The Abrahamic Covenants

by J. Miller | Category: The Abrahamic Covenants | Jul 1953

We have pointed out before, and it is well to point out again, the difference between the covenants which God made with Abraham, as contained in Genesis 15. and 17. In the first, the covenant is associated with the truth of justification by faith, and in it God covenanted to give the land of Canaan to the seed of Abraham.

"Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates" (Genesis 15.18).

The night previous to the day on which this covenant was made Abraham was in distress of mind. He had just been engaged, as described in chapter 14., in a battle with Chedorlaomer and his confederate kings, whom he had defeated in a night attack, and had brought back all the goods which those kings had taken, also all the captives, amongst whom was Lot.

The LORD appeared to him in a vision and said :"Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward" (verse 1).

Abraham was afraid quite evidently that those kings would return again and sweep him off the land which God had promised to give him. Now he is assured that this would never take place, for the LORD would intervene as his shield to protect him from harm.

Abraham then turns to the matter of reward. What use was a reward to him, seeing he was a childless man? He had no son and heir. Already he was a wealthy man and what further need was there of enrichment seeing that his servant Eliezer would inherit all ? Then he was told what God intended to do. He would have a son, and also seed as numerous as the countless stars of heaven. Could he understand this? No, but he could believe it! Here faith triumphed. The night was dark beneath, but above the stars shone bright, the same stars as we have so often looked up at, and though his mind could not possibly comprehend the immensity of that torrent of humanity that was to pour from him through Isaac, he believed implicitly in the LORD, and it (his faith) was reckoned to him for righteousness, and we know that without faith it is impossible to please Him. Indeed the absence of faith will so displease Him, that unbelievers will suffer His displeasure and punishment in eternal fire. To disbelieve God is to make Him a liar (1 John 5.10-12), and to do this is serious beyond words.

It was necessary that a far-stretching land (Isaiah 33.17), or of distances, should be theirs ; so a land stretching from the river or brook of Egypt (not the Nile, in my Opinion, but the Shihor, the river that enters the Mediterranean to the south of what was the land of the Philistines, about 40 miles south of the city of Gaza) to the Euphrates.

Abraham, when God renewed His promise to give him the land of Canaan (Genesis 15.7) wanted some assurance whereby he should know that he would inherit it. He was told to take the covenant victims, a heifer, a she goat and a ram, each of three years old, and a turtledove and a young pigeon. He divided the animals in the midst but not the birds. During the day Abraham was engaged in driving the birds of prey from the carcases, and as the sun went down a deep sleep and an horror of great darkness fell upon him, and Cod spoke and outlined to him what lay in front of his seed. They were to be strangers in the land of Egypt; they would know affliction for four hundred years, and in the fourth generation they would come again to the promised land. The years of affliction began with the persecution of Isaac by Ishmael. Ishmael took his character from his mother Hagar the Egyptian. He was the son of the bondwoman. We find him persecuting Isaac on the day that Isaac was weaned (see Genesis 21.8-10; Galatians 4.29-31). God's judgement fell upon the persecuting nation, and Israel came forth to go to the land which flowed with milk and honey.

When it was dark there passed between the pieces of the covenant victims a smoking furnace and a flaming' torch, and God made His covenant firm by death to give the land to Abraham's seed. In Jeremiah 34.18, 19 will be found an explanatory passage as to what is meant by the furnace and the torch passing between the pieces. It meant passing through death in a figure. So the furnace and the torch, indicative of the Divine Presence, passed through death. We are told that a covenant is Only of force where there hath been death (Hebrews 9.17-22). The covenant sacrifice of Calvary is in view in the covenant victims of Genesis 15. The fulfilment of this covenant is entirely in God's keeping; no conditions of obedience were required on the part of Abraham's seed so that divine deliverance might be known by them.

The answer to all this is found in the terms of the gospel in which we see a justified people, who have been justified by faith, delivered and assured of a heavenly country which in due time will be theirs. While it is " faith "in Genesis 15., it is " walk " in Genesis 17, and while the keeping of the covenant of chapter 15. is in the Lord's hands entirely, the keeping of the covenant of circumcision, in chapter 17.,was in the hands of Abraham's seed.

J. Miller | Jul 1953
The Abrahamic Covenants