This week in our morning watch with the Lord we are enjoying the more intrinsic meaning of, The Blood of the Covenant. Both Moses and the Lord Jesus, when they enacted the old and the new covenant respectively, they used this expression. We need to see what the blood of the covenant is, and we need to bring it into our prayer and vocabulary.
May the Lord give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation to see intrinsically what the blood of the covenant is. In Exo. 24:4-8 we see that Moses enacted the old covenant; after decreeing the law as the engagement covenant at the mountain of God in Exo. 20, in Exo. 24 we have the enactment of the covenant with four major items: the altar, the twelve pillars, the burnt and peace offerings offered on the altar, and the blood of the covenant.
- The altar: signifies the cross. In order for us to get into the intrinsic essence of the law as the engagement covenant we need the cross; this means that we need to be redeemed, terminated, and replaced by and with Christ. To be replaced by Christ is to be reconstituted with Christ and to be rearranged with Christ in all our inner being.
- The twelve pillars: signify the testimony and reflection of what God is; God desires that we would be His testimony, His reflection. The church is the pillar and the base of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15); the church bears the testimony of the divine realities in God’s economy. As the church we are God’s testimony, a revelation of who God is, and explanation and divine description of who He is, and an enlarged living portrait of God. Just as the law was the testimony of God and thus made the ark in which it was put “the ark of the testimony”, so Christ as the testimony of God, the living portrait of God, has come into us and lives in us to make us the enlarged and expanded expression and definition of who God is intrinsically.
- Burnt offerings and peace offerings: the burnt offerings typify Christ as our absoluteness for God; to be a testimony of who God is we need to take Christ as the One who is 100% for God. The peace offerings signify Christ as our peace-offering in our fellowship with God in a situation and atmosphere of peace, where we have peace toward God and man. We need to take Christ as our absoluteness and as our peace-offering for our peace with God.
- The blood of the covenant: this blood ushers us into God’s presence, into God Himself, so that we may enjoy God, behold His beauty, and receive His infusion to become His testimony. In Matt. 26:28 the Lord Jesus said, This is My blood of the covenant. In Psa. 27:4 we see how the blood ushers us into the house of God to enjoy God, behold His beauty, and receive His infusion to become His testimony, the living portrait of who God is. Here in God’s house we behold God’s beauty, we enquire of Him, we are concealed from calamities and hidden from our pursuers, we are raised up and have our head lifted up by God, we offer up sacrifices of shouts of joy and we sing and psalm to God!
The Precious Blood of Christ Gives us Access to God, Satisfies God, and Overcomes the Enemy
There are many verses in the Bible – both in the Old and in the New Testament – which show us the rich significance, function, and application of the blood of the covenant, which is the precious blood of Christ. We need to get deeper into these verses and appreciate how the Lord’s precious blood is the blood of the covenant.
Exo. 12:13 God’s judgement passed over the Israelites in the land of Egypt if they put the blood of the lamb on the doorposts. When God sees the blood of Christ applied to our being as we are in Christ (the real house), His judgement passes over us. Hallelujah, God sees the blood, and judgement passes over us!
Eph. 2:13 We were once far off from God, but in the blood of Jesus Christ we have come near to Him. The redeeming blood of Christ brought us back to God; now we are not only before God but in Christ Jesus!
1 Pet. 1:18-19 We were redeemed by the precious blood of Christ from a vain manner of life, a life with no goal, no purpose, and no meaning; now we live a holy life to express God in His holiness. Christ’s blood is more precious than silver and gold, and it is the highest price paid for us to be redeemed from our vain manner of life to live a holy life in the church life today.
Heb. 10:19-20 Today we have boldness to enter the Holy of Holies into God’s presence to have access to God in the blood of Jesus Christ; Christ initiated a new and living way for us to enter into God. We need to therefore come forward, being sprinkled by the Lord’s blood from an evil conscience and being washed in our conduct by the Lord’s life, flowing presence, living word, and life-giving Spirit (v. 22). The blood of the new covenant ushers us into the presence of God so that we may receive God, absorb God, and be infused with God to enjoy God and behold the beauty of God.
Heb. 9:14 The blood of Christ purifies our conscience from dead works to serve a living God. This blood is precious and better than the blood of goats and bulls; it accomplished an eternal redemption for us, and today it purifies our conscience so that we may serve a living God.
1 John 1:7, 9 When we confess our sins, the Lord is faithful in His word and righteous in the blood of Jesus to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. When we sin, we can just come to the Lord and confess our sins, and He forgives us, cleanses us, and removes our sins.
Rev. 12:10-11 We overcome Satan, the accuser of the brothers, not because we are perfect but because we have the perfect blood of the lamb, we exercise to speak the word of our testimony, and we do not love our soul life even unto death.
Luke 22:20 and 1 Cor. 10:16 The cup at the Lord’s table is the new covenant established in the Lord’s blood, and this cup of blessing is bringing us into all the blessings of the new covenant (such as the inward law of life and the ability to inwardly know God).
Lev. 16:11-16 The blood shed on the altar in the outer court enabled the high priest to enter the Holy of Holies, and it was sprinkled on the propitiation place so that God’s people would enter into God’s presence to meet with God and receive God’s speaking.
Rom. 3:25 Christ is the propitiation place whom God set forth through faith in His blood for the demonstrating of God’s righteousness; Christ appeased the situation between us and God, reconciling us to God by satisfying God’s demands. The wages of sin were paid by Christ on the cross as our substitute, and God is appeased!
Rev. 22:14 We can wash our robes in the blood of the Lamb to have the divine right to eat Christ as the tree of life and enter into the city (the mingling of the Triune God with the tripartite ma).
Rev. 7:14, 17 The blood of the covenant leads the believers to the water of life. As we wash our robes in the blood of the Lamb, the Lamb leads us to springs of water of life. The Lamb, Christ, shepherds us and guides us to springs of water of life, and we shall enjoy Him for eternity!
Lord, we praise You for Your precious blood shed for our redemption, God’s satisfaction, and Satan’s destruction. Lord, thank You for redeeming us from our vain manner of life so that we may live a holy life in the church life. Purify our conscience with Your precious blood from any dead works so that we may serve a living God. Lord, we wash our robes in the blood of the Lamb and exercise our divine right to eat of Christ as the tree of life, drink the river of water of life, and enter into the mingling of God with man!
The Blood of Christ Satisfies God and Brings us into the Reality of the New Covenant
In Exo. 24:8 Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people saying, here is the blood of the covenant, which Jehovah has made with you in accordance with all these words. This expression, “the blood of the covenant” is also used by the Lord Jesus in Matt. 26:28 where He enacted the new covenant in His blood.
The blood of the covenant is something from the heart of God; God cares much about it, it is very important to Him, and it is crucial to our Christian life and experience, but it has no place in the heart of the natural man. We need to open to the Lord so that what is in His heart would also be in our heart and we would thus appreciate the blood of the covenant.
In both the Old and the New Testament, when the old and the new covenant were enacted, the blood of the covenant was present. We may realize that the blood is the redeeming blood, the cleansing blood, the sanctifying blood, and the blood that overcomers the enemy, but have we appreciated the blood of Christ as the blood of the covenant? God gave Christ as a covenant to His people (Isa. 42:6; 49:8; Heb. 7:22).
Through the death of Christ, the new covenant became a new testament, a will (see Heb. 9:16-17), and this new covenant was enacted with the Lord’s blood according to God’s righteousness through His redeeming death (Matt. 26:28; Luke 22:20; Heb. 9:15). In His resurrection, Christ became the reality of all the bequests of the new testament, and He became the Mediator, the Executor, of the new covenant to execute the new testament according to God’s righteousness (Heb. 8:6; 9:15; 12:24).
Hallelujah, Christ as the embodiment of all the riches of the Godhead and as the crucified and resurrected One became the covenant of God given to His people! God’s salvation, God’s righteousness, God’s justification, God’s forgiveness, God’s redemption, God’s riches, and all that God has, has accomplished, and will do have been covenanted to us!
Now everything of God is in Christ, and everything of Christ is in the all-inclusive, life-giving, indwelling, and consummated Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17; Rom. 8:9-11) who is in our spirit to be one spirit with us (1 Cor. 6:17; 2 Tim. 4:22)! The life-giving Spirit is the reality of all the bequests of the new covenant, and this Spirit is in our spirit.
Today our spirit is the “bank account” of all the bequests of the new testament; whenever we exercise our spirit, the law of the Spirit of life operates in us to dispense all the riches of God and all the bequests of the new covenant to us for our enjoyment and experience. And all this is made possible by the blood of the covenant! Hallelujah!
Lord, thank You for Your blood which satisfied God’s righteousness, enacted the new covenant, and brings us into the reality of the new covenant! Thank You for going through a process in order to become the life-giving Spirit, the consummation of the processed Triune God as the reality of all the bequests in the new covenant. Lord, bring us into a deeper appreciation of the blood of the covenant so that we may apply it and enjoy all that You have covenanted to us! Lord, dispense all the bequests of the new covenant into us through the operation of the law of the Spirit of life!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, brother Ed Marks’ sharing in the message for this week, and Life-study of Exodus, pp. 915-916 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (2), week 8 / msg 8, The Blood of the Covenant.
- All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
- Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
# By the blood of Christ the Victor / Counter him who doth accuse; / By the blood for you defending / All the sland’rer’s blame refuse. (Hymns #889)
# As we’re sharing of the cup, / How can we restrain our praise; / For the blood Thou shedd’st for us, / Worth of which none can appraise. / O how precious is Thy blood! / All our problems it resolves; / In Thine efficacious blood / All our care and fear dissolves. (Hymns #224)
# I have passed the outer veil, / Hallelujah to the Lamb! / Which did once God’s light conceal, / O glory be to God! / But the blood has brought me in / To God’s holiness so clean, / Where there’s death to self and sin, / Hallelujah to the Lamb! (Hymns #551)
About aGodMan
Christ has been called by Jehovah to be a covenant for the people, that is, for Israel (Isa. 42:6b; 49:8b; Heb. 7:22). The covenant is the legal agreement between God and His people (cf. Jer. 31:31-34; Heb. 8:8-12). Through the death of Christ, the covenant became a testament, a will (Heb. 9:16-17 and footnote 1 on v. 16). Christ enacted the new covenant (which became the new testament—the will) with His blood according to God’s righteousness through His redeeming death (Matt. 26:28; Luke 22:20; Heb. 9:15). In resurrection Christ became the reality of all the bequests of the new testament and the Mediator, the Executor, to execute the new testament according to God’s righteousness (Heb. 8:6; 9:15; 12:24). Therefore, Christ is the new covenant as the new testament.
Christ, as the embodiment of the riches of the Godhead (Col. 2:9; 1:19) and as the crucified and resurrected One, has become the covenant of God given to His people. He is the reality of all that God is and of all that God has given us. God’s salvation, God’s righteousness, God’s justification, God’s forgiveness, God’s redemption, God’s riches, and all God has and will do have been covenanted to us. As the reality of all the bequests in the new testament, Christ, who is the all-inclusive, life-giving, indwelling, consummated Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17; Rom. 8:9-11), is in our spirit and has become one spirit with us (2 Tim. 4:22; 1 Cor. 6:17). As a covenant Christ is the surety (Heb. 7:22), and the Spirit is the pledge (2 Cor. 1:22; Eph. 1:14), to guarantee that God embodied in Christ is the inheritance to His people (Rom. 8:17a; Acts 26:18 and footnote 6). (Isa. 42:6, footnote 1, Recovery Version Bible)