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 overshadows 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 … translates 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 perverted 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 - ultimately 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 we 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.
age to age the same;
Tell out my soul, the greatness of His name.
His Holy Name, the Lord, the Mighty
Make known his might, the deeds his arm has done;
His mercy sure, from One.
