EPHESIANS: Blood Covenant

EPHESIANS Number 26:
Blood Covenant

Ephesians 2:13 continues with the good news about our current state. It says, “But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.” (KJV 1900)

Everything in the Hebrew scriptures of the Old Testament points to this. All of it is designed to communicate about the Lord Jesus Christ. The covenants established in the Hebrew scriptures all required blood. This new covenant is no different. Life is on the line. In the old covenant it was the lives of the Hebrew people. That’s why Paul, in 1 Corinthians 3:7 and following, calls the old covenant law and the Ten Commandments in particular, the ministry of death and condemnation. The hopelessness of the universal law that sin begets death was illustrated in cold unbending stone enumerating laws no one could possibly keep.

Likewise, the new covenant required blood. It was a blood oath, so to speak, between God the Father and God the Son. The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ was the guarantee placing God’s Life on the line for any violation of the covenant. That means that unless God dies, this covenant cannot fail. Unless God dies, no one who is in Christ can die. As we saw in an earlier part of our study, God has made us Alive with a capital “A.”

Consequently, the new covenant completely replaced the old covenant as we read in Hebrews 10:9, “Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.”

Because the Lord Jesus fulfilled the law, no further sacrifice is needed and no further sacrifice is possible. Hebrews 10:10 puts it this way, “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (KJV 1900)

That this covenant is for the Hebrew people is very clear from everything we’ve read. But it is also for us. We can be certain if this because there is no longer any offering for sin beyond what the Lord Christ has done. Hebrews 10:14–18 lays it out for us, saying, “For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.” (KJV 1900)

Isaiah 43:25 says, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, And will not remember thy sins.” (KJV 1900) This blotting out of our sins is a complete cleansing of all unrighteousness, as 1 John 1:9 famously points out. Those who have been cleansed of all unrighteousness are left in the only state possible. They are righteous.

This all gets back to what we spoke of some time ago when I referenced Numbers 5:1–3 which says, “And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Command the children of Israel, that they put out of the camp every leper, and every one that hath an issue, and whosoever is defiled by the dead: Both male and female shall ye put out, without the camp shall ye put them; that they defile not their camps, in the midst whereof I dwell.” (KJV 1900)

We see this idea echoed in our former state of alienation and separation, (Ephesians 2:11-12) but God who is rich in mercy, though we were far off, unclean, and outside the gate cleansed us so that we could come near, (Ephesians 2:13) inside the gate where God lives.

In Acts, God told Peter, “What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.” Acts 10:15b (KJV 1900) The word “common” here translates a word that means impure or ritually unclean.

By the work of Christ Jesus, we have been made clean, pure, and righteous without compromise. Just like Peter, we are not to call what God has made clean impure or unholy. We are saints, not sinners. We are without blemish and beyond reproach. Let’s see ourselves this way and not belittle the work of Christ on our behalf by denying the reality of what He has done in and for us.