The question has to be asked: Did the REASON for the OT prohibition on drinking the blood of the victim continue to exist after Jesus had sacrificed himself?
These connections [between the action and the words of Jesus on the one hand and the Passover celebration and sacrificial thought in the Old Testament on the other] could not have been introduced only later in the Lord’s Supper tradition. This is proved by the great difficulty that the idea of the blood of Christ causes in this connection. That the body of Christ is eaten, in fact must be eaten, as the body of the true Passover lamb is understandable if the parallel between the Passover in the Lord’s Supper is really to be valid. But the idea of partaking of blood had to cause most serious offense for those whose thinking was schooled in the Old Testament. For partaking of blood was strictly forbidden in the Old Testament, and even the parallel between the covenant blood in Exodus 24:8 and the covenant blood in the Words of Institution is seriously distorted when the latter is given to the disciples to drink. The difficulty is so great that one can credit no one, least of all Paul or John, with having burdened the idea of the Lord’s Supper with it after the event. There is really no other possibility than the assumption that Jesus himself is the originator of the idea that not only is His body taken as that of the “Lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Pet. 1:19) but also His blood... But if Jesus did express this idea that was so offensive to Jewish and perhaps all human thought, then His meaning could only have been the following: Partaking of blood is forbidden in the old covenant because according to Lev. 17:11 the body’s life is in the blood and because the life belongs to God. But the life of Jesus has been offered up for men. It should be for their benefit. For here men do not bring a sacrifice to God through a priest, but the High Priest offers Himself as a sacrifice to God for the sake of men. That Christ gives His blood to those redeemed by Him to drink is the strongest expression of the fact that He sacrifices Himself for men entirely, unreservedly, and completely. (Sasse 1985, 89-90)
http://dawningrealm.org/papers/passover.pdf
In short, the REASON for the ancient prohibition no longer existed after Jesus sacrificed himself, because: Under the Old Law, the life (blood) of the victim belonged to God.
Christ, on the other hand, in sacrificing himself, gave his life TO US as a gift. He tells us to drink his blood precisely in order to tell us that he is GIVING US HIS LIFE.
Again:
"Partaking of blood is forbidden in the old covenant because according to Lev. 17:11 the body’s life is in the blood and because the life belongs to God. But the life of Jesus has been offered up for men. It should be for their benefit. For here men do not bring a sacrifice to God through a priest, but the High Priest offers Himself as a sacrifice to God for the sake of men. That Christ gives His blood to those redeemed by Him to drink is the strongest expression of the fact that He sacrifices Himself for men entirely, unreservedly, and completely."
In other words, to REJECT drinking Christ's blood is to say that, in his sacrifice, Christ did NOT give his life TO US as a gift.
To refuse to drink the blood of Jesus is to CLING TO THE OLD COVENANT AND THE OLD SACRIFICES, refusing to accept the life Jesus has given to us.
But yet those of your religion claim that THEY offer the sacrifice of Jesus to the Father...Which of course is ridiculous...
That Christ gives His blood to those redeemed by Him to drink is the strongest expression of the fact that He sacrifices Himself for men entirely, unreservedly, and completely. (Sasse 1985, 89-90)
Nothing more than the musing of human philosophers...
To refuse to drink the blood of Jesus is to CLING TO THE OLD COVENANT AND THE OLD SACRIFICES, refusing to accept the life Jesus has given to us.
Jesus told Paul to tell us to continue to avoid drinking blood...
Acts 15:28 For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; 29 That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.
That was written "after Jesus sacrificed himself".
>>He tells us to drink his blood<<
His blood was shed on the ground as was commanded for ALL sacrifices.
You can shout and scream about the Old Covenant and Old Sacrifices all you want but it doesn't change the fact that the Holy Spirit through the apostles said NOT to eat the blood. Christ said His words were spirit rather then physical and said the flesh profits nothing. We were told that some would not understand the spiritual aspect.
1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Christ said "my words are spirit".
That's right. His words not mine.
Matthew 5:17-20 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
We believe as many early Christian leaders that it is by BELIEVING in Christ that we are "drinking" His blood and "eating" His flesh when we partake of the Lord's Supper. This should be more than obvious seeing that the ACTUAL elements of bread and wine DO NOT CHANGE in any physical, observable way but we eat and drink to express our faith in what Christ did for us as well as the recognition of the body of Christ of which we are all part. What's so hard about just admitting the truth - it is a SPIRITUAL event? Nobody drinks REAL blood, nobody eats REAL human flesh - it has ALWAYS been symbolic.
No matter how many times RCs post threads boasting of their superior sacrament to that of non-Catholic Christians, the truth is that NOBODY has ever had to drink human blood and eat human flesh in observance of Christ's example. It has always been a spiritual exercise and recognition of the once-for-all physical reality of Christ's atonement.