Abraham’s Covenant And The Cross

We trace Genesis 15 as the backbone of grace, where God walks the blood path alone and anchors salvation in his promise. Cloud and fire link Abraham to Exodus and the cross, turning an ancient rite into a living hope for today.

• God as Abram’s shield and what that means now
• How ancient covenants work and why blood matters
• Why Abram sleeps while God signs alone
• Prophecy of four hundred years and divine justice
• Smoke and fire as God’s consistent signature
• Land boundaries and many nations from Abraham
• Israel’s vocation to bless the world
• Assurance of salvation without works grounded in Genesis 15

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Transcript

Setting The Stage: Genesis 15

God As Abraham’s Shield

Personalizing God’s Covenant Name

Ancient Covenants And Blood Paths

The Animals And Their Meaning

Abram’s Deep Sleep And Prophecy

Four Hundred Years And Justice

The Flaming Torch And Smoking Oven

Salvation Without Works Explained

Cloud And Fire Across Scripture

The Boundaries Of The Promised Land

Many Nations From Abraham

Purpose Of Israel For The World

Theories On Three-Year-Old Animals

Closing Reflections And Invitation

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Welcome and welcome to a very fun time today. We are in Genesis 15, noted as probably the most important chapter in the Old Testament when it comes to the cross. And today we get to discover why. And I'm sure you read ahead, or maybe you've heard me talk about this before, but you can never get too much of this. It's just like the gospel. Have you ever been to church many weeks in a row and everything comes back to the cross? Well, now we can see why there are layers and layers in the word, and there's like this cross layer that we keep bumping into, but it's so affirming. It's so affirming. Now, today I listened to this sermon. Well, I wouldn't say sermon as far as Christian sermon, but it was a rabbi that it caught my eye because he was talking about God as Abraham's shield. And remember in 15, verse 1, God says, Do not fear Abram to him in a vision. I am a shield to you. Your reward shall be very great. So my ears perked up. Okay, I got to hear what he's saying about Abraham's shield. Turns out they pray about the shield of Abraham three times a day. Most Jewish people don't even know the Star of David is not biblical. It was started many hundred years ago. And most of them don't know about the shield of Abraham because they're not all Hasidic doing the thing that these rabbis do. So this shield, God as a shield, is only in a few places in the Old Testament. It is here and it's a psalm. Now, when I picture God as a shield, I picture myself in battle and I picture this big shield, like I couldn't even see through it. I just know that arrows are hitting that shield and all is well. Well, the way they described it, and there's no way I could do it justice, but for all of you out there that are very kind, very benevolent, very generous, that I guess is a personality like Abraham's. And God as a shield first is a shield or a buffer between these very kind people who want to do God's will and the world. And it was less a shield, more of a screen, an extra layer of protection that's around them, like a net, a mosquito net, so to speak. And I just found it very interesting. My mother is the kindest person I know. And everybody who meets her talks about how kind she is. So I called her to tell her she is probably wrapped in that shield because God sees her good heart and he needs to create people with that nature. But it's gonna be tough when you're kind. Get this chapter 15, verse 7. And he said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess it. So no make a no mistake. This is me. This is God. I'm the one who approached you in Ur. What I love about this is that is also a way to start a covenant. A covenant like a document today is going to list the people involved in the covenant. The name the Lord wants to go to is very personal to Abraham. I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans. I'm the broad one who brought you to this land to possess it, this land that I'm going to give to you. And I love this because when you jump up to the time of Moses, God is also going to say, I am the God who took you out of Egypt. And the way we can take that and personalize it is to realize that God, when he wants to be personal with us, what would he say? I am the Lord who took you out of that high control community church and led you into the freedom and grace. I am the Lord who brought your father through the addiction to alcohol and revealed grace to him. I am the Lord who saved your marriage when it was on the brink of divorce. On and on and on. I am the Lord who cured yourself of cancer, etc. Who is God? We need to personalize that. If God was going to go into covenant with just us and he does that personally along with the body of Christ, what would he say? I am the Lord who gave you 10 more years with your mom, who did this, did that. There are there's something, there's some way God has represented himself to you personally. And I find it very, very beneficial to write that down. Write that down. If you're gonna go sit before God and pray, how would he introduce himself? I am the Lord who Abraham says, Oh Lord, God, how may I know that I will possess it? Possess this land. So this is where we get into the covenant. In the ancient times, people did not have a paper trail for this stuff. This was not contract city here. This was covenant when it comes to relationships. Marriages were a covenant. There might be a covenant between two landowners to divide up the land fairly to his sons or their sons at the passing of them. But maybe we're gonna share this river right now. May we always share this river. There's covenants, relational covenants that were made in the ancient times, and they were made in this fashion. How they were made, and you might need to close your eyes to picture this. Picture animals divided in half. Picture a couple sheep, a couple rams, a pig, whatever you want to picture. Picture them cut in half, and in between the two halves is a path. So the blood from the animals is oozing into that path. All right, blood side toward the path. So what people did is they walked through that bloody path and they described the covenant they were going to go into. And that's what the ancient world was used to. This is how covenants are made. Covenants have many factors, and that is that they had the two parties listed, of course. They were usually conditional or unconditional. They had a sign when it was God. This is a sign of the covenant. The sign of this covenant will be circumcision. They were usually done with blood, just like the new covenant will be with Jesus Christ on the cross. Now, listen to this though. Listen to what God does. God gives him this grocery list. He says, Bring me a three-year-old heifer and a three-year-old female goat and a three-year-old ram and a turtle dove and a young pigeon. All right. So God orders those groceries. Abraham goes out to do it. He goes out to get those groceries. Now, Robert Alter, he's kind of a big-time Hebrew expert, so to speak, kind of an awesome guy. He writes a commentary, super short on Genesis and certain parts. But this is what he says about covenants. He says, covenants in which the two parties step between cloven animal parts are attested in various places in the ancient Near East and Greece. If either party violates the covenant, his fate will be like that of the cloven animals. That is, they will be torn apart. The Hebrew idiom, karat barit, means to cut a covenant. What we're seeing here is God using the same format as ancient kings, listing the covenant parties, providing the details of the covenant. Both parties sign the covenant by walking between the animal parts, and then there's usually third-party witnesses. But what's going to happen here is heaven is the witness. There doesn't need to be witnesses when it comes to God, right? So when it comes to God's promises, there's no need for witnesses. The name used for God in 15.7 is translated as Lord in most of our Bibles. But in the original text, Moses is using the name El Shaddai. This kind of blows my mind because God has so many names, and we don't realize, but uh many of his names have certain specifics for certain times or certain demonstrations of his person, so to speak. El Shaddai is the name Moses uses at the start of this covenant, and the name El Shaddai, you guys, biblical interpreters say this name is used very minimally in the word in a more profound analysis. El Shaddai is close in meaning to the words mountain and fertility. To me, what he's using is the name closest to land and offspring. God is answering Abraham's question, who will be my heir? All right. So theologian Kenneth Matthews writes that Shaddai in Genesis is associated with children and nations. So names have massive implications in the word, as they still do today. And here is a portion where God uses his name, and it's the most appropriate name for the task at hand. God is not trying to be complicated. God reveals himself in ways humans can recognize, and God is crystal clear about his intention in this process. In this covenantal introduction, you guys, God takes the place of an ancient king, and Abraham represents a servant. So according to the ancient practice, Abraham would have understood that he would be the signer of the covenant because kings did not sign covenants. Kings did not need to sign covenants. The king had everything they needed. If you needed something from the king and you needed to put your life on the line, you were going to sign it solo. The king did not need to be part of a covenant with a servant. A king might make a covenant with a different king. Let's read on. We know Abraham thinks he's going to sign this covenant. We know he's been asked to go get all these animals. Then he brought all these to God and he cut them in two and laid each half opposite the other, but he did not cut the birds. The birds of prey came down upon the carcasses and Abram drove them away. Abram went out immediately, got those animals, cut them in half. I researched this yesterday because I've always pictured them cut in half, like across the belly, like across the waistline. No, they were splayed down the center of their body. So then I decided, okay, I gotta figure out how long this path is because I always pictured it about 10 feet long with these animals. But I looked at the average length of a ram, which was six feet, a goat, which is almost four, a heifer, which is up to 10 feet, and I realized that this path, this path along with the birds, is over 25 feet. If you're gonna give a little inch or two or a foot or two between animals, it would be like 30 feet. This is a long path of sliced up animals. Now, this is fascinating because I want to say something here that's pretty big. According to the original audience, they would understand that this is a one and done covenant. There is no covenant that they would have known of that required these animals, the heifer, the goat, the ram, and the birds. They wouldn't have. The only time a heifer was sacrificed that comes later than the Israelites would be on the initiation of King David. Slicing up a heifer, a three-year-old heifer that's giving milk and has a high value on its life is very rare. So then we get the three-year-old female goat also giving milk, also giving birth, and a three-year-old ram, right? Well, this is like so cool to me. And I just, you know me, I got I got these questions and I can't stand it, and I'm looking all this stuff up. There's a lot of theories about why God chose three-year-old animals. We know three is complete. There are three three-year-old animals, and then there's a turtle dove and a young pigeon, two birds, okay? And I'm like, okay, okay, so this is something about the cross. I know it is, I know it is, and we know that Jesus hung on that cross and he had three nails in his hands, etc. We've talked about that, but also three-year-old, they think could be that Abram was giving each of these animals at the highest value that they would have had if he was to bring them to market. So he was offering up animals that had the highest value possible if he would have brought them to market. We need to notice also that the goat, it doesn't say spotless for the goat or the ram. It doesn't say perfect. I'm certain almost that Abraham did that, but it doesn't say that. I have always wondered about the turtle dove and the young pigeon. I'm desperate for that information, have not found it yet. But look what happens here. Now, in verse 12, 15, 12, now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him. So this word for deep sleep is the same word Tardama that was used with Adam when Eve was taken from his side. When Eve was taken from his side, Adam was in this deep sleep. All right. So now he's doing this to Abram. And in both cases, huge things are happening with Adam. It's about a covenant of marriage, right? And in this situation, it is a covenant between God and Abram that extends all the way to us. 1513, God said to Abram, Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. Now that's huge when we get to Egypt. Notice he doesn't say what the nation is, but Abram is aware that his descendants are going to be strangers in the land and they will be enslaved. Right now, Abram is realizing he will never see the land that God has promised him. He will never see the land, he will never see the nation that God has promised him. But God then tells him, As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace. You will be buried at a good old age. So we know Abraham will live in peace. Then, verse 16, in the fourth generation, they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete. Now, this just seems like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, my brain is tired. There is so much here. What is he actually saying? He is saying that they're gonna be slaves for 400 years. Now, most people start that year count when Isaac is born, because the promise is they will be part of another nation. They will be nomads, right? They will go from nomad to slave eventually, but they start that clock when Isaac is born, and they end that clock with Moses at Passover when they leave. But what's so cool is look at what it says here in the fourth generation. And that kind of like bugged me because I'm like, no, because generations are not a hundred years. As a matter of fact, if we waited 400 years, that would be like the fifth generation, right? Because you have to get into that next generation. So this is many, many, many generations according to our lifespan. Well, that word generation, according to Kenneth Matthews, can also be like the word day, and it can be the same fixed number of years. The same fixed number of years. So it's not that every generation's not gonna have a child till they're a hundred, because that would be kind of crazy. But it's that God is saying that 400 years, he is counting as generations, and we know that Abram's gonna have Isaac when he's a hundred. Here's something interesting. So why can't they have the land yet? God is saying this in verse 16. The iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete. So there are seven tribes in the land of Canaan. And God is saying, because I'm my long suffering is not done with them, their time has not come. God is a just God. He's not like, hey, I'm gonna take Abraham, I'm just gonna give all these people COVID, they'll all be knocked out, and then I'm gonna have Abram march in there, and I'm gonna grow all these fruit trees, and everything's gonna be blessed, and you know, Sarai's gonna have 20 sons. No, that's not what's going on. This is a long process that Abraham got into. Not that he regrets it, but God is saying that the Amorites that are in there, those are people God loves. God loves the world, God's after the world, and he's after their repentance, and he's after them big time. And he is not ready yet for the Israelites to come into the land, and they're not ready. There's barely anybody there, right? It's just Abraham and company. But verse 17 is going to be the verse that sets your hair on fire as you realize what's going on here. Verse 17 is key to our salvation, our salvation without works. So it came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch, which passed between these pieces. So Abram is asleep, right? Abram thinks he's gonna sign the covenant, therefore, if something goes wrong, he needs to die. But that's not what happens. God takes sole ownership of the covenant, he is the signer of the covenant, the sole signer. So, what God is actually saying is if you, Abram and company, break this covenant with me, then I will die. I will take the punishment of death. In this way, you guys, God needed to die, and that's why Jesus was sent, not just for Adam, but for this covenant with Abraham. God was saying that he will die, he will take the penalty for this covenant. So when we talk about Jesus taking the penalty on the cross, when we talk about that penalty, what is that penalty? That penalty is not only Adam and the sin penalty, that penalty is right here in Genesis 15. So this is why when we talk about Jesus being fully human, he can pay that sin penalty for Adam. But as someone fully God, he pays the sin penalty for the Abrahamic covenant and he covers the cost completely, pays the price with his blood. Because God went through the animals at this time in the Abrahamic covenant. Take a breath. Look at the majesty of this moment, look at God's pursual, look at God's insistence too. I'm not gonna let humans blow this. I'm gonna have to take the penalty. I'm gonna have to get this done. Now, God knew this before time. God didn't create us in the fashion he created us in for anything but relationship and pursual. And God made a way before we were even created to make that happen. So this isn't God winging it. This is God letting the Israelites know that this covenant is on his back, on his back. You know how Jesus says his yoke is light. So what the Israelites do then to make the Mosaic law about salvation is totally off the charts wrong. Totally off the charts wrong. So get this, you guys. This is how this is how crazy it was. Why would Abram need to be in a comatose state? And this is me. This is me, but this is my assumption. One can only assume that the father was assuring that Abram would not get ahead of God and sign the covenant out of exuberance. Who would do that? The disciple Peter would do that. The disciple Peter was always running ahead and assuming stuff and taking care of business, right? So God put Abram in this comatose state, not only because Abram needed to see him in a vision or he would die, but also to allow him to see that it was fully signed. If Abram had signed the blood covenant, okay, I'm gonna start this again because I know I'm hyper right now. If Abram had signed the blood covenant, it would have disallowed complete fulfillment by Christ on the cross and required some payment on humanity's part. So if Abram had even set his foot in that 30-foot realm of blood, it would have disallowed Jesus from paying the price of our salvation. Now, today we can know, guys, that the blood poured out on the cross has completely paid our debts, and we are truly citizens of heaven. Let's look at Philippians 3, verses 20 and 21. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our lowly condition into conformity with his glorious body by the exertion of the power that he has even to subject all things to himself. God signed this covenant. God signed this covenant. One thing I just I just can't get over is his signature here as a cloud and fire. So it turns out in these ancient times, people at times would carry torches and they would carry torches through this blood covenant. Now God is gonna go through not only a torch, but like this smoking oven. It's like, okay, all right, this big oven. And I was looking up this oven, and I was looking up the Hebrew word for this oven, and they said it is like a three-foot-wide clay oven. I don't know why, but I pictured like a little boiling black pot and you know, just a little steamy pot. But the torch is huge and the oven is huge. Pretty amazing, amazing signature by God. And what does it say? He's being uncomplicated again. What does it say about God? If I sound like I'm jumping on a trampoline as I'm going through this chapter of the word, it it gives me that vibe. It's like your favorite song is on the radio, and you just want to dance. I just, I can't even do this podcast without standing and pacing because this just affirms so much to me that Jesus' payment on the cross was actually the amount due for the world's sins, according to the covenant of Abraham, who is the father of many nations. I mean, this is the real deal here that was going on in the desert night. In the desert night. All right, so God's signature. So God's signature, according to this in my brain, is cloud and fire or smoke and fire. And this absolutely um slays me because we see this pattern going forward. We're gonna see the Israelites being led by a pillar of fire, and by day, this cloud above their heads. We're gonna see fire over the heads of people receiving the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts. God is consistent about the signature going forward. Now listen to this in Exodus 19. Listen to God thundering down in mighty pomp over Mount Sinai. Listen to this. This is Exodus 19, 16 through 20. If you want to look this up later. So it came about on the third day, there's three again, when it was morning, that there were thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet sound, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. This is at the foot of the mountain. And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire, and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the entire mountain quaked violently. When the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him with thunder. Now we are recognizing everything coming from this Abrahamic covenant. If the Israelites understood the Old Testament, if they kept the oral tradition and all the chatter about this portion in the word, they would have recognized that pillar of fire, and they would have been led by that cloud, and they would have understood they are under and being led by the Abrahamic covenant, the same God that signed that, they are under his protection by day and by night. Their whole journey, the Abrahamic covenant was with them. I mean, holy smokes! So smoke and fire in the story of Abraham foreshadows the Israelites' exodus, which marks the beginning of their nation. So we see this consistent God of order and patterns again and again as we study. He is cloud and fire. God does the unexpected, but he is consistently on point. Cloud and fire fall on the tabernacle of God later in Exodus 40, in Exodus 40. So we're just gonna see this and see this and see this. So when you see cloud and fire, you know that God represents himself in that fashion. So in the end of chapter 15, the big kahuna chapter, it ends with on that day, that very day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, To your descendants I have given this land from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates. So that river of Egypt, most people translate as the Nile, but it's it's not the Nile. It is a rival river, it is a river south of Beersheba, and it is called the river of Egypt at this point. So there's been chatter online about this land, and a lot of people aren't realizing that Abraham has more descendants than the Israelites. Abraham has Ishmael. Ishmael has 12 sons. Um Abraham and Sarai are both told that they will be the father and mother of nations, not just a nation, but nations. So there's a lot of population that tributes Abraham as their father rightfully. Rightfully, Abraham is the father of a lot of population on earth. And Abraham is a very famous person, and God is faithful to the Abrahamic covenant to give land also to Ishmael and his sons, and so forth. So if you go way ahead in Genesis 25, you'll see in verse 1, now Abraham took another wife, this is after Sarai died, whose name was Katurah. She bore to him Zimran and Jakshan and Madan and Midian and Ishvak and Shuah. Jakshon became the father of Sheba and Dedan, and the sons of Dedan were Ashurim and Letushim and Lamumin. The sons of Midian were Epha and Epher and Hanak. And it I mean it goes on and on and on. I think we get our point. There are a lot of sons and more sons coming up. It's very cool because Moses eventually does end up marrying into the family of a Kenite that traces their heritage back to this mother, Keturah. So Keturah doesn't get much ink in the word. We hardly like hear about her, which is crazy. But all these descendants of Abraham all have the choice to follow Yahweh. The Israelites are set apart not only to be blessed by Yahweh because he is the God of their nation and he wants the world to see that he is God, the only God, the true God, but they are set apart to call the world to his throne. They are set apart to be a blessing for the world so that they will know God. This is not God choosing people to favor. This is God giving them a grand, grand purpose. And we have that same purpose. It is so magnificent. And I have to give kudos to all of Israel and the prophets and the scribes and the rabbis that have taken charge of keeping this wonderful Old Testament intact and precise. It's absolutely extraordinary and it means so much to our walk with Jesus. So impressive. I wanted to quick reiterate a couple new theories that I didn't list earlier as I was editing this process. I forgot to say that some theorize that the reason the animals are three years old is to demonstrate that Jesus' ministry is also three years long. And I think that's pretty extraordinary. And another thing I wanted to say is the only reason I can picture these birds being not caught up. And I've been looking into this and looking into this, as I have said, is because of Leviticus 1:17, birds were a little too small to cut in half, but they did twist their wings off, which, oh gosh, that kind of gives you shivers. But there was no mentioning of twisting the wings off of these birds, but just a little added thing, a little nugget that I dug up. I'm always looking and searching for answers in this ancient mindset. And it's it's so cool. I'm ordering some books on the history of the Hittites right now. Super excited to get into it because the Hittites are going to be in Egypt with the Israelites. It's going to be Egyptians, Hittites, and Israelites. Really, really wonderfully played out, majestic move of God bringing the Israelites there, and we will see that happening here this winter. Thanks for hanging on. Please again know that I'm obsessed with this stuff and I would love your comments. I would also love for you to give a biblically wired a little shout out to somebody you love and let them partner with us as we learn together. Just so grateful today here in Minneapolis for the Abrahamic covenant because it means so much to our salvation. I hope this was affirming for you and it gives you hope, hope that has great expectation and what God has for us going forward. Getting to know God is gonna grow your hope and your faith abundantly. Thank you for listening. And no matter how bad it gets out there, peeps, keep your chin up in Jesus' name.