THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT
In Genesis 15, God made a very
remarkable covenant with Abraham. It was a Blood covenant; the strongest and
the most binding covenant there is. That was the covenant God made with
Abraham.
In all of human history, this is
the greatest covenant that was ever made with any human being, because through
that covenant, God was actually saying to Abraham, “everything I own belongs to
you and everything you own belongs to me”.
God swore by Himself, because as
the Bible says …. He could swear by no greater …” [Hebrews 6:13]
He pledged Himself and everything
that His Name represents to the man Abraham. And so Abraham was called the
friend of God. He was the covenant friend of God.
A Blood covenant means a life
covenant and His is why the Jesus has suffered s badly. Through act their
history, they have gone through the best of times, seen the greatest of miracles
yet they are the ones who have experience the worst of sufferings. Read Genesis
15:1
God came to Abraham at this time
with this message. Now read verse 2.
Abraham at this time was already
an old man and was naturally bothered about his childless condition. So He
complained to God saying read Genesis 15:3-6.
This is not the first time God
was going to tell Abraham that He will
give him children, gut this was the first time the man truly believed, And God
counted unto him righteousness this is marvelous.
Read Genesis 15:7-8
When God come to you he doesn’t
come to scare you. Abraham knows this, and he was not afraid to talk to God but
he didn’t talk to Him irreverently but rather he asked with respect.
God give us the privilege to talk
to Him as children talk to their father and He also gives us the freedom to
express ourselves.
You need to understand what
Abraham was talking about let’s look at verse 8 again “And he said, Lord God,
whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?
I want you to note God’s response.
THE
CUTTING OF THE COVENANT.
In Genesis 15:9-10, God gave
Abraham some instructions that would shape the course of human history;
instructions that introduced a new realmof God’s dealing with man. Read Genesis
15:9-10.
To divide in the midst means to
cut into two so Abraham dissected them. But the birds were not divided like the
Genesis 15:11-16
God talked to Abraham in a vision
giving him specific details about the Covenant. The Bible says God and Abraham
recite the covenant in darkness. Genesis 15:17-18.
The smoking furnace and the
burning lamp represented the presence of food. And by passing between the
pieces of those animals, God made a covenant with Abraham. The actual word is
“cut” a covenant.
In this covenant it was god who
was cutting this covenant with Abraham; He was the one passed between the
pieces of the animals.
Therefore He was declaring
Himself the administrator of this covenant, and took upon Himself the
responsibility of ensuring that it was fulfilled like in Jeremiah 34:18 where
these men cut covenant with God. Genesis 17:7.
This is marvelous. You ought of
notice that God did not say “thy seeds” but “THY SEED” referring to one. The
promises god made to Abraham in the covenant were not made to him above, but to
him and his seed in their generations. This lets us know there is going to be
more than one generation for Abraham’s seed and in these different generations.
God is going to administer the “everlasting covenant”.