Genesis 15: God's covenant with Abraham
Read: Genesis 15
We are already aware of the promises that God has made to Abraham: that his many descendants would take possession of the land of Canaan. Having delivered the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah from their invaders and had his encounter with Melchizedek, Abraham has an encounter with the living God. Perhaps in response to the political turmoil that has just surrounded him, God reminds and reassures Abraham:
“Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield,
your very great reward.”
(Genesis 15:5)
However, Abraham has a problem that is causing him to question how God will fulfil promises he made three chapters earlier, because he is old and childless. How can God make him into a great nation, and his descendants inherit the land? But God shows him the stars in the sky - and tells him his offspring will be more than those, and Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteous.
Abraham was not without doubts or questions, but we are told that he believed God, and it was credited to him as righteous. Despite his natural doubts, he acknowledge that God Almighty was Lord and knew that it was he who would provide. Righteousness is being right with God - living in right relationship with him, and whilst the wrong things we do to each other, the earth and our own bodies further deepen that chasm, they are in many ways signs and symptoms of the problem, and fixing them and living according to God's will in those areas (e.g. keeping commandments 3-10), will not solve the heart of the problem. As we have learned in the earlier chapters of Genesis, the heart of sin is wanting to be gods. And so, Abraham was counted as righteous because, in this moment, he came to God acknowledging his power and plan.
But, you may ask, what about Jesus? If Abraham could come to faith by just trusting in God, then why did Jesus need to come? Firstly, Abraham did believe in Jesus. God wasn't simply any old monotheistic god up until the incarnation of Jesus - he was there from the beginning (John 1:1). Abraham did not have the extent of theological revelation that we have, but to suggest that he was not trusting in Jesus because he didn't fully appreciate God as Trinity would suggest that God is merely a product of our imaginations. A person who gets on board a plane and trusts it will stay in the air even though they do not know how, nor the fact that there is both a pilot and a co-pilot, is trusting in the same plane and pilots as the one who understands the science of why it stays up and appreciates the full measure of the skills of the pilot. And when Jesus the co-pilot (I believe pilots and co-pilots are equally qualified) defeats death and evil once and for all, he will take all those who boarded the plan with him to glory.
Finally, in the latter part of this passage we have what, to us, is a rather strange chain of events. Abraham asks God how he can be sure of his promises, and God's response is: “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.” (Genesis 15:9). It seems a little odd - does Abraham have to pay for the promise? A we read on we see Abraham cutting the larger animals in half and laying them out, Abraham falls into a deep sleep (or possibly we could understand this as having a 'vision' rather than physical sleep) and a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces (Genesis 15:17). However, contemporary readers would have recognised this ritual as the one that takes place when two people make a covenant together - i.e. a binding agreement. Contemporary readers may also have noticed something different, as usually both parties would walk between the sacrificed pieces. In this instance, it was something that God did alone. God's covenant with us is his own initiative, love and promise - we just have to believe him.
Finally, a note about the ritual itself. On learning that these events reflected the ritual of covenant of the time, one might remark (as indeed I did when first discussing this) that if Abraham were in our culture, then maybe God may have given him a ring. Engagement rings; wedding rings, both signify an agreement and a promise (indeed, God's relationship with his people is frequently compared to marriage). However, whilst I would maintain that it is not beyond the realms of probability that God would use some of our legal customs in both marriage and legal contracts in order to demonstrate a covenant to us, sacrifice has a specific meaning that goes beyond a cultural practice, as it points to the cost of the external covenant - that is Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice who died in our place, as the writer to the Hebrews describes:
...when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. (Hebrews 10:5–14)
As expounded by Paul in passages such as Romans 4, there has always been one gospel and one righteousness, and salvation for those who believe.
Previous: Genesis 14: Melchizedek - who was he?
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