Dr.
Paul Manuel—2020
Outline:
I. The
ban’s coverage is comprehension (vv. 10, 13).
A. It applies to any native Israelite.
B. It applies to any resident alien.
Application: While your present diet does not determine
your final destination, it does demonstrate your devotion to God (Isa
66:17).
A. It affects a man’s relationship with God.
B. It affects a man’s relationship with others.
Application: More exposure to God’s word will make people
more aware of God’s will (Acts
15:20-21).
III. The
ban’s complement is clear (vv.
11, 14).
A. It is essential to one’s physical life.
B. It is essential to one’s ceremonial life.
Application:
God
directs a select few of His commands to some people, but He intends many
of His commands to most people, even all people (Matt 22:36-39).
Introduction: There are some things a person should not do,
especially a child, because of the possible danger it presents:
Frequently complimented on what a
pretty girl she was, five-year-old Maria had become accustomed to receiving
praise from relatives and friends. One evening her mother’s sister came to
visit just as Maria was being tucked into bed, so her aunt came to say good
night. “You have really long eyelashes!” her aunt said, “Yes,” Maria replied.
“My lashes should be long. I’ve been growing them for five years…and I never
cut them.”
There are some things a person should not do, especially a child,
because of the possible danger it presents, like trimming one’s eyelashes with
scissors. If a child is not reluctant to attempt such activity, it may
be necessary for parents to forbid it, to issue an ‘eyelash trimming’ ban. When
the Israelites left Egypt, the Lord issued several commands, including a Blood
Ban, forbidding His people from consuming blood, which may have been a popular
activity among the Canaanites.
Background: Some of God’s commands may seem difficult to obey because
they require additional instruction (e.g., tying tassels on a garment), special
equipment (e.g., using a ram’s horn to sound on the New
Year),
or careful preparation (e.g., preparing a meal with several courses on Passover).
Other of God’s commands are easy to obey because they require an individual to refrain
from doing something simple, like the Blood Ban that requires only that an
individual abstain from consuming blood.
Lev
17:10 Any Israelite or any alien
living among them who eats any blood—I will set My face against that person who
eats blood and will cut him off from his people. 11 For the life of a creature is in the
blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the
altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life. 12 Therefore
I say to the Israelites, “None of you may eat blood, nor may an alien living
among you eat blood.”
13 Any Israelite or any alien living among you who hunts any animal or
bird that may be eaten must drain out the blood and cover it with earth, 14 because
the life of every creature is its blood. That is why I have said to the
Israelites, “You must not eat the blood of any creature, because the life of
every creature is its blood; anyone who eats it must be cut off.”
I. The ban’s coverage is comprehension (vv. 10, 12).
Lev
17:10 Any
Israelite or any alien living among them who eats any blood—I…will cut him off
from his people….
12 Therefore
I say to the Israelites, “None of you may eat blood, nor may an alien living
among you eat blood.”
A. It applies to any native Israelite.
God intends most of His laws for Jews, those with whom He has a
covenant. Even His most well-known laws, those in the decalogue, He
specifically addresses to the people of Israel He delivered from bondage in
Egypt:
God
spoke all these words: “I am the Lord
your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” (Exod 20:1-2)
The Blood Ban
God also intends for Jews. Yet this law is broader still and applies to all
who are part of Israel, Jews as well as gentiles. “It was a religious rule of
the first importance” (Wenham 1979:244).
B. It applies to any resident alien.
At first, Jews and the gentiles who associate closely with them live only in the land, so the ban applies especially in the land. Elsewhere, God issues the Blood Ban with a broader geographical designation, “wherever you live”:
This
is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live:
You must not eat…any blood. (Lev 3:17)
Wherever you live,
you must not eat the blood of any bird or animal. (Lev 7:26)
Later, when this group moves beyond the borders of Canaan, as in the Babylonian exile, the prohibition also applies more broadly. Isaiah writes:
Foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to serve him, to love the name of
the Lord, and to worship him, all
who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to My
covenant—these I will bring to My holy mountain and give them joy in My house
of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on My altar;
for My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.” The Sovereign Lord declares—He who gathers the exiles
of Israel: “I will gather still others to them besides those already gathered.” (Isa 56:6-8)
Here, God
expands the recipients of many laws to include gentiles who have joined
themselves to Israel, called sojourners or aliens.[1]
The
Blood Ban is one of those laws for Jews and resident aliens. But it is
not for other gentiles, those not connected to Israel. Right? …According to an
even older law, one God gave to Noah and his descendants (all of us), the Blood
Ban applies to everyone:[2]
You must not eat meat that has its
lifeblood still in it. (Gen 9:4)
It is also a command the Jerusalem Council reiterates for all Christians:
We should write to them, telling them to abstain…from
blood (Acts 15:20).
If you have
been craving blood pudding, you should probably reconsider that ‘food’ selection.
Application:
Disobeying this law will not
invalidate your salvation (Manuel 2013a), but if your goal is to please your
God and not just yourself (Manuel 2017), choose another item on the menu. Some
people think God does not care what a person eats, an opinion often derived
from a misunderstanding of Jesus’ statement in Mark 4:19 where he “declared all foods clean.”[3] Apart
from ignoring the context of that statement (Manuel 2006), such a view ignores
God’s repeated declarations about what He considers unclean and about what
displeases Him, like eating pork:
“Those who eat the flesh of pigs and
rats and other abominable things…will meet their end together” declares
the Lord. (Isa 66:17)
Like blood, “the other
white meat” (pork) is not an acceptable food choice for God’s people. While your present diet does not determine
your final destination, it does demonstrate your devotion to God (Manuel
2013b). Many of His commands may seem arbitrary, even burdensome. It does not
matter. Whatever God commands, He expects His people to obey.
II. The ban’s consequence is catastrophic (vv. 10, 13).
Lev
17:10 I will set My face against
that person who eats blood and will cut him off from his people…. 13 Any
Israelite or any alien living among you who hunts any animal or bird that may
be eaten must drain out the blood and cover it with earth.
The first result of disobeying the Blood Ban is serious: separation from the believing community.
A. It affects a man’s relationship with God.
The same penalty attends child sacrifice,
idol worship, and occult practices, three activities God abhors.[4]
Consuming blood hardly seems as serious as these three pagan activities, yet
God says it is, and He attaches to it an equally serious punishment:
excommunication from the religious life of Israel, which means no involvement
with annual holidays such as celebrating the Feast of Booths and no participation
in temple activities such as offering sacrifices to secure atonement. All these
things that once connected an individual to the God of Israel are gone. Yet
another consequence awaits the person who eats blood.
B. It affects a man’s relationship with others.
When a person ignores the Blood Ban
it has other consequences, both professional and casual. He can no longer participate
in community activities and is cut off from whatever support he once received by
those he knows best. Earlier, he was accepted, even welcomed by others;.[5]
Now, he no longer enjoys familiar associations and gatherings. Transgressing
the Blood Ban also limits his ability to conduct business and may
require that he make his living outside the land, among the gentiles. Family,
friends, and associates shun him, all because he consumed blood.
Application:
Today, with society as mobile as it is and congregations as isolated as most
are from each other, excommunication, for the very few groups that practice public
shunning, is less of a significant incentive to modify one’s behavior,
especially when it concerns food, which most Christians consider a non-issue.
Whatever your opinion may be on the matter, it is best to consider what God has
to say so that you are not unpleasantly surprised one day and discover you
should have—you could have—been doing things differently.
Jesus says that what goes into a man’s mouth is not as important
as what comes out of his mouth:
What goes into a
man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean,’ but what comes out of his mouth, that
is what makes him ‘unclean.’” (Matt 15:11)
This
does not mean what goes into a man’s mouth is not important at all. God has
deemed that what a person ingests is important, and the Jerusalem
Council which addresses gentile believers agrees. Peter says:
Abstain
from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled
animals and from blood. For Moses has been preached in every city from the
earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath. (Acts 15:20-21)
In
other words, more exposure to God’s word will make people more aware of
God’s will.
God does not always give a reason for His prohibitions. In this case He gives two reasons. The first result of disobeying the Blood Ban is serious: separation from the believing community. The second result of disobeying the Blood Ban is also serious:
III. The ban’s complement is clear (vv. 11, 14).
Lev
17:11 The life of a creature is
in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on
the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life…. 14 because
the life of every creature is its blood. That is why I have said to the
Israelites, “You must not eat the blood of any creature [wild or domesticated], because the life of every creature is its
blood; anyone who eats it must be cut off.”
The second result of disobeying the Blood Ban is that such behavior violates the order God established in creation.
A. It is essential to one’s physical life.
Of the
various (ten or eleven) bodily systems, the circulatory system, with its (approximately)
five quarts of blood, is the most important to life. It keeps nutrients and
oxygen flowing throughout the body to be absorbed or excreted as necessary. Blood
is a vital source of life. When blood is lost, life is lost. That is how
Joseph’s brothers proved his death to their father:
They got Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in
the blood. (Gen 37:31)
Had his brothers been
directly responsible for Joseph’s death, the penalty God may have exacted is
death:[6]
Whoever sheds the blood of
man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man. (Gen 9:6)
Man’s
being in God’s image refers to his moral makeup and does not mean that God has
the same physical characteristics as man (Manuel 2001).[7]
Still, blood is essential to one’s
physical life. Yet for
God, blood has another significance, beyond the physical.
B. It is essential to one’s ceremonial life.[8]
This is a
dimension of the Blood Ban unfamiliar to most people. It marks the
difference between what is acceptable and unacceptable to God:
You must distinguish between
the holy and the common, between the unclean and the clean. (Lev
10:10)
This
applies to sustenance as well as to sacrifice:
You must distinguish between
the unclean and the clean, between living creatures that may be eaten and those
that may not be eaten. (Lev 11:47)
The Blood
Ban also applies to the ceremonial use of blood in the sanctuary, which is
primarily for atonement:[9]
The
life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make
atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes
atonement for one’s life. (Lev 17:11)
“Because
animal blood atones for human sin…it is sacred and ought not to be consumed by
man” (Wenham 1979:245).
The difference between what is a clean or
unclean offering obtains only in the temple. Absent a temple today, the Blood
Ban would seem no longer to apply, but it does, because it is “a
lasting ordinance for the generations to come” (Lev
3:17).[10]
Application:
Does the Blood Ban still matter? …Yes, it does, because it indicates
what God considers an appropriate dietary choice for you who claim to belong to
Him. It indicates how you should order or prepare meat—steak is not to be ‘blue.’
It also says that you should avoid delicacies like blood pudding and blood
sausage. However much you consider such items a tasty addition to your diet,
the Blood Ban makes them unacceptable food options for God’s people.
God intends certain commands for some people (e.g., kings, priests, farmers, merchants), but He
intends many of His commands like this one, to all people. The Blood
Ban is a universal command you must follow if you want His approval, and
His approval is the best you can get.
Conclusion: The Blood Ban
is one of the oldest commands in the Bible and one of the few commands that
applies to everyone. It is also a command that is easy to follow, requiring no
additional instruction, expensive equipment, or special preparation. It is not
difficult to adopt, and heeding it is a small concession to make unless you
prefer your steak extremely rare. Nevertheless, being aware of God’s wishes for you, it is still
up to you to follow His instruction or not. The Blood Ban is your choice.
Bibliography
Manuel,
Paul http://paulwmanuel.blogspot.com
2001 “The
Image of God in Man.” Anthropology Excursus 1 in A Reader’s Digest Approach to Theology.
2005 “What
About Gentiles in the Theocratic Ideal?”
2007 “The
Sinaitic Law and the Gentile Believer.”
2009 A Roadmap to Holiness: The Highest Value in
God’s Economy.
2013a “Can
a person lose his salvation?” An excerpt from the Soteriology unit of A Reader’s Digest
Approach to Theology.
2013b “Diet:
A Demonstration of Depravity or Devotion.”
2017 “The
Choice: Please Yourself or Please Your God” (Lev 22:20; Deut 12:13-14).
[Sermon]
Wenham,
Gordon J.
1979 The Book of Leviticus. NICOT. Grand
Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
[1]It is a statement of inclusion He makes several
times:
Exod
12:49 The same law applies to the
native-born and to the alien living among you.
Lev
24:22 You are to have the same law for
the alien and the native-born.
Num 15:29 The same law applies to everyone…whether he is a
native-born Israelite or an alien.
God
intends all people to follow the laws He specifically addresses to gentiles
(Manuel 2004 and 2007). Jesus
may intend the two greatest commandments to apply broadly as well, both to Jews
and gentiles:
Matt 22:37 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your
soul and with all your mind. 38 This
is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And
the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. 40 All the Law and the Prophets
hang on these two commandments.
Nevertheless,
there is one difference between the requirement for the alien and the native
born:
Deut 14:21 Do not eat anything you find already dead. You may give it
to an alien living in any of your towns, and he may eat it, or you may sell it
to a foreigner. But you are a people holy to the LORD your God.
[2]God may have repeated the Blood Ban because
a general decline of true religion caused the original law to fall out of use,
and it remained so until He reiterated the precept to Moses.
[3]Paul makes a similar statement:
Rom 14:20 All food is
clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to
stumble.
[4]The same penalty attends three activities God
despises:
Lev 20:2 Any Israelite or any alien
living in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech must be put to death.
The people of the community are to stone him. 3 I will set My face against that man and I
will cut him off from his people; for by giving his children to Molech, he has
defiled My sanctuary and profaned My holy name. 4 If the people of the community close
their eyes when that man gives one of his children to Molech and they fail to
put him to death, 5
I will set My face against that man and his family and will cut off
from their people both him and all who follow him in prostituting themselves to
Molech. 6 I will
set My face against the person who turns to mediums and spiritists to
prostitute himself by following them, and I will cut him off from his people.
Later,
God uses this phrase to describe punishment for breaking the Mosaic covenant:
Lev 26:17 I will set my face against you so
that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over
you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.
[5]The
NT has the most to say about shunning:
Rom
16:17 Watch out for those who
cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching
you have learned. Keep away from them.
1
Cor 5:11 You must not associate with
anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater
or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.
2
Thess 3:14 If anyone does not obey our
instruction in this letter, take special note of him. Do not associate with
him, in order that he may feel ashamed.
Titus
3:10 Warn a divisive person once,
and then warn him a second time. After that, have nothing to do with him.
2 John 10 If anyone comes to you and
does not bring this teaching, do not take him into your house or welcome him.
[6]There is a distinct legal
category for a person who avenges the death of a family member against his
murderer:
Deut 19:12 The elders of his town shall…hand him
over to the avenger of blood to die. 13 Show him no pity. You must purge from
Israel the guilt of shedding innocent blood, so that it may go well with you.
[7]God regards human life as more
important than animal life:
Lev 24:21 Whoever kills an animal must make
restitution, but whoever kills a man must be put to death.
God
is not indifferent to animal life, both domesticated and undomesticated:
Exod 9:19 Give an order now to bring your livestock and everything you have in
the field to a place of shelter, because the hail will fall on every man and
animal that has not been brought in and is still out in the field, and they
will die.
Exod
20:10
The
seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord
your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you…nor your animals.
Exod
23:11
During
the seventh year let the land lie unplowed and unused. Then the poor among your
people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what they
leave.
Nevertheless,
life in general is not the highest value in God’s economy (Manuel 2009).
[8]Blood has several uses
outside the body, especially in ceremonial functions.
• Blood
can validate a covenant:
Exod 24:8 Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it
on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has
made with you in accordance with all these words.”
• Blood
can consecrate an altar:
Lev 8:15 Moses slaughtered the bull and took
some of the blood, and with his finger he put it on all the horns of the altar
to purify the altar. He poured out the rest of the blood at the base of the
altar. So he consecrated [the altar] to make atonement for it.
• Blood
can atone for a
menstruating woman:
Lev 12:7 He shall offer them before the Lord to make atonement for her, and then
she will be ceremonially clean from her flow of blood.
• Blood
can atone for land where blood has been spilled:
Deut
19:9 Carefully follow all these
laws I command you…. 10 Do this so that innocent blood will not be shed in your
land, which the Lord your God is giving you as your inheritance, and so that
you will not be guilty of bloodshed.
Deut
21:1 If a man is found slain,
lying in a field in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess,
and it is not known who killed him…. 6 Then all the elders of the town nearest
the body shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the
valley, 7 and they shall declare: “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did
our eyes see it done. 8 Accept this atonement for your people Israel, whom you
have redeemed, O Lord, and do not hold your people guilty of the blood of an
innocent man.” And the bloodshed will be atoned for. 9 So you will purge from
yourselves the guilt of shedding innocent blood, since you have done what is
right in the eyes of the Lord.
Still,
there is a limit to what blood can accomplish:
Num 35:33 Atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed,
except by the blood of the one who shed it.
Moreover, God links transgressing the Blood
Ban with practicing the occult:
Lev 19:26 Do not eat any meat with the blood still in it. Do not practice
divination or sorcery.
[9]This provision is the basis of
Jesus’ declaration at his last Passover seder:
Matt 26:28 This is my blood of the covenant, which
is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
The importance of blood extends
to its proper disposal:
Lev 17:13 Any Israelite or any alien living among
you who hunts any animal or bird that may be eaten must drain out the blood and
cover it with earth,
Deut
12:16 You must not eat the blood; pour it
out on the ground like water.
Deut
15:23 You
must not eat the blood; pour it out on the ground
like water.
[10]It appears again in the
deliberations of the Jerusalem Counsel’s recommendation to new believers:
Acts 15:19
We should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. 20 Instead
we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols,
from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.
