JW and Blood (Eucharist Debate)

[tmeadahc]

I have a friend who is a JW. I appreciate our lively debate and pray some day it may lead to his conversion. Our topic of last week was the Eucharist. He brought up the prohibition on blood and I have to make a counter argument. I understand his argument on the prohibition but I am not sure of how to make the counter argument with actual early church doctrine or scripture countering the argument. I have my apologetics book #1 which provides defense for the most part ot the true prescence of Jesus but it does not specifically cover the issue of blood, there is only a circular reference at best. Can anyone give me some (name removed by moderator)ut with references to the doctrine? I am reading Tertullians Apologeticus Spectaculus and he discusses the misinterpretation of early Romans and their belief that we were cannibals but that is not the correct counter argument I believe. Any suggestions?

 

[Brain]

cant give you a quote or anything, but a good reason why the precious blood is different than blood under the old law is that jews saw the blood as the life of an animal, and therefore would not eat the blood as life wasnt their’s. The pecious blood is God’s and he gave it to us, so it is okay to consume his blood.

 

[Yerusalyim]

The counter to it is this:
Jesus COMMANDED IT. Unless you eat my body and drink my you have no life within you.

 

[beobab]

My understanding is this:

Drinking the blood of animals (forbidden by levitical law) would remove you from the old covenant, and take you lower to the same level as animals.

Drinking the blood of the new covenant (instituted by Jesus Christ Himself at the Last Supper) will remove you from the old covenant, but raise you up to partake in the new.

The new covenant is significantly more powerful than the old, and once you are in it cannot be broken by anything that is put into your body, including the blood of animals. It no longer has any power over us, and so is permitted (in a rare steak, for example).

I would mention to your friend, perhaps, that Jesus was quite vehement about having to drink His blood, and that loads of His hearers thought that it was too hard a teaching, and left Him (John 6 and following), but He did not recant His words. In fact, he wanted to know if his own disciples would also leave Him, and was quite prepared to let them. It looks like Peter seriously considered it: “Lord, where else would we go?”

Beobab

A quick note that I am a fallible human being, and as such, if I have said anything which is against the official teaching of the church, I withdraw it unreservedly, but I believe that it is accurate.

 

[Yerusalyim]

What the Witnesses refuse to acknowledge is that the restriction against blood was part of the Covenant and that this law was given only to the Jews, not to Gentiles.

The Witnesses refuse blood transfusion based on this, though how a blood transfusion is equated to “eating blood” I fail to see. What the Witnesses also refuse to acknowledge is that at one time their church considered organ transplants to be cannibalism…so the question for them is this…if organ transplants are no longer considered cannibalism, why is a blood transfusion considered “eating blood,” and why do they reject a clear teaching of Scripture that Jesus commanded us to "drink his blood, with no indication whatsoever that he meant this “symbolically.”

 

[Topher]

It is rediculous for Jehovah’s Witnesses to bring up this as an objection. Look, the drinking of the blood of animals was given as a restriction in the old law. However, it was not absolute because it is impossible to drain every drop of blood from any meat. Anytime any Jew ate any meat, they consumed some blood. The problem was not the blood per se but what it represented. In the old testament the reason given for not drinking the blood of animals that the “life of the animal” was in the blood. The obvious pagan conotations can be easily seen and God did not want the Jews to be like the pagans. They were to be different. But again, it was not that there was an intrinsic problem with consuming blood. ALL of the meat that the Jews consumed had some blood in it, no matter how well they drained it. Now, the more important reason that the Jews were forbidden from drinking the blood concerned the covenant. The “life of the animal was in the blood” but as St. Paul tells us, the old covenant did not bring life, and to drink the blood was symbolic of the reception of life. The new covenant in Christ does bring life, though, and for that reason we are allowed to drink the blood of Christ and recieve his life in us.
Now this brings us to an important charge that protestants and JW’s bring against Catholics, and that is the Charge of canibalism. I would agree to eat the flesh of Christ and to drink his blood in a natural manner would be cannibalism. However, Catholics consume Christ in a super natural and sacramental manner in the Eucharist and this changes everything. Canibalism is no longer an issue. We are transformed into Christ in the Eucharist, he is not digested by us.
Finally, I find it silly that JW’s use the old testament condemenation of drinking the blood of animals as a condemnations of blood transfusions. The two are not the same, first of all, and the restriction was an old testament cannon law, and not a matter of natural morality.
In conclusion, the consumtion of blood is not intrinsically evil. It is only when a symbolism is imposed upon that it can be evil. However, in the new covenant, no permanent restriction against the consumtion of the blood of animals is imposed and no symbolism attach to the blood of animals. If there was such a restriction, no one would be allowed to eat any meat because all meat, no matter how well drained has blood in it. Furthermore, blood transfusions are not even related to drinking blood.

 

[BlueMit11]

Topher:

I would agree to eat the flesh of Christ and to drink his blood in a natural manner would be cannibalism. However, Catholics consume Christ in a super natural and sacramental manner in the Eucharist and this changes everything. Canibalism is no longer an issue. We are transformed into Christ in the Eucharist, he is not digested by us.

Actually, I would have to say that he is digested by us. Jesus is present body, blood, soul, and divinity in the truest sense, and we consume him, body, blood, soul, and divinity in that sense See CCC 1381.

 

[Topher]

BlueMit11:

Actually, I would have to say that he is digested by us. Jesus is present body, blood, soul, and divinity in the truest sense, and we consume him, body, blood, soul, and divinity in that sense See CCC 1381.

Yes, he is truely present, body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Eucharist. However, the church teaches that this is true only as long as the host maintains the appearance of bread. When the host loses the appearance of bread, it is no longer Christ. That is the moment that digestion begins to take place. Furthermore, Church Father’s such as Augustine argue that rather than Christ becoming us in the Eucharist the way normal food becomes us in digestion, we become Christ. It is better to say that we ingest Christ, not that we digest him.