The Abrahamic Covenant

A covenant or agreement is the main way the Bible shows the relationship between God and man. While there are many covenants in the Bible focuses on the covenants between God and man. There are _____ main covenants

Genesis carries several covenants

Genesis 2 - God establishes what is sometimes called a "covenant of works" with Adam and Eve

This covenant sets the obligations of man to God as well as an outline of the consequences for disobeying God's part of the covenant is to establish Adam and Eve in a perfect world where all their needs are met by God's provision Noahican Covenant - This is made iddediatly after the flood. It has a more covenantal language "Behold I establish my covenant with YOU and YOUR DESCENDANTS AFTER YOU…" Gen. 9:8-11 The Covenent of Redemption and grace that governs the Bible begins with Abraham. (The Abrahamic Covenant.)

The patterns of the covenant become established.

Gen. 12 Abraham is given the most obvious pattern the Command nad Promise

Go from your country… I will show you a land, I wil make of you a great nation, I will bless you …. The Promise is really one of blessing - as Abraham obeys reward is added.

Gen. 12:7 Ever after this in the book of Genesis the renewal of the covenant in the from of command, promise and reward punctuates the action. Notice it is a covenant of unequals. God who is all powerful initiates the covenant, announces it's conditions and rewards the recipient of the covenant with promise and blessing.

Leland Ryken, James C. Wilhoit, Tremper Longman, ed., Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, (Downer's Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, Under: "Covenant".

I really like

Genesis 15:1 (KJV)

1 After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, andthy exceeding great reward.

Abram complains of being childless and God renews the covenant

God say's believe me, you may be 85 and the clock is ticking but I'm right on schedule. And Abram says, "Lord I believe."

There is not a lot in this world that impresses God. Your money can't impress God he owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and as Uncle Buddie Robinson used to say and all the taters under the hill. Your house doesn't impress God, He's building a city with 12 foundations, gates of pearl and streets of gold. Not a lot of things impress God. But one thing will impress God and that is faith.

Here Abram says Lord I'm 85 and the clock is ticking and yet you say I will have a son, I believe." That impressed God. Heb 11:6 says without faith there is no hope of pleasing God. When Jesus walked down here among us there were only two times he was amazed or bewildered and that was on the topic of faith. One was how much faith they had, the other on how much faith they lacked.

Genesis 15:6 is the first time that "faith" as we know it is used in the Bible. and this faith was counted to Abram as righteousness."

The text emphasizes that Abram entrusted his future to what God would do for him as opposed to what he could do for himself to obtain the promises.

Kenneth A. Matthews, New American Commentary – Volume 1b: Genesis 11:27-50:26, (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2005), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 166.

Now remember that when we get to the next chapter.

I also want to note this is not the beginning or the initiation of Abram's faith, but rather a renewal of his faith and the covenant.

The Covenant Ritual 5-7

This second section consists of four divine speeches (vv. 7,9,13-16,18-21) involving the land and seed promises confirmed by a divine covenant. Interspersed between the speeches are Abram’s two responses (vv. 8,10-12) and the covenant ceremony itself (v. 17).

Kenneth A. Matthews, New American Commentary – Volume 1b: Genesis 11:27-50:26, (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2005), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 169.

We have no previous Old Testament record of this ritual, although sacrifices were common. The experience foreshadows a variety of sacrificial procedures that Israel would practice after the deliverance from Egypt. Some interpreters also see in these verses an early foundation for the cross.

Kenneth O. Gangel and Stephen J. Bramer, Holman Old Testament Commentary – Genesis, ed. Max Anders, (Nashville, TN: Broadman Holman, 2003), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 136.

This symbolized the presence of God (Exod. 3:2; 14:24; 19:18; Acts 2:3-4). Then the Lord cut a covenant with Abram that identified the precise boundaries of the land.

The western boundary would be an Egyptian river just south of the Gaza strip, possibly near the present site of El Arish (assuming the Mediterranean Sea as well), and the eastern boundary, the Euphrates. This included all the land that belonged to ten people groups (10:15-18), signifying completeness of God's gift to Abram. Scholars have calculated this territory in different ways, most agreeing that it exceeded 300,000 square miles.

Kenneth O. Gangel and Stephen J. Bramer, Holman Old Testament Commentary – Genesis, ed. Max Anders, (Nashville, TN: Broadman Holman, 2003), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 137-138.

This symbolized the presence of God (Exod. 3:2; 14:24; 19:18; Acts 2:3-4). Then the Lord cut a covenant with Abram that identified the precise boundaries of the land.

The western boundary would be an Egyptian river just south of the Gaza strip, possibly near the present site of El Arish (assuming the Mediterranean Sea as well), and the eastern boundary, the Euphrates. This included all the land that belonged to ten people groups (10:15-18), signifying completeness of God's gift to Abram. Scholars have calculated this territory in different ways, most agreeing that it exceeded 300,000 square miles.

Kenneth O. Gangel and Stephen J. Bramer, Holman Old Testament Commentary – Genesis, ed. Max Anders, (Nashville, TN: Broadman Holman, 2003), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 137-138.

One each of the five acceptable sacrificial animals (cow, sheep, goat, pigeon, dove) was to be slain by Abram and laid on the altar. The slain animals were placed in two rows, one bird in each, along with a half-portion of each of the other animals.

This arrangement was evidently intended to conform to the custom of the day, when a covenant was made between two parties; each would pass between the two rows, as a sign that he was bound by the terms of the contract. The intimation perhaps was that, if he broke it, the substitutionary death of the animals would no longer be efficacious and he himself (or possibly his cattle) would be subject to death. Following this, presumably, the animals would either be roasted and eaten or else simply consumed by fire.

After Abram made the preparations, however, nothing happened during the rest of the day, and finally the sun went down. The delay possibly symbolized the fact that, although God's covenant would be sure, its accomplishment would take a long time. In the first place, Abram himself would have to wait many years for the promised seed. Even then, it would still be many long centuries before the seed would become a great nation and possess the promised land, and many millennia before the ultimate fulfillment would take place, with all nations being blessed through the nation of Abram's seed.

During the wait, as could be expected, Abram had to drive off the birds of prey that tried to devour the carcasses. This experience no doubt symbolized the attempts of Satan to thwart the plans of God, plus the need for alertness in the believer in order that the enemy not succeed.

Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Record, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1976), WORDsearchCROSS e-book, 326-327.

Hebrews 8:6-13 (KJV)

6 But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.

7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.

8 For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:

9 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.

10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

11 And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.

13 In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old isready to vanish away.

Hebrews 10:1-10 (KJV)

1 For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.

2 For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.

3 But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.

4 For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.

5 Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:

6 In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.

7 Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.

8 Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offeringfor sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;

9 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.

10 By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.