The Completion of the Covenant
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
A couple of weeks ago we saw the covenant ceremony between Abraham and God in chapter 15. In between that ceremony and tonight we saw Abraham have a child with his wife’s slave which was something that he should not have done. Now we resume 13 years later to see the completion of that covenant and the sign of the covenant that will stand throughout the generations.
This is also the time that Abram’s name is changed to Abraham. This signals that there is a complete change that is taking place. Nothing new is promised here but the current promises are elaborated on more and reaffirmed in more detail.
With all of that lets now turn to our text and read Genesis 17.1-14.
When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”
And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”
At the age of 99 God almighty comes to Abraham and commands him to walk before him and be blameless. This comes with the promise to multiply him greatly. Then he gets the name change because so great a change is occuring. Here there is a slight change, at first God said he will be the father of a great nation and now he says a multitude of nations. This is because Ishmael, though not the chosen son, will become a nation himself. God then says that his offspring will receive the land of Canaan, this is a specific part of the promise that he is revealing to him. There is a stipulation though, it is that God will be there God.
There is the command though that they are to keep the covenant throughout their generations. This covenant is that every male must be circumcised. This is the covenant and is the sign of the covenant. If you do not know what this is ask your parent or biology teacher because we are not going to get into that part of this. This is not a right of passage or a status symbol it is something that is given to everyone that is a part of them at the age of 8 days unless they came in later in life. Everyone who does not have this is to be cut off from the people. There is a bit of word play here are the end where we see that the one who does not cut off will be cut off. being cut off is a penalty that equals death.
This covenant is marked by repeated assurance that God will be there God. This is a declaration of the enduring faithfulness of God to his people and is repeated throughout the Old Testament. This phrase shows Gods sovereign commitment to his chosen people. As this covenant continues through the Old Testament we see it explicitly linked with all that happens with the people of Israel all the way to the coming of Jesus. In this way this covenant forms a foundational theological framework for understanding the relationship between God and his people throughout scripture.
The completion of the covenant
The completion of the covenant
When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”
So the covenant is complete. Notice the command that goes with this though, he is to walk before God and be blameless. This is a tall order and is reminiscent of Enoch and Noah who we have seen previously. This points towards a moral and spiritual obligation that is required of those in the covenant.
This covenant is the first specific one. There was a covenant in the garden before the fall and then there was the covenant between God and all flesh after the flood. This one is the first that narrows to a people group that will come from Abraham. When we look at what follows in the Bible we should look at it in light of the covenants. We will later see that the people of Israel who are the descendants of Abraham are fruitful and multiply fulfilling that creation mandate. We will see many nations coming from Abraham. We will see kings such as the great David come through this family line. We will see in the book of Joshua they take the land of Canaan. all of these things happen in line with this covenant.
As we discussed in previous weeks this covenant is sen in land, seed or offspring, and blessing. These three things are the main themes for the entire Old Testament. So you can see just how important that this covenant is. This special relationship between God and his people.
When you read the Old Testament it can be difficult but if you look for these special relationships called covenants and see what is said about them and then look to see how it pertains to the section that you are reading it will help you make a lot more sense of what is going on.
One important part of covenants though is the sign of the covenant and that is what we will look at next.
The sign of the covenant
The sign of the covenant
And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”
The covenant after the flood had the sign of the bow in the sky, this covenant has the sign of circumcision. This was to serve as a constant reminder to the people of their special relationship with God. In this text we see that there is four provisions that apply to circumcision; it applies to every one of the males, it is a sign of the permanent covenant, it is to be observed on the 8th day after birth throughout their generations, and if a male is not circumcised they will be cut off.
Under the new covenant we have baptism as the sign. Just like here in Genesis there is nothing special about what is going on, it is merely an outward expression of something internal. There are pagan nations that practice circumcision at this time but not in the way that Israel does. Baptism symbolically represents us entering into the new covenant with Christ. We know that it is not baptism that saves and we know that circumcision did not save Abraham and that is where I want to end out time here today.
Faith before it all
Faith before it all
And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
Looking back to the beginning of the covenant we see that Abrahams faith was counted to him as righteousness. Abraham was saved by faith. This is 13 years before circumcision was instituted by God. Some say that it is the act of circumcision that saved the people of Israel until they got the law and then once they got the law it was that that saved them and now it has changed for the final time and it is Christ that saves us. That is simply not true, it has always been faith in Christ that saves. There was never a time when there was a different way to salvation and there will never be a time that there is.
Abraham was saved by faith, he was saved by whole hearted belief and even despite the mistakes that he makes after chapter 15 we see that God is still faithful to him and still holds true to his promises. He is under a different covenant that required different things than today under our new covenant but salvation has always remained the same.
Conclusion
Conclusion
So today I want to challenge you in a few ways. First I want to challenge those who have not put their faith in Jesus. If you have not done that you do not have that close relationship like Abraham has with God, the Bible actually describes you as an enemy of God. I want to challenge you to talk to me or one of the other adults more about salvation. For those of you who have put your faith in Jesus I want to challenge you that if you have not been baptized to follow through and do that. Baptism is the first step in obedience to Christ that we are to take. I would love to talk to you more about this and to get the opportunity to baptize you. And lastly for you blood bought baptized believers, I want to challenge you to look deeper into the Bible and to see the relationships that God has with his people and to see the covenants and their role in this. I also want to challenge you to see how it is the same God now as it was then.
There is a challenge for everyone here tonight, don’t miss yours but rather act on it. Lets pray.
