. It had to serve as a reminder of our sin, of the enormous debt we owed but could not pay, and of our need for eternal redemption. In the fullness of time, the Redeemer came and shed His perfect blood on our behalf, and He only had to do it once because once was enough. "For by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy...And where (sins) have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary." (Hebrews 10:14,18)
I'm including a link today to a song that is dear to my heart. It came out quite a few years back and it's gotten me through some tough times by reminding me of what Christ did for me. If He was willing to give His own life for me to cleanse me of my sins, I can trust Him to get me through anything this world throws at me.
This Blood
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