God's Blood Covenant

God’s Blood Covenant

“For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” (Leviticus 17 v 11)

The everlasting covenant which God has entered into with man is not just an ordinary covenant or agreement, it is the closest and most sacred form of covenant ever known. It is a blood covenant. God told Moses there is life in the blood.

A blood covenant is a means whereby two persons covenanted to become one as ‘covenant friends’ through being partakers of the same blood.

Blood is a living stream of life. It brings food and oxygen to the other parts of the body. In an average human, the blood circulates twice every minute. There is no part of the body that can live without being in contact with it.

Most adults have five to seven quarts (nine to eleven pints) of blood. Every cubic millimetre of the blood (the size of a pinhead), has in it approximately 5,500,000 living cells. These cells live approximately 110-120 days. To replenish its cells, the body produces almost two million new cells every second. The blood is life itself!

“You shall partake of the blood of no kind of flesh, for the life of all flesh is its blood. Whoever eats of it shall be cut off.” (Leviticus 17 v 14)  

When the children of Israel were delivered out of Egypt, they were instructed to sacrifice a lamb, take the blood and sprinkle it upon the doorposts and the threshold of the house. They were then to go inside the door and remain there until morning. Nothing could harm them hidden behind the blood. Those entering the house were not allowed to step on the threshold because the blood was considered sacred.

When they offered up sacrifices to God, it was not done with a careless disregard for life. The blood represented the life of the sacrificial animal. When the animal was killed, they caught the blood in a basin. Before any animal could be eaten, they were required by law to pour the blood on the earth like water and then ‘cover it with dust.’ (Leviticus 17 v 13)  

Since the blood is life itself, the giving of blood represented the giving of life. The receiving of blood represented the receiving of life. When two people entered into a blood covenant where there blood was commingled, it represented a union.....a commingling of their lives. The blood represented a commitment unto death and ‘sealed’ the covenant. It signified that the covenant would never be broken.