The Marriage Covenant - Part 6

Foundation Stone Four - Life is in the Blood

If you have not kept up with what young people are reading today, the best selling series since Harry Potter is the Twilight Saga. Millions of copies of the Twilight books are being sold, and they are ranked number one in numerous teen categories on Amazon’s website, the world’s largest bookseller.
The Twilight books are focused on a very familiar theme in this hour, vampires. It seems that everywhere one turns today there are books, movies, comics, and television series focused on vampires. Bram Stoker may have planted the seed of this obsession back in 1897 when he published Dracula, but the seed has come to full maturity in this hour. I think it is very telling that the latest book covers and advertisements for this series feature an apple in a woman’s hands.

It should ever be kept in mind that Satan is the ruler of this fallen world. It is not New York’s book industry that chooses the topics that are presented to America, nor Hollywood’s movie and television moguls. It is Satan. Why then the intense focus upon vampirism in this hour? What is Satan up to?
I have for many years pondered the spiritual substance of the laws concerning things mankind might eat, and might not eat. Blood was very much in focus among these laws. Yahweh’s first prohibition against partaking of blood preceded the Law of Moses by more than a thousand years. The following injunction was spoken to Noah soon after the flood.

Genesis 9:3-6
Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as I gave the green plant. Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man's brother I will require the life of man.  Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man.

From the very moment that Yahweh gave man permission to eat meat, He included the prohibition against eating blood. A millennia later, when Yahweh delivered the Law to Moses, He did not neglect to speak once more of the role of blood.

Leviticus 17:10-14
And any man from the house of Israel, or from the aliens who sojourn among them, who eats any blood, I will set My face against that person who eats blood, and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement. Therefore I said to the sons of Israel, 'No person among you may eat blood, nor may any alien who sojourns among you eat blood.' So when any man from the sons of Israel, or from the aliens who sojourn among them, in hunting catches a beast or a bird which may be eaten, he shall pour out its blood and cover it with earth. For as for the life of all flesh, its blood is identified with its life. Therefore I said to the sons of Israel, 'You are not to eat the blood of any flesh, for the life of all flesh is its blood; whoever eats it shall be cut off.'

Yahweh was very precise in these directions. He wanted there to be no misunderstanding. In no way was mankind to partake of the blood of any beast. To this day the orthodox Jews require a Rabbi to be present whenever an animal is slaughtered to insure that the blood is drained from the animal according to the Law of Moses.

Deuteronomy 12:22-25
Just as a gazelle or a deer is eaten, so you shall eat it; the unclean and the clean alike may eat of it. Only be sure not to eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh. You shall not eat it; you shall pour it out on the ground like water. You shall not eat it, in order that it may be well with you and your sons after you, for you will be doing what is right in the sight of Yahweh.

Over and over Yahweh repeats the prohibition against eating blood. The reason is given as “the life is in the blood.” The Hebrew word rendered here as life is the word nephesh. This word is also translated as soul. Yahweh is literally declaring that the soul of an animal is in its blood. The soul of man is also in His blood. This is why we find Yahweh declaring to Cain that the blood of his brother Able was crying out to Him from the ground. Able’s blood had been spilled upon the ground when Cain slew him. The soul is in the blood, therefore the soul of Able was now crying out from the ground.

What drew my attention to this topic some years ago, causing me to delve into it further, was the repetition of this prohibition in the New Testament. There are over 600 laws in the Torah delivered to Moses at Mount Sinai. Yet when the early church met to determine what laws to specifically pass on to the Gentile converts, they gave only four. Out of these four New Testament instructions to the newly founded churches, two of them focus specifically on the issue of eating blood.

Acts 15:19-20
Therefore it is my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles, but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood.

If an animal is killed by strangulation, its blood remains in the meat, therefore such meat was not to be eaten. The church leaders and apostles further added the instruction that the Gentile believers were to abstain from consuming all blood.

We see then that the prohibition against partaking of blood is universal. It is not limited to the Law of Moses. The command to abstain from blood preceded the Law delivered to Moses, and it continues even to this day to those who have died to the Law through the body of Christ.

Romans 7:6
But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound..

Those who are in Christ “have been released from the Law,” but they have not been released from the prohibition against eating blood. The mystery of life being in the blood is so great that the command to abstain from eating it will never be altered.

We live in a very dark hour. We are seeing an ever deepening darkness fall upon the earth. The greatest and most universal prohibitions given to man by God are being scorned. Satan is glorifying that which Yahweh has condemned. He is flooding the world with fantasies of vampires drinking the blood of men, women and children. Many are familiar with such mega-sellers as the Ann Rice vampire novels, the Twilight books and movies, and the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One website on the topic lists over 700 books that contain vampire lore.

What is so important about this subject that Yahweh has forbidden the partaking of blood through all ages down to this present time? Why has Satan spent so much time driving men and women to fantasize about doing that which Yahweh expressly forbids?

In the introduction to this teaching series, it was mentioned that the Hebrew word rendered as “life” is “nephesh.” When spoken of in the New Testament, it is translated from the Greek word “psuche.” Both nephesh and psuche are words that mean “soul.”

Leviticus 17:11
For the life (nephesh) of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls (nephesh): for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul (nephesh).
KJV

A very deep principle is revealed in this verse. If the translators had been consistent in the translation of the Hebrew word nephesh, they would have written something similar to the following:

For the soul of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul.

The following describes the logic of what is stated.

Ezekiel 18:4
The soul who sins will die.

This same truth is expressed in the New Testament.

Romans 5:12
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.

The wages of sin is death. Death is always the consequence of sin. This is an unalterable law of the universe. Yahweh will not wink at the sin of man. He will not excuse it. The holiness and righteousness of God requires that sin always bears the consequence of death.

Yahweh will not alter this “law of sin and death.” Yet, in His mercy, He has graciously provided man with a substitute. In the Old Testament the soul of a beast could be offered up in place of the soul of a man. This is what atonement was all about. The blood of an animal was sprinkled upon the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies on The Day of Atonement. The sins of the people were before God’s eyes on that day, and the High Priest was making an offering for the people of God. In bringing the blood of bulls and goats he was entreating Yahweh to accept the soul of the animal in the place of man’s soul.

Man deserved to die, for he had sinned. It was Yahweh’s mercy that permitted another to die in the place of man. We know that such offerings had to be made year after year, for they were imperfect. When Yahweh sent His Son to the earth to be offered up in the place of man, to shed His blood, and to place it upon the Mercy Seat in that Tabernacle whose original is in heaven, then the perfect sacrifice had been made. God had exchanged the soul of His Son in place of man’s soul, that man might live.

Hebrews 9:11-14
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

Why did Christ have to shed His blood? Because the soul is in the blood. Yahshua gave His soul in exchange for the soul of man so that man’s soul might not perish.

John 15:13
"Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life (psuche - soul) for his friends.”

Christ rendered His soul as an offering that man’s soul might not die. The soul of Christ, like all living beings, is in the blood. He had to shed His blood for man to be redeemed from death. The penalty of sin was paid in full. Man’s soul might now live, for the soul of the Son of God had been poured out in man’s place.

Isaiah 53:12
Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the booty with the strong; Because He poured out His soul (nephesh) to death...

That the soul of an animal or a man is in the blood is a concept that appears strange to the mind of modern man. If you were to ask them where the soul of a man is, most could not tell you.

Understanding that the soul is in the blood, consider why Yahweh forbid mankind to eat the blood of animals. Man could use the flesh of an animal for food, but the soul was not given to be a eaten. Why is this so? The body is of the earth, but the soul belongs to God.

Ezekiel 18:4
“Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine.”

The body was formed of the dust of the earth, and it would return to the earth. The soul was formed by the breath of God, and it must return to God.

Psalms 104:29
You do hide Your face, they are dismayed; You do take away their spirit, they expire, and return to their dust.

Ecclesiastes 12:7
Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.

Blood could be poured on the altar as an offering to God, for the soul belongs to Yahweh. Man, however, could not partake of it. Neither the souls of animals or people were given to man for his consumption. The soul is holy unto God.

Partaking of blood is the same as partaking of the soul of another. This is made abundantly clear in the words of Christ.

John 6:53-57
"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.”

This saying offended the Jews, and many of Christ’s disciples left Him after hearing these words. His words were intended to be understood spiritually.

John 6:63
“The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

Christ was declaring that in order for man to pass from death into life, he must have the life of Christ in him. Mankind was under a sentence of death ever since Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden. Yahweh said to Adam, “on the day that you eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall surely die.”

The blood of Yahshua is the only provision that Yahweh has made for man to pass from death into life. There is salvation in no other name. Mohammed cannot save man. Buddha cannot save man. Only one who had been born of holy seed and lived a sinless life could offer His soul as an atonement for mankind. This One is Jesus Christ, Yahshua the Messiah.

When Christ told His disciples that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood, He was speaking of spiritual realities. Man must receive the spirit of Christ into his being that he might have life. We must be born again. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

We receive the life of Christ by receiving His seed.

I Peter 1:23
For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word of God.

Matthew 13:24
He presented another parable to them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field.”

Mankind is the field. The seed is the Word of God. Christ is “the Word made flesh.” As we receive the Word (Christ) and believe, conception takes place. The life of Christ appears within our own being. It continues to grow and mature until we can say with Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” This process will continue until “Christ is fully formed in us.”

Galatians 4:19
My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you...

Ephesians 4:13-14
Until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ.

We must drink Christ’s blood if we are to have any life in us. We must become one with Christ.

John 17:20-23
"I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word;  that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.  And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one:  I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one...”

The life is in the blood. All those who drink the cup of Christ’s communion are symbolically testifying that they are partakers of the very life (psuche - soul) of Christ. He is in them, and they are in Him.

In no other realm among man do we observe such imagery of two souls becoming one, other than in sexual union. Indeed, we are made one with Christ by becoming partakers of His seed. The seed of Christ is not received by physical union, but by spiritual union. “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

I Corinthians 6:16-17
Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a harlot is one body with her? For He says, "The two will become one flesh." But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.

Yahweh has given us the physical union of a man and a woman to serve as a parable of the spiritual union between God and man. He also uses the symbolism of a man drinking the blood of another to speak of this mystical union of two beings. Seeing that He uses both illustrations to reveal the same spiritual truth,  we should  understand that a union of the soul occurs in both instances.

Many cultures from ancient times understood that the soul of an animal is in its blood. The practice of certain American Indian tribes who would eat the beating heart of a wolf or a buffalo was based upon this understanding. Some aboriginal tribes would also drink the blood of some great warrior that they had slain in battle. By doing so they believed that they were taking on the strength of the other animal or person.

The principle of the soul being in the blood is what Satan has focused upon as he stirs up the present fascination with vampires. In the Twilight series Edward is portrayed as a vampire who falls madly in love with Bella, who is human. The attraction of Bella’s blood is so overpowering that Edward is at first repulsed by her, for he has committed himself to abstain from drinking human blood.

The attraction between the two is very much sexual in nature. Even as a woman may fantasize of being irresistible to a man, or to men in general, so Bella is cast as a character who is lusted after by numerous individuals, some good and some evil.

Today, women live out this fantasy through making themselves sexually alluring. An almost unbelievable expense and effort is poured forth in pursuit of achieving a sexually alluring image. What was unheard of a generation ago, is now commonplace. Women, young and old, are having their bodies surgically sculpted and manipulated to increase their ability to arouse an animal lust in man. The desire to be lusted after is found deep within the carnal nature. The Twilight series is merely one of many fantasies Satan presents to the world today to stir up that which is primal and forbidden.

The attraction for the male is that he becomes the hunter, seeking to partake of that which is most intimate and forbidden. The male vampire that drinks the blood of a female is in effect drawing her life, her very soul, into his body. Whether men and women understand these things, or not, the same passions and desires are present as they seek after sexual experience. What makes sexual intercourse between a man and woman something that the fallen nature lusts after with intensity, is not merely the momentary physical pleasure. It is the desire to enter into union with another soul.

This drive to be in union with the soul of another is very evident in the vampire fantasies Satan is flooding the world with. The soul is in the blood, and blood is what is lusted after. What is sometimes less obvious, is that the same desire for soul-union is present in the sexual infidelities played out millions of times a day.

Even as Yahweh forbade men to drink blood, He has also forbidden illicit sexual relations. Every time there is a physical union between a man and a woman, there is a sharing of the soul of the other.
Consider that the consequences of receiving another person’s tainted blood through needle sharing, or blood transfusions, is the same as having sexual intercourse with them. Sexually transmitted diseases are communicated through the blood. Whatever is in one person’s bloodstream enters the bloodstream of the one with whom they are sexually intimate. HIV/AIDS, gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes, chlamydia, and other diseases are transmitted when the soul of one person mixes with the soul of another in an illicit manner.

Is it not interesting that we speak of partaking of the bread and wine of Christ as “communion,” and that STD’s are said to be “communicable?” Both speak of a very deep level of intimacy. There is a sharing of two souls in both instances. It is little wonder that the relationship between Christ and the church is spoken of in terms of a marriage union.

We have seen in this post that:

• The soul is in the blood.

• Eating blood has ALWAYS been forbidden,

• Drinking the blood of another is a symbol of being a partaker of their spirit, or soul.

• Sexual intimacy also involves a joining of two souls.

• Yahweh has established prohibitions against sexual union outside of marriage.

Why does the Father not allow His children to engage in “free sex”? Why must there always be a blood covenant between those who experience sexual intimacy with one another? This will be the topic of the following chapters.

End Note: Satan’s indoctrination of today’s youth through such wildly popular books and movies as the Twilight series, reveals the polarization occurring at this time. Yahweh is calling a remnant of His people out of Babylon, even leading them to disassociate with carnal Christians, that he might purge, purify and refine a Bride for His Son. At the same time, Satan is leading the world to a passionate harlotry, and his focus in this instance is particularly upon the youth.

Some insight is gained by understanding the name of the main female character in the Twilight series. Her name is Bella, which is short for Isabella.

According to Strong’s Dictionary of Greek and Hebrew words, both the Greek New Testament and the Hebrew Old Testament pronunciation of the name Jezebel bears a striking resemblance to the name Isabel. Following is how Strong’s records it.

NT:2403
Iezabel (ee-ed-zab-ale'); of Hebrew origin [OT:348]; Jezabel (i.e. Jezebel), a Tyrian woman (used as a synonym of a termagant or false teacher):

OT:348
'Iyzebel (ee-zeh'-bel); from OT:336 and OT:2083; Izebel, the wife of king Ahab:

The Bible describes Jezebel as a woman who sought to rule men by seduction and allure. She is described as painting her face, and adorning herself seductively.

II Kings 9:30
When Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it, and she painted her eyes and adorned her head, and looked out the window.

In recent Twilight posters, Bella is depicted with the forbidden fruit in her hands. She is a seductress. As Eve invited Adam to join in her sin, so does Bella invite Edward to partake of that which is forbidden. In a very literal way, she herself has become the forbidden fruit. The advertising companies have played up the similarity between Bella offering herself to Edward for him to bite her, and Eve presenting the forbidden fruit to Adam.

Millions of young girls are fantasizing about attaining the same powerful allure as Bella. And millions of young men are being led to fantasize about tasting of the forbidden fruit.

We live in an hour when the world is growing much darker. It is at such a time that the glory of God must arise upon His people. Such a glory will only be seen in those who are fully committed to God. The people of God must count the cost of a full surrender to the Holy Spirit. They must die to their own desires, and live for the pleasure of God.

The church has not been able to counter the works of Satan, for the people of God are living compromised lives.

Heart4God Website: http://www.heart4god.ws    

Parables Blog: www.parablesblog.blogspot.com    

Mailing Address:
Joseph Herrin
P.O. Box 804
Montezuma, GA 31063