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March 20, 2025 |
| Eating Blood | ||
We're going to be talking about people actually eating real blood. Some of you may think, "Well, is it eating blood or should it really be drinking blood?" Probably the rest of you are saying, I don't really care much because I don't plan on doing either one of those. It's important to understand that we have a natural revulsion to the idea of eating or drinking blood. I think it comes from something very deep inside of us.
Most Christians think that they can eat any food that they want. They believe this because they think that they're not under the Old Covenant laws about which foods were clean and unclean. But they're wrong because Christians specifically are mentioned in the Bible as not being allowed to eat two things: food that is sacrificed to idols and meat that still has blood in it. That's not a matter of interpretation. It is utterly clear, and we'll work through those verses.
But a lot of Christians don't seem to remember those verses, or they've heard other Christians say they can eat anything, so they believe that they can eat anything that they want. Eating blood or meat that still has blood in it isn't part of our culture, such that we would bump into it often, just like you wouldn't bump into food that is sacrificed to idols. So it's not something we really have to focus on in our lives. There are Christians in other lands where those things are available and could be served as food. Because of that, Christians need to take care.
This does confuse Christians. They think, "Well, if we're not under the Old Covenant and we're not circumcised into the Old Covenant, why is it that we're now following some of those food laws?" The short answer is that eating blood didn't originate with the Old Covenant laws. It comes from an earlier set of laws. We need a little background first.
I think all Christians understand that the Old Testament Covenant, the Old Covenant, had many laws in it. The Jews count more than 600 laws associated with it. We also know that at the very beginning, with Adam and Eve, there was only one law, which was, "you can eat only plants, but don't eat from that one tree." Only one law, really. That law was spoken by God, but was never written, not like the laws of the Old Covenant.
Between those sets of laws, there is another set. When Noah leaves the ark, God introduces another set of laws that you can see in the Bible, but people don't recognize them as a separate set of laws. They are called the Noahide Laws. The name comes from Noah's name.
The Jews have identified seven of these laws that God spoke to the people following the flood. Unlike the Ten Commandments, which were given in one place at one time and were carved in stone, the first of the Noahide laws is given as Noah steps off the Ark, and the rest are given at later times. So you have to look through the Old Testament to pick them out as God gives them.
That's also true of the other laws that are part of the Old Covenant - the food laws and such. There are ten that are on the tablets, but the food laws, observances, and everything else are all given sporadically, in different chapters and different books.
The first of the Noahide Laws is given as Noah leaves the Ark. God tells him they can eat animals now, but not the blood of animals. This is the listing of the Noahide Laws, in the normal order that was given by the Jews.
Some of these appear in the Ten Commandments that will be given later by Moses. The Ten Commandments were the moral law. There were many other laws that came later. The Noahide Laws are a mix of moral laws, food laws, and so on. You see, "Do not murder," and "Do not steal." Those are also in the Ten Commandments. Sexual immorality is also in the Ten Commandments, but it is stated differently there. The law, "Do not deny God," is the same as the 1st Commandment, but most Christians don't know what the 1st Commandment is. So they aren't strange laws to us.
You might say, "Where's blood in all of these?" That comes under "flesh torn from a living animal." Its source in the Bible is:
However, flesh with its life, that is, its blood, you shall not eat. (Genesis 9:4)
It fits into the Sixth Commandment of the Noahide Laws because, to properly eat an animal, its blood needs to be drained out of it. If you kill an animal without draining its blood, its blood is still in it. That's the blood that we're not to eat.
Our focus is going to be on Acts 15 because it describes an event called the First Jerusalem Council. In this council, all of the apostles and leaders of the Christian church get together to discuss a problem in Christianity. There is a group of other people with them as well, presenting their ideas. This council sets a very important dividing line between Judaism and Christianity.
The early Christians were mostly Jews who had converted to Christianity. They were Jewish by birth, by genealogy. They were also raised as Jews. So they knew all of Judaism and all of the Old Covenant laws and had kept those laws since birth. So they naturally thought that the Old Covenant laws still held. They saw nothing in anything that Jesus had said that meant those Old Covenant laws were going to come to an end. They couldn't and didn't accept that idea at all.
But men had come down from Judea and were teaching the brethren: "If you are not circumcised in the custom of the Law, you cannot have life." (Acts 15:1)
The argument begins with the topic of circumcision, but it will evolve into all laws, other than the moral law. They're saying there will be no everlasting life if you are not circumcised. That's what the Old Covenant taught.
But some of the school of the Pharisees who had believed stood up, and they were saying, "It is necessary for you to circumcise them and to command them to keep the Law of Moses." (Acts 15:5)
This is where the topic broadens to include all the Law of Moses.
The group on this side of the argument includes Pharisees who had become believers, Christians, but they were teaching that Christians needed to keep the Law of Moses. The apostles and the elders had heard that people were doing this. It concerned them, though some weren't sure why, and that's why the council was called.
The question is bigger than just blood or even keeping the law of Moses. It's what parts of the law of Moses apply to Christians. That's what they will address. Before I tell you the decision, I want to tell you the reasoning behind that decision, how they came to that decision.
"For it was the will of the Spirit of Holiness and also of us that we would not put upon you a burden greater than those things which are necessary: 29 Abstain from what is sacrificed, from blood, from what is strangled, and from fornication […]" (Acts 15:28-29)
When he says, "what is necessary," he means that this is the minimum standard.
Everyone at the council would have understood this decision because they understood the Noahide Laws. Most Christians do not understand it, and they twist it into something that makes sense to them. Because we know about the Noahide laws, we can see the council has quoted four items from the Noahide laws.
Quoting part of something, as they do here, was a common way of quoting the whole thing. In our time and culture, we give a thing a name, like Noahide Laws, and then we use that name to refer to the whole thing. They do that with the "Law of Moses," but not with the Noahide Laws. This may be because Moses was a key figure in Judaism, and they frequently needed to refer to the laws that he brought.
So why are they quoting from the Noahide laws? How does it make sense that the Old Covenant laws would not apply to us, but now these Noahide Laws that almost no Christians know anything about do apply to us? Also, why don't we see this mentioned more in the New Testament?
God's moral law is written on the consciences of all mankind, but that wasn't sufficient. The Noahide laws were given to all of mankind after the flood. Noah and Noah's family were all of mankind at the time. That standard was to be kept by their families and on down through all mankind who came from Noah, which is all mankind.
Later on, God called out a physical people to be closer to him. That was the people of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God called them out to be a people who were closer to him. He wanted to be able to walk among them, but they were impure and, therefore, repugnant to him. They needed to have a set of laws that would allow them to become clean and continue that way. Then he could walk among them. The Old Covenant laws are the Noahide Laws - on steroids - to make it possible for God to walk among a physical people.
Now under the New Covenant, God's people are a spiritual people, not a physical people. As the council said in their argument, we are purified by faith. The cleanliness laws of Judaism are not needed. Therefore, we have the Noahide laws that have always been in effect.
The Noahide laws never went away. They were God's law for all of mankind except Israel, his chosen people. The Old Covenant laws are built on top of those. In Leviticus 17:10, God reiterates that they are not to eat blood. So if you're under the Old Covenant, you automatically are also following the Noahide laws. But the Old Covenant laws only apply to everyone under that covenant.
There's a struggle with not eating blood. Meat always has a little blood in it. No matter what you do, you can't totally get rid of every little bit of hemoglobin and plasma.
The answer comes from other laws. We can't perfectly keep the Sabbath. King David ate the holy bread. The idea, then, is to avoid eating blood as much as is reasonably possible.
If there is some food that you know was made with blood, it would be wrong to eat it. If you say to yourself, "Well, I know that this has blood in it, but I'm going to eat it anyway," that's a rejection of God's word.
There are foods that we can obtain in this country that have blood in them. They're rarely seen, hard to find, but they are there if you go looking for them, and you could stumble across them in certain circumstances. If you ever see anything that's called a blood sausage, there's a good chance that blood has been added to it.
There are drinks and foods, though, that sound like they have blood in them, but they don't. A Bloody Mary is a drink that is not made from blood. It's hard to tell sometimes, but that would be one warning.