Power of the Blood Covenant: Uncover the Secret Strength of God's Eternal Oath

by Malcolm Smith

  God the Son in our humanity, as us, was making covenant with God the Father. The life is in the blood (Leviticus 17:11), and in this case the blood that was shed was the physical blood of God that flowed through the veins of the God-Man Jesus Christ. It was both the blood shed from His humanity, the blood of our race, and also it was the blood of God as He swore by Himself to the terms of the covenant that He had determined to bring to pass.

  We have seen that when He cried “It is finished,” it was not the gasp of a man who was defeated and exhausted but the triumphant cry of the Man who had finished and accomplished what He had come to do. What began before time in the heart of God’s love was accomplished in His ravaged body, shed blood, and opened wounds on the hill outside of Jerusalem.

  The shedding of the blood of God in covenant brought the representative out of death and brought us with Him.

  Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant.

  Hebrews 13:20

  In rising from the dead, He became the declaration that the sin that had carried Him into death had been dealt with forever and the death the sin had brought had been swallowed up. He was the announcement that now the terms of the covenant could be fulfilled in us.

  Every covenant is sealed, or ratified, by blood; and the new covenant, being sealed in the blood of the Lord Jesus, is no exception. The old Gospel hymn assures us that there is “power in the blood.” Although I am not going to crusade to change that, it is actually not true. The power of the new covenant is in the Holy Spirit; the authority of the covenant, which declares that it is in full effect, is the blood. The fact that the eternal blood of God has been sprinkled in the heavens is the authority that releases us from sin and ushers us into all the blessings of the new covenant.

  Jesus made reference to this at the first covenant meal, which we will deal with in detail in a later chapter:

  For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

  Matthew 26:28

  The Amplified Bible captures the meaning of the phrase “My blood of the new covenant” with the extended translation: “My blood of the new covenant, which ratifies the agreement...”

  The same event recorded by St. Luke, again in The Amplified Bible, gives us the meaning in its extended translation:

  And in like manner, He took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament or covenant [ratified] in My blood, which is shed (poured out) for you.

  Luke 22:20

  The word ratify literally means to make something fixed; to give formal approval to and thereby validate or make legally valid with official sanction.1 The blood Jesus shed is that which makes the new covenant legally valid with the official sanction of the Triune God, a reality recognized in heaven, earth, and hell.

  He then carried His own blood into the true Holy of Holies, the center of existence, of which the Holy of Holies in the temple was an earthly symbol. The blood of God in heaven declared that sin had been put away, never to be remembered again, that the reconciliation of humankind to God had been achieved and the new covenant ushered in.

  Then He sat down, declaring that it was finally and forever done; there would never be need of another offering. The one offering of Him was the last sacrifice humankind would ever need. The covenant was made and God and humankind could sit down together in joyful union.

  The epistle to the Hebrews spells out this end of all sacrifices in Jesus:

  For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another—He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

  Hebrews 9:24-26

  But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us; for after He had said before, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,” then He adds, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.

  Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh.

  Hebrews 10:12-20

  Chapter 9: The Oath of God

  We have taken note that covenants in Bible times were sealed with an oath taken by both of the parties to the covenant. Their taking oaths and calling on God to be their witness was the guarantee of the covenant. In the new covenant that God makes with us, He swears by Himself; He is the guarantee both of the human and divine side that the covenant shall be made and kept. This is the absolute certainty that we have of the covenant: It is made and guaranteed by God. If the covenant had been made with us, then it would have depended upon our oath for its fulfillment and would have been broken within hours of being sworn to. But sworn to by God, it is as sure and unchangeable as God is.

  For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, “Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.”

  Hebrews 6:13,14

  All of the announcements of the new covenant through the prophets came with the same solemn, unilateral commitment by God to do what He promised. The making of the covenant and the bringing to pass in history the promises depended solely upon God.

  From the very beginning, the initiative for our salvation has come from God. Humankind has not asked Him for salvation, nor have we shown any desire to be saved. The newly fallen couple in the Garden of Eden did not show any signs of repentance; they were insolent and hiding from God, wishing that He would go away and leave them to work out their sin agenda in peace. When He spoke to them, they dodged His questions and showed no interest in confessing that they had sinned, only willing to talk about the feelings that sin had left them with.

  The Holy Spirit’s commentary on humankind is devastating:

  And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

  John 3:19

  It All Hangs on God

  If humankind was to be saved and the eternal purpose of God to make us His sons and daughters and intimate friends realized, then God had to do it with no help from humanity. And this He swore by Himself to do.

  In the Garden of Eden, a very short time after our first parents had sinned, God made a covenant with the entire human race in Adam. In it, He announced what He would do to save the race that was potential in the first couple. He announced the very first promise of their salvation and deliverance from bondage to Satan.

  “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”

  Genesis 3:15

  Notice that this promise contains no reference to humans’ part in bringing it to pass; it refers only to the “I will” of God. He was the guarantee of the covenant salvation that He announced. He committed Himself to placing a supernatural enmity between humankind and the serpent that would culminate in the coming of a certain seed who would utterly defeat the serpent, crushing his head. There were no “ifs,” no conditions that humans must fulfill if this wonder were to come to pass in their history, only the unconditional announcement that hung on the oath of God.

  As the history of the race unfolded and humans plunged further and further from God, He announced
His intention to bless humankind through the seed of Abraham. Again, He swore by Himself:

  “Blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”

  Genesis 22:17,18

  As the promises and prophecies of the Old Testament unfolded, the details of the salvation that would be contained in the new covenant were made known. They were made with a series of “I will’s,” declarations made by God of what He would unilaterally do:

  “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

  Jeremiah 31:33,34

  “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”

  Ezekiel 36:25-27

  In Daniel’s prophecy, He announced that He had determined or carved out a period of time in which He would accomplish a certain work.

  “Seventy weeks[a] are determined for your people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of[b] sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy.”

  Daniel 9:24

  For God to swear by Himself to accomplish the promises of the covenant is shocking; it means that if He did not perform the terms of the covenant, then He would cease to be and all creation would fall into nothingness. His spoken word would be enough, for He is the God who cannot lie; but in order that we would have an understanding of His absolute, unchangeable purpose, He added to His word a covenant oath. We are given a covenant oath by which we may never doubt that He will fulfill every word of the covenant promises to all who call upon Him.

  For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute. Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.

  Hebrews 6:16-18

  These promises, bound to fulfillment by the oath of God, cover every cry of the hearts of human beings in their state of sin and spiritual darkness. They guarantee that God will:

  Remove their guilt and shame, freeing them from the authority of sin and death.

  Give them the motive, desire, and enabling power to live in love for God and their neighbors.

  Cause them to belong to Him, bringing them into the covenant family of God.

  Free them from bondage to Satan and all the power of darkness.

  Grant them the knowledge that God is with them, blessing them and all they do.

  Bring them into union with Himself, placing His Spirit within them.

  The Faithfulness of God

  Another word that drew me into discovering the covenant as the foundation upon which the faith of the men and women of God in Scripture stood was the word “faithfulness.” His faithfulness is the outworking of His covenant oath. He did not need, as humans do, to swear an oath in order to bind Himself to keep the covenant. The covenant does not make Him what He would not otherwise be but is the means of revealing to us who He eternally is.

  The root Hebrew word for “faithfulness” is aman,1 which means “to be certain, enduring, to trust or believe.” From this root, we have three words. The first word is amen, which we translate into English as “amen” or “so it is.” The second word is emet, which is translated as “truth” or “true.” And the third word is emunah,2 which simply means “faithfulness.” Put all of these together and we have a God who is infinitely reliable, to be counted on at all times, constant, and unchangeable.

  If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.

  2 Timothy 2:13

  “For I am the LORD, I do not change...”

  Malachi 3:6

  All that God is, He always is; He never contradicts Himself or acts in a way that is inconsistent with Himself. He cannot improve any more than He can degenerate. Who He is, is who He was and forever will be.

  Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

  James 1:17

  James undoubtedly had the sun, moon, and planets at least in mind when he wrote this verse. The sun is the light of our solar system, and the word “turning” was used to describe the rotating of the planets, which always left one side in the dark. God has no dark side; He is the Father of uncreated radiant light, and in Him there is no shadow, no darkness. There is no change or variation in Him; all that He was, He is and ever shall be.

  I stand in my garden, and it is in a state of constant change as the sun moves across the sky; the shadows change, come, and go, until finally all is in the shadow of twilight.

  I do not come to God wondering what will have changed in Him today; He does not turn and change. We can be utterly sure that He will be unchangeably the same forever.

  The Message captures this with its paraphrase: The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle.

  His faithfulness is often described as His being the Rock:

  He is the Rock, His work is perfect; for all His ways are justice, a God of truth and without injustice; righteous and upright is He.

  Deuteronomy 32:4

  The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

  Psalm 18:2

  He is incapable of making a promise that He cannot perform, for every word He says is the perfect expression of who He is. His Word is in complete accord with reality; His Word and deed are one. For Him to speak His Word is for it to be done, even though it may take centuries to be made manifest in history. He knows the end from the beginning; therefore, there is no contingency that could arise that would not have been taken into consideration and worked into His purpose.

  “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”

  Isaiah 55:11

  Blessed be the LORD, who has given rest to His people Israel, according to all that He promised. There has not failed one word of all His good promise, which He promised through His servant Moses.

  1 Kings 8:56

  O LORD, You are my God. I will exalt You, I will praise Your name, for You have done wonderful things; Your counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.

  Isaiah 25:1

  The covenant faithfulness and lovingkindness meet in Him. He is the faithfulness and lovingkindness of God walking among us in flesh. He does not have the truth; He is the truth:

  Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

  John 14:6

  Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war.

  Revelation 19:11

  Therefore, in all things He had t
o be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

  Hebrews 2:17

  The Nature of Faith