Okay. It is time to get started. So let's go ahead and do that. And we'll see if anybody comes trickling in. Now, last week I had stated and promised, well, I wouldn't say promised, but some people might jokingly hold me to it. that I was going to talk about and critique what's known as modern day two kingdoms theology. But as I was reading on it again, it refreshed my memory on some of the salient points. It's too closely connected to what's known as the doctrine of republication. And when we get to the Mosaic covenant and start talking about that covenant, and what we see with respect to the republication doctrine, that to me seems the best place to start talking about two kingdoms. Let me say at the outset, and I'll say it again in the future, both republication and two kingdoms are very closely connected. I'm quite critical of both. And I generally don't make it a secret. But I also want to be fair and recognize that I am doing my best as we go through these things more generally to attack arguments and not people. And that's hard. You hear arguments argued against, you almost take it personally. But got to attack arguments and not people. So just understand that as we go through various things. That said, what I want to do is move on to the Abrahamic Covenant. And this is gonna take a bit of time because so much depends on what we see in the Abrahamic Covenant. Now, where do we see the Abrahamic Covenant? Genesis 12, 15, and 17. Now, you think about that. Now, given the fact that you see it in 12, 15, and 17, and I would even argue even after that, because it's reiterated with Isaac and with Jacob. So, from Genesis 12 through 50, that's the whole rest of the book, You're basically looking at God outworking in history the beginnings of the redemptive historical side of the Abrahamic Covenant. Let's start with Genesis 12. So let's go ahead and turn there. Now, actually, just by one precursor, if you will, in chapter 11, 27, notice what you see there. Now, these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran, and Haran fathered Lot. So you see that language, these are the generations, that the toldoth, So you see that, and it's fascinating because then you get into all of this, you see the short genealogy, Abraham gets Sarah, and at the end of verse 32 there of chapter 11, the days of terror were 205 years and terror died in Haran. But these are the generations that told off of terror. It continues. It is fascinating how this works. But be that as it may, you come to chapter 12. Now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed." Okay. First off, you see that God comes to Abram. Now, for all those who are very picky, If you hear me say Abraham at this point, forgive me, okay? Because I know it's not until later that his name is changed to Abraham. So just bear with me. So God comes to Abram. Now, But this is kind of a weird question to start off with but what don't you what do you notice is not present here? Okay, there's no initiative on Abrams part Anything else Nothing? Okay. There is a command to leave, but what's not there? Okay, we're getting there, a bond. What was that? He doesn't really know where he's going. Yeah, there's really no covenant structure that's established here in chapter 12, or explicitly. We automatically, and believe me, I agree with this, okay? We connect Genesis 12 with 15 and 17 and see Genesis 12 as the beginning stages, if you will, of God establishing his covenant with Abraham. I think one of the things, this is a good and necessary consequence conclusion, based off what Conrad said, is that what we're seeing here, without any reason given whatsoever, God shows favor to Abram. We don't even see the language that Abram was godly. I mean, you could make that argument with Noah, but we talked about that transition there in chapter six, where first you see God shows in favor, and then afterwards, after that section break, the told-off section break, that Noah was blameless. We don't even see that here, do we? Ron? Yeah. You do get, and we'll probably get to this at some point, you do get what appears to be certain conflicting arguments of the history based in part like what Stephen says in Acts chapter 7. Honestly, that's making a mountain out of a molehill, as is typical with biblical scholars that are critics and deny inerrancy. But it does include in some sense with Terah, because he goes, they go, Terah dies, and Abram now becomes the focus. Now, I also want you to notice or something else that we don't see here. And maybe I'm making it too complicated. There's no blood. Yeah, he doesn't, there's no identification of himself, which is kind of interesting. Now, the text, as Moses wrote it, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, now the Lord, that is Jehovah, Yahweh, said. All we have is just what God said to him. Do you know what else is missing here? at least at this stage, is the word covenant. In chapter 12, you don't see the word covenant with Abram. You do see it in chapter 15. You do see it in chapter 17. You even see it when God comes to Isaac and to Jacob, okay? But we know it's connected. I would like to jump down, first of all, to verse seven. And this is after verses four through six, you get the description. He goes down, et cetera, into the land of Canaan. And this is what God says in chapter seven, or verse seven. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, to your offspring, I will give this land. So he built there an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him. From there, he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negev. And then after this, after receiving the promise of the land, Abram goes to Egypt, which I always found interesting. He's promised land and what does he do? He goes to Egypt. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's probably something to that. But it is interesting. You know, you can look at this and what you see there in Genesis chapter 12, as has been mentioned, you don't see God revealing himself by his name at all. And yet after the promise is given from verse seven and following, what does Abram do? He builds an altar and also does what? calls on the name of the Lord. Now we know from the New Testament that Abram came from the Chaldees and he was a pagan. So somewhere along the way, we see a right response from Abram with respect to being called and going. He does, that's correct. Right. You could also argue that Abram may have even known Shem. We don't know that for certain, but... Anyway, what makes us say that here in chapter 12, we see, again, I'm going to use the expression, in seed form, God's covenant with him? How do we know? The promise of blessing, what's that? Yeah, promise. And not even just promises in general, the promise here is very specific. What's the promise? To your offspring what though? Yeah, this land. And so the land promise becomes a fundamental heart of this covenant. Again, Abram, without any Levitical instruction, knew to build an altar and offer a sacrifice to the Lord. That was before the Mosaic economy. That matters. I don't know about Jewish writings now, not myself anyway. I mean, you'll find plenty of commentators, especially in our reform circles, that will acknowledge either by example or by some unwritten communication from God, unwritten meaning we don't have record of it, that God instructed them on what to do. All right, so what we see throughout all of this, even at this very beginning, is God singles out Abram. That's the particular, particular, particularity of the covenant. There is no basis upon which God shows favor to Abraham beyond his goodwill. That shows pure grace. It is all of grace. There was nothing in Abraham to warrant God doing that or compelling God to do it. Now, really, it's when we get to chapter 15 that we start to really unpack this even further. And as your attorney there, just by way of reminder, you know, you got Abram and Sarai in Egypt, Abram and Lot separate in chapter 13, you know, the whole thing about the dispute over the feeding of the sheep and so forth. Chapter 14, Lot gets in trouble, so Abram goes and rescues him. And then you have the whole scenario with Melchizedek at the end of chapter 14. Now, you come to chapter 15 after these things. The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. Fear not, Abram. I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great. But Abram said, O Lord God, what will you give me? For I continue childless. And the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus. And Abram said, behold, you have given me no offspring and a member of my household will be my heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him. This man shall not be your heir. Your very own son shall be your heir. And he brought him outside and said, look toward heaven and number the stars if you are able to number them. Then he said to him, so shall your offspring be. And he believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness. Okay. So you get a little bit of a back and forth here between God and Abram. What's Abram's problem? He's got no kids. That's his argument. God promises him offspring. Not only does he promise him offspring, God says, look at the stars. You got all those stars. Number them if you can. So shall your offspring be. Now, what's the significance of the word offspring? Do you remember this? It's actually the Hebrew word seed. Well, it's a collective singular, kind of like when we talk about gold. He does. He does. Yeah. Right. And so what you're going to see when we take that discussion about Paul and what he says in Galatians in particular about seed singular meaning Christ, we're gonna see, even as we go through 15 and 17 in more detail, that what you're really seeing is both. Because the things that are promised here are multiple offspring. Yet at the same time it still points to Christ, right? Peace. Yeah. And so, this is a promise that is given to Abraham. It's a sure, certain promise that the seed, offspring, shall be beyond counting. But it's a both-and kind of thing. It is certain. And this is Abraham's concern. I have no heir. And if I have no heir, Everything you promised me goes to someone else. So God is just simply here, at least at this point, reiterating his promise. Because remember back in chapter 12, the promise was worded in such a way in verse 7 of 12, to your offspring, I will give this land. And now you come to chapter 15, I still have no offspring. And God says, don't worry, I'm God. I will bless you with offspring, your own son, that's the language. And you know what happens right after this though? In a similar fashion to what you had the land promise in chapter 12, what does Abram do? He goes down to Egypt. You have this promise that a son will come to you. What happens next? Sarai and Hagar, take my maid servant. And Abram says, okay. But really, the ultimate issue here is the essence of the promise, is that God will bless Abram. That's the fundamental aspect of this. Without any favor, it is pure grace, and it is a promise that is also including Abram's seed, offspring. It's a matter of unbelief rejecting God's word to him and saying, I'm going to do things in a way that makes sense to me, rather than trusting the Lord God. Yeah. Yeah, all right. The account to him of righteousness. Yeah. Prayer and convulsion. Is that a sin that you're talking about? Well, there is certainly truth to that, and that gets unpacked further in chapter 17, but it is here. But really, what that statement is referring to, I mean, it says explicitly, and he believed the Lord. Now, you could argue, if I remember correctly, the Hebrew, the Arabs, he believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. Now, just as taking a step back to talk about justification for a moment, this is a passage that we turn to. This is what Paul turns to in Romans chapter 4. Abram believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Now, to be perfectly honest, that's not really the best translation of the expression. because the language is more along the lines of Abram believed in God and righteousness was credited to him. Armenians and many others take this verse in the English and they say that shows that faith is actually the ground of our salvation. Faith is not the ground of our salvation. It's needed, but the language here is righteousness was credited to him. That's the language. And so that's really what happens in justification. We have faith, we exercise faith, we know from the rest of scripture that is a gift from God, but the result is because of our faith, God, I shouldn't say because, it's through our faith, God declares us righteous. Righteousness is imputed to us. That's kind of the language even here. Righteousness is counted toward him, reckoned to him. Yeah. Yes. And it's really, again, when you're talking about believing in God and believing God, you can't have one without the other. But it is important to distinguish the two. This is where I think you can bring the argument of James into this when he's arguing about justification by works, which we know he's using justification in a different fashion there. But he says even the demons believe. Satan believes in the Lord. He knows he exists, but he doesn't believe the Lord. But you've got to have both. You can't just believe God without believing in God. But the distinction does matter. Ron? I think this is such a beautiful picture of God's initiative both in calling him and in that faith aspect. And the thing about it is, when you get to chapter 17, You know, we could sit down and read that in like 10 minutes. That was 13 years. So let that truth that you're talking about a 13-year period between what you see in Genesis 15 to the promise in 17 and then subsequently the birth of Isaac, you're talking a 13-year period. What would your faith be like? You know, we give a hard time to Abram because he stupidly goes to Hagar. What would we do? Jonathan? Does Abraham actually know that it's wrong to go to Hagar? Well, I think this is more a theological answer than it is the text. But all of us made in God's image, and what we see with respect to natural law, God's revelation through nature, one man, one woman. That's what it boils down to. So there is a sense where in his heart of hearts he would have known this, but even as a believer, he was calloused enough, as were many Old Testament saints after him, including David, certainly Solomon. No, he didn't. This is part of what Christ argues in general against the Pharisees and Sadducees. He goes, you need to go back further. One man, one woman. You should know this. It's the Creator's order. And there is an aspect, and I don't necessarily disagree, we're not explicitly told this, that what Abram did was basically follow the culture around him. And it's like, well, we need to understand all this in terms of the culture. Well, yeah, I get that, but the problem is he followed the culture. That's the issue. No, it's a form of polygamy. I mean, we wouldn't technically call it. Yeah, your own son. No, not through here. But the language that he used is language that would have made it a legitimate child. That's the issue, no pun intended. So, that's really what the language does. And so, we see this actually happen not in every instance in the Old Testament, but we do see it, for example, in judges. You think of Gideon's son who ended up becoming a judge. He was rejected because he wasn't legitimate at first. But then you can counter-argue that with all of Jacob's sons, because that's the same scenario with Abram. Two mistresses, two wives, what a mess. Amy? No, not directly, but he was the next in line. Correct. Yeah, and that's really the crux of this. We recognize that Faith is still something that's required here. Though it is not the basis of salvation, it's not even the basis of God giving the covenant, but it is the instrument by which God has appointed and through which we receive the promises that God has given. And so even here, although we recognize It is a sovereign, great, established covenant with Abram. Faith was still required. And that's something all of us need to reckon with when we think about these things and how often, this is why earlier I said, what makes you think in different words, but what makes any of us think that we could last 13 years? But the truth of the matter is, true believers, especially those who were converted at a young age, go their whole life before the finality of that which is promised comes to you. So there's a sense in which this happens all the time, yet in the everyday we fail and we forget this. And Abraham had less revelation than we do. So what's our excuse? Well, we don't, right? Well, that's what Abram basically did. He did it twice. I'm going to give you the land. Oh, great. I'm going to Egypt. Oh, great. I'm going to have a son. Let's go, Hagar. I don't mean to sound crass, but that's in essence what he did. And so how often do we do something foolish like that? We take things into our own hands. Now, we understand God uses secondary causes, but too often we just, in the wrong sense, instinctively act. Okay, I got it from here, like you said. Trish? So it's like we have to just, you know, look to learn and have that patience when we're in a ministry setting to not take matters into our own hands. Yeah. Simply put, the ends don't justify the means. Correct. And too often we fall into that trap. That would have been really bad. Yeah. All right. Let's just continue a bit more with 15 and I guess next week we'll get into 17 because there's much more there. as you continue in verse seven of chapter 15. And he said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess. But he said, oh Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it? So the promise of offspring and the promise of land, Abram's like, how do I know? And so God responds. And what we need to understand is God responds here in a way that Abram would have clearly understood. What we're seeing here is not merely a cultural thing. And yes, it is, but I think many biblical scholars reverse the order. We've talked about that before. God could have just said, because I said so. All of us who are parents here, we're real good at that. And that should be sufficient answer. How much more the God of the universe saying, because I said so. But God now further condescends himself to display his covenantal commitment in a manner that Abraham would have understood and would have accepted. Bring me a heifer three years old. a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. And he brought them all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other, but did not cut the birds in half. And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. Then the Lord said to Abram, know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for 400 years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace, you shall be buried in a good old age, and they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying, to your offspring, I give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river of the Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Raphaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites. So, there it is. It's a two-in-one. The promise to your offspring, of course, presupposes he's going to have them. Now, God had just said it. Now he's committing himself that the essence of the covenant promise to Abraham as revealed to us is this land promise, but it's to his offspring. Which means that promise is gonna be fulfilled too. And so what we see here is the dividing of animals, a typical ritual during the time, and the parties of the covenant were to pass through these animals, and it was a self-maladictory oath on both parties to say, if I don't measure up to my part of the covenant, may this happen to me. But it is God alone who walks through. God alone who walks through. Jonathan? Well, you could argue that God did die, but he died according to his human nature. And so the interesting thing is that there's another side to this from the perspective of the theological understanding of where you're going, of who God is and his very nature. The truth of the matter is it really should have been Abraham alone who walked through. but instead God alone walked through. And so the one who failed to meet the obligations of the covenant was a man. And the one who paid the penalty, as we'll see this morning, for the violation of the covenant was a man. The God-man, yes, but truly man. And that's what this all boils down to. Trish? Yeah. Right. All right. We are out of time. We'll continue next week, Lord willing. and really start diving into chapter 17, but also with respect to 12 and 15, and try to unpack all the significance here and so forth. And of course, at some point, we've got to talk about circumcision as a sign, as the sign of the covenant. So, all right, let's close in prayer. Our Father in God and heaven, we thank you that you are a covenant-making and covenant-keeping God. Lord, as we reflect on your condescension and your favor toward Abram, we marvel at the reality that you have condescended yourself to show favor to us and how all of this is fulfilled in Christ Jesus, our Lord, who is ultimately the substance of the covenant of grace. And now, Father, as we are about to come into your presence as your people, your covenant people, to worship you, prepare our hearts. May our hearts and minds be ready to be in your presence, and may we be blessed by you. We pray all this in Christ's name, amen.