Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Our Christian formation classes are taught by the clergy of Church of the Incarnation (Dallas, TX). Journey with us as each season unfolds.
It'll be on the website soon. I've
Speaker 2:it'll be on the website soon. I've given the 1st Floor to our comms department. I've
Speaker 1:got upload it. Mhmm. Okay. We'll go ahead and get started and let others come in. Let's go ahead and pray and we'll get started.
Speaker 1:Father, we thank you for this time, for this class. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for the opportunity to love you with our minds. I pray that we would love you with our whole selves, our minds, our hearts, our souls, our strength, everything. And I pray that as we do, we would go out into the world and live into the mission that you have.
Speaker 1:We'd be faithful disciples of your son, Jesus Christ, And it is in his name and by the spirit that we pray. Amen. Okay. Yeah. There's handouts over there if you wanna grab one.
Speaker 1:Welcome. We are in some sense halfway done with this class, but in another sense, we're not halfway done. So we're working our way through Genesis. We're gonna cover six chapters today, but I wanna start with kind of a little bit of where we came from. We've talked a little bit about the long well, what I'm calling the long descent, the history of the curse.
Speaker 1:Chapters three through 11, we have this this curse and this long descent, of the world. And so what we have is these curses in Genesis three that we talked about last week. And, you know, we see that work work itself is good, but work is gonna involve some pain now. Childbirth is good, but it's gonna involve some pain. And so we have this kind of increasingly hard world, this increasingly sort of hostile world that humans are navigating, an increasingly violent world that's going to occur over the course of our time.
Speaker 1:Chapters four through six, you see that violence kind of playing out. You see this increasingly violent, sinful, perverse world that's occurring and of course you have the flood, Noah and the flood. And this idea that with the flood, there's Noah's family being saved, you have coming out of the flood in chapter nine this sort of new creation. I think the reader of scripture is to see this as a sort of new creation Once Genesis once Noah and his family emerged from the flood, you even have some of the parallel language you see in Genesis one. You have this idea that man and woman are made in the image of God.
Speaker 1:You see that repeated in gen in Genesis one and Genesis nine, they're made in the image of God. You also see this idea of being fruitful and multiplying and going through this kind of recreation that we see in Genesis nine as it unfolds. And so, there's this, of course, the famous, the famous, rainbow, of course, the well known rainbow that we see that's a sign of God's promise that he will never again wipe away his creation. And what's interesting about this rainbow, theologians have sort of seized on this over the centuries, that it's it's like a bow and arrow. It's this bow that's in the sky like a bow and arrow, but it's without its arrow.
Speaker 1:The arrow has been withdrawn. This idea of judgment has been taken away, and the bow is not facing down towards creation. It's facing up. So you have this idea that God's mercy and grace are going to prevail over the creation and he will not wipe away the creation again as before. And so that takes us to chapter 11.
Speaker 1:We didn't talk about the Tower Of Babel. I don't think I have it on your sheet here in chapter 11, but what you see here in chapter 11 is this idea that there's still a sense of people trying to assert themselves in this new world. And, they are asserting themselves and really trying to attain, I think at the end of the day, some sort of righteousness within themselves absent of the true God. And so you see here in Genesis 11 with the Tower Of Babel, you see eleven four, if you have your Bibles, can turn to Genesis eleven four. The people of this region are saying to themselves, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens and let us make a name for let us make a name for ourselves.
Speaker 1:Underline that if you have that or highlight that. Let's make a name for ourselves. Otherwise, we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. Okay? And so, God intervenes here.
Speaker 1:He, he indeed scatters them because of this act that they have taken upon themselves and their languages are confused and they disperse and you see this dispersion of languages throughout the whole world, dispersion of people throughout the whole world. And, and then that takes us to chapter 12. And as I mentioned before, probably the first day or the second week of the class, this is your biggest break in the entire book of Genesis, right here between eleven and twelve. And it's probably your most significant break in the entire Old Testament. If you're looking at a big division break, and I don't always trust the chapter headings and different chapters and how they're carved up throughout scripture as sort of a medieval invention or medieval kind of addition to the text in that sense.
Speaker 1:But it is very helpful to see eleven and twelve as your biggest break in the entire book of Genesis. But in the midst of that, you have this idea that God is going to establish his covenant with Abram. And what we're gonna see today over the course of six chapters from Genesis 12 to Genesis 17 is this sort of slow unfolding of the Abrahamic covenant. You're gonna see this unfold over the course of six chapters. And so, this kind of inauguration of the covenant itself.
Speaker 1:And so where does this take us? As we look at twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen, this is the Abrahamic narrative of the covenant. So, in chapter 12, God calls Abram and he's gonna call him out of an area or the Chaldeans and he's gonna promise him Canaan, the promised land. And he is going to go down there, there's gonna be famine, he's gonna be then going down to Egypt to find food for his family and all of his people, and then they're gonna run into some trouble there in Egypt, they're gonna come back. He's with his nephew Lot the whole time.
Speaker 1:Lot, his nephew and his whole extended family and his flocks and everything. And so he's with Lot and they're gonna come back. Lot is going to enter into a lot of strife with Abraham and his people. They're gonna separate. Lot's gonna work his way over to Sodom, like Sodom and Gomorrah.
Speaker 1:He's gonna be in that area. That area is going to, in chapter 14, enter into a war with a lot of other kingdoms and kings. And so Lot's gonna get caught up in all of that and Lot's going to, be rescued by Abram. Out of that, Melchizedek, this mysterious priest is gonna emerge and bless Abram. In chapter 14, you see that.
Speaker 1:And in chapter 15, have sort of the covenant proper, the covenant ceremony that's going to occur between God and Abram. So you're gonna see that ceremony play out in chapter 15, and God's gonna make promises to Abram. He's gonna promise land, seed, and blessing to Abram. And yet, Abram and Sarai, his wife, are still uncertain at times. They're unsure of the promises of God.
Speaker 1:In chapter 16, you see them instead of trusting God with a descendant, you're gonna see them, Abram take, one of Sarai's servants, Hagar, and have a child through Hagar. You're gonna see Ishmael being born in '16, and then in chapter 17, you're going to see the actual sign of the covenant that God makes with Abram, which is the covenant sign of circumcision. You're gonna see that, instituted in '17, and then, of course, the promise of a child from Abram and Sarai, will be Isaac, which will carry the line forward. So that's where we're going over these six chapters, and we're going to look at that and unfold that over the course of this morning. And, if you'll look with me in chapter 12, I think I have on your sheet there, chapter 12, you have here the beginning of this great narrative, this great covenant that is instituted by God.
Speaker 1:And as I said earlier, there are three promises that are made in chapter 12 and beyond for Abraham, and those three promises are land, seed, and blessing. God is gonna promise land to Abram, He's gonna promise a seed, and He's gonna promise blessing of the nations through Abram and his people. And what I find interesting is that within this very three promises, you have the three testings of Abram. Abraham is tested in these six chapters in these exact three ways. He's tested with regard to the land.
Speaker 1:He's tested with regard to the seed, and he's tested with regard to the blessing. And so we'll see that play out, in this way, the land. Is he going to actually acquire the land at the end of the day? The new reader of Genesis, the new reader of the bible, if you've never read it, you don't know the story, you don't know if Abram is going to secure the land as you read these chapters. It's very much in doubt.
Speaker 1:Same with the seed. They're of an advanced age. How are they going to have a child to keep the line going? It's very much in doubt as well as to whether the seed will continue and his family will continue. And then, of course, blessing that his family will bless the nations.
Speaker 1:Everywhere Abram goes in this narrative, it seems like there's trouble caused by his family. It seems like there's a lot of tension. You go down to Egypt and the pharaoh kicks him out. You go to Sodom and there's war and everything there and he has to rescue Lot. There's just all sorts of tumult and tension throughout this narrative and so as you're reading through it, it's almost as if the land, the seed, and the blessing are in doubt.
Speaker 1:They are uncertain. But that's from man's perspective. That's from our perspective that it may be in doubt where God has it secure all along as we'll see over the course of these chapters. So follow with me in twelve two through three. Let's read one, two, and three here, chapter 12.
Speaker 1:Now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you and I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Okay. A few points I want to make about that, these opening few verses.
Speaker 1:First of all, we talked, I think, week one about how the book of Genesis, the main theme, the main motif of the book of Genesis is promise. Okay? Promise is the overriding theme of the entire book, and you see it clear as day here that God is a God of promise, and God makes promises to his people, and God keeps his promises. I think creation itself is even a promise from God, as we talked about in week one or two. And so God keeps his promises even if man has a hard time seeing the realization of those promises in their own time, even in their own lifetimes.
Speaker 1:After all, Moses never even entered the promised land, and yet the people did. So God delivered on his promise even if we don't always see it in our lifetimes. So God is a God of promise and this is a promise that he makes to Abram and his family and God does not break his promises. The second thing here of note is that Yahweh here will make Abram's great. Okay.
Speaker 1:Look at verse let me put my glasses on here. And I will make you verse two, I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great. Go back to eleven four. What happened in 11/04, the people of Babel? The people of Babel said to each other, then they said, come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens and let us make a name for ourselves.
Speaker 1:And here God is saying to Abram that he will make his name great. Okay? This is sort of like a play on words here. This is a theological affirmation that the true name that will be made great is not those who entered into that endeavor in Babel, but the actual true God with Abram. So he will make his name great.
Speaker 1:Okay? The third thing here is that we don't want to limit ourselves into thinking, you know, when we think about land, seed, and blessing, we don't want to limit ourselves in thinking that the land ultimately is going to be the final vision of this covenant. Okay? As you go through the Old Testament, you do see the Israelites acquire the land. You do see them settle in the land and for the course of centuries.
Speaker 1:But the Bible, especially in the covenants you see in the Bible, and as you see the covenants unfold, scripture has a much greater vision, a much broader, grander vision than just land itself. Okay? Scripture envisions much greater reality to the fulfillment of that covenant than just the land. So in other words, a modern nation state is not the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. Okay?
Speaker 1:Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant as we'll get to. So keep that in mind as we move forward. And then finally, the other thing to draw from Genesis twelve one through three is this idea that you have here a problem. Genesis three through 11, this long descent, the history of the curse is a problem, a significant problem in the overall sort of vision of history. And Genesis 12 begins to inaugurate the solution to that problem.
Speaker 1:Okay. You see the beginnings of the solution to the problem of Genesis three through 11 in Genesis 12. And with this, you see not just the solution to the problem and the beginnings of that solution which we'll see unfold over the course of redemptive history, but you also see in Genesis 12 an anticipation. You see an anticipation of what you're gonna see in Revelation seven. In Revelation chapter seven, you're gonna see every tribe, every tribe and nation, and every language worshiping God.
Speaker 1:Listen to John's vision in Revelation seven. He says, after this I looked and then there was a great multitude that no one could count. Remember, this is I think drawing on the language that we're gonna see in Genesis 15. Remember when Abraham was asked by God to look at the stars? Look at this, count them, he said.
Speaker 1:If you can. If you can. And so there was a great multitude that no one could count, John says in Revelation, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne and before the lamb robed in white with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice saying, salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the lamb. And so this is an anticipation of what we're gonna see in Revelation that all the nations, the languages will be worshiping God.
Speaker 1:And of course, you see even with this sort of dispersion of languages and peoples in Genesis 11 at Babel, you already see by the book of Acts, Acts two at Pentecost a regathering. Right? Acts two at Pentecost, you see this reversal of Babel. It's the institution of the church. You see this reversal.
Speaker 1:These people coming together from different nations and languages. And of course, ultimately, they're gonna be worshiping God as you see in Revelation seven. And so and so we have here Abram who hears this call from God, who is given a command by God to take up his things and to go to the land of Canaan. Okay? He is being asked to move his entire family.
Speaker 1:We're not just talking a nuclear family here. We're talking all of his possessions, all of his things, all of his servants, all these things from a far distant land all the way to Canaan. And look at 12 Where is Canaan? It's gonna be well, the promised land, Israel, kinda where Israel would end up being. He was further east.
Speaker 1:He was further east. So if Canaan's here, kind of in this area here, he would have been over here and migrated his way to Canaan and then eventually down to Egypt because there was famine. It didn't work his way back up. And so, you see Abram, in twelve four which is a critical verse here. So Abram went as the Lord had told him and Lot went with him, his nephew.
Speaker 1:Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. This is interesting to me because Abraham went through a massive vocational change at the age of 75. Would we consider such a vocational change at age 75? And by your laughter, I can tell that it would be hard for us to conceive of, but it does challenge us to think about whether our lives are too scripted. Whether our lives are too much set by our own our own plans, and whether that is open or not to what God would have for us.
Speaker 1:So here's Abram at age 75, entirely different vocation he's being asked to do by God. And one commentator says that if Abraham had not gotten up and gone to Canaan, the Bible would have been a very short book indeed. Because you see here the setting in motion of the promise which is ultimately gonna be fulfilled in Christ in the new covenant. And so so what does Abram do? You see here as he goes through, he follows God, he goes down and in verse seven, I think you have it on your sheet then, then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, to your offspring I will give this land.
Speaker 1:Remember, he didn't have any offspring at this time. So he's hearing this promise without any offspring at age 75. To your offspring, I will give this land. So he built there an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him. And I have on your sheet here something that I found very helpful.
Speaker 1:I didn't come up with this. I got this from a book, Trimper Longman's book on the Old Testament. I think it's very helpful because it looks at the, if you have your hand out there, this, you know, the loci of God's special presence throughout the scriptures. You see God's presence in a special way throughout the scriptures and sort of this unfolding of it as it were over the course of time. Of course, in Eden, in the first couple chapters in Eden, you have this perfect communion with God that the that the creation has.
Speaker 1:And then, of course, after the fall, you see the emergence of these patriarchs starting to build altars and they build these altars. You're gonna see this all throughout Genesis and even well beyond into like the kings first and second first and second Samuel and so forth. But there's idea that the building of an altar, the erect of an altar and a special presence that God has with his people in that space. And then, of course, in the book of Exodus itself, you have the plans and then the construction of the building of the tabernacle and how it is to be built. The tabernacle will, of course, go with Israel through their journeys, through as they progress to the promised land.
Speaker 1:You see this in Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy all the way through all. You see the tabernacle, of course, go all the way through first Samuel as well. And then, course, in first Kings, you see the construction of the temple under Solomon. And so, the temple would be the place where Israel would worship God. And, of course, the temple was destroyed in May.
Speaker 1:It was rebuilt in 05/16 when the Israelites returned from exile. But then Jesus comes in the first century and God comes in the flesh in the person of Jesus who identifies himself, his his own person as the temple, the place or the person where God where you will meet God, in his very person. So Christ and the church as temple, because we are united to Christ. And so this idea of God's special presence among all his people as well. And then of course, in the second coming, you have the new Jerusalem which will descend from the heavens down.
Speaker 1:God's special presence will dwell with his people forever. So I think this is, for me at least, very helpful to kind of see this as you think and you're seeing these different examples of altars being built and tabernacle and trying to make sense of it all. This is sort of the progression of how that happens. Sometimes there's a little bit overlap in these. Over the course of scripture, not everybody was able to make it to the temple always because of geographic constriction restrictions and so forth.
Speaker 1:They may have built an altar instead or something along those lines. So that's kind of a, I think, helpful little guide there. And look at so twelve seven, it says, Abram built an altar to the Lord. And I find this very interesting. The very next verse, this is easy to miss.
Speaker 1:The very next verse, from there he moved to the hill country on the East of Bethel and pitched his tent with Bethel on the West and Ai on the East, and there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. To me, this speaks of Abraham's faithfulness is that he is always wanting to stay close to God. Even after he moves. The first thing he does is build an altar after he moves, to stay in close communion with God throughout his time. So Abraham, you know, it can be hard to see a lot of these patriarchs.
Speaker 1:You've read the book of probably and you're like, well, what do I make of a lot of these patriarchs? They're kinda difficult to follow at times, you know? Sometimes they're exemplary, sometimes they're these great figures, but other times they're sort of like, I don't know if they're really a model for my life, you know, and and you're sort of scratching your head and thinking, you know, how do I what do I make of this? Jacob and Esau and some of these figures. But there are flashes here in Abram's life in these first couple of chapters we encounter twelve and thirteen where you really see that Abram is one of the rare glimpses of a patriarch being an exemplary figure in the book of Genesis.
Speaker 1:And, of course, this is one of those and we'll see another one in a minute.
Speaker 3:Except doesn't he pass his wife off as his sister?
Speaker 1:That would be one of the better bad examples. Yeah. So for every good example, there's almost, you know, you kinda and so you have these these tension and you have to kinda work through it and I've struggled with this myself over the course of years trying to make sense of all this. And then, of course, you have over the course of chapter 12, as I said, Abram encounters famine in the land. He's got his whole lot of his livestock.
Speaker 1:He's got all of his possessions. Okay? They need place to keep their possessions alive and everything, and so there's famine in the land, they go down to Egypt, and Abram's nervous that his wife is gonna be taken by the Egyptians and in some sense, sure enough, she is. And so there's this real tension down there and Pharaoh basically like, said, what have you brought upon me? Why are you here?
Speaker 1:I didn't realize that you were married because he sort of passed her off as his sister and everything. And, and so they get sort of driven out of there or God releases them out of Egypt back into, Canaan in that area. And then of course in 13, have Abram and Lot separate. Okay? And you have this tension that grows over the course of time because they can't live in the same land with all their flocks and everything.
Speaker 1:And so they separate out Lot, the nephew, who himself is a very difficult person to follow in many ways, he's not exactly exemplary figure either. He goes down and settles in kind of the Sodom area. And Lot is in Sodom in in chapter 13, you see this and all these kings from these various nations and tribes are listed in 13. If you have your bible with you, you just like to see this one list after another of kings. The king of this, the king of this, the king of this, the king of this went to battle against the king of this, the king of this, the king of this, the king of this.
Speaker 1:And they had this major war and Lot gets caught up in all this. And Lot ends up on the losing side on with Sodom and the losing side of all this. So he's sort of taken captive by those victorious kings. And Abraham comes in and rescues Lot with his people. And this rescuing is very interesting because what it does for us, in chapter 14 is it introduces us to this figure named Melchizedek.
Speaker 1:And Melchizedek appears, in chapter 14 and there's an interesting sort of interplay happening between Melchizedek and Abram. Okay. Who is Melchizedek? Okay. He's called I'll go ahead and read it.
Speaker 1:After this return from the defeat from that king and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley Of Shavah, that is the King's Valley and Melchizedek, king of Salem, which a lot of people think this might be a shortened version of Jerusalem. Salem, Jerusalem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God most high and he blessed him, that is he blessed Abram and said, blessed be Abram by God most high, possessor of heaven and earth or maybe creator of heaven and earth. And blessed be God most high who has delivered your enemies into your hand. And Abram gave a tenth of everything.
Speaker 1:And the king of Sodom and Sodom said to Abram, give me the persons but take the goods for yourself. But Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lifted my hand to the Lord, God most high, possessor of heaven and earth, that I should not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, lest you should say I have made Abram rich. I will take nothing but that but what the young men have eaten and the share of the men who went with me. Okay. Who is Melchizedek?
Speaker 1:He is a very mysterious figure that only appears three times in your bible. Right here in Genesis 14, he appears in Psalm one ten and he appears in Hebrews seven. Okay. And so, if you look at Psalm one ten and if you have your bible with you, this is one of your shorter psalms. I'll go ahead and read.
Speaker 1:It's a psalm of David. Psalm one ten says this, the Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies. Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power in holy garments.
Speaker 1:From the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. And then it goes from there. He also appears in in Hebrews seven, and he appears as this sort of figure that sort of has no genealogy.
Speaker 1:Like, where did he come from? Is this some sort of pre incarnate appearance of Christ? The most quoted psalm in the entire New Testament is Psalm one ten. This is a psalm the New Testament writer sees on for different reasons. And this is a psalm that is ultimately speaking about Jesus Christ, the lord said to my lord.
Speaker 1:Okay? And this is taken up in the New Testament several times here. One commentator said this, you have in chapter thirteen fourteen this huge story of kings. There's kings everywhere all throughout these chapters, and yet Abram only bows to one person. He only bows to Melchizedek in a story so full of kings.
Speaker 1:He doesn't see these temporal kings as worthy of his honor in a way that he would see Melchizedek who would then bless him in this time. So this is sort of like what I call being mindful of the narrative arc of scripture. We talked about this story of scripture being this great web of signifiers. This great web of signifiers that we're gonna see this story, sort of this mosaic or this picture that's going to be painted over the course of the Old Testament. And you see here these certain signifiers.
Speaker 1:I don't think it's accidental that he brought out bread and wine. Okay? I don't think it's accidental that he's called, that he has no genealogy. I don't think it's accidental that he mentioned in Psalm one ten, which is a Christological Psalm that he's picking up in Hebrews seven. We see this sort of anticipation, this this sense of there's something more going on in these stories than just the here and now, just the geopolitical that we see right in front of our eyes.
Speaker 1:There's another layer that's happening in these stories in scripture. And so we wanna be mindful of that as we go forward and kind of flush this out over our time. Any questions so far? Yeah. Opinions?
Speaker 1:Come down on it? Yeah. I mean, it very well could be a pre incarnate appearance of Christ. I mean, this wouldn't be necessarily only time you would see that even in the book of Genesis. We don't know a lot.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's the thing is we just don't we're not given a lot. But this story just sort of it sort of dropped in there as it were. And it's intended, I think, in some ways to sort of take the reader back a little bit. Like, who is this? We had a whole story of of land and geography and kings and battles and these kinds of things.
Speaker 1:All of sudden, there's this priest who's like very mysterious who's blessing Abram. And a priest from where? And what priesthood? I mean, have we seen the priesthood even established? You know, the Levitical priesthood and the ordination of priests wouldn't be established until Abram until Aaron in the book of Leviticus.
Speaker 1:And so we really don't see, at least in a clear way, what this could be. So I probably didn't answer your question, but it's the best I got. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But the the priest would always go back
Speaker 1:to the Mhmm.
Speaker 3:The the old testament.
Speaker 1:To Melchizedek?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But I mean in like a formal, structural way. Like Aaron, like the ordination of the priesthood out of that of the Levites, see, and, that's a very structured kind of here's how to do you know, here's how this is gonna unfold. That's what I was referring to. But, yeah, ultimately, I mean, this is, you know, long before, I suppose.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Doesn't God promise specific real estate as part of Abram's covenant that it goes from Euphrates basically all the way down to Egypt?
Speaker 1:At the time. At the time. At the time. Yeah. But it envisions Yeah.
Speaker 1:At the time, it's going to be fulfilled in a different way. We're gonna get there today. You ready for that? Definitely. We're not gonna go around it.
Speaker 1:We're gonna go right through it. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Part of the reason we have so much strife.
Speaker 1:I know and that's why I'm gonna address it. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. No.
Speaker 1:I told you that week one, we're not going around stuff. We're gonna go right through it. So I'm well aware of this stuff is in the news right now actually. So so look with me at Genesis 15, if you will. Genesis 15, you see God's covenant with Abram.
Speaker 1:Let's start with verse well, if we go through here, Genesis fifteen one and following. And and after these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, fear not Abram, I am your shield, your reward will be very great. But Abram said, oh Lord God, what you give me, I'm sorry. I'm gonna read out a different translation. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1:Alright. Now I'm gonna read this one. Sorry. Sorry. I'm working with two different translations.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry. But Abram said, oh lord god, what you will give me for I, continue childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus. And Abram said, behold, you have given me no offspring and a member of my household will be my heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, this man shall not be your heir, your very own son shall be your heir. And he brought him outside and said, look toward heaven and number the stars if you are able to number them.
Speaker 1:Then he said to him, so shall your offspring be and he believed the Lord, underline that, and he believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness. That's one of the most important verses of your entire Old Testament right there. And he said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess. But he said, oh Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it? And he said to him, bring me a heifer, three years old, a female goat, three years old, a ram, three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.
Speaker 1:And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. And when the birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. This mysterious covenant ceremony that's taking place. There's even one very prominent Old Testament commentator who asked the question in his commentary whether these birds of prey that came down right there might be some sort of evil spirits.
Speaker 1:Actually, they're trying to thwart the covenant from being enacted during that time. And so, as the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. Okay? What other time do we see a deep sleep falling on somebody? Adam and Eve.
Speaker 1:Yeah. The creation of Adam in or Eve in the garden out of Adam's rib. Right? One commentator says that God's mysterious work really enables no watching, allows for no watching. It's like a very mysterious ceremony here.
Speaker 1:And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. Then the Lord said to Abram, know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there. They will be afflicted for four hundred years, in reference to Egypt. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace.
Speaker 1:You shall be buried in good old age and they shall come back here in the fourth generation for the iniquity of the Amorites or Canaanites, the settlers in Canaan is not yet complete. Okay? So right after that, you see this finality of the ceremony here. Verse 17, when the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying, to your offspring, I give this land from the River Egypt to the Great River, the River Euphrates, like you were saying, the actual geographic boundaries of this land.
Speaker 1:Okay. We'll stop there. What is a covenant? What is a covenant? Okay.
Speaker 1:A covenant comes from this word in Hebrew, Bereit. Okay. And this idea of covenant and beret means to cut. So it's usually some sort of ceremony that involves a cutting or a sacrifice or some sort of cutting that emerges and this is important for our narrative. My colleague and mentor who's a great old testament scholar, he defined a covenant this way.
Speaker 1:He called it a stipulated agreement under divine sanctions. You're gonna see covenants all over scripture. Okay? A stipulated agreement under divine sanctions. You're gonna be seeing covenants.
Speaker 1:There's 286 covenants in the old testament. Many of the covenants are what are called parity covenants which are kind of between equal parties, horizontal kind of parity covenants. And this would be more of a, what's that called, a suzerain vassal, covenant between a greater party and a lesser party. Okay? And God is going to establish the covenant.
Speaker 1:God is the one who establishes the covenant. Man is the one who keeps the covenant. Okay? So it's God who establishes it, man keeps the covenant. And there's gonna be a lot of covenants throughout the Old Testament.
Speaker 1:There are some covenants that are of greater significance or larger for the overall story of scripture than others. The Noahic covenant that we saw last week, the Abrahamic covenant here, the Mosaic covenant in Exodus, okay, the Davidic covenant in second Samuel seven, and then the new covenant that will be promised in Jeremiah 31. These will be the some of the major covenants over the course of the Old Testament. And so, what are we seeing here in this ceremony? What is happening with all these animals being cut and the smoking fire pot and everything?
Speaker 1:I think what's happening here is that they're entering into a covenant relationship with each other and they're basically saying that the ideas of these partners of the covenant are moving between the cut pieces and it communicates what is to become of them if they break the covenant. Okay? It's a way of communicating what would become of them should they break the covenant. And so this is part of the administration of the covenant itself. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Like anticipating. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Which ultimately is pointing us forward. Right? And so yeah. So the idea that these are animals, this is involving blood, this is involving life and so forth. And so, what do we have here as a result of this in the midst of all this covenant is that Abraham believed God.
Speaker 1:Okay? Faith. Abraham exercised faith in the midst of this covenant. Okay. So, how are we to think of this covenant?
Speaker 1:What is the Abrahamic covenant promising? It's promising land, seed, and blessing. And that is what is going to happen over the course of the Old Testament. Okay? In the New Covenant, is there an idea that this is strictly land, strictly seed, strictly blessing in the way it was understood in the old covenant.
Speaker 1:Okay. In the old testament, you have promise. In the New Testament, you have fulfillment. In the Old Testament, you have shadow. In the New Testament, you have reality.
Speaker 1:I think what you see here in Genesis 15 is the shadow that will find its reality in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ fulfills the Abrahamic covenant fully in terms of land, in terms of seed, in terms of blessing. And we only have to go to the book of Galatians to see that, and actually Galatians three. So if you have your bibles, let's turn, I've got it here, I'm sorry, to Galatians three. In what sense is Jesus the true land or the true home of Abrahamic covenant that's promised to them?
Speaker 1:Look at Galatians three twenty eight, where the apostle Paul says, there is no longer Jew or Greek. There is no longer slave or free. There is no longer male or female. For all of you are one in Jesus Christ. Okay.
Speaker 1:For the apostle Paul, the ultimate fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant is not a modern geopolitical nation state. It's not land that he's concerned about. All have access to Jesus Christ equally. Okay? And this is largely his argument in the book of Galatians and beyond.
Speaker 1:Right? Is that we talked about in the first week or the second week is that there's this sense of this, what I what scholars call sort of the scandal of particularity. Is that God choosing one particular nation. But it was never just for that nation itself. It was always a nation to bless the other nations.
Speaker 1:Right? It was that appointing, that electing, and that choosing of one nation so that they could be a blessing to the other nations. You definitely see that in the new covenant as well. Christ, the elect one, is chosen to bless all the nations. Right?
Speaker 1:This is not restricted to one particular nation. So, in that sense, Jesus is the true land, the true home, the true fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise. In what sense is He the true seed of Abraham? The second part of it. Look at Galatians three twenty nine, the very next verse.
Speaker 1:And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, Paul says, heirs according to the promise. So, you actually stand in that line, that Abrahamic line that was promised in Genesis if you are in Christ according to Paul in Galatians three. You are in that line, that very seed, all along the way. It is time. Okay.
Speaker 1:We'll pick that up next week. Thanks for your time. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I didn't check earlier. Yeah. I've got it right here. Oh, good.
Speaker 1:Okay. I was really hoping to get through all of it today.
Speaker 3:Getting you off track.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's alright. That's alright. I didn't get a time I need a timekeeper.
Speaker 2:Is it is it the Oracle?
Speaker 1:I mean Abraham what?
Speaker 2:The Abraham Accord, like, what we're going through now or, like, like, the political thing that we're going through now?
Speaker 1:Well, there's two sides on that in the Christian world.
Speaker 2:So it's it's it's all referencing back to this?
Speaker 1:Well, they're trying to. Some are. Yeah. Is that I mean, I saw there was a debate between two prominent Republicans on this very issue. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's like, I think one got it right and one got it wrong. And so there was
Speaker 2:Which two which two were we
Speaker 1:talking about? Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz.
Speaker 2:Okay. And
Speaker 1:If you just Google that, you'll see the the tension.
Speaker 2:And Ted Cruz is
Speaker 1:Was arguing that the land is what is the fulfillment of it. That's not a Christocentric reading of the text. All text must be read in light of Christ. So I'm I was gonna say there's like there are people out there in kind of the evangelical world who wanna have these idea of like two tracks throughout the Old Testament. One for ethnic Israel and one for non ethnic Israel.
Speaker 1:It's sort of the two tracks, but there's not. There's one track and it goes to Christ.
Speaker 2:Well, that's that's gonna be in the reading today.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You should go
Speaker 2:to the late service.
Speaker 1:No. I'm coming to the next one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So in the Old Testament reading today, it talks about the Samaritan who is that non
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, we were gonna talk about that.
Speaker 2:We're non Jew.
Speaker 1:Yes. Totally. Who We'll give you a tip-off. Is the
Speaker 2:most religious.
Speaker 1:One What I was gonna say too is that what you're gonna see in Matthew's genealogy is non Israelites in the genealogy of Jesus.
Speaker 2:Well, and and those of us who believe
Speaker 1:In the Davidic line. Yeah. So So it's not a matter of ethnicity. It's a matter of faith and abidance to the covenant.
Speaker 2:So was it Carlson or or Cruz that you felt was more on on point?
Speaker 1:Carlson. Okay. For sure. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Gotta read that. I gotta I Yeah. They're both
Speaker 1:so so brilliant. Yeah. But they represent sort of two different parts of the Christian world in terms of, like, seeing reading the bible. I'm not sure Cruz has read the bible because he didn't know where it was found, actually.
Speaker 2:Oh, is that right?
Speaker 1:Well, they called he called him out on it. Carleton did. Oh, He called and he's like, well, where would that be found? And he didn't know where oh, I'm I'm being recorded. That's alright.
Speaker 1:This is good to