When you repent and enter a blood covenant with Jesus Christ, you are simultaneously breaking one covenant and entering another. You may not be aware of being in a blood covenant, but you are. Everyone is, because we are all born into a blood covenant. A major principle of blood covenant is revealed when God tells Abraham His intention to make a covenant with Him.

“I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting [never ending] covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. (Genesis 17:7)

 Thus, blood covenants are eternal. The covenant we were in at birth was not a covenant with Jesus Christ, but a covenant with Satan. It is a covenant of rebellion and sin. We are in this covenant from before birth. David said, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.” (Psalms 51:5) Since one of the characteristics of a blood covenant is that it is extended to the descendants of the covenanting parties Adam’s sinful covenant with Satan extends to all of his descendants from that day to the present and will do so forever. This how the descendants of Adam (that means all of us) are born into his covenant of sin and death with Satan. Paul explains this in the following passage.

 12 Therefore, just as through one man [Adam] sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned–

[Please understand that we are not sinners because we sin, rather, we sin because we are sinners from the start. We are conceived with a sinful nature because we are all descendants of Adam’s and as such we inherit his sin nature.]

13 for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. [There is no penalty for sin if there is no law that defines and itemizes sin.]

14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.

15 But the free gift [the ability to break the covenant of sin and death and  become free to join a new covenant of life in Christ Jesus] is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.

16 The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification.

17 For if by the transgression of the one [Adam], death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

18 So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.

19 For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:12-19)

Paul is speaking of blood covenant in this passage. What he is saying is that when Adam sinned, he entered into a covenant with the master of sin, Satan. And because the covenant is carried on to the descendants of the one who made it, all of the descendants of Adam, that is all of us, have been and continue to be born into that covenant. The same thing is seen in the covenant God made with Abraham. All of Abraham’s descendants were born into the covenant God made with him.

Spiritual Descendants

Let us step aside for a moment and consider that since the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, all people have the opportunity to enter into the Abrahamic covenant. Not as physical but spiritual  descendants, descendants. Consider the following verses.

For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith. (Romans 4:13)

6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel;

7 nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but: “Through Isasc your descendants will be named.”

8 That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise [on the basis of faith] are regarded as descendants. (Romans 9:6-8)

And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise. (Galatians 3:29)

We have established that death is the way into covenant with Jesus. Death is also the way out of a covenant. Paul explains in the next passage using marriage as an analogy.

1 Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law ), that the law [we have previously established that law and covenant are the same, see A God Kind Of Love, Posted on June 14, 2012] has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives? [Therefore, covenant has jurisdiction over a person as long as he or she lives.]

2 For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband.

[Death releases a person from a covenant.]

3 So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law [the covenant], so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man.

4 Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.

5 For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.

6 But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter. (Romans 7:1-6)

Death is required to enter a covenant and it is the way to break an existing covenant. The writer of Hebrews confirmed the necessity of death.

16 For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it.

17 For a covenant is valid only when men are dead, for it is never in force while the one who made it lives. (Hebrews 9:16-17)

The way out of the covenant we are born into, as well as the way into the new covenant with Jesus Christ is to die. To return to the Lord with all your heart and all your soul. If you try to join the covenant with Jesus while you are still alive to the covenant with Satan, you will be considered to be an adulteress/adulterer. The reverse is also true. You will be considered to be an adulteress (or adulterer) if you attempt to rejoin your old covenant with Satan after dying to that covenant and entering covenant with Jesus Christ. No wonder Paul would emphatically declare:

1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?

2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? (Romans 6:1-2)

When we crucify the covenant of sin, we are free to enter the covenant with Christ and become alive in the covenant of righteousness. Paul said it this way:

16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience [you have died to self and only live to obey your master], you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?

17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed,

18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. (Romans 6:16-18)

This passage can only be understood in a covenant framework. When we willingly present ourselves to someone for obedience, we are making ourselves their bond slaves, i.e., we are binding ourselves to that person by means of a covenant relationship. We tend to obey someone with whom we are in agreement. Therefore, we come into covenant relationship with someone when we willingly enter into agreement with them. This is what was happening when Adam and Eve entered into agreement with Satan. As you can see, agreement is much more powerful a thing than you may have imagined.

The next article, Unless You Repent, discusses the absolute necessity for repentance to be set free from the covenant into which you were born and its sentence of death.

May you be showered with the blessings of the New Covanant,

Peter Giardina