Chapter 7
The Abrahamic Covenant
In our study in the preceding lessons, we saw that after man had died spiritually, his need of a mediator, righteousness and eternal life could only be met by the incarnation of God's son.
In our last lesson, we traced the working of the Grace of God, from the time he gave to man the promise of the incarnate (Genesis 3:15) to the time of the flood, in His preserving a righteous line through which the redeemer could come.
We saw that Satan in his effort to make the incarnation an impossibility, corrupted humanity to the extent that the flood became imperative. Noah, who knew God, was spared with his family. He thus preserved the true faith in Jehovah and handed it to his sons.
We recall that there are two means Satan used to thwart the purpose of God in the incarnation. They were: (1) his seeking to destroy the knowledge of God upon the earth, and (2) his seeking to destroy the righteous line.
The Tower of Babel
From the time of the flood until the building of the tower of Babel, there was worship of God. Not that all men accepted it for many wickedly rebelled against it. But the knowledge and revelation of the true God was too fresh in their minds for them to set up other gods.
We notice that in the ninth chapter of Genesis a command had been given to replenish the earth (Genesis 9:1). In the eleventh chapter of Genesis, we see that the whole earth was of one language and one speech (Genesis 11:1). The unity of the human family was untouched. The Ark in which Noah and his family were preserved, had rested in Armenia on Mount Ararat. As men began to multiply, this barren table land no longer sufficed. Men must either separate and fill the earth as God had told them to do, or a more fertile territory must be found. The latter course was resolved upon, so they passed down into the rich fertile lowlands in the plains of Shinar (Genesis 11:2).
They resolved upon a permanent settlement there in order to build a city and a tower that they might not be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth (Genesis 11:4). Jehovah came down and confounded their language which caused them to be scattered over the earth (Genesis 11:7-9). From there the streams of population poured forth into all parts of the world; northeast toward China and Mongolia, northwest to Europe, west to Asia Minor, southwest of Egypt and Africa, south to Arabia, southeast to Persia and India. Naturally, this was not the work of a day. It took ages and ages for the more distant lands to be settled.
After the men had been scattered, the worship and knowledge of Jehovah, passed into the worship and powers of nature, and then into idols (Romans 1:21-23). The oldest and sacred books of each nation bear witness to the account in the scripture (Romans 1:18-32) that each nation originally possessed a revelation of God. From these ancient writings and traditions, with aid of monumental inscriptions, uncovered by the archaeologists in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, we can get quite a clear picture of the passing from the worship of one God to the worship of many gods and idols.
The Call of Abraham
Three hundred and sixty-seven years after the flood, Abraham appears. Noah was alive for fifty years after the birth of Abraham. The world had lapsed into idolatry. Abraham lived among pagans and idolaters until he was seventy-five years of age.
He had been born and lived in Ur of the Chaldees, one of the most splendid ancient cities, until he received his call from God.
We can understand why God revealed Himself to Abraham. The revelation of God was practically lost. If a righteous line were to be preserved through which God could send His incarnate son, He must choose one man who knew Him, and make of him a nation that would preserve the knowledge of Himself upon the earth (Matthew 1:17).
Abraham's countrymen and relatives were idolaters. If in him a nation was to be founded that would preserve God's revelation to man and a knowledge of man's redeemer, so that He would be recognized when He came, it was necessary for Abraham to be removed from these influences. There are many legends which tell of Abraham being persecuted for his refusal to worship idols.
So under a call of God, he set out in search of a land where a nation could be founded, free from idolatry (Genesis 12).
Twenty-five years after Abraham received his call from God, the greatest event in human history until the birth of Christ took place. It was the blood covenant into which God and Abraham entered. Before we can understand the significance of this covenant which God cut with Abraham, we must know the meaning of the blood covenant.
The blood covenant existed before Abraham. Proofs of the existence of this rite of Blood Covenanting have been found among primitive peoples of every quarter of the globe, and its antiquity is carried back prior to the days of Abraham.
Blood Covenant
It is evident that God cut the Covenant or entered into a covenant with Adam at the very beginning. A common revelation of the Blood Covenant from God must have been given to primitive man. This knowledge was passed from one generation to another, Noah must have had a knowledge of it, and without doubt passed it on to his sons, and they to the children of the dispersion, when men were scattered at the tower of Babel, each one possessed a knowledge of the Blood Covenant.
We believe this because of the following facts that are revealed in Dr. Trumbull's book which is entitled "The Blood Covenant."
"From the very beginning in every nation, blood seems to have been looked upon as pre-eminently the representative of life; as in deed, in a peculiar sense life itself. The transference of blood from one organism to another has been counted as the transference of life with all that life includes. The inter-comingling of blood has been understood as equivalent to the inter-comingling of natures. Two natures, thus inter-comingled by the inter-comingling of blood had been considered as forming thenceforth on nature, one life, one soul. The union of natures by mingling of blood has been deemed possible by man and man, and God and man."
A covenant of blood, a covenant made by the inter-comingling of blood has been recognized as the closest, most sacred and most indissoluble compact conceivable. There are three reasons for men cutting the covenant with each other.
If a strong tribe lives by the side of a weaker tribe and there is danger of the weaker tribe being destroyed, the weaker will ask to cut the covenant with the stronger tribe that they may be preserved. Or if two business men want to go into business, and one is going to leave the country and travel as a foreign representative, he will cut the covenant with his partner. Or if two men love each other as devotedly as David and Jonathan, they will cut the covenant.
The moment the blood covenant is solemnized, everything that a blood-covenant man owns is at the disposal of his blood-covenant brother; yet this brother would never ask for anything, unless he was absolutely driven by want to do it.
Another feature is, that as soon as this covenant is cut, they are called by others the blood- brothers.
That the blood covenant goes down through generations; as an indissoluble covenant that generations cannot erase is borne witness to by both Livingstone and Stanley, pioneer missionaries in Africa. Livingstone tells, "should one man be guilty of breaking the blood covenant his nearest relative would seek his death, for no man can live in Africa who breaks the covenant; he curses the ground."
Here in America, there is little that is sacred, but in Africa the Covenant is sacred. Mr. Stanley and Dr. Livingstone both testify to the fact that they never knew the covenant to be broken.
The method of cutting the covenant is practically the same world over. In some places it has degenerated into a grotesque rite, but it is the same blood covenant. The method which is practiced by the Africans, Arabians, Syrians and Balkans is this:
Two men who wish to cut the Covenant come together with friends and a priest. First they exchange gifts. Then they bring a cup of wine. The priest makes an incision in the arm of each man allowing the blood to drip into the wine. They mingle the wine and drink it. Now they are blood brothers.
The Abraham Covenant
The seventeenth chapter of Genesis takes on a new meaning for us now. We see that when God appeared to Abraham to make a covenant with him, that Abraham knew what it meant. God was coming into covenant of strong friendship with him. (The Blood Covenant was called the Covenant of strong friendship.) That is why Abraham was called the friend of God (James 2:23; Isaiah 41:8; 2 Chronicles 20:7).
Abraham is the only human being who was called the friend of God in the Old Testament. The covenant that God cut with Abraham was to bring the Israelitish nation into being as a covenant people (Genesis 17:7).
Then God gave to Abraham the method of cutting the covenant (Genesis 17:10-14). The seal of the covenant was circumcision. Every male child at the age of eight days was circumcised, and circumcision was the entrance into the Covenant.
Genesis 17:26 In the selfsame day, Abraham was circumcised and thenceforth he bore in this flesh the evidence that he had entered into the Blood Covenant of friendship with God. To this day Abraham is designated, in the East as "the friend of God."
After the formal covenant of blood had been cut between God and Abraham, there came a testing of Abraham's fidelity to that covenant. This testing would also give evidence to the future generations of the fact that the cutting of the covenant on the part of Abraham in the rite of circumcision had not been an empty ceremony, but that in that covenant, Abraham had pledged his very life to Jehovah.
Genesis 15:6 "He believed in Jehovah, and He reckoned it to him for righteousness." In Abraham we see an unqualified committal of one's self to another. Abraham so trusted God that he was ready to commit himself to God in the rite of the Blood Covenant, with all of its traditional implications. Therefore, God counted Abraham's spirit of loving and longing trust as ready for the blood covenant, of friendship between them.
Genesis 22:1-19 The testing came when Isaac, a blood covenant child that God had miraculously given to Abraham, was from 15 to 20 years of age.
Abraham's Testing
Genesis 22:1-2 "And it came to pass that God did prove Abraham and said unto him, Abraham, and he said here am I. And He said, take now thy son, thy only son whom thou lovest, even Isaac and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." And Abraham rose up instantly to respond to the call of his divine friend.
It is well to recognize the Oriental thought in a transaction like this. An Oriental Father prizes an only son, more than he prizes his own life. For an Oriental Father to die without a son is a terrible thought, but with a son to take his place he is ready to die.
For Abraham to have surrendered his own toil-worn life, now that a son of promise had been born to him would have been a minor matter at the call of God. But for Abraham to surrender that son, and to become again a hopeless, childless, old man was a different matter. Only a faith, that would neither question nor reason, only a love that would neither fail nor waver could meet an issue like that. All the world over, men in Covenant friendship were ready to give that which was dearer than life itself to their Blood Covenant brothers, or their gods. Would Abraham do as much for his divine friend as men would do for their human friends? Would Abraham surrender to his God all that the worshippers of other gods were willing to surrender in proof of their devotedness? These were questions that had to be answered before the world.
Genesis 22:3-10 Abraham showed himself capable of even such a friendship as this in his blood covenant with Jehovah; and when he had manifested his spirit of devotedness, he was told to stay his hand. Read Hebrews 11:17-19.
Genesis 22:15-17 "Then it was that the Angel of Jehovah called unto Abraham a second time out of heaven, and said, By Myself have I sworn (by my life). . . ". Here is the foundation of that covenant, Godward. There is nothing that God could swear by but by Himself. To the Oriental it meant, I swear by myself. Now if this fails I become your slave; you own me. I put myself in bondage to you.
Abraham and God are now bound together. All that God is belongs to Abraham, and all that Abraham is and ever will be belongs to God in this covenant relationship. Now we can understand why so many times He said: "I am the Lord who keepeth covenants." He is the Covenant keeping God.
Back, in the history of Israel was this solemn covenant that God had sealed on His side by putting Himself in utter absolute bondage to that covenant. You and I are living in the day, when promises made in covenant are being fulfilled to Israel, the offspring of Abraham.
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