The Blood Covenant

For the last month, the Lord has been dealing with me about the blood, and this is all I have preached on. We've come upon a time where this generation of so called church growth experts is telling us that if we want to see growth, don't preach on the cross or the blood, because it turns people off. To me, that is very scary. Without the blood, there is no remission of sin. (Hebrews 9:22) If we stop preaching the blood, we might as well stop preaching. The size of the crowd does not matter if souls are not being saved. What's the point otherwise?

Let's be clear... salvation, healing, and deliverance are all based soley in the blood covenant of God. If we will study until we fully understand the blood covenant, it will fortify our faith in a way that will transform our walk with the Lord. Zechariah 9:11 (NKJV) says; "As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit." The problem is, as I shared recently in church though, those of us in western society lack any real understanding of what a blood covenant is. The concept of covenant is simply unknown to many believers. The reason is because here in America we are far removed from seeing covenants practiced. You see, we more commonly see and there for understand contracts instead of covenants. In some respects, a covenant is a form of a contract, but it is sealed in blood and the agreement is all-inclusive in that everything that belongs to one party belongs to the other party as well. There is no subdividing or limit of exchange on a blood covenant.

In a contract you may purchase an item. For example, many years ago my wife and I bought an expensive set of cookware. We signed a contract, where we agreed to pay $50 a month for so many months and in exchange they gave us a set of cookware. By signing that contract, we came to a specific area of agreement. We did not by the company that produced the cookware, only our set. By the same token, they did not own us either. The contract was limited to that specific purchase. But in a covenant, those involved in the covenant own everything the covenant party owns and they own everything you own; you take all their assets and liabilities and they do the same with you.

Jesus made a covenant with us, not a simple contract. At the feast of the Passover the night he was betrayed, Jesus took bread and wine and lifted it up and said, “This is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” (Matthew 26:28). There was not a contract drawn up in agreement. When we understand that we have a covenant with God through Jesus Christ, then we can live with new and unlimited awareness that if we lack something, then God is obligated by covenant to meet the need. OK, ok, I know the idea of God being obligated to do anything is very strange and difficult for most Christians to understand. The reason is most have been taught that God is a sovereign God and that He has the right to do anything He wants. It is absolutely true that God is sovereign, in that sovereignty He has chosen to bind himself to us through a blood covenant. That's what a blood covenant does... it binds the parties together, so they are not free to do anything they wish; they must fulfill the obligations of the blood covenant. This is a crucial point that we must understand about our faith in God. If God was free to do anything He wishes, then there would be no solid foundation on which to build our faith. We could not be sure what God’s will was if He had not bound Himself to a blood oath. We have to grasp that God willfully made the choice to bind himself to us and His Word tells us that God cannot lie, so we can trust in that oath He has made.

(To be continued)