GOD’S ETERNAL BLOOD COVENANT PATTERN – Beloved Family… since our earliest eras, the human race has known and retained a firm understanding of blood covenant relationships and the realities they introduce, and the responsibilities they require all participants to fulfill. Unlike most of us, many people of other cultures and geographical locations retain some connection to the covenant ceremony and have a good idea about why it was, and still is, so important. That ceremony marks a departure point in the lives of the participants. It is like a gateway that the participants willingly create, through which they agree to pass together… into a massive permanent reality-shift. And after that, none of them will ever be the same.
From earliest times, researchers have discovered traces of the blood covenant pattern in every culture and nation they’ve encountered around the world. They all retain some dim memory of an ancient blood covenant history and legacy that can be traced back to their earliest beginnings. This means that the pattern was universally known and understood throughout human history. And it served as a solemn remembrance and set of memorials for future generations. It also indicates that the descendants of those forefathers who personally entered into those covenants, were also bound to uphold and carry forward into the future, the reality of what their family had promised to uphold in the past. So, in their time, the descending family members are expected to carry it forward into their lives and throughout their future.
This is why, when covenants were made, the people involved would plant commemorative trees, or groves and flocks of animals to serve as future reminders for their offspring. They would create memorial altars or pillars made of stone, with accompanying explanatory writings and pictographs. These served as reminders that the covenant was to be memorialized, honored, and continued in perpetuity by all future descendants. So this is the vehicle that humans learned to use, from the dawn of history, as an ultimate pledge and guarantee of trust and reliability. Nothing that can be found anywhere on Earth, is so universally understood and nothing else carries as much reassuring counter-weight to offset the inherent treachery, selfishness, and predatory greed of our fallen human nature!
It is clear, from Scripture, and from other external sources, that God used the covenant pattern by which to reveal Himself, His Nature, and His ways. God is utterly transcendent and incomprehensible to any created mind. But this pattern has made it possible for us to gain some understanding of Him. It is something to which we can all relate, from the most primitive among us, to the most refined and erudite. And it conveys to us the realization that this incomprehensible and totally transcendent God has made a way to reach out and connect with us in a way we can all understand and through which we can connect with our Sovereign Creator.
The Hebrew (Israelite) writers of the books of the Bible lived in the Middle East… a part of the world that was, and still is, steeped in these universal God-taught blood covenant realities. And so the people for whom the sacred writers wrote, were all very familiar with this pattern. It was commonly accepted and understood as the most trustworthy way of thinking, acting and interacting throughout every level of tribal, familial, and national interaction. Every society throughout the Middle East, knew this ancient ritual and, even to this day, many follow some form of it.
Enter The Rampant Humanism of the Modern Western Societies
The blood covenant mentality is corporate in nature. So it creates a paradigm through which people see themselves, and one another, in terms of organized national groups, or tribes, or families, or some other kind of united bloc. To covenant-minded people, it’s not ever about ‘ME,’ it’s always primarily about ‘WE’! The corporate whole is considered to be of higher value and of more importance than the individual and his or her personal interests. And so, in the context of the Mosaic Covenant of Sinai, we see that the God of Israel took great pains to instill the Blood Covenant ways and mentality into His chosen people, the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, whom God later renamed, ‘Israel’.
And in the context of the New Covenant of Messiah Yeshua (Jesus the Anointed One) we learn about the beginning of the Fulfillment of the Covenant identity God gave to Abraham, the Father of all the Jewish, and non Jewish Covenant people of God. It is the Fulfillment of the original promises God made to him even before Israel came into being, back when he was still known as Abram, the Chaldean, living in the city of Ur:
“Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3 NASB.)
But in the Hellenistic way of seeing that is rampant throughout the West in our day, the false religion of Humanism supplies most of our main underlying paradigm structure. The false, Self-adoring religion of Humanism that has developed throughout worldly Western societies denies and ignores the existence, Truth, and Reality, of the Transcendent Creator that is revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures (the Torah, or Pentateuch and the rest of what we call, ‘The Old Testament’). Instead, Humanism focuses on the sacredness and autonomy of the human individual. Thus it tends to separate humanity into opposing groups, factions, and competitive individual arenas of strife. But the basic underlying assumption of Humanism is that, ‘Man is the measure of all things‘.
Thus most modern day people see themselves through a completely different, individualistic, non-covenantal mental filter that prompts us to highlight and pursue ‘self-determination,’ ‘self-enhancement,’ ‘personal autonomy’, ‘self-assertion’ etc. etc., as ultimate values that are to be preserved, protected and encouraged. Any past or present conflicting values or institutions that developed in the past are therefore regarded as ‘obsolete’ contradictory nuisances and impediments to modern individual subjective ideas of ‘freedom’ and personal value and worth. So the wisdom and truths of the past are being left behind and forgotten in this latter era.
This rampant individualistic value system has, over the years, led our modern world into a relativistic, subjective worldview which tears apart and destroys the notion of absolute, objective Authoritative Truth, and its universal establishment of Reality. Now, the understanding of what Truth is, as it was universally understood throughout past human history, no longer applies to many of our time. The commonly held modern Western understanding of Truth of former times has morphed into pure individualistic relativistic Humanism. And as we already mentioned, in that paradigm, there is no transcendent objective Being to serve as our ‘Ultimate Reference Point’ and Authoritative Source of what is Real, True, Good. Now each human and self-appointed ‘elite’ group of humans see themselves as the ‘Supreme Definers of what is real, true, and good. And that Self-adoring viewpoint has created entire generations of people that sincerely, and religiously, believe that Reality is what each one of us chooses to make of it! So Truth and Reality are being reworked endlessly, until all that remains is a blob of indefinable, ever-changing, treacherous ‘mush’:
‘What is true for you, may not be true for me. But that’s all right. You are entitled to your view of Reality, and I’m entitled to mine. Each one is equally valid. And, as long as our views do not harm other people, it’s okay for each of us to see and believe and do our own thing, as we see fit.’
Since there is no outside supernatural ‘reference point’ by which humanity can navigate, the humanistic mindset idolizes the ‘sanctity’ and inherent ‘goodness’ and ‘nobility’ of each individual. And it inevitably leads to conflicts between their respective world views and ideas. It drags people into continuous mutual suspicion, opposition, discrimination, division, strife and, ultimately, armed and violent conflict. Each individual assumes ‘godlike’ status and corresponding qualities and rights for him or herself and their like-minded cliques. And so the drives for ‘self-assertion’ and ‘self-actualization’ and self-autonomy and ultimate triumph become obligatory and rampant. The modern mantra is now, ‘It Has to Be My Way, or Else!’ But the question is, how many little gods vying for supremacy, can any region handle before all-out strife, chaos, and mutual destruction overtake us all? Just consider the outcomes that the following modern mindset will inevitably lead to:
‘I have the right ‘to be me’ and to see, think and act as I please. Therefore I am my own god and no one has a right to prevent me from thinking and doing what seems right to me. I have an inherent right to assert, enhance, protect and exercise my personal autonomy and no one has the right to try to stop or contradict, or oppose me and my imperatives.’
Obviously, if everyone values and entertains that ‘Me first’ set of values, conflict and friction and opposition must inevitably arise. If it’s true that everyone is his or her own ‘god’, this creates never-ending continual competition among the ‘many disagreeing little gods. Each one is inevitably driven to vie for control, supremacy and preeminence. And that creates a dog-eat-dog type of pecking order in which, ultimately, nothing can be sacred and no one can be trusted, nor can anyone ever be or feel safe and secure!
The Ongoing War Between the ‘Sons of Greece’ and the ‘Sons of Zion’
The Living God who reveals Himself in what we know as ‘The Bible’, offers a worldview that is totally different from the ‘me first’ kind of ‘religion’ that humanistic men and women create and adopt. In fact, God’s worldview and that of Humanism are diametrically opposed to each other and mutually exclusive! This explains why there has always been, and always will be, such hostile and violent opposition on the part of those who reject the God of the Bible, against those who believe, obey and want to serve Him. And notice the solemn warning that the Living Word of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (the God of the Bible), left for those who would follow Him:
“Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves. But beware of men, for they will hand you over to the courts and scourge you in their synagogues; and you will even be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they hand you over, do not worry about how or what you are to say; for it will be given you in that hour what you are to say. For it is not you who speak, but it is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.
“Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. You will be hated by all because of My Name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved.
“But whenever they persecute you in one city, flee to the next; for truly I say to you, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes…”
“…Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.
“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:16-23; 34-39)
So… Scripture reveals that separation and division and a titanic clash of cultures and world views is always taking place. It is as if the God of the Bible is invading this world (religious or otherwise) and proclaiming Himself to be the Supreme Lord and God who is over all opponents and pretenders to His Eternal Throne. And God, and His loyal Heavenly hosts, are invading the realms currently being dominated and controlled by the Anti-God coalitions of opposing demonic ‘me first’ humans who believe and promote and serve those dark spiritual powers. The God of Israel proclaims that He is the one and only Supreme God and Lord over all of Creation. But the pantheon of innumerable imaginary ‘gods’ (that are actually demonic spiritual entities in disguise) scream in protest and do their utmost to oppose and stop the inevitable Invasion of ‘The Great I AM’ and His Heavenly Hosts. The books of Exodus and Revelation are prime examples of how God sees and exposes this ongoing conflict.
This is not just a war of competing ‘values’ and ‘worldview opinions’ taking place. It is a Power Struggle… a Rebellion… a fight to the death for Ultimate Supremacy and Dominion… between the true God and His demonic enemies… between Truth and Lies… and Good and Evil… and Light and Darkness. And according to Biblical revelation, this fight takes place in the heavenly realms, and spills over into this poor fallen world… and into the hearts and souls of men. But… God, in His written Word, which is God’s Official Blood Covenant Document, reveals that it is a War that His Living Word made flesh (The resurrected Lamb of God) has already won!
“For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the Head over all rule and authority; and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.“ (Colossians 2:9-15. Emphasis added.)
The God of the Bible says He sent His Living Word to reconcile with the human opposition while there is still time for that to happen. And anyone who finally sees through the demonic lies, and repents of his or her former radical independence from God, and returns to Him and His service, is then grafted into this wonderful Blood Covenant relationship with the Creator of all things. In this way, God is able to heal, redeem, cleanse and restore His fallen damaged humanity … one person at a time. He transforms and restores us to the Perfection that He originally intended for us all to embody and enjoy with Him
Enter the Blood Covenant Ceremony
When the God of the Bible chose to create what we view as the entire spiritual and physical universe, we see woven into the Biblical history of the human race, from beginning to end, what some scholars and commentators describe as ‘a scarlet thread.’ By that they mean to say that the Bible is like God’s ‘Official Blood Covenant Memorial Document.’ It reveals God to be ‘a Blood Covenant making God, and, most importantly, ‘a God who keeps and fulfills His Blood Covenants, to Perfection.’ And, if you develop ‘Blood Covenant Eyes,’ you can spot this blood red thread of Covenant revelation making its way throughout the Bible, from start to finish.
Everything God chose to do in His dealings with the human race is done within the parameters of the Blood Covenant Pattern. That being the case, regardless of which culture and era we are personally born into, and come from, and belong to, we would do well to develop ‘Covenant Eyes’ so we can correctly view, properly understand, and effectively respond to this God and what He is revealing and requiring of us. He chose to make and keep Blood Covenants with us; so we must realize and admit and adjust to this unchangeable fact, on that covenantal basis, to respond appropriately to the Covenant that specifically applies to us so we can thereby benefit from our Creator’s amazing Salvation Initiative to the maximum extent.
Admittedly, this presents a huge challenge for modern Westernized people. We are far removed, in time and atmosphere, from the ancient Blood Covenant days when God first began to reveal Himself to people with cultures and mentalities that understood and followed this Pattern. The ancients easily grasped what God was saying and doing. In fact, Abraham was already very familiar with blood covenant unions before God made His Covenant with him. But because we’re so far removed by the passage of millennia, and the enormous cultural and historical upheavals and reality-shifts that separate us even further from those days, we scientific-minded, technologically-saturated moderns really struggle to ‘recapture’ and grasp the ‘Covenant Eyes’ level of understanding concerning God and what He has done to reach out to us, and what it actually means.
It’s easy, especially for us modern day Westerners, to completely miss the true underlying meaning of what makes up the heart and soul of the Truth embedded within the Bible, especially if we limit ourselves to casually scanning tiny bits and pieces of texts from our preferred Bible translations and neglect to familiarize ourselves with the entire Bible. If our Scriptural understanding is haphazard, shallow and piecemeal, we’ll miss the real meaning that is there, and unconsciously view the texts our translations provide through the lenses of our ‘modern day realities’ that did not yet exist in Bible times. Thus we’ll read what we see, know, and think in modern times, into those ancient texts that predated what we know, and assume that what we get out of that is coming to us from God!
But that is to fall into the error of ‘anachronism’ (which arises when something or someone is taken out of its actual correct historical or chronological time, and wrongfully placed into the earlier context of what the actual Biblical texts were actually meant to reveal. In technical theological terms this is the error of ‘eisegesis’ (an interpretation of Scripture, that unconsciously injects a modern day reader’s own ideas or biases into a text and thereby distorts and falsifies the text’s actual meaning). It distorts by inserting errors, alien realities and meanings, INTO the text… inserting things and ideas that did not yet even exist at the times when the texts were originally written!
So, for example, imagine this ridiculous insertion being unconsciously inserted into John 4:5, first century Gospel text, by a 21st. Century American reader:
“So He (Jesus) *came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of land that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.”
Now assume that a modern day reader reads this text and unconsciously gives it a twist that would make it read like this: :
“So Jesus rode His Harley Davidson to a city of Samaria called Sychar…”
That would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it? But it’s not always so easy to spot such absurdities in other instances. Modern people that know very little of Middle Eastern history and God’s Blood Covenant ways, often insert their own pet mindsets, attitudes, and viewpoints that actually have nothing to do with the actual context the original writer intended to place within what he was inspired by God to write. And conversely, the ancient people who wrote the Bible, and their contemporaries for whom they were writing, knew nothing about us and our times and our ways.
This is the danger and handicap our gap in time, geographical location, and modern worldviews present to us when we try to read and properly understand ancient Bible texts. We unconsciously bring all that we’re familiar with along with us and and inject much of that into the texts. And the more a modern generation suffers from what some would call, ‘history deprivation.’ this is very likely to happen. Yes, ignorance, combined with false teachings, often prevent us from clearly understanding what God is actually saying and doing in the texts… and what His Truth actually means to our eternal wellbeing.
So… the more we can succeed at developing ‘Covenant Eyes,’ the more accurately we’ll be able to grab hold of the actual Beauty, Depth and liberating Truth that God intended to embed in His texts. And for this reason, I urge us all to begin our quest to develop ‘Covenant Eyes.’
A good beginning step would be to become acquainted with the Blood Covenant Ceremony. People of Bible times were very familiar with it. (We provide a bibliography and some other reference resources elsewhere on this website that will aid your understanding of these things.) So in this article and the other articles that follow, we’ll ponder the basic steps that ancient people took, when they created the reality of a blood covenant in their lives. As we begin to grasp the depth of meaning contained within these steps, we’ll see how different this blood covenant world is from what our modern day geographical locations, ethnic backgrounds, personal histories, and family root systems have hardwired into our brains and ‘onboard mental computers.’ And the more aware of these differences we become, the better equipped we’ll be to explore and accurately understand this mysterious, (and for most modern day people) very strange new world.
The Structural Steps of the Blood Covenant Ceremony
It’s important that we pay particular attention to the fact that the God of the Bible chose to teach this Pattern to the humans He created… because it was always his desire and intention to be able to live and interact and ‘become as one’ with us. Not only does He want to live near us, He actually desires to live IN us! And He doesn’t want us to live for Him. He commands us to live FROM HIM, AND FROM WHAT HE HAS ALREADY DONE IN OUR NAME THROUGH HIS BELOVED SON, THE LIVING WORD OF GOD MADE FLESH!
This insight alone will give us a shocking realization about how radically unifying these Covenants were… and by contrast, how independent, mentally and emotionally divorced, alienated, and radically independent, we self-centered moderns actually are, in relation to our Creator and His ways. In our profound Self-absorption, we are a far cry removed from the total Oneness that He has actually made it possible for Him to have with us. So it will be very good if we manage to learn as much as we can about the Pattern through which He chose to reveal Himself and the profound of levels of Love, Grace, and Freedom from Self-striving that He yearns to teach and impart to us and make possible for us to enjoy.
In ancient covenant times and societies, when two individuals, or two groups of people, decided to enter into a blood bond with each other, there were basic steps they would have to take. I’ll use the example of two groups, rather than two individuals in my descriptive explanation because that will make it easier for us to see what God has done with and for the entire human race. His Covenant is not about a separate arrangement He makes with any one individual human. He doesn’t deal with any of us on that individualistic basis. It’s never about what kind of a separate ‘tailor made ‘deal’ each one of us might be able to arrive at with God. We think like that because of our Self-centered way of always seeing things through ‘me-first’ eyes. But God has ‘WE-first eyes.’
Yes, humans are self-centered and individualistic, but our God is Familial and Corporate in the way He deals with us. We tend to be discriminatory and picky and exclusive. But now we must come to grips with the fact that God isn’t going to start by making a personal deal with any one of us. He has chosen to deal with all of us together, all at once! And He does that through His Blood Covenant Pattern. And only after that is done, can we then begin to develop our own unique personal, intimate way of interacting with Him. Both are necessary, but you can’t have the second level of private, personal intimacy with God, until you already have entered into that first ‘entry level’ of corporate Blood Covenant union.
“One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:28-31. Emphasis added.)
God is concerned with all of us! He created one unique way through which to deal with the entire human race… past, present and future. And His way (once we begin to grasp it) is much easier for us to understand, and to work with, and draw from. What is true for all of us, holds true for each of us, and vice versa. So because God views and values each one of us to a boundless extent, He has limited Himself to the use of the Blood Covenant Pattern to deal with us all at the same time! His Pattern is CORPORATE in nature.
But since we’re hardwired to see ourselves as ‘autonomous radically independent individuals,’ we think we have to be the ‘hero of our story,’ doing everything for ourselves, by our own efforts. And we assume that God intends to ‘make a personal deal just with us,’ ‘tailor made specifically for us’ and for no one else. And we think up ways to ‘tug on God’s sleeve’ and try to get his attention, to see what kind of terms we can negotiate with Him in our effort to ‘hack out’ a personal custom-made relational arrangement with Him. But dear ones, the Truth is this: unless we first truly enter into God’s Corporate ‘WE’ relationship that He requires… it will be impossible for us to ever enjoy the very personal and intensely intimate interactive I/Thou union He wants us to have with Him!
So, if we ignore and bypass God’s Blood Covenant Bond… we exclude ourselves from how God actually has provided for His Personal Covenant Family and how it is to be built and formed. And the danger is that we’ll never truly grasp the meaning or the workings of our true actual personal interactive relationship with Him. The True God never works on a deep intimately personal level with anyone… unless that person first becomes ‘Blood brothers’ with Him, and also with those others who have also become one with Him! Another way of saying that is: He doesn’t exclude or single out any one of us. He doesn’t discriminate or play favorites. HE INCLUDES EVERY ONE OF US! That’s how it all starts. So once God includes us with what He has already done, we must learn to include ourselves in like manner by personally responding to and embracing the unified life He has made possible for us to have with Him. So it will do us no good to try to ‘reinvent the wheel’ and vainly strive to come up with an alternate substitute version of our own making. That will never work!
The Vital Importance of the Covenant Representative
God deals with all of us through a certain chosen specific individual. That one Person serves as the official representative for all the rest of us. If we do not understand this, and if we’ve never been taught to deal with God on this basis, we’ll be completely off track and light years removed from God’s actual navigational coordinates! So let’s begin to unpack this and see how important it is for us to understand the True God and His ways, and what it will mean to us, when we finally realize that He has already fully dealt with each one of us in the past. If we don’t have a clue about how He did that, we’ll keep trying to gain his notice and favor in the present, trying to think up ways by which we think we can impress Him. And we’ll keep striving and slaving to do things that we hope will gain His approval and force Him to pay us off for our great performance. But we’ll be dead wrong! The Truth is, that before God can deal with us… He must first deal comprehensively and most effectively with every speck of past, present, and future Sin that is in us! If that doesn’t happen… we can’t even get started! So let’s begin by realizing this awesome fact:
All of the necessary work that covers our past, present and future, has already been done for us and in our name… by our God-appointed Blood Covenant Representative… the Living Creative Word of God made flesh, Jesus our Messiah! He is the only Way open to us to be made right with Almighty God!
That statement is packed full of tremendous meaning and significance. And it will take some time and effort to unpack and grasp it. So let’s begin by realizing that when many people are involved in the making of a blood covenant, as when two nations, cities, tribes, clans or families enter into a marriage-like blood bond agreement, then… to simplify matters, and to make sure everyone understands what is happening, and how they fit into it, everything that has to be done, will be done by and through – two pre-chosen designated and authorized representatives. The representatives ‘stand for’ the entire group they are to represent.
In the case of two families, the representatives for each group will, of course, be the bride and the groom. So in blood covenant societies, these matters are seen through ‘Covenant Eyes.’ And that enables you to see that all the people the representative is standing for, have been placed ‘inside of him’ or ‘inside of her!’ In other words, the covenant mentality considers those who are represented… to be IN their respective representatives. And thus, it isn’t just two individuals that are becoming one… two entire families are becoming one… through the two representatives, the bride and groom. The representatives operate ‘as their group’ or ‘in the name of the group.’ So Covenant Eyes see the many… as being one and the same! In other words, ‘The Many Become ONE!’
So the Blood Covenant term we often see in Scripture in the apostolic writings of the New Covenant, ‘IN HIM’, means that Christ, our Covenant Representative, embodies all that the people he represents. All that they are and can have is summed up in and by Him. The Word of God, when He took on human nature and became one of us, was Sin-less. But because He was commissioned by His Father to serve as our Representative and Champion, He identified with us to such a degree, that the Sin that was only ours, also became His, in this Blood Covenant sense! In other words, because the Covenant made our Representative and us to become as one, He became one with our Sin, even though in Himself, He was Sinless and Pure and Innocent!
“He made Him who knew no sin TO BE SIN on our behalf, so that we might become the Righteousness of God IN HIM!” (2 Corinthians 5:21. Emphasis added.)
So in the case of our Messiah, to see Him… is to see all the rest of humanity IN HIM. So… when you witness a blood covenant ceremony, what happens to the representative, as He goes through the steps of the Ceremony, is also happening to everyone He represents. What He does, is done by those present and future people who are considered to be ‘IN HIM.’
So… even those who are born after the fact… who were not personally present during the ceremony, are nevertheless included in this reality… if they too will believe, trust and allow themselves to be identified with the original representative. In that case, they too become part of what took place before they were born!
And, if the representative succeeds in fulfilling the covenant requirements, then those he represents also succeed… not in themselves or by their own efforts, but IN and THROUGH their representative. And, if the representative violates the terms of the covenant, and fails to fulfill the promises he has made to his covenant partner(s), then all those that he represents will be considered to have also failed. They may not have failed in themselves, by their own efforts, nevertheless they did fail… IN AND through their representative.
There’s a saying from a recent movie, that is that is gaining in popularity in the USA these days. It is: “Where we go one, we go all!” And that is a covenant-minded statement. What happens to one, happens to all. What one does, all do. That’s how blood covenants work! They are corporate entities. So even unborn descendants and people who did nothing wrong, are liable to suffer the curses and penalties involved in a covenant, even if they did not personally violate it! All it takes is for one member of the covenant family to violate it… and by that fact… all are considered to have violated it, because their covenant has made them to be one! (For other Biblical examples of this covenantal bond, see the stories of Achan in Joshua 6 and 7, and the blood covenant Israel was deceived into making with the Gibeonites in Joshua chapters 9 & 10.)
The Two Adams
We don’t have the talent, time, or inclination to pursue this to ultra scholarly depths. These articles are meant to be Biblical meditations rather than scholarly exercises in hermeneutics, exegesis and Biblical criticism. Nevertheless, it’s important to at least take note of the fact that, in God’s Eternal Infinite Wisdom, He saw fit to designate two main basic Covenant Representatives for the entire human race. That is, two human individuals, into whom God placed the entire human race, at two different stages in history. They were the first ADAM (the original male human) who was introduced in the Torah (Genesis 2 & 3)… and, God Himself, through His Living Word made flesh, THE LAST ADAM (God’s Living Word made flesh). The Last Adam was announced and prophesied in the Torah by Moses (e.g., Deuteronomy 18:15-19) and also in the writings of the Israelite prophets like, for example, in Psalms 2 and 110; Isaiah 52, 53, 61; and Ezekiel 34, 36, & 37 in the Tanach (Old Testament section of the Bible), and all of the New Covenant apostolic writings. And He is progressively and evermore explicitly revealed in the New Testament apostolic writings.
Through the first Adam, in Genesis 3, we see that the entire human race (even though none of us were born yet) violated the corporate Blood Covenant bond we had with God through Adam. We hadn’t even been born! But, we did it nevertheless because, as Adam’s ‘Seed’, we did it through Adam, our Representative. When he fell into the state of ‘living death’ (mortality and separation from the Creator) he took us with him… for we were IN him. This is expressed clearly in Romans 5 with these words:
“Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, EVEN OVER THOSE WHO HAD NOT SINNED IN THE LIKENESS OF THE OFFENSE OF ADAM, who is a type of Him who was to come. But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification.” (Romans 5:14-16)
This text is clearly expressing a Blood Covenant Reality when it talks of the two Adams. So God chose to reverse, neutralize, cancel, repair and restore all the damage done to humanity through the first Adam… by sending His Living Word made flesh, to serve as The Last Adam, God Himself came into our midst so He could reconcile with us, become one with us, and redeem and cleanse and regenerate us, by making us to be one with the Perfect Humanity of His beloved Son! Both of these Blood Covenant transactions were completed before we were born into this world!
So by this means, God can save us all from the terrible consequences and curses that befell us all through the First Adam, our original covenant representative. IF we understand who the Last Adam really is, and embrace and become one with Him in His Awesome New Covenant All-Sufficient Significance, we’ll see that He was sent to institute and launch our New Covenant with God. Christ, the Last Adam, is our Ultimate Covenant Representative. And His Perfect Human Life, and Atoning Death, and Eternal Resurrection Life and Wisdom, Holiness, Righteousness and Redemption become ours, just as much as they are His!
So after the fall of the first Adam, God, who is eternally Perfect and Absolutely Faithful to His Covenant promises and obligations, was obligated by His Blood Oath to us, to come to rescue all of His human Blood brothers from Satan, Sin, and Death! To do that, He had to restore the severed Blood Bond (Genesis 3:21, 4:1-15) He made through Adam. So as soon as the Flood ended, He renewed that Bond through Noah and the seven surviving members of his family in Genesis chapter 9. And He extended that Covenant bond with all of mankind, through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and then also through Moses and the nation of Israel… and through King David of Israel… and now, it is in the process of being totally and perfectly fulfilled to Perfection by Yeshua our Messiah! In these last days, God will bring His Covenant Saga to its Perfect Consummation and Conclusion, when He sends His Son back to Earth to reclaim all that has always been truly and rightfully His!
All of those later representative men mentioned in Scripture entered into God’s Covenant with Him. And each of those succeeding Covenants fulfilled very important and specific purposes and phases in the progressive working out and fulfillment of God’s Awesome Redemptive Plan. But underlying all that took place in subsequent human history… at the deepest most basic foundational level… God was working through the two main pivotal Representatives for the entire human race… The First Adam, and the Last Adam. So we begin with the First Adam. Notice what God says through the prophet Hosea:
“What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? For your (Covenant) 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 (Covenant Chesed (faithfulness) and Agape (Selfless Covenant) Loyalty rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of (oneness with) 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.)
So, after the first Adam’s disastrous violation of his Covenant, for His sake (and for the sake of all those others that broke the Covenant IN him and through him,) God began to work His way throughout history so that, at the appointed time, He could introduce the second and final main Covenant and its designated Representative for the human race. And that happened to be God’s own Living Word made flesh… Yeshua, the long-awaited ‘Anointed One’ (The Messiah) of Israel. As we said, in the Bible He is called, ‘The Last Adam’ (for example, see I Corinthians 15:45).
So IN, and THROUGH, God’s Living Word made flesh… the original destruction and devastation and ruin caused by the broken Covenant with the first Adam… was completely and forever UNDONE, REVERSED, AND MADE RIGHT. Sin and Death and all the curses that followed the Covenant violation were paid for, in full and cancelled by Almighty God Himself! And the powers of Darkness were forced to release the legal claim and grip they had on mankind. The guilt, condemnation and Covenant curses were all cancelled out by the Perfect New Covenant Atonement of God’s Living Eternal Word… who, serving as one of us, went to the Cross and poured out His human life for our sake. Christ represented Adam, and every other human being IN Adam that God had created, and ever would create. And by that one Act, He made it possible for all of us to be saved! Where we go one, we go all! And since this awesome Covenant infrastructure has already been created and established for us it is our move. Will we, or will we not… choose to accept God’s beloved Son as our New Covenant Representative? As we make this awesome choice, we are choosing between LIFE OR DEATH!
So this is why Almighty God Himself… had to become ONE with us… in order to save us. He did it in and through Yeshua (Jesus), His Living Word. And now, we have the opportunity of being reconciled to God and totally redeemed and saved and restored… IF… we will only believe, embrace, and obey God’s Word, when we receive and embrace Yeshua, and His Finished Works of Creation and Redemption, as we abide IN the Representation Covering provided for us by our Last Covenant Representative.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him. The one who believes in Him is not judged; the one who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the Light; for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light, so that his deeds will not be exposed. But the one who practices The Truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds will be revealed as having been performed in God.” (John 3:16-21 NASB. Emphasis added.)
If we believe, trust and become one with God’s Word made flesh, on God’s Covenant terms, God places us IN HIM, and makes us to become one with God’s Word… and one with the Father who spoke Him forth… and one with the Father’s Holy Spirit, and… one with every other human that has also become one with our Awesome Representative! But if we reject this and refuse to allow ourselves to be included… God honors our free will choice. So, it’s not about ME… it’s about WE! That’s what Blood Covenant Eyes will enable us to clearly see.
If we believe and receive everything our Representative is, we will inherit all that He has done and all that He contains within Himself (the Fullness of Almighty God and His Righteousness), and we will receive credit for all the Perfect Works He has already accomplished. And all of the rewards (blessings) that are coming to Him as a result of His Perfect Fulfillment of the Covenant with God, will also be ours. This is the blessing that comes from choosing to receive God, as he really is, and become one with what He has done, by becoming One with His Word – our Covenant Representative and Lord and New Eternal Life.
“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 (Covenant) LOVE He predestined us to adoption as sons THROUGH JESUS CHRIST TO HIMSELF, according to the kind (Blood Covenant) 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 (shed Covenant) BLOOD, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed IN HIM with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things (from beginning to end) IN CHRIST, things in the heavens and things on the earth (throughout the entire created universe). IN HIM also we have obtained an Inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope IN CHRIST would be to the praise of His glory. IN HIM, you also, after listening to the message of Truth, the Gospel of your Salvation—having also believed, you were SEALED IN HIM with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as A PLEDGE (Covenant Promise) OF OUR (Covenant) INHERITANCE, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His Glory.” (Ephesians 1:3-12. Amplification and emphasis added.)
“For this reason (grasping the greatness of this Covenantal Plan by which Jews and Gentiles are joined together IN CHRIST) I bow my knees (in reverence) before the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom every family in Heaven and on Earth derives its name (God—the first and ultimate Father). May He grant you out of the riches of His Glory, to be strengthened and spiritually energized with Power through His Spirit in your inner self, (indwelling your innermost being and personality), so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through your (Covenant) faith. And may you, having been (deeply) rooted and (securely) grounded in (God’s Covenant) Love, be fully capable of comprehending with all the saints (God’s people) the width and length and height and depth of His love (fully experiencing that amazing, endless love); and (that you may come) to know (practically, through personal experience) the (Covenant) Love of Christ which far surpasses (mere) knowledge (without experience), that you may be filled up (throughout your being) to all the Fullness of (being one with) God (so that you may have the richest experience of God’s Presence in your lives, completely filled and flooded with God Himself).
“Now to Him who is able to (carry out His purpose and) do superabundantly more than all that we dare ask or think (beyond our greatest prayers, hopes, or dreams), according to His (Covenant-Authorized Infinite Authority and) Power that is at work within us, to Him be the Glory in the Church and IN CHRIST JESUS, throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:14-21 AMP. Amplification and emphasis added.)
“So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an Imperishable Body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in Glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in Power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a Spiritual Body. If there is a natural body, there is also a Spiritual Body. So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The Last Adam became a Life-giving Spirit. However, the Spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the Spiritual.” (1 Corinthians 15:42-46. Emphasis added.)
So beloved, do you see all the Blood Covenant references that are highlighted and capitalized for you in these texts? Can you see how perfectly and comprehensively God has already dealt with us and provided for our every need… past, present and future? This is why none of us needs to try to ‘make a personal deal’ with God! God has made absolutely sure that no highly-limited, flaky, treacherous, selfish, self-centered, rebellious, manipulative, predatory and self-destructive human being would be able to mess anything up. He bypassed our woeful limitations and our chronic bent for making mistakes, blunders of omission and commission, and false assumptions. He bypassed our drive to try to understand and control things when, in Truth, we can actually grasp and control nothing! And He took care of everything Himself… covering us in every way and providing everything necessary… in our name… by His own Infinite, Eternal Perfection! And, by doing all the Work Himself, through His Living Creative Word made flesh, in our name, God made sure that everything we needed would be done and supplied to Eternal Perfection!
Thus our awesome God covered all of the necessary steps, doing everything Himself… IN and THROUGH His own beloved PERFECT LIVING WORD MADE FLESH… THE LAST ADAM… THE PERFECT ETERNALLY TRIUMPHANT ADAM… who has been given the right to exercise ALL AUTHORITY throughout the Heavens and across the entire Earth, on behalf of those who will agree to abide IN HIM… AND LIVE… FROM HIM!
“Abide IN ME, and I IN YOU. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide IN ME. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides IN ME and I IN him, he bears much fruit, FOR APART FROM ME YOU CAN DO NOTHING!
If anyone does not abide IN ME, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide IN ME, and My words abide IN you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much (Blood Covenant) Fruit, and so PROVE to be My disciples!” (John 15:4-8, Emphasis added.)
[The Steps of the Blood Covenant Ceremony are covered in Part 2 of this teaching, available on our website www.follow-me-ministries.org ]