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What
is a Blood Covenant?
Adam and Eve had sinned in the
sight of God. God was unwilling to turn His back on His creation, so He covered
their sin with blood. Now, He would not have to look at their sin, for all He
would see was the blood that covered this sin. This is the basis for all the
Old Testament sacrifices of blood, which pointed to the Ultimate sacrifice, the
shedding of the innocent blood of the Lamb of God.
By
Wayne Nelson
What do we mean by a Blood Covenant?
This term, used widely in our world and found
in every culture that has ever been discovered, has lost most of its
significance in today’s society, especially here in America.
Even though the concept is found in every
society of mankind from the earliest of times to the present, we do not
understand it’s meaning as this most ancient of all rites has come down to us
throughout history.
What the Blood Covenant meant to the earliest
of peoples, it still means today. The force it carried in antiquity is the same
today as it was in ancient times.
But, because we in America (and other modern
countries as well) do not understand the meaning behind the blood covenant, we
have failed to understand its true meaning to us today.
Christians, particularly, are not able to
understand their rights and obligations under a Blood Covenant.
The importance of understanding the Blood
Covenant is found in the fact that the basis of Christianity is rooted in a
Blood Covenant.
The Blood Covenant between God and Abraham,
the foundation for the relationship of God to His chosen people, appears in the
New Testament as a New Covenant, this time between God and those who choose to
serve Him in Christ.
In the New Testament the covenant people are
the ones who choose God, who represent Christ to a dying world.
This New Covenant is between God and Jesus,
whereas the Old Covenant was between God and Abraham.
In each case, the meaning of the Blood
Covenant remains constant. What it meant to David in the Old Testament it means
to us in the New Testament.
So, what is the basic meaning behind this
Blood Covenant?
Simply put it means that two covenant
individuals share such a close relationship with each other that all they have
or possess in this life is available to each upon demand.
For example, say that Joe and Sam have
entered into a Blood Covenant with each other. What belongs to Joe also belongs
to Sam and what belongs to Sam also belongs to Joe.
Say Joe has a short
payday, but has a pressing debt due that he cannot pay. He simply goes to Sam
and says, “Sam, give me your checkbook, I’m in dire need of $500”.
Sam is obligated, by the Blood Covenant
between them, to hand his checkbook to Joe so that Joe can meet his debt
obligation.
This sharing of the personal properties of
both Joe and Sam extend to everything either possesses, including wives.
For a Blood Covenant individual to refuse to
meet the needs of his covenant partner means that he broke the blood covenant
between them and this means that he will die a most horrible death as well as
the rest of his family, usually at the hand of the individual he so severely
mistreated.
You can understand then, the motive that
causes these two blood covenant individuals to share all they possess with each
other whenever called upon.
To refuse was a certain death sentence as
well as probable death to his family. Perhaps now the times in the Old
Testament where God seemed to wipe out His chosen can be better understood.
He always said, before the drastic action
took place, that they had broken the Covenant with Him. But also, God always
left a remnant behind so He could reestablish His Covenant with them.
Just how ancient is the Blood Covenant?
In his book “The
Blood Covenant”, Dr. H. Clay Trumbull states “This fact [the commonality of
the rite in all cultures] in itself would seem to point to a common origin of
its various manifestations, in the early Oriental home of the now scattered
peoples of the world” (page
57).
So, what would be the early Oriental home
that Dr. Trumbull talks of?
What about the Garden
of Eden? In Genesis 3:21, it says, “Unto Adam also and to His wife did the
Lord God make coats of skin, and clothed them.”
Eve was the first woman to wear a fur coat
and that in the heat of the Mid-East as she was evicted from her birth home!
But what does this have to do with the Blood Covenant of the Bible?
Adam, as well as Eve, had sinned in the sight
of God. He could not look on that sin which meant that He would have to forsake
His new creation, mankind.
God was unwilling to turn His back on His
creation, so He covered their sin with blood. Now, He would not have to look at
their sin, for all He would see was the blood that covered this sin.
This is the basis for all the Old Testament
sacrifices of blood, which pointed to the Ultimate sacrifice, the shedding of
the innocent blood of the Lamb of God.
But where in this chapter of Genesis does it
mention the shedding of blood to cover their sin?
Well, you would have to kill the beast that
surrendered their skin before you skinned them, both acts resulting in the
shedding of innocent blood.
But how do you get to the point that this
blood was used by God to cover the sins of Adam and Eve?
Go to the next chapter in Genesis, Chapter 4
and you immediately find Cain and Abel making an offering to God.
He was pleased with Abel’s offering; the
first born of his flock for it was an offering that involved the shedding of
blood, the covering for his sins.
However, God did not accept Cain’s offering,
for no shedding of blood was performed to cover Cain’s sin.
So how did Cain and Abel learn about the
shedding of blood to cover their sins? Their parents told them, probably
recounting how their mother came into possession of her prized fur coat that no
one dared touch or play with.
From this concept sprang the genesis for the
Blood Covenant where God cut the covenant with Abraham.
Since God is a spirit and not flesh and
blood, there has to be a substitutionary contributor to provide the blood necessary
for the Blood Covenant.
God’s contributors were a 3-year-old heifer,
a 3-year-old female goat, a 3-year-old ram, a turtledove and a young pigeon (Genesis 15:9).
Abraham’s blood contribution was to be his
foreskin, which bleeds profusely when it is cut, especially in an adult male.
Genesis 17:11 and following gives the
particulars of Abraham’s contribution to the Blood Covenant cut between him and
God Almighty.
This was to be an everlasting covenant
between man, represented by Abraham, and God, a never-ending compact between
two covenant partners for all time (Genesis 17:7).
If this were to be an everlasting covenant
between God and Man, what role would Jesus play in the New Covenant of the New
Testament?
Why was it necessary for Him to shed His blood
on the cross, since an everlasting covenant was established between God and
Abraham?
The problem was that the weak link in the Old
Covenant was man, who continually broke the covenant between him and God,
sometimes unintentionally, sometimes deliberately and with malice.
Study the lives of the Old Testament
Prophets, especially Isaiah and Ezekiel to gain a better understanding of the
treachery that the false prophets of Israel put on God’s people.
However, if the people wanted to actually
follow God, they could, thus the blame for Israel’s downfall was shared by all,
prophet and people alike.
It was obvious that man, try as he might, was
a poor choice for a Blood Covenant partner, since he repeatedly violated the
Covenant and repeatedly paid the price for his folly.
A man had to be found who would not
repeatedly break the Covenant by disobedience to his Covenant partner, Almighty
God.
And right here is where Jesus fits in, as He
was both Son of God and Son of Man. By His very nature, He would not disobey or
dishonor His Covenant partner, God, the Father.
Thus, the New Blood Covenant, based on the
saving work of Jesus replaced a covenant that was based on Abraham, which was
continually violated by man.
Thus, the New Covenant, based on Jesus,
became a better Blood Covenant than the Old Covenant, which was based on
Abraham’s relation to God.
In the Abrahamic Blood Covenant, God made the
covenant only with Abraham, no one else. Others entered into the Covenant
between God and Abraham through the rite of circumcision.
In Genesis 17:7-14, God outlines how others
will enter into the Blood Covenant cut between Him and His friend, Abraham.
God did not cut a personal Blood Covenant
with every Hebrew male, He provided for an entrance into the Blood Covenant He
had with Abraham through the rite of circumcision, the very vehicle Abraham
used to provide his blood for his Blood Covenant with Almighty God.
Later, in the New Testament, Paul writes
about the Circumcision of the Heart, where the old nature is thrown away and
the new nature from God is placed within the new believer in Jesus.
Thus, the New Blood Covenant, based on the
covenant relationship between God, the Father and Jesus, the Son of Man is
patterned after the original Abrahamic Covenant.
The covenant now is indeed everlasting, for
it cannot be broken as it was in ancient times.
The New Blood Covenant is now between God,
the Father and His Son, representing man. Those who enter into this
relationship with God the Father and Jesus His Son, do so by the rite of circumcision,
the circumcision of the heart.
As Paul explained it
to the Christians in Rome “For he is not a Jew which is one outwardly;
neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew,
which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit,
and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men but of God.” (Romans 2:28-29, KJV).
Paul, in writing to
the Colossians, elaborated further “And ye are complete in Him which is the
head of all principality and power; in whom also ye are circumcised with the
circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the
flesh by the circumcision of Christ” (Colossians 2:10-11, KJV).
When a person accepts Christ as their Lord
and Savior, there is a lot going on in the spiritual realm that we generally
are unaware of when it is happening.
Not even the person who is receiving all this
spiritual activity knows what is happening, they just know they somehow feel
“different”, “better”, “at peace” or some other way describes that they aren’t
the same as they were moments before.
Not only are they accepting Jesus as their
Savior and thereby have their entire sin debt, from that moment on, wiped out
but they are also cut into the New Blood Covenant between God, the Father and
Jesus, His Son representing mankind.
This cutting into the Blood covenant is done
by Jesus, man’s representative in the Blood Covenant and is performed in the
heart, not on the foreskin.
Thus, all who come to Jesus, male and female,
have equal access to the terms of the Blood Covenant.
What are the terms of this Blood Covenant we
are now in? Remember, in a blood covenant relationship everything you have or
possess is freely available to your covenant partner.
Likewise, everything he has or possesses is
now available to you, you only need to ask and it is yours.
If we treated our relationship with our
Heavenly Father as a relationship within a Blood Covenant that means, anything
we need that He has is ours for the asking!
Conversely anything He asks of us we are
covenant bound to provide Him.
You say He wants you
to be a teacher or a writer? Then under the Blood Covenant all you can say is “Here’s
your teacher or writer, Lord”.
So, you feel that He wants you preaching the
Gospel and you get butterflies when you stand in front of two people and they
are your family members?
Your response, under
the Blood Covenant, is the response of Samuel when he answered God’s call on
his life. “Speak, for thy servant heareth” (1 Samuel 3:10, KJV).
If we only understood the obligations, we
have in our Blood Covenant relationship with our Heavenly Father, He would not
have to use people in jobs He never designed them for and we would be much
happier in our lives that is centered in God’s will.
Currently, I am in need of a sum of money to
finish a book project I’ve started at God’s behest. So, what do I do? Do I seek
another part-time job for additional income, borrow the amount and put my
family and myself in deeper debt?
Or do I turn to my
Blood Covenant Partner and say, “I have need of this amount of money to finish
that book project you gave me. So, where’s your checkbook?”.
If this sounds rather
cheeky, view it in the light of Philippians 4:19, “But my God shall supply
all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (KJV).
Paul was able to write this because God
understands the relationship found in a Blood Covenant.
That’s why He cut one first with Abraham and
then improved on it with Jesus.
If you have accepted Jesus Christ as your
Savior, you are in a Blood Covenant relationship with God Almighty.
Why not live like it? What He has promised
you He will honor, so take Him at His word and start living a victorious life!
And don’t forget the requests of your Blood
Covenant partner. You are bound, by the Blood Covenant, to provide Him with
anything He asks of you, even if it means your life.
Wayne
Nelson
is Child of God who has known Jesus since 1959 when he accepted Him as his
Savior. He realized a lifelong dream in 2002 when he received his PhD in
Theology.
http://www.mannaexpressonline.com/what-is-a-blood-covenant/
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