BIBLICAL COVENANTS and LAWS
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In the Bible, God's covenant is his freely-given promise. In the case of Noah, where the word 'covenant' occurs for the first time, the promise was of salvation from the world-wide judgment of God (Gen. 6:17), and the four characteristic constituents of divine covenanting began to come together: promise, sacrifice, law and sign. When the LORD covenants with Abram (Abraham) (Gen. 15 and 17) it becomes a little clearer how these elements are related to each other, though the fulness of the Covenant idea awaits Moses, the Exodus and Mt Sinai.
Covenant Reassurance
In the case of Abram, the LORD came to him at a time when he needed reassurance and hope, calling on him not to fear, pledging protection and a coming 'great reward' (Gen. 15:1). It is not clear why Abram needed such a word from God, but Gen. 15:1 offers a clue by dating it 'After this', i.e., following on the events of Gen. 14: the defeat of the kings (vv. 13–16), the restoration of the king of Sodom (vv. 17, 21) and the refusal of any share in the spoils (vv. 22–24). Reading between the lines, perhaps Abram was afraid of a counter-attack by the four kings. Did he begin to wonder if possibly his victory had, after all, been the LORD's intended way of bringing him into possession of the Land, and that he had thrown away his opportunity? Great victories are often followed by great depressions and misgivings! But, for whatever reasons, Abram needed present and future reassurance, and the LORD gave it - only, however, to provoke a further rejoinder that life was not worth living without a son and heir (Gen. 15:2). How patient the LORD is! As if his earlier promises were not enough he returned to the task of comforting his servant with two specific promises: the promise of a son and a family (Gen. 15:4–5) and the promise of the land of Canaan for them to live in (v. 6). Since, however, Abram was still not reassured (v. 8), the LORD initiated covenant proceedings (vv. 9–18).
Covenant Sacrifice
As far as we are concerned, the sacrifice detailed in Gen. 15:9–17 is unexplained - though it is clear that Abram knew and understood what he was doing. But light is cast by Jer. 34:18, where people who wanted to undertake a solemn oath walked between the severed pieces of sacrificial animals, implying as they did so, 'If I do not keep my oath, so be it done to me.' In Abram's case, when he had arranged the sacrifice (Gen. 15:10), he was marginalized by a spiritual coma (v. 12), for he was not the oath-taker but only a spectator of what the LORD would do, as, reiterating the promise of descendants and land (vv. 13–16), he took this whole dire oath upon himself: he would bear the full brunt of the broken covenant. The vision of the LORD as 'a smoking brazier with a blazing torch' was not explained to Abram but, by hindsight, we know it to be a preview of the God of Sinai in fire and smoke (Exod. 19:18), the pillar of cloud and fire (Exod. 13:21–22), the holy God (Exod. 3:2–5) who by grace shrouds his holiness in order to come among his people. But all this is left unexplained. Gen. 15:18, however, is quite specific that the Abrahamic covenant was inaugurated by sacrifice.
Law, Promise and Sign
Fifteen years after his arrival in Canaan (Gen. 12:4; 17:1) and 13 years after the Hagar-compromise (Gen. 16:16), the LORD came to Abram to complete the covenant arrangement. In Gen. 15:18 the technical word for 'inaugurating' a covenant is used; in Gen. 6:17 the verb means 'to implement, to put into action'; here in Gen. 17:2 'confirm' is, literally, 'put, place' and signifies that from now on the covenant will be the changeless mode of the relationship between the LORD and Abram. The passage amplifies the covenant action of Gen. 15 by spelling out the promise in detail (Gen. 17:4–8) and adding the remaining two components of law (Gen. 17:2) and sign (Gen. 17:9–14). Typically of the patriarchal period, the law (Gen. 17:1) is non-specific but is, even so, a searching requirement of holiness within divine fellowship. The promise, however, is detailed, covering four categories: personal, domestic, spiritual and territorial (v. 8), and is sealed with the covenant sign of circumcision (vv. 10–14). Since circumcision is specifically called 'the sign of the covenant' (Gen. 17:11), it must be interpreted in the same way as the identical words in Gen. 9:17 that is to say, circumcision signifies not what Abraham is pledging to God but what God is pledging to Abraham. For this reason Rom. 4:11 calls circumcision 'a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith': not a 'seal of faith', as if ratifying Abraham's response, but 'of righteousness', ratifying what God had done for Abraham and what he had promised to him. Henceforward, as Abraham still waited for the promised son to be born, he could strengthen himself in days of impatience or doubt by recalling that he bore in his very flesh the confirmation of the divine promises - just as, for Noah, the bow in the clouds dispelled any fears that a gathering storm might arouse. The sign in each case proclaimed the promises of God, just as the covenant signs of Baptism and the Lord's Supper continue to do today.
Zondervan. New International Encyclopedia of Bible Characters: The Complete Who's Who in the Bible
(Zondervan's Understand the Bible Reference Series) (p. 48).