Q4. Cutting the Covenant

[Old Jerry]

God went through the covenant ritual with Abraham was to show Abraham that he was serious about the promises that He had made to him.

Abraham believed God and he was considered righteous.

God has promised to be with us to the end of the age. This affects the things that we do because He is with us. The blood sacrifice has to be made to satisfy God.

[Craig]

Q4 (15:17-18a) Why did God go through the covenant ritual with Abraham, with the divided carcasses? Why does God bind himself to a solemn promise? How does Abraham respond to God's promises (15:6)? What promises has God made to us that affect our futures? What significance does blood sacrifice have in those promises?

 

God used a traditional human covenant ritual, of the times, to make a covenant with Abram.  God binds himself to a solemn promise to Abram because through Abram and his descendants the Messiah, Savior of Jews and Gentiles, will arrive on this planet.  This is God's initiative and His promise to keep.  He binds himself to His promise.  In doing so, He reveals to humanity throughout the ages that He is a keeper of promises. 

 

Abram believed and trusted God.  He believed that God would keep His promises.

 

God has promised us that in Jesus Christ we are forgiven our sin and are reconciled to Him and will spend eternity with Him.  This promise is based upon our acceptance, trust, and belief in Jesus Christ, God's only begotten Son who died for the salvation of the world.

 

While we, those who trust in God, are on this planet and desire a relationship with Him, He will walk with us, commune with us, and place His hand upon us by way of blessings.  God will bless our lives if we honor and serve Him. 

 

Blood sacrifice emphasizes the seriousness and solemnity of those promises.  A curse upon those who would brake a covenant made in such a way.

 

 

[Ernie's Son]

A. He was entering into a covenant with Abraham and to bind Himself to his promises.

 

B. He pledged Himself to be faithful to His covenant promises.

 

C. Just faith without deeds or keeping some law--just faith.

 

D. God's pledge is Jesus on the Cross as His promise to forgive our sin and give everlasting life to all those that believe.

 

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

 

E. "And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission" (Heb. 9:22). 

 

[lighthouse2014]

Q4 (15:17-18a) Why did God go through the covenant ritual with Abraham, with the divided carcasses? Why does God bind himself to a solemn promise? How does Abraham respond to God's promises (15:6)? What promises has God made to us that affect our futures? What significance does blood sacrifice have in those promises?

God went through the covenant ritual with Abraham and the divided carcasses because it was a unilateral promise, God bound himself to his promises with Abraham.

God binds himself to a solemn promise because Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness. God is righteous and his promise to Abraham was that he would give Abraham a land and his seed would be as numerous as the stars of heaven.

Abraham believed God and his promises, by this faith God accounted it to him as righteousness.

God's promises to us in the New Testament affects our future because those that believe in his Only Son will be redeemed and have eternal life with him.

Blood has everything to do with these promises because as God stated "life is in the blood". In sacrifices blood had to be shed and God giving his Only Son's broken body and shedding his blood for our penalty of our sin. Through his sacrifice, love and grace we are forgiven of our sins.   

[Rosesam]

Q4 (15:17-18a) Why did God go through the covenant ritual with Abraham, with the divided carcasses? Why does God bind himself to a solemn promise? How does Abraham respond to God's promises (15:6)? What promises has God made to us that affect our futures? What significance does blood sacrifice have in those promises?

When God said that his descendants would be numerous as the stars in the heavens, Abraham believed God and it was accounted for him to righteousness. But God said to Abraham that the land which God promised Abraham would not be inherited in his lifetime, but will be possessed by his descendants. In order to assure Abraham that God will fulfill His end of the promise, He instructs Abraham to bring five animals in order to enter into a covenant with him. He was to butcher the larger animals into halves but not to cut the birds. Butchering the animals was a bloody affair. As they were killed there would be blood spilled. But as they lay there, there would be pools of blood on the ground. This graphic depiction of death is to pronounce curse and death to the one who broke the covenant. The parties to the covenant understood cutting a covenant to be a serious matter. To break a covenant would result in the other party to kill the one who broke the covenant and cut him into pieces as the animals were cut i.e. to inherit death penalty. Usually both the parties of the covenant would walk between the cut animals, but in this case only God walked through the animals that were killed and cut. It was a unilateral, unconditional covenant, so only God was obligated to keep the covenant.

[Godswriter]

Q4 (15:17-18a) Why did God go through the covenant ritual with Abraham, with the divided carcasses? Why does God bind himself to a solemn promise? How does Abraham respond to God's promises (15:6)? What promises has God made to us that affect our futures? What significance does blood sacrifice have in those promises?

The Lord alone went through them because He alone was the One could make the promises that would deliver Abraham's descendants from their enemies and sin as well. Also He did it with a solemn promise to symbolize how serious the promise was to Him and what it meant to Him as well. He believed God. The Lord promised us eternal life. The blood sacrifice means that only God can fulfill it since we are tainted with sin. 

[Paula Price]

God is preparing the way for all mankind to receive the promise and how it will be done. God tells Abraham how  His covenant will be fulfilled many years from then.. not by the blood of animals but by the blood of Jesus, God's only son who will be given through the linage of Abraham.. the promised Messiah... Abraham does not understand this but he is faithful and obeys God every command.  Abraham wants a son of his body and God is promising him a son and through his son the whole world will be blessed.. Abraham will be the one to teach is people what God requires, and they in turn will teach the world.  from the beginning God has always had a covenant with man.  In the garden when he made Adam and Eve, as long as they obeyed God they were protected and provided for.  When they broke that covenant they were casted out of Eden and God had to prepare another way of redemption for mankind to receive His blessings, for He created man for His glory....Obedience, Righteousness was always required from God to receive His blessings.  So He is preparing Abraham on how this will be done according to His specifications and His will..  God wants His people to depend on Him only for all their needs...We worship and honor Him as the only one true and living God when we do His will.  When we do this He has promised us to live with Him in Heaven... that is the promise and the blessing of Abraham....

[Irmela]

Q4 (15:17-18a) Why did God go through the covenant ritual with Abraham, with the divided carcasses?

Covenants were made like this in the Near East. It showed Abram that God was serious about the Covenant. He meant it. If the Covenant was not kept He would be rent to pieces, just like the carcasses. 

Why does God bind himself to a solemn promise?

God had called Abram out from among his people and led him to the land of promise. Now God is binding Himself physically to a solemn promise. 

How does Abraham respond to God's promises (15:6)?

He believed. 

What promises has God made to us that affect our futures?

God has promied us eternal life, if we but believe. 

What significance does blood sacrifice have in those promises?

Without blood sacrifice we cannot have remission of sins. Christ was the ultimate sacrifice. No more animal sacrifices are necessary. 

[Krissi]

Why did God go through the covenant ritual with Abraham, with the divided carcasses? Why does God bind himself to a solemn promise? How does Abraham respond to God's promises (15:6)? What promises has God made to us that affect our futures? What significance does blood sacrifice have in those promises?

I admit that I find the killing of animals and cutting them in half both a revolting process and visual image. I'm not sure why God chose to validate his covenant this way. In the West, we shake hands: there was a time when "a man's handshake was his word." Sadly, this time has mostly ended except for a few honorable men -- if you're reading this, I hope you're one of them!

I understand the notion of the divided carcass coming from the root Hebrew word for both cut and covenant, so somehow, the wordplay on that root creates a situation in which God uses slaughter to seal the covenantal promises. I don't understand why He chose this, however.

God doesn't have to bind himself to anything, so though the covenant was instituted, it no longer exists in it's original form. Since the OLD covenant was made between unequals, as Pastor Ralph mentioned, the "treaty was God promising to do things for Abraham, much less than Abraham doing things for God. It was, in short, one-sided. Abraham believed God's promises and "it was credited to him as righteousness." So, Abraham's role was to believe in the covenant and perform a few rituals. God did the rest.

A parallel is drawn between Christ and the sacrificial lamb of God which fulfils the slaughter role of animals in Abraham's covenantal relationship with God. That's the significance of blood sacrifice. Jews today are eager to start sacrificing again in Jerusalem and have bread white heifers to do so, so the idea of blood sacrifice hasn't been forgotten. It's very primal and persistent.

I'm not sure about God's covenantal promises in the NT. I'm not sure about promises at all, to be honest. For some believers, God has made hundreds of promises; others believe in only a handful. I'm still on the fence as to whether God continues to make covenantal promises today. Certainly Christians have heard his voice and are certain he communicated with them in a promise-like manner. But was it a promise?

The ultimate promise, if it can be called a promise, is the promise of our eternal life as a consequence of believing Christ is God. We also must believe that Christ's sacrificial death on the cross substitutes for the deaths of animals and thus propitiates God so he does not react to our sin with wrath and judgment.