Genesis 15:18 - Homiletics

Taken into covenant.

I. THE BLESSING OF THE COVENANT .

1. The ultimate blessing, to which, in both the commencement and close of the present section, the prominence is assigned, was a splendid inheritance—the land of Canaan for his descendants, and for himself the better country, of which that earthly possession was a type.

2. The mediate blessing, through which alone the last could be reached, was a distinguished seed— a numerous posterity to occupy the land, and a living Savior to secure for himself the bettor country.

3. The proximate blessing, to be enjoyed while as yet the second and the third were unfulfilled, was a celestial alliance by which Jehovah himself engaged to be his shield and exceeding great reward. It is obvious that these are the blessings which the gospel confers on believers—a heavenly Friend, an all-sufficient Savior, a future inheritance; whence the Abrahamic covenant was nothing different from the covenant of grace.

II. THE REASON OF THE COVENANT . The essential idea in a covenant being a visible pledge for the fulfillment of a promise, the necessity for such a guarantee on the present occasion, it is apparent, could not lie with God. On the contrary, the proposal on the part of God to bind himself by a superadded engagement to implement his own gracious and spontaneous promise was an explicit condescension, if not to the feebleness of the patriarch's faith, at least to the weakness of his human nature. Perhaps the recollection of who Jehovah was, and what he had already accomplished in bringing Abram from Ur, should have proved sufficient to authenticate the promise; but it would almost seem as if human nature, in its innocent no less than in its fallen state, instinctively craved the assistance of external symbols to enable it to clearly apprehend and firmly grasp the unseen and spiritual blessings that are wrapped up in God's promises. In the garden of Eden the tree of life was Adam's sacramental pledge of immortality; after the Flood the many-colored rainbow was a sign to Noah; in the Hebrew Church material symbols of unseen verifies were not awanting; while in the Christian Church the passover and circumcision have been replaced by the Lord's Supper and baptism. The reasons that required the institution of these external signs may be held as having necessitated the solemn ritual which was exhibited to Abram.

III. THE SYMBOLS OF THE COVENANT .

1. The sacrificial victims . Seeing that these were afterwards prescribed in the Mosaic legislation, which itself was a shadow of the good things to come, to be employed as propitiatory offerings, it is impossible not to regard them, though not necessarily understood as such by Abram, as types (not of Israel, Abram's seed after the flesh simply, nor of the Church of God generally, i.e. Abram's seed according to the spirit, though perhaps neither of these should be excluded, but) of Abram's greater Seeds whose perfect, Divinely-appointed, and substitutionary sacrifice alone constitutes the basis of the everlasting covenant.

2. The smoking furnace and the burning lamp . Compared with the smoke and fire that afterwards appeared on Sinai when Jehovah descended to covenant with Israel, and the pillar of cloud and fire that led the march of Israel from Egypt, these at once suggest their own interpretation. They were emblems of God's presence, and may be viewed as suggesting

IV. THE IMPORT OF THE COVENANT . Partly through visible sign, partly in spiritual vision, partly by audible words, the patriarch was instructed as to—

1. The objective basis of his own justification, which was neither personal merit nor faith considered as an opus operatum, but the Divinely-appointed sacrifice which God was graciously pleased to accept in propitiation for human sin.

2. The true security for God ' s fulfillment of the promise, which was not any outward sign or token, but the everlasting covenant which in mysterious symbol had been unfolded to him.

3. The interval of discipline allotted to the heirs of the land ; for his descendants three generations of exile, servitude, and affliction, to prepare them for receiving Canaan in the fourth; and for himself a continual sojourning, without a final settling within its borders; in both cases emblematic of the saint's experience after justification and before glorification.

4. The ultimate assumption of the inheritance by his seed —a Divine voice solemnly foretelling their return from captivity, as it afterwards declared that his spiritual descendants should be emancipated and brought back to their celestial abode, and a Divine vision unfolding to his gaze the wide extent of territory they should eventually possess—perhaps the limits of the earthly land melting away, as his spirit stood entranced before the gorgeous panorama, into the confines of the better country..

5. His own certain passage to the heavenly Canaan, for which he was even at that time looking—a promise which belongs individually to all who are the children of Abram by faith in Jesus Christ.

See from this subject—

1. The fullness of Divine blessing which the covenant con-rains.

2. The depth of Divine condescension which the covenant reveals.

3. The glorious securities which the covenant affords.