126. Go Well with You and Your Children
Deuteronomy 12:25 Thou shalt not eat it; that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, when thou shalt do that which is right in the sight of the Lord.
The prohibition about eating meat with blood in it was just given. Here Moses says you will not eat blood. The conditional promise is that if you do not eat blood, then it will go well with you and your children. The reason for this command in the first place was that “blood has the life in it.” This “blood prohibition” was carried through in the NT; in Acts 15 the Jerusalem Council decided that the eating of blood was one of four Jewish restrictions that Gentile Christians should still keep. The Christian Church has since given up this Jewish restriction.
Another Biblical principle that applies is this: “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.” Since blood has life in it, it is the shedding of blood or the giving of the life of the sacrificial animal that is needed for the remission of sins. In this context it is remarkable that God gives us the blood of Christ to drink in the Lord’s Supper for the remission of sins.
However we look at it Jesus says, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life…for my blood is true drink.” In John 6 Jesus is referring to believing in Jesus when He speak of eating and drinking Him. That one has eternal life, which is equivalent to the promise, “it may go well with thee.” For eternal life is certainly a good life, a well-lived life, and it will definitely go well with the person who believes in Jesus Christ (eats His flesh and drinks His blood).
In other words, faith in Jesus is the condition for the promise of a good life. When you believe in Christ the kingdom comes to you, God’s life lives in you, and the pleasant result is that it will go well with you. In the OT it will go well with you if you do not eat the blood; in the NT it will go well with you if you do drink the blood. So which is it? Both, because both principles apply to the death of Christ: breaking the OT rule desecrates Jesus’ salvation; denying the NT truth about the blood of Christ rejects Jesus’ salvation. The OT and NT meaning is the same: Believe in Christ.