280 Short Cutting Faith, The Covenant is Confirmed Genesis 17

In Beginning with Moses & the Prophets

Confirming
the Covenant

Genesis
17: 1 - 27

Introduction  .

In chapter 17 is the account of God confirming His covenant with
Abram. To have in context, let’s briefly summarize what occurred in the
previous chapter, 16. It is the account of the attempt to shortcut to obtain an
heir through hagar, Sarai’s maid.

After ten years in Canaan, and at the young age of 75, Srai was
still barren; she takes it upon herself to suggest what was accepted and
logical in her culture for over a thousand years.

Thinking that God had left her barren, and knowing of God’s
promise to Abram of an heir, we have here the creation of human chaos that has
caused conflict up to this day.

You may be shocked or scandalized as you read the account at Sarai
volunteering Hagar as her surrogate, but; abram’s passive compliant conduct is
more offensive - 

Have you seen this before? Hint; It was Abram who heard the voice
of God not Sarai. God led them from Ur. Abram had no divine directive to employ
Hagar. Abram was fresh from a theophany in chapter 15.

Here’s the thing. Abram did question anything - 16:2 says, “and
Abram listened to the voice of his wife”. Seems that Moses wrote the
account as a parallel to Genesis 3:17 just as Adam listened to his wife.
Neither one of them said anything, not even a “look shug, the Lord said . .
.”. Both willingly & knowingly partook. And things went from bad to
worse. 

Proverbs 30:21-23 tells use, Under three things the earth
trembles; under four it cannot bear up: 22 a slave when he becomes king, and a
fool when he is filled with food; 23 an unloved woman when she gets a husband,
and a maidservant when she displaces her mistress.

Abram was 86 when Hagar bore Ishmael - Let’s fast forward 13
years; He’s one year shy of a century, 99. Moses has shown us that a cloud of
domestic gloom & darkness over shadow the tents of Abram concerning the
promise.

While I was in Panama and working as a DOD security employee at
the Rodman Naval base, one of the Navy section chief’s wife, also stationed
with him there, was barren. They had gone through the process of having a woman
to be a surrogate mother - needless to say that turned out for them to be a
gruesome legal battle - the surrogate mother had decided she wanted to keep the
child. 

Thousands of years apart, different cultures, different methods -
same, same problems & familial frictions.

For Abram, if Ishmael wasn’t the answer, how in the dickens was he
to become the father of a vast people & his heirs inherit the land?

It has been 23 years since the first promise.  And now for
the last 13 years the promise seemed to be more & more distant than ever.
The Lord had given him a lot of time to think about his sin of disobedience,
and lapse of trust - and to live in the consequences of it.

Abram had no idea, but God was growing the patriarch’s
faith. 

Again, it would be GRACE!

God
the All Powerful - Confirms the Covenant 

God Himself now speaks to again Abram and the first name He calls
out is His own name: Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared
to Abram and said to him, "I am God Almighty; Walk before Me, and be blameless.
2 "I will establish My covenant between Me and you, And I will multiply
you exceedingly." 17:1-2). El Shaddai, God Almighty; I like the Spanish
translation, Dios Todopoderoso … tanslates the same but literally it is The
All Powerful God. It just has more of a sting to it than mighty. It may
depend on the infliction of the voice. Commentators say “almighty” is the best
english translation, so take your pick.

What God is invoking by calling Himself “El
Shaddai” is, “I am able to fulfill the awesome hopes I set before you of a
people & a land; there isn’t any need to resort to trying to fulfill the
promise in any second rate way - He’s telling him that all your life, your
future, lies in the fact that “I Am God Almighty, the All Powerful One -

Listen, what you and I, we all, believe about
God is the most important thing in our lives, your lives. Any thoughts of a God
less potent than the God of Abram is going to cause your soul to shrink &
it will neutralize your faith! --

Notice again that there is no harsh or strong
rebuke said to Abram - unless you want to count the 13 years of silence as a
rebuke. I don’t see it that way. We are the ones that give people the silent
treatment.

Instead God proceeds to explain the covenant to
Abram - And Abram falls on his face which in this culture & throughout
history this has been the ultimate expression of humility & submission
- 

With this one gesture Abram communicated to god
that he was going to receive all that God was saying with humility & great
reverence.

Now God doesn’t require this of us, but there
are many who do approach God on their knees while praying, some with their
faces on the ground. the twenty-four elders will fall down before Him who
sits on the throne, and will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will
cast their crowns before the throne, saying, 11 "Worthy are You, our Lord
and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things,
and because of Your will they existed, and were created." (Rev.
4:10-11).

A Name Change  

Abram is renamed Abraham by God: No
longer shall your name be called Abram, But your name shall be Abraham; For I
have made you the father of a multitude of nations. 6 "I will make you
exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings will come forth
from you. (Vv5,6,).

In the near East a name wasn’t just a means of
identification but was intimately connected with the essence of being &
intertwined with personality.

John & his brother James were ready to call
fire down from heaven and so Jesus called them “sons of thunder”. Much as we
give nickname to our kids and friends.

Now, Abram, “exalted father” was now going to
be called Abraham, “father of multitude”. In addition, his name was matched by
another revelation, kings will come forth from you. This was
something beyond his dreams, a tent dweller, kings will come from him. 

This brought a thought to me. If this life on
earth is all there is, what good would it be to rejoice that kings would come
from him if he would never see it? Is this what Jesus meant when He said in
John 8:56? Your
father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad." 

One thousand years later the founding line of
kings would begin through David & then another thousand years further up in
the Advent of Jesus Christ, King of the Jews.

Matthew celebrates this the opening of the
gospel he penned with the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, Son of
Abraham.

This is the first prediction of the ultimate
King of kings & Lord of lords: And on His robe and on His
thigh He has a name written, "KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS." (Rev. 19:16). This phrase and
kings shall come from you is the genesis of Palm Sunday.

The Sign of the Covenant  

Just like the rainbow was the sign of the
Noahic Covenant (9:3) & later the Sabbath is the sign of the Sinaitic
Covenant (Ex. 31) - Circumcision will be the sign of the Abrahamic Covenant.

The rainbow & Sabbath already existed
before the institution of the covenants they came to signify - Circumcision ahd
already originated centuries before. It was practiced in Egypt & elsewhere
but in Gen. 17 it received a new meaning - People were crucified centuries
before the time of Jesus, but the cross took on a very different meaning when
our Lord was crucified.

Early on, circumcision came to symbolize the
spiritual commitment of one’s life to God - Moses wrote: Moreover the
LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to
love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you
may live. (Deut. 30:6).

Jeremiah also would challenge the people: Circumcise
yourselves to the LORD And remove the foreskins of your heart, Men of Judah,
and inhabitants of Jerusalem, Or else My wrath will go forth like fire And burn
with none to quench it, Because of the evil of your deeds. (Jer. 4:4).

Unlike other signs we make that can be put
aside, circumcision was a permanent sign that could not be eradicated - It
would be a constant witness against an unconsecrated heart - 

The rite of circumcision itself is a reminder
that covenants are solemnized through blood. It inflicts blood & pain -
Every hebrew male from Abraham to Jesus underwent the operation.

The Almighty’s word concluded with But an
uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that
person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant."
(17:14).

This very clearly tells everyone that it is
God’s way, or the highway.

This is an early warning that there is no way
but God’s way - This right here flies in the face of conventional religious
& secular cultures that it is God’s duty to accept us apart from His
directives as long as we do our best.

Let me say as strongly as possible to the appearance
only Christian, beware. -- As there was only one way under the Old
covenant, so too there is only one way under the New Covenant.

Jesus who made the New Covenant with His own
blood said: I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to
the Father but through Me.

C. S. Lewis, explained in his
well-known book, Mere Christianity, "A man who was merely a man and said
the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher; he'd either
be a lunatic -- on a level with a man who says he's a poached egg -- or else
he'd be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and
is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse." You can shut Him
up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at
His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing
nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to
us. He did not intend to." So Jesus was either a madman, a liar, a myth,
or He really was -- and is -- the Son of God.

 But there are those who twist everything
to their preverte thinking -- Joel Olsteen pushes is a shell of legitimate biblical
Christianity, at best, and a dangerous counterfeit at worst. When all you have
to offer is materialism and emotion, you’re not an evangelist. You’re a
motivational speaker who borrows religious terminology. Nothing Osteen says is
going to help a person with legitimate questions about faith and salvation.

Oprah Winfrey, she speaks less about salvation
through Christ than she does Christ-consciousness. She describes heaven not as
an eternal destination but an inner realm of consciousness. And she dismisses
the idea that there is “one way” to God, when she says, “There couldn’t
possibly be just one way.”

Sarai?

She also is in this covenant & is
designated the matriarch of the covenant: God said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your
wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah [shall be] her name. 16
"I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her. Then I will
bless her, and she shall be [a mother of] nations; kings of people will come
from her.

Not only would Sarah bear a child in as an old
woman, but the sacred, royal dynasty would have her blood in its veins -
u;timately the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

God Almighty, the All Powerful One revealed
Himself with this awesome name, Abraham had a new name, the sign of the
covenant was commanded, & Sarah had a new name.

Abraham’s Response?

He falls on his face & laughs: Abraham
fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, "Will a child be born
to a man one hundred years old? And will Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear
[a child?]" 18 And Abraham said to God, "Oh that Ishmael might live
before You!

He starts out okay, in reverence, but the old
guy laughs out loud - was he disbelieving? Doesn’t look like it, God does not
voice disapproval - Maybe inwardly God may have smiled at Abraham - Wait
& see there young man … 

Yet in contrast, later God rebukes Sarah in
18:13, LORD said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh, saying, 'Shall I
indeed bear [a child,] when I am [so] old?

For nw, the absence of correction for Abraham
implied that his faith was limited. He believed, but his faith was pushed to
the limits.

Paul explains this in Romans 4:18-21 -- In
hope against hope he believed, so that he might become a father of many nations
according to that which had been spoken, "SO SHALL YOUR DESCENDANTS
BE." 19 Without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now
as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of
Sarah's womb; 20 yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in
unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, 21 and being fully
assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform.

This is the Divine Commentary on Genesis 17 -
Abraham, the aged patriarch, did believe.

I think that for the majority of us it’s easy
to say believe in something far off, like heaven - But if we’re asked to
believe that God will do something in a specific time frame, I think we find believing
more difficult.

The Circumcision of Christ

Kings did come from Abraham & Sarah, The
scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor the ruler's staff from between his
feet, Until Shiloh comes, And to him [shall be] the obedience of the peoples.
(Gen.49:10); Balaam will cry later, I see him, but not now; I
behold him, but not near; A star shall come forth from Jacob, A scepter shall
rise from Israel, And shall crush through the forehead of Moab, And tear down
all the sons of Sheth. (Num. 24:17); when King David came God promised
him, Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your
throne shall be established forever. (2 Sam.7:16)

After David, God’s people began to look for the
ultimate messianic David - Ezekiel will record God’s word some 400 year later- Then
I will set over them one shepherd, My servant David, and he will feed them; he
will feed them himself and be their shepherd. (34:23); Isaiah wrote of
the coming prince -  For a child will be born to us, a son will be
given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will
be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. 7
There will be no end to the increase of [His] government or of peace, On the
throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with
justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of
hosts will accomplish this.(9:6-7); Then Zacheria writes, Rejoice
greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout [in triumph,] O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold,
your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, Humble, and
mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (9:9); On
Palm Sunday Jesus rode into Jerusalem in 32AD as the crowds going ahead
of Him, and those who followed, were shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of
David; BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD; Hosanna in the
highest!" (Matt. 21:9).

That particular week culminated Jesus’ perfect
life of faith - What Abraham began was now completed by his ultimate seed,
Jesus Christ the King, - Gal 3:16 NASB 16 Now the promises were spoken to
Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, "And to seeds," as
[referring] to many, but [rather] to one, "And to your seed," that
is, Christ. 

Jesus will say - in John 8:28-29, "When
you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am [He,] and I do nothing
on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me. 29
"And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do
the things that are pleasing to Him." 

In Perfect Obedience

On the eve of His crucifixion - [He took]
the cup after they had eaten, saying, "This cup which is poured out for
you is the new covenant in My blood. (Luke 22:20).

The pain & blood that Good Friday, the New
Covenant was launched. As he was nailed to the cross Jesus underwent the
ultimate circumcision so that we might receive the ultimate circumcision of the
heart - Rom. 2:29 tells us, But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision
is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise
is not from men, but from God. 

Listen to what Paul writes to the Colosians,
2:11-14 - in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made
without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of
Christ; 12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also
raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the
dead. 13 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of
your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our
transgressions, 14 having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of
decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the
way, having nailed it to the cross. 

Jesus’s body was cut away for our sin - He was
cut off from God, My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Far from my
deliverance are the words of my groaning Ps. 22:1

This was done for us, for you, by putting off
the body of flesh, by the circumcision of Christ - 

The question is, have you been made a new
creation? For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a
new creation. (Gal. 6:15) --- Have you believed, do you have faith
in Him?  in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision
means anything, but faith working through love.

Tell out my soul, the greatness of His name.

Make known his might, the deeds his arm has
done;

His mercy sure, from age to age the same;

His Holy Name, the Lord, the Mighty One.