The Covenant with Abraham

This past weekend, at the superbowl party I was at, one of the guys told me he liked the blog posts I used to write about Genesis. So, here is another post about Genesis, covenants, and Abraham.

Covenants are a very powerful and meaningful thing for us. The easiest way to think of them is as a contract. But, these are unlike any other contract. Genesis 15 tells us of the covenant between God and Abraham.

Covenants were something that happened in Abrahams day so they were something he was used to. Genesis 15:7 starts with God promising that he will give land to Abraham. But, the very next sentence has Abraham asking, "how can I know that I will gain possession of it?"

Genesis 15:9-10 God has Abraham gather some animals and preparing them for a covenant. He knew what God was doing. It would have been like God having someone today draw up a contract. Except covenants back in the day were much different than our paper contracts today. Back in Abrahams day it was done by taking several animals, cutting them in half, laying them out with a walkway between them, and then people in on doing something in the contract would walk between them. The idea was if one doesn't fulfill their end of the deal let them be cut in half like the animals.

Can you imagine people who stood by their contracts so firmly that they would essentially say "Cut me in half if I don't follow through"? I have a hard time with that. These days people cancel contracts all the time. Marriage is a contract yet every year there are half as many divorces as there are marriages. Our court rooms are full of cases where people broke contracts. It's hard, for me, to imagine someone being this firm to their contracts.

Starting at Genesis 15:12 something happens a little different. If both Abraham and God were to be in on the deal they would both pass between the animals but that's not what happens. Abraham falls into a deep sleep and in the dream he gets the terms of the contract and sees God, by himself, pass between the animals. This is God signing on the dotted line, so to speak. This is a one sided covenant with God promising (and signing on the dotted line) to provide what He promised.

What was it that God promised to give Abraham in this covenant? I have read a lot of conjecture on this and have been told a wide variety of things by different people. In Genesis 15:18-21 it says:

Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure."

On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, "To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates- the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites."

Some say God promised Abrahams descendants salvation here but that isn't what the words say. It's a land contract. God is giving land to Abrahams descendants. This begs the question, should the Jews or Christians have that land, today, because of this?

Jesus talked about land during His time here. Usually, it was about the kingdom of God but there were a few times where He talked about land on this Earth. In Luke 19 it says:

But as he came closer to Jerusalem and saw the city ahead, he began to weep. “How I wish today that you of all people would understand the way to peace. But now it is too late, and peace is hidden from your eyes. Before long your enemies will build ramparts against your walls and encircle you and close in on you from every side. They will crush you into the ground, and your children with you. Your enemies will not leave a single stone in place, because you did not accept your opportunity for salvation.”

These days the country of Israel is a fraction of the promised land. Personally, I figure that God gave them the land. They didn't earn it. If God wanted them to have the land they would. No amount of human intervention could stop that. But, as Jesus sadly points out the very people he came from rejected God when he was right there with them. Those very people still reject Him today.

One last thing I found interesting was back in Genesis 15:6 where it says, "Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness." All the way back in Genesis it talks about faith being what it's all about.