by Let me tell you a story. A man enters a doctor’s office in an English hospital, and the doctor asks him to take a seat as he has some very serious news to impart.
“Mr Smith, we’ve carried out a thorough examination, and you have a very serious heart condition,” the doctor says, “This cannot be remedied through diet or exercise – only immediate surgical intervention will save you from death. Don’t worry about the cost, that’s covered entirely by the National Health Service.”
The medic can hardly believe his ears when Mr Smith replies, “No, I don’t believe it. I think you’re wrong. There’s nothing at all wrong with my heart, and I don’t want to have surgery.”
“But – the x-rays clearly show –“
“I don’t trust your x-rays.”
“Your symptoms, they all indicate very clearly –“
“No, that’s just your interpretation of things, and it’s wrong. It’s just what you believe. My heart is fine.”
And with that, Mr Smith stamped angrily out of the doctor’s office. The next afternoon, he died of a massive heart-attack.
This is quite an absurd story – perhaps because I just made it up. Can you imagine anyone being so neglectful of a warning of imminent danger, and so dismissive of the help which is offered, in the face of clear evidence? It seems incredible. And yet, every day, people are doing just that when someone tries to speak to them about their soul’s salvation, and the danger of a lost eternity.
The Life Is In The Blood
Our God, the Creator of the heavens and earth, Has woven in His wonderous design of the natural creation countless lessons and illustrations – lessons about spiritual things. The apostle Paul appeals to man’s natural customs when he writes to the Corinthians, asking, “does not even nature itself teach you?” (1 Corinthians 11:14) and to the Romans he writes that the invisible things of God are apprehended through the things that are made, rendering man inexcusable (Romans 1:20).
One such pattern in nature is seen very early in God’s word and is carried on right through it. Jehovah speaks to Noah after the flood, telling him that all the living things of the earth are to be food for him, “Only, the flesh with its life, its blood, ye shall not eat.” Here, for the first time explicitly, life and blood are connected. Next, in Leviticus 17, we are told that “the soul of the flesh is in the blood” and it is “the blood that maketh atonement for the soul” (v 11) and “for the life of all flesh is its blood” (v 14). Then in Deuteronomy 12:23: “the blood is the life.” Moving on to the New Testament, in Acts 15:29 we find the Council of Jerusalem sending word to the Gentile believers to abstain from certain things, including “from blood, and from what is strangled” – the only dietary prohibition given under the new covenant.
So, in summary, blood is connected with life (and the consumption of it with the flesh consequently forbidden):
- In Genesis 9, before the period of Law
- In Leviticus 17, in the giving of the Law for sojourning in the wilderness
- In Deuteronomy 12, in the second giving of the Law, for dwelling in the land
- In Acts 15, after the period of Law
This is, then, what we might call an abiding principle. The life is in the blood.