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Acts 15:29 tells us this, “You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.”   Abstaining from blood refers to two things - eating the blood of animals and shedding the blood of other people.  We are commanded not to do either.

 

This topic (as with all topics) needs to be kept in context, within the whole Bible. To establish the background for this verse, we should go back to the problem that this verse is addressing. 

 

In Acts Chapter 15, we read that some of the believers in Antioch had been confused by men from Judea who were preaching old covenant law -    “Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers:  ‘Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.’  This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them.  So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question.” (Acts 15:1-2)

The elders in Jerusalem discussed the situation and gave them this response:  “After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: ‘Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe.  God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.   Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear?   No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are’.” (Acts 15:7-11) 

 

The elders decided to send a letter to the believers outlining the truth about the matter.    

“Greetings.  We have heard that some went out from us without our authorisation and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said.  So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing.  It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements:  You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.

Farewell.” (Acts 15:23-29) 

 

The problem in Antioch, which had been created by the men from Judea, was once again requiring believers to obey an old covenant law.  The elders describe this as a “yoke” and a “burden”.   If a man allows himself to be put under the law, he is obligated to obey the whole law.  (read more about this in ‘The Beginning, From Law to Grace’ and ‘The Tithe’)

As believers in Christ Jesus, we are not under the law.  This is why the elders wrote - “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements”.  The letter was to reassure them that there was no requirement for believers to be burdened by old covenant law, or by any man made rules.  The apostles simply told the believers to avoid the following - “You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.”

 

What the apostles wrote about blood was a direct reference to a command given to Noah.  The requirement to abstain from blood was given to Noah and his family when they left the ark.  Up to that point, people had only been given plants as food (they were vegetarian).  However, after the flood, when Noah and his family left the ark, God gave them animals to eat, on the condition that they did not eat the blood.

 “Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.  The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands.  Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you.  Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.  But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.  And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting.  I will demand an accounting from every animal.  And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being.  Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man’.” (Genesis 9:1-6)

Two things are made clear in this scripture, and this is what the apostles referred to in Acts chapter 15. The first requirement is that we must not eat the blood of animals and the second requirement (command) is that we must not shed the blood of other men.  Just as God said to Cain after he killed his brother Abel - “The Lord said, ‘What have you done?  Listen!  Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.  Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened it’s mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.” (Gen. 4:10)

 

As for the blood of animals; God said, “But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.”  This refers to the way an animal is slaughtered, as it is explained to the Israelites, in Deuteronomy 12:15-25.  In vs.15 and 16, God says, “Nevertheless, you may slaughter your animals in any of your towns and eat as much of the meat as you want, as if it were gazelle or deer, according to the blessing the Lord your God gives you. Both the ceremonially unclean and the clean may eat it.  But you must not eat the blood; pour it out on the ground like water.”  And in vs 23-25, again He says, “But be sure you do not eat the blood, because the blood is the life, and you must not eat the life with the meat.  You must not eat the blood; pour it out on the ground like water.  Do not eat it, so that it may go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord”. 

 

The one thing that is clear from all this scripture is that God forbids us to eat blood.  To do so is an offense against him.  It is sin, and this is reinforced when the apostles write to the believers in Antioch saying to abstain “from blood” and “from the meat of strangled animals”.  Clearly, we are told not to eat strangled animals, because they have not been bled.  Their lifeblood is still in them.  This is not putting believers under the law, but encouraging obedience to the original command that God gave on the day that Noah and his family left the Ark.  Blood is precious to God, so the apostles told us, “You will do well to avoid these things.”  

 

 

IS HAVING A BLOOD TRANSFUSION IS THE SAME AS EATING BLOOD?

 

It is sadly ironic that this very passage of scripture, which was written so that believers would not be burdened with legalistic rules and regulations, is now being used to burden believers with legalistic rules and regulations.  This is what it says,        

 “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements:  You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.”  In spite of what is written, the very thing that J.W. doctrine does is to burden people “beyond the following requirements”!  

The scripture simply tells us that we should not eat an animal’s blood.  It should not be a problem for us to obey this, as it is the Lord’s command. 

However, the J.W’s go beyond this, by arguing about the technicality of where the nutrients from digested food end up (in your blood stream).

This displays exactly the same attitude that the Lord condemned in legalistic Jews, who over burdened those they were meant to teach.  This is why we are warned, “Do not go beyond what is written” (1 Cor. 4:6).  In other words, do not burden people beyond the following requirements!

 

This is what the Lord Jesus had to say about such attitudes-

 

Matt. 23:23  “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness".

 

Luke 11:46   “Jesus replied, ‘And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them’.”

 

The first part of the original commandment that God gave to Noah tells us not to eat the blood of an animal.  This is about the way an animal is slaughtered, not about the way it is cooked.

 

The second part of the command tells us not to shed the blood of a man (to kill him). It is about preserving human life! 

 

Are the J.W.’s honoring this commandment by denying people transfusions?

 

Is giving your blood to save a life the same as shedding someone’s blood to take a life?

 

I understand that some J.W.’s may consider the receiving of a blood transfusion to show a lack of faith.  After all, God made us, and God will sustain us.  So if they denied medical treatment altogether and simply put their lives in God’s hands, I would understand.  But this is not what they do.  They expect doctors to do everything humanly possible to keep them alive.  They simply make it more difficult for the doctors by excluding transfusions.  So it is not about faith.  It is about a rule.  It is about showing that they belong to an organisation, rather than to Christ.

Another angle that the J.W’s use to convince people of the validity of their anti transfusion doctrine, is to highlight the dangers associated with blood transfusions.  This kind of argument is completely irrelevant!   There are dangers and side effects associated with every drug and medical procedure, but this does not stop the J.W’s using any of them. 

 

I was recently told by a J.W. that their organisation has it’s own team of medical researchers, working on new techniques for ‘bloodless surgery’.  He told me that their techniques were so superior to standard practices, that the U.S. military was interested in adopting their procedures.  Once again, this was just another example of the way that J.W.s point to themselves and boast about their own righteousness and accomplishments, rather than glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

After a brief amount of research, I found that a team at ‘Englewood hospital’ (U.S.) had pioneered the research in an effort to help J.W’s.  However, the term ‘bloodless surgery’ is completely misleading. 

 

Included in the J.W’s ban on blood transfusions, is having your own blood stored for use during surgery.  After all, it is the infusion of blood into the bloodstream that the J.W’s claim is the same as eating blood, regardless of whose blood it is.  

The problem with what they refer to as ‘bloodless surgery’; is that it does exactly the same thing!  It collects the patient’s own blood during the operation, takes it outside the body, then cleans it and infuses it back into the bloodstream.  So the only difference between storing your own blood for transfusions during surgery, and what they refer to as ‘bloodless surgery’, is the amount of time that the blood is outside the body.  It is simply absurd to say that one of these procedures is ‘eating your own blood’, and that the other one is not.  It shows how desperately these legalists will look for loopholes in their own laws.  

 

In the end, medical research means nothing and legal arguments mean nothing.  The command of God tells us not to eat an animal’s blood or to shed a man’s blood.   The only question that matters is this: Does the rule (do not have blood transfusions) honour this command?  We will all have to answer to Christ himself on the day of judgement, rather than to the hierarchy of any earthly organisation.

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