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Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Is the Eating or Drinking of Blood Fundamentally Different From Accepting a Blood Transfusion?

The methods of delivery may be different, but there is no basic difference when it comes to the principle of abstaining from blood. (Acts 15:29)

For instance, suppose you were told by your doctor that you must abstain from alcohol. Would you be obedient if you quit drinking alcohol but had it put directly into your veins?

Or suppose that you have dangerous allergic reactions to a medication, and were warned to abstain from that drug in the future. Would you then rationalize that you would avoid taking the medication orally but could safely inject it into your bloodstream? Of course not. The main point would not be the route of administration, but that you should abstain from that medication altogether.

The exact same principle applies with the decree for Christians to ‘abstain from blood’ whether through the mouth or directly into the bloodstream:

"Those who drag in the use of human blood for internal remedies of diseases appear to misuse it and to sin gravely. Cannibals are condemned. Why do we not abhor those who stain their gullet with human blood? Similar is the receiving of alien blood from a cut vein, either through the mouth or by instruments of transfusion. The authors of this operation are held in terror by the divine law, by which the eating of blood is prohibited."-Thomas Bartholin (1616-80), professor of anatomy at the University of Copenhagen

For more, see
God's View of Blood