“The life is in the blood.” This is a fundamental teaching of the Law of Moses (Lev 3:17; 7:26,27; 17:11,14; Deut 12:23). What does it mean, to say “the life is in the blood”?:
- Blood is the source of life: Its red blood cells supply oxygen and nutrients to every cell in the human body.
On the spiritual plane, Christ’s blood is a “transfusion” of life to us: “Drink my blood” (John 6:53-57; 1Cor 11:25-27; Matt 26:27,28). What was forbidden — i.e., the partaking of natural blood — is commanded of us, on a spiritual level. It is only through Christ and his shed blood that we may have life.
- Blood is the agent of cleansing: It removes carbon dioxide and toxins and waste products from every body cell, and transports them to the lungs and kidneys, where they are excreted or expelled.
Likewise, believers are “washed in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev 7:14; 1John 1:7; Heb 9:11-14).
- Blood is the agent of overcoming disease: Its white cells attack and neutralize and consume invading bacteria and viruses and “alien” bodies. All immunizations and vaccinations make use of this amazing capacity of the human body to heal itself.
By Christ’s blood understood symbolically, we can overcome all difficulties and trials (Rev 12:11; John 16:33). He is the one who has overcome all things; when we are inoculated with his blood we are provided with the necessary “antibodies” to fight off the “disease” of sin (Heb 2:14-18; 4:15).
What does the blood system do for the human body? In answer, two writers, a physician and a Bible student, give us this fascinating description of how the blood system works:
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Imagine an enormous tube snaking southward from Canada through the Amazon delta, plunging into oceans only to surface at every inhabited island, shooting out eastward through every jungle, plain, and desert in Africa, forking near Egypt to join all of Europe and Russia as well as the entire Middle East and Asia — a pipeline so global and pervasive that it links every person worldwide. Inside that tube an endless plenitude of treasures floats along on rafts: mangoes, coconuts, asparagus, and produce from every continent; watches, calculators, and cameras; gems and minerals; 49 brands of cereals; all styles and sizes of clothing; the contents of entire shopping centers. Five billion people have access: at a moment of need or want, they simply reach into the tube and seize whatever product suits them. Somewhere far down the pipeline a replacement is manufactured and inserted.
Such a pipeline exists inside each one of us, servicing not five billion but one hundred trillion cells in the human body. An endless supply of oxygen, amino acids, nitrogen, sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sugars, lipids, cholesterols, and hormones surges past our cells, carried on blood cell rafts or suspended in fluid. Each cell has special withdrawal privileges to gather the resources needed to fuel a tiny engine for its complex chemical reactions.
In addition, that same pipeline ferries away refuse, exhaust gases, and worn-out chemicals. In the interest of economical transport, the body dissolves its vital substances into a liquid (much as coal is shipped more efficiently through a slurry pipeline than by truck and train). Five or six quarts of this all-purpose fluid suffice for the body’s hundred trillion cells.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One