Eating blood was forbidden under the Law of Moses (Lev. 7:26,27), but “we are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom. 6:15). It is true that men were told not to eat blood before the Law, but there was a reason for this. God told Noah,

“…flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat” (Gen. 9:4).

When God expanded Adam’s vegetarian diet here (Gen. 1:29 cf. 9:3), He warned Noah not to eat the flesh of an animal with its blood, for the blood of an animal is “the life thereof,” and God had another purpose in mind for the life of animals:

“…the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood…” (Lev. 17:11,12).

The word “therefore” here clearly shows that the reason they weren’t to eat blood under the Law was because “it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” We know that this was also true before the Law, for animal sacrifices were required to be “accepted” by God before the Law as well (Gen 4:7).

But this is not true under grace! Now that Christ shed His blood to reconcile us to Himself (Col. 1:20,21), anyone who says we shouldn’t eat blood because the life of the flesh is in the blood must believe that the blood of animals still atones for men’s souls, for this is the only reason eating blood was prohibited.

This is similar to God’s prohibition against eating unclean animals. The only reason God said some animals were unclean (Lev. 11) was to teach Israel that some people were unclean, i.e., the Gentiles (Lev. 20:24-26 cf. Acts 10:9-16,28). That means anyone who says certain foods are unclean today must believe that the Gentiles are still unclean. And anyone saying we shouldn’t eat blood “for the life of the flesh is in the blood” must still believe that the blood of animals atones for men’s souls.

To the Reader:

Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.

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