Good Friday Update (March 29, 2024)

On threshold covenants, Passover, and Jesus as the Door.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Happy (?) Good Friday!

As I've mentioned in previous updates, I've been reading up on threshold covenants, and wanted to share some of what I've learned today.

The concept of threshold covenants has been coming up for me a lot lately, seemingly at random. But so much so that it seemed unlikely to be coincidence. So I took a dive and read _The Threshold Covenant or the Beginning of Religious Rites_ by H. Clay Trumbull, a 19th century minister and researcher.

In this book, he compiled research showing how, in every culture and every age throughout human history, archaeologists and anthropologists have found evidence of this practice of treating the doorway, or threshold, of the home as an altar to the deity that's worshipped within the household. When welcoming someone into the household, a sacrifice -- often animal, sometimes salt or wine in place of an animal; sometimes, in some cultures, human -- would be made at the threshold altar, and as the person being welcomed stepped over the blood on the threshold, they entered into a covenant where, as long as they remained under that roof, they would be treated a family and protected by the household deity or deities. This practice was usually part of marriage rites, as well, with the new bride being welcomed into the household and covenanted to be part of the family.

Trumbull traces this practice all the way back to the beginnings of human history, surmising that this practice began as a pure act of worship and covenanting with YHWH, and that down through the ages it became corrupted and distorted as it was incorporated into the worship of pagan gods. We see evidence of this in scripture, in Genesis 15, in the method God used to ratify his covenant with Abraham, creating a threshold by dividing the sacrificial animals and separating them to make "doorposts" in order for God to pass between them and cross over their shed blood.

Throughout the ages, this practice gtook on a lot of different forms, and grew from the threshold of the home to the threshold of the temple or place of corporate worship, the entrance to the community, the gate to the city, even the borders of the nation. We still see vestiges of this ancient practice alive today in the traditions of carrying a bride over the threshold of her new home, or christening a new ship by spilling the "blood of the grape" on its bow. This isn't mentioned in the book, but I also suspect that the phrase "rolling out the red carpet" comes from this practice.

It's all really fascinating, but for the purposes of today, the main point is that this was also practiced in ancient Egypt around the time of the Exodus. With this practice in view, a whole new layer of significance is added to the Passover.

We think of Passover as meaning that Death passed over the houses of the Hebrews. But the Hebrew word, peschah, actually refers to passing over a threshold.

What happened that night, the last night of their Egyptian slavery, is that each Hebrew slave who obeyed the instructions given to Moses by sacrificing a spotless lamb and painting its blood on the lintel of their doorway, were in fact making a threshold covenant with YHWH, welcoming him into their household to be their God. When YHWH saw the blood of the lamb on the doorposts, he, instead of his Death angel, entered in, while Death moved on to the next house. Not only that, but this was also a marriage covenant. By welcoming YHWH in in this manner, each Hebrew also entered into the household and protection of God, and it was based on this covenant that Israel became the wife of God. This is why their idolatry was referred to as adultery.

But it doesn't stop there. When Jesus said that he's the door, and that we must enter through him into life, he was making a direct reference to this threshold covenant practice. He said that anyone who enters by another way is a theif and a robber. In the middle and near-eastern cultures where this threshold covenant was practiced, only unwelcome thieves and robbers tried to bypass crossing the threshold to enter a dwelling, and they would be presumably be punished by the household god.

According to Jesus, anyone who tries to enter God's household by any way but him -- such as the Pharisees he was speaking to, trying to enter by their own righteousness -- were thieves and robbers. They were unwelcome. They weren't under the protection of the covenant.

Of course, as Christians, we know that Jesus was our ultimate spotless Passover Lamb, who gave his own life and shed his blood so that Death would pass over those of us who apply his blood through faith. But in light of the threshold covenant, it's more than that. Jesus is indeed the door. He IS the threshold. Through faith, we pass over the blood he spilled on the threshold and enter into his household, being welcomed into his family, becoming betrothed to him as his bride, and being placed under his Father's protection and provision. Better yet, this is an unbreakable covenant. If you've passed over this threshold and accepted the blood that was spilled there for you, you are part of the household from that moment on.

Even since I read the book, threshold covenants still keep popping up. For instance, I've been catching up with Skywatch TV and just as I finished the book, I started a new series they did on, you guessed it, threshold covenants. What are the odds? It seems like Somebody up there wants me to get this. I'll include that series below, since maybe I'm not the only one who needs to understand this.

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I have something I wrote for my blog a couple of Good Fridays ago that I want to send out this weekend. Otherwise, this might be my last update here for a while. I'll be honest -- I'm just not clear on God's will regarding this newsletter. And I feel like if it's not clear, then it's probably not God's will. I'm still praying for clarity in this. So far, I feel like I'm getting mixed signals. On the one hand, my subscriber count keeps growing, and I've gotten good feedback letting me know that people have been ministered to by my content here.

On the other hand, the more I pray to be allowed to reduce my freelance writing and spend more time on ministry writing, the more freelance writing gets added to my plate, and I don't have the freedom to turn it down. Other circumstances are also making me feel like, rather than having a wide open door for this, I'm trying to shoulder my way through a door that maybe isn't really meant for me, at least not in this season. And the harder I push, the narrower the opening gets. I'm thinking maybe I'm trying to Martha my way through a Mary season -- that I'm supposed to just be sitting at the Lord's feet and learning and being discipled so I'll be ready if and when he DOES give me a wide open door and a clear green light.

Also, worrying about creating content for this newsletter is making me stressed and anxious, and it's a distraction from serving and loving on the people who are in my actual life. For now, I'm feeling more led to focus what little time I do have for "extra-curricular" writing on my supernatural fiction series and on educating people about the Divine Council worldview over on Through a Glass, Darkly.

I'm still praying and seeking the Lord's will on this, and I'd appreciate your prayer, too. But for now, I'm going to disable paid subcriptions and I'm going to lay this newsletter down until I get a clear directive to take it back up again.

In the meantime, I leave you with Skywatch's discussion on threshold covenants.

But first, as we focus on the finished work of the cross today, let's all remember: Sunday's on the way!

You can watch the whole 4-part series here on YouTube.