THE POWER OF THE BLOOD: The Blood Covenant

Part 1 “The Foundation in the Old Testament (From Adam to Mt.Sinai)”

  • One of the principles of life is that once we no longer understand WHY something is important…we no longer have a reason to value it….this is a very dangerous thing!
  • Sometimes this is through ignorance….or because our culture has changed so much that we just don’t get it anymore
  • EX: the traditional concept of a “family” has almost gone by the wayside…and our culture now accepts people of the same sex living together as normal….or the fact that no longer is The 10 Commandments welcome to hang on the walls of our courts because it is considered mixing church and state…when the Commandments are what our very laws are founded on..
  • One of the most important biblical concepts that is in danger of being forgotten…or that is no longer understood…and in some places, no longer being taught because it OFFENDS people….is the principle of the BLOOD COVENANT
  • Satan and his demons HATE this message about the blood of Jesus because it means their destruction….they shudder at the very MENTION of the blood.
  • Humanists and religious people also hate the message of the blood…to them, the idea that to be “right” with God comes through Jesus blood rather than by HUMAN EFFORT is foolish and it doesn’t sit well with them….but
  • Hebrews 9:22 says “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of BLOOD there is no remission.”
  • Think about that song we sing…”What can wash away my sin? What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus!”
  • Over the next few weeks…we are going to do an in depth study of the Blood…but today I want you to get a foundation to build your understanding on….over the next few weeks, we will learn the significance of the Tabernacle, what Jesus says about the Blood, what power is there in the Blood, and how to apply the Blood to our lives…..
  • We are gonna start with learning about the BLOOD in the OLD TESTAMENT and the COVENANT of BLOOD that God has made with us….it’s a LOT of KNOWLEDGE…..
  • It was by that BLOOD the Covenant God made with us had its foundation and power….it is by the BLOOD alone that God and man can be brought into covenant fellowship
  • A COVENANT is often compared to a CONTRACT…but a covenant goes much, much deeper
  • The word COVENANT means: a binding agreement between two parties. The Hebrew word for covenant is BERIYTH which means “to fetter” or “confederacy, compact, and league…more precisely it means “to cut until bleeding occurs”…the Greek word is DIATHEKE…it actually means “an agreement to cut a covenant by the shedding of blood and walking between pieces of flesh”
  • Without BLOOD there could be no access by us…sinful man…to a Holy God
  • A blood covenant between two parties is the closet, the most enduring, the most solemn and the most sacred of all contracts. It absolutely cannot be broken.
  • Let’s take a quick History lesson to Hebrew culture….then we will start back in Genesis…

A SIDENOTE OF HEBREW HISTORY

“The Hebrew Ritual of Cutting Covenant”

  • The Eastern (Hebrew) mind regards blood quite differently than the Western (USA) mind…
  • When Eastern men drew up a contract…they would seal it by CUTTING A COVENANT
  • “No blood, no covenant”
  • The Hebrews had a blood covenant ritual that was very similar to other nations around them
  • All nations practiced a blood covenant because man INSTINCTIVELY sought this relationship…..
  • These are the common steps to entering into a covenant…it is a very specific ceremony…
  • The Scriptures I will show you PROVE that the Israelites understood what Covenant was…
  • STEP 1. TAKE OFF YOUR COAT or ROBE
  • 1 Samuel 18:1-4 “After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself. 2 From that day Saul kept David with him and did not let him return to his father's house. 3 And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. 4Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic, and even his sword, his bow and his belt.”
  • A person’s robe represented the PERSON…so, Taking off your coat or robe and giving it to the other person was like saying “I’m giving you all myself”…and then the other person would do the same to you
  • STEP 2: TAKE OFF THE BELT
  • Belts weren’t used to hold up their pants back in the day…they were used to hold their weapons….so symbolically you were telling the other person that you were giving them all your strength and pledging them all your support…If anyone attacked them, it was like they were attacking you…their battles become your battles and visa versa…..this is kinda like compacts nations make today….but THIS ONE COULD NOT be broken…
  • STEP 3: CUT THE COVENANT
  • Jeremiah 34:18-19 “The men who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces. 19 The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests and all the people of the land who walked between the pieces of the calf…”
  • In this step, you actually “cut the covenant” by taking an animal and literally cutting it right down the middle…..F.Y.I….the ONLY time animals were split right down the middle was in a covenant ceremony
  • After the animal was split, each half was laid beside us, we would stand in between the two bloody halves of flesh with our backs to each other…then we would walk right through the bloody halves, making a figure eight and come back to a stop facing each other…
  • This was saying two things….FIRST…we would be saying that we are dying to ourselves…giving up the rights to our own life and beginning a new walk with our covenant partner UNTO DEATH…..SECOND….since the blood covenant is the most solemn pact….we would each point down to the bloody animal split in two and say “God do so to me and more if I ever try to break this covenant. Just split me right down the middle and feed me to the vultures because I tried to break the most sacred of all compacts.”
  • STEP 4: RAISE THE RIGHT ARM AND MIX BLOOD
  • Isaiah 62:8 “The LORD has sworn by his right hand and by his mighty arm…”
  • We would raise our right arms, cut our palms, and bring them together…as we touch them together…our blood mixes…then we would swear allegiance to each other (HA! Don’t you remember doing this as a kid with your BFF!)
  • The thought was that as our blood mixes together…we would be becoming one life….
  • We would be saying that we are putting off our old nature and putting on the nature of our blood covenant partner
  • STEP 5: EXCHANGE NAMES
  • EX from God changing names….Genesis 17:5 ”No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.”
  • Genesis 17:15 “God also said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah.”
  • You would take my last name as a part of your name and I would take your last name as a part of my name
  • STEP 6: MAKE A SCAR
  • Isaiah 49:16 “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
    your walls are ever before me”
  • We would now rub our blood together to make a scar…this scar would be a permanent testimony to the covenant we made…..
  • If anyone tried to harm us…we would raise our right arm to show our scar…by that we are saying “there’s more to me than meets the eye…if you’re coming after me, you’re also going to have to fight my blood covenant partner…and you must not know how big He is!
  • STEP 7: GIVE COVENANT TERMS
  • Scripture EX of giving terms: Genesis 31:52 This heap is a witness, and this pillar is a witness, that I will not go past this heap to your side to harm you and that you will not go past this heap and pillar to my side to harm me. May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us." So Jacob took an oath in the name of the Fear of his father Isaac.
  • Genesis 21:23 Now swear to me here before God that you will not deal falsely with me or my children or my descendants. Show to me and the country where you are living as an alien the same kindness I have shown to you."
  • We would stand before witnesses and give the terms of the covenant…”All my stuff is yours…if you need anything, you don’t even have to ask…it’s yours…and if I die…all my children are yours by adoption and you are responsible for my family….but at the same time, you would also get all my liabilities…if there is ever a time when I need money…you will give it to me.”
  • So………….we would read allllll this before witnesses
  • STEP 8: EAT A MEMORIAL MEAL
  • Genesis 26:28-30 They answered, "We saw clearly that the LORD was with you; so we said, 'There ought to be a sworn agreement between us'-between us and you. Let us make a treaty with you 29 that you will do us no harm, just as we did not molest you but always treated you well and sent you away in peace. And now you are blessed by the LORD." Isaac then made a feast for them, and they ate and drank.”
  • Genesis 31:44-54 “Come now, let's make a covenant, you and I, and let it serve as a witness between us." So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar. He said to his relatives, "Gather some stones." So they took stones and piled them in a heap, and they ate there by the heap. Laban called it JegarSahadutha, and Jacob called it Galeed. Laban said, "This heap is a witness between you and me today." That is why it was called Galeed. It was also called Mizpah, because he said, "May the LORD keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other. If you mistreat my daughters or if you take any wives besides my daughters, even though no one is with us, remember that God is a witness between you and me." Laban also said to Jacob, "Here is this heap, and here is this pillar I have set up between you and me. This heap is a witness, and this pillar is a witness, that I will not go past this heap to your side to harm you and that you will not go past this heap and pillar to my side to harm me. May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us." So Jacob took an oath in the name of the Fear of his father Isaac. He offered a sacrifice there in the hill country and invited his relatives to a meal. After they had eaten, they spent the night there.”
  • The memorial meal is bread and wine….Genesis 49:11 Calls wine “the blood of grapes”….the wine represents our lifeblood…the bread represents our flesh
  • We would take the loaf of bread and break it in two and feed it to each other saying “this is symbolic of my body and I’, now putting it in you”…then we do and say the same thing about the wine…..and now…symbolically…I am in you and you are in me….we are now one together with a new nature
  • STEP 9: PLANT A MEMORIAL
  • Genesis 21:27-33 “So Abraham brought sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech, and the two men made a treaty. Abraham set apart seven ewe lambs from the flock, and Abimelech asked Abraham, "What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs you have set apart by themselves?" He replied, "Accept these seven lambs from my hand as a witness that I dug this well." So that place was called Beersheba, [a] because the two men swore an oath there. After the treaty had been made at Beersheba, Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his forces returned to the land of the Philistines. Abraham PLANTED a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called upon the name of the LORD, the Eternal God.
  • This step completed the ceremony….from now on we were known as FRIENDS…..
  • In Bible times, they didn’t use the word “friend” as loosely as we do today…you became friends only after you had cut covenant…and all our children are included in this covenant…even the unborn ones….later, when they are born and come to an age of understanding about our covenant, they can choose to stay in it or reject it
  • Now…every time you read these words in the Old Testament about trees being planted, meals taken, and stuff like that…you know they are cutting a covenant….the Bible doesn’t spell it out every time because back in Bible days everyone understood what was happening…
  • There are lots of examples in the Old Testament about people cutting covenant…Abraham cut covenant with the Philistine King Abielech, Laban cut covenant with Laban, David cut covenant with Jonathan…but let’s start from the beginning…
  • So…..let’s work our way through the first instances that God used to establish a PICTURE in our minds of just how important the BLOOD is…

OLD TESTAMENT FOUNDATION:

  • When Adam and Eve sinned…it plunged the entire world into darkness and then the “death process” started…though Adam and Eve didn’t die for many years…it was SPIRITUAL death that came first just as God had warned them when He said “In that day you shall surely die.”…..
  • Death means separation from God.
  • You can start reading in Genesis 3….as you read, notice that Adam as WITH Eve when the serpent was talking to her….then notice that as soon as they had taken a bite of the forbidden fruit…IMMEDIATELY their eyes were opened and they realized they were naked. Now…they had seen each other’s bodies for days….I personally don’t believe they are recognizing they are physically naked…but they are realizing that they are UNCOVERED….there is something INSIDE them that has changed …there is a vacancy inside of them….so they try to cover themselves with FIG LEAVES….so when God calls to Adam and Adam is hidden…notice what God asks him…”Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree of good and evil?”….
  • Even back in the Garden of Eden….
  • But God….in His extreme goodness…gives us the FIRST hope of the coming Messiah in Genesis 3:15
  • Genesis 3:15 “And I will put enmity (war) between you (Satan) and the woman (Israel), and between your seed (Mankind) and her Seed (Messiah); he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
  • These are words from the very mouth of God that He was promising that one day the Messiah would come and make everything better…
  • At this point…something completely AMAZING happened… God gives them a covering through the shed blood of an innocent animal:…..now…back up just a bit….when Adam and Eve sinned…they realized they were naked…they covered themselves with FIG LEAVES…that was THEIR WAY of covering themselves…but God was like…nope…that won’t cut it….He showed them in a way that they could understand…that there was only ONE WAY to come before Him now…through the BLOOD
  • Gen 3:21"Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them. “
  • Notice that He clothed them with tunics of "skin" and that the ONE sacrifice clothed them both…. The word CLOTHED speaks of blood atonement…. They had never seen anything die…don’t you know that it must have horrified them to see an innocent creature be killed because of something THEY did… this animal could have even been a PET of theirs….after all, they had named all the animals and lived at peace with them all…..can you imagine watching your innocent pet be killed and then SKINNED because of something YOU did???!!!!....yet they saw God the giver of life take a life because when God clothed them He had to slaughter an innocent animal to do it
  • THINK ABOUT IT: An INNOCENT animal was slaughtered…instead of them…a SUBSTITUTE… in order to COVER them so that they could still approach God
  • This was a sign of the coming Messiah that would be the substitute for all mankind!
  • Now God didn’t have Moses record every little thing that went on during that “clothing” but you can almost bet on it that God had Adam and Eve watch as He killed that animal and then He explained to them what the deal was….the fig leaves they had used didn’t cut it because they didn’t show the evidence that a price had been paid!
  • From this point on one could only approach God through the blood.