This week’s “Wednesday Word” is a summary of Dr. Wellum’s seventh session in his series, The Bible’s Big Picture, given on Sunday, November 1, 2009.
One of the great unifying themes of the Bible is the biblical covenants. Understanding each biblical covenant in its own immediate context in redemptive history and then thinking through the relationship between the covenants in terms of the overall plan of God, is crucial to grasping how to understand the Bible on its own terms. This week we continued our study of the biblical covenants by focusing on the Abrahamic covenant. Set in the context of Genesis 1-11, the Abrahamic covenant is presented as the means by which God will fulfill his promise made in Genesis 3:15. Instead of wiping out the human race, God, in faithfulness to his promise to Noah, chooses one man and one family out of the human race to be the means by which sin will be dealt with, Satan will be destroyed, and the new creation will come. In this way, as with Noah, Abraham and his seed becomes the way God will bring back the original creation mandate again.
Genesis 12:1-3 gives us God’s gracious promise to Abraham. God, in contrast to those at the tower of Babel who are attempting to make a name for themselves, God will act in sovereign grace and choose Abraham out of the human race and he will make Abraham’s name great. In addition, the Lord will give him a land and offspring which will result in a mighty nation which in turn will bring blessing to the entire world. The means by which this will come about will be through a seed, which at this point in Abraham’s life is not yet born. As we work through Abraham’s life, more definition is given to this promise, especially in Genesis 15. Once again, God comes to Abraham and promises him an offspring, land, and great nation, even though Abraham and Sarah still do not have a child. Abraham offers Eliezer to serve as that offspring, as he does with Ishmael down the road, but the Lord is clear: He will sovereignly provide a seed that will come from Abraham and Sarah and it is through this seed that God’s promises will be realized. In Genesis 15:6, we are told that Abraham believed God’s Word and it was credited unto him righteousness—a text which is picked up in the NT to demonstrate that salvation has always been by grace through faith, tied to the promises of God, no matter what era you live in redemptive history. To make good on his promise, God enters into a covenant relation with Abraham, as represented by the ancient world’s covenant inauguration ceremony. As animals are cut in half and separated, the parties of the covenant are to walk between the pieces swearing allegiance to each other and the promises they have made. If they do not keep the promises, what is symbolized by the killing of animals, will then come upon them. But in the case of this covenant inauguration there is one major difference. As the covenant is cut, Abraham is asleep and it is only God who walks through the pieces. Surely, this teaches us that it is God himself and God alone who will keep the covenant and fulfill all that he has promised.
As God’s plan unfolds, these important texts (Gen 12, 15) are fulfilled in God himself who plans, initiates, and accomplishes our salvation: salvation is of the Lord (Jon 2:9). Our only hope in this life and the life to come, is that the God of sovereign grace has acted on our behalf, and supremely so in our Lord Jesus Christ, that to which the promises of the Abrahamic covenant ultimately points. Next week we will continue to investigate the Abrahamic covenant and then relate it to the Sinai covenant, as we work our way through Scripture, seeking to understand the incredible plan of God centered in Jesus Christ, on the Bible’s own terms.