Jehovah’s Witnesses do not do blood transfusions. They are very adamant against that. Even if their loved one is dying, they would take the chances of their loved one dying than have them take a blood transfusion. It’s really horrendous and sad but we will look at Leviticus chapter 17:12 “Therefore I say unto the children of Israel ‘No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood.’” The Bible commanded you not to eat blood. The New Testament also said that in Acts 15. The Apostle says you’re not supposed to eat blood. The Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that when you’re doing blood transfusions, you’re in a sense eating blood. We can’t do that because that violates the Bible. That’s why they reject blood transfusions and they let their loved one die. To find the right interpretation of the verse, you compare Scripture with Scripture. If you look up every word in the Bible that says “eat”, it did not mean putting a tube in the body or something like that, “eat” meant putting it in your mouth. Were there blood transfusions in the Old Testament, those medical systems and all that? No, if they did they would have worded it differently. Let’s think common sense. What do you think they meant? If we were in their time, what do you think they meant? Like drinking blood or eating through the mouth.
The context even shows you it has to do with literally eating through the mouth. Leviticus 17:13-14 “And whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel or the strangers that sojourn among you, which hunteth and catcheth any beast or fowl that may be eaten…” It meant literally eating through the mouth.
If they insist that eating blood is receiving nutrition from blood, like blood transfusions, then we’ve all violated that law because we were all born from the nourishment from our mother’s blood. So obviously God didn’t mean that you can’t put any blood in that person, then God would violate his own law.
God gave a lot of rules about the law. This is how you should treat God’s law. God said you were supposed to observe the Sabbath, you were not supposed to violate it, but the Pharisees got mad at Jesus because he healed a person on the Sabbath (Matthew 12), so basically Jesus was working on the Sabbath day and he violated that law. God gave rules and laws not to cause problems to people, not to hurt people, not to let people die. He put the laws and rules to help people’s lives. The Sabbath was there because it’s scientifically proven that the body structure of man is built for a day of rest so that our body can really gain its health back again and because you’re supposed to worship and observe me. Matthew 12:10 “Behold there was a man which had his hand withered and they asked him saying ‘is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath days’ that they might accuse him.’” Jesus said unto them ‘what man shall there be among you that shall have one sheep and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath day, he not lay hold on it and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep?’” It’s not “is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?”, it’s “wherefore it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath days”. In Matthew 12:13 Jesus healed the man and then the Pharisees acted like Jehovah’s Witnesses and they said “you violated the law”. Is it lawful to have blood transfusions? That’s not the point. The point is in Matthew 12:12 – it is lawful to do well with blood transfusions, it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath. God says don’t work on Sabbath. Will God let a person die in a hospital or would he let the doctor work and heal that person on the Sabbath day? It’s the same thing with blood transfusions. Will God let a person die because you cannot eat blood or will God have the person do the blood transfusion and have them get healed?