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To: metmom
" He (Jesus) CAN'T do that... He came to fulfill the Law, not abolish it."

I don't think you're getting how He fulfilled it.

Of the 613 mitzvot of the "Law of Moses" (Torat Mosheh, תורת משה), there are three different kinds of law. The Mishpatim are universal moral laws, like the ones against murder, theft, and sexual violation. The Edot ("Testimonies") are ritual laws concerning separation from gentiles and ritual purity, like circumcision and eating kosher and the details of temple sacrifice. The third category is the Chukim, which have no known rationale but are said to stand for G_d's sovereign right to decree what He wishes.

In case after case, Jesus confounds his Pharisee critics by apparently violating the Edot, for instance by not fasting at prescribed times, by healing on the Sabbath, in fact showing that He is the Lord of the Sabbath. Later, as Christ teaches us through the Church (Acts), circumcision and the kosher laws were abolished altogether for the Gentile Church.

The law against blood is not a moral law, but a ritual law. Its meaning is apparently that God is the Lord of Life, and one should not presume to appropriate and consume "life" itself, but treat it with a kind of hands-off respect.

This law is not violated, but fulfilled when Christ says --- shockingly, repeatedly, unmistakably -- "drink my Blood." He is the Lord of Life! He is offering you Life. All the abstaining from blood in the OT is a kind of preparatory fast that underline's Christ's transcendent decision, in the fullness of time, to give us His true blood, precisely because He wants us to absorb His life.

What a priceless, unprecedented Gift!

The OT abstaining from Blood prepares a whole culture with the deeply-rooted, gut conviction that blood is sacred. Christ comes and shows us, "Here's why." This is why He can command us, "Drink His blood. If you do not drink my Blood, you will not have life within you."

If He is not God, He had no right to say such a thing: He is a madman and a piece of filth.

If He is God... and He is here to give us eternal life ... and He says "Drink My Blood" --- the response of faith is not "I can't do that! YOU can't do that! It's not kosher!"

The response of faith is: "Amen."

383 posted on 08/28/2013 11:09:23 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (Jesus, my Lord, my God, my all.)
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To: Mrs. Don-o
All the abstaining from blood in the OT is a kind of preparatory fast...

And "Don't eat fish on Friday" is a prep for WHAT?

397 posted on 08/28/2013 12:02:18 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Mrs. Don-o
Jesus called the cup *the fruit of the vine*.

He recognized it as wine.

Luke 22:17-18 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”

The whole passover meal was one of remembrance. They didn't actually drink blood as it is forbidden in the Law. They would have been lawbreakers. Had Jesus given His disciples His actual blood to drink, or had they even thought it was actual blood, they would have not drank it.

Peter himself said that he had never eaten anything unclean. Eating blood would have made him unclean so as an observant Jew, he would not have done it.

416 posted on 08/28/2013 1:14:32 PM PDT by metmom ( For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore & do not submit again to a yoke of slavery)
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