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All right, well, I'll go ahead
and kind of start my warm-up here so we can try to cover as
much as we can. This session has to do with the
Abrahamic Covenant. And I'll just, as a caveat, as
sort of clearing my throat at the opening here, say that this
is a work in progress. So I welcome feedback. And I'm
going to try to allow time at the end for questions and thoughts
that you might have about this. I was originally asked to write
a journal article on the Abrahamic Covenant as the foundation for
mission, and I really came to the conclusion I first need to
wrestle with the Abrahamic Covenant. Because I had been reading books,
it wasn't an area of specialty for me. Most of my work is in
wisdom books, things like Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, and so I never
really wrestled with how should we understand the abrahamic covenant
other than having read many dispensational theologians that said things
like uh... the abrahamic covenant is unconditional
and we need to push back against reformed interpretations of the
covenant uh... who see it as conditional and
so i kind of was wrestling through that and then reading other things
saying well we should really think rethink how we classify
the covenant in the light of ancient Near Eastern writings
and other things. And so this is the fruit of my study and
wrestling with it, and you can let me know if you think it's
persuasive or not. All right, so the title given was The Abrahamic
Covenant as the Foundation of Old Testament Theology, and I've
nuanced that. Now I feel bad about nuancing,
but I've nuanced it. I know he wouldn't necessarily
say what we're doing here is bad. But anyway, the Abrahamic
covenant as the fulcrum of Old Testament theology. And what
I mean by that is it's, I think, refracting creational intent
through the agency of Abraham and his descendants. And so I'm
going to make a case that that's, I think, what's going on. All
right, so follow along. I'll try to make this as interesting
as possible, given that it's a paper. And I'll pause here
and there and try to make comments about it as we go along. All
right, I note here I began, the significance of the Abrahamic
Covenant for Old Testament theology is commonly recognized. And when
I say that, nearly everyone would agree that the Abrahamic Covenant
really is a centerpiece of the Old Testament and in fact of
God's redemptive plan. I note in the footnote Paul Williamson
says Genesis 12, 1 to 3 is one of the most important revelations
in the whole of Scripture and I could have multiplied comments
like that that I've come across in various books that I've read
so nearly everyone recognizes it. You have Cleon Rogers who
wrote a very good journal article on the Abrahamic Covenant in
Bibsac in the 70s, agreeing with John Murray, who comes from a
Reformed perspective, both saying that the Abrahamic Covenant is
integral. So we don't really debate that, but there is a lot
to debate about the Abrahamic Covenant in general. So the next
sentence, and this is a unique sentence because I'm not going
to have this many footnotes, I promise, as we go through, but I want
to just give a taste for all these different categories. I
say interpreters continue to debate its precise place in the
unfolding revelation of the Old Testament, and questions remain. What kinds of questions? Questions
about how best to understand its serial disclosure across
Genesis. Let me just say a word about
that. In a way surprised by how many books I've read that would
say Abraham has one covenant in Genesis 15 and another covenant
in Genesis 17. And so they see him as getting
the recipient, if you will, of multiple covenants over the course
of Genesis. Another common idea that's espoused
is that the covenant is established in Genesis 12. And I'm going
to argue that it's actually not established until chapter 15,
but it's promised in 12, and 12 sets the trajectory for everything
else that follows. So I'll try to make a case for
seeing it that way. So I have a four-stage program
that I'll get to as we go along. The second thing being its nature
as conditional Unconditional, and this is an important point
that I'm going to spend a little bit of time on. If you note on
footnote three down there, it says, historically, dispensationalists
have termed the Abrahamic covenant as unconditional insofar as it
is designated an everlasting covenant. So three times in Genesis
17, it's said to be an everlasting covenant. Others would nuance
this by saying that Yahweh's promises are unconditional, but
its fulfillment with respect to timing and participants hinges
upon faith and obedience. Walter Kaiser said this years
ago in his Old Testament theology. Keith Essex wrote a very good
article on the Abrahamic covenant where he says something similar.
What I've come to conclude, though, is more or less reluctantly to
agree with Daniel Bloch and others who have called for moving beyond
a binary framework of conditional or unconditional. What Bloch
and others would argue, and I've in the end come to agree with
them, is that all biblical covenants between Yahweh and humans carry
some measure of divine guarantee and some level of human responsibility. So this is where I would differ
a little bit from some of the traditional dispensational treatments
because I think to say it's unconditional misses some things happening
in the text. So I'll try to unpack that and
see if you would agree or disagree with that. All right, going on
up above, its relationship to previous and successive biblical
covenants. This is also a big interpretive
issue today. A more recent system that has
become popular is progressive covenantalism, really in a way
spearheaded, its origins are in New Covenant theology, but
it became popular through Gentry and Wellam's book, Kingdom Through
Covenant, if you've heard of that. And essentially what they
argue is that the New Covenant is the consummation of all previous
covenants, so that when we reach the New Covenant, everything
has essentially been fulfilled in Christ. And although they
might qualify this, in some measure it invalidates the previous covenants. That is to say, the new covenant
now supersedes the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant,
the Davidic covenant, even really in the person of Christ. Christ
has fulfilled everything. So, I'm going to argue that that's
from my mind, my perspective, not a good way to understand
the covenants. I have a different approach,
so I'll make a case for that. And then finally, the last sentence,
it's connection to the, or clause, it's connection to the plan of
redemption and a continued role, next page, for the nation of
Israel. So this is another big, topic
of debate, and that is, how do we relate the Abrahamic Covenant
to the Gospel proclamation around the world? How do we relate the
Abrahamic Covenant to a continued role for Israel? For instance,
progressive covenantalism would say that because so much of the
Abrahamic Covenant is essentially typological, it's been fulfilled
by Christ and adjacently by the Church who is united to Christ,
therefore even the land provisions in the Abrahamic Covenant were
typological of the new creation rather than anticipating a, what
we would say, literal fulfillment or historical fulfillment in
time and space during the millennial kingdom, which is what traditional
dispensationalists would argue for. All right, so there are
a lot of questions that surround this. So what I want to try to
do is unpack what I think a covenant is and how I think the Abrahamic
covenant is revealed, and then try to draw implications for
how we should think about it and how we should apply it as
we think about its importance in Scripture. Page 2, the nature
of the Abrahamic Covenant. In the following, I argue that
the development of the Abrahamic Covenant follows a linear progression
across Genesis that incorporates four covenant stages. promise,
ratification, sign of attestation, and oath sacrifice of confirmation. This understanding follows the
contours of the Noahic covenant and supports the development
of the land, seed, and blessing promises, with special focus
in the succeeding passages on land in Genesis 15, seed in Genesis
17, and blessing in Genesis 22. So essentially what I'm going
to argue for is that promises are made in chapter 12 that guarantee
land, seed, and blessing, and then in each of the successive
passages dealing with the Abrahamic Covenant, one aspect is developed. So land in 15, seed in 17, and
blessing in 22. I go on to say this outline differs
from interpreters who, on the one hand, understand the Abrahamic
covenant as already established in Genesis 12, or who, on the
other hand, propose multiple covenants with Abraham. This
also cautions against typological readings of the Abrahamic covenant
that undermine the reality of its land provisions, for example. And this is what Gentry and Wellham
essentially do, take a typological reading of the land provisions.
Second, and in this section I'm also outlining the flow of the
paper, if you will. Second, I offer more precise
terminology with respect to the Covenant's nomenclature. How
should we talk about the Abrahamic Covenant? How should we understand
its development within Scripture? Now, here's where this might
get a little controversial, but if you stay with me, hopefully
I'll make a good case and you can tell me what you think. I
say, dispensational interpreters have argued historically that
the covenant is unconditional in contrast to their covenantalist
interlocutors who counter that the covenant is conditional.
So I have some sources in the footnotes, John Walvard, Roland
McCune wrote his THM thesis on this, and then some amillennial
proponents who argue it's conditional. I go on to say, more comprehensive
study of the available ancient Near Eastern sources, however,
indicates that the situation is more complex. And I've read
through most of the extant treaties from the ancient world that are
available to come to this conclusion. So I'm not just necessarily,
this isn't just necessarily my opinion, but I think having surveyed
the sources, I think we can come to this conclusion. I go on to
say no ancient covenants were truly unconditional in the sense
of omitting all obligations upon the covenant parties. This wasn't
really a category that existed in the ancient world. You didn't
make a covenant, but thereby have no responsibility or obligation
as a covenanting partner. In other words, I think in every
covenant in the ancient world, both parties had something that
was expected of them, some kind of intention upon their conduct,
if you will. I go on to say further, bottom
of two, the frequent distinction between royal grant, next page,
covenants, and suzerainty vassal covenants misses the reality
that royal grant covenants often presupposed a suzerainty vassal
relationship. All right, so let me explain
this. Essentially what happened is dispensationalists said over
the years, the Abrahamic covenant is unconditional because it's
a royal grant covenant, The Mosaic Covenant, on the other hand,
is conditional because it's a suzerainty vassal kind of covenant. And
they were tapping into categories that had been proposed by Moshe
Weinfeld, who was a Jewish scholar. And he wrote an article and a
couple monographs, and he has a lot of helpful information.
I think the problem, though, is if you look at what he would
call a royal grant covenant, the categories aren't so neatly
distinct, as he suggested. What I mean by that is, in every
case, I think, where there's a royal grant, there's also a
great king, suzerain, who's making a pact with a lesser king, vassal. So it's somewhat disingenuous
to say, well, this is a royal grant and this is a suzerainty
vassal treaty. I think we have to nuance that
to say they often conceptually overlapped. It's analogous to
how we designate certain genres. We say, well, this is this kind
of writing, this is this kind of writing. But often ancient
people didn't think in the same categories that we have, so sometimes
we impose those on the tax. So we have to be careful about
doing that. So I think in creating this dichotomy,
it unwittingly suggested that these were distinctive in the
minds of ancient people, and I'm not convinced that it really
was so clear cut. Does that make sense so far?
So I think they would have seen it as more of a hybrid. All right,
going on then. My proposed understanding modifies
the terminology in a more nuanced and historically consistent direction. I argue that the Abrahamic covenant
is best identified as a unilateral irrevocable, albeit regulated,
royal grant covenant. So I'm not completely jettisoning
that category, but I'm qualifying it to some degree. And specifically,
I'm arguing that it follows the contours of a covenant from Allah-Lak. I'm going to have a section where
I compare the Abrahamic covenant to this treaty that was made
in the ancient world. And there are some pretty intriguing
and remarkable parallels that I think help us shed some light
on the Abrahamic covenant. I go on to say Yahweh adopts
a similar cultural pattern to ensure land, lasting progeny,
and life protection blessing to Abraham and his physical descendants
while expecting certain norms of conduct. All right, number
three, these are the main points I'm making. I argue that the
Abrahamic covenant carries both continuity and discontinuity
features with other biblical covenants. Now, I won't be spending
as much time on this because the lion's share will be point
one, but I do want to at least touch on this. I argue the covenant
refracts earlier creational promises and stands in a hierarchical
relationship to the succeeding Old Testament covenants. This
connection hints at both direct and indirect relationships. This
is where, you know, I'll say more about this, but I think
where progressive covenantalism goes off the rails is failing
to see how the new covenant specifically links back to the Mosaic covenant
in particular. That is, whenever biblical writers
are talking about a new covenant, they compare it to the failings
of the Mosaic covenant. They don't compare it to the
Abrahamic covenant. So that's a point I'm going to
try to make. So I'm going to say, for example, the preceding
Noahic covenant and succeeding Mosaic covenant carry an indirect
relationship with the Abrahamic covenant. The Noahic and Mosaic
covenants chiefly concern the restraint of sin so as to allow
for human flourishing within a certain period of a time or
economy, while the Abrahamic covenant concerns God's intention
to bring land, seed, and blessing provisions to the nation of Israel
and through them to convey blessing to the nations of the earth.
These covenants thus carry discontinuity features. In that, for example,
the Mosaic Covenant has temporal and material limitations that
the Abrahamic Covenant does not. So for instance, I would see
the Mosaic Covenant being completely fulfilled in Christ and that
believers are no longer under the Mosaic Covenant in any sense.
So I don't really see this threefold use of the law holding validity
because I think the New Testament clearly sees it as a whole. And
so if Christ has fulfilled some of it, he's fulfilled all of
it. And so it's no longer binding upon us. So that's why I say
it has material and temporal limitations. while the Noahic
Covenant, as a generic covenant with living creatures in the
created order, lacks the specificity that the Abrahamic Covenant has
with its distinctive land and seed provisions. With respect
to other biblical covenants, such as the Davidic Covenant
and New Covenant, the latter covenants particularize provisions
of the Abrahamic Covenant. These covenants thus specify
the manner in which the seed, Davidic covenant, or land blessing,
new covenant promises will come to fruition. So then these covenants
carry a more direct relationship to the Abrahamic covenant, as
the latter serves as the spring from which they emerge, but do
so without abrogating the former covenant. And so I'll have a
chart that tries to explain how that looks and what that means.
Let me skip to the next paragraph, fourth. Fourth, I contend that
the Abrahamic covenant furnishes the foundation or basis for God's
unfolding plan of redemption and the rest of Scripture. The
promised Abrahamic blessing comes to fruition through Abraham's
seed and is inaugurated by the initiation of the new covenant
in which the church encompassing all nations participates. There
is some debate among traditional dispensationalists about our
relationship to the new covenant. I essentially follow Dr. Compton's
position here that sees us as participating in the blessing
aspect, and so that's how I would understand that. Going on, the
Abrahamic covenant's nature as unilateral and irrevocable means
that Israel has a continued place in God's redemptive plan and
will occupy a mediatorial role vis-Ã -vis the nations, a role
that she failed to fulfill originally due to the disobedience of the
Mosaic Law. Alright, so in other words, don't
hear me saying that I'm somewhat skeptical of the unconditional
terminology. Don't hear me saying that I think
Israel can be replaced or has fulfilled her purpose. I still
see a future for Israel that is irrevocable. Where the failing
came, I think, is that the Mosaic Law was given to regulate specifically
how Israel was to act as the mediator nation, and the Mosaic
Covenant didn't actually lead to a successful outcome because
of its limitations. The New Covenant takes its place
by internalizing Torah specifically in the form of the Torah of Christ,
the law of Christ, which is internalized now. And so where the Mosaic
law failed, the new covenant or law of Christ will succeed,
but that doesn't abrogate the Abrahamic covenant because it
still means Israel has a role. So, I go on to say, the Abrahamic
covenant guarantees that Israel will realize her land, seed,
and blessing promises, and that the blessings promised to all
nations will certainly come to fruition. The covenant may thus
rightly be termed the fulcrum or keystone, that's Merrill's
word, of Old Testament theology occupying a formative place in
the storyline of Scripture. So having outlined the progression
of my argument, that's just the introduction, I'm going to turn
now to an examination of the biblical and historical context.
So this is where I dive in a little bit more to what's going on.
All right, the concept of covenant and the progressive revelation
of the Abrahamic covenant on page four. Most biblical interpreters
concur that the notion of covenant plays an integral role in the
unfolding revelation of scripture. The first mention of covenant,
Berit, appears in Genesis 6, 18, with reference to the future
Noahic covenant. So, just to anticipate myself,
I would argue that the first covenant in history and scripture
is the Noahic covenant, and so I'm also skeptical of the idea
of a covenant with creation. There's room for a covenant with
creation within the traditional system, I'm convinced, but I
just don't see enough evidence to persuade me of that. And so
I'll treat that a little bit more as we go along and you can
tell me what you think about that. All right, I go on to say
the word appears nearly 300 times in the Old Testament with semantically
linked terms such as oath, Allah, and Shevua. and loyal love, chesed,
occurring another 350 times. While various proposals have
been offered for the etymology and meaning of berit, the most
likely conclusion is that it relates to an Akkadian cognate
beritu, which means link, clasp, or fetter, and hence bond. I
define covenant, and this is my own definition on the basis
of lots of stuff and trying to put it together. D.A. Carson
was once critiqued for his definitions being too long, and he said,
yeah, but they included everything that's right. So I'm trying to
fit everything in here, if I can, to try to cover the bases. All right, so he goes on to say,
I go on to say, I define covenant as the formal codification of
a mutually obligatory relational commitment. between non-kin members
so as to establish and structure the union for the good of the
community and for protection against potential threats. Now,
the reason I say all that is I see it as mutually obligating. It's formalizing a relationship
that's there, but it's formalizing in the sense of establishing
it and structuring it. It involves a relational commitment.
It brings together non-kin members. This is why I would say, you
know, you don't necessarily need a covenant with your own children. per se, there's a natural family
relationship there. This is what Gordon Hugenberger
argues in his book, Marriage is Covenant, that natural relationships
don't need a covenant. It's chosen or elected relationships,
is how he would term that. So these are non-kin members. This is another reason why I'm
a little skeptical of the covenant with creation before the fall,
because my Counter to that would be, why would we need a covenant
if sin and the sin curse hadn't yet been introduced? In other
words, everything had a natural relationship with God. There
was no threat to the created order at that point. All right,
going on. The covenant has a formal ceremony.
including witnesses, human and divine. Witnesses are not passive,
but are expected to act in the case of covenant violation by
bringing to fruition the pronounced sanctions, whether the curses,
that's usually the divine role, or punishments, the human role.
The covenant is often represented by a physical token and usually
includes an oath and sometimes a communal meal by the covenanting
partners. So these are various things that
were part of the ceremony in the ancient world. Going on a
covenant, By nature, page five, thus formalizes and governs a
relationship, thereby making outsiders insiders and non-family
members family members through the establishment of blood kinship. So you're essentially, through
a lot of these ceremonies in the ancient world, you're ritually
slaughtering an animal that's intended to establish blood kinship
between the covenanting partners as they come together. All right,
going on. In the creation narrative, prior
to the introduction of the covenant concept, Yahweh creates humanity
in His own image and blesses them, charging them to be fruitful
and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion
over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens
and over every living thing that moves on the earth. So this is
the intentional design that God has originally for creation.
Following the fall and the flood, the promised blessing and dominion
mandate are imperiled This is because God has chosen to, outside
of Noah and his family and the animals preserved on the ark,
essentially wipe out the created order and start over. And so
there's a threat now to the relationship between God and his created order.
The Noahic Covenant bears only an indirect relationship, I say,
to the Abrahamic Covenant in as much as it encompasses God's
purposes for curtailing evil within the created order, specifically
by creating boundaries, and we would often connect this to human
government, for the life and flourishing of its creatures. Okay, so that's the Noahic covenant.
The Abrahamic covenant particularizes God's redemptive and doxological
purposes for the created order through the agency of an individual,
Abraham, and ultimately his descendants, the nation of Israel. In this
way, we may speak of the Abrahamic covenant as refracting the original
divine intention to bless humanity, and by implication, the whole
created order, after the intended blessing had been threatened
by the fall and flood, showing the dire consequences of sin
and the resulting curse. Going on then, questions remain,
nonetheless, as to the timing and process by which the Abrahamic
covenant is implemented. I've noted already some see it
as implemented in Genesis 12. Most, however, recognize its
official cutting ceremony to take place in Genesis 15, where
Abraham severs animals and Yahweh passes through the carcasses
in the form of a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch. This
is one of the proof texts usually given to say the covenant is
unconditional, and I think They're not entirely wrong, but I would,
again, add some context there. Yet, references to the covenant
or to covenantal language continue in the later chapters. The term
berit, covenant, occurs 13 times in Genesis 17, mostly in the
future sense, or veketal, I will give my covenant, I will establish
my covenant. And allusions in the divine oath
of Genesis 22 to blessing evoke Abraham's initial call in Genesis
12, thus forming a frame around his entire storyline. In other
words, from 12 to 22, the whole narrative of Abraham is sort
of framed in such a way that you might wonder, where exactly
does the covenant fall in his life and in his story? This leads
some interpreters to conclude Yahweh enacts separate covenants
with Abraham over the course of his life, such as one in Genesis
15 and one in chapter 17, given the alleged differences between
the accounts. So this would be Williamson,
he wrote one of those books in the New Studies in Biblical Theology,
which are generally pretty good, but I disagree with him on this.
He argues there's two separate covenants. T.D. Alexander argues
this, and Thomas Comiskey are some that argue that. They see
Genesis 15, as what they would term a unilateral, eternal, promissory,
national covenant, and Genesis 17 as a bilateral, temporal,
regulative, international covenant. So, in other words, I can sense
the tension that they're showing, and that is, when you come to
17, it seems like God is really expecting Abraham to do certain
things. But if you read Genesis 15 alone,
it seems that the Lord has taken all the initiative. He's the
one passing through the parts. So, clearly, he intends to bring
this covenant to fruition no matter what Abraham does. So,
in that sense, it seems unconditional. So, how do we balance those together?
That's the rub that I'm trying to wrestle through. An important
point, though, is the last sentence here. that such a schema is unlikely
in that Scripture refers always to a singular covenant with Abraham,
the covenant with Abraham, later confirmed with Isaac and Jacob.
So, in other words, Scripture doesn't, I don't think, attest
to multiple covenants with Abraham and it just sort of muddles the
situation and it leads to a lot of confusion. All right, so going
on the next page, six there, a preferable approach sees the
singular Abrahamic covenant as unfolding in four stages. So as far as I can tell, this
is original to me, but not everything is original to me, but I haven't
really seen it laid out like this in a four stage process. So this is the part that's a
work in progress and you can tell me what you think. So, as
I said, the promise aspect, where land, seed, and blessing are
promised, 15 land-focused, Genesis 17 seed-focused, and then 22
blessing-focused. The promise stage anticipates
the enactment of the covenant but remains prior to it. The
ratification stage involves the actual cutting of the covenant
and includes the ritual slaughter of animals, just as Noah does
in Genesis 8.20 when he offers sacrifices. The sign of the covenant,
in this case circumcision, is the physical token that attests
to the covenant now ratified. And then the oath sacrifice consummates
the covenant with divine and human confirmation and sanction.
This follows the Noahic covenant. I think the Noahic covenant similarly
is promised in Genesis 6.18, ratified 8.20 to 9.11, attested
by a sign, the rainbow in this case, 12 to 16, and then confirmed
by a divine statement It ends with God saying one more time,
I will establish this covenant with Noah. This understanding
finds support, too, in the development of the land, seed, promise, blessings.
All right, so let's get into the meat of what I'm suggesting.
Promise, land, seed, and blessing. In Genesis 12, Yahweh calls Abraham
to leave his kith and kin and traverse to a land that he would
show him. Part and parcel of the call are
God's comitant promises to bless Abraham. Now, I know he's Abram
at this point. I'm just going to call him Abraham
throughout the whole paper, so I'm intentionally doing that
just for consistency's sake. Interpreters differ as to how
many promises Yahweh conveys, usually ranging from five to
as many as fourteen. For our purposes, there are roughly
seven. Abraham would become a great nation with numerous offspring.
He would receive the land of Canaan. He would be greatly blessed,
including material wealth, life, and a relationship with God.
His name would be great. He would be a conduit of blessing.
He would be a watershed figure, bringing blessing to those who
bless Him as well as curse to those who curse Him. And blessing
would extend to every nation or family group through Him. There's some discussion that's
involved in that. I don't get into it too much
about how do you take the Nifal and Hithpayel uses of Barak,
if you're familiar with the arguments there. Essentially, is it the
nations get for themselves blessings or are they blessed? Is it a
passive sense? I tend to prefer the passive sense that they're
blessed, which focuses more on agency. I think agency is what
the critical thing is that Abraham will be an agent in that sense,
he and his seed. All right, going on. Interpreters
suggest different ways of distilling the essence of the divine promises. Some prefer rubrics such as personal,
national, and universal, or land, people, and blessing. I follow
the traditional triad of land, seed, and blessing. Integral
to these promises is the notion of blessing. The nominal and
verbal forms of blessing occur five times in Genesis 12, one
to three, mirroring the five occurrences of the verb to curse
up to this point in the narrative. So the word curse has occurred
five times up to Genesis 12, and then in Genesis 12, in the
first few verses, the word bless occurs five times. The correspondence
thus anticipates how the blessing of Abraham will begin to reverse
the effects of the curse. In reality, up to this point
in the narrative, each theme occurs five times. The word blessing
occurs five times and the word curse occurs five times. But
after Genesis 12, blessing will occur more often than curse by
a ratio of nearly 25 to 1. So something significant has
happened with the call of Abraham. While including a host of benefits,
blessing in the Old Testament sense encompasses total well-being,
that is, shalom, wisdom, God's presence, divine protection and
provision, fertility, wealth, and triumph over enemies. The
nature of the promises suggests the covenant is best seen as
anticipated in this context, but not yet enacted or cut. And
that's when we come to Genesis 15, ratification. The covenant
is enacted, or cut, in Genesis 15. Here, the formal ceremony
takes place. While each of the promised elements
of land, seed, and blessing are evident in the covenant-cutting
ceremony, I would suggest there's a special focus on the promise
of land. The chapter begins with Abraham expressing some doubt
that he will, in fact, have numerous offspring as God had promised.
In his doubt, Abraham suggests that his servant Eliezer become
his heir, mirroring the ancient practice evident in Mari and
Nuzi of adopting a male servant if the head of a household were
childless. God responds by denying that
Eliezer will be his heir, but rather that his own son will
be. Yahweh takes him outside, asking him to number the stars
if he can, as this will equate to the number of his offspring,
in verse 5. Abraham, who descends from ancestors
who served foreign gods beyond the river, as Joshua says in
Joshua 24, hails from Ur of the Chaldeans, a city whose patron
deity was the moon god, Nana or Sene. Abraham is to look to
the sky, not to gaze at the moon, but to count the stars. Yahweh
essentially conveys to Abraham that he is not to look for help
to the moon god of his ancestors, the god who in their theology
regulated fertility and the seasons, but to look to Yahweh's own power
and provision. In this crucial moment, not only
for Abraham's story, but for the trajectory of the entire
Pentateuch, Abraham believes in Yahweh and he is credited
with righteousness, Genesis 15.6. This is clearly an important
text because both Paul and James cite this in their letters in
the New Testament. It's instrumental in Abraham's life. An important
correlation is that Abraham's faith and justification precedes
the actual cutting of the covenant. As John Sailhammer notes, the
syntax of Genesis 15.6 indicates that the verse is to be read
as the background for the rest of the chapter and for the covenant
ceremony. The ensuing covenant, which will
serve as the basis for God's future dealings with Abraham
and his descendants, does not produce faith and righteousness,
but rather flows from these realities, a point the Apostle Paul is keen
to make in presenting Abraham first and foremost as a man of
faith who believed in God in anticipation of the promised
blessing that would extend to the nations. Yahweh then turns
Abraham's attention to the reality of the land promise, reminding
him that He called him out of Ur of the Chaldeans so as to
give him the land he was standing on for a possession. Abraham,
in turn, questions how he will know for sure that he is to take
possession of the land. The covenant cutting ceremony
that follows is essentially God's answer to Abraham's question.
The phrase, this land, frames the ceremony appearing at its
inception in verse 7 and conclusion in verse 18. The term land appears
three times overall in the passage, the most of any of the passages
having to do with the Abrahamic covenant outside the initial
promise to give Abraham the land in Genesis 13, where it appears
four times. According to God's instructions,
Abraham is to ritually slaughter five animals. a three-year-old
heifer, three-year-old female goat, three-year-old ram, a turtle
dove, and a pigeon. These are animals each associated
with later priestly sacrifices in the Torah. The three large
mammals he severs, but not the birds, again anticipating priestly
sacrifices in which the birds are not entirely torn asunder,
as in Leviticus 5. In contrast to the slain birds,
birds of prey descend on the carcasses as night falls, but
Abraham drives them away. These would be unclean birds,
such as ravens or vultures, which have no place in priestly sacrifices.
It's difficult to know if more meaning than this is involved,
although some interpreters take the animals to represent Abraham's
posterity and the birds of prey to represent foreign nations
that will harass and threaten them. Abraham falls into a deep
sleep and a great terror and darkness descends. This is the
same word for deep sleep, tardemah, that earlier describes the deep
sleep into which God puts Adam to remove his bone. It's elsewhere
used of dreams and visions. This slumber and terror sets
the stage for the dire prophecy about the enslavement of Abraham's
descendants to be followed by their eventual deliverance and
possession of the land, verses 13 to 16. In a pivotal moment
in the covenant cutting ceremony, Yahweh alone passes through the
carcasses in the form of a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch.
As I will develop below, the action is to be seen as indicative
that the covenant is a royal grant, as similar ceremonial
practices in the ancient Near East indicate. An analogous ceremony
occurs in Jeremiah 34, where the human covenant partners pass
through the carcasses of slain animals, an act that appears
to ritually symbolize the fate that awaits covenant violators
who fail to uphold the covenant stipulations. Now, there's some
debate about whether you can apply Genesis 34, because the
argument is that's much later than the Abrahamic covenant,
and I would concede that, but I think there probably is a consistency
of practices that would suggest that they're envisioning the
same thing, understanding the same thing. Going on, this divine
act is usually taken to indicate that the covenant is unconditional.
However, my preferred terminology would be that the divine act
signals the covenant is unilateral and irrevocable. God who cannot
lie or change guarantees the successful outcome of the covenant
practices or promises hereby codified. Following his passage
through the carcasses, God makes one more promise to give Abraham's
descendants the land, including the implied ouster of the ten
nations that currently inhabit, symbolic of the certainty that
no adversaries can stand before the fulfillment of God's promises.
So I would say at this point, the covenant has been enacted. So then what happens in Genesis
17? So then we go to the sign of attestation, circumcision,
and seed. Yahweh appears to Abraham when
he is 99 years of age to reiterate his promises concerning the covenant.
This appearance takes place 13 years after the covenant cutting
ceremony of Genesis 15. This is one of Williamson's arguments.
These have to be two separate covenants because this is 13
years later in Abraham's life. But again, my response would
be, we really see the covenant as unfolding, I think, across
the spectrum of his life. So that's kind of how I would
answer that. Here the focus is on the proliferation
of Abraham's descendants with the accompanying sign of the
covenant circumcision. Yahweh tells Abraham to walk
before Him and be blameless. Walking before someone carried
the notions of representation and mediation. As Walton demonstrates,
when God commands someone to walk before Him in the Old Testament,
this charge clarifies particularly how kings or priests were to
conduct themselves as His emissaries or representatives. The imperatival
form of the verbs walk and be blameless indicate these actions
are to be viewed as regulatory for the covenant partner. This
does not signal that the covenant is conditional or that this is
a separate covenant from the one ratified in chapter 15. Rather,
as a covenant beneficiary, Abraham is to conduct himself in such
a way that honors God who initiated the covenant. Abraham must meet
expectations placed upon him by his divine covenant lord as
the representative and emissary of the great king. And as evidenced
later in Genesis, Abraham, in fact, does fulfill these covenant
obligations. That's stated in 22 and in 26.5
where the Lord says that he fulfilled his statutes and laws and decrees. The covenant sign phase carries
a special emphasis on the seed promise. This stage begins with
Yahweh's stated intention to greatly multiply Abraham's descendants. Yahweh identifies the covenant
as my covenant, a phrase that shows the divine initiative in
establishing the covenant. This phrase occurs nine times
in the chapter and only here with respect to the Abrahamic
covenant. For the first time in the unfolding covenant, the
term multiply appears, a term which means in the field to make
many increase or multiply. Also appearing here for the first
time with respect to Abraham is the term make fruitful, which
means to make flourish or cause to increase by causing one's
offspring to grow. in number and in strength. Beyond
this, the term exceedingly, repeated twice for emphasis, amplifies
and guarantees the proliferation of descendants six times in the
chapter. Moreover, God promises Abraham
that he will be the father of a multitude of nations, ensured
by his name change from Abram, exalted father, to Abraham, father
of a multitude. The renaming signifies that Abraham
has been honored by coming formally under the headship of and into
the family of a master or covenant lord who has the prerogative
to assign a new name. If you look at the footnote there,
this actually happened several times in the Old Testament. The
most famous example might be Daniel, Hananiah, Azariah, and
Mishael, whose names are changed once they get to Babylon. So
this was a common ancient practice. I go on to say here, Abraham
is already a covenant partner as demonstrated by the earlier
covenant cutting ceremony, but here he is formally recognized
and appropriated by means of the covenant sign through the
name change and the physical token of circumcision. Also indicative
of the seed focus in this stage is the repetition of the term
seed occurring seven times in the chapter. With respect to
seed, Yahweh emphasizes that Abraham's posterity will also
be beneficiaries of an everlasting covenant, that they will inherit
the land, that they too must keep the covenant through the
sign of circumcision, that the right of circumcision extends
beyond natural seed to any male within the household, and that
the covenant will be confirmed through Abraham's own natural
seed, that is his biological son. Within this chapter two,
the covenant is marked as an everlasting covenant for the
first and only time in Genesis. Abraham and his descendants must
perform the rite of circumcision with every male in the flesh
of the foreskin, which is amputation of the prepuce, and on the eighth
day after birth, and with the inclusion of both domestic and
foreign-born males. As to the significance of the
rite of circumcision, Mead argues that the Israelite practice relates
conceptually to the Egyptian practice of circumcising kings
and priests. Although Egyptian circumcision
differed in some details with respect to the technique, subjects,
and age, certain parallels suggest that similar perceptions may
lie behind the rites. Mead concludes that Egyptian
circumcision practiced among the priestly and royal classes,
he says, functioned as a specific voluntary and initiatory rite
to identify and affiliate the subject with the deity and to
signify devotion to the same deity. Drawing parallels to Israelite
circumcision, Mead contends, for several implications. Circumcision
signals that the nation of Israel is to be devoted to Yahweh as
its God. Circumcision identifies the nation
as Yahweh's firstborn son consecrated for service. And circumcision
marks the whole nation as a kingdom of priests and holy people mediating
God's intended blessing to the other nations. The sign of circumcision
solidifies the seed promised through a physical token that
is emblematic of the covenant between God and Abraham's posterity. It's to be a physical reminder
to Yahweh and the people of their covenant status. Then this brings
us to chapter 22. Now, chapter 22 isn't always
included in discussions of the covenant, but I think that it
is helpful to read it in this light. So that's what I would
do. So going on here, the fourth and final stage of the Abrahamic
covenant follows on the heels of God's charge to Abraham to
offer his son Isaac on Mount Moriah. Having received the promised
son, Abraham is now tested by Yahweh to demonstrate the genuineness
of his faith. The final stage of the covenant
emphasizes the blessing component. Genesis 22 is a finely crafted
narrative structured in two major parts, Abraham's test and Abraham's
blessing. The parts exhibit a bifid structure,
that is, there's a parallelism there. God's address to Abraham
in verse 1 is mirrored by the angel's address in verse 11.
In the first part, Abraham lifts up his eyes and sees the place
from afar. In the second part, he lifts up his eyes and sees
the ram and the thicket. Verses 9 and 10 form the center
of the narrative with the peak of the drama. The confirmation
of the covenant occurs in the second part of the narrative
following Abraham's successful obedience to Yahweh's command.
The angel of the Lord, most likely the pre-incarnate Christ, stops
Abraham from following through with the act by calling out his
name twice for emphasis. Abraham is told indirectly that
the required act was a test. Typically, the phrase, now I
know, occurs in the context of a joyful cry from someone who
has experienced God's deliverance. Here, however, it relates to
God's joyful knowledge that Abraham fears God. The fear of the Lord
in the Old Testament is equated with saving faith, as I think
Proverbs demonstrates. So, the confirmation that Abraham
fears God should be related to his earlier trust in Yahweh,
now confirmed. Abraham then spies a ram caught
in a thicket and he offers the ram as a burnt offering. Offering
sacrifices was a common feature of covenant ceremonies in Israel
and the broader ancient Near East, which is one of the reasons
I'm inclined to see this as a covenant text. The only other occasions
in which a ram is offered as a burnt offering outside the
ram as the gilt offering in Leviticus 5 take place when the priests
are ordained or on the day of atonement by the high priest.
Both occasions are highly significant acts of atonement and hint further,
as in the covenant cutting ceremony of Genesis 15, that Abraham functions
as a proto-priest in anticipating certain cultic regulations. of
the Mosaic Law. As part of his own burgeoning
mediatory role as God's king-priest covenant partner, Abraham renames
the mountain to reflect Yahweh's provision. The angel then calls
a second time to communicate significant further revelation
about the covenant. The various texts which promise
blessing to Abraham, only here are the blessings presented as
the outcome of Abraham's obedience as he has done this word and
heeded God's voice. As a result, God swears by himself
as the highest authority. Verse 16, oaths were typically
taken by both covenant partners in the ratification ceremony
to signify the binding validity of the covenant obligations.
Here, Yahweh alone, through the person of the angel, takes the
oath to signal his intention to make good the provisions.
This is the first and only divine oath in the patriarchal accounts
and therefore serves as a guarantee of the solemnity and irrevocability
of the covenant. Moreover, God promises to surely
bless Abraham. The only time in Genesis the
idea of certainty is added. These blessings call to mind
God's original promises with an escalation in force. Earlier,
Yahweh promises Abraham that his descendants will inherit
the land, but here they will possess even the gates of their
enemies. Earlier, Yahweh promises Abraham that he will have many
descendants, but here he guarantees a multiplication of descendants.
And for the first time, he compares their number to the sand on the
seashore. Earlier, Yahweh promises blessing for all the families
of the earth. It's a Hebrew word, mishpacha.
But here, whole nations come into view. It's the word goy,
which has to do with a nation or state, and so it seems to
encompass even an escalation in this case. The verb bless
occurs three times in the final verses as a point of emphasis.
Yahweh ensures that the Abrahamic covenant will certainly come
to pass. Alright, so having surveyed its disclosure across Genesis,
we turn now to unpack the nomenclature of the Abrahamic Covenant. Alright,
so I've gone 45 minutes and I've gotten through my first point.
So obviously I'm not going to get through everything, but I
do want to highlight some things on the second part and I'll I'll
summarize a little bit toward the end here and try to leave
a little bit of time for questions. The good news is we're up against
lunch, so we do have some flexibility. I'm not going to keep you late
for something per se. I think there will still hopefully
be food by the time we get down there. All right, so the nomenclature
of the Abrahamic Covenant. As mentioned earlier, much debate
surrounds whether the Abrahamic Covenant should be labeled as
unconditional or conditional, or whether these categories themselves
are too restrictive. Dispensational interpreters have
preferred to see it as unconditional. Covenantalists have argued that
it is conditional. A corollary with this debate
turns upon how to classify the covenant in its ancient Near
Eastern context. Dispensational interpreters usually
distinguish the Abrahamic covenant from the Mosaic covenant by identifying
the former as a royal grant or promissory covenant, and the
latter as a suzerainty vassal obligatory covenant, categories
first proposed by Weinfeld. More comprehensive study of the
available ancient Near Eastern sources, however, indicates that
additional factors add complexity. While the categories proposed
by Weinfeld carry some legitimacy, at the same time, no ancient
covenants or treaties were truly unconditional in the sense of
omitting obligations upon one or both of the covenant parties.
Further, the distinction between the royal grant and suzerainty
vassal overlooks the reality that royal grant covenants usually
presuppose the suzerainty vassal relationships. Critics were thus
right to point out that bifurcating covenants into stringent categories
of unconditional or conditional is anachronistic and incomplete. My proposed understanding modifies
the terminology in what I suggest is a more nuanced and historically
consistent direction. One may refer to the promises
that will be codified in the Abrahamic covenant as unconditional,
inasmuch as God is the guarantor, yet the covenant itself is best
identified as a unilateral, irrevocable, albeit regulated, royal grant
covenant. that the covenant is in fact unilateral and irrevocable
and divinely guaranteed is evident in each stage of the covenant
program. For instance, God takes the initiative in calling Abraham
during the promise phase. God alone passes through the
severed animals during the ratification phase, taking full responsibility
for its fulfillment upon himself. God refers to the covenant as
my covenant nine times during the sign of attestation phase.
demonstrating that the covenant originates from his prerogative,
and God alone takes the oath in the oath-sacrifice-confirmation
phase, again taking full responsibility for its fulfillment. Yet the
covenant also carries stipulations to govern the conduct of Abraham.
Yahweh commands Abraham to follow certain patterns of behavior
with 14 imperatives over the course of the covenant stages.
Furthermore, Yahweh expects Abraham to keep the covenant by faithfully
implementing the right of circumcision for his household and all his
descendants. Any male who fails to do so is
a covenant violator who is to be cut off from his people. Moreover,
the covenant confirmation comes after Abraham has demonstrated
fidelity and obedience by heeding the voice of Yahweh. Yahweh highlights
the significance of Abraham's faithful conduct in his later
covenant affirmation with Isaac. And this is the passage I was
talking about. He says to Isaac, I will be with you and bless
you for to you and your offspring, I will give all these lands and
I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham, your father.
I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will
give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring,
all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because Abraham
obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes,
and my laws. These tensions highlight the
difficulty of the unconditional versus conditional framework.
To say the covenant is conditional minimizes the divine guarantee
that the covenant will certainly come to fruition, a reality evident
at each stage of the covenant implementation. However, to say
that the covenant is unconditional minimizes the clear expectations
given to Abraham specifying how he must act. in light of his
covenant status. Rather, a more nuanced approach
seeks to balance these tensions while assessing the covenant
in its ancient Near Eastern context. All right, this is the part I
wanted to get to, and I'll probably summarize the other parts, and
you can look those over with a copy of the paper. But I wanted
to at least establish this corollary. To place the covenant in its
ancient Near Eastern context, the preferred analog for the
royal grant covenant pattern is a similar covenant extant
from Alalakh that offers intriguing parallels. The covenant partners
in this covenant are Abba An of Aleppo, the suzerain, and
Yarim Lim of Alalakh, the vassal. The date of the covenant in the
18th to 17th centuries falls between Abraham and Moses later
than the historical date of the covenant, but earlier than the
composition of Genesis. The language of the covenant
is Old Babylonian and its provenance is ancient Alalak in northern
Syria. The covenant begins with a historical
prologue listing various cities that Yairim-Lim once happily
ruled. A rogue governor named Zitadru,
however, incited rebellion, leading the cities to revolt against
Yairim-Lim and, by implication, the overlord Abaan. The latter
responded militarily by killing the insurrectionists and by razing
certain rebel towns, particularly Iridi. In exchange for the destroyed
cities, Aba'an offers a royal grant to Yerim Lim consisting
of other towns to be donated in the place of the destroyed
Iridi. To ensure the legitimacy and
permanence of the grant, Abba An imposes upon himself a self-maledictory
oath, together with the ritual slaughter of animals, elements
that correspond to the ratification and confirmation of the Abrahamic
covenant. This is the language of the covenant. Abba An swore
to Yirim, Liam, the oath of the gods, and cut the neck of a lamb,
saying, May I be cursed if I take back what I gave you. The covenant
also carries stipulations for how Urim-Lim must conduct himself
in remaining loyal to Abba-an as the lead king. He says, if
ever in the future Urim-Lim sins against Abba-an or if he gives
away any word that Abba-an confides to him, giving it away to another
king, if he, Urim-Lim, lets go of the hem of Abba-an's garment
and takes hold of the hem of another king's garment, he shall
for forfeit his cities and territories. These regulations pertain not
just to Yairim Lim, but also to his descendants who must adhere
to the same covenant stipulations. They will keep the donated territory
in perpetuity if they remain faithful to Abba An and his descendants. The pact concludes with a list
of covenant witnesses who attest that Yairim Lim has sworn oaths
pledging fealty to the covenant statutes. Similarities to the
language, provenance, and protocols of the Abrahamic covenant suggest
a common cultural background. There are several implications.
These correlations indicate that the land promise should be foregrounded
as integral to the Abrahamic covenant, the very provision
that modern covenantalist interpreters are often quickest to deny. Further,
the self-maledictory oath should be seen as equivalent to Yahweh's
passing alone through the severed animal parts and his unilateral
oath in chapter 22. This is a divine guarantee for
the land provision as well as the other promises. Yet the regulations
of the covenant hint that Abraham too would be expected to, in
the words of that covenant, take hold of the hem of Yahweh's garment,
meaning that he and his descendants would be devoted and faithful
servants of the great king. Understood in these ways, both
covenants function analogously as royal grants with stipulations
guaranteed by the suzerain, but insured with regulations governing
the conduct of the servant kings. We may then extrapolate that
hereto Yahweh is granting territory, progeny, and life protection
blessing in perpetuity to Abraham and his descendants, but also
that he expects Abraham and his posterity to conduct themselves
faithfully to Yahweh as God and king. Alright, so that's the
case I make for a comparative covenant in the Ancient Near
East. In the final sections, I trace
a connection between the Abrahamic covenant and the other biblical
covenants. This also is a work still in progress. There's a
chart that I made on page 17 that tries to illustrate this,
how I see the various covenants interacting with each other,
a dotted line. signals an indirect relationship
and a solid line signals a direct relationship either to provisions
or to subsidiary covenants. So you can look that over and
see what you think. And then in the final section,
I tie the Abrahamic covenant to God's redemptive plan. And
in this part, I'm pushing back a little bit specifically on
interpreters who read the Abrahamic Covenant as undergirding gospel
mission but almost in a way that sidesteps Israel. I say here
that in some ways she's merely treated as the midwife for the
Messiah. I'm thinking of Christopher Wright
in particular where he basically says, well, the church has inherited
the Abrahamic Covenant and so they're the ones that are extending
blessing to the world and Israel no longer has a place in God's
redemptive plan. I would stand opposed to that
view in the sense that I see the covenant as irrevocable,
unilateral, everlasting, and so there's no danger that it
somehow will be nullified because God has taken upon himself the
initiative and the guarantee that he will fulfill it. So I'll
just go to my last sentence here on page 19 at the bottom, last
sentence or two. to all nations will too certainly
come to fruition. The covenant may thus rightly
be termed the fulcrum or keystone of Old Testament theology, occupying
a formative place in the storyline of Scripture. The importance
of the Abrahamic covenant can thus hardly be overstated.
The Abrahamic Covenant as the Foundation for Old Testament Theology
Series 2024 E3 Pastors Conference
| Sermon ID | 102924214164668 |
| Duration | 55:20 |
| Date | |
| Category | Conference |
| Language | English |
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