Gênesis 15

Gênesis 15

Sproul - God alone takes upon Himself the covenant curse if he does not keep his promises to Abraham. God swears this oath before changing Abram's name to Abraham and before instituting the sign of circumcision (chap. 17). The Lord is pledging to fulfill his promise no matter what His people do. John Weldon - In other words, God takes the entirety of the responsibility for fulfilling the covenant promises to himself alone. Why? Because he knows that he alone will be able to keep the covenant; Israel will not. In sum, no more powerful illustration could be provided, that God's multiple promises to Abraham will be fulfilled – than God swearing by himself, and himself alone (Significantly, he also does this in the book of Hebrews regarding the eternal security of individual salvation, Hebrews 6:16-18.) It is if God were saying, "If I don't keep my promises to you Abraham, I will meet the same fate of those animals; I will be cursed and die," which, of course, is forever impossible. Thus, the sovereign faithfulness of God in keeping his promises is powerfully made to Abraham in a way that is otherwise not possible. All of God's covenant promises to Abraham will be fulfilled (God's Heart for Israel). There appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces: According to the ancient Eastern manner of making a covenant, both the contracting parties passed through the divided pieces of the slain animals, thus symbolically attesting that they pledged their very lives to the fulfillment of the engagement they made (Jer 34:8, 18, 19). The symbol would be evident to all: “May I become like this if I do not keep my part of the deal.” In this covenant Abraham did not pass through the pieces because it is an unconditional covenant made by God, ratified by God, never to be changed or altered. God alone, whose presence was symbolized by the smoking furnace and lamp of fire, passed through the midst of the pieces of the slain animals, while Abram was simply a spectator (actually asleep) of this wonderful exhibition of God’s free grace. This signified that it was an unconditional covenant, dependent for fulfillment on God alone. The fulfillment of the promise of God to Abram, the Abrahamic covenant, is as sure as is the ongoing life of the Lord! See related discussion of the so-called "Walk of Death" in the covenant ceremony. We see a description of this ancient ceremony in Jeremiah where the men of Judah had taken the "walk of death" which speaks of the solemn and binding nature of covenant. Tragically, they broke the covenant and incurred the just penalty of death pronounced by Jehovah Himself... “Although recently you had turned and done what is right in My sight, each man proclaiming release to his neighbor, and you had made a covenant before Me in the house which is called by My name. 16“Yet you turned and profaned My name, and each man took back his male servant and each man his female servant whom you had set free according to their desire, and you brought them into subjection to be your male servants and female servants.”’ 17 “Therefore thus says the LORD, ‘You have not obeyed Me in proclaiming release each man to his brother and each man to his neighbor. Behold, I am proclaiming a release to you,’ declares the LORD, ‘to the sword, to the pestilence and to the famine; and I will make you a terror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 18 ‘I will give the men who have transgressed My covenant, who have not fulfilled the words of the covenant which they made before Me, when they cut the calf in two and passed between its parts (the WALK OF DEATH)–19 the officials of Judah and the officials of Jerusalem, the court officers and the priests and all the people of the land who passed between the parts of the calf (Jeremiah 34:15-19) Comment: Beloved, can I digress for just a moment? Our 21st century mindset has almost no concept of the solemnity associated with cutting a covenant in the ancient world (See Solemn and Binding). And this has had tragic consequences, specifically in marriages where one party chooses to break the covenant and walk away because of "irreconcilable differences." Now I am NOT advocating staying with someone who is placing your life in danger! But most divorces are not based on that degree of "difference!" O, would young couples come to know the faithfulness of their Covenant Keeping God Who has chosen to interact with us based primarily on this truth (see New Covenant and believers as Christ's Bride!) I would hazard a guess that if couples preparing for marriage truly understood the gravity of the covenant into which they entered, they would either not enter it or they would truly hold on "till death do us part!" The only way I would perform a marriage ceremony would be if the couple would walk through an animal that had been cut in two and made the promise so be done to me as to this animal if I ever break this covenant vow. Now I am not advocating capital punishment but I am advocating that the parties symbolically consider the serious, binding nature of their mutual vows. I think there would be far fewer divorces! I know for a fact that there is at least ONE LESS divorce in America because a couple grasped the truth of the marriage covenant -- this is my testimony to God's grace to resurrect our marriage with a providentially timed study of God's covenants after we had been married about 15 years (we have now been married 48 years thanks to God's truth of Covenant). If you are interested in more discussion of this important topic see... The Covenant of Marriage Henry