Your contracts on the future
And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. Gal. 3:29
In Western society, a contract is a sometimes thing. Sometimes it might be taken seriously, sometimes not. Even the physical process of making a contract is not too terribly demanding.
You just sign your name on a piece of paper. If you break it, more papers will follow...you'll find yourself in court someday. But so what? That's common. That happens everyday. People are blase about it. Some attorneys like to say: 'There's not a contract made that can't be broken.' Marriage, among other things, is a contract . . . but not one that many folks take very seriously. If it doesn't work out -- well, break it. Start over. You know, everybody does it.
But a contract, to El Shaddai, the Almighty God, is a powerful thing. It's not made in paper, it's made in blood. In fact, a blood covenant contract, also called a covenant of strong friendship, is more sacred than life itself. Because blood is the sign of life, an intact, ongoing and viable blood covenant signifies that the two parties of the covenant are joined in one life together. The two become one. Everything that the one party has belongs to the other, and vice versa. They are blood brothers. This kind of covenant is still extant among primitive peoples.
Now, violating such a sacred trust is no light thing. It means that the 'one life' has been broken up, ripped up, rendered. And that's exactly what happens to the party that breaks the blood covenant. His blood must be spilled, his life must be destroyed. No angry letters exchanged between prestigious law firms. No gentlemanly court proceedings. But rather, blood spilled, life lost. That's how serious a blood covenant was and is to God.
You might think: 'Well that's rather harsh.' (For an interesting study on this, see God, A Biography, by Jack Miles.)
Well, God is just a whole lot more serious about things than people are. His thoughts aren't our thoughts, neither are our ways his ways.1 But one thing is certain or so it should be: when God makes a blood covenant, there is absolutely no way for him to break it since his breaking it would require him to die, and he cannot die.The Abrahamic covenant
God made this kind of covenant with Abraham. He would have made it with others before Abraham, but no one would do it. No one would take God on as a covenant partner, give up everything he had in return for everything God had. Allow God to make demands on him . . . and then make demands on God in return. To be blood covenant brothers, strong friends with God himself. That kind of covenant requires unconditional faith and trust, from each party to the other party. No one had that until Abraham.
This man Abraham was willing to do anything for his covenant partner -- with absolutely no conditions attached. He would move to a new land. He would circumcise himself when he was 99 years old. He would trust his covenant partner to provide a son, despite his physical age, despite his wife's barrenness, despite everything. And then, finally, he was willing to sacrifice his son at the behest of his covenant partner because he knew that covenant partner would raise him up again from the dead.
God made a number of promises to his covenant partner and strong friend Abraham. Many of these have been fulfilled . . . but some haven't.2 The ones that haven't are our absolute, signed and sealed, blood covenant contracts for the future kingdom of heaven on this earth. They are our claims on the future kingdom. Deeds, if you will. Because now that we are Christ's, we are the true descendants of Abraham, and all of God's promises to him belong to us.3
What are those promises?
First, let's go back to the beginning of this remarkable story.
The year was 1946 B.C. Abram (as he was then called) was 50 years old, a Chaldean man. He was living with his family in Ur of the Chaldees. Ur means urban or city. Ur was a luxurious, modern for the time, up-to-date city, recent excavations show. Today, that city is Mugheir, on the west bank of the Euphrates. Now God called upon Abram to leave the Babylonian society and move to the land of Canaan. Abram and his family moved, but they didn't make it to Canaan.
They stopped at the city of Haran on the outer edge of the Babylonian empire and settled there. And that's where Abram's father, Terah, died at the age of 205. After the death of Abram's father, God told him, "Leave your own country behind you, and your own people, and go to the land I will guide you to. If you do, I will cause you to become the father of a great nation; I will bless you and make your name famous, and you will be a blessing to many others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you; and the entire world will be blessed because of you."4
Not a bad offer. But you had to believe in it to do it. Most people wouldn't have. But Abram wasn't most people. He took up the offer. He departed. Abram was 75.
We pick up the story:
Traveling through Canaan, they came to a place near Shechem, and set up camp beside the oak at Moreh. (This area was inhabited by Canaanites at that time.) Then Jehovah appeared to Abram and said, "I am going to give this land to your descendants." Abram didn't have any descendants at this time. But he didn't question God, he didn't doubt. Instead, he built an altar there to commemorate Jehovah's visit.5
Jehovah expanded on this promise. He said: "Look as far as you can see in every direction, for I am going to give it all to you and your descendants. And I am going to give you so many descendants that, like dust, they can't be counted! Hike in all directions and explore the new possessions I am giving you."6
Jehovah spoke again to Abram, this time in a vision, and promised descendants too numerous to count, like the stars of heaven. And Abram believed God; then God considered him righteous on account of his faith.7 (Just as God effects salvation today -- because we believe.)
Because Abram believed God, God was ready to cut the formal covenant with him. And there was indeed a literal cutting, a sacred blood covenant, to be made. After Abram had asked Jehovah for a surety that his words would come to pass, Jehovah told him to take a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove and a young pigeon, and to slay them and to cut them apart down the middle, and to separate the halves, but not to divide the birds.
That evening as the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a vision of terrible foreboding, darkness, and horror. Then Jehovah told Abram, "Your descendants will be oppressed as slaves in a foreign land for 400 years. But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and at the end they will come away with great wealth. (But you will die in peace, at a ripe old age. [Abraham lived to be 175.] ) After four generations they will return here to this land; for the wickedness of the Amorite nations living here now will not be ready for punishment until then."
Jehovah was serious about his promises; here he was explaining them in great detail.
Then, as the sun went down, came the formal "signing" of the contract.
Abram saw a smoking fire-pot and a flaming torch that passed between the halves of the carcasses. So that day Jehovah made this covenant with Abram: "I have given this land to your descendants from the River of Eygpt (Nile) to the Euphrates River. And I give to them these nations: Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaim, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, Jebusites."8
This was the custom in many ancient nations: to slaughter an animal when concluding a covenant, and after dividing them into pieces, laying the pieces opposite to one another, that the persons making the covenant might pass between them. And so it is that God condescended to follow the custom of the Chaldeans, that he might in the most solemn manner confirm his oath to Abram, the Chaldean. The spreading of this custom is evident from the expression used to denote the conclusion of a covenant "to hew" or "to cut" a covenant. In the vernacular, to "cut a deal." This custom was still continued for at least another 1,000 years among the Jews themselves, as indicated by the prophet Jeremiah.9 10
The key point here is that Abram did not pass between the carcase halves, only Jehovah did. And so did Jehovah bind himself to perform all that he had said. In no way was this covenant dependent on what the other covenant partner to it, Abram, did or did not do. This was a covenant forever.
When Abram was 99, Jehovah appeared to him and changed his name from Abram ('Exalted Father') to Abraham ('Father of Nations'). "For that is what you will be," he said. "I have declared it. I will give you millions of descendants who will form many nations! Kings shall be among your descendants! And I will continue this agreement between us generation after generation, forever, for it shall be between me and your children as well. It is a contract that I shall be your God and the God of your posterity. And I will give all this land of Canaan to you and them, forever. And I will be your God.11
"Your part of the contract," God told him, "is to obey its terms. You personally and all your posterity have this continual responsibility: that every male among you shall be circumcised; the foreskin of his penis shall be cut off. This will be the proof that you and they accept the covenant. Every male shall be circumcised on the eighth day after birth. This applies to every foreign-born slave as well as to everyone born in your household. This is a permanent part of this contract, and it applies to all your posterity. All must be circumcised. Your bodies will thus be marked as participants in my everlasting covenant. Anyone who refuses these terms shall be cut off from his people; for he has violated my contract."12
After Abraham had offered up Isaac (because he knew God would raise him again from the dead right on the spot to fulfill his own promises), God made his last pronouncement of the covenant to Abraham: "I, the LORD, have sworn by myself that because you have obeyed me and have not withheld even your beloved son from me, I will bless you with incredible blessings and multiply your descendants into countless thousands and millions, like the stars above you in the sky, and like the sands along the seashore. These descendants of yours will conquer their enemies, and be a blessing to all the nations of the earth -- all because you have obeyed me."13
Summarizing, the promises to Abraham:
1. Abraham would have a great name.
2. Great nations would come from him.
3. He would be a blessing to all families of the earth.
4. He and his seed would inherit Palestine -- from the Nile to the Euphrates -- forever.
5. The covenant would be an "everlasting" covenant.
6. Kings would come from him.
7. Whoever would call him blessed would be blessed, and whoever would curse him would be cursed.
8. His descendants would be innumerable.
9. God would be a God to him and to his seed.
l0. His seed would possess the gate of his enemies. (And indeed, Abraham's seed, Jesus Christ, did eventually possess the gates of hell, those gates of the enemy, Satan.)
This was an everlasting, unconditional covenant between the Jehovah God and Abraham, man of faith, man of belief in his covenant partner.
This great covenant was further amplified and developed within the following three covenants:
The Palestinian covenant. When Israel was ready to move into the promised land, and at the same time was passing from under the leadership of Moses to that of Joshua, God reiterated his promises to Abraham's children related to the land.
This covenant looks ahead to the time of the millennium.
Here's how it reads:
"When all these things have happened to you -- the blessings and the curses I have listed -- you will meditate upon them as you are living among the nations where the Lord your God will have driven you. If at that time you want to return to the Lord your God, and you and your children have begun wholeheartedly to obey all of the commandments I have given you today, then the Lord your God will rescue you from your captivity! He will have mercy upon you and come and gather you out of all the nations where he will have scattered you. Though you are at the ends of the earth, he will go and find you and bring you back again to the land of your ancestors.
You shall possess the land again, and he will do you good and bless you even more than he did your ancestors! He will cleanse your hearts and the hearts of your children and of your children's children so that you will love the Lord your God with all your hearts and souls, and Israel shall come alive again! If you return to the Lord and obey all the commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will take his curses and turn them against your enemies -- against those who hate you and persecute you.
The Lord your God will prosper everything you do and give you many children and much cattle and wonderful crops; for the Lord will again rejoice over you as he did over your fathers. He will rejoice if you but obey the commandments written in this book of the law, and if you turn to the Lord your God with all your hearts and souls."14
The year of the Palestinian covenant was 145l B.C., the year of the entry into the promised land. Some 1,000 years later, God reaffirms this everlasting covenant through the prophet Ezekiel:
"Yet I will keep the pledge I made to you when you were young. Just entering the land at the time of the Palestinian covenant.] I will establish an everlasting covenant with you forever, and you will remember with shame all the evil you have done; and you will be overcome by my favor when I take your sisters, Samaria and Sodom, and make them your daughters, for you to rule over. You will know you don't deserve this gracious act, for you did not keep my covenant. I will reaffirm my covenant with you, and you will know I am the Lord."15
As J. Dwight Pentecost points out,16 there are seven main features in the program:
1. The nation will be plucked off the land for its unfaithfulness. (Fulfilled by the Babylonian captivity 497 B.C., and the Roman destruction and consequent dispersion of 70 A.D.) These have happened.
2. There will be a future repentance of Israel. This hasn't happened yet.
3. Their Messiah will return (a second time). This hasn't happened yet.
4. Israel will be restored to the land. This hasn't happened yet, although the process has begun.
5. Israel will be converted as a nation to Jesus Christ. This hasn't happened yet.
6. Israel's enemies will be judged. This hasn't happened yet, including the judgment of Satan the devil.
7. Israel will receive her full blessing. This hasn't happened yet.
These promises have just plain not been fulfilled yet. They will be in the kingdom that lies ahead. And that is when the prophets who spoke to Israel expected them to be fulfilled.17
The Davidic covenant. This is an amplification of the promise to Abraham that kings should come from him. Here's how it reads as spoken to King David:
"For when you die, I will put one of your sons upon your throne and I will make his kingdom strong. He is the one who shall build me a temple. And I will continue his kingdom into eternity. I will be his father and he will be my son. If he sins, I will use other nations to punish him, but my love and kindness shall not leave him as I took it from Saul, your predecessor. Your family shall rule my kingdom forever.18
The King James puts it even more strongly:
"And thine house and thy kingdom shall be stablished for ever before thee: thy throne shall be stablished forever."
This promise was repeated in the Psalms:
"I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant, Thy seed will I establish for ever. And build up thy throne to all generations."19
Isaiah prophesies: "For unto us a Child is born; unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder. These will be his royal titles: "Wonderful," "Counselor," "The Mighty God," "The Everlasting Father," "The Prince of Peace." His ever-expanding, peaceful government will never end. He will rule with perfect fairness and justice from the throne of his father David."20
This, of course, was fulfilled by Jesus. The angel spoke to Mary:
"Don't be frightened, Mary," the angel told her, "for God has decided to wonderfully bless you! Very soon now, you will become pregnant and have a baby boy, and you are to name him 'Jesus.' He shall be very great and shall be called the Son of God. And the Lord God shall give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he shall reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom shall never end!"21
Jeremiah prophesies: "For the time is coming, says the Lord, when I will place a righteous Branch upon King David's throne. He shall be a King who shall rule with wisdom and justice and cause righteousness to prevail everywhere throughout the earth. And this is his name: The Lord Our Righteousness. At that time Judah will be saved and Israel will live in peace."
And then most pertinent to the Palestinian covenant, the next sentence reads:
"In that day people will no longer say when taking an oath, 'As the Lord lives who rescued the people of Israel from the land of Egypt,' but they will say, 'As the Lord lives who brought the Jews back to their own land of Israel from the countries to which he had exiled them.'22
And:
"Yes, the day will come, says the Lord, when I will do for Israel and Judah all the good I promised them."23
Finally, Ezekiel writes: "And David, My Servant -- the Messiah -- shall be their King, their only Shepherd; and they shall obey my laws and all my wishes."24
Jesus Christ has not yet returned to assume David's throne. These promises look ahead to a future reality on this earth.
The new covenant. So, too, does the new covenant for Israel:
"The day will come, says the Lord, when I will make a new contract with the people of Israel and Judah. It won't be like the one I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt -- a contract they broke, forcing me to reject them, says the Lord. But this is the new contract I will make with them: I will inscribe my laws upon their hearts, so that they shall want to honor me; then they shall truly be my people and I will be their God. At that time it will no longer be necessary to admonish one another to know the Lord. For everyone, both great and small, shall really know me then, says the Lord, and I will forgive and forget their sins.25
Unconverted Israel (as a nation not as individuals), unfortunately, has to wait for the fulfillment of this covenant.
But Christians do not.
We have become blood brothers with Jesus Christ by entering into a blood covenant with him now. Jesus Christ made this relationship of strong friendship available at the last supper just before he went to the cross. "And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, 'This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.' Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.'"26
Now "testament" is not a common, everyday word, except among attorneys. So to get a better understanding of just what is being done here, let's look at a dictionary definition of it. According to Webster's New Twentieth Century Unabridged Dictionary, "testament" means, in the Bible, "covenant", or "contract." It also means a will. So here Jesus is establishing a blood covenant and a will with his followers, just as he, as Jehovah, did earlier with Abraham. So we are to be blood covenant partners, blood brothers, strong friends, family, with Jesus, just as Abraham was with him. And since it's also a will, we are to receive an inheritance -- now, since he has already died, as well as in the future. And that inheritance includes friendship, healing, knowledge, wisdom, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, meekness, temperance, faith, and prosperity.
And so in taking the elements of this Lord's Supper remembrance in an understanding manner, Christians symbolically take in the blood and body of Jesus Christ, reaffirming the 'one life' that we have with him. We reaffirm that we are blood brothers with Christ, partners in a blood covenant. We reaffirm that all that we are and have is his, and all that he has and is, is ours. We reaffirm that he is the one in whom we live and move and have our being.27 We reaffirm God as our healer...that is, as the apostle Paul wrote, if we judge ourselves, or properly translated, "discern" ourselves . . . discern ourselves as blood covenant partners with the El Shaddai, or All-Bountiful God who wants to supply our every need more than we ourselves even want those needs supplied.28, 29
We reaffirm that we are, with Jesus Christ, joint heirs of the literal kingdom coming to this earth. Real, actual kings-and-priests-to-be in the world to come.
We reaffirm that this is the covenant that takes away our sins and makes us fit to be joint heirs with the sinless one.30
We are, ourselves, right now, ministers of this new testament, the apostle Paul tells us.31
Paul explains it like this:
"Now in that first agreement between God and his people there were rules for worship and there was a sacred tent down here on earth. Inside this place of worship there were two rooms. The first one contained the golden candlestick and a table with special loaves of holy bread upon it; this part was called the Holy Place. Then there was a curtain and behind the curtain was a room called the Holy of Holies. In that room there were a golden incense-altar and the golden chest, called the ark of the covenant, completely covered on all sides with pure gold. Inside the ark were the tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments written on them, and a golden jar with some manna in it, and Aaron's wooden cane that budded. Above the golden chest were statues of angels called the cherubim -- the guardians of God's glory -- with their wings stretched out over the ark's golden cover, called the mercy seat. But enough of such details.
"Well, when all was ready the priests went in and out of the first room whenever they wanted to, doing their work. But only the high priest went into the inner room, and then only once a year, all alone, and always with blood which he sprinkled on the mercy seat as an offering to God to cover his own mistakes and sins, and the mistakes and sins of all the people.
"And the Holy Spirit uses all this to point out to us that under the old system the common people could not go into the Holy of Holies as long as the outer room and the entire system it represents were still in use.
"This has an important lesson for us today. For under the old system, gifts and sacrifices were offered, but these failed to cleanse the hearts of the people who brought them. For the old system dealt only with certain rituals -- what foods to eat and drink, rules for washing themselves, and rules about this and that. The people had to keep these rules to tide them over until Christ came with God's new and better way.
"He came as High Priest of this better system which we now have. He went into that greater, perfect tabernacle in heaven, not made by men nor part of this world, and once for all took blood into that inner room, the Holy of Holies, and sprinkled it on the mercy seat; but it was not the blood of goats and calves. No, he took his own blood, and with it he, by himself, made sure of our eternal salvation.
"And if under the old system the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of young cows could cleanse men's bodies from sin, just think how much more surely the blood of Christ will transform our lives and hearts. His sacrifice frees us from the worry of having to obey the old rules, and makes us want to serve the living God. For by the help of the eternal Holy Spirit, Christ willingly gave himself to God to die for our sins -- he being perfect, without a single sin or fault. Christ came with this new agreement so that all who are invited may come and have forever all the wonders God has promised them. For Christ died to rescue them from the penalty of the sins they had committed while still under that old system.
"Now, if someone dies and leaves a will -- a list of things to be given away to certain people when he dies -- no one gets anything until it is proved that the person who wrote the will is dead. The will goes into effect only after the death of the person who wrote it. While he is still alive no one can use it to get any of those things he has promised them.
"That is why blood was sprinkled as proof of Christ's death32 before even the first agreement could go into effect. For after Moses had given the people all of God's laws, he took the blood of calves and goats, along with water, and sprinkled the blood over the book of God's laws and over all the people, using branches of hyssop bushes and scarlet wool to sprinkle with.
"Then he said, "This is the blood that marks the beginning of the agreement God commanded me to make with you. And in the same way he sprinkled blood on the sacred tent and on whatever instruments were used for worship. In fact we can say that under the old agreement almost everything was cleansed by sprinkling it with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is not forgiveness of sins.
"That is why the sacred tent down here on earth, and everything in it -- all copied from things in heaven -- all had to be made pure by Moses in this way by being sprinkled with the blood of animals. But the real things in heaven, of which these down here are copies, were made pure with far more precious offerings.
"For Christ has entered into heaven itself, to appear now before God as our Friend. It was not in the earthly place of worship that he did this, for that was merely a copy of the real temple in heaven. Nor has he offered himself again and again, as the high priest down here on earth offers animal blood in the Holy of Holies each year. If that had been necessary, then he would have had to die again and again, ever since the world began. But no! He came once for all, at the end of the age, to put away the power of sin forever by dying for us.
"And just as it is destined that men die only once, and after that comes judgment, so also Christ died only once as an offering for the sins of many people; and he will come again, but not to deal again with our sins.
"This time he will come bringing salvation to all those who are eagerly and patiently waiting for him."33
A long explanation, perhaps, but a fascinating one nevertheless, of how that new covenant works for the Christian now and how it will work for Israel in the kingdom.
So where do we stand?
Have these covenants -- the Abrahamic, Palestinian, Davidic and New covenants -- already come to pass, as some say? Have they already been fulfilled?
Abraham himself did not inherit any of the land God promised him.34 "Then God brought him here to the land of Israel, but gave him no property of his own, not one little tract of land." "Here I am, a visitor in a foreign land, with no place to bury my wife. Please sell me a piece of ground for this purpose." 35
Nor has Israel possessed the land God promised to Abraham. Solomon came the closest, his kingdom being from the river Euphrates down to the border of Egypt, not the Nile River.36
Jesus Christ is not ruling from the earthly throne of David.
Israel has not received the new blood covenant of Jesus Christ.
And we're not out past the age of man into eternity.
We have to conclude that all these sacred covenants, that God instituted, that he has guaranteed by his own passing through the split carcases as with Abraham, and by his own Word, are yet to be fulfilled. They're talking about the future. And that furthermore, these things will all be fulfilled "in that day," as the prophets wrote, or, in the glorious, literal kingdom of Jesus Christ on this earth.
And indeed, that's what the Word tells us.
Abraham, and all the other men of faith of days gone by, died without ever receiving all that God had promised them. "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country . . . but now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city."37
Israel must inherit the promised land, from the Euphrates to the Nile, and then that eternal city that Paul writes of, described by John in the last chapter of the Word.
Jesus Christ must actually return to the earth and actually sit on the throne of David in Jerusalem.
Israel, indeed all peoples, must enter into the new blood covenant with Jesus Christ.
Jehovah has solemnly blood-covenanted with his strong friend Abraham to do all these things -- and more. He has blood covenanted with us as well.
And these are your covenants . . . or contracts on the future.
FOOTNOTES
Chapter 6
YOUR CONTRACTS ON THE FUTURE
1 Is. 55:8
2 Heb. 11:l3 "These men of faith I have mentioned died without ever receiving all that God had promised them." LB
3 Gal. 3:29 LB
4 Gen. 12:3 LB The first pronouncement of the Abrahamic covenant.
5 Gen. 12:6-7 LB
6 Gen. l3:14-17 LB
7 Gen. 15:6 LB
8 Gen. 15 LB
9 Jer. 34:18 "Because you have refused the terms of our contract I will cut you apart just as you cut apart the calf when you walked between its halves to solemnize your vows. Yes, I will butcher you, whether you are princes, court officials, priests or people -- for you have broken your oath."
10 Keil, Carl Friedrich and Franz Delitzsch. The Pentateuch. Edinburgh: T. T. Clark, 1886, 3 volumes.
11 Gen. 17:5-9 LB
12 Gen 17:10-14 LB
13 Gen. 22: 15-18
14 Deut. 30:1-10 LB
15 Ez. 16:60-62
16 Pentecost, J. Dwight, Things to Come, Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1958
17 Is. 11:11-12; 14:1-3; 27:12-13; 43:1-8; 49:8-16; 66:20-22; Jeremiah 16:14-16; 23:3-8; 30:10-11; 31:8,31-37; Ezekiel 11:17-21; 20:30-38; 34:11-16; 39:25-29; Hosea 1:10-11; Joel 3:17-21; Amos 9:11-15; Micah 4:4-7; Zephaniah 3:14-20; Zechariah 8:4-8.
18 2 Sam. 7:12-16 LB
19 Psalms 89:3-4
20 Is. 9:6,7 LB
21 Luke 1:30-33 LB
22 Jer. 23:5,6 LB)22
23 Jer. 33:14 LB
24 Ez. 37:24 LB
25 Jer. 31:31-34 LB
26 Luke 22:20
27 Acts 17:28
28 1 Cor. 11:31
29 Is. 53:5
30 Rom. 11:27
31 2 Cor. 3:6
32 Implied
33 Hebrews 9 LB
34 Acts 7:5
35 Gen. 23:4
36 I Kings 4:21,24)36
37 Heb. ll:13-16 KJV