The Bible is made up of two covenants called the Old Testament and the New Testament. "Testament" means "covenant". All of God's dealings with men have revolved around these two covenants. The entire redemptive plan of God hinges upon them. God established the first with Abraham, and the second covenant He established with Jesus. The word "covenant" comes from the Hebrew word "bawraw" which means "to cut". This suggests there is a flow of blood. Therefore both covenants were established with blood.
The Significance of the Blood Covenant
History tells us that primitive people from the beginning of time have practiced blood covenants in some form. They were common among the Indian tribes of America, and the custom is still practiced in many parts of the world today.
There are many reasons for a blood covenant. To those who practice it, there is no covenant more sacred. In a partnership, it is used to make sure that neither partner will take advantage of the other. Between friends, it is a symbol of love, devotion, and loyalty.
The covenant between Stanley and the chieftain
Henry Stanley, and explorer, went to search for David Livingstone, the first missionary to Africa, who overstayed his time in the jungles. Stanley's interpreter told him he need to cut a covenant with those hostile tribes for the sake of their own safety.
The chieftain of the tribe chose a substitute to represent him and Stanley chose his interpreter to be his substitute. These two substitutes came together before a priest who cut the wrist of each one just enough to drip a few drops of their blood into a glass of wine. The wine was stirred and the bloods mixed and both of them drank part of it, thereby both parties were sealed in a blood covenant. Stanley and the chieftain became blood brothers. The main significance was that what belongs to Stanley belongs to the chieftain and vice versa. It was a perpetual covenant that could not be broken.
God's Covenant with Adam and Eve
When God created Adam, he was a perfect being. He had a magnificent mind that enabled him to name every animal and also to remember their names. Adam and Eve lived in perfect harmony with God. He walked with them in the cool of the day. They had perfect fellowship, and they knew God intimately.
But the serpent was lurking in the garden and he deceived Eve and she ate the fruit of the tree (of "knowing good and evil") in the midst of the garden and she also gave some to Adam (Gen. 3:1 - 6).
When Adam and his wife yielded to the snare of Satan, the Scripture says, "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings" (Gen. 3:7, NKJV, emphasis added).
The fact that they even tried to make clothes for themselves showed that they realized their need of a covering.
I believe the instant they yielded to temptation they lost God's consciousness and gained self-consciousness. In other words, their spirits were "dead" and they were unable to relate to God and know Him intimately. They were led by their soul life - intellect, will and emotion (Refer to my earlier message, "The Spirit, Soul, and Body of Man"). They had run from the presence of God and had lost His glory. They were naked and ashamed, attempting to cover themselves with leaves.
Then God did something marvelous. He initiated the first blood sacrifice.
"Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them" (Gen. 3:21).
I believe the animal had just been slain and that the skins were still bloody when God used them to cover Adam and Eve. This was the first Blood Covenant, initiated by God, between Himself and man. Notice that God's first sacrifice covered Adam and Eve's sin with the blood of animanls. It did not take away their sin; but merely covered it up. As we will see, His final sacrifice takes away the sins of you and me with the blood of His only begotten Son.
God said, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul" (Lev. 17:11).
The word "atonement" is Hebrew is "kaphar" which means "to cover". When Adam and Eve sinned, they lost their close communion with God. But through the blood covenant, God was declaring that their sins were atone for. The blood one day (in the New Covenant) would bring back the fellowship and joy.
God's Covenant with Abraham
When God wanted to establish His covenant with man, He had to have a sacrifice to represent Him. God was (and is) a spirit being and so He needed somebody with two physical hands to take Him a sacrifice to be a substitute in His place.
He said to Abraham, "Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, ...." (Gen. 15:9).
Abraham did as God asked. Then God explained to Abraham how he was to enter into the blood covenant relationship with Him:
"This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised; and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of covenant between Me and you" (Gen. 17:10, 11).
The sign of the Abrahamic covenant was circumcision. Notice that God honored the covenant so that, even at his advanced age, Abraham was able to father a child named Isaac.
Abraham's Supreme Test
After the covenant was cut, God decided to test Abraham's allegiance to their covenant relationship.
God said, "Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you" (Gen. 22:1, 2).
God was giving Abraham the supreme test - Whom did he love more, Isaac or God? The next verse said, "So Abraham arose early in the morning ..." - indicating that Abraham never batted an eye but immediately did what God told him to do. I believe when the blood covenant is in effect in your life, and when God tells you to do something, you don't hesitate. You do it immediately!
Abraham had total faith in God for God said, "For in Isaac your seed shall be called" (Gen. 21:12). He believed that "God was able to raise him up, even from the dead" (Heb. 11:19).
In the end, a ram was provided by God for the sacrifice instead of Isaac. God did not require Abraham to sacrifice his son, but He wanted Abraham to be willing to give Him his best.
Abraham was called the friend of God (James 2:23) because God had found a man who kept his Blood Covenant!
God's New Covenant with Jesus
When God cut the Old Covenant He told Abraham to take Him a sacrifice. Later when God was ready to cut the New Covenant, and again He needed a sacrifice - a lamb. John the Baptist said, "The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).
The Old Covenant was sealed by the blood of Abraham and the sacrificial animal. The New Covenant is sealed "with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot" (1 Peter 1:19).
The first Covenant was imperfect. It did not take away sin; it merely covered it up. It did not give new life; it only gave the promise of it. The Old Covenant was like a promissory note which Christ cashed in on the cross of Calvary!
Jesus fulfilled the Old Covenant
God spoke of the promises the New Covenant as taking the place of the Old Covenant (Heb. 8:8 - 12).
".... then He (Jesus) said, 'Behold, I have come to do You will, O God.' He takes away the first that He may establish the second" (Heb. 10:9).
Hebrew 9 clearly says that Christ entered into Heaven to appear before God for us as our Friend. he did not have to offer Himself again and again as the Old Testament high priests did here on earth when they offered animal blood each year. Christ died once and for all, to put away the power of sin forever by dying for us.
Christ was God's Lamb, and through Him God cut an eternal covenant with the human race. Hanging on the cross, suspended between Heaven and earth, Jesus took on Himself all the sins of the world, all the sicknesses, all the diseases, all the sufferings and all the heartbreaks. He experienced the curse and the horror of all these dreadful things for us.
Paul said, "... God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation" (2 Cor. 5:19).
The good news is not that God will reconcile us, but that He has already reconciled us unto Himself. This is the wonderful message God has given us through the Blood Covenant. When they stabbed Jesus in the side like a heifer, and the blood gushed out, God Himself was cutting an everlasting Covenant with the human race.
The New Covenant is in Jesus
The Old Covenant was in Abraham; the New Covenant is in Jesus. When Abraham was circumcised, he "mingled" his blood with the blood of God's representive - a heifer. Jesus shed His blood on the cross, "mingled" the human and the divine. What God did in the Old Covenant was for the sake of Abraham. What He does for us today, He does it for the sake of His Son Jesus.
It is important to understand that the New Covenant is not in us. It is in Jesus. You see, God did not cut the Covenant with you and me. He cut it with His Son Jesus. All we need to do is, by faith, enter into the Covenant that God cut with His Son! I entered into the Covenant by the circumcision of the heart. I was a lost man. I loved the world because I had an old man living inside me. When I accepted Jesus, I was circumcised in my heart and the old man was cut away!
Salvation actually means entering the New blood Covenant that God the Father made with His Son Jesus Christ. As with all Blood Covenants, this New Covenant demands two-way commitment. If I am a convenant man, God has the right to ask me for anything. And I have the equal right to ask God for anything in prayer. The only condition is that I have to pray according to His will. Under the Old Covenant Abraham was called the friend of God; under the New Covenant all true Christians are called children of God. God demanded the best from Abraham - his son Isaac; He is likely to demand the best from us! That is the price we all have to pay for we are His covenant people.
Understanding the Holy Communion
The Holy Communion is a reminder to the Lord's Covenant people the ultimate sacrifice of our Lord Jesus when God the Father cut the New Blood Covenant with Him. To understand this is of supreme impartance.
Paul said to the Church in Corinth, "For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep" (1 Cor. 11:29, 30).
The writer of Hebrews said, "Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace" (Heb. 10:29, NKJV, emphasis added).
Therefore, I believe only those who have been circumcised in the heart and those who are able to discern what Jesus had done for us through the Blood Covenant, should partake of the sacrament of the Holy Communion.
A Covenant of love
The Communion also emphasizes our covenant relationship with all of God's covenant people. When you take the communion, not only are you in loving covenant relationship with God but also you are in a loving covenant relationship with all your brothers and sisters in Christ who partake with you.
Jesus said, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples (My covenant people), if you have love for one another" (John 13:34, 35, emphasis added).
Love is what the Blood Covenant is all about!
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