Genesis #12 - The Gospel According to Abraham #2 - "Covenant Grace Pt. 2" (Genesis 12:1-3)

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Well, with that in mind, we come to the sermon series that we began last week.
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We've been calling this the Gospel According to Abraham, the Gospel According to Abraham. And this afternoon, as we continue on in that sermon series, we are taking a kind of pause—it's not a full pause, but kind of taking a pause for a moment this week—to deal with the topic that comes up as we deal with the life of Abraham.
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It's one of those topics that we need to address because it's going to help you to understand a number of texts that we come to in the future.
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To introduce that topic, if you have your Bibles, and I hope you do, take them and turn with me to Genesis chapter 12.
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Genesis and chapter 12. Genesis chapter 12.
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And we're going to read the first three verses as we get started this afternoon. Genesis chapter 12, beginning in verse 1 and reading through to verse 3.
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If you grabbed one of the red hardback Bibles that we give away, that's page 9 in those
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Bibles. Page 9, Genesis chapter 12, and verses 1 through 3.
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Can I invite you to stand with me out of reverence for God's Word? Genesis chapter 12, and we'll read the first three verses.
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Genesis chapter 12, verses 1 through 3. God's Word says, Yahweh said to Abraham, Go out from your land, your relatives, and your father's house, to the land
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I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you.
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I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you.
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I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed.
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Through you. The gospel is the flower phase, but this Word of our God will abide forever.
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Join with me as I pray, ask for the Spirit's help, and we get to work in this passage. But Heavenly Father, we would ask that as we take some time this afternoon to consider one of the great and precious truths of your
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Word. We pray that you would open our eyes, that we would see wonderful things out of your law.
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Pray that the eyes of our hearts would be enlightened, so that we would know the hope to which you have called us, a hope that is writ large from cover to cover of our
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Bibles. And Father, as we pray for ourselves, I take a moment to pray for Living Hope Church and their pastor,
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Pastor Sean Snyder. Pray for him and his work there, that as Christ is proclaimed there, that you would help that congregation, you would bless that congregation and his leadership, that in everything they do, they would glorify you.
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Father, that is my prayer for them, and it's my prayer for us even as a fellowship. We ask all these things in Jesus' name, and for his sake, amen.
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Please be seated. God keeps all his promises.
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God keeps all his promises. For Christians, that is one of the most comforting truths that we can learn about our great
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God. It's one of the most comforting truths in all the scriptures, that the God that we serve is a
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God who keeps his promises. And one of the ways, many ways, that the
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Bible communicates to us the fact that our God keeps his promises, and that we can trust him to keep his promises, is by reminding us of his faithfulness in the past.
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I start with that this afternoon, because what we're going to do in a sense, is look at God's faithfulness in the past, and how it affects us as God's people in the present.
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Just to give you a bit of a heads up as to what we're going to do this afternoon, we're going to do a little bit of a deep dive into a subject that some
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Christians know a little about, and others might struggle with, just by show of hands.
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How many of you would say you are comfortable enough explaining to somebody the idea of God's covenants in the
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Bible, just by a show of hands? Okay, some folks did not put their hands up. Well, that's why we're here this afternoon.
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We're talking covenants today, and in particular, we are going to focus on God's covenant with Abraham.
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I have a thing about this, because as you know, last week we started the life of Abraham, and the life of Abraham begins with God extending his covenant promise to him.
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Well, that's not the only time we're going to hear about this. As we'll see in a few moments, even in the life of Abraham, this will come up again, and again, and again.
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And so, it seemed good to me this week to pause, as it were, and to do more of a
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Bible study, looking at this idea of God's covenant with Abraham. If we can make sense of this covenant with Abraham, a lot of what we will see in the life of Abraham, and in the life of God's people going forward, will make a lot of sense.
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Now, like I said, this is going to be something of a deep dive. Ideally, this is the kind of thing, those of you who've been here for a while, you remember
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I used to do bodybuilding sessions. This would be ideally the kind of thing I would do in that setting. For various reasons,
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I don't have that option, so I will do my best not to make this too technical, but it will be more
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Bible study and theology lesson than your average sermon. But like I said, we're doing this because this covenant looms large over the book of Genesis, and in fact, it looms larger over the
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Bible as a whole. You see, if we're going to get the most out of Genesis, and we're going to get the most out of our study of the life of Abraham, then we just have to understand this covenant that God made with Abraham.
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I will do my best to keep this easy to follow, but to move quickly as well.
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Let's start then, number one, let's start with looking at the covenants that came before Abraham.
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Let's start there, looking at the covenants that came before Abraham. You see, when you read your
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Bible, your Bible is a connected story from Genesis to Revelation. It is not a set of random events that happened, and then we get to Jesus.
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That's kind of the high point, but there's no real connection with everything that came before. Actually, your Bible is a highly connected story from start to finish, and part of how the
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Bible shows that unity, that theme of God's redeeming a people for himself, by himself, and for his glory.
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Part of how the Bible demonstrates that unity of theme from start to finish is through the covenants that God has made with his people in his word.
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You remember last week, I gave you a definition of what a covenant is. Just to remind you, I said that a covenant really has four parts to it.
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That covenants in the Bible are, number one, a binding agreement. Number two, they're typically made between two parties.
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Number three, it involves an oath. And number four, the oath is that one or both parties will keep their word.
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Let me say that again. Covenants in the Bible are, number one, a binding agreement. Two, they're made between two parties.
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Three, they involve an oath. And four, the oath is that one or both parties will keep their word.
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That's the least simple definition we can give to a covenant. And when we come to Abraham, Abraham is not the first person that God makes a covenant with, and he won't actually be the last.
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But it's important to understand what God did before we got to Abraham if we're going to make sense of what he does with Abraham.
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For a moment, let's look at the covenants before Abraham. First of all,
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I want you to consider with me what some will call the covenant at creation. The covenant at creation.
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Now, for some of you who've heard me teach for quite some time here at Redeemer, you might be a little surprised that I start here.
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Because at times, I will be honest, I have expressed a little skepticism about the idea of a covenant found in the early chapters of the
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Bible. Part of that was just how I was trained as a Bible teacher. I was raised in a context where people, by and large, were suspicious, if not outright denied, a covenant in the early chapters of Genesis.
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And on first consideration, there's some reason for that skepticism. That skepticism makes sense when you look at Genesis 1, 2, and 3, and the word covenant doesn't actually appear.
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But just because I was raised to be skeptical about something doesn't mean I get to just continue with that and I don't check my skepticism and question my assumptions.
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And honestly, over the last year, I've been devoting myself to an earnest study of Scripture. And while my theology has not changed in massive amounts,
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I do think a case can be made that in Genesis 1, 2, and 3, there is a covenant that God establishes at creation.
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Let me share with you in real summary form where I landed in the last year. Why would
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I say there's a creation covenant? Well, number one, while the word covenant isn't mentioned in Genesis 1 and 2, the concept, excuse me, is definitely spelled out here.
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Turn with me to Genesis chapter 2 and verse 15. Genesis chapter 2 and verse 15.
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Okay, here we are, 15. Genesis chapter 2 and verse 15.
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I think this text kind of spells out some of those covenant parameters that I think are present in these early chapters.
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So Genesis chapter 2, I'm going to read verses 15 through 17. I want you to follow along in your Bibles. Genesis chapter 2 verses 15 through 17.
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Text says, Yahweh God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and to watch over it.
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And Yahweh God commanded the man, you are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil from the day you eat of it, you will certainly die.
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Then Yahweh God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper corresponding to him.
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I want to just point out a few features of this passage that we just read that might make a case for a covenant here.
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First of all, you have a covenant maker. Whenever you read the Bible, God is the one who is always making covenants with man.
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So God is the one who speaks. Make sense? You have covenant subjects. In particular,
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God speaks to Adam, because Eve technically hasn't been created yet. He speaks to Adam who acts as the representative head for all who will come from him.
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And he makes the covenant with Adam. Adam is the beneficiary, as it were, of this covenant.
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So you have a covenant maker, you have covenant subjects. You've got covenant stipulations in this passage. So verse 16, you are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
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So in other words, you can do whatever you like in this garden. You simply cannot do this.
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There's covenant sanctions. So God clearly says that if Abraham were to eat from this tree, not
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Abraham, excuse me, Adam, if Adam ate from this tree, Adam would die. And finally, you think, okay, this might be a stretch, but follow me here.
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You don't need to tell me that, but Genesis 3 .21, you have a sacrifice that is made in the context of this covenant once it's broken.
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So in Genesis 3 .21, you've probably read it. Remember when we studied this a few weeks ago?
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Genesis 3 .21, the Lord God made clothing from skins for the man and his wife, and he clothed them.
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Well, hold on. If he clothed them with skins, that implies the death of an animal. Skins just don't make themselves.
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And so you have the death of an animal, and this kind of clues you into the fact that when God makes covenants, usually somebody dies somewhere.
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Well, the death of an animal with all these other markers, I would say in Genesis 1 and 2, especially chapter 2, points to a covenant.
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But secondly, I would say that there are other features, lesser features to be sure, but there are other features in this passage that point to a, what
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I've described as a covenantal arrangement. So my time is really limited, but I encourage you to look at Genesis chapter 2 in your
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Bible reading time this week, and pay attention to the following. First of all, you've got twin themes of obedience and disobedience in Genesis chapters 1, 2, and 3.
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They kind of are hovering over this text in a way you can't ignore. I think one thing that's worth noting is the first time that God's covenant name
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Yahweh is used, Genesis chapter 2. Not chapter 1 actually, verse 26.
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Third, Adam is cast both as God's image bearer and as God's son.
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Both of those terms, I wish I had time to unpack this, but both of those terms when you read your Bible are covenantal terms.
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The fact that one bears the image of God and that one is a son of God, that one is declared to be God's son.
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So those other features of this passage point to this. I think a third reason that I think is worth considering is that the parallel between Adam and Christ demands a covenant relationship.
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So for those of you taking notes, Romans chapter 5, verses 12 through 21. That text where the work of Christ is set alongside the work of Adam, and they're compared in parallel together.
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That there is a people who are in Christ, just as there are a people who are in Adam.
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And while not everybody is in Christ, everybody is in Adam. And Paul's point is very simple, that the work that Christ does far supersedes and is far more glorious than the failure of Adam in the garden.
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I'm inclined to agree with biblical scholar Stephen Wellam, who's been really helpful to me in thinking through some of this, when he writes, yet the new covenant headship of Christ as the last
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Adam makes little sense without the covenant headship of the first Adam.
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And so as I said, as I read these opening chapters of Genesis, and I read and reread them,
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I think all that and a lot more points to some covenantal activity in these opening chapters of Genesis.
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Okay, Kofi, that's great, that's wonderful, but that kind of sounds like theological nerd stuff. Why is that important?
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I'm glad you asked. Well, first of all, if the Bible discusses something, it's inherently important, so there's that. But more pressing than that,
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I think there are some reasons to give this some thought. You may not agree with me. You may say, I'm not sure about that.
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That's fine, I'm not telling you to believe it, just telling where I've landed. And I think there are some important reasons to think about this.
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First of all, I'm going to argue that this covenant that's made at creation is foundational to the rest of the covenants you read in the
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Bible. That really what you have here is the blueprint for covenantal relationship going forward.
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All the covenants that will come later on in the Bible assume an understanding of Adam's role as a covenant head.
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Second, a number of important threads start here in Genesis that will develop all the way in the
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New Testament. So for example, this theme of the conflict between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, which then will ultimately come to climax in the work of Christ superseding the work of the devil.
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Well, that starts in Genesis chapter three. How about the concept of Sabbath and the fact that when you get to the
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New Testament, the New Testament says that Christ is our Sabbath rest. Well, that starts here in the beginning of Genesis.
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The idea of Eden as this temple sanctuary pointing us to the presence of God among his people.
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Well, isn't that fun? That's how the Bible starts, with God in the presence of his people. Revelation chapters 21 and 22 ends with God eternally dwelling with his people.
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How about marriage? Marriage that serves, according to Paul in Ephesians chapter five, it serves as a picture of Christ's relationship to the church.
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What starts as a picture in the book of Genesis is given fuller meaning when we get to the New Testament.
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And so a number of important themes and threads that become important for reading the whole Bible start here.
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So we kind of need to understand what's happening here in Genesis one, two, and three. Finally, the first promise of the gospel in Genesis 3 .15
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happens in this context. Remember Genesis 3 .15? I'll put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed.
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He will, and it's interesting, he doesn't say they, we'll come back to that later. He says he will crush your head and you will bruise his heel.
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That first gospel announcement, that first announcement of good news, happens in this context, which tells me that the gospel itself, which we'll see later on when we get to the new covenant, the gospel itself, in a lot of ways, is a covenantal message.
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Now, for those of you who are theologically aware, are you saying, Kofi, are you becoming a covenant theologian?
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Not necessarily. Those of you who know those theological terms, for the rest of you, don't worry about it.
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No, I'm not. But I am saying, I think there's more going on in Genesis one, two, and three than we are often prone to think.
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You might not find all that convincing. You might not even care. But I encourage you to think about this.
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Because actually, it does play into how you read your Bible and how you read your Bible well.
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I need to move on, because we still have quite a way to go this evening. So we've talked about the covenant with Adam.
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Secondly, or with creation, I should say. Secondly, let's talk about the covenant with Noah. The covenant with Noah.
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If there's a lot of disagreement about the first thing I just talked about, no one disagrees with this. It's pretty straightforward.
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So we're in Genesis chapter two. Turn over to Genesis chapter nine. Genesis chapter nine. I actually preached a sermon on this back in April.
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You can find it on our YouTube channel. It was called God's covenant with Noah. Nice simple description. Just look for it there.
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You should find it. Genesis chapter nine. I want to go straight to the declaration of this covenant itself.
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Genesis chapter nine and verses eight through 11. Genesis chapter nine and verses eight through 11.
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Text says, then God said to Noah and his sons with him, understand that I am establishing my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that is with you.
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Birds, livestock, and all wildlife of the earth that are with you. All the animals of the earth that came out of the ark.
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I established my covenant with you that never again will every creature, excuse me, be wiped out by flood waters.
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There will never again be a flood to destroy the earth. The creation covenant that we just talked about,
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I would argue, maps out the terms of a relationship between men and God. And it sets into motion the promise of a redeemer.
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It's referred to in Genesis 3 .15 as the seed. The covenant with Noah ensures that the world will continue so that the redeemer can be born into it.
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Think about the context of Genesis chapter nine. You've had the flood where God basically judged the world and basically removed everybody from it except eight people.
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And God basically says, listen, I'm not going to do that again. Understand, as he says in verse nine, that he's establishing a covenant with Noah and his descendants after him, verse 11, that never again will every creature be wiped out by flood waters.
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There will never be another flood of a global scale that wipes out all of life. And that's important because then that means the world will be preserved into which the redeemer can ultimately come.
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This redeemer would one day ensure that there would be a new creation, a creation where the effects of the fall are undone, a redeemer who would ensure that a judgment like the flood will never happen again.
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And if there is one difference with this covenant from the previous one, it's that God gives a visible sign to Noah for him to see.
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So God says that he puts his rainbow in the sky, signaling the fact that rain would never mean a universal flood upon the earth.
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That even when it rains and it rains, and even when it floods locally, when you see the rainbow in the sky, that's supposed to remind you that God has promised to preserve this world until he brings in his new creation.
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Not simple one, no one by and large disagrees with the covenant with Noah because the Bible is very explicit about that.
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So those are the covenants that come before Abraham. The next time we're gonna hear language about covenant will be when we come to Abraham as we have.
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So we've looked at the covenants before Abraham. Let's for a moment focus on the covenant with Abraham.
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Point number two there, focusing on the covenant with Abraham. So real quick, let's review.
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By the time we come to God's covenant dealings with Abraham, here's what we already know.
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Man is in a covenantal relationship to God, a relationship that through Adam is now destroyed and in need of repair.
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So we know that much. We also know that God has said that he will send a seed who will once for all destroy the enemy and will repair that relationship between God and man.
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We also know because of the covenant with Noah that creation is going to be preserved until this promised seed will come.
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So far so good. But when we come to the covenant with Abraham, now we're going to get a ton more detail about how
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God is going to fulfill his promise to Abraham in real time or to, excuse me, to humanity regarding the seed in real time.
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This covenant is actually revealed in stages. That's why I had us do this here in Genesis chapter 12 rather than wait till later.
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So you can kind of watch these stages as they unfold. Three in particular, number one, you have the initial promise that's made.
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That's why I had us start in Genesis 12, one through three. You have an initial promise that's made.
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Now in this promise, God promises three things. If you are the Bible writing type, you might want to write somewhere in the margin next to Genesis 12, three words.
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This will help you to understand the Abrahamic covenant really simply. Three words. God promises to Abraham land.
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So you saw that there in verse one, go from your land, your relatives, and your father's house to the land
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I will show you. God promises Abraham a particular land. We'll talk more about that in a future message.
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Abraham and his seed will be the owner of a land given by God. Secondly, Abraham is promised seed.
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He's promised that he would become a great nation, that people would descend from him. Put a pin in that one, because we'll come back to that right at the end of the message.
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This idea of the seed, land, seed, and then blessing.
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God says that the blessing of God and the curse of God would be conditioned on Abraham, and more importantly, on Abraham's seed.
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So like I said, three words you might want to write in the margin of your Bible, land, seed, and blessing. That's God's initial promise to Abraham.
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And we talked last week about the way in which God approached Abraham. Abraham was not looking for God. Abraham was not, as it were, this good guy who
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God's like, oh, I like him, maybe we should start something with him. No, God initiates this promise by his grace by himself.
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So that's the initial promise. But move over to Genesis chapter 15, and you see not just an initial promise, but now you see this covenant that's confirmed.
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Point number two there. Covenant confirmed in Genesis chapter 15.
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Genesis chapter 15 verses 4 through 9 and 17 through 21. Marie, you might want to switch the slide for me.
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I can't do it up here, I'm afraid. Genesis chapter 15. So God has made a promise to Abraham in chapter 12.
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He now confirms that promise in chapter 15. He now confirms that promise in chapter 15.
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Now, for a moment, I need to take you back into the world of the ancient Near East. Because when we agree contracts and stuff, it's really nice and clean.
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You know, we print it up on paper. We don't really ask for much of anything except for some money, depending on the nature of the contract, and your signature.
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In the ancient Near East, covenants were a slightly more gory affair. If you are the squeamish type, you might want to zone out for a few seconds.
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We've already seen back in Genesis that covenants are often confirmed with some kind of ritual sacrifice. In fact, with Noah, same thing.
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Noah is offering sacrifices when God makes his covenant. Well, Genesis chapter 15 picks up the same thing.
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Look at verses 4 through 9 with me. Genesis 15, 4 to 9. God's word says, now the word of Yahweh came to him.
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This one, referring to Abraham's servant, this one will not be your heir. Instead, one who comes from your own body will be your heir.
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Well, that makes sense. God's already told us that in chapter 12. He's going to be the father of a great nation. Verse 5, he,
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Yahweh, the covenant God, took him outside and said, look at the sky and count the stars if you are able to count them.
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Then he said to him, your offspring will be that numerous. Abraham believed the
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Lord and he credited it to him as righteousness. When we get to that passage, we'll talk more in detail about that because that's one of the greatest verses in all the
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Bible. But verse 7, he also said to him, I am Yahweh who called you out of Ur of the
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Chaldeans to give you this land to possess. But he said, Abraham, Yahweh God, how can
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I know that I will possess it? Verse 9, he said to him, bring me a three -year -old cow, a three -year -old female goat, a three -year -old ram, male goat, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon.
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Now for the squeamish part, God asked for these animals because this is how covenants were cut in the ancient Near East. You would take these animals, you would slaughter them, but the way you slaughter them was, at least for me as someone who's kind of squeamish, kind of rough.
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You would basically slice the animal clean in half. So kind of lengthwise, you cut it in half.
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You then take these two pieces of your animals that you have now sliced in half, and you'd put them on the ground, and you create a little walkway between them.
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Now picture this, you've got these two animals on the ground. It's a bloody affair because let's be honest, you've just got the inside of an animal bleeding out.
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And then what each part of the, or each party in the covenant would do. So if you have your, let's say, we use this as an illustration, animal here, animal here, here are two parts.
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Both covenant parties would walk in between those animals. Why would they do that?
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If you're taking notes, I won't have you turn there, but I'll read it. Jeremiah chapter 34 verses 18 through 20.
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This is God speaking. This is what he says. As for those who disobeyed my covenants, not keeping the terms of the covenant they made before me,
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I will treat them like the calf they cut in two in order to pass between its pieces.
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The officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, and all the people of the land who passed between the pieces of the calf.
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All these I will hand over to their enemies, to those who intend to take their life.
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Their corpses will become food for the birds of the sky and for the wild animals of the land.
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In other words, you cut those animals in half and walk between them. And basically you said, if I break this thing, what happened to this animal should happen to me.
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Told you this wasn't quite as clean as going into an office and giving a John Hancock to a piece of paper. This was not something to be trifled with or messed with.
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And we have examples in the ancient world where, not the divine covenants, but where men made covenants and didn't keep them.
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And they received the sanction of the covenant in themselves. Not pretty.
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But here's the fascinating thing about this. Remember I said that the two parties in the covenant walk between these animals.
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So again, if these are two animals, the idea here you would think is Abraham walks through these animals and then
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God would walk through these animals, so to speak. Well, flip down to verse 17 and we see something very interesting there.
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Genesis 15, 17. The text says, when the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the divided animals.
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We think, wait a minute, where's Abraham in this? The text tells you earlier, God put him to sleep.
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God himself comes down and walks through these things by himself. Verse 18, on that day,
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Yahweh made a covenant with Abraham saying, I will give this land to your offspring. From the brook of Egypt to the great river, the
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Euphrates river, the land of the Canites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hethites, Perizzites, Rephaim, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites, all the ites.
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But don't get distracted from the big point here. Who's the one who walks through these pieces?
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It's not Abraham and God. This isn't an equal partnership here. God takes it upon himself to be the one to set the contract and to fulfill it.
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As one Bible teacher, Alan Ross, in his commentary, puts it, quote, Thus the holy God was zealous to judge the nations and fulfill his covenantal promises to Abraham.
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He came down and made, literally cut, a formal treaty, a covenant with Abraham. Since God could swear, confirm the covenant by none greater,
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Hebrews chapter six, and you'll talk about this in your growth groups this week, Hebrews chapter six, he swore by himself.
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In other words, this was a unilateral covenant, one sided. So its promises are absolutely sure.
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Can I pause for a moment? I know I said it's more like a Bible study, but allow me to preach for just one moment.
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Why is it that God can swear by himself? Why is it that God doesn't say, well,
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I swear by heaven or I swear by, no, he swears by himself. Have you ever wondered that? Why, of all the things in the world that God could swear by, he swears only by himself.
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Here's a comfort for you, Christian. God swears by himself because there is no one more reliable, there is no one more trustworthy, and there is no one more consistent than him.
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When the very real trials of life arise, can I put it to you that you neither want nor need a
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God who doesn't know what's happening or worse knows what is happening, but is powerful, powerless, excuse me, to do anything about it.
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I feel the need to pause for a moment and just say, I think we should praise God for the fact that he is a God who is so reliable.
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He is so trustworthy. He's the only thing that you can bet on.
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I need to get back to my study. I'm supposed to be in lecture mode today. Let me get back to our study. You've got an initial promise.
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You've got a confirmation. Thirdly, you've got a covenant sign that gets given for this. You turn to chapter 17.
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So Genesis chapter 17 and verses 9 through 14.
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Genesis chapter 17 verses 9 through 14. So God has given us the initial promise. He then comes down and actually does a covenant ceremony and says that I am the one who will fulfill this covenant.
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And now in chapter 17, God gives a sign to Abraham.
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So Genesis chapter 17 and verse 9. God also said after reaffirming the promises of this covenant, as for you, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations are to keep my covenant.
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This is my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you, which you are to keep.
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Now, let's be clear. What God is about to say is not the covenant proper, but there is such a close relationship between the thing that is promised and the sign of the promise.
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God can basically say this thing is the covenant. That's what God means there in verse 10. Here's what he says.
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Every one of your males must be circumcised. You must circumcise the flesh of your foreskin to serve as a sign of the covenant between me and you.
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Throughout your generations, every male among you is to be circumcised at eight days old. Every male born in your household or purchased from any foreigner and not your offspring.
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Can I pause and say that's interesting because God doesn't just say it's your physical seen Abraham who you give this sign to.
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Anyone who joins himself to your people receives this sign.
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Already God is pointing us to the fact that whatever the fulfillment of this promise looks like, it's not going to stop with just Abraham's physical seed.
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Even those who aren't his seed can have access to the blessings of this covenant.
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We'll file that away because we will come back to that again in our study of Genesis in way more detail. Verse 13, the text says, whether born in your household or purchased, he must be circumcised.
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My covenant will be marked in your flesh as a permanent covenant. If any male is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that man will be cut off from his people.
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He has broken my covenant. And so to remind
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Abraham and his descendants of their covenant relationship, God gives this very real physical sign of circumcision.
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Commentator Derek Kidner says that circumcision implied commitment to God's people. It also came to symbolize the discarding of heathen ways and of one's natural self -will.
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And notice that the covenant was open to Gentiles, but they most wholly belong to the community.
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Now we'll talk more in detail about circumcision and what it represents when we come to chapter 17. But for now,
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I just want you to see that God gives a sign to Abraham of this covenant and the sign is circumcision.
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So just like he gave the sign of the rainbow to Noah, he now gives a sign of circumcision to Abraham, symbolizing that all of your seed are in this covenant.
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Now, all of that is technical detail. It's important and it's worthwhile. But I would be remiss if I didn't drive home the importance of this covenant for you as God's people.
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You see, I'm going to make the case that like all the biblical covenants, this covenant has direct links to the gospel itself.
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And for a few moments, that's where I'd like to end. We've talked about the covenants that came before Abraham.
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We've focused on the covenant with Abraham. Finally, I want to consider the Abrahamic covenant and the gospel.
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Tell me with me to Galatians chapter 3. This is where I'm going to end this afternoon. Galatians chapter 3, again, preached a sermon series on this chapter last year called
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Achieving Gospel Clarity. And as we worked through Galatians, I'm not going to hit all the detail I hit in that sermon series.
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You can go back and listen to that. I just want to focus in on this one paragraph from verses 15 through to 18.
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To give you some background, the letter to the Galatians is not written to one church. It's written to a region of churches in Galatia.
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And these churches had been swayed into believing a false gospel of salvation by their faithfulness to the law of Moses versus faith in Christ and his finished work.
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And Paul basically says, listen, you are not saved by faithfulness to the law. You are saved by faith in Christ. And Galatians is
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Paul's answer after answer after answer to the claims of these false teachers.
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Now to undermine this message, Paul makes a very simple point from the life of Abraham himself.
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So Galatians chapter 3 and verse 15. God says, brothers and sisters,
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I am using a human illustration. No one sets aside or makes additions to a validated human will.
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A nice illustration we could all understand. The only person who can make additions to a will is the one who wrote the will.
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Once the person who wrote the will has passed on, then you can, no more changes can be made.
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Verse 16. Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed.
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This is why I told you to like stick a pin in that word seed. Paul says he does not say and to seeds as though referring to many, but referring to one and to your seed, who is
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Christ. Paul says that the promise of the covenant was made, yes, with Abraham, but was made with Abraham's seed.
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And he's clear to say the seed is not just the physical descendants of Abraham.
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It is a particular physical descendant of Abraham. And just in case you get confused, he's very clear in saying the seed is
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Christ. You see the central promise, the central focus, excuse me, of God's promise to Abraham really wasn't
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Abraham. It wasn't even Abraham's physical seed. Now Paul would have us to understand that the central focus of God's promise to Abraham was and is
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Christ. And so as you read about this covenant that God makes with Abraham, you're supposed to read it and all the glorious truths that come with it in light of Christ.
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Now hear me, that that's not an excuse to do what some people do and to kind of reinterpret these promises, making them to say things they were never intended to say.
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That's not what I'm getting at. Neither is it, in my opinion, an excuse to redefine his covenants such that they aren't fulfilled as they were written.
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What I am saying is that whatever your view of the fulfillment of these things, if it doesn't factor in Christ at the center, you've not read them right.
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And that's Paul's point. And so that's the first lesson we learn about the connection between the
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Abrahamic covenant and the gospel. The connection is very simple that Jesus is the focal point of the covenant with Abraham.
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He is the true descendant of Abraham who will inherit all of these promises.
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But Paul has another point to me. That's not the only thing Paul has to say about this. So verse 17, Paul says, my point is this, the law which came 430 years later does not invalidate a covenant previously established by God and thus cancel the promise.
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For if the inheritance is based on the law, it is no longer based on the promise.
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But God has graciously given it to Abraham through the promise.
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Okay, what's Paul's point there? Well, again, you got to know the background of Galatians here. You've got people who are being told it's by your faithfulness to the law that you are saved.
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And Paul's point is very simple. Is that how Abraham received?
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Abraham, who, by the way, was the one who received circumcision. Circumcision is a big deal in Galatians for that reason. Paul says, is that how
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Abraham received righteousness from God? Was Abraham's righteousness based on his covenantal obedience?
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Was it based on his faithfulness? Just in case you want to answer yes, come back next week.
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We'll see Abraham not being very faithful. But that's the point. The covenant isn't made with Abraham based on his faithfulness.
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We saw this last week. How is it that Abraham could receive the promise of God even when there was no law?
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That's a fascinating conversation to have. But there was no law present. How is it that Abraham received the promise?
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Well, he receives it by faith. Think about this.
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We talked about this last week. Abraham's relationship with God was not initiated by any input from Abraham.
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It was God in his grace and his mercy reaching out to Abraham and extending his gracious promise.
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Just like God saves us not because we are obedient. We're unable to be obedient.
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But Christ was. Obeyed the Father perfectly in thought, word, and deed.
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Abraham's relationship was on the basis of grace just as God saves us on the basis of grace and faith and not on the basis of our faithfulness.
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Oftentimes you'll hear people and they'll say, well, I'm a really good person. Is that enough to get me into heaven? Absolutely not.
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As one of my favorite preachers back home used to say, dear friends, you talk about being good enough for God.
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You're not even good enough for you. No, no, no. The only way in which we have any sort of relationship with God is because God in his grace and in his mercy initiates a relationship with us apart from our obedience, not just to the law of God, but to anything in general.
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You see what you're supposed to see in God's covenant making activity with Abraham is God being faithful to his promise.
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Whether or not we are good enough for it, because that's not the issue.
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Here's where the Abrahamic covenant and the gospel ultimately come together. We see that God gives graciously and not on the basis of human faithfulness.
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And every other gift that God will give, God gives out of his faithfulness, not ours.
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That's not to say that our obedience is not important. It absolutely is. And that's not to say that we have no reason to return back to God in gratitude, lives of worship and obedience.
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That's not the point at all. But let me close with this.
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Why would we spend a whole message on the Abrahamic covenant? Well, yes, it matters on a technical level.
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I think we can agree that. Covenants are massive in the Bible. You can't read your Bible properly without understanding them.
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But deeper than that, brothers and sisters, it matters on a spiritual level because we learn about the heart of God.
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Every time you see covenant, think relationship. And when you think of it that way, you see a
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God who initiates. And I could even say, desires relationship with the creation he's made.
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We learn about the heart of God. And we also learn about the grace of God. Grace that reaches out and gives and blesses above and beyond anything that we deserve.
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Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for the good news of the gospel.
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As Paul says elsewhere in Galatians, you preach the gospel to Abraham. And all
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Abraham did was believe you. And that's all you call us to do, to believe you.
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Father, I would ask that as we once again, think on this great and precious truth of the fact that you have established a covenant with us, a different covenant from even the one you established with Abraham.
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Bible says that you established a new covenant and that you write your law upon our hearts. Father, help us to rejoice in the fact that we have a relationship with you.
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One that is steadfast, one that is sure and one in which you keep all of your promises.