In the Old Testament, God makes clear the point that He didn't want His people to consume blood.
It started when men first started eating meat, after the Flood: "You shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood" (Genesis 9:4). Thus, it wasn't part of the Mosaic laws of ceremonial cleanness.
It did, however, continue under the Mosaic ceremonies: "If any one of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people" (Leviticus 17:10). And, "Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh" (Deuteronomy 12:23).
It is also found in the New Testament: "You [shall] abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well" (Acts 15:29).
I bring this up because of the Catholic doctrine of the eucharist, according to which Rome claims that the wine and bread of communion literally become the blood and flesh of Jesus. Their official statement on the matter comes form the Council of Trent: "Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation" (CCC 1376).
Do you see the conflict? While the scriptures repeatedly condemn consuming blood, the Church of Rome claims that her members do literally that in the eucharist! That shows, first, that Rome's eucharist, in spite of the name, is no act of thanksgiving, but is, instead, a rite of superstition; and second, that the words of Jesus, "This is My blood," cannot be taken literally.
Why did God forbid the consuming of blood? Because it is life. The animal cannot live if it loses its blood. And, more importantly, it is the blood of Christ that is ultimate life, because it alone is the basis of eternal life. While Rome is correct in pointing to the blood of Jesus for salvation (John 6:54), she is wrong in how it is applied. There is no salvation in ceremonies. It is only by faith that the benefits of Christ's blood are received: "We are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith" (Romans 3:24-25, see also Ephesians 2:13, Hebrews 9:14, and I Peter 1:19). While talking about the blood of Christ, Rome makes her priests the conduits of salvation, in place of faith. that is one of the reasons that the Catholic eucharist is a blasphemy, in which no true Christian should participate.
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