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Genesis 15:1-21
The Lord’s Covenant With Abram
After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision:
“Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield,
your very great reward.”
2 But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”
4 Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir.” 5 He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
7 He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”
8 But Abram said, “O Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”
9 So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”
10 Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. 11 Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.
12 As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. 13 Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. 14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. 15 You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
17 When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. 18 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— 19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”
This passage from Genesis tells the story of a critical moment in the history of the relationship between God and humankind – the formalization of the covenant with Israel. The scholars say it’s a story that is incredibly ancient – so ancient, in fact, that even the best Old Testament experts can provide only a partial explanation of some of the details. But scholars feel confident they understand the gist of the story. And what they say about it is surprisingly relevant to our own lives of faith 4,000 or so years later.
God had already approached Abram (whose name would later be changed to ‘Abraham’) with the promise of a covenant relationship with Abram and his descendants. And it’s worth taking a minute to note that the covenant was not a contract. God didn’t say he’d take care of Abram’s family if they obeyed his commands – he just promised to bless them. Without asking anything in return
Now, in today’s passage, Abram asks how God’s blessing is going to work out, given that Abram and his wife Sarai have no children and are well beyond child-bearing age. But God renews his promise that the couple will have descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky.
And we’re told that Abram believed this promise from God, and that his belief was “credited as righteousness.” The scholars tell us that the word translated “credited” here is an ancient word that priests once used to certify an offering as acceptable. So, in a sense, Abram’s faith is considered to be a gift that’s acceptable and pleasing to God.
Then we get to the part of this story that’s so ancient the scholars are a little uncertain about it. God enacts what seems to be a ritual out of the mists of history. He directs Abram to cut in half three sacrificial animals and to arrange the parts of the animals so that there’s a kind of path between them.
Then a smoking firepot and a blazing torch – apparently meant to represent God’s own presence – pass between the parts of the animals. The scholars say this ritual was an ancient way of formalizing a covenant. They point out that the ancient Hebrew word used to describe making a covenant literally meant to “cut” a covenant. The scholars think that in the ancient world, performing this ritual when two parties were making an agreement seems to have been a way of saying, “If I violate this agreement, may I be cut up like these animals.”
That’s an interesting glimpse into ancient history, but it seems to me that the most theologically meaningful part of this story is that God binds himself to the covenant without asking Abram to do anything but believe him. We followers of Jesus tend to think that God’s grace is something that came along only with Jesus, and that God in the Old Testament was demanding and judgmental. Some people even say God is ‘bloodthirsty’ in the Old Testament. But this account of the beginning of God’s covenant with his people portrays the covenant as being entirely out of God’s grace. God had not yet handed down any laws or established what we might call the Hebrew ‘religion.’ God had just made a promise and bound himself to keep it.
Even though our theology tells us that our relationship with God comes entirely from his gracious love, a part of our minds always wants to believe that we have to earn God’s favor by “being good” – by living a good life, by going to church, by refraining from scandalous behavior. But this story, with details blurred by the mists of history, makes it plain that it’s always been by the gracious love of God that his people are privileged to live in this covenant with him.
Our obedience to God’s commandments should always be thought of as an expression of our thanks for his gracious love, and not as what we have to do to protect ourselves from punishment. God asks us for the love of grateful children, not for the fear of intimidated slaves. And it seems God has been consistent in asking for that love since the dawn of his relationship with his people.
Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for the covenant you made with Israel, and all the blessings that flowed into the world through it. And we thank you for the privilege we have of being part of the new covenant you have made with the followers of your Son, our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Every Blessing,
Henry
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