What is the blood of the covenant, and what it is its importance and application to our Christian life? All believers know that the Lord Jesus shed His blood for us on the cross, and all genuine Christians appreciate and treasure the precious blood of Christ.
But what about “the blood of the covenant”? When Moses enacted the law as a covenant between God and His people in Exo. 24 he sprinkled the blood of the covenant; when the Lord Jesus blessed the cup at His last supper with His disciples, He said, This is My blood of the covenant, which is being poured out for many (Mark 14:24).
The blood of the covenant is the Lord’s precious blood, and this blood has enacted the new covenant, in which the main point is that God is our portion of enjoyment.
Through the blood of Jesus Christ, the blood of the covenant, we can come forward to God to enjoy God and partake of all the bequests of the covenant, including the operation of the law of life in us to impart God into our being, the privilege of inwardly knowing God and of being His people, and being brought into God’s presence to enjoy God, be infused with God, and become God’s expression.
May the Lord remove any veils from our eyes and give us a fresh appreciation of the blood of the covenant which brings us into the full enjoyment of God and all that God is to us!
May any old concepts, religious opinions, and traditional doctrines be removed from us by the Lord’s shining and penetrating light, so that we may clearly see and appreciate the blood of the covenant as the Lord sees it, so that we may enter into the full enjoyment of God and of the new covenant!
The Blood of the Covenant Ushers us into the Enjoyment of God as our Portion
The blood of the covenant is not merely for our redemption; primarily, this blood is for God to be our portion for our enjoyment. When we love the Lord, we employ the blood of the covenant, and this blood ushers us into Christ as the deep things of God which are predestinated by God to be our portion for our enjoyment (see Psa. 27:4; 1 Cor. 2:9; Heb. 10:19-20).
Through the blood of the covenant we have God Himself, the divine life, the divine nature, the inward law of life, and the ability to know God (see Jer. 31:33-34). The Lord’s precious blood, the blood of the covenant, brings us into God’s presence for us to be infused with God, and it brings us into the eternal enjoyment of God. When we open to the Lord and apply His blood, this blood brings us into a foretaste of the full enjoyment of Christ to come.
The Lord’s precious blood is not only the cleansing and redeeming blood but also the means which brings us into God, into the inward law of life, into the ability to know God inwardly, and into the infusion, transfusion, and enjoyment of God both now and in eternity.
God raised Christ in the blood of an eternal covenant (Heb. 13:20); Christ offered Himself as sacrifice to God through the eternal Spirit, and His blood is of an eternal covenant.
God entered into a covenant with us in which He promised to write His laws into our heart and our mind (He imparts the law of the Spirit of life into us), He will be our God and we will be His people, we will get to know Him personally and inwardly, and our sins will be forgiven and erased; all these bequests are ours today through the blood of the covenant.
What Adam has lost through the fall we now enjoy and partake of through the blood of the covenant, and whenever we drink the cup at the Lord’s table every Lord’s day we need to have the deep realization that this is the cup of blessing, a portion given to us in which we have God and all that God has planned and willed for us!
The blood of the covenant ushers us as God’s people into the better things of the new covenant, in which God gives us a new heart, a new spirit, His Spirit, the inner law of life (denoting God Himself with His nature, life, attributes, and virtues), and the ability of life to know God (see Jer. 31:33-34; Ezek. 36:26-27; Heb. 8:10-12).
Because of the blood of the covenant, God gives us a new heart and a new spirit, and He causes us to walk in His statuses. Because of the blood of the covenant, we will become perfect even as our heavenly Father is perfect (Matt. 5:48), because the law of life within will cause us to walk in a holy way spontaneously, automatically, unconsciously, and effortlessly.
In Matt. 26:28 the Lord took the cup and said, This is My blood of the covenant, which is being poured out for many for forgiveness of sins. Later Paul calls this cup “the cup of blessing” (1 Cor. 10:16). Christ drank the cup of God’s wrath on the cross, and His blood became the cup of God’s blessing through which we enjoy God as our portion for our enjoyment. Hallelujah!
Thank You Lord for the blood of the covenant which brings us into the better things of the new covenant, in which God gives us a new heart, a new spirit, His Spirit, the inner law of life, and the ability of life to know God. Lord, thank You for this cup of blessing which we receive and enjoy! By Your blood we now can enjoy God as our portion, and all that God has planned and willed we secure in this cup of blessing! Hallelujah, God is now our portion for our enjoyment! Lord, thank You for Your precious blood, the blood of the covenant!
The Blood of the Covenant Enables us to Serve God and Leads us into the Eternal Enjoyment of God
Yes, the blood of Jesus, the Son of God, cleanses us from our sins, reconciles us to God, redeems us back to God, and washes us whenever we confess our sins under the Lord’s shining; but even more important than this, the blood of Christ – the blood of the covenant – brings us into the enjoyment of God as our portion today and for eternity.
Today we can be brought back to the enjoyment of God – our rightful portion as human beings created in God’s image to express Him and represent Him – through the blood of the covenant; this enjoyment, however, wonderful it is, is only a foretaste.
The full taste and enjoyment of God will be in eternity, when we as those who have washed our robes and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb are before the throne of God, in the temple of God, and are brought to the springs of waters of life and to the tree of life to eat (Rev. 7:14, 17).
Ultimately, the blood of the new covenant, the eternal covenant (Heb. 13:20), leads us as God’s people into the full enjoyment of God as our portion (as the tree of life and the water of life) both now and for eternity! The blood of the covenant enables us to serve God in His temple (Heb. 9:14) and leads us into the full enjoyment of God both in the present age and for eternity.
Today we need to have the boldness to wash our robes in the blood of the Lamb and exercise our right to eat the tree of life, and for eternity we will do the same thing but on in a larger measure corporately: we will forever eat God as the tree of life and drink God as the water of life based on the blood of the eternal covenant, so that we may be God’s corporate expression in the universe! Hallelujah!
May we be those who today exercise our right to eat the tree of life by applying the blood of the covenant and enjoying God as our life. May we be led by the Lamb to springs of life and have our tears wiped away as we have our robes washed in the blood of the Lamb to make them white!
Lord Jesus, we wash our robes in the blood of the Lamb and we exercise our right to eat of the tree of life and enter by the gates into the city of the New Jerusalem! Hallelujah, God is now our portion of enjoyment through the blood of the covenant. Lord, thank You for Your blood which bring us into the full enjoyment of God as our portion both now and forever. We apply Your blood, we come to You as the tree of life, we are led by You to springs of water of life, and we take You in as our portion today!
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. 930-934 (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:
# In this portion we have God, / Whom we lost thru Adam’s fall; / By the shedding of Thy blood, / God becomes our all in all. / In this portion all we have- / Life and peace, redemption sure; / All that God has planned and willed, / In this portion we secure. (Hymns #223)
# Redeemer! Savior! King! / Of Thy dear blood we sing, / For in it now we see / Thy mercy, boundless, free. / This cup, our portion blessed of God, / Is of the cov’nant in Thy blood— / Dear, precious, precious, priceless blood! (Hymns #1109)
# The portion is the cup divine, / Composed of Jesus’ blood; / This cup of blessing we receive / And gain what is of God. (Hymns #220)
About aGodMan
In Revelation 7 those who have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” are before the throne of God, in the temple of God, and are brought to springs of waters of life [vv. 14, 17]. Furthermore, Revelation 22:14 says, “Blessed are those who wash their robes that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter by the gates into the city.” Here we see that through the washing of the blood, we have the right to come to the tree of life and enter into the city, New Jerusalem. The tree of life and the city are the ultimate aspects of God as our portion. If we view the Bible as a whole, we shall see that the blood of the covenant brings us into the full enjoyment of God as our portion both now and forever. (Witness Lee, Life-study of Exodus, pp. 932-934)