Recap
- Last week we studied the tower of Babel and the call of Abram
- The tower was built in order to make a name for themselves and to prevent them from being scattered.
- Humanity is trying to recover the security and significance they lost in the fall.
- The tower builder’s attempts proved futile and God frustrated their efforts
- The writer of Genesis sets up a pattern of sin, judgment, and grace but the tower of Babel ends with no mention of grace. The reader is left to wonder.
- After the Babel story, Genesis introduces Abram a descendent of Shem and promises him land, seed, and blessing.
- By juxtaposing the call of Abram with the story of Babel, Genesis is trying to tell us that God’s promise to Abram is the answer to the problem of the fall and the loss of security and significance.
- Everything the tower builders attempted to achieve by their own efforts, God gives to Abram. Abram is promised land, seed, and blessing.
- The blessing on Abram is not an end to itself. God intends to bless all people through Abram. Last week we saw how this blessing of the world through Abram finds its origin in the blessing on Shem & Japeth and we looked at how Isaiah & Zechariah take this concept and expand upon it and how ultimately it is fulfilled through Jesus Christ.
Background
- Abram leaves Ur and travels to Canaan. Using Abram to solve the problem of the fall looks like a bad idea. Abram is from a nomadic tribe of no importance dwelling in a Sumerian city. His family worships pagan moon gods. The text seems to go out of it wife to mention that his brother is dead and his wife is barren.
- This seems to be the way God usually works.
Q. Can you think of some other examples where God uses non-obvious or pathetic people?
- He passes over the first born. He provides children to the barren. He uses fisherman, shepherds, and tax collectors. He selects Israel because it is the smallest.
- Abram travels to Canaan and builds alters to God in Shechem and Bethel effectively marking out the land as God’s territory. The only problem is that there were Canaanites there.
- Abram travels to Egypt during a famine where is wife is taken into the Pharaoh’s harem because Abram lies and says Sarai is his sister.
- The result is that Egypt suffers a plague and Sarai is saved.
Q. Why does God punish Pharaoh and not Abram?
- God has promised to unconditionally curse those who curse Abram.
- God promises a child for Sarai & Abram. There can be no question that any children Sarai has is from Abram.
- Lot is taken prisoner by raiders and Abram joins a coalition of armies to rescue Lot.
Q. Why does the author of Genesis tell us these stories about Abram?
- Genesis wants to show us that God is beginning to fulfill his promise to Abram by blessing those who bless Abram and cursing those who curse him.
Ratification Ceremony
Q. What causes God to perform this ceremony?
- God has promised Abram a child and Abram is worried because he has no children, he is old, and right now Eliezer of Damascus is the one who will inherit his property and name.
Awesome 1:
- Rather than getting upset at Abram for his doubt, God gives Abram this ceremony to reassure him in his faith.
- God promises that Abram will have more descendants than the stars in heaven and Abram believes this promise and it is on the basis of his faith and nothing else that results in him being counted as righteous.
- In Romans 4, Paul takes this and runs with it to show that entire Bible is built up from faith being credited as righteous. Paul looks back, as we have been looking forward we see that everything in Genesis has been leading up to this. The answer to the problem of sin and the fall is belief in the promises of God such as Adam had when he names his wife Eve, or Laban had when he names his son Noah, or Noah had when he built the ark.
- In the ancient near east, covenants were ratified in highly symbolic ceremonies.
- Animals were lined up and cut in half symbolizing what would happen to parties swearing the oath if they did not fulfill their commitment. Ordinarily, both parties would walk between the split animals.
Q. What/who walks between the animals?
- A smoking fire pot and a flaming torch. These are symbols of the presence of God. The people Moses was writing for in Genesis would have recognized this as the cloud of day and the pillar of fire at night that led them through the wilderness.
Awesome 2:
Q. Who is making the commitment and who suffers the penalty if the covenant is broken?
- God is the one making the commitment. God alone suffers the penalty if the covenant is broken. This is how we know this is a promissory covenant and not a suzerain-vassal covenant. Under a suzerain-vassal covenant, the vassal takes the oath and is punished if the stipulations of the covenant are not met. In a typical ceremony, both parties would walk between the split animals. Here the suzerain is the one taking the oath.
- This is a self-maledictory oath.
Abrahamic Covenant in the Old Testament
- In Genesis 17, God will give Abraham the sign of the covenant, circumcision. The effect of the covenant is that YHWH would be God to Abraham and his children, and they would be YHWH’s people. This formula will be used throughout scripture.
- Basis for the Exodus: Exodus 2:24
- Jeremiah prophecies and new covenant that will fully realize the promises of Abraham’s covenant: Jeremiah 31:31-33
- Ezekiel also prophecies and a new covenant that will fully realize the promises of Abraham’s covenant: Ezekiel 36:28
Abrahamic Covenant in New Testament
- Mary links the blessing of the messiah to the covenant with Abraham: Luke 1:54-55
- Zechariah does the same thing in Luke 1:72-73
- Peter connects the covenant of Abraham with the New Covenant in Acts 3:25-26
Galatians 3:7-9 “Know then that is to those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, In you shall all the nations be blessed. So then, those who are of faith are blessed along Abraham, the man of faith.
Galatians 3:15-18 “To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “and to offsprings” referring to many, but referring to one, “and to your offspring,” who is Christ. This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise, but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.
Galatians 3:29 “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”
- The Abrahamic covenant predates the Mosaic covenant and is not annulled by the Mosaic covenant. The Abrahamic covenant is still in effect.
- The Abrahamic covenant is a promissory covenant and is contrasted with the Mosaic covenant which is based on works.
- Therefore, since the Abrahamic covenant is still in effect and not annulled by Mosaic covenant then Abraham’s descendants are ultimately still heirs to the promise of Abraham.
- Christ is the ultimate expression of this promise and the vehicle for the blessing to the descendants of Abraham and ultimately to all the families of the earth.
Summary of Abraham Covenant
- Abraham is promised land, seed, and blessing. This promise is unconditional and will be accomplished because God has sworn to do so.
- The covenant was meant to be eternal, but Israel operating under the Mosaic law receives these promises only temporarily. The Mosaic law demands God’s punishment and so Israel is driven from the land into captivity and the promises of Abraham are left unfulfilled.
- All nations were intended to be blessed through Abraham. Something that we never see achieved by Israel.
- In order for God to keep His word to Abraham a New Covenant is promised which will deal with the Israel’s failure to keep the Mosaic law.
- By solving the problem of sin Abraham’s covenant finds its full benefit. The promises are fully realized and greater.
- Now the land is no longer limited to the geographic boundaries of Israel, but to the whole earth. The seed is no longer physical descendants of Abraham but now the blessing of Abraham has been extended to all families of the earth on the basis of faith, just as it was for Abraham who believed God and it was credited as righteous.
- The take home message is that the New Covenant is not new in the sense that it comes out of nowhere, but is based on the covenant with Abraham. The Hebrew word for new hadash and the Greek “kainos” frequently mean new in the sense of restored or renewed, for example the new heavens and new earth or a new moon.
- This is clearly how Paul sees it in Galatians and Romans and why he so often contrasts the promise and faith principle of Abraham’s covenant with law and works principle of the Mosaic covenant.
Christ and the New Covenant
- Earlier we talked about the covenant ceremony and the symbolism of the animals that were cut in half.
- We are tempted to look at the ceremony and to view it as theoretical since we know God can fulfill him promise.
Awesome 3
Q. Why are these particular animals chosen for the covenant ratification ceremony?
- It is no coincidence that the animals used in the covenant ratification ceremony are all clean animals suitable for sacrifice under Levitical law. As the Levitical sacrifices all point to Christ, the animals cut in half in Genesis 15 also point to Christ, the new and living way.
- However, God is also a God of justice and justice demands that he judges even His own covenant people. As sinners they will be found in violation of God’s commands, and therefore subject to the punishment. The wages of sin is death.
- God is present in two symbols, the smoking fire pot and the flaming torch. This may symbolize that God is acting as both the suzerain and the vassal. In this case God is committed to His role as suzerain, but also acting as a substitute for Israel’s commitment.
Hebrews 10:19-20 “Therefore brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, his flesh.”
Q. Abram is given this ceremony of cutting the animals to reassure him as a believer in God’s promises that they are trustworthy. What are we given in the New Covenant?
- We are given Communion, where the body of Christ is broken just as these animals were broken and we drink the blood of Christ just as Abram would have experienced the blood of the animals as he cut them in half.
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