D21-10: If Torah Forbids Drinking Blood, Why Did Yeshua Command His Followers To Drink HIS Blood?

Pertaining to our discussion of “bloodguilt”, I want to shift our focus over to the following words of Paul.

What exactly does Paul mean by these words?

Essentially, it means that a person will be guilty of the blood of Yeshua if he or she partakes in the ritual we call “communion” but is not eligible or worthy to do so?

However, that leads us to the question of what exactly does it mean to not be eligible or worthy to partake in “Communion”?

This is where things get a little fuzzy.

As far as I can gather, I think it is referring to an unbeliever or someone who participates in the “Communion” in a flippant manner.

For example, it could be referring to someone who remains unrepentant in a certain sin but is still participating in “the blood and body of Yeshua”.

It is also interesting to note that Yeshua’s instructions to drink his blood and eat his body is something that has absolutely no parallel in the Bible and you definitely ain’t gonna find it in Torah.

Quite the opposite actually because if you recall the Torah forbids the drinking of blood.

Just how repulsive the drinking of blood is to a Jew is something I think escapes your average gentile believer out there.

Check out this little snippet from the Gospel of John.

“Your ancestors ate the manna
in the wilderness, yet they died.
But here is the bread that
comes down from heaven,
which anyone may eat and not die.
I am the living bread that
came down from heaven.
Whoever eats this bread will live forever.
This bread is my flesh,
which I will give for the life of the world.”
Then the Jews began to argue
sharply among themselves,
“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
Yeshua said to them,
“Very truly I tell you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man
and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life,
and I will raise them up at the last day.
For my flesh is real food
and my blood is real drink.
Whoever eats my flesh and
drinks my blood remains in me,
and I in them.
Just as the living Father sent me and
I live because of the Father,
so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven.
Your ancestors ate manna and died,
but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”
He said this while teaching
in the synagogue in Capernaum.
On hearing it, many of his disciples said,
“This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”
Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this,
Yeshua said to them, “Does this offend you?
Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend
to where he was before!
The Spirit gives life;
the flesh counts for nothing.
The words I have spoken to you—
they are full of the Spirit and life.
Yet there are some of you who do not believe.”
For Yeshua had known from the beginning
which of them did not believe and who would betray him.
He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no
one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”
From this time many of his disciples turned
back and no longer followed him.
“You do not want to leave too, do you?”
Yeshua asked the Twelve.
Simon Peter answered him,
“Lord, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life.
We have come to believe and
to know that you are the Holy One of God.”
-John 6:49-69

It seems pretty clear doesn’t it, Yeshua is clearly instructing his followers to eat his flesh and drink his blood.

However, when many of his followers walked away from him, he asked them “does this offend you?“.

What exactly was Yeshua referring to when he said “this”?

Of course, he was talking about his command to his disciples to drink his blood and eat his body because being a Torah-observant Jew, he knew very well how his disciples (all of them Jews) would react.

Note immediately afterwards that Yeshua clarified what he really meant by telling them there was no way in hell he was commanding his followers to literally drink his blood and eat his flesh.

He was of course speaking metaphorically.

In this context, drinking the blood of Yeshua and eating his flesh represented spiritually coming into complete unity with him and his mission.

Yeshua was NOT promoting cannibalism here folks.

And long after the death and resurrection of Yeshua, Paul warned in his first letter to the Corinthians that if one who is unworthy symbolically drinks Yeshua’s blood (partakes in Communion), that person will bear bloodguilt.

Let me just close today’s post on bloodguilt with the following.

Understand that the penalty for blood guilt is that the one who takes life, his life in turn must be taken.

This is the central rule of blood in God’s justice system.

If innocent blood is shed, God will require the blood of the guilty as payment.

Here’s another point that a lot of folks often overlook.

The blood of the guilty does NOT serve as the blood of atonement.

Got that?

It is a “blood debt” being payed back to God because it is owed Him.

In other words, it is a form of “blood of retribution” for lack of a better expression.