Genesis 15:12-18 (ESV)
12 As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. 13 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 four hundred years. 14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 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, the river Euphrates,
God Makes Covenants with Mankind
God “choose” Abram from the peoples of the earth to become His chosen people, Israel (Genesis 12). There was nothing in Abram (soon to be Abraham) that would warrant any special selection by God. In fact in Joshua 24:2 we read that Abraham and his father worshiped “other gods.” God chose him and made the above covenant with him. A covenant was a legal agreement between two or more parties. Each party had an obligation. God is saying to Abram, if you have faith in my (Abram’s role in the agreement), I will make of you a great nation (God’s part in the agreement). In Genesis 9 we read that God made a covenant with Noah and used the visual sign of the rainbow to authenticate it. Now God using the promise of land that will belong to Abraham’s descendants forever. God makes covenants with His people. The nation of Israel failed in their responsibility to keep the covenant God made with Abram (and later Moses) by not having faith in God. This is the point of Hebrews 3-5. That is why that writer tells of that God sent His Son to make a “new covenant” with the house of Israel (and, through faith in Christ, all Gentiles). Hebrews states it this way, copying almost exactly the words from the prophet Jeremiah:
Hebrews 8:10-13 (ESV)
10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws into their minds,
and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor
and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
for they shall all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities,
and I will remember their sins no more.”
13 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
The old covenant was “obsolete” because it was not kept in faith by the nation of Israel. In the new covenant God writes His laws on our hearts and minds so that we will be God’s people. It is guaranteed by God’s unchanging Word and character. God made this covenant with man and man can’t break it as it relies exclusively on God’s promises.
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