God’s Eternal Blood Covenant Pattern
God’s Circle of Inclusion – Part 2
Beloved Family… the God of the Bible, in His Eternal Lovingkindness, has done everything necessary to reconcile, redeem, and restore the entire human race. But most of us have remained stubborn and stiff-necked in our determination to continue to rebel against Him… and so, an enormous percentage of the human race remains adamant in rejecting His saving Initiative that is made possible through His Eternal Blood Covenant Plan.
We’ve seen that in ancient times, the peoples and cultures of the world were well acquainted with the Blood Covenant Pattern that God, in Genesis chapters 2 through 22, had taken great pains to reveal and teach to Adam, Noah and Abraham. Even after the flood that devastated the world, God continued to restore and work from His Covenant Pattern. And, as a result, no matter where they were scattered after Genesis 11, even though their languages and cultures became varied and diverse, nevertheless, all ethnic and cultural groups retained some form of the Blood Covenant Pattern God had taught to Adam and his children. And that pattern was carried forward from generation to generation to the ends of the earth. So when God made His Covenant with Abram, he was already very familiar with what God was doing. He understood what it meant… and he believed and trusted God and became one with Him.
“But you, Israel, My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, descendant of Abraham My friend, you whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called from its remotest parts and said to you, ‘You are My servant, I have chosen you and not rejected you.’” (Isaiah 41:8-9. Emphasis added.)
But due to cataclysmic Man-created historical events and the massive cultural paradigm shifts that these events caused over the intervening centuries, we have inherited our current, deeply established Hellenized Western culture, background and set of values, priorities and thought patterns. Thus we have been historically and culturally cut away from the Blood Covenant Root that God planted into the hearts of the ancient Middle Eastern peoples. We’ve inherited in great part, the ways and traditions of ‘The Sons of Greece’. And we’ve become abysmally unaware and ignorant of the Hebraic, Biblical Blood Covenant Root that is at the heart of the Self-Revelation of the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Israel, which we call, ‘The Sons of Zion’.
This is why most of us who live today are so woefully ignorant of all that has transpired before us. We in the West have been hardwired and programmed to learn and to operate from the alien, God-less Self-serving ways of Hellenized Humanism. And those ways, priorities, mentality and set of attitudes that are common to that worldview, are totally alien to and divorced from, the ways of the God of the Bible! So instead of being grounded in the Biblical revelation and commandments and promises of the Almighty God of Scripture… we are hardwired and programmed with the patterns of Humanism. That has become the ‘Atlas of Maps’ that is embedded within each of us; and those maps serve as the guiding lights by which we make our way through the highways and byways of this alien, self-centered, predatory, and self-destructive world system.
Thus, for the most part, we are ‘blind’ and ‘misled’ and prevented from grasping the Greatness and Infinite Reliability of our Awesome Creator, as He has revealed Himself to us. These revelations came through the history and wisdom writings of Israel… and the Gospel accounts and epistles… and prophetic promises that He gave through both the New Covenant Jewish apostles and through the Gentile disciples of Yeshua who joined their Jewish brothers, in His service.
So now, most of us are utterly individualistic and Self-centered. We are ME-centered; but, as we’ve begun to see, God’s Blood Covenant ways are diametrically opposed to that. God’s ways are essentially THOU-centered, corporate and familial in nature. In the purview of ‘Covenant Eyes,’ the many are not a rabble made up of helter-skelter individualists. They are seen rather as corporate unities and entities… nations, tribes, and families. In the Blood Covenant world, it’s about the corporate ‘WE’ and not about the isolated ‘I’.
Competing Kings and Kingdoms – Who’s on the Throne?
Self-Life or God’s Indwelling Life?
So, our Self-adoring world and its systems glorify the isolated individual and his or her ‘personal rights’ to self-determination, self-enhancement and self-defense. In our culture we strive to control everything about ourselves, by ourselves. We aspire to become ‘self-made’ men and women. Therefore, thanks to our fallen Sin-corrupted nature, God’s ways and thoughts are truly not our instinctive ways and our knee-jerk reactive thoughts. And this makes it very easy for the Serpent and his powers of Darkness to continue to use what is so deeply embedded within us… to continually set us at odds with our Creator, and with each other. But God intends to unify us and bring us together as ‘One New Man in Messiah’:
“For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near; for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the]saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:14-22).
God warns us that the Serpent is the ‘Father of Lies’… and, for a set amount of time, he is being permitted to rebel and resist the initiatives of God. His only agenda is to reverse and undo what God is doing on our behalf, through His Living Word and Holy Spirit. God is always working to reconcile us to Himself and to one another. He is here to honor and fulfill His Covenant with us. So He has come to rescue, heal and restore us all to our original ‘image and likeness of God’ blueprint specifications. But the Serpent does whatever he can to reverse and undo all of that by getting us to believe and absorb his lies and deceptions that are calculated to separate us from God… from each other… and even from our own true selves! He does this by confusing and blinding us to the Truth and Inheritance that is rightfully ours as gifts from our Creator by getting us to settle instead for what he foists upon us by his lies and delusive traps that are calculated to destroy us.
So the Serpent strives to keep dividing and separating us and goading us to tear into one another… so that he can satisfy his hatred and malice and blood lust by creating suspicion, mistrust, hatred, discrimination, division and perpetual strife among us. His object is always to divide, and conquer, and devastate those whom God has designed and created to be His own personal image and likeness.
In fact, this is how the Serpent so severely damaged the human race in the first place. Through our first parents, he managed to get us to separate ourselves from the Truth that God revealed to us through His Living Word. What the Word is here to impart to us leads to Life, Wholeness, Unity and Everlasting Wellbeing. But when the Serpent manages to separate us from the Word and what only He can give us, we end up with Disease, Disturbance, Degeneration, Disorientation, Dislocation, Disintegration and eventual total Destruction, Devastation and the Desolation brought on by spiritual Death! So much for the Serpent being our wise counselor, friend and ally!
“Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of The Tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’”
“The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil!” When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. 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 loin coverings.” (Genesis 3:1-7)
Beloved, when we see what actually happened to our first two parents after they listened to the rebellious contradictions of God’s Word that the Serpent managed to slip into their minds and hearts, we can see the terrible, gruesome and deadly consequences into which they fell, and into which they dragged all the rest of us:
“I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you will bring forth children; yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
“Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you will eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:16-19)
The determining separating factor that God takes into account (and we moderns do not) is this fact: IN ADAM, all of mankind fell into a Sin-full state of radical independence from our Creator. We were made to be His image and likeness. In other words we were made to live and work as one living working unit with Him, IN Him, and FROM Him. And, as long as we believed His Living Word, and received everything we needed to be and do, as God’s image and likeness, we would be fully alive and complete and fulfilled.
But… when the Serpent managed to slip his false accusations against God into the minds and hearts of our first parents… He also injected suspicion, mistrust, paranoia, rebellion and a strong urge to disobey and tear themselves away from their one and only true Life Source… the Living Creative, Sustaining Word of Almighty God. And, just as the Word had warned Adam, the moment they severed themselves from Him, their Life Source, Death entered human nature! And enormous damage was done to them… and through them… to all the rest of their unborn descendants. Thus the damage done to our human nature was mortal, in its ultimate effect.
The Enormity of Sin’s Costly Price… Death!
For that reason each human infant is conceived with Death already at work within its DNA. And so, for all of us, Death is inescapable. And that Death Sentence goes directly counter to what our Creator originally designed and created us to be and to have. He placed Eternity in our hearts and designed us to enjoy His Eternal Life with Him!
“He has made everything beautiful and appropriate in its time. He has also planted eternity [a sense of divine purpose] in the human heart [a mysterious longing which nothing under the sun can satisfy, except God]” (Ecclestiastes 3:11a AMP)
But our fall from His Grace and Friendship has condemned us to an earthly existence fraught with perpetual frustration, dislocation, disorientation and ultimate failure. And that means that we now occupy a grossly subhuman level of existence. We are no longer what God originally created us to be, nor can we do what He intended for us to do. We have mutated and degenerated into beings that He most certainly did not create or intend. And, for that reason, what we call our ‘human faculties’ are so severely damaged and twisted and disfigured, that we automatically fall far, far short of the standards that our original true human nature, and the Truth and Reality that God has established, would require of us.
Scripture reveals that we have all “sinned and have fallen short of the Glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) And the damage that Sin has inflicted on us made us to become corrupted by our mortality. So, what we are and what we do is always permeated, infected, and corrupted by Death! So in God’s sight (that is, in Reality), we are all born “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1)… born into the state of Sin and the state of mortality (which is the death penalty that automatically follows the violation of any Blood Covenant.)
“The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it (you will separate yourself from your Source of Life, My Living Word, and) you will surely die!” (Genesis 2:16-17. Amplification and emphasis added.)
And so Genesis reveals with staggering clarity that in our fallen nature, we can no longer properly and adequately relate to, or interact with, Almighty God according to His Perfect Standards. This is why it’s impossible for us to, ‘make deals’ with God or ‘negotiate terms’ with Him in order to reestablish diplomatic relations with Him or to try to earn His favor. We’ve fallen so far below that kind of possibility as to be forever incapable of finding our way back to what and where we used to be. So in that sense, we are, in ourselves, irretrievably and hopelessly LOST!
And this is precisely why, in His Infinite Goodness and Faithfulness and Wisdom, God presented His awesome Blood Covenant Pattern to us. He uses this way to ‘bypass’ our inherently hopeless limitations and inadequacies. He doesn’t negotiate with us, or try to come to terms or make ‘deals’ with us. We’ve fallen far below any possibility of being able to do that with Him, or with anyone else! WE’RE COMPLETELY DEAD… BANKRUPT… AND ETERNALLY HOPELESS!
But God’s Blood Covenant Pattern is so ingeniously and strategically wise and authoritative, that it enables Him, legally, to completely bypass and override our dismal limitations. And this is why He entered into a Blood Covenant with our first parents right from the very beginning. His Wisdom and Foreknowledge made Him aware of everything we would do and what would happen to us as soon as the Serpent managed to derail and destroy our chances of fulfilling God’s Plan for us and fulfilling the destinies to which He called us.
Through this Blood Covenant Pattern, God joined Himself, or became one with, the entire human race! This was what we call His ‘Circle of Inclusion.’ All of this was done through The First Adam, our first Covenant Representative. And remember that according to the Blood Covenant Pattern, whatever happened to our first Representative, happened to all the rest of us. So, when God made His Covenant with Adam, He made the Covenant with those of us who were IN ADAM. And when Adam joined Eve in rebellion against God’s Word, the disaster of the Covenant curses befell them both, and so they fell into Sin and Death, by their own choices and actions. So, when Adam, the first representative for the entire human race fell, we who descended from him, all fell, with him!
“What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? For your loyalty is like a morning cloud and like the dew which goes away early. Therefore I have hewn them in pieces by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of My mouth; and the judgments on you are like the light that goes forth. For I delight in loyalty (Chesed) rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. BUT LIKE ADAM THEY HAVE TRANSGRESSED THE COVENANT; there they have dealt treacherously against Me.” (Hosea 6:4-7 Amplification and emphasis added.)
“But now apart from the Law the Righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the (Blood Covenant) Righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for (IN Adam) all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is IN CHRIST JESUS; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His (Yeshua’s) Righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed (through the First Adam); for the demonstration, I say, of His Righteousness at the present time, so that (God, through His Living Word, the Last Adam) He would be just and the Justifier of the one who has faith IN JESUS!” (Romans 3:21-26. Amplification and emphasis added.)
“And you were dead in your trespasses and sins (in and through the violated Covenant of the First Adam), in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
“But God, being rich IN (Blood Covenant Faithfulness and) MERCY, because of His great (Blood Covenant) Love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places IN CHRIST JESUS, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in (Blood Covenant) Kindness toward us IN (the New and Eternal Covenant of the Last Adam,) CHRIST JESUS.” (Ephesians 2:1-7. Amplification and emphasis added.)
So… because God IS ‘CHESED’… Covenant Faithfulness, and… ‘AGAPE’… Covenant Loyalty Personified… and because He chose to obligate Himself by Blood Oath to come to the rescue of His seriously damaged and Sin-doomed ‘Blood brothers’ FOR ADAM’S SAKE, God obligated Himself to do whatever would be necessary to restore us. Because of our personal helplessness and bankruptcy, He had to do it in our place, and on our behalf. – by Blood Oath’ – to come to our rescue, no matter what it would cost, and no matter what it might lead to… even if it killed Him!
So this is how all of that primordial damage that was done to us through the First Adam, was able to be undone! Adam violated His covenant with God, and dragged himself and the rest of us that were ‘in him’… into the death penalty and the eternal disaster that was sure to follow! But God sent His Living Word made flesh as the Last Adam to become our Champion and come to our rescue… through the use of the same Blood Covenant Pattern He initiated in the very beginning. God became one with our state of Sin, so that we could become one with His Eternal Righteousness and Holiness!
In Eternity, and in His Infinite Foreknowledge, God who is by Nature Chesed/Agape, had already made a new, bigger, better, more encompassing Blood Covenant than that of Adam… between Himself… and His own Living Word! By this means He created and developed and continues to maintain all the levels of His Creation through His Word (His only begotten Son). And He had already commissioned His Word to become flesh… one of us… so He could serve as ‘The Last, or Ultimate Adam’ as our Ultimate Eternal Blood Covenant Representative and Champion.
So God also placed Adam, and rest of the entire fallen human race, INTO The Last Adam. And through the absolute Perfection of the Last Adam, and His flawless New Covenant performance which He accomplished in the name of all the rest of us… we have been placed INTO THE LAST ADAM’S RESURRECTION TRIUMPH! And therefore, all can be redeemed and saved! If we believe and willingly join ourselves to the Last Adam in His Atoning Death… our original Adamic life and status will have died with Him! And since we all died IN Christ, the Serpent has lost his legal claim and hold over us. We have been set free from all that we once were, and all that we had coming to us, in the First Adam… if we will only believe and abide by the terms of the Covenant with the Word of God made flesh… the Last Adam!
“The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is stored up. The pains of childbirth come upon him; he is not a wise son, for it is not the time that he should delay at the opening of the womb.
“Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from death? O Death, where are your thorns? O Sheol, where is your sting? Compassion will be hidden from My sight.” (Hosea 13:12-14)
“But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is Sin, and the power of sin is the Law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory THROUGH OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST!” (1 Corinthians 15:54-56)
And now, thanks to the New Covenant Gift of the Holy Spirit, the Last Adam is free to abide within us and to impart His Perfect Righteousness and Love Nature into us. And thus He can share His Eternal Resurrection Life and Eternal Blood Covenant Inheritance with us. Because we were all created and destined to be God’s own image and likeness, the Last Adam did this for all of us, without exception, because God has no need to discriminate against, or to exclude anyone! And so now we can better understand what Isaiah prophesied:
“Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live; and I will make an Everlasting Covenant (a New Covenant) with you, according to the faithful mercies shown to David. Behold, I have made Him (David’s Descendant) a Witness to the peoples, a Leader and Commander (a Covenant Representative, Champion and Messiah,) for the peoples…” (Isaiah 55:3-4)
A Covenant Betrayal and its Aftermath
I believe that, ‘the faithful mercies shown to David’ is a phrase that hearkens back to the time when David violated his Covenant with God. It happened after God had entrusted him with the anointing and commission to serve as Israel’s King and Shepherd in His Name. Despite all the love and loyalty that had taken place between God and David in the past, David, in his human weakness, chose to operate out of ‘Eros’ when his eyes fell upon Bathsheba while she was bathing on a rooftop. She was married to another man, who, at that time, was faithfully serving David as one of his utterly loyal combat troops in the field. But David’s heart reasoned like this: “Bathsheba is the best, finest, most beautiful and highest quality woman I’ve seen (at least for now). And I MUST HAVE HER FOR MYSELF… EVEN IF IT MEANS I HAVE TO HAVE HER HUSBAND, MY FAITHFUL COVENANT FRIEND URIAH, KILLED AND REMOVED FROM THE SCENE!”
And so David’s heart went the way of all flesh. He slept with Bathsheba, and she became pregnant, so David sent orders to the front to make sure that Uriah would be deployed in the most perilous part of Israel’s battle front. And of course, he was eventually killed in action. And now that Uriah was out of the way, David took Bathsheba as his own, and did his best to keep the crimes he committed to have her, hidden from public view.
So, despite all of his good intentions to love and serve God forever, and despite the wonderful personal history he already had in his interactions with His Covenant God… David violated his Sinai Covenant with God and with the people under his rule. And the penalty for that was total disgrace, public exposure, and death by stoning! Yes, although David was anointed by God to be the King of Israel, he too was ‘under the Law’ as revealed in the Torah. So… God sent the prophet Nathan to confront, accuse and expose the sin David that had taken such pains to try to hide.
And what was David’s response? … He knew that he was guilty and immediately admitted it! And He knew what the Law required… BUT… he also knew that he was a Blood brother to Almighty God… and Almighty God was a Blood Brother to him… through the Covenant God had made with Abraham! And that initial Blood Bond went deeper and farther than anything else, deeper even than the bilateral Covenant that God and Israel had made with each other through Moses, at Mt. Sinai!
So now we see just how deeply David knew God and His Covenant ways. He knew that the Law condemned him and Bathsheba to death. But he went beyond the Law of God… and appealed directly to His Blood Covenant Friend… the God of the Law! And he appealed to Him on this most intimate and binding ‘Blood brother’ basis that God had already established with the children of Abraham… centuries and centuries before He made the Covenant of Sinai with them:
“Be gracious to me, O God, according to YOUR LOVINGKINDNESS (the Blood Covenant Chesed, which You promised to Abraham, to exercise at all times on our behalf, for Adam’s sake); according to the Greatness of Your Compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions (against the Sinai Covenant have condemned me to death), and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified when You speak and blameless when You judge.
“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and (thanks to the First Adam, my original Representative, it was) in sin my mother conceived me. Behold, You desire Truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom. Purify me with hyssop (that You told us to use to spread the Covenant blood across our doorposts during the Passover), and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, let the bones which You have broken rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your Presence and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your Salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach (other) transgressors Your ways, and sinners (that do not yet know You as I do) will be converted to You. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, the God of my Salvation (my Yeshua); then my tongue will joyfully sing of Your Righteousness.” (Psalm 51:1-14. Amplification and emphasis added.)
David was in deep, deep trouble, beloved ones. It was as bad as it could get! The Torah (the portion of it that unpacks the Covenant of Sinai) had him dead to rights! According to the bilateral Covenant of Sinai that God had made with the nation of Israel, David and Bathsheba incurred the death penalty through their adultery. And what David had done by murdering his faithful Covenant friend, Uriah, to get him out of his way, inflicted an even deeper level of condemnation upon him. But, after God sent the prophet Nathan to confront him, notice how David reacted. He immediately admitted his guilt and repented, and he acknowledged that all of the curses connected with his broken covenant were now rightfully and justly about to come down upon his head!
The Depth of the Eternal Blood Covenant in Action
“But… God’s Eternal Blood Covenant with the human race goes even deeper than the Sinai Covenant God made with the nation of Israel! During a Blood Covenant ceremony, those who are entering into it exchange written promises to each other that will be sealed in blood. And they exchange gifts with each other, that when expressed in words, mean this:
“These gifts signify all that I am and all that I have. From now on I give myself and my possessions to you. And if you ever have need of me or anything that belongs to me, all you have to do is ask… and it is yours.”
God had done this with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob… just as He had done it with the First Adam! And he did this with Abraham, for the sake of the First Adam, so that He could come to the rescue of Adam and his entire household!
And so David, who was truly bound by the bi-lateral Covenant of Sinai, was at the same time, ALSO INCLUDED AND COVERED BY the unilateral Covenant God had made on behalf of Abraham and his Seed… FOR THE FIRST ADAM’S SAKE! So David went beyond the Sinai Covenant… and appealed to God according to the promises God had made to the original fathers of the Faith. Since David was included in those promises also, he was IN ABRAHAM… and Abraham was IN Noah… and Noah, like all the rest of us… was IN Adam! And so God covered the shameful nakedness of David and Bathsheba, just as He had covered that of Adam and Eve… and through another son of theirs, Solomon, they became ancestors of Israel’s coming Messiah, Yeshua.
So, because of His awesome Blood Covenant Reality, God does not discriminate against any of us! No matter how far we have fallen, He has committed Himself to come to the rescue of all of us, and for each one of us. All that is necessary is that we stand on our Covenant Ground, and trust wholeheartedly in our ‘Blood Brother God’ and own up to our Sinfulness and guilt of our own free will, and appeal to His Faithfulness to His Covenant Promises that were sealed in the Blood of His own Living Word made flesh… YESHUA, THE LAST ADAM!
God was anticipating and drawing from what the Last Adam had already accomplished for us in Eternity! David, from his perspective in Israel’s history, was only dimly unaware of that. It would be centuries before God’s Word would become flesh and appear on Earth. But He knew enough. And he stood upon what He did know about God and His Word, and His Eternal Lovingkindness. He knew God had given His Word and was committed to stand by David, whenever he would face any danger or be under any threat… for Abraham’s sake. God was committed to protect this child of Abraham no matter what it might cost Him… even if it meant His own death!
And what the Holy Spirit was revealing when He inspired David to write these words about the Messiah who was to come, was confirmed by Yeshua Himself centuries later. He referred to the unbreakable Bond that existed between God… and David… and the Son of David… the Living Word of God, who was the Father’s Eternal Blood Brother since before the foundation of the physical universe. And this is what God’s Word made flesh came to fulfill… through the New and Eternal Covenant, for David’s sake!
“He said to them, “Then how does David in the Spirit call Him ‘Lord,’ saying,
‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, Until I put Your enemies beneath Your feet”’?
If David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He (the Messiah) his son?” (Matthew 22:43-45)
“Now may the God of shalom, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep BY THE BLOOD OF AN EVERLASTING (Eternal) COVENANT, our Lord Yeshua, make you complete in every good thing to do His will, accomplishing in us what is pleasing in His sight, through Messiah Yeshua. To Him be the Glory forever and ever. Amen.” (Hebrews 13:20-21. Amplification and emphasis added.)
“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but TO FULFILL! For truly I say to you, until Heaven and Earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law (Torah Revelation, Commandments, and Promises) until all (of human history) is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matthew 5:17-19)
The Blood Covenant Ceremony and its Significance Revisited
So now let’s go back to what takes place during a typical Blood Covenant ceremony:
After the Blood Brothers have exchanged gifts, they then exchange belts. Attached to the belts are weapons of some kind, daggers, axes, etc., signifying that each one is pledging to come to the other’s defense (in a military sense) whenever they would ever be in any danger or under attack:
“By this belt and the weapons I give you today… I swear that from now on, if you are ever in any danger, all you have to do is call out to me and I will come with all my available resources to your defense. And I will fight to protect you even if it means my own death, and the deaths of those who come with me to honor this covenant I make with you.”
Beloved, this is part of what it means to become ‘Blood Brothers’ or ‘Covenant Friends.’ The principal representatives swear, by the blood that is shed that day, to stand by each other to the death from that point forward! This is how those familiar with the Blood Covenant world and its cultures and traditions, see and think and act and react. And this is what David’s appeal to his Covenant God entailed, despite the fact that his fallen human nature and the natural treachery of his human heart deserved. He knew what all the ancient peoples knew. The Blood Covenant Pattern was so authoritative and universally accepted, that it ensured that the covenant participants, present and future, would be able to trust each other, once that covenant bond had been established. The curses and penalties for violating the covenant were so dire and terrible, that people would be much more afraid of what would happen if they violated their oaths and promises, than they feared the costs they would entail by being true and faithful to their blood brothers. And it is on this blood covenant basis that David knew he could appeal to God, now that he was in deep trouble and distress. It was as if he was saying to God:
“Father, I know I violated the Covenant of Sinai of which I became a part, through Moses. But Lord, I appeal to You on the basis of the Covenant You made with Abraham and his descendants in Your Infinite Perfection. You took it upon Yourself to fulfill both parts of that Covenant… the part of God… and the part of Abraham and his offspring. You did it all… while Abraham our father slept! So, Heavenly Father… for Abraham’s sake… come to my defense and rescue me now! I appeal to You… for Abraham’s sake… do not forsake and exclude me from my union with You! Come to my defense! I have no other hope… but I need no other hope! For You, in Your Divine Perfection and Mercy, have covered me and my abysmal and inevitable human failures.”
And so, although David was totally at fault and had brought this trouble upon himself… nevertheless, God had committed Himself to ‘Love’ him… not out of ‘Eros’… but out of His Eternal Covenant honoring ‘Chesed’ or ‘Agape’… because this kind of Love is who and what Almighty God IS! And this is what true Blood Brothers do for each other, no matter what! God had already provided a means of escape and rescue and total liberation and restoration for David, and for all the rest of us… but in order to see it and know it, and truly benefit from it… we have to develop ‘Blood Covenant Eyes!’ David was relying on the future Last Adam, whether he was consciously aware of that or not. He was relying on His Heavenly Father unconditionally… and through the obedience of David’s faith in God’s Eternal, Everlasting Lovingkindness, Father was able to connect Him to the Perfect Performance of Messiah Yeshua… about whom Moses had written and prophesied… and who had always been Father’s Blood Brother… even throughout all of Eternity!
“Adonai your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst—from your brothers. To Him you must listen. This is just what you asked of Adonai your God in Horeb on the day of the assembly when saying, ‘I cannot continue to hear the voice of (the Living Word of) Adonai my God or see this great Fire (the form in which He is appearing at this time) any more, or I will die.’
“Adonai said to me, ‘They have done well in what they have spoken. I will raise up a Prophet like you for them from among their brothers. I will put My words (the words of My Living Word made flesh) in His mouth, and He will speak to them all that I command him. Now whoever does not listen to My words that this prophet speaks IN MY NAME, I Myself will call him to account.” (Deuteronomy 18:15-19 TLV. Amplification and emphasis added.)
And so, we can see the awesome Chesed/Agape nature of Almighty God in action. He has found a way, the Eternal Blood Covenant way, to be and to do whatever His Blood Bond with His Covenant friends, past, present and future, would require of Him in order for Him to be true and faithful to them:
“When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified Him and the evildoers, one on His right and the other on His left. BUT YESHUA WAS SAYING, “FATHER FORGIVE THEM, FOR THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING!” Then they cast lots, dividing up His clothing. The people stood there watching. And even the leaders were sneering at Him, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is the Messiah of God, the Chosen One!” The soldiers likewise mocked Him, coming up and bringing Him sour wine, and saying, “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself.” (Luke 23:33-37 TLV. Emphasis added.)
“After this, when Yeshua knew that all things were now completed, to fulfill the Scripture He said, “I am thirsty.” A jar full of sour wine was sitting there, so they put a sponge soaked with the sour wine on a hyssop branch and brought it to His mouth.
“When Yeshua tasted the sour wine, He said, “IT IS FINISHED!” And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit!” (John 19:28-30 TLV. Emphasis added.)
The Heart of Blood Covenant Commitment
“I want the best, finest, most beautiful and highest quality FOR YOU, MY COVENANT FRIEND(S), EVEN IF IT KILLS ME!”
Beloved, our awesome Covenant Representative died for us all, with no exception! And who among us would deny that we too, are all just as guilty as Adam and David and Judas and Peter and all the others of us who cooperated in the betrayal and murder of our own Messiah? Which of us can say in Truth that we are not in desperate need of God’s Mercy and Lovingkindness? And if God was in the habit of ‘loving’ the way we do, would we not all be rightfully excluded from His Circle of Inclusion and banished forever from His Perfect Presence?
Yes… we are all guilty; and all of us languish under the death penalty that follows our Covenant violations. Without exception, we have failed miserably; and we all have fallen far, far short of what God’s Perfect Standards of Righteousness, Truth, and Justice require. And this is why we must stop trying to rid ourselves of our shame, by projecting it onto those who are around us. We cannot rid ourselves of our chronic feelings of guilt and shame by trying to cover it by becoming self-righteous and trying to dump our shame and guilt upon our neighbors. We are all equally guilty! None of us can afford to try to come across as ‘good’ and ‘righteous’ in our own right and by our own religious devices. The Truth is this:
If it truly is up to us to give the evidence of why we should pass God’s Judgment… none of us would have a snowball’s chance in a blast furnace of ‘making it safely through the Fire!’
But despite the fact that none of us is any better or more worthy than anyone else, do we not still struggle with the temptation to wallow in ignorant pride and arrogance and look down our noses on each other, and judge each other, and discriminate against each other? That’s how terrible the damage is that Sin and Mortality have inflicted upon our heart of hearts!
“And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this TO HIMSELF: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’
“But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to Heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’
“I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:9-14)
“But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. BE MERCIFUL, JUST AS YOUR FATHER IS MERCIFUL. “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned. Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.”
“And He also spoke a parable to them: “A blind man cannot guide a blind man, can he? Will they not both fall into a pit? A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye!” (Luke 6:35-43)
So dear ones… what must the Holy Spirit reveal to us about ourselves during these excruciatingly painful and distress-filled Last Days, in which we are now all being forced to live? All we have to do is look around, and very soon we see and hear people doing and saying things that are incredibly wicked… and stupid… and despicably repulsive and offensive beyond our ability to comprehend! And notice what our ‘knee-jerk’ gut-level reactions and impulses and inclinations are when we encounter such things. Let’s be honest before God and take inventory of some often used, but clearly flesh-filled, responses:
- Are we not immediately and instinctively prompted to react with anger, disgust, contempt and judgmental self-righteous hostility?
- Do we not draw circles of presumed righteousness around ourselves, so that we can judge and exclude anyone that fails to meet our personal expectations?
- And how do we react when people we love and esteem suddenly betray or turn on us unexpectedly?
- What do we want to do when others hold us in contempt and ‘trample all over’ our feelings and violate our rights and sensibilities?
- Is it natural for us to respond out of ‘Eros’… or do we all rush to respond out of the nobility of ‘Agape’ and ‘Chesed’?
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will My Word be which goes forth from My mouth; IT WILL NOT RETURN TO ME EMPTY, WITHOUT ACCOMPLISHING WHAT I DESIRE, AND WITHOUT SUCCEEDING IN THE MATTER FOR WHICH I SENT IT!” (Isaiah 55:8‑11, Emphasis added.)
Isn’t it obvious that the way we are at this stage of our development, is light years removed from the way God is? And doesn’t it become obvious that if God had not had the Wisdom to deal with us by using His Blood Covenant Representative Pattern, any ‘personal deals’ He might have made with each one of us, would have ended in utter failure?
The former Egyptian slaves in the wilderness of Sinai entered into a two-way Covenant arrangement with God… and look at what happened! How long did it take before Israel was cavorting with and worshipping a golden calf? There was a death penalty for violating the Blood Covenant she had willingly agreed to enter into with God! But did God kill them on the spot? And how many other times throughout their subsequent history did Israel manage to find ways to violate her Covenant with God? Isn’t it obvious that the fallen, mortal, Sin-corrupted children of Adam do not have what it takes to save or redeem or justify or improve themselves?
Yes, if we have ‘Covenant Eyes,’ it’s obvious. Beloved… from the moment we were conceived, none of us has ever had a chance! Even as early as that, we had already failed… because we were IN the First Adam! When he sinned, we sinned; and when he died, WE DIED! So we have never had what it takes to fulfill our promises and resolutions! And God has always known that! So, since He is the one and only Source for everything in Creation, any good and real thing that we will ever enjoy has to come from Him! And if we are ever to be truly righteous and good… all of that has to be given to us by Him. God Himself has to become our Righteousness! And so He wisely bypassed us and our bankrupt Sin-corrupted, terminal weakness… and instead… He did everything in and by, and through His Perfect Living Word made flesh!
“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a New Covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah, not like the Covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My Covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord.
“But this is the Covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My Law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34 Emphasis added.)
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places IN CHRIST, just as He chose us IN HIM before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In (His Covenant) love He predestined us to adoption as sons THROUGH JESUS CHRIST to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us IN THE BELOVED. In Him we have redemption THROUGH HIS (Covenant) BLOOD, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us.” (Ephesians 1:3-8a)
“Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, I will make three tabernacles here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
“While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; LISTEN TO HIM!” When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground and were terrified. And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, “Get up, and do not be afraid.” And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus Himself alone.” (Matthew 17:4-8)
Thanks to the awesome Covenant God has made with us, he is always here with us, ready to fulfill His Covenant promises in us, and for us, and AS us… moment by moment, step by step, and day by day. And this is done by the Gift of the Holy Spirit who makes our beloved Covenant Representative Yeshua electrifyingly REAL, and PRESENT, and INFINITELY RIGHTEOUS and FRUITFUL as He abides within us… according to the New Covenant that God made with Israel… through Him and IN HIM!
Now God’s Living Word can live in us and reveal His Excellence and obey His Heavenly Father, in our name… through our yielded, crucified flesh! He is here to be and to do everything we could have never been or done in our own strength and by our own wits and devices! He fulfilled the Eternal Covenant to Perfection in our name. So whoever would be included in God’s Covenant Circle of Inclusion needs only to believe and accept His totally non-discriminating Invitation to enter into Blood Covenant Oneness with our Representative. And then, IN HIM… we can all learn to stand on that Blessed God-given Ground… and protect and hold it, against all the lying threats, deceptive traps and unsubstantiated claims of the Father of Lies and his powers of Darkness. If we know our Heavenly Father as He truly IS… it’s because we have ‘Covenant Eyes’. In that case, we’re prepared and trained to walk in God’s awesome Wisdom and rest in the Perfection of His ways… well-equipped and prepared to persevere… and overcome… all the way to the End.
“Even though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I fear no evil, FOR YOU ARE WITH ME; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.” (Psalm 23:4)
“At that time Jesus said, “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.
“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My (Blood Covenant Union) yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find REST for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:25-30)
The Covenant ‘Yoke’ Father offers is easy… and the ‘Burden’ of work is incredibly light… as far as we’re concerned. This is because our Beloved Blood Brother has already done all of the necessary work… and He now abides in us to transmit the Supreme Eternal Benefits of it from Eternity… into our present time and space dimension circumstances!
“Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When CHRIST WHO IS OUR LIFE, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in Glory.” (Colossians 3:1-4)
Thank you, Father, for Your Lovingkindness truly is… EVERLASTING!