Leviticus 3:12

"And if his oblation be a goat, then he shall offer it before Jehovah: and he shall lay his hand upon the head of it, and kill it before the tent of meeting; and the sons of Aaron shall sprinkle the blood thereof upon the altar round about. And he shall offer his oblation, even an offering made by fire unto Jehovah; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the loins, and the caul upon the liver, with the kidneys, shall he take away. And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire, for a sweet savor; all the fat is Jehovah's. It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings, that ye shall eat neither fat nor blood."

The peace-offerings, unlike the burnt-offering, could be either male or female. The prohibition against eating blood was especially stressed in the O.T. And even in Christianity, the apostles and elders of Jerusalem extended the prohibition against it, making it a Christian ordinance as well. We are aware that some commentators have gone out of their way to explain how this prohibition does not really apply to Christians today. Clements, for example, asserting that, "With the fulfillment of sacrifice in Jesus Christ there ended the obligation to avoid eating meat containing blood."[16] However, it is my conviction that it is STILL prohibited. The apostolic prohibition against it came long after the efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ was known, and the emotional and sentimental reasons for the proper observance of this rule still exist. All life is the gift of God, and, normally, the shedding of blood means the loss of life, the blood, therefore, qualifying uniquely as the physical manifestations of God's gift of life. The eating of blood, therefore, must be viewed as the appropriation of that which is sacred for selfish and insensible human purposes. We are also aware that my opinion on this cannot be established as certain, because, in the original apostolic rule on the matter, it appears to be primarily the paganism (invariably associated with eating blood) which was particularly the thing forbidden.

It is noticeable that no provision for a poor man's being able to substitute a bird for the larger offerings as a peace-offering appears in the regulations in this chapter. This should not be viewed as any loss to the poor worshipper, because a bird would not have provided sufficient food for him and his friends, which fellowship meal was a prime feature of the offering. Also, "The poor man who could not afford a sheep or a goat might have been, and should have been, invited to partake of the peace-offerings presented by his well-to-do friends and neighbors."[17]

The peace offering as typical of Christ appears in this: the flesh of the very victim, the blood of which had been sprinkled upon the altar, then became the very food that sustained the life of the worshipper. Similarly, the flesh and blood of Him who died for us on Calvary nourishes the spiritual life of the believer (John 6:52-58).

Furthermore, the regulations here concerning the fat and the blood were not at all due to the hand of some "legislative reformer,"[18] as vainly imagined by some. These regulations were precisely for the purpose of preserving and continuing the witness of these institutions to the Lord Jesus Christ. They stand in the sacred text, not by the will of man, but by the will of God. The regulation concerning the blood particularly is specifically attributed to God Himself:

"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, "Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, `Ye shall eat no manner of fat, of ox, or of sheep, or of goat, ... and ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be of fowl, or of beast, in any of your dwellings. Whosoever, it be that eateth any blood, that soul shall be cut off from his people'." - Leviticus 7:22-27

We reject as unproved and unprovable that anyone except Moses was the human instrument through whom God spake these regulations. Those who dispute this position make the whole book to be a fraud. "The phrase, `and the Lord said to Moses,' occurs thirty-nine times in Leviticus!"[19] We believe this to be true.