In Leviticus 17:10,11 we read: “Whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people. For 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.” The expression, “any manner of blood,” cannot be construed to include human blood, for human blood was not offered on altars by Israel.

The atonement made by the blood of animals was of a typical nature only and pointed forward to the atonement which would be made for Adam and his race by Jesus’ blood. “Almost all things are by the Law purged by blood,” we read, “and without shedding of blood is no remission. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.”—Heb. 9:22,23

The “blood of bulls and goats” did not actually take away the sins of the Israelites, but God used those sacrifices to point forward to the shedding of Jesus’ blood; so he attached a great sacredness to animal blood, and for this reason did not want the Israelites to consider it common, or as ordinary food. This viewpoint of the typical blood is used by Paul to teach a lesson. Speaking of those who, having come to a knowledge of the truth and accepted the provisions of God’s grace through Christ, and willfully turn against the Lord, the apostle said, “Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing?”—Heb. 10:29

Since Jehovah wants his people to consider the blood of Jesus as sacred and holy, it is understandable why he limited the use of animal blood to picture the real blood of atonement. With the Israelites it was part of a school of experience designed to lead them to Christ. But this could not be construed in the remotest sense to be related to the modern medical science of blood transfusion.

Symbolically speaking, it is essential to “drink” the blood which was prefigured by those typical sacrifices, the blood, that is, of Jesus. Jesus said, “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.” (John 6:53) In non symbolic language this simply means that in order to have everlasting life, either by faith now, or actually in the age to come, it is essential to accept Christ and his sacrificial work on our behalf—to recognize that he died for our sins and for all mankind, including Adam. But this acceptance of Christ is wholly unrelated to blood transfusion as now practiced in the medical world.