Rebekah Wilson
Rebekah Wilson 0:07
Welcome to Elmhurst CRC’s daily dose of the Word of God. Today is Tuesday, January 17th and this is Rebekah Wilson. I serve on the Alpha team. To prepare for our question, “Why did Jesus have to die?”, I’ll be reading Genesis 15: 9-11, 17-18.
Rebekah Wilson 0:07
“o the LORD said to him (Abram), ‘Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.’ Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away. When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates”
Rebekah Wilson 1:11
Makes perfect sense, right? Let’s pray.
Rebekah Wilson 1:15
Just kidding. To the original audience though, this would have made perfect sense, but not in 2023. So let’s back up and get some context. In this passage, God is making a binding contract, He is literally “cutting a covenant” as it was originally referred as. As one theologian describes, “In ancient times, people usually confirmed business transactions and national treaties with solemn ceremonies. The parties brought animals to slaughter and cut them into halves. The animal halves lay opposite each other with a path in the center. The contracting parties walked the path together as they repeated the covenant terms to represent their unity of mind. (This part is important) The shed blood of the animal sacrifices demonstrated their depth of commitment and the consequences they wished upon themselves if they broke the covenant.” Here Abram prepares the animals, protects them from the birds, and then waits all day for God to show up. God had something different in mind though. He caused Abram to fall into a deep sleep and then delivered a dramatic prophecy over him. Then during the night, the LORD, represented as the smoking firepot and blazing torch, something very familiar to the original audience, walked alone between the animal halves. God was making an unconditional covenant, a promise, to Abram. This meant that it wasn’t dependent on anything Abram did.
Rebekah Wilson 2:49
What does this have to do with Jesus? Well God made another covenant, the New Covenant, with humanity. This covenant was also unconditional, meaning humanity didn’t have any conditions to uphold, but this time the sacrifice that was used was the perfect, unblemished Lamb of God. God would use His own Son, Jesus, as the sacrifice to bind the New Covenant. According to the New Covenant, all who believed in the Son of God, Jesus, would find right standing for all their sins for all time. Relationship with God would be restored and redeemed through the precious blood of Jesus.
Rebekah Wilson 3:31
Now, let’s pray. Heavenly Father, We praise You for being a faithful and loving Creator. We thank You for making a promise to redeem us, knowing full well that it would have to be all on You. We are simply unable to contribute anything to the New Covenant with You. We confess that we all too often try to earn or work or labor to achieve right standing on our own. Please help us to surrender and allow Your grace and the blood of Jesus to wash away our sins and restore us to right relationship with you. Amen.