This is a favorite topic for me. I'll throw this out for now and be back to expand on it later.

The Covenant of Blood

The covenant of blood, recorded by all ancient civilizations, is the most powerful and serious form of agreement ever established. It is this form of agreement that God used to reveal His love to His people.


I. Terms of the Blood Covenant
A. Families spent time together to determine the terms of the covenant
B. The covenant was based on strengths and weaknesses, not on common traits
C. A family that was weak in one area would bind themselves to another family that excelled in that particular area.

II. Covenant Site
A. A covenant representative was selected from each family
B. At the covenant site, in full view of both families, an animal was killed. The animal was split down the center (down the spine), and both halves were laid opposite each other, creating a walkway between them saturated with blood (Gen. 15:9,10).

III. Covenant Ceremony Begins
A. The covenant representatives exchanged coats as a symbol of the agreement between them.
1. The coats represented their tribes identity and authority. By giving each other their coats, they were saying “All That I do, all that I am. And all that I have now is yours.”
B. Next, they exchanged weapon belts containing their swords, shields, etc., saying “My strength is now your strength. Your enemies are now my enemies.”

IV. The Walk of Blood
A. Each representative paced twice through the blood-soaked path between the halves of the slain animal.
B. On each pass, they stopped and, standing in the midst of the blood, made promises to each other that could never be broken - the “blessings of the covenant.”
C. They swore, with God as their witness, that just as this animal had given its life, so they also would be willing to die to protect each other.
D. Then the covenant representatives cut their hands and wrists so that the blood would easily flow.
1. They bound their wrist together, allowing the blood to intermingle.
2. They swore by their God, raising their hands so that both families could see the blood and know that the covenant had been cut. God had now become a witness and a third party to the covenant.
E. Finally, the covenant meal was shared. The elders of each family fed each other bread and wine saying, “This signifies my body and my blood. I’ll die before I let anything happen to you. I am offering you my very life.”
F. A relationship had been born. A bond had been made signifying covenant love and fidelity. In Hebrew it’s called “Hesed”, in Greek “Agape.” It is the love that says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

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Our nation has not always lived up to its ideals, yet those ideals have never ceased to guide us. They expose our flaws, and lead us to mend them. We are the beneficiaries of the work of the generations before us and it is each generation's responsibility to continue that work. - Laura Bush

God is a conservative -

Ecclesiastes 10:2--"A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left."

Wait my wife is in to vampire books. I'll get her.

God has always based His realtionship with man on covenants. From His first covenant in the Garden to the everlasting covenant He has promised us through eternity, God's relationship with us has always been one of covenant. God has always been faithful to His covenants, while we have been the unfaithful ones. He has also changed His covenants as our needs changed. As one is fullfilled, He is faithful to establish another. As the needs one addressed pass away, He is faithful to establish new covenants to cover our new needs. But, they always reflect the heart of the Father ad His love towards us.

Covenants were the most sacred of agreements, passing even that between husband and wife. In many cultures the worst thing you could ever do was to break a covenant. The term "covenant-breaker" is a curse in many languages. In some cultures, breaking a covenant meant a death-sentence for the one breaking the covenant.

Common threads among most covenanting ceremonies include an exchange of symbols of authority, the sharing of a meal and the part that most tightly sealed the covenant - the sharing of blood. You see, blood equals life and when you share your blood, you are saying that you are sharing your life with another. Most often, covenants were cut the blood of the persons entering the covenant, but in some cases the blood was that of a prized animal.

Covenants were never entered into lightly, because to enter a covenant meant a commitment that you would die before breaking. Some covenants were established for set periods of time, some for the life of the people entering the covenant and some were for all time.

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Our nation has not always lived up to its ideals, yet those ideals have never ceased to guide us. They expose our flaws, and lead us to mend them. We are the beneficiaries of the work of the generations before us and it is each generation's responsibility to continue that work. - Laura Bush

God is a conservative -

Ecclesiastes 10:2--"A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left."

faithful servant, thank you for this thread.
It made me think about some things.
One is the sacrament of communion, or the Lord's Supper.

Rather than a pompous ceremony, I am now considering it as the reminder of that serious covenant of blood talked about in Heb 9:15.

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Consumption is indeed important in a free economy: particularly the freedom of consumers to buy their goods in unhampered markets. However, key to long-term economic growth is investment (savings), which is the opposite of consumption. Public policies that promote consumption — such as low interest rates — do so at the expense of savings. Less savings means less investments; an economy that does not save or invest will consume all of its resources and eventually end up bankrupt.-David Saied

Whew! That's a lot to ask of our throw away culture today, isn't it?

You're jumping ahead of me!! Take a look at John 6:51-57 and see if this passage takes on some new meaning.

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Our nation has not always lived up to its ideals, yet those ideals have never ceased to guide us. They expose our flaws, and lead us to mend them. We are the beneficiaries of the work of the generations before us and it is each generation's responsibility to continue that work. - Laura Bush

God is a conservative -

Ecclesiastes 10:2--"A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left."

Our covenants with God have always been based on our needs and His. Yes, God has needs, His very nature demands that He have someone to love. Without someone to love, existence is pretty pointless and since God is love, His nature demands that He have someone to love.
I Kings 10:9
Mark 12:30
Ephesians 2:4
I John 2:5

Before entering into a covenant, the parties would spend time together discussing the terms of the covenant. God has already knows what we need from Him, but have we honestly gone to God asked Him what He needs from us? Have we spent real time getting to know Him through prayer and His Word? You MUST know Him in order to understand what He asks of us and the only way to truly know someone is to spend time with them and study what they think/believe. We also have to honestly look at ourselves to see where we are weak. Without this self-examination and willingness to submit to God's examination of our heart, we never see any need in our lives fo rGod to fill.
Psalm 119:147
Psalm 26:2
Proverbs 3:5-8
Proverbs 8

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Our nation has not always lived up to its ideals, yet those ideals have never ceased to guide us. They expose our flaws, and lead us to mend them. We are the beneficiaries of the work of the generations before us and it is each generation's responsibility to continue that work. - Laura Bush

God is a conservative -

Ecclesiastes 10:2--"A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left."

It's one of the greatest shortcomings of modern society - the idea that your word is only good as long as it's beneficial to you. "Once your promise becomes a burden to you, you are justified in breaking it" has become the order of the day.

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Our nation has not always lived up to its ideals, yet those ideals have never ceased to guide us. They expose our flaws, and lead us to mend them. We are the beneficiaries of the work of the generations before us and it is each generation's responsibility to continue that work. - Laura Bush

God is a conservative -

Ecclesiastes 10:2--"A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left."

Sorry

In John 51 it states: I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

Wesley doesn't think this has anything but a remote connection with the Lord's
Supper. ??

Barnes notes: The same word which in Hebrew means “bread,” in the Syriac and Arabic means also “flesh.”
So it's not that far of a stretch to see the representation.

And it refers to --John 6: 33--For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.
Christ gave his body (in union with his deity?) as a free will sacrifice for sin to procure eternal life for his elect the world over (whether or not they be Jews or Gentiles).
In other words me.

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Consumption is indeed important in a free economy: particularly the freedom of consumers to buy their goods in unhampered markets. However, key to long-term economic growth is investment (savings), which is the opposite of consumption. Public policies that promote consumption — such as low interest rates — do so at the expense of savings. Less savings means less investments; an economy that does not save or invest will consume all of its resources and eventually end up bankrupt.-David Saied

In the covenant ceremony, each party would feed the other from thier own plate. It was a symbol of a giving of life and a symbol of the person's flesh. The cermony was finalized by the parties giving each other bread and wine and stating "this is my flesh,..., this is my blood..." The parallel between what Jesus was saying and the covenant cermony is unmistakeable. Also, look at what the response was from the Jews. They were astounded that Jesus would enter into a covenant with them, it confused them. The idea of a sacrifice for sin wouldn't have confused them, it was a common occurance at the time. But to tell people that they had to be in covenant with Jesus in order to have a place in Heaven was completely outside of their realm of thinking.

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Our nation has not always lived up to its ideals, yet those ideals have never ceased to guide us. They expose our flaws, and lead us to mend them. We are the beneficiaries of the work of the generations before us and it is each generation's responsibility to continue that work. - Laura Bush

God is a conservative -

Ecclesiastes 10:2--"A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left."