THE POWER OF THE BLOOD COVENANT
Uncover the Secret Strength in God's Eternal Oath
MALCOLM SMITH
HARRISON HOUSE
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from The New King James Version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Scripture quotations marked (KJV) are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scripture quotations marked (AMP) are taken from The Amplified Bible, Old Testament copyright © 1965, 1987 by The Zondervan Corporation. The Amplified New Testament, copyright © 1958, 1987 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Scripture quotations marked (RSV) are taken from The Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, Old Testament section copyright © 1952 by the Division of Christian Education of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America and is used by permission.
Scripture quotations marked (NASB) are taken from the New American Standard Bible. Copyright © the Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977. Used by permission.
Scripture quotations marked (MESSAGE>) are taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
Scripture quotations marked (PHILLIPS) are taken from The New Testament in Modern English, (Rev. Ed.) by J.B. Phillips. Copyright © 1958, 1960, 1972 by J.B. Phillips. Reprinted by permission of Macmillan Publishing Co., New York, New York.
The Power of the Blood Covenant — Uncover the Secret Strength in God's Eternal Oath
ISBN 13: 978-1-60683-272-1
Copyright © 2002 by Malcolm Smith
7986 Mainland Drive
San Antonio, TX 78350
www.malcolmsmith.org
Published by Harrison House, Inc.
P.O. Box 35035
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74153
Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved under International Copyright Law. Contents and/or cover may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any form without the express written consent of the Publisher.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 What Is Missing?
Chapter 2 Welcome to the World of Covenants
Chapter 3 The World of the Living Dead
Chapter 4 The Lovingkindness of God
Chapter 5 The Core of the Covenant
Chapter 6 The Representative Man
Chapter 7 The Story of Mephibosheth
Chapter 8 The Blood of God
Chapter 9 The Oath of God
Chapter 10 Entering the Covenant
Chapter 11 The Covenant Meal
Chapter 12 Sin Is Remembered No More
Chapter 13 I in You,You in Me
Chapter 14 The Summation of the Christian Life
Chapter 15 How To Walk in the Spirit
Chapter 16 The People of the Spirit
Chapter 17 The Friend of God
Afterword
Endnotes
Prayer of Salvation
About the Author
Chapter 1: What Is Missing?
Before they actually saw it, astronomers were aware that the planet we now know as Pluto was in the solar system because of the gravitational influence it exerted on other planets. My journey into the contents of this book was much the same.
As I read through Scripture and studied its characters, I became aware that they knew something that I did not know. That “something” exerted a tremendous influence over the way they understood God and His salvation. The bold faith they exercised with authority was in response to that “something.”
As I studied the Psalms and the prayers of the men and women of God recorded in the Scripture, I became aware that their praying and worshipping was in response to a revelation that they had of that “something.” It became obvious to me that whatever it was, was the foundation upon which the people of God built their lives. That “something” was the secret of their life and walk with God and the basis of their exploits done in His name.
It showed up the most in the New Testament, where again I was aware that the believers were responding to something that I did not know was there. They seemed to look at salvation through a different lens than the one I was using.
I had been reared to see my salvation through the model of a courtroom where I was the condemned prisoner under the sentence of death, and the Judge took my place and paid my penalty, and I was justified, declared righteous. That was a quite useful model, but it lacked something I could not put my finger on.
A few weeks after my accepting Christ, I had an experience of the Holy Spirit that dramatically changed my life; but as I read and reread the pages of the New Testament, I realized that the Spirit was the writer’s very life. This very Spirit was the way they defined and understood their salvation. They knew Him not merely as an ecstatic experience but as the entire context of their lives.
It was obvious that they did not have a second or third experience that catapulted them into this dimension of life. There was “something” they knew by which they interpreted the cross, the blood-shedding of Jesus, His resurrection, His ascension, and the giving of the Holy Spirit that I knew nothing about. That same “something” gave the definition to the work of the Spirit in their individual lives and in the community of believers that was light-years beyond my experience of the Spirit.
The Covenant Core
I discovered that the “something” I did not know about was the covenant God had made with His people. It is difficult for me now to remember how I looked at the Scripture before I came to see and understand the covenant. I certainly did not see that everything was working out from the hidden core of the covenant. I had a belief system that was incoherent; each part stood by itself as an island in a sea called Christianity, no part having any real relation to the other parts. I believed God created the universe, but I did not see how that related to our salvation. Salvation was the act of God’s love, but it just happened without any connection to certain commitments He had made. My experience of the Spirit was a glorious add-on to being saved from sin; I did not see it as vitally part of everything else.
It all lacked the “something” to tie it all together. The promises of God were the Word of God and utterly reliable, but again hung in their own space with no relationship to a commitment in blood that God had made.
Faith was a mystery to me. I pondered the authority with which the heroes of Scripture spoke, and I wondered whence came the authority for them to speak such wonders and for God to honor their words. I did not realize they were speaking out from a prior commitment God had made to them.
Prayer fell into the same category: What did it mean to pray in the name of Jesus? It seemed limiting and liberating at the same time. I did not know that His name was at the heart of the covenant. Even the praise, thanksgiving, and worship in the Psalms were thanking Him for “something,” which I did not realize was His covenant and loyal covenant love.
The discovery of the new covenant made in the blood of God, shed from the wounds of the Lord Jesus, gave to me a new Bible. My vague sea of Christianity gave way to solid land, and the islands of truth and experience came together as a whole. I was introduced to a rest in Christ and an understanding of the place of the Spirit in my personal life and of the church that I had never known prior to my discovering the covenant.
A Gospel Without Power
The tragedy is that a vast majority of believers entering the twenty-first century are blind to the fact that the
Gospel announces and empowers them to be included into such a relationship with God. Not realizing such a breathtaking calling, they settle for the weekly round of church services, attempts at prayer and Bible study, and the keeping of rules that deal for the most part with the physical life.
I am not mechanically minded. In fact, I could be described as illiterate in things mechanical. In my late teens, I was the pastor of a small church in a farming community in Northern Ireland. I visited my congregation at their farms on my bicycle; and to make my task of visiting the flock easier, one of the farmers gave me a small motorbike that had belonged to one of his sons. I had never owned or dreamed of owning such a machine and took to it with fear and awe. No one told me how it worked or what I had to do to make it work, and no instruction book came with the old bike.
I dressed the part with helmet and riding gear and set out savoring the new experience of being taken to my destination. Gone were the days of pedaling myself to exhaustion against a headwind.
The second day out, though, the bike sputtered and died. I sat sad and confused without a clue as to what might be wrong. I began pushing the machine along the road. I sweated under my heavy gear and longed for the old days of a predictable bicycle. I trudged mile after mile under the sun. I was tempted to trash the wretched machine in the ditch but did not want to offend the farmer who had given it to me.
My thoughts of disgust at my gift and despair that so soon it was broken beyond repair were interrupted by the voice of a friendly farmer. He had seen me dragging my load along the road and called out, “You can have some of my gas, son!” I stopped in delighted wonder: My bike was not broken, but out of gas!
I have met many Christians who push their lives along the highway, about to throw it into the ditch because, although they have the outward trappings of a Christian, they do not know the powerful energy that is the heart of the believer’s life. They are pushing themselves to exhaustion, when they should be propelled by the energy of Another.
What is the Gospel? If what we believe to be the Gospel is not the power of God unto salvation, then we need to ask if we understand it at all.
What is biblical faith? For many, it is the religious version of the faith spoken of by the writers of self-help books.
How do we stop being terrified of God and begin to truly love Him? Is it possible to be His friend as well as being His servant?
What is true holiness? It surely must be more than keeping a list of external rules.
What did Jesus mean by the phrase “I in you and you in Me?” It sounds like a lot more than going to church twice a week!
How do we overcome temptation? Is it a matter of strong willpower and determination?
How is it possible to love unlovable people? How can we love one another as Jesus loved us? How can we forgive the unforgivable?
Tragically, there are millions of believers who are as educated in the answers to those questions as I was in how the motorbike works.
Let me share a letter with you that I received the other day:
Dear Malcolm,
You do not know who I am, and I have never met you, but a friend of mine told me he has been greatly helped by your teaching and he gave me your address and urged me to write. I trust you will read this letter and give me some answers.
I am writing to you because my Christian life is a disaster and I have nowhere to turn. I am in a position of leadership in my church, and if I shared with the pastor or any of the deacons the way my life is, I do not know what would happen. I know I would no longer be welcome in the church. I pray that you will read this and be able to help me.
Let me say upfront that if you saw me in the context of the church, in the weekly meetings, in social gatherings with other church members, or teaching my adult Sunday school class, you would never imagine that I am not the person you see.
I did not set out to be a hypocrite. From the very first, I gave my very best to live for Jesus. I have disciplined myself to pray every day and read and even memorize the Scripture. I honestly set out every week to live for Jesus. But I fail every time. The life that my family and the people I work with see is very different from the one that is portrayed before the church. I have a terrible temper that I cannot control, however much I try. I wrestle every day with lustful thoughts, and when I am out of town on business I watch pornographic movies in the hotel room. I have a brother I have not spoken to in twenty years and cannot bring myself to forgive because of a betrayal of confidence that deeply hurt me. If Christianity is loving as Jesus loved, then count me out.
But above all, I do not love God; I do not find joy in my prayer or Bible reading—it is something I do because I have been told that it will nurture my Christian life. But my heart is not in keeping His commands and being with Him; in fact, there are times I have to admit that I envy the world—they look a lot happier than I ever feel.
Maybe I have continued to live this way for the last ten years because in the church I can get by with a veneer that satisfies my peers and leaders. You know what I mean by veneer—the rules of the subculture we evangelicals are part of. I went over them the other day. We are the people who do not do certain things; we do not go to certain places; we do not smoke or drink liquor, nor do we dress like the world, especially our poor women! As long as I keep those rules, everyone thinks I am a great Christian.
But in the last weeks I have faced myself and realized that the Bible primarily addresses my thoughts, motives, and relationships, not so much the lists that I spend my life trying to keep that have been given by the church. Above all, it commands me to love God and delight in Him, to obey His commands out of love for Him.
I miserably fail. Malcolm, the truth is I do not love God. It would be more correct to say that I am afraid of Him, and go to church and pray because I am afraid if I do not, I will go to hell. I look around at the others in my church, even my friends, and wonder if they are living in the same craziness that I am—and why not? They do not know what I am really like. Do they scream at their kids and sneak pornography when no one is watching? Do they go through all the words and motions on Sunday while their hearts are untouched and without love for God? Is their religious life like mine, just a millimeter-thick mask over the real person underneath?
There have been times when I think that I have had an experience of God. At special meetings when hands have been laid on me, I have felt a warm glow inside, the flickering of a joy that has lasted for a couple of weeks, and I have wondered if that is how real Christians feel all the time. At times I have heard a message that lays out a formula for living as a victorious Christian, and I have tried it, but it feels artificial when I try to live it out with the guys in the office. All my spurts of hope that I can live this life are dead ends and leave me in greater despair than before.
In the last weeks, I have looked at myself and evaluated what my life is really like. It has left me in utter despair. This letter is my last attempt to ask someone I can trust if the Christian life can be lived by ordinary people like my friends and me. Tell me honestly, Malcolm, is it for a few unusual people who do not have the desires that we have, who really do hate the world and love God? And if it is for everyone, then is there something I have missed, is there a level of dedication or an experience I need to have that will finally get me into living the Christian life? Or is my life as I have tried to describe it to you as good as it gets?
If my experience of Christianity is as good as it gets, then I will quietly walk away from it all. I can no longer live a life that is so incredibly shallow and meaningless. Please be honest with me, Malcolm—if you tell me that this is the way Christianity really works out in practice, I will not tell anyone you said so; I will burn your letter and drop out. There is a Bible study and prayer meeting at the church tonight, and I do not want to go; in fact, I have no interest in being there. If I go, it is because I do not want to go through the hassle of being asked by the pastor why I was not there or of having my friends think I am back
sliding. But I think I will stay home because I am sick of this game. Please answer me and be honest with me, whatever the answer is.
Thank you, Bob
I receive many letters that reflect the same despair that Bob describes. Tragically, he is correct in assuming that many of his friends who sing hymns beside him in church live in the same hopeless confusion he is in. They are hiding behind a mask of Christian activity, going through the motions and keeping the surface rules that give the appearance of loving God. A life of loving God and honestly and joyfully wanting to do His will from the heart is a mirage in the spiritual desert wilderness in which they live.
Many in despair have given up all hope of living the kind of Christian life they see reflected in the New Testament. Why is this? Most of these people are as sincere as Bob in giving their best and trying to do what they believe God demands of them. As best they know how, they believe the Gospel. So why are their lives so shallow and empty?
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