THE BLOOD COVENANT

THE BLOOD COVENANT

                In much of today’s popular Christianity, the Gospel of the kingdom has been gutted of its substance and power. Grace has been gutted of its power to overcome sin. Forgiveness has been gutted of its power to cleanse. The covenants have become bloodless and replaced with self-help programs. The power of God unto salvation has become lenience and Bible prophecy is avoided like the plague because it points to a certain and very real Day of Judgment.

                We live in a largely pagan culture, shaped and formed by the seed of Satan and that culture is sweeping the world closer and closer to the global kingdom of the antichrist. Humanity is like a great river flowing toward an unthinkable abyss. We know we are getting close to the edge because the river is picking up speed and intensity, its once peaceful current now turned into a frantic chaos of churning white water.

                There is only one thing that dares to take a stand in the midst of this plunging mortal stream and that is the cross of Jesus Christ and the blood covenant that it represents. By God’s grace every lost soul is given a chance to either die at the cross and be born into a different kingdom, or to pass by the cross and to die in the abyss. One death leads to eternal life and the other to eternal damnation. Many people pass by the cross enticed by the rainbows in the mist just ahead, not realizing that the mist is formed by the great fall.

                Morning by morning Bonnie and I partake of the bread and wine of a covenant, signed by Jesus in His own blood. We contemplate how a holy God, Creator of heaven and earth could come down into our world, clothed in humanity, immortality housed in mortal flesh and blood, to make a blood covenant with us. Only infinite love could make such a sacrifice.

                But the facts of His death have largely been truncated. He not only died for us, but as us. He took our sin upon Himself and paid the eternal price… and in return He places His eternal life in us.

                But when Jesus died for us and as us, He did not do so to create a good luck charm to wear as jewelry; rather He forged a pathway for us to follow. He made a way for us to die in this pagan realm and to be born again into His kingdom. In other words, if we simply thank Jesus for dying for us, for dying in our place but we don’t follow Him through His death and resurrection we remain in the river that is flowing toward the abyss and as such that little golden cross we wear around our necks has no power to save.

                Salvation is an exit from one realm and new birth into another realm. It is a totally different reality. It is a reality that the world doesn’t understand or even see. It is a reality framed by the Word of God and empowered by His Holy Spirit. The world doesn’t understand us, but they hate us because they are empowered by the spirit of the Nachash, the seed of the serpent and there is a natural born enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman.

                This is why Christianity cannot merely be a lifestyle. It cannot be a set of doctrines, no matter how good they may be. Doctrines are merely intellectual and they have no eternal meaning to them unless we have first died and risen again in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Doctrines only have eternal meaning if we are truly born again.

                Don’t get me wrong. We need to have sound doctrine. After all it must be based solely upon God’s eternal Word. But that Word has no eternal value unless it brings us to the death and new birth that Jesus provided. Eternal words only benefit eternal people.

                Paul said in Romans 1:16, 17:

                “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.”

                First Paul tells us that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation and then throughout the rest of the chapter he describes the things that the Gospel delivers, or saves us from. These are the sins of the Nachash that are carrying the entire world toward the abyss and only the Gospel can rescue us from this torrential flow.

                Jesus Christ Himself told us a profound and inescapable truth, saying to Nicodemus:

                Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. John 3:3. And then He explains another profound truth in verses 6 and 7 saying:

                That which is born of flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, “You must be born again.”

                In other words, in our flesh we are children of fallen Adam and alive in the kingdom of the Nachash. As such this flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. So if we are to be saved, then a new spirit from heaven must be created in us and that Spirit will empower us to stop living by the flesh and to live by the Spirit.

                This is why Romans 8 is such a key in understanding the true Gospel. In Romans 7 and 8 Paul tells us how we die to the flesh and to begin a new life in the Spirit. He then says to us: “And if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.”

                So popular teaching today is that even though we are sinning in the body, we are saved because of what Jesus did for us, like sin is no longer sinful because of the cross: but that was not Paul’s intent for in verses 12-14 Paul explains it this way saying:

                “So then brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh- for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.”

                In the tabernacle of Moses God gave us a diagram of how the Gospel works. Man is a triune being made up of spirit, soul and body, as represented by the Most Holy, the Holy place and the outer court.

The outer court represents our physical body that we offer to God as a living sacrifice. The Holy Place represents our soul, with its mind, will and emotions. The Most Holy Place represents our spirit, which is where the Holy Spirit comes to dwell if we are born again.

                So we have the flesh on one end and the spirit on the other and it is in our soul, or mind, that we must choose whether to serve the desires of the body or the desires of the Spirit. These are the choices we make from day to day and this is the battleground, our souls, for those who live by the spirit are sons of God and those who live by the flesh are sons of the Nachash (the serpent)

                Earth history is a history of this ongoing battle between the seed of the Nachash and the Seed of the woman and we decide which side of the battle we will be on.  And even at that no one can come to the Father unless He draws him. But the only way into the Kingdom of Jesus Christ is through death and rebirth and Jesus has provided this passage way for us through His cross. So the cross not only offers forgiveness of our sins, but the power to overcome by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony. We are new creatures. We have crossed over from death into life.

                I grew up in a religion that largely taught doctrinal salvation. If you adhered to the right set of doctrines; then you were a remnant person. They did not speak about being born again in those days, because it conflicted with their view of the nature of man. They did not talk about being Spirit filled, nor did they have assurance of salvation and were taught not to say that “I am saved.”

                But if you are born again, you ARE saved. You have passed from death into life. John 3:36 says:

                “He who believes in the Son HAS eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”

                Well, this text is unpopular on both sides. First of all it tells us that if we have the Son we HAVE eternal life. We have it now and we can say that we are saved because we are born again and we are citizens of Christ’s kingdom.

                On the other hand, this text also tells us that if we do not walk in and obey the Son, will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on us. This is living proof that the Gospel of our new birth is not only based upon what Jesus did FOR us, but also what He is doing IN us in terms of sanctification and the putting away of the deeds of the flesh… so this stands in opposition to the false grace that is floating around these days.

                It could be that many so called Christians are not truly born again today and that is likely the case. In 2 Thess. 2:3, 4 Paul tells us that there will be a great falling away, or apostasy from the faith that will make way for the coming antichrist. And indeed we see much of Christianity falling away from the fundamental foundations of the Gospel today.

                The Lord shared with Benjamin Faircloth that this falling away was not merely a drifting away from the truth, but an actual outright rejection of the Gospel and of Jesus Christ Himself and so much so that many former Christians will turn and persecute the true Remnant.

                Friends, we need more than a good set of doctrines in these last days. We need to be truly born again of the Spirit. We need Christ dwelling in our hearts. We need to be living by the power of the Gospel and overcoming Satan by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony. We need to be fully cut off from the kingdom of the Nachash (AKA Babylon) and living by the Spirit and not according to the flesh.

                As 1 Thess. 5:23, 24 tells us, God’s intention in salvation is to sanctify us entirely, spirit, soul and body without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and then he assures us saying: “Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.”

                This is the covenant that Jesus has signed in His own blood. What He has started in us, He will finish. He will never leave us or forsake us. And His goal for each of us is that we “attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. Eph. 4:13. And He wants us to be “Filled up to all the fullness of God.” and how will He accomplish this?

                “Now unto Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works WITHIN US.”  Eph. 3:19, 20

                The blood covenant represents an eternal commitment by Jesus Christ to enter into us by His Holy Spirit and there to form us into His image… to the fullness of the stature that belongs to Christ.

                But there is also a warning in Ephesians 4: 30 saying:  “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. So you see; we are not sealed by the Sabbath or the Law or any other external thing. We are sealed by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, who is daily forming us into the image of Christ. This is the eternal commitment that Jesus has made with us through His Blood Covenant. As long as we stick with Him, He will get us to the finish line as more than conquerors. Put you faith in Him and not in yourself. Neither have faith in the Law, for the Law cannot save you. It can only point you to the cross where you must die to the Law and be born again by the Holy Spirit and washed in the Blood and renewed in our minds and guided by the Word.

                Don’t settle for the cheap grace of a bloodless covenant, for it has not the power of God unto salvation. There is no other way than through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The cross is not a talisman that we hang around our necks, but a passage way from the kingdom of the Nachash and into the Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

                It is high time for the Gospel of the Kingdom to be preached in its fullness and not in bumper sticker sound bites that tickle the ears. We are entering into a time of testing like never before, for the Lord is warning us that 2018 is the year of the great falling away. Only time will tell if this is true, but I believe that it is, for it is already well under way.

                Take courage my friends. Take you stand upon the covenant that Jesus has signed in His own blood. He paid a huge price to bring us this covenant and it will not fail. All we have to do is to abide in it. It is the secret place of the Most High.