Power of His Blood—Comparing Jesus’ Blood vs. Adam’s Covenant

Although Adam and Eve didn’t yet realize it, a blood-backed promise was what they needed in the Garden of Eden after their sin separated them from the Father.

God had said they would surely die if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; and it had happened. Their bodies didn’t instantly fall to the ground lifeless, but Adam and Eve died spiritually the moment they broke their precious Covenant relationship with God.

The fig leaves they’d sewn together to cover their physical nakedness had done nothing to cover their spiritual shame. So, when they heard the sound of God walking in the Garden in the cool of the day, they didn’t joyfully join Him. Instead, they hid themselves from His presence among the trees of the Garden.

Genesis 3:9 tells us that God called out to Adam, “Where art thou?”

Professor Stephens has pointed out in his teachings that in the Hebrew text, God’s question is phrased this way: Why are you where you are? That clarifies the situation. It wasn’t that the Omniscient—All-Knowing—God didn’t know where Adam was. Of course He knew. The more important question was: Why are you there…and not here with Me?

In asking that, God was giving Adam an opportunity to repent. But repenting was the last thing on Adam’s mind. Notice his reply: “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself” (verse 10, New King James Version).

Giving Adam a second opportunity to repent, God spoke to him again, and then to Eve:

And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?” Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” And The LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” So The LORD God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life” (verses 11–14, New King James Version).

Neither Adam nor Eve took responsibility for their sin. Reacting and responding in fear, they blamed everybody else. First, Adam blamed his wife. Then he blamed God. Eve blamed the serpent.

Once everyone had their say and pleaded their case, with all guilty parties present, God delivered the promise of what would become the Adam covenant.

First to satan, the perpetrator: “And The LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (verses 14-15).

Eve was next: “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee” (verse 16).

And, finally, Adam: “And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (verses 17-19).

It may have sounded more like a judge handing down a sentence than like a Father BLESSING His children. But really, it was the next installment of the covenants God would put in place to preserve His dream and His family. For tucked away in the depths of God’s words was a hidden mystery that would take thousands of years to be revealed. We just read it in verse 15—let’s look again at what God said to the serpent: “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”

These prophetic words were the promise of the Adam covenant. They contained the hidden secret of a virgin birth. They told of the coming Seed, the Redeemer (Jesus) and how He and the devil would bruise each other. Of how He would bring Redemption by paying the price for Adam’s sin, restoring THE BLESSING, and reuniting the Father with His family.

The Adam covenant was the first of what we refer to as seed covenants (Galatians 3:29).

While it might appear that God was forced to initiate this new covenant to deliver Adam and Eve from the mess they’d made, God already had it prepared. He knew long before He ever created them that Adam and Eve (and all mankind with them) would end up naked, afraid and in trouble. That’s why Revelation 13:8 speaks of “the Lamb [Jesus] slain from the foundation of the world.” The Adam covenant was part of God’s plan to send the Lamb. It was His next step in leading mankind down the path of Redemption to Jesus and ultimately to eternal life with Him.

It was also the next step toward obliterating satan forever.

Through the Seed promised in the Adam covenant, God would one day put a permanent end to satan’s ability to deceive, hurt or subvert His people (Hebrews 2:14; Revelation 20:10). Even the animal kingdom would eventually be set free from the devil’s influence. Instead of being subject to the curse that came on it when Adam sinned, creation itself would one day be “delivered from the bond- age of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21; Isaiah 11:6).

Cutting the Adam Covenant

Once God had issued the Adam covenant promise, He performed a covenant act. “For Adam also and for his wife The LORD God made long coats (tunics) of skins and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21, Amplified Bible, Classic Edition). The first cutting of a Blood covenant between God and man, this is the first record of blood being shed in the earth.

Why did blood have to be shed? Because, as God had previously warned Adam, the price of disobeying God’s command was death. It had to be. Not because Elohim was out to kill the people He created and loved, but because sin produces separation from Him—and apart from Him there is no life.

Blood is the only substance in existence precious enough to cover the cost of a life! One of the most mysterious of all physical substances, it’s something that neither God nor the angels nor satan had. Yet Elohim breathed His own life into it and made sure that Adam had it, Eve had it, and even the animals had it.

God later explained through Moses the reason for this: “The life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul” (Leviticus 17:11).

Beginning with the Adam covenant, God used animals as a substitute to literally bear man’s punishment, which was death. Their blood provided an atonement for man’s sins. Atone means “to cover.” Atonement was God’s way of temporarily covering the darkness of sin while mankind waited for Jesus, the Redeemer.

Under Old Covenant Law, an animal sacrifice would cover sin for one year. But the sacrifice made by Jesus would last forever. His blood would not atone for sin. It would remit it. To remit means “to release, pardon, let go like it never happened.”

The magnificent book of Hebrews lays this out very clearly: “Without the shedding of blood there is neither release from sin and its guilt nor the remission of the due and merited punishment for sins.” But “where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin” (Hebrews 9:22, Amplified Bible, Classic Edition, 10:18).

This is why under the New Covenant there’s no need for us, as believers, to offer animal sacrifices. By the blood of Jesus, our sins have been remitted.

For Adam and Eve, however, such remission still lay in the future. So, God acted as the Mediator of the Adam covenant. He sacrificed animals for them, thereby setting the example for what His priests would do for His people, the Israelites, generations later.

In doing so, He also revealed another aspect of His character and nature; one that had not yet been seen. In Genesis 1 He was known as Creator, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the plural Elohim, in the Hebrew. Here in Genesis 2 and 3, God reveals Himself as Redeemer Creator. Adding Yahweh or Jehovah to His Name, He gives us a glimpse into the redemptive part of His nature.

Here we discover the tender, compassionate side of our Redeemer Creator. We find Him, after Adam and Eve’s Fall, guiding and caring for the frightened couple out of His grace and mercy. We see even after they sinned, the God who is Love is still on the scene. He still has a covenant plan for them.

Executed out of Love, this first Blood covenant became a new and binding form of contract, sealed with the blood of innocent animals that for years to come would be killed in place of sinful man, rendering their life-filled blood as a covering for sin and death. It established the pattern for future covenants that allowed man of his own free will to commit to a relationship with Almighty God, or El Shaddai in the Hebrew, the God who is more than enough.

Unlike the Eden Covenant, which Adam and Eve broke with seemingly little thought, the value and seriousness of this new Adam covenant could not be missed. This was an agreement to be far more mindful of because now blood (life and death) was on the line.

The vast scope of the Redemption plan God had hidden in the Adam covenant, though, remained cloaked. A divine mystery, no fallen human or angel could have ever discerned it. For centuries the fullness of this plan stayed a secret (Colossians 1:26). None but God Himself could see how its fulfillment would allow Him, once again, to have relationship with His beloved family. Only He knew how it would make a way to unite to Him forever those who would willingly enter into a binding Blood Covenant agreement with Him.

From time to time, God did allow His prophets glimpses of the glorious salvation that lay ahead. But He only let them see just enough. Enough to keep everyone headed in the right direction— toward Israel, to be specific, the place where this great mystery would eventually unfold, the Covenant Capital of the world.

Meanwhile, step by step along this journey to man’s Redemption, God was laying a trap for satan who, because of his near-sighted pride and arrogance, would fall headlong into it and bring about his own eternal destruction.

The Adam Covenant Seal

The seal of the Adam covenant was the skins of the innocent animals Adam and Eve wore as clothing. For them, those skins be- came the reminder or guarantee of God’s Blood covenant. They’re also a perfect example of God’s eternal Love for us.

Reading about them reminds us that even when our love fails— as Adam and Eve’s did—God’s Love says, “I choose to continue loving and caring for you.” That’s huge. Think again about what Adam and Eve had done. They not only rejected God’s Love by dis- obeying Him, afterward they rejected Him as their Provider by not seeking Him for help. Instead of trusting Him, they put their trust in their own works by sewing leaves together to wear.

Even so, however, God had not turned His back on them. He had stepped in as a loving and compassionate Father and provided better clothing for them.

Imagine how Adam and Eve must have felt wearing those skins afterward, day after day. Imagine the new physical sensations they felt. The deep sense of grief or loss they must have experienced as they realized the ramifications of what they had done. Think about Adam realizing he was responsible for the death of the animals he had once named and given an identity.

In addition to the animal skins, Adam and Eve also had another reminder to keep in the forefront of their minds. This second seal was their Faith—Faith in the day when sin would be dealt with once and for all.

Remember what God said to the serpent? “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15). Adam and Eve were there and heard God speak those words.

That’s where their Faith was—in God’s WORD. Their Faith and His WORD became a vital reminder for them in this covenant process of redemption and restoration.

The same is true in our lives as believers today. It’s how Gloria and I believed God for the $5,000 worth of bills to be paid that I told you about at the beginning of this chapter. Even though we didn’t have much revelation of covenant at the time, we had learned enough to recognize covenant talk in the Bible when we read it. We understood passages like Mark 11 and John 16 to be Faith chapters!

Thankfully, we had also learned enough about Faith to know if we were ever going to see those bills paid, we would have to keep God’s Covenant WORD in the forefront of our thinking. We would have to keep it in our mouths and in our hearts. The WORD produces life in the human spirit for the soul and physical body, so we knew we needed to do what Proverbs 4:20-22 says:

My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.

That’s why, where that $5,000 was concerned, Gloria and I wrote out on paper in our heavenly grant exactly what we needed—so we could keep it before our eyes at all times. We took God’s Covenant promises seriously—even more seriously than our financial need.