OUR COVENANT, Part 5
November 1, 2019
The topic of kheseed is one rarely covered in the body of Christ. In my 77+ years, I’ve only heard the topic discussed one time. Because this is part and parcel of all that is real Covenant, it is critical that everyone really get a grasp on this. It is important for us to understand Covenant – especially within the framework of God’s economy, and what He is doing among His people.
Last week,
we began talking about a word that takes place within covenant: ãñ•ç• kheseed. We noted that Gesenius, in
his Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon explains the word like
this in its primary applications: to love with
intense desire; to show oneself gracious; zeal (towards anyone); ardor;
kindness; benevolence; the grace, favor and mercy of God; tender mercies; lovingkindness.
History
tells us that folks who entered into covenant enjoyed a place of oneness and
unity that almost defied explanation. First of all, the two primary
parties to that covenant were revered and held in high esteem by all of the
family members on both sides of the covenant. One did not enter lightly
into covenant, and the marks in each other's flesh denoting that covenant were
held sacred.
The
parties to covenant literally became One Family! One ancient tradition
we've seen -- especially in Celtic and English history -- is where each family
took the other's name. Thus, for example, when David Edwards married
Marie Smithson as a product of two families' covenant, the Edwards family
became Smithson-Edwards or Edwards-Smithson, depending on who initiated the
covenant. Likewise, the Smithson family became Smithson-Edwards, or
Edwards-Smithson. By this tradition, the families and their descendants
became forever linked together as a single family.
In our own
Capener family, a number of years ago when my father
was still alive, he received a letter from a Ralph Capener-Hurst.
Dad responded and asked Ralph about the hyphenated name, expressing curiosity
as to whether Ralph might be a relative somewhere in our family lineage.
Return correspondence from Ralph indicated that one of his Capener
ancestors covenanted with a family whose last name was Hurst. Their
covenant, and the subsequent marriage between members of each family resulted
in the two families taking the combined name, Capener-Hurst.
Thus all
members of that particular branch of the Capener
family, and all members of that particular branch of the Hurst family became
known thereafter as Capener-Hurst.
We often
see hyphenated names in English royalty, but few people seem to realize that
those hyphenated names represented covenants of blood that were cut between
some of the royal families of England and Europe. It is an aspect of ãñ•ç• kheseed denoting grace, kindness, favor and
benevolence between covenanted families.
In previous
Coffee Breaks, I've talked about the significance of the Greek word, onoma, (translated "name" in the New
Testament) and how it goes way beyond the concept of one's name in
meaning. Paralleling the Hebrew, íLÙ shem, it denotes one's
character and very makeup, their personality, their identity, their rank and
power, their honor, integrity and authority. Thus, the taking of each
other's name within the framework of covenant symbolized their taking of each
other's character, rank and honor and backing it with each other's integrity.
Yesterday
I said that
ãñ•ç• kheseed is the core of covenant.
Today, we add
íLÙ shem. Now you begin to
understand the very covenant nature of what Jesus said when He told His
covenanted disciples, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, immersing them in the character,
the nature, the makeup, the rank and authority of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I
have commanded you....." (Matthew 28:18-20 with my emphasis)
Jesus'
blood flows in our veins as a result of His new covenant with us. That's
the implication of our taking communion. Instead of halving in two the
bodies of heifers, lambs and partaking of their roasted flesh in an earthly
covenant, we partake of the broken body of the Lord Jesus Christ in the symbol
of the bread. Instead of drinking blood mingled with wine, we simply
drink wine -- because of Jesus' command to us -- (Yeah, I know. Some
folks have a religious thing about drinking grape juice instead, but it's still
all the same thing!) as representative of His shed blood.
In so
doing, we regularly remember His covenant of blood, and the sacrifice He paid
when His body was broken and put to death on the Cross that we might enter into
an eternal covenant bound by His Word which NEVER fails and is inviolable, and
implemented in our lives by a living faith.
Now you're
beginning to understand my early comments about how the whole concept of
covenant has been so diluted and watered down throughout the centuries that
we've lost the true sense of it? Now maybe you can begin to get a grasp
on the New Testament (Covenant) and the use of the word, agape, (in place of the
Hebrew ãñ•ç• kheseed) as the descriptor
by which the Lord commands relationship.
Put that
within Jesus' statement, "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if
you have (love) agape-kheseed for
one another."
Make
sense?
Jesus
wasn't talking about some kind of "sloppy agape," or some kind of
mushy-gushy "Oh, I love you," kind of malarkey like we see so often
in the body of Christ today. He was talking about covenant! He was
talking about standing with each other to the death! He was talking about
our putting our lives on the line for one another as fellow-Christians and
members of that body He took to the Cross!
By THAT
shall all men know we are His disciples. By agape-kheseed will the world know
that we have a relationship that defies the understanding of today's world!
Remember
what Paul wrote? "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or
sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day
long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all
these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels,
nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor
height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from
the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:35-39)
That's a
statement made from the perspective of covenant. That is a perfect visual
of ãñ•ç• kheseed.
OK.
How about this from David's writings? "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide
under the shadow of the Almighty." (see Psalm 91)
THAT's
covenant writing!
"I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress:
my God; in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare
of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with
his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust:
his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt
not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy
side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh
thee. Only with thine eyes shalt
thou behold and see the reward of the wicked."
David KNEW
the implications of His covenant relationship with God. He KNEW what ãñ•ç• kheseed meant as it
related to the Lord. He KNEW the tender mercies and lovingkindness
of the Lord. He KNEW what it meant to be protected and covered by a
covenant-keeping God whose existence was wrapped up in his. He KNEW the
love of the Lord in a dimension that -- sadly -- too many Christians today fail
to see.
Watch how
David describes the covering and protection, the zeal of the Lord on his
behalf.
"Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even
the Most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall
any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge
over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They
shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a
stone.
“Thou shalt tread upon the lion and
adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou
trample under feet. Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will
I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. He
shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I
will deliver him, and honour him. With long
life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation."
Go back
for a second to our review of Abraham and the Lord, and the covenant that God
made with him. Remember the "smoking furnace" and the
"burning lamp" that depicted the physical presence of the Lord as He
passed between the broken pieces of the animals? Remember the analogy of
the smoke and the cloud as the covering and protection of the Lord as a portion
of His part of the covenant to Abraham?
Good.
Now you understand where David was coming from when he wrote this Psalm.
Everything
-- and I do mean EVERYTHING! -- written in both Old and New Testaments comes
from the perspective of the blood covenant. Maybe next week we'll be able
to finish up (I think) this look at the character and nature of covenant as it
is spelled out in the New Testament before we begin to take up the singular
nature of the American Covenant.
Meanwhile,
let's have a look at some of the things that Jesus said, now that we have an
understanding to help us properly frame the implications of agape
and ãñ•ç• kheseed within the covenant He made with
"whosoever will."
First of
all, remember what Paul wrote in his letter to the Ekklesia
in Ephesus?
"For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, of whom the whole patria - lineage (family) in heaven
and earth is named; that He would grant you, according to the riches of His
glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; that
Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in agape-kheseed (love), may be
able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth,
and to know the agape-kheseed (love) of Christ, which passeth
knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God."
Remember our
earlier discussion on those hyphenated names, and the implications of taking on
each other's onoma as a product of covenant?
Now do you
see what Paul is writing? This is a perfect description of the covenant
we enter into with the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing could be clearer.
"...of whom the whole patria - lineage (family) in heaven
and earth is named..." Once we become covenant-partners of the
Lord Jesus Christ, we take on His name and lineage. Thus we are of the
seed of Abraham -- by faith! It is impossible for that faith to work
without agape. We don't just take on "a name" as
Christians: we take on the onoma, the íLÙ shem of the Lord Jesus Christ.
(Perhaps I
should state parenthetically, that we are SUPPOSED to take on His onoma. With that onoma
comes His power over sickness, His power over death, His authority and power
over Satan, his demons, and all his works. With that onoma
comes being seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus.)
This is
why we see so many powerless, weak-kneed, namby-pamby, Caesar-Milquetoast
(so-called) Christians in the world today. They have "a name"
that they are Christians, but they both deny, AND LACK, the power to
demonstrate and back up their claim to being a Christian. They say their
lives have been changed, but for many of them, that change is a fraud.
The reason why they lack the power and authority of the Lord Jesus Christ is
because they've taken their "relationship" with Him only as far as
"salvation."
Get
it? There is no covenant! They haven't entered into the covenant
with the Lord -- a covenant of blood that gives the Lord literally all that
they are, all that they ever hope to be, and all that they have -- including
their pocketbooks.
Ooooops!!!! Now I'm
meddling. Hehehehehehe........
Guess I’ll
leave it here for today. I’m concerned
that if I finish this part of the discussion on Covenant today, we will run so
long that people will not be able to focus properly. This is a critical part of Covenant and I
want to make sure that everyone really gets it!
Complete
and direct obedience to the Word of the Lord always produces tangible and
life-giving results.
In case you are missing out on real fellowship in an environment
of Ekklesia, our Sunday worship gatherings are
available by conference call – usually at about 10:30AM Pacific. That conference number is (712) 770-4160, and the access code
is 308640#. We are now making these gatherings available on
video using ZOOM. If you wish to
participate by video on ZOOM, our login ID is 835-926-513. If you miss the live voice-only call, you can
dial (712)
770-4169, enter the same access code and listen in later. The video call, of course, is not recorded –
not yet, anyway.
Blessings
on you!
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
Temple, Texas 76504
Email Contact: CapenerMinistries@protonmail.com
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