Last Sunday, we started a new series entitled “Covenant.” Or, we think about the old covenant—that which is revealed in the Old Testament, or the new covenant—meaning that which is revealed in the New Testament.
We are examining the idea of covenant from the biblical perspective. God is a covenant making God, and we’re spending Lent exploring the five key covenants God made with his people, but with the purpose of discovering how they are still meaningful for us today. Shawn began last week with a look at the first covenant recorded in the Bible…well, the first time the word covenant is used…by looking at the covenant God made with all creation through Noah. This week we turn our attention to the man who has been called the father of our faith, Abraham. What can we learn about the concept of covenant from Abraham.
Our text today is actually the third time God has made his promised to Abram. First, in Genesis 12, God calls Abram to leave all he knows, family, etc., and go to the land he will show him and he will make of him a great nation. Abram obeys, but he doesn’t see the fulfillment of the promise. Then, in Genesis 15, God shows up again and reiterates the promise.
It’s now thirteen years later. Abram is ninety-nine years old when God appears and reaffirms his covenant a third time, but this time God adds a sign that shall mark the covenant people forever. This is where God established the covenant sign of membership in His covenant family.
Genesis 17 shows us that God Almighty established with Abraham and his seed an everlasting covenant with only one stipulation—that they receive the sign of membership in God’s covenant family.
Genesis 17:1 says, “When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty…’” The Lord introduced himself to Abram as “God Almighty,” El-Shaddai. This is the first time in the Bible that God is called El-Shaddai. Hebrew scholars are not exactly sure how to translate it but wherever it is used in Genesis, it is associated with divine omnipotence, his ability to fulfill his promises and especially to make the barren fertile. God was encouraging Abram to know that the God who was speaking to him was powerful, omnipotent, able to make the barren fertile, and from whom Abram should draw nourishment.
God goes on to say “…walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” God announces again to Abram that he is going to establish a covenant between them.
The first thing I want us to note is whose covenant it is. It is God’s covenant. Five times God says, “I WILL” do this, “I WILL” do that. The main point we need to know about biblical covenants is that God establishes the covenant. God comes from the heavens and does the courting. God establishes the relationship. God lays down the rules for it. This is a picture not of humanity coming to God but God coming to humanity.
We hear the word covenant and we think contract. A covenant is a contract between two people. We think about the “covenant of marriage” as a marriage contract between a husband and a wife. There have to be two people to form a covenant, and we both have to agree to it, right? Yes, in our world, that’s how we think of it, but from the biblical perspective, this is God’s promise to us. We can’t bargain with God for it like we bargain for a home or a car.
The Kingdom of God lost a saint this week. Billy Graham died on Wednesday at his home in North Carolina. As I was driving home from Florida, I was listening to the radio and the many tributes the hosts were offering to Dr. Graham. They said Dr. Graham preached to over 210 million people in his ministry, and over 80 million came to know Christ as a result of his ministry. There is little doubt that no one had a greater impact on the Kingdom of God in the 20th century than Billy Graham. There was one statement I heard that caused me to cringe a little as I thought about the idea of biblical covenant. One host said “He won over 80 million people to Christ.” No, he didn’t. He introduced 80 million people to the grace of God in Jesus Christ. It may sound like playing with semantics, but words matter, and if we believe that we are the actors, that this is somehow a contract we make with God, we are sorely mistaken. God is the covenant maker.
We also need to understand that God’s covenants are eternal. God tells Abram in verse 7 that this is an everlasting covenant. That is, God does not change, and since the terms of the covenant come from him and are maintained by him, the covenant does not change either. Oh, we can reject the covenant. We can neglect the covenant, but that does not change the covenant.
Our neglect of God’s sign of the covenant is not restricted to our generation. Indeed, God’s people in the Old Testament at various times also neglected to apply God’s sign of the covenant. Even the great Moses would neglect God’s covenant. He failed to have his own sons circumcised. The nation of Israel, after they left Egypt, didn’t circumcise their sons for 40 years. That’s a lot of neglect, I’d say. Rejection or neglect does not negate the covenant because it’s God’s promise to us. All we must do is bear the mark of the covenant.
I also want us to note that God’s covenants are gracious. If the promises of God depended on anything to be found in human beings, they would never have been established, for we deserve nothing. That they are established is due solely to God’s good favor. I remind us that Abram slept through the ceremony where God “cut” the covenant. Were we to return to the second instance of God affirming His covenant with Abram in Genesis 15, we’d find this elaborate ceremony where, following God’s direction, Abram takes several animals, splits them in halves and waits…and waits…and waits. Abram gets tired and goes to sleep, God shows up and dances between the carcasses. Abram didn’t sign the covenant. God did. It is God’s covenant. God is the actor. We are simply participants, receptors if you will, of the promise of God. It’s all grace!
We need to understand there was nothing special about Abram that caused God to choose him. Had you or I been alive in that age, it could have easily been you or me. It was the grace of God’s choosing. The covenant with Noah was one to the whole of creation, but God narrows it down to one nation, nay, to one man—Abram. All God says to Abraham is “keep my covenant, and this is how you do it—circumcision. Although God established the covenant, Abraham had to respond by carrying it out.
James Montgomery Boice says, “Abraham’s obedience did not mean that he was contributing anything to the covenant. In fact, it meant the opposite. The cutting away of the flesh meant the renunciation of human effort, which arises out of the flesh, and the willingness to bear about in the body the mark of the individual’s identification with God.” So, circumcision was the old covenant sign of identification with God, of initiation into and membership in the covenant community.
The new covenant sign that corresponds with the old covenant sign of circumcision is baptism. Baptism, the sign of our identification with God, of initiation into and membership in the covenant community, symbolizes three things. It symbolizes (1) dying to the past and to self, (2) rising to newness of life in Christ, and (3) identification with the Lord Jesus Christ. It is in baptism that Christ’s name is given to us (just as God’s name was given to Abraham in Genesis 17), and we say to the whole world that we are now Christians.
Occasionally, I receive a phone call from parents who wish to have their child baptized. After a few questions, I learn that the parents do not attend church regularly but think that their child ought to be baptized. They want their child baptized because that is the custom in their family. “I was baptized here, so I want my child baptized here.” On the other hand, there are some people who neglect baptism and do not rightly understand the nature and necessity of baptism. And, further, many Christians who have been baptized rarely think about it again, and do not put into practice what they claimed in their own baptism.
Today, some people question whether infants are to be included in the new covenant and receive the sign of baptism. The New Testament nowhere declares that little children are to be excluded. If eight-day-old infants were included in the old covenant, one would expect that infants are also included in the new covenant. God’s grace is not less in the new covenant than it is in the old covenant.
The silence of the New Testament about not baptizing infants is powerful. After Pentecost, Jews would have been stunned to learn that their children were no longer to receive the sign of the covenant. That is why the New Testament does not address the question because the assumption is that the sign would of course now be applied to infants as well.
Finally, notice that Abraham was circumcised “that very day.” When people come to faith in Jesus Christ, they should receive the sign of covenant membership in God’s family without undue delay. And similarly, when God gives children to his people, they too should be baptized as a sign they are part of the covenant family.
Let us not neglect our baptism. Let me invite you to remember the covenant God made with you at your baptism. Come forward and dip your hand into the water, remembering that it is God’s covenant that is eternal and full of grace.
If you’ve never been baptized, I’ll be standing to the side. Come to me and we’ll be happy to baptize you.
