A Warning for Edward

Reading:   Leviticus 1-7

First, after reading today's title, who among you immediately thought of the vampyric character from the Twilight series?  Sad, truly sad, but you are correct in your whimsical association.  We will get back to Edward later...

The opening chapters of Leviticus are filled with the order of offerings.  A lot of the instruction is redundant, repeated over and over for each type of offering, but that is the process of God's teaching - line upon line, precept upon precept.  The types of offering are:

1. Burnt Offering
2. Meat Offering (AKA - Meal Offering)
3. Sin Offering
4. Peace Offering
5. Trespass Offering

Each offering is a type of animal sacrifice with instruction on: how to kill specific animals from oxen to pigeons, what to do with the various parts, from fat and organs to the blood of the offering, and even the manner by which to season the offering (oils, salt, etc.).  The Lord also explains which sins require which type of offering and which animal to use in each instance.  The descriptions are quite specific, visual, and a bit gruesome if not for the ultimate purpose.  

Side note: There is a book by Andrew John Jukes, Law of the Offerings: The Five Tabernacle Offerings and Their Spiritual Significance, that may shed some light on the various offerings from a Christian point of view.  I'm interested by haven't the time, so, it's on my list (hint, hint).

I'm not going to delve into the offerings as a topic because their is too much to render, if you know what I mean, but I would like to point out the follow...

LEVITICUS 3:17, 7:27

17 It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood. 

27 Whatsoever soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people. 

There you have it - to partake of blood, in any manner thereof, is to be cut off from the presence of God.  That is the warning to Edward and the ultimate fate for all who choose to follow in his bloodthirsty footsteps - Don't be vampires kids!

Okay, fictional characters aside (yes, he is fictional), the warning is significant because of the integral role blood plays in existence, not only as the giver of life, but also as the ultimate sacrifice of life.  Blood is a vital segment in each of the five offerings and ultimately in the very atonement of Jesus Christ.  To drink blood is a mockery of the blood sacrifice of our Savior, a pure act of evil born of Satan and practiced throughout the world in rituals as old as time.

~Kipling