THE COVENANTS -
PART 3
THE
FOURTH COVENANT OF GOD TO MAN
THE
ABRAHAMIC
In the
first three covenants of God to man we saw that all three were
inadequate in that man was always able to break the covenants or
nullify the blessings promised because of sin. From Adam on through
the seed of Noah, the tests of innocence, the conscience of man and
the direct relationship of human government to rule mankind were
unable to be upheld. The Abrahamic was no different. The promises
of blessings, which were conditional, were affected again by the sin
of Gods' creation. We will examine the ways in which the conditions
of this new covenant was unable to be kept by Abraham or his family
line.
1. The
Abrahamic covenant or the dispensation of promise.
We must
understand why Abraham is such an important man in the history of the
Bible. If for no other reason, he was the man God singled out of the
worlds' population to become the father of the race of people that
would bring forth the Saviour of the world, Jesus Christ. A look
into Abrahams' life and his beginnings will show us that he really
was not anybody special other than the one predestined by God to head
up the Jewish race.
ABRAHAM
[AY bruh
ham] (father of a multitude); originally Abram (exalted
father)-- the first great PATRIARCH of ancient Israel and a
primary model of faithfulness for Christianity. The accounts about
Abraham are found in <Genesis 11:26--25:11>, with the biblical
writer focusing on four important aspects of his life.
The
Migration. Abraham's story begins with his migration with the
rest of his family from UR of the Chaldeans in ancient southern
Babylonia <Gen. 11:31>. He and his family moved north along the
trade routes of the ancient world and settled in the flourishing
trade center of HARAN, several hundred miles to the northwest. While
living in Haran, at the age of 75 Abraham received a call from God to
go to a strange, unknown land that God would show him. The Lord
promised Abraham that He would make him and his descendants a great
nation <Gen. 12:1-3>. The promise must have seemed unbelievable
to Abraham because his wife Sarah (called Sarai in the early part of
the story) was childless <Gen. 11:30-31; 17:15>. But Abraham
obeyed God with no hint of doubt or disbelief. He took his wife and
his nephew, Lot, and went to the land that God would show him.
Abraham moved south along the trade routes from Haran, through
Shechem and Bethel to the land of Canaan. Canaan was a populated area
at the time, inhabited by the war-like Canaanites; so Abraham's
belief that God would ultimately give this land to him and his
descendants was an act of faith. The circumstances seemed quite
difficult, but Abraham's faith in God's promises allowed him to trust
in the Lord.
The
Famine and the Separation from Lot. Because of a severe famine in
the land of Canaan, Abraham moved to Egypt for a short time <Gen.
12:10-20>. During this trip, Abraham introduced Sarah to the
Egyptians as his sister rather than as his wife in order to avoid
trouble. Pharaoh, the Egyptian ruler, then took Sarah as his wife. It
was only because "the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with
great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife" <Gen. 12:17>,
that Sarah was returned to Abraham. Upon his return from Egypt,
Abraham and his nephew, Lot, quarreled over pasturelands and went
separate ways <Gen. 13:8-9>. Lot settled in the Jordan River
Valley, while Abraham moved into Canaan. After this split, God
reaffirmed His promise to Abraham: "And I will make your
descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number
the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered"
<Gen. 13:16>. Apparently Abraham headed a strong military force
by this time as he is called "Abram the Hebrew" <Gen.
14:13>. He succeeded in rescuing his nephew Lot from the tribal
chieftains who had captured him while raiding the cities of Sodom and
Gomorrah <Gen. 14:14-17>
The
Promise Reaffirmed. In <Genesis 15> the Lord reaffirmed His
promise to Abraham. The relationship between God and Abraham should
be understood as a COVENANT relationship-- the most common form of
arrangement between individuals in the ancient world. According to
such an arrangement, individuals or groups agreed to abide by certain
conditions that governed their relationship to each other. In this
case Abraham agreed to go to the land that God would show him (an act
of faith on his part), and God agreed to make Abraham a great nation
<Gen. 12:1-3>. However, in <Genesis 15> Abraham became
anxious about the promise of a nation being found in his descendants
because of his advanced age. The Lord thus reaffirmed the earlier
covenant. As we know from recent archaeological discoveries, a common
practice of that time among heirless families was to adopt a slave
who would inherit the master's goods. Therefore, because Abraham was
childless, he proposed to make a slave, ELIEZER of Damascus, his heir
<Gen. 15:2>. But God rejected this action and challenged
Abraham's faith: "Then He [God] brought him [Abraham] outside
and said, 'Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are
able to number them:' And He said to him, 'So shall your descendants
be'" <Gen. 15:5>. Abraham's response is the model of
believing faith. "And he [Abraham] believed in the Lord, and He
[God] accounted it to him for righteousness" <Gen. 15:6>.
The rest of chapter 15 consists of a ceremony between Abraham and God
that was commonly used in the ancient world to formalize a covenant
<Gen. 15:7-21>. According to <Genesis 16>, Sarah, because
she had not borne a child, provided Abraham with a handmaiden. This
also appears to be a familiar custom of the ancient world. According
to this custom, if the wife had not had a child (preferably a male)
by a certain time in the marriage, she was obligated to provide a
substitute (usually a slavewoman) to bear a child to her husband and
thereby insure the leadership of the clan. Thus, Hagar, the Egyptian
maidservant, had a son by Abraham and named him ISHMAEL. Although
Ishmael was not understood to be the child that would carry on the
line promised to Abraham, he was given a favorable blessing <Gen.
16:10-13; 17:20>. The most substantial account of the covenant
between Abraham and God is given in <Genesis 17>-- a covenant
that extended the promise of the land and descendants to further
generations. This covenant required Abraham and the male members of
his household to be circumcised as the sign of the agreement <Gen.
17:10-14>. In this chapter Abraham and Sarah receive their new
names. (Their old names were Abram and Sarai.) The name of the son
whom God promises that Sarah will bear is designated as Isaac <Gen.
17:19-21>. The practice of CIRCUMCISION instituted at this time is
not unique to the ancient Hebrews, but its emphasis as a religious
requirement is a unique feature of God's Covenant People. It became a
visible symbol of the covenant between Abraham and his descendants
and their redeemer God. After Isaac was born to Sarah <Gen.
21:1-7>, Sarah was unhappy with the presence of Hagar and Ishmael.
She asked Abraham to cast them out of his family, which he did after
the Lord told him they would have His protection. Ishmael does not
play an important role in the rest of Abraham's story; he does
reenter the picture in <Genesis 25:9>, accompanying Isaac at
Abraham's death.
The
Supreme Test. God's command for Abraham to sacrifice his beloved
son Isaac was the crucial test of his faith. He was willing to give
up his son in obedience to God, although at the last moment the Lord
intervened to save Isaac <Gen. 22:1-13>. The Lord's promise of
descendants as numerous as the stars of the heavens was once again
reaffirmed as a result of Abraham's unquestioning obedience <Gen.
22:16-18>. Abraham did not want Isaac to marry a woman from one of
the local tribes. Possibly he feared this would introduce Canaanite
religious practices into the Hebrew clan. Thus, Abraham sent a senior
servant to Haran, the city from which he had migrated, to find a wife
for Isaac. This mission was successful, and Isaac eventually married
REBEKAH, the daughter of Sarah's brother Laban <Gen. 24:1-67>.
Sarah had died some time earlier <Gen. 23:1-20>; Abraham
eventually remarried and fathered several children by Keturah <Gen.
25:1-6>. Abraham died at the age of 175 and was buried alongside
Sarah in the cave of Machpelah, near Hebron <Gen. 25:7-11>.
Summary.
Abraham was the father of the Hebrews and the prime example of a
righteous man. In spite of impossible odds, Abraham had faith in the
promises of God. Therefore, he is presented as a model for human
behavior. Hospitable to strangers <Gen. 18:1-8>, he was a
God-fearing man <Gen. 22:1-18> who was obedient to God's laws
<Gen. 26:5>. The promises originally given to Abraham were
passed on to his son Isaac <Gen. 26:3>, and to his grandson
Jacob <Gen. 28:13; 35:11-12>. In later biblical references, the
God of Israel is frequently identified as the God of Abraham <Gen.
26:24>, and Israel is often called tŠ_ people "of the
God of Abraham" <Ps. 47:9; 105:6; Is. 41:8>. Abraham was
such an important figure in the history of God's people that when
they were in trouble, Israel appealed to God to remember the covenant
made with Abraham <Ex. 32:13; Deut. 9:27; Ps. 105:9>. In the
New Testament, Abraham is presented as the supreme model of vital
faith and as the prime example of the faith required for the
Christian believer <Gal. 3:6-9; 4:28>. He is viewed as the
spiritual father for all who share a similar faith in Christ <Matt.
3:9; Luke 13:16; Rom. 11:1>. (from Nelson's Illustrated Bible
Dictionary)
Josh
24:2 Abrahams' own father was an idolator.
Gen
11:28-32 Abraham was from an area about 220 miles south of Baghdad
(Babylonia) and about 300 miles from where he was to settle in Haran
until the call of God. Mesopotamia and its' surrounding areas where
he was from were well known for idolatrous worship.
Gen
12:4 He was 75 years old when he left Haran.
If
Abraham was from such an area as Babylonia where idolatry was
practised, how did he come to know the true and living God? Simply
by Divine revelation. No other possibility exists because he had to
have been well indoctrinated in the Babylonian forms of worship.
Gen
12:1
Heb
11:8
Abraham
possessed something that was to enable him to believe God for the
calling that was placed in his life and the promises of blessing that
were offered to him. What he had was "faith". This was
the primary characteristic that he had and it would lead him into
tests that he never imagined. By that faith, he learned to put
confidence in his God.
Heb
11:8-19
Rom
4:20,21
Unlike
the other covenants, the Abrahamic was given progressively over a
period of many years. From Gen 12 through Gen 22, God continued to
line out His promises of the covenant.
In short
there were four divisions of the Abrahamic covenant. They are:
1. The
Promised Land
2. The
Promised People
3. The
Promised Seed
4. The
Promised Blessing of all nations
To break
this down further, there were fourteen great promises of this
covenant included in these four categories. Please write them in the
blanks below.
1.
______________________________________________________ Gen
12:2a; 18:18
2.
______________________________________________________ Gen
12:2b; 22:17
3.
______________________________________________________ Gen 12:2c
4.
______________________________________________________ Gen 12:2d
5.
______________________________________________________ Gen 12:3a
6.
______________________________________________________ Gen 12:3b
7.
______________________________________________________ Gen 12:3c
8.
______________________________________________________ Gen 12:7;
13:15,17
9.
______________________________________________________ Gen 13:16
10.
______________________________________________________ Gen 17:4
11.
______________________________________________________ Gen 17:6a
12.
______________________________________________________ Gen
17:6b,16
13.
______________________________________________________ Gen 21:12
14.
______________________________________________________ Gen 22:17
The
portion of the Bible that really reflects the covenantal promises is
the 17th chapter of Genesis. In this chapter, the word
covenant is found 13 times. Gen 17
Two very
notable things took place in this chapter. What are they?
1.
________________________________________________________________
2.
________________________________________________________________
In the
renaming of Abram to Abraham and Sarai to Sarah, an important detail
took place. The Hebrew name for God is YHWH or JHVH,
called the "Tetragrammaton" which means "the four
lettered name". In it are two "H"s. God
added parts of His name to the names of Abram (AbraHam) and
Sarai (SaraH) for the purpose of establishing a covenantal
relationship with them. How does this relate to the New Testament
and those who have been called by God? In the waters of baptism, we
are baptized in the name of "the Father, the Son and of the Holy
Spirit. THE LORD JESUS CHRIST" - we take on the name of the
Godhead in a covenantal relationship with God just as Abraham and
Sarah did! This is tied very closely to the "token of the
covenant", circumcision, which followed the renaming of these
two people who would bring about a physical and later a spiritual
race of a God called nation. Circumcision today is done in the heart
and was in the Old Testament a prophetic sign of what was to happen
in the New Testament.
Rom
6:3-7
Col
2:11-12
Another
important truth in the renaming of Abraham is that Abram means
"exalted Father" while Abraham means "Father of a
great multitude". God wanted to cause Abraham to understand
that he was no longer to be exalted and that there was now the
spiritual potential to be that blessing to all nations through being
humbled by God.
What was
the length of time that this covenant was in effect? _________yrs
In what
ways did Abraham fail in this covenantal relationship? Gen 16 tells
the story of Ishmael. The failure to trust God for the promise of "I
will make of thee a great nation." and trying to do the
impossible through the flesh was Abrahams mistake. He failed to wait
for the "miracle" child promised to him in Gen 15.
Unbelief is a sin of the flesh. Gen 16
Also we
see this covenant being failed in Isaac, Jacob and his sons and the
people of Israel in Egypt. Not even with the great promises given in
the covenant made with Abraham was there the desire to have it
completely fullfilled in the lives of the people of Israel.
What was
the judgement of God for the breaking of the covenant?
_________________________________________________________________________
What was
the seal of the covenant? _________________________________ Gen
17:10-27
Because
of the inadequacy of the Abrahamic covenant or the dispensation of
promise, God again provided a means of reconciliation to Himself and
to the nation of Israel. The descendents of Abraham had spent almost
150 years in Egyption slavery and were basically separated from God
and His divine protection. A man was raised up towards the end of
this 150 years by God and was the one who would deliver the Hebrew
people from their bondage and who would also have the next great
covenant of God to man established with him. This man was Moses,
therefore, the Mosaic covenant or the dispensation of the Law
is the next study we will give attention to.
