HOW TO LIVE FOREVER   PART FOUR

“For this is My blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” (Matthew 26:28)

The blood that Jesus was to shed a few hours after He said those words brought the New Covenant into force. From that time it was possible for human beings to make a new agreement, a new covenant, with God which would ensure that they could live forever.

God’s side of the agreement was that sins would be removed:

"For this is the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My Laws into their mind and write them in their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people....For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more." (Hebrews 8:10,12)

Because Jesus had been sacrificed, human sins could now be removed. Previously sins could be overlooked, but a penalty would still eventually be required for them. Now the penalty was gone forever.

There would still be sin, and therefore there would still be law, because there cannot be sin without law. But now the penalty for breaking the law had already been paid in the slaughter of Jesus. So sin no longer automatically resulted in death.

Satan would have it that Jesus did away with law. That claim is just part of Satan’s agenda and is completely lacking in logic. Because as we just saw in Hebrews: “their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more."

If there are sins for God to not remember, there must also be law. Because as John says: “sin is the transgression of the law.” (1 John 3:4)

Jesus could not do away with law, because law is simply the way for people to treat each other correctly. And to do away with law would be to do away with the character of God, because the character of God is to treat others correctly.

Satan can get away with nonsense claims that the law is done away because he only half-quotes Scripture. Satan says: “For Christ is the end of the law.”

The Scripture actually says: “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness for everyone who believes.” (Romans 10:4)

Christ was the end of the law for righteousness. What was the law for righteousness? It was the law of the Day of Atonement, whereby Israelites were made righteous by their Atonement sacrifice.

Except they weren’t made righteous by their Atonement sacrifice, because that sacrifice was ineffective, and merely looked ahead to the real Atonement Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And when the real Sacrifice had been made, in the death of Jesus Christ, then the law of the Day of Atonement ended. Christ was the end of the law for righteousness. As Hebrews says:

“But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right of God,...Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.” (Hebrews 10:12,18)

What Jesus did away with was not law, but the Day of Atonement, the yearly Israelite enactment of the removal of sin. He did that by becoming the actual and permanent Atonement for sin.

Which fact is Satan’s nightmare. Because Satan infiltrated sin into human life for the very purpose of death. Because Satan desperately wants all people to die. And the only way for people to die, permanently die, is as the penalty for sin. Which penalty Jesus permanently removed.

So God’s side of the New Covenant is to forgive sin. Which, through Jesus, He is now able to do. That is, because Jesus was willing to die, and did die, God was no longer bound by His word that said humans had to die if they sinned. Because human death had been transferred to Jesus Christ, the maker of humans.

What is the human side of the New Covenant? That is, what must a human do in order to make this New Agreement with God?

Those conditions, that is, what humans need to do in order to make the New Covenant with God, were written long before Jesus came to the earth. They are found buried in the far history of the Israelites.

But firstly, we need to understand how God makes an Agreement, a Covenant, with humans.

A covenant can be spoken or written of course, but we are dealing here with the written Covenants between God and humans.

Step one is explaining the Covenant so that the terms are clear. In the case of the Old Covenant, God explained to Moses the terms of the Covenant He was offering to the Israelites and Moses then explained the proposed Covenant to the Israelites:

“And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the sons of Israel. And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which Jehovah commanded him.” (Exodus 19:6-7)

At this point there was no Covenant, there was merely explanation and discussion of the terms of the proposed Covenant.

Next, the Israelites agreed to make the Covenant with God:

“And all the people answered together and said, All that Jehovah has spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people to Jehovah.” (Exodus 19:8)

But the Covenant was still not yet in force. The Covenant had been agreed to, but it had not yet been sealed. In our terms today we would say that it had not yet been signed.

The next, and final, step was to seal, or ratify, the Covenant. This was done by the sprinkling of blood:

“And Moses sent young men of the sons of Israel who offered burnt offerings, and sacrificed peace offerings of bulls to Jehovah. And Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basins, and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. And he took the book of the Covenant, and read in the ears of the people. And they said, All that Jehovah has said we will do, and be obedient. And Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the Covenant, which Jehovah has made with you concerning all these words.” (Exodus 24:5-8)

The Covenant, with the sprinkling of blood, was now in force.  It was now unbreakable. Except the Israelites immediately broke it:

“And the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, and the people gathered themselves to Aaron. And they said to him, Up! Make us gods who shall go before us. For this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” (Exodus 32:1)

The Israelites broke their side of the Old Covenant, but God chose to keep His side of the agreement. He was still willing to make them His priests on earth, making them His connection with all humans.  Except they spurned that opportunity.

So we have seen that the shedding of blood was necessary before the Old Covenant with God could come into force. Why? Why was the shedding of blood necessary?

The shedding of blood to inaugurate the Old Covenant was necessary because the Old Covenant was a shadow of a later Covenant. And it was absolutely necessary that the later Covenant be inaugurated by blood. Because without blood the later Covenant would have no effect. Again, why?

Because life is in the blood. It is the circulation of the blood that gives flesh its life, and without blood, either through its loss or the stopping of its circulation, human life ceases:

“For the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11)

Thus, the shedding of blood is death.  And the shedding of the blood of Jesus accomplished His death. Which death was necessary in order to remove the death hanging over all other humans.

So in the case of Jesus, without shedding His blood there would be no death, and without His death there would be no possibility to make a New Covenant. So the blood of Jesus was necessary to sprinkle, and thus inaugurate, the New Covenant.