The Covenant Sealed
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Throughout the Bible, God calls his people to remember.
Remembering what God has done in the past gives us confidence in his faithfulness in the future.
The chapter starts a little abruptly. Look at verse 1.
Like other Old Testament prophets, God speaks to Abram in a vision.
He assures him of his presence and protection and that he would provide.
The way God starts off is similar to the way he speaks to Moses in Exodus 3. In both of these instances, God starts talking and appears to be answering a question that someone was asking in their heart but we don’t have in the text.
For Abram, some time had passed since he had been promised offspring and land.
They were already too old to have kids, and they weren’t getting any younger, so the promise kept seeming more and more impossible.
God’s response indicates that, at some level, Abram was afraid that it would never happen, and we see that in his response.
Abram is going to have two main questions for God, and we can learn something from God’s response to each of them.
Both ways God responds to Abram’s questions center around his faithfulness.
While for Abram, some of these things were still future, for us, we have seen how God was going to fulfill them.
Not only that, but the Israelites who first read Genesis after Moses wrote it were living out these events.
They were seeing firsthand how God’s work in the past formed the foundation for their trust in his faithfulness in the future.
God begins addressing Abram by reassuring him.
However, as we have said, that doesn’t answer Abram’s questions.
Let’s look at them together and see how God answered them.
First, as Abram asks God about how he is going to have a son, he calls us to...
1. Remember his work in creation.
1. Remember his work in creation.
Abram’s first question centered around how God was going to actually give him descendants.
Let’s read it in verses 2-3.
Remember, he and his wife were past the age of childbearing and had never had children.
That meant that when Abram died, his estate would go to one of his servants, Eliezer.
That didn’t match with what God promised, though. God had already promised Abram that he would have so many offspring that they would be like the dust of the earth.
Abram’s first question, then, is about how on earth God is going to keep his promise when he hasn’t given Abram any children.
Interestingly, there isn’t a rebuke in this passage.
It is possible that Abram’s response was like Mary’s when the angel told her that she was going to have a baby.
It wasn’t a question of doubt as much as a question of logistics.
This may be reflected in the way he addresses God as “Lord GOD,” which is a highly respectful way for him to refer to God.
Whatever the motivation, God responds gently.
First, he reaffirms the promise in verse 4...
Then, he gives Abram something to rest that promise on, and that is his work in creation.
Look at verse 5 - God takes Abram outside and has him look up at the sky. When he does, he points to the myriad of stars in the sky and tell him that his descendants will be as innumerable as the stars themselves.
By the way, if you’ve lived in town your whole life, this may not seem like that big a deal. After all, depending on the streetlights around you, you might only be able to see a few dozen stars.
If you have ever been somewhere truly dark, though, on a clear night, the stars are almost dizzying to look at.
The few times I have seen it, you can’t even pick out what could be a constellation because there are so many.
In pointing to the stars, what God is doing is reminding him of his power.
The Bible talks often about how God displays himself through the heavens:
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the expanse proclaims the work of his hands.
Later, Isaiah would write:
Look up and see! Who created these? He brings out the stars by number; he calls all of them by name. Because of his great power and strength, not one of them is missing.
In a beautiful way, God is calling Abram to stop looking around and look up.
If God can create those stars and call them by name and know everything that is happening in the universe at all time, he can keep the promise of giving Abram an heir from his own body.
Can I encourage you to do something this week? I know it is winter and it is supposed to be cloudy this week, but find some time to look at something God made.
Check out the intricacies of the trees in your yard or see the colors he paints in the sunrise and sunset if we get a break in the clouds.
Before you scrape off your windshield, see if the frost has formed a cool pattern because of the way water crystallizes.
Look at your kids and see what God has done in forming them and growing them, even as adults.
As you look in the mirror and see the wrinkles or age spots or things you don’t like, think about the God who knit you together in your mother’s womb and makes your body work at all.
He has shown his power all throughout his creation, so take a look at it and remember what he has done.
As you do, that gives you the ability to rest in his faithfulness in the future.
The God who causes the sun and moon and stars and planets to rotate together and sustain life can certainly work in the thing that has you so afraid.
Like Abram, you may find yourself waiting and confused, and it may take longer than you ever wanted, but remember his work in creation and trust him because of it.
Let’s skip over verse 6 for a minute because we are coming back to it at the end.
After he addresses Abram’s questions about his descendants, Abram asks another question.
Okay, he’s going to have a kid, but what about this whole land thing?
Pick up in verses 7-8...
2. Remember his work through covenants.
2. Remember his work through covenants.
Before we dive into what God does to show Abram that he will keep his promise, I want you to know that we are going to explain what he is doing, so hold on tight.
At a high level, God is shifting here from simply making a promise to sealing a covenant with him.
God’s promises are ironclad, but to further emphasize his faithfulness, he is making this promise into a covenant by sealing it through a symbol.
In our world, the main way we still see covenants is in marriage.
In the marriage ceremony, you make a promise to love this person as your husband or wife as long as you both shall live.
You exchange vows, expressing your intent with the covenant.
For us, the main symbol of the covenant is the giving and receiving of rings. They are the symbol we wear as a visible representation of the covenant we have made with each other.
God is getting ready to make a covenant with Abram, and the picture he gives seems gruesome at first but is absolutely beautiful.
Let’s read through the account and then go back and try to explain what is happening. It is a little long and confusing, but I want you to see the whole picture before we talk about it. Read 7-21.
After God reminds Abram of who he was and what he had done, Abram asks his second question—How will I know that I will possess the land you have promised I will have?
God commands Abram to prepare several animals, most of which will be significant in Israel’s sacrificial system later on.
We don’t know exactly why they were supposed to be three years old, but it could be because these were mature animals who were still useful as farm animals.
Either way, you see Abram do something that seems unusual to us. He cuts them in half and laid them opposite each other.
Abram guarded these animals for some time, fighting off wild birds at one point.
God causes Abram to fall asleep, and in this sleep, Abram experiences terror and darkness.
Some have connected this to the way God appeared to his people on Mt Sinai, so here, God is establishing a pattern that his people should respect his presence.
This is also establishing continuity with the first readers of this book, who were the generations that came out of Egypt with Moses.
They are learning about who the one true God really is, and they are seeing him work in similar ways to how he is with them.
It gets even more interesting, though, as God gives Abram insight into what is to come.
Look back at verse 13-16.
Again, while they had likely heard these accounts growing up, Moses is writing down how God had promised that all they were experiencing was according to God’s faithfulness and promise.
Abram’s descendants, wandering in the wilderness, were finding out that they were living out exactly what God had said would happen.
For Abram, God is giving comfort and readjusting his timeline. Abram isn’t going to live to see the land possessed, but God will do it.
Now, it appears that God woke Abram up and did something incredible.
Look back at verse 17.
Remember those animals he cut in half? Abram sees a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passing between the animals.
That seems really strange to us, but for Abram and the Israelites, it was a powerful picture.
Abram may not have understood the symbols of God’s presence that he used with the smoking pot and the flaming torch, but Moses and the Israelites sure did.
How did God show his presence as he guided them through the wilderness?
The Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to lead them on their way during the day and in a pillar of fire to give them light at night, so that they could travel day or night.
Smoke and fire in Abram’s day pointed to the cloud and fire in the wilderness.
But what about these animals that had been split in two?
This was how God was going to symbolize the covenant he was making with Abram.
It wasn’t going to be with a wedding ring.
Instead, this appears to be like a kind of covenant that warring kings would make in those days.
If you and I went to war and were ready to make peace, we would agree on the terms of our treaty.
We would cut animals in half, like Abram did, and the two of us would walk between the halves of the animals as we ratified our covenant.
The picture was that if either of us broke our covenant with the other, we would become like this animals—killed and cut in two.
God is sealing his covenant with Abram, but notice something incredibly significant: who passed between the halves?
Only the symbols of the presence of God. There is no mention of Abram passing through them.
So, who put their life on the line to seal this covenant? God did, not Abram.
There are other times when God is going to establish different aspects of the covenant that are conditional, but soak this in for a minute.
God essentially swore against his own life that he would keep his word to Abram.
The people Moses originally wrote this down for could see how God had been faithful to do what he said he would do.
He had led them out after four hundred years, and they were headed back to the land.
For us, we know that God was faithful to give them the land, just like he promised.
Our trust in God today and in the future is based off the faithfulness he has shown in the past.
That’s what the writer of Hebrews pointed out as he called us to remember the promise God made:
For people swear by something greater than themselves, and for them a confirming oath ends every dispute.
Because God wanted to show his unchangeable purpose even more clearly to the heirs of the promise, he guaranteed it with an oath,
so that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us.
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain.
Jesus has entered there on our behalf as a forerunner, because he has become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.
God made a promise, guaranteeing it with an oath and sealing it with a symbol.
That’s two unchangeable things: his purpose and his promise.
Those form the anchor for our soul to hold onto. That anchor is cast “behind the curtain,” which is an allusion to the holiest place in the temple, where God’s presence dwelt like nowhere else on earth.
Our hope is anchored there, in the holiness and presence of the faithful God, through our great high priest, Jesus himself.
By the way, don’t miss the beauty of this.
Yes, God made a promise to Abram and his descendants.
The New Testament makes it clear that all those who put their faith in Christ share in part of that promise.
Have you picked up on what God was foreshadowing here?
The promise he made was that if the covenant was broken, he would pay the penalty.
God has and always will keep up his end of the bargain, but time and time again, we have rejected him.
Because of that, there is a penalty to be paid.
You and I cannot be right with God because we have turned our back and did what we wanted instead of what he created us to do.
Yet he is the one who was willing to take the penalty for us.
We all stand condemned because we have walked away, yet the God who passed betwen the animals that day with Abram one day hung on a cross to make the way of forgiveness available to all.
Instead of a cow and a goat and a ram and a some birds, he sealed the covenant with his own body and blood which were broken and shed for us.
Abram split a cow and a goat and a ram, but Jesus, as the Lamb of God, was broken for us and his blood shed for us.
So, what are we supposed to do with all this?
Go back to verse 6...
Most scholars think this is just a reminder and affirmation of what had already taken place in Abram’s life.
He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.
In other words, he had put his trust in the God who was faithful to create and faithful to make and keep covenants.
We need to do the same today.
Will you accept that as what your heart truly needs today, or are you going to try to keep figuring it out on your own?
The faithfulness of God in the past forms the foundation for our trust today and in the future.
Look at creation, and look at what he has done in making a covenant with his people, and marvel at the goodness of God.
That’s what this picture is before us today.
We will read the passages in just a minute, but before he went to cross, Jesus took bread and wine and said that these elements were the symbols of the covenant. They represent his body that is broken and his blood that is shed on our behalf.
As we take the Lord’s Supper this morning, remember that this is the God who put the weight of our failure on himself and paid it all.
He is the one who sealed the covenant with his own blood.
Let this act of communion be a symbol of your trust in his faithfulness in the past, for today, and for the future.