The Abrahamic Covenant
Genesis 12:1-9; 15:1-21
This morning we’re entering the stories of God’s relationship with Abraham. Since the creation of the world, God has been working with humanity as whole and now God takes a different path in his relationship with humanity, he chooses one person to work through to reveal who he is to all people, and he chooses Abraham and his descendants. The Lord is very deliberate in his choosing in order to reveal his glory and power through his people. The Lord approaches Abram and tells him to pack up his life and leave his clan, his country, and his security and trust the Lord’s promises.
Can you imagine getting a call from the Lord to leave everything behind and start a new life in a place you’ve never seen? Some of you have, many of you come from families that immigrated here to Canada from another with a dream of a better life, not necessarily for yourself, but for your children and grandchildren. You, or your parents or grandparents were willing to sacrifice their lives so we could have better lives. Many of you have some understanding of how big a change the Lord is asking of Abram. Abram immigrates with his wife and his nephew Lot and Lot’s family, along with all his servants and slaves, and Abram is 75 years old with no kids; no spring chicken and his wife is barren.
Abram has a choice: trust God or to trust in the life he’s created over the years. Trusting the Lord is going to be hard because the promises made to Abram seem almost impossible to believe, promises of becoming a great nation and of being a blessing to all people on earth, promises of the Lord’s blessings and protection when Sarai is barren. Abram chooses the Lord, he chooses trust. I’ve been thinking a lot about trust the past year. Our culture doesn’t trust very easily anymore. There’s been a huge loss of trust in the past couple of years in government, churches and pastors, in leadership of almost any kind. Trust in each other has suffered; people tend to look for the worst in a person rather than giving each other the benefit of the doubt when there’s disagreements. Trust is a choice we make and if we tend towards not trusting, this affects our relationship with Jesus, making it more difficult to trust in him, leaving us to trust only in ourselves. This leads to chaos and brokenness, which is why God chooses to make covenants with his people; to help us to learn trust in him.
Abram makes his way to Shechem where the Lord meets him, telling Abram, “To your offspring I will give this land.” As Abram settles into the area, he and Lot separate. Lot gets into trouble and Abram saves him by going to battle against a coalition of 4 kings. God gives him the victory and Abram meets Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of the Lord and who blesses Abram. Abram has established himself as a military power in the area; the people now see him as a potential ally or threat. Abram’s safety in the area in no longer as secure as it was before defeating the 4 kings.
The Lord now approaches Abram again. “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” The word “reward” seems to trigger Abram, reminding him of the Lord’s promises of descendants, but he’s getting older and so is Sarai. What does the Lord really mean with his promise. Abram tries to interpret the Lord’s promise, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.” How often we still do that today; we read a promise in the Scriptures and then try to fulfill it in our own strength and way instead of patiently waiting and trusting in the Lord to do his thing in his way?
Now the Lord reassures Abram. He takes Abram outside and they contemplate the night sky in all its glory and wonder. “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir. Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them. So shall your offspring be.” Think of what the night sky looks like when you’re away from city lights, like when you’re in the mountains away from artificial sources of light and how when the stars come out, the beauty and wonder touch our souls in a deeper way, helping us understand when the psalmist tells us that the heavens declare the glory of God. In this moment, Abram believes, such a simple statement, and yet life changing!
Paul talks about this moment in his letter to the Romans, “It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith…. Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham…. Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him.” Abram does nothing to deserve or earn anything from God, but his simple act of believing in faith is credited to Abram as righteousness, as the right response to God.
The Lord enters into a formal covenant with Abram, building on the covenants with Adam and Noah which include the call to be fruitful and multiple. Now the Lord promises an heir to Abram from his own flesh who will be a blessing to the nations. This covenant is ultimately fulfilled in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, who calls people to himself in order to be saved. Abram, even though he believes, still wonders how it’s all going to happen, and in a roundabout way, asks the Lord for a sign.
So the Lord calls Abram to do something we find strange, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.” Abram brings them to the Lord; he cuts the larger animals in half and arranges them opposite to each other and the birds he leaves whole and places them across from each other. The Jewish Commentary at Chabad.org says, “He (the Lord) was forming a covenant with him to keep His promise, to cause his sons to inherit the land, as it is written (verse 18): “On that day, the Lord formed a covenant with Abram, saying, etc.,” and it is the custom of those who form a covenant to divide an animal and to pass between its parts.” We’re given an example of this covenant making in Jeremiah 34:19 between the Lord and Jewish leaders, “The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests and all the people of the land who walked between the pieces of the calf.” This pathway of animals creates a pathway of blood, as they would make a slight trench between the pieces of the animals. This highlighted the importance of the covenant and it also meant there were serious consequences for the side of the covenant who fails to live up to the terms of the covenant. Because of the blood, Abram has to chase away the birds of prey.
The Lord comes again to Abram in a deep sleep. Moses describes it as a thick and dreadful darkness that comes over Abram. The Hebrew implies fright and horror; this is a scary moment for Abram and in this darkness, the Lord gives Abram a glimpse of the future of his descendants, a future filled with both tragedy and triumph, as one writer puts it. They will leave this Promised Land, but the Lord will bring them home again. Now the Lord appears as a smoking firepot with a blazing torch and passes between the pieces. This image of God as fire echoes all through Israel’s history and is one of the names of God, the Shechinah. One rabbi describes Shechinah, “The Shechinah refers to divine providence, heavenly guidance of earthly affairs. When the Shechinah rests on an individual, he experiences obvious divine intervention in his life. While primarily supernatural involvement, divine providence also includes a physical representation, which is the created light.”
The Lord binds himself to this covenant, and by passing through the blood pathway on his own, he takes on the entire responsibility of the covenant on himself, similar to the Noah covenant. This covenant points us to the covenant of blood Jesus makes with us on the cross, through his active obedience and sacrifice on the cross, which only he is capable of doing, we’re made right with God and can have confidence in God’s faithfulness to us in all his promises of forgiveness, healing, and new life. Abram believes and, in this covenant, takes steps towards a deeper trust in God. The same challenge is there for us today; the call to believe, but then to allow that belief to grow into a deep trust in Jesus, and to be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit. This is a journey we enter into with the Holy Spirit as we seek out his leading and trust in him.
