I know we are discussing many terms that may be foreign to you. If that is the case the best thing I could recommend for you to do is to go back to the beginning of this topic and read your way to this one.
That leads us to step five. Here comes the Kiddush, the cup. Remember our Kiddushin consists of the Ketubah, the Kiddush (the cup), the Mohar, and the seal. This is the Kiddush. In I Corinthians 11:25 it says, “In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.””(NIV) The blood of the New Covenant; that purchased us without money, this New Covenant is a Covenant of marriage.
I know we have already gone over it, but at this point we need to cover it again. Isaiah 54:10 says this, “Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you.”(NIV) Then in Isaiah 55:3b it says, “I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.”(NIV)
I want to talk to you about that Covenant of Peace. The Hebrew word “shalom” means peace. It can also be translated wholeness or oneness. This is a covenant of oneness. “And a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and the two will be one.” A covenant of oneness was always God’s plan. This is a covenant of marriage, a covenant of oneness with Him, which is true peace.
The Kiddush or cup not only speaks of the Mohar or the sacrifice He made, yes we are to remember His Mohar when we take the cup because that is what purchased us, but it is also the New Covenant or Marriage Covenant, His Covenant of Peace. Remember it’s the “New Covenant” in His blood. He says that first, He reminds us of the New Covenant first, of His Marriage Covenant first. Then He says, “Do this in remembrance of me.” So remember the price I paid for you. This is a covenant of marriage and I purchased you. So when you take that cup remember my purchase, remember my love for you.
John 17:19 says this, “For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.”(NIV) If He is already holy then He is not making Himself more holy, so what is He saying? He is setting Himself apart for us. He is telling His Father, “For them Father I have set myself apart that they too may be truly set apart. I set myself apart for them so that they can truly be set apart for me.” And right after this prayer we see Him, that very night, being arrested and giving His life. Spilling the blood of the Mohar, the blood of the cup.
In taking the cup we are accepting once again His offer of marriage and declaring ourselves set apart specifically and only for Him. As we remember the price He purchased us with. We are once again accepting that offer and continually declaring ourselves set apart for Him. Maybe that’s one reason why we do this more than once. We have communion in our churches all the time, don’t we? After all, we don’t just do communion once and that’s it. It reminds us that we are set apart for Him because of the price He purchased us with.
And then of course there is the blessing of the cup. “Holy One of Blessing your presence fills creation forming the fruit of the vine.” This is the blood of the covenant. And then the Birakat Eurasim or the Betrothal Blessing “Praised are you Adonai, Ruler of the Universe, Who have made us holy through your commandments and commanded us (the warning to the men) concerning sexual propriety forbidding us women who are merely betrothed, but permitting to us women who are married to us through Huppah and Kiddushin. Blessed are you Adonai, who makes your people, Israel, holy through Huppah and Kiddushin.
This is His marriage ceremony and we live out every day, especially when we partake in communion. Of course, with the drinking of the cup the veil has to come back. We will talk about this next time.
We have already discussed how Jesus went through the Kiddushin, the ceremony and period of sanctification or a time of setting oneself apart for another. As we said the Kiddushin consists of the Ketubah (marriage contract), Mohar (bridal price), Kiddush (the cup), the seal (The Holy Spirit), and the removal of the veil. Remember that for us the order is a little different and this post will begin the process of us looking at our part of the Kiddushin.
Our first step within the Kiddushin is our response to Yeshua’s Mohar, His bridal price. We must accept His acquisition, His payment, in order for it to be applied to our lives. We see this played out in Genesis when Rebekah had to be willing to accept the price offered for her and go with Abraham’s servant to her husband Isaac.
Jesus has bought us with a price and it was not a price of money, yet it cost Him everything. Remember, we have already looked at Isaiah 52:3, which tells us we were redeemed without money.
In Hebrews 9: 12 & 14-15 it says, “He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption…How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance–now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.”(NIV)
When we went through these steps as Yeshua our Messiah went through them we spoke of the communion cup that He gave to His disciples and that it was the third cup, the cup of redemption. We are all guilty of breaking the first covenant with our sin and so there needed to be a new covenant for everyone, Jew and Gentile alike. I Peter 1:18-19 told us that He redeemed us with His blood and Romans 3:22-25a again said, “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”(NIV)
We must have faith in His blood. We must accept His Mohar. We must believe in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We must believe in Him!
Galatians 3:14 says, “He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.”(NIV) Also, in Romans 10:13 it says, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”(NIV)
Therefore, when we accept His Mohar it redeems us and cleanses even the filthiness of our conscious. We then receive the inheritance promised to those who believe and are saved. Never forget, that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin (Hebrews 9:22 & Leviticus 17:11). So that by faith, by calling on His Name we (both Jew and Gentile) might receive the Spirit. The Spirit is our seal. This leads us directly into our next post where we will be discussing The Seal.
There are two things that speak of the blood of Christ in the Kiddushin, the first was the cup (the Kiddush) and the second is the Mohar. We looked at the Kiddush as part of the last post. This time we are going to concentrate on the Mohar. The Mohar is the bridal price or literally the acquisition of the bride. Jesus paid this on the cross.
As to the history of the Mohar we can go all the way back to the Garden of Eden where God provided a bride for His son Adam. For Eve Adam had to pay a Mohar. He had to be put to sleep and have surgery, a shedding of blood, to remove a rib in order to have a wife. If that’s not a bridal price I don’t know what is. My husband has had surgery before, but it wasn’t to get me. We see Isaac paying a Mohar when money and gifts were sent along with a servant in order to acquire Rebekah. Jacob paid a Mohar, in fact, he paid it twice for Rachel. When he came to his father-in-law he did not say, “OK it is time for me to get married, give me my bride.” He said, “Give me my wife”.
Jesus did not pay with silver and gold, He paid the ultimate price. Isaiah 52:3 states, “For this is what the LORD says: “You were sold for nothing, and without money you will be redeemed.””(NIV)
We sold our selves at the Fall. We didn’t get anything out of it. We lost. “Without money you will be redeemed” the LORD said. That’s Isaiah 52, the next chapter is Isaiah 53, the chapter of our precious suffering servant.
Starting in Isaiah 53:5 if says, “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”(NIV)
That is holy ground. That is the sacrifice of our beloved Bridegroom, His bridal price. The price it took to acquire us.
Let’s look at Luke 22:19 which says, “And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.””(NIV) Here Jesus’ body is being broken for us, it is being given for us. That’s Jesus at the last supper. So His body was broken, while we know that His bones were not broken, His body was broken. Not a joint remained in place. Then, of course, we have the blood since with that broken body came blood.
In Leviticus 17:11 and Deuteronomy 12:23 we are told that life is in the blood. Do you believe that? Life is in the blood. So His blood needed to be shed. We see in I Peter 1:18-19 that scripture states, “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.”(NIV)
Did you catch it, “Without money you will be redeemed.”(NIV)
In Revelation 1:5b we read, “To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood.”(NIV) Then in chapter 5:9 we are given this about Jesus, “And they sang a new song: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”(NIV)
Yes, it is His blood that redeems and it redeems completely. He didn’t just pay part of the price, He paid all of it.
At the crucifixion in John 19:30 it reads, “When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”(NIV) It is finished! Tetelistai is the word in Greek. It means paid in full.
He paid His mohar completely. He purchased His Bride and He paid for her in full. He purchased her for His Father and she is His.
The Mohar was paid by Yeshua Himself as yet another part of the Kiddushin and His responsibility in it. In our next post we take a look at the final part of the Kiddushin, the giving of the seal. Is not our Lord and His gift of salvation marvelous.
13 When you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed in Him, you were also sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. 14 He is the down payment of our inheritance, for the redemption of the possession, to the praise of His glory.
I want to concentrate on the term “down payment” today. In the Greek this word is ἀρραβώv (arrabōn) and the definition comes from the Hebrew root `arabown meaning a pledge as part of the purchase, money or property given in advance as security for the rest, or become engaged (a promise of more). The Holy Spirit is the engagement ring so to speak. He is the pledge given for the full inheritance.
Now we have the Holy Spirit in us as Jesus promised the disciples in John 14 and as was promised in Jeremiah 31 with the New Covenant. The Holy Spirit is the one who puts the law, the word of God, on our hearts and minds. It is by His power we are able to live a godly life to the praise of His Glory. Yet the full inheritance is yet to come.
That full inheritance is the return of our Lord Jesus and the wedding of the Lamb. Followed, of course, by the wedding supper and our life together in the presence of God forever in the New Jerusalem. It is no wonder that at the end of Scripture in the book of Revelation it is both the Spirit and the Bride who say, “Come”, together.
This is a very important point because it is the giving of the Holy Spirit that binds us together with each other and with our Lord, our glorious Bridegroom. It is the power of the Spirit that makes the two one body and brings the unity of the body. All based on the blood and resurrection of Christ, his payment of the bridal price and the Father’s approval of that payment. Our full inheritance is coming, coming quickly.
We will discuss further the role of the Holy Spirit in later posts, I just wanted to cover the concept of “down payment” with you in order to continue to lay our foundation of Biblical Unity.
Esther's Legacy 