In the
ancient world, men would sometimes make a very serious covenant with each
other. They would split some animals in half, then walk between the pieces,
saying in effect, “May I be treated the same as these animals if I fail to keep
my obligation under this covenant.”
Abram does the same thing today at God’s command, then waits to see what God will do. In a
deep sleep, and in a terrifying dream, Abram sees a vessel with a fiery flame passing between those pieces. Abram doesn’t pass between those pieces. For what
human being could possibly make such a covenant with Almighty God without being
doomed to the same fate as those animals?
But, “That
day the LORD cut a covenant with Abram.” God bound himself to the fate of this
man, and the promise that his descendants would be as numerous as the
innumerable stars. And when Abram’s descendants violated that covenant, it was
God in Jesus Christ who let himself be cut for the sake of the covenant.
And so it is
today, however many times we fail, God’s last word is this covenant, confirmed
in the cross.
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