Faithbase

Hello here we are again thinking about the Bible and today we're going to think about the term covenant. Truth is this is a word that would require much more than the three minutes or so that we spend in this format but I do want to touch on this one specific aspect of the term covenant. Covenant is just an agreement and in the scripture it sometimes refers to agreement between just two equals two human beings but in our our understanding or what we want to focus on I should say this morning is the covenant that God has made with humanity. Now if we go back to Genesis 15 we'll see that God establishes a covenant with Abraham and the actually called Abram at that point and he had him take several animals and it was a heifer a goat and a ram and to split them in half. Now let me explain in that culture it would be typical to take an animal or animals and split them in half to walk between the split halves of the animal with the person that you're making the covenant with and say may it be done unto me as it is to these the animals if I don't uphold the terms of this covenant. Now it's interesting in the case of Abraham or Abram as he was called at that point once those animals had been slaughtered and put in split in two pieces and normally there would be a passage between the pieces Abram or Abraham never did that and instead God did as he went through there in the form of a smoking fire pot and a blazing torch while Abram observed in if I recall he was in a deep sleep at the time and something of a trance but what's extremely significant here is that the covenant was made but only one party was upholding the covenant now certainly Abram later called Abraham was required to live according to the precepts that God gave him it's back in Genesis 17 there's more detail there about Abraham's responsibilities and then that is further developed with the children of Israel and of course finds us fulfillment in Jesus the Christ because when the smoking fire pot and a blazing torch passed between the pieces of the animals it was God who said I will uphold the terms of this covenant and I will take upon me the punishment for failure to uphold this covenant and that's exactly what happened Jesus now I it doesn't I don't think this is necessarily the thing we need to understand this way but but Yahweh the Father God and Jesus the Incarnate Son passing between the pieces because there was a representation of God is by two different theophanies the pot and the torch so it's it's nice to think about it in those terms that the Father and the Son passed between those pieces in any case that's how it works out is that as Jesus the Christ who is the one who upholds the terms of the covenant he not only fulfills the terms of the covenant but he takes upon himself the punishment that was deserved by Abraham and all the rest of humanity because none of us uphold the terms of the covenant but Jesus the Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior has upheld the terms of the covenant and takes upon himself the punishment for failure to uphold those terms so the covenant is an agreement between God and his people it is an agreement that God will be the God of his people and will bring blessings to them and again the whole discussion of the covenant is really a much greater a much longer topic and again it's one of these other things that I probably should put into a longer format but today what I want you to think about when you think about the Bible is think about the covenant and think about how Jesus our Lord and Savior has upheld upheld that covenant for us he's fulfilled the terms of the covenant and he's also taken upon himself the punishment that we deserve for failure to uphold the covenant think about that today God bless you