Cutting and Covenant: A Christological Look At The Abrahamic Covenant ~ Pastor Dave
Usually when we think of an agreement or contract we are thinking of two people making a pledge and a pact to honor an agreement. While there
are elements of this notion within the Biblical word “covenant” it’s
not an exact corollary. O. Palmer Robertson, in his classic work,
defines the Biblical covenant as “a bond in blood sovereignly
administered.” He adds:
When God enters into a covenantal relationship with men,
he sovereignly institutes a life-and-death bond. A covenant is a bond in
blood, or a bond of life and death, sovereignly administered. (The Christ of the Covenants, 4)
This is an important distinction to make. God is the one
administering these covenants. While the covenants do speak of man’s
responsibility, there’s no sense in which they are actually bilateral
covenants. God is the one who is responsible for implementing and
managing these covenants. Such news is startling when we consider the
nature of “cutting a covenant” in ancient cultures. For in making these
covenants God does not simply agree to keep His word, but He submits
Himself to being killed if He doesn’t. When we see, however, these
covenants in light of Christ we are confronted with an even more
startling picture: Christ both keeps God’s word and is killed.
The Abrahamic Covenant in Genesis 15 serves as a great case study and
example on this point. Abraham is an old man when God comes to make a
promise to him of children. In fact Abraham is so old that the Apostle
Paul says he is as good as dead (Romans 4:19). He had one foot in the
grave and no children, yet God promises to give him exactly that. It
will be all of God’s giving, in fact the very covenant sign of
circumcision is a way of saying to an old man that his progeny would not
come from his long since “dead” genitals, but from God’s grace.
Certainly God calls Abraham to faith and obedience, but what we see in
the actual covenant in Genesis 15 is that God is the only one committing
to it. Abraham is asleep when the actual covenant is confirmed. “As the
sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful
and great darkness fell upon him” (Gen. 15:12). We read, then, in verses
17-20:
17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18
On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your
offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river,
the river Euphrates, 19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”
God (portrayed as the smoking pot) passes alone through the cut
pieces of the animal sacrifice. Walking through the cut pieces of the
sacrifice was a custom among parties making a contract. It was a way of
saying “may I end up like this sacrifice if I don’t keep my word” (see
Jeremiah 34:18). Robertson writes:
By dividing animals and passing between the pieces,
participants in a covenant pledge themselves to life and death. These
actions established an oath of self-malediction. If they should break
the commitment involved in the covenant, they were asking that their own
bodies be torn in pieces just as the animals had been divided
ceremonially. (130)
But note here that it is God alone who walks through the sacrifices.
God alone commits to keep His word or be subject to destruction.
God
makes the commitment, God takes all the risk, and when we screw up God
takes all the wrath. O, what great depths our God will go to to keep His
word and to keep His people!
Of course the history of both Abraham’s descendants Israel in general
is one of regular covenant unfaithfulness. They regular disobey God and
break His covenants. God is always faithful, even where they are
faithless (2 Tim. 2:13). God always keeps His word. In the New Testament
we see Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s word to Abraham, and yet we
also know that the story of Jesus’ faithfulness to God ends with His
crucifixion. Jesus keeps God’s word, we have failed, and yet it is still
He who is cut and sacrificed. But that, of course, is not how the
covenants were supposed to operate.
It is those unfaithful to the covenant who are to be cut down. But
Jesus steps in to be cut down for our sake. He who was faithful, who
never did wrong, who was righteous, took our place. Jesus keeps the
covenant and He also takes our punishment for failing to keep it. God
makes the commitment, God takes all the risk, and when we screw up God
takes all the wrath. O, what great depths our God will go to to keep His
word and to keep His people!
Thoughts on the Abrahamic covenant by Carlos Iggy Shelton
Been a while since I did a blog post so I figured I submit this. This is
from my class discussion at Regent University. The topic was our
thoughts on the Abrahamic covenant.
One highlight of the Abrahamic covenant
is that it showed that while one of faith may sin, grace still abounds. The example I refer to is the issue with Hagar
and Ishmael.
[1]
While Sara had a lapse of faith and
Abram may have had other misplaced judgment, God not only blessed Abram, but
gave grace and changed Abram’s name to Abraham and gave a greater promise.
[2]
Though, I somewhat smile that initially the covenant was one sided, later
Abraham was told to circumcise himself and whole
One highlight of the Abrahamic covenant
is that it showed that while one of faith may sin, grace still abounds.
household, which makes me
cringe whenever I read it.
[3]
My smile is from wondering how connected the tie between circumcision and the issues
with Hagar and Ishmael were.
The similarities between the
Abrahamic and Mosaic covenant is the extension of grace and expansion of the
initial covenant. Like with the Abrahamic covenant God extends grace to a
people who did nothing but are descendants of Abraham.
[4]
God keeps his promise to Abraham as now the Hebrews are a great nation.
[5]
The differences between the two
covenants are that of community separation and individual separation to be holy
unto God. As I recall from my past studies, both covenants were based on a type
of contract.
[6]
Abram’s cutting of the carcass was a type of contract used at the time.
Likewise the Mosaic covenant was based on ancient Near Eastern vassal treaties
with some differences.
[7]
Again, the overall theme is God’s grace to both a person (Abraham) and a nation
(the Hebrews). For me, this shows God’s overall worthiness to keep his word. This
theme is displayed from Genesis after the fall and even to Cain after slaying
Able. While man progressively steps further from God, his hands of grace reach
more and more out to his beloved created image. This theme that fully is seen
later in Christ Jesus fulfilling the covenant by not only His life and death,
but his resurrection.
---------------------------------------------------
1. 1. (Genesis 16 n.d.)
2. 2; (Genesis 16; 17)
3. 3/ Ibid
6. 6. (Bibletools.com 2012)
7. 7. (Hill 2009)
Citations
Bibletools.com. Covenant, Symbolized by Divided
Carcasses. 2012.
http://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Topical.show/RTD/cgg/ID/6867/Covenant-Symbolized-by-Divided-Carcasses.htm
(accessed 6 21, 2012).
"Genesis 16." (NIV)
"Genesis 17." (NIV)
Hill, Andrew E and Walton, John H.
A Survey of the
Old Testament,. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009.
An Interpolation ~ How much do Professors Know? Are they simply working backwards, revising history based on what "appears to be so now" ? Comment to Iggy's Blogpost.
Chris Welch - 07000INTUNE said...I just don't know.
Know what?
Whether the carcass thing was related to other covenantal things at the time.
or ......Do
the other inhabitants of earth indulge in covenantal stuff because it
is a distortion of God's pattern with the first ever peoples?
Like
the Jews not drinking milk in their coffee after a meal is a distortion
of not boiling a kid animal in its mother's milk. Give a few hundred
years and developing Coffee mate and bob's your uncle.
It's one of those chicken and egg questions.
I
have noticed that people who study in college as you have just done,
introduce these "carcass" type bits of knowledge with the assurance that
because some college professors have consensually agreed it to be so,
then it must be so. What's their authority? Sometimes they have some.
But it's good to be objective enough to stand back and ask.
Sometimes it's good to think how God has worked in our lives and work backwards....
I mean , Abraham looked up at some stars...and God spoke to him.
perhaps the whole carcass sequence was just as Divine from start to finish.....
certainly I bet other people's doing similar practices never has a flaming pot flying in the air between the animal pieces....
not your average human practice to arrange there.
I'm busy reassessing everything.
As
a good charismatic I spiritualised the whole Nephilim thing....and
thought Derek Prince rather carnally minded to say that real fallen
angels were having sex with human beings to produce large human
beings....what became gods in our mythologies.
Turns out ALL the
New Testament writers thought this and referred to the Book of Enoch
more or less as a divine text. And all Jewish rabbis pretty much thought
the same too....it's only our modern revisionism that can't accept
anything beyond a cornflakes packet.
Interesting I have noted how
many of the civilisations that have alternate views from Greco-Roman
ones, have already been slaughtered or drastically reduced like native
Indians to a mere few thousand well contained folk.
Someone,
unlike most professors of this period, who does know what he's on about is Bill Cooper
in "After the Flood". Not many professors have spent 30 years trawling
proof texts on records of genealogies. I can't think of many things more
tedious. What he found,the world over, is that apart from only a few
minor niggles....the genealogies from various people groups are
incredibly concurrent.
Something that no Rothschild/Rockefeller
induced professor would stand by...but then they haven't done the study
and only believe the perpetual lies of everybody else.
Why is it that history only begins really with the Romans? Bill says there is more than we think on 1000BC - 0 AD.
