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Yes, which is why I consider it figurative.

The eating of blood was VERY STRICTLY forbidden by God and it one of the few commands reiterated by the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15, validated by the Holy Spirit. The blood is for atonement, not to be eaten. There are absolute commands by God throughout the OT regarding that.

The Passover was a symbolic meal. During that meal, the blood was poured out, NOT eaten. Peter said he never ate anything unclean (Acts 10). Jesus could not have demanded that His disciples make themselves unclean by eating blood, causing them to sin.

Besides, once Jesus blood was shed, it was gone.

It’s not the sacrificing, the suffering and dying present tense, which cleanses for sin and obtains forgiveness, but the DEATH. The FINISHING of the sacrifice.

The only payment for sin is death, not dying, not suffering, not works, not baptism, not communion, but death.

Participating in His death doesn’t cut it either. We must be crucified in Him, having died in Him, to have new life. You cannot get new life unless the old one is passed away.

My goodness, you come so close at times, practically flashing out the true thing with your arms swinging semaphore -style, and then concluding, "And that's why I believe the opposite."

What do you think the point was, of all that viscerally-felt, ritual prohibition of blood? It's because it was seen as presumptuously consuming the very life of an animal, as if they could drink down the source of life. The Jews were very big on the life being in the blood.

So Jesus comes and says, "Do this thing which is utterly revolting to you, shocking, scandalous, viscerally offensive, because I AM the source of Life-- my Flesh IS REAL food, my Blood IS REAL drink" --- (it's what He said, look it up) and what happened? Most of those who had followed Him, turned around and left!

What did Jesus do? Chase after them? ("Hey, come baa-a-a-ck! Don't be idiots! It's just a metaphor!")

No. He turned to his own picked men and said, "Do you want to leave, too?"

Well?

(I can imagine a materialist skeptic like, say, Richard Dawkins, at the Last Supper:

Christ: "This is My Blood."

Response: "Amen."

Response: (after a tiny hesitation): "Not really."