When God first appeared to Abraham in Genesis 12, He gave him three distinct promises: a land, a seed, and a blessing of all the nations. We spent the past few weeks exploring all that was entailed in these three promises, and we ended last time with a reminder from Hebrews 11:13, that Abraham never saw the promises truly fulfilled in his lifetime, but rather saw them only in bits and pieces. He lived in the promised land, yet as a foreigner. He had several offspring throughout his life, yet only his son Isaac received the covenantal blessing. Yet, even this did not happen immediately after receiving the promise, as it took 25 years for Sarah to finally conceive and give birth to Isaac. It would be during this time of waiting that God would once again appear to Abraham in Genesis 15 to make a covenant with him; but, before we dive into the covenant-cutting ceremony itself, we need to take a step back and consider the overall context.

By the time we get to Genesis 15, we find that Abraham was indeed a very rich man with many possessions and hundreds of people in his household. By all appearances, he is doing quite well in life: he seems to have it all. When the Lord appeared to him in verse 1, He said, “Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; your reward shall be very great.” It is evident that despite all that Abraham was blessed with, he never forgot God’s original promise to him. Abraham knew that something was missing, namely offspring of his own. In response, Abraham said, “O Lord God, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus? […] Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir” (v. 2-3).

It was at this time when the Lord brought Abraham outside and told him to count all the stars. God then said, “So shall your descendants be.” (v. 5), and though Abraham could not comprehend how this would be made possible, he nonetheless put his trust in the Lord and believed in what God had promised, and it was accredited to him as righteousness (v. 6). What happens after this is truly an amazing display of God’s grace towards Abraham. He could have simply left Abraham with only verbal promises, and that would have been sufficient enough, for God is immutable and He cannot lie (Malachi 3:6, Titus 1:2), and Abraham already believed in Him anyway. But when Abraham asked God how he would know for certain that God would fulfill His promise, God graciously chose to lead Abraham through a formal covenant-cutting ceremony, beginning in verse 9:

“So He said to him, ‘Bring Me a three year old heifer, and a three year old female goat, and a three year old ram, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.’ Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds. The birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away. Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him…It came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces” (Genesis 15:9-12, 17).

Sounds graphic, doesn’t it? That’s because it is. The cutting of the animals, gruesome as it was, signified the seriousness of the covenant being made. As I pointed out early on in our series, a covenant goes beyond a mere contract as it is binding at the deepest level: unto death. Abraham, himself a Babylonian, would have understood the symbolism in the ceremony as the severing of animal bodies was a common practice for cutting covenants in ancient Mesopotamia. The Ellicott Commentary provides some further insight into the ceremony, which reads, “The severing of the bodies was not, as some suppose, to represent the two parties; but, as explained in Jeremiah 34:18-20, it set forth the penalty of perjury, and was usually accompanied by the imprecation upon the covenant-breaker of a destruction as complete as that which had befallen the slaughtered animals.” The message is clear: break the covenant, and the penalty is death.

Was such a binding covenant one that Abraham had to maintain in order for God to keep His promises? To answer this question, let’s take a closer look at verses 12 and 17. According to verse 12, after the animals were cut, God caused a deep sleep to fall on Abraham. While he was sleeping, verse 17 then records, “…there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces.” This is significant, because in a typical ancient near eastern covenant-cutting ceremony, both parties were to walk through the cut carcasses. Instead, Abraham did nothing, as he was asleep while God alone walked between the pieces. This signified that it was therefore not Abraham who would be bound to keep the covenant, but God alone. The covenant would, in other words, be established not bilaterally between God and Abraham, but unilaterally by the Godhead. When God would later test Abraham’s faith by commanding him to sacrifice his only son, and Abraham passes the test by attempting to do exactly that, God once again confirmed His promises and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice” (Genesis 22:16-18 ESV).

Notice the phrase “by myself I have sworn”. God could not swear to anything higher than Himself, so He swore “by Himself” that He would fulfill His promises. By making a covenant of grace with Abraham, God showed another covenant, the one that He would make through his Son, the one based on the finished work of Christ, for He alone completes our salvation from start to finish. To break the covenant is to deserve death, but God, by virtue of His perfect and immutable nature, can never fail to keep the covenant. For those who are in Christ Jesus, what wonderful truth this is to rejoice in, and what great comfort and assurance this brings! Even in our darkest moments and in our weakness due to our sinful flesh, God will never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5) and will keep our faith from ultimately failing (Jude 24). We trust not in ourselves, but as the beloved hymn goes, we’re “standing on the promises of God”.

We are indeed justified by faith and not our works, as passages such as Romans 3:28 make clear, but that doesn’t mean that works have no relevance in the life of a Christian. Quite the contrary! Even Abraham, our forefather of the faith, had a faith that was put to the test. Next time, we will dive into Genesis 17, when the Lord gave Abraham a sign of the covenant that would require genuine obedience on Abraham’s part.