Do we share kinship with God…

“Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.” (Act 20:28 NASB)

x

Journal,

Among the Semitic people the term covenant carried the idea of ‘kinship’ with the god of the covenant. The god supposedly would adopt the people as his people. This idea carries over in the history of Israel as being the adopted people of the Lord God.

In the new covenant the idea of ‘kinship’ with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob changes. In the new covenant we become ‘blood kin’ of God, through the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus. This sprinkling of the blood is a work of the Holy Spirit. It gives all believers both a spiritual kinship to God, and a blood guarantee of a future resurrected body. This is why Paul said,

“The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are [right now] children of God.” (Rom 8:16)

And why John said,

“Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.” (1Jn 3:2 NASB)

x

Back to the Old Testament idea of covenant.

Among the Semitics, it was the tribal fathers who would make covenant. Cutting a covenant usually included taking a substitute sacrificial animal, splitting it in two, with both parties passing between the pieces. The fathers and their descendants were then considered to be one together. If aggression was made against either covenant partner, it was an aggression against both. If one transgressed the covenant, then what was done to the sacrificial animal was to be done to the transgressor.

Substitutional ‘blood kin’ can be seen in the tabernacle of Moses. Note Hebrews 9:19-22:

“For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the Law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, ‘This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you.’ And in the same way he sprinkled both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with the blood.”

The sprinkling of blood signified oneness with the God of Israel. Thus if anyone touched Israel, they touched the God of Israel. But if Israel transgressed the covenant, then judgment would be had.

x

The idea of adoption.

The people of Israel were not the spiritual children of God. They were adopted children. Until the sin of Adam could be dealt with there could be no spiritual children and most certainly no true blood kinship to God.

Moses calls attention to this:

“The Rock! His work is perfect, for all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is He. They have acted corruptly toward Him, they are not His children, because of their defect; But are a perverse and crooked generation.” (Deu 32:4-5 NASB)

What was their defect? It was the fallen nature of Adam. All of humanity shared in Adam’s fall from the glory that was originally his.

Peter draws from what Moses said in his message on the day of Pentecost:

“‘For the promise [of the new covenant] is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.’ And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, ‘Be saved from this perverse generation!'” (Act 2:39-40 NASB)

And so the sprinkled blood of the sacrificed animal could only be a symbol. When the blood was sprinkled the people ‘came under’ the blood of the covenant. The people themselves were adopted. They were still not by nature God’s own spiritual children. Their nature was unlike His.

x

Paul further explains the issue of adoption.

“Who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory, and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises.” (Romans 9:4)

When Paul speaks of ‘the adoption as sons,’ he precludes any idea of a spiritual birth. No one in the Old Testament could be born of God until the Lamb of God came on the scene.

Peter also calls attention to the blood of the new covenant in saying that our redemption is with ‘precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.’ He also calls attention to the futile way of life that was their inheritance from their fathers. (Speaking of the forms and shadows of the former covenant that could never remove sin or bring the people close to God. Cf. 1Pet1:16-25)

When Peter speaks of a “futile way of life inherited from your fathers,” he is not disparaging the patriarchs of Israel, nor is he drawing attention to the wickedness of their forefathers. He is simply calling attention to the same thing that Moses called attention to. The term ‘futile way of life’ fits every class of the lost family of Adam, and not simply the Jews.

This issue of salvation must never be overlooked.

The Jewish peoples during the time of Christ believed that they could not be lost because of their blood line to Abraham. John the Baptist and Jesus, and all the apostles came against any such notion. This is why John said that God could raise up stones to be children of Abraham.

Here Peter makes an even stronger case for the sprinkled blood of Jesus:

“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ [repentance and faith] and be sprinkled with His blood:

“May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, …

…”to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1Pe 1:1-5 NASB)

x

The whole human race has been contaminated by sin.

We were all of a ‘crooked and perverse’ generation. This came from our father Adam. The bloodline of Abraham was no exception.

But now through Christ Jesus we have the reality of what the Old Testament types could only point to. The blood that Moses sprinkled on the people could only speak of their adoption to God, but it could not remove their sins, nor could it actually make them true spiritual children of God. No animal blood could do that. Only the blood of Jesus could make our kinship a reality.

The apostle Paul puts everything in place when he says that the blood running through the veins of Jesus was literally God’s blood. So when the blood of Jesus is sprinkled on the human spirit, that human being becomes a totally new creature, born of heaven.

This responds to the promise given to Abraham, when the Lord said,

“’Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ And He said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’” (Genesis 15:5)

x

So – Are you kin to God?

Yes, you are kin to God if you have a heavenly birth. This means that you are born of His blood and His Spirit. You are His very child, nature of His nature, blood of His blood, and seed of His seed. It is our ‘blood of the Lamb’ that gives us the promise of a future resurrection of glory. We are marked out as the very children of God. We have a destiny that is beyond anything to be imagined.

Just something to think about.

In the meantime listen to this wonderful song that puts the gospel to music. (By Adrenne Liesching and Geoff Moore – Originally by Stuart Townend and Keith Getty.)

x

In Christ always,

Buddy

Views: 141