The Blood Covenant – Paul L. Cox

During the early days of offering generational deliverance through our ministry, I noticed a pattern developing in the prayer sessions. As I asked the Lord to lead each individual to an event in the generational line that may have empowered the issue being dealt with, the person would almost always see a blood or human sacrifice in the family line. This happened so many times that it became apparent there must be something very significant relating to blood and human sacrifices that we did not yet comprehend. While the Old Testament does teach the use of blood sacrifices in fulfilling the law, it does not permit any such sacrifices (and certainly no human sacrifices) to other gods and goddesses. But what is the significance of these sacrifices, and why is scripture so clearly against them? It’s a question I pondered for quite a while.

A breakthrough in my thinking came while on a ministry trip in Austin, Texas. A prophet who was a member of the team told me I needed to read The Blood Covenant, a book taken from a lecture series by H. Clay Trumbull in 1885, and released again in 1998 by Impact Books. After reading the Dr. Trumbull’s material, the Lord gave me a new understanding of the blood covenant.

Interestingly, a few years later, the Lord gave me even more amazing new insights about the blood covenant when a friend of our family invited a man who does live blood analysis to come and check the health of the blood of our family members. He set up his equipment, including a microscope, video camera, and television screen; and I watched as he would take a drop of blood from a person, put it on a slide, place it under the microscope, and project it onto the screen. With interest I listened and observed as he explained what was going on in the blood of each person.

Then it was my turn, and I was amazed as I saw my blood appear on the screen! He made some favorable comments about how young my blood looked, but then said, “Oh, What is this?” That certainly got my attention! My response was somewhere between mild interest and panic as I prepared myself for what he would say next. Then the drop of blood on the screen started moving very rapidly and I asked what was happening. “You are still connected to your blood,” was the response of the technician. With my gift of discernment I felt a spiritual line between my finger where the blood had been taken and the drop of blood on the slide. Sure enough, I was still connected to my blood.

Some time later as I was telling this story to a church in Tulsa, OK, I felt on my finger and realized that I was still connected with that same drop of blood. At that point I cut the connection, and it was as if a light went on in my brain. Of course! When we receive Jesus Christ as our personal savior His blood is appropriated to us and a blood connection is formed between Jesus and us. Blood is important because “life is in the blood!” Therefore, any connection through any other blood is an ungodly connection. Only His perfect death on the cross and the shedding of His innocent blood can establish the blood covenant (connection) necessary to secure our salvation.

Look at these scriptures:

I Corinthians 10:16 – The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?

The New American Standard translates the word communion as sharing. At the moment of salvation we share in His blood.

I Peter 1:1,2 – To the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2 elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ:::

Hebrews 9:11-15 – But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. 12 Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of bulls and goats and he ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, 14 how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God 15 And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

Romans 5:9 – Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

Jesus blood is shed for the remission of our sins and for an establishment of the covenant (connection) with Him. When his blood is sprinkled on us the blood connection is formed.

Let’s review some of the material presented by H. Clay Trumbull in The Blood Covenant. Below is a brief summary of his work:

From the beginning, and everywhere, blood seems to have been looked upon as pre-eminently the representative of life: as, indeed, in a peculiar sense, life itself. The transference of blood from one organism to another has been counted the transference of life, with all that life includes. The inter-commingling of blood by its inter-transference has been understood as equivalent to an inter-commingling of natures. Two natures thus inter-commingled, by the inter-commingling of blood, have been considered as forming, thenceforward, one blood, one life, one nature, one soul-in two organisms. The inter-commingling of natures by the inter-commingling of blood[1] has been deemed possible between man and a lower organism; and between man and a higher organism, -even between man and deity[2], actually or by symbol; as well as between man and his immediate fellow.

The mode of inter-transference of blood, with all that this carries, has been deemed practicable, alike by way of the lips and by way of the opened and interflowing veins. It has been also represented by blood bathing, by blood anointing, and by blood sprinkling; or, again, by the inter-drinking of wine-which formerly commingled with blood itself in the drinking. And the yielding of the blood of a chosen and suitable substitute has often represented the yielding of one’s life by the yielding of one’s blood. Similarly the blood, or the nature, of divinities, has been represented, vicariously, in divine covenanting, by the blood of a devoted and an accepted substitute. Inter-communion between the parties in a blood-covenant, has been a recognized privilege, in conjunction with any and every observance of the rite of blood covenanting. And the body of the divinely accepted offering, the blood of which is a means of divine-human, inter-union, has been counted a very part of the divinity; and to partake of that body as food has been deemed equivalent to being nourished by the very divinity himself.

Blood Covenanting [3] (a form of mutual covenanting, by which two person enter into the closest, the most enduring, and the most sacred of compacts, as friends and brothers, or as more than brothers, through the inter-commingling of their blood, by means of its mutual tasting, or of its inter-transfusion.) has been recognized as the closest, the holiest, and the most indissoluble [4], compact conceivable. Such a covenant clearly involves an absolute surrender of one’s separate self, and an irrevocable merging of one’s individual nature into the dual, or multiplied, personality included in the compact. Man’s highest and noblest outreaching would have, therefore, been for such a union with the divine nature as is typified human covenant of blood. (Page 202-204)

The root idea of the rite of blood friendship seems to include the belief, that the blood is the life of a living being; not merely that the blood is essential to life, but that, in a peculiar sense, it is life; and it actually vivifies by its presence; and that by its passing from one organism to another it carries and imparts life. The inter-commingling of the blood of two organisms is, therefore, according to this view, equivalent to the inter-commingling of the lives. Of the personalities, of the natures, thus brought together so that there is, thereby and thenceforward, one life in the two bodies, a common life between the two friends.

The symbol of the blood covenant was the armlet, the bracelet, and the ring, the tokens of unending covenant. (Page 65)

The offering of one’s blood was often done in the context of worship of other gods (Page 90-91). Man longed for oneness of life with god. Oneness of life could come only through oneness of blood. To secure such oneness of life, man would give of his own blood, or of that substitute blood which could best represent himself. Counting himself in oneness of life with god, through the covenant of blood, man has sought for nourishment and growth through partaking of that good which in a sense was life, because it was the food of god, and because it was the good, which stood for god. In misdirected pursuance of this thought, men have given the blood of a consecrated human victim to bring themselves into union with god; and then they have eaten of the flesh of that victim which had supplied the blood, which made them one with god. (Page 184ff)

There was a common belief that the divinities were fed and nourished by the blood of sacrifices, while the worshipers were brought into communion and union with the divinities through this offering, seems to have prevailed among the Greeks and Romans; and even many of the Christian fathers accepted its truth as applicable to the demons

From as early as 2607 B.C. it was considered the offering of the first-born must be poured out toward god as a means of favor. (Page 150)

It was the widespread popular superstition of the vampire…that transfused blood is re-vivification.

The heart [5] was counted as the blood source and the blood center of the body. It was therefore the heart that was to be dedicated to the gods. [The Mayans]. “The bleeding and quivering heart was held up to the sun, and then thrown into a bowl prepared for its reception. An assistant priest sucked the blood from the gash in the chest, through a hollow cane; the end of which he elevated towards the sun, and then discharged its contents into a plume-bordered cup held by the captor of the prisoner just slain. This cup was carried around to all the idols in the temples and chapels, before whom another blood-filled tube was held up, as if to give them a taste of the contents. (Page 99ff)

The heart as a living organ, as the blood source and blood fountain, has been recognized as the representative of its owner’s highest personality, and as the diffuser of the issues of his life and nature.

[At times a curse was pronounced at the making of the blood covenant]. [An African oath] “If either of you break this brotherhood now established between you, may the lion devour him, the serpent poison him, bitterness be in his blood, his friends desert him, his gun burst in his hands and sound him, and everything that is bad do wrong to him until death.” Page 20

It was important for the Israelites to know that blood covenanting was secured by symbolic sacrifices and not through the ingesting of blood. (Ps. 50:16 – “What right have you to recite my laws or take my covenant on your lips.” [6])

The word of God is clear that one is not to eat blood. Lev. 17:1-12

The word of God also prohibits the cutting of the body over the dead. [7] This was for the purpose of mourning the dead, but may have also been part of a seasonal rite within the Canaanite fertility cult designed to revitalize the god Baal on whom the fertility of the land was believed to depend. [8]

So how does this apply to our lives? It has long been the purpose of the enemy to pervert the eternal redemptive plan of God by manufacturing his own sacrificial system. Because of God’s spiritual laws, participation in the enemy’s counterfeit systems put a person into demonic bondage, and the blood covenants made with the demonic create curses that pass down through the generational lines. These curses must be canceled so that there can be complete freedom in Christ.

The procedure we use for canceling blood covenant curses is:

1.Break, shatter, cut-off, dissolve and destroy all generational blood covenants made with the enemy. It may be necessary to ask the Lord for the specific generation and the specific agreement.

2.Break, shatter, cut-off, dissolve and destroy all offering of the heart to the enemy. Break all ungodly generational ties. Break all curses that have come against the heart.

3.Break, shatter, cut-off, dissolve and destroy all drinking of blood and eating of flesh in the generational line. Ask the Lord to break all curses against the blood.

[1] The clasping of hands in token of covenant is from the custom of joining pierced hands in the covenant of blood friendship.

[2] 2 Peter 1:4

[3] The word for covenant in the Hebrew, bereeth, has the apparent meaning of a thing “cut” as apart from, or as in addition to, its primary meaning of a thing eaten. See John 6:53-58

[4] [Rev. R. M. Luther, missionary in Burma, 1800’s] “I never heard of the blood-covenant being broken. I do not remember to have inquired particularly on this point, because the way in which the blood-covenant was spoken of, always implied that its rupture was an unheard of thing.”

[5] In more than 900 instances in the English Bible, the Hebrew or the Greek word for “heart” as a physical organ is applied to man’s personality; as it were, in a sense, synonymous with his life, his self, his soul, his nature.

[6] See also Exodus 24:1-11 and Lev. 17:3-14

[7] Lev. 19:28, Deut. 14:1

[8] Craigie, Peter. The Book of Deuteronomy. 1976