Messianic Perspectives

Chris Rodriguez: Shalom and welcome to Messianic Perspectives. Today our Bible teacher Stephen Ger continues his six-part series on the foundations of Messianic prophecy. And now with today’s teaching, here’s Stephen Ger.

Stephen Ger: Shalom, welcome back. This is Stephen Ger, continuing our series on Messianic prophecy. The foundations specifically can be found in the Abrahamic Covenant. Every Messianic prophecy that comes forth, we really find as an expansion and a reiteration of these foundational promises—this set of divine unconditional promises that we began talking about in our previous session.

Well, we looked at how the Abrahamic Covenant is a series of encounters. It’s time for us to look at the fourth encounter, and that is found in Genesis 15:1-21. I’ll read the whole thing, but of course because of the limitations of time, we don’t have time to expound upon the entirety of the passage. But we’ll pick some highlights from this very critical passage.

After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, "Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; your reward shall be very great." Abram said, "O Lord God, what will you give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" And Abram said, "Since you have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir." Abraham’s frustrated, you see, by his continued childlessness. But he’s divinely reassured that he will indeed have a physical heir. That’s why God says, "Do not fear, Abram." Why would God say, "Do not fear"? Because he was uptight; he was afraid. He wasn’t getting any younger and realizing he’s no spring chicken, he’s getting pretty tense.

Well, that promise is followed by a repetition promise of numerous offspring. The illustration he had given previously to Abraham was regarding dust of the earth. Apparently, that didn’t make a sufficient impression for Abraham. So he says, "Okay, instead of looking down to dust, I want you this time, look up to the heavens. Count the stars if you are able to count them." And he said to him, "So shall your descendants be." And Abram believed in the Lord, and he reckoned it to him as righteousness. And he said to him, "I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land—not any other land, but this land—to possess it." And Abram said, "O Lord God, how may I know that I will possess it?"

You see, even Abram, the man of faith who just two verses earlier believes God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness—what did he believe him? He believed that his descendants would be numerous, but now he's still getting a little nervous about the land. Why does Abram the man of faith ask, "How may I know that I will possess it?" Because it's called the land of Canaan for a reason. It's populated chuck full of Canaanites, right? And Abram still doesn't even have a kid. So you can understand that he really needed some reassurance.

And this time God gives some very tangible assurance and leads Abram through a solemn covenant ritual that was designed to remove all doubt. Now the ritual that's described in 15:9-17, which we'll look at now... He said, "Bring me a three-year-old heifer and a three-year-old female goat, three-year-old ram, turtledove, young pigeon." A whole menagerie. Then he brought all those to him and cut them in two and laid each half opposite the other, but he did not cut the birds. The birds of prey came down upon the carcasses. Abram drove them away. When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; behold, terror, great darkness fell upon him.

God said to Abram, "Know for certain your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed 400 years. But I will also judge the nation whom they serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions." It's a wonderful foreshadowing of the Egyptian sojourn and it explains to you exactly why the Hebrews had to be in Egypt for four centuries. "As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. Then in the fourth generation, they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete."

This land will indeed be yours, Abram, but right now there isn't enough sin in the land—the land is not sufficiently corrupted for me to expel the current residents in favor of the children of Israel. But give them some time, give them enough rope, they will hang themselves and they will justify my righteous act of expelling them from the land and replacing them with the children of Abram—of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And when the sun had set, it was very dark. Behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces.

On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram. This is a reiteration of the previous covenant; it's not a fresh covenant, it's not a new covenant, it's a restatement, it's a ratification of the covenant, saying, "To your descendants, I have given this land." And now for the first time, we're going to see some borders: from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, the Kenite, the Kenizzite, the Kadmonite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Rephaim, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Girgashite, the Jebusite, the satellite, the mosquito bite—all these people in the land. This will belong to your children.

This ritual of blood covenant and cutting the animals and placing severed sections in two parallel rows... this normally would be done by two parties and both parties would walk between the rendered animal pieces. And what that would indicate in a very graphic, bloody way is the mandatory nature of the covenant and the severe penalty for any future infraction. In other words, "See what happened to these animals? You break the covenant, this is what I'm going to do to you if you break this covenant."

But in this unique instance, Abraham is absolutely incapable of committing himself to the covenant. He's rendered completely out of it, completely passive, unable to move, unconscious. And so God as a smoking pot manifests himself and he alone binds himself to the covenant as this flaming torch as it passed through the animal pieces. And that graphically illustrates and demonstrates like nothing else could the unconditional nature of the covenant.

So what we have here is Abram not being really a participant in the covenant as much as he is a recipient of the covenant. There's only one participant and that is God himself. There is only a giver and a recipient. And again, as I mentioned, the borders are mentioned and the current inhabitants of the land are enumerated simply in prophetic preparation for them being displaced. The next passage is two chapters later, Genesis 17. Again, the whole chapter this time, we're not going to read the entire chapter; I'm simply going to pick a few verses to highlight.

When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly." Abram fell on his face. God talked with him, "As for me, behold, my covenant is with you and you will be the father of a multitude of nations." This is where he changes his name from Abram, exalted father, high father, to Abraham, father of nations.

Verse 6: "I have made you exceedingly fruitful and I will make nations of you—not just a nation here now, nations and kings, not just nations but kings will come forth from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you." So here God has appeared to Abraham, identifies himself as El Shaddai. El Shaddai should be understood not just as a lovely Amy Grant song, but the Hebrew indicates the one, the divine being who grants fertility and life. That is what El Shaddai, the God of fertility, the God of life.

But something new is added here later in the passage, and that is the requirement of circumcision. Not that the covenant is dependent upon circumcision or the obedience of the parent to circumcise their children, but the physical sign of the covenant on the eighth day for Abraham and his male descendants to be circumcised as a vivid reminder in blood to every descendant of Abraham that he is a recipient of God's everlasting covenant.

So now we not only have the reiteration of the innumerable descendants promise, the name change from Abram to Abraham, the promise not just of a nation but nations, not just nations but kings, the reiterated promise of Abraham and his descendants' eternal possession of the land, and now an additional promise is added to this and that of a personal relationship between God and Israel. He says, "I will be their God."

The final expansion of the Abrahamic Covenant is found in Genesis 22. It's the famous narrative of the binding of Isaac, the ultimate test of faith of Abraham, the father of multitudes. You're familiar with the story of Genesis 22. Abraham is asked to sacrifice his unique son—finally the son, Isaac, Yitzchak, has been born, and now that he's born, it's time to sacrifice him and give him back to the Lord. That's drama. But you know the passage, Genesis 22, and you know how it ends.

Abraham was prepared to obediently sacrifice his only son, the son of promise, the unique son, and he was divinely recognized as the worthy recipient of covenant promises because he was prepared to trust the Lord. Of course, before Abraham was able to sacrifice his son Isaac, God said, "Do not stretch out your hand," and they saw a ram caught in the thicket by his horns, and Abraham sacrificed the ram in place of his son—a vicarious offering in place of Isaac.

And using the most intensive form of divine oath, "By myself," 22:16, God says, "By myself I have sworn, because you have done this thing, I will indeed bless you." And four separate components of the covenant are restated and ratified, kind of like the Abrahamic Covenant's greatest hits. Hearkening back to the initial promise of 12:2, the Lord restates his intention of divine blessing. Second, echoing the promises of Genesis 13, 15, and 17, God restates his promise of innumerable descendants.

He summarizes then the promises of possession of the land and with veiled reference to the nations mentioned in 15, the Lord promises Abraham's descendants possession of enemy cities. And fourth, and most important when we talk about Messianic prophecies, hearkening back to the initial set of promises concerning the universal influence of 12:3, the Lord reaffirms that all nations would be blessed through the seed of Abraham.

Well, my friends, the influence of the Abrahamic Covenant is woven throughout the tapestry of scripture from the 12th chapter of Genesis all the way through the final chapter of Revelation. It forms the foundational basis for every subsequent covenant, every subsequent Messianic prophecy in the Bible. Without this covenant, or if you undo the covenant by spiritualizing its promises, Israel's right to the land is incomprehensible. Number one. Number two, the Messianic Age could never be anticipated. And as far as you and me go, the union of Jews and Gentiles together in spiritual union is unthinkable without the Abrahamic Covenant.

So echoes of the Abrahamic Covenant's celebrated themes of blessing... well, they sound from Exodus through conquest, from kingdom to exile, from incarnation to resurrection and from the nation of Israel to the universal dominion of Mashiach. Well, thank you, my friends, for your participation in this introductory series, the foundations of Messianic prophecy.

Chris Rodriguez: Thank you, Steve. If you missed part of this series or would like to share it with a friend, you’ll be glad to know that it’s available on one convenient compact disc for the suggested gift of just six dollars. Just point your web browser to our online store at messianicspecialties.com and search for "Foundations of Messianic Prophecy".

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