I gotta have my orange juice.

Jesu, Juva

Totus Christus

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Christians are forbidden from drinking blood:

For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.

Farewell. (Acts 15:28-29)

How then do we drink blood every week?

Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. (John 6:53-56)

This is because Jesus’s blood does not leave his body. To drink Jesus’s blood is to participate in his body:

The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread. (1 Corinthians 10:16-17)

A strong implication of this is that it is not licit to attempt to conduct the Lord’s supper in any context other than the gathered church. The Lord’s table is presented to the Lord’s church on the Lord’s day. If your gathering is not the church-body, then “it is not to eat the Lord’s supper” (1 Corinthians 11:20).

Written by Scott Moonen

August 24, 2025 at 3:21 pm

Posted in Biblical Theology

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