He Kept up our End of the Bargain

May 6th, 2010 by David Phillips

Our small group is working through Genesis. We were talking about a lot of different things at the end of our time together and wound up talking about the covenant God made with Abram in Genesis 15. The NIV describes the covenant ceremony in this way:

7 He also said to him, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”

8 But Abram said, “O Sovereign LORD, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”

9 So the LORD said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”

10 Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. 11 Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.

17 When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. 18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates- 19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”

Now the implications of this event are extraordinary. In this covenant process, the two parties walk through the center of the cut animal carcasses. In doing so, they indicate that if they break the covenant, what was done to the animals was to be done to them. In this case, Abram did not walk through the cut pieces, only God. In doing this, God was stating that it was his responsibility to keep both ends of the covenant. It was God’s responsibility alone.

And on the Cross, He kept up our end of the covenant.

Tags: Covenant, Cross, Crucifixion, Jesus

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