I have often felt a type of kinship with Abraham. I am a man that likes a plan; this was drilled into me during my military service, in my management and leadership development, my personal development and my own life. I have been conditioned to seek a plan, because having a plan means that I feel I have some kind of control of my life. However,the Lord wants me to trust Him, and that means giving up any control that I have. So, I have gone through my Christian life alternating between having a plan, and then giving it up because I want the Lord to be in control. And this is the parallel I feel with Abraham.
In Genesis 12, God calls Abraham to give up everything he knows, everything he feels comfortable with and to walk after Him. To walk where he cannot see any trace of what is coming, which feels remarkably like where we are today.
“The Lord said to Abram: ‘Leave your country, your family, and your relatives and go to the land that I will show you. I will bless you and make your descendants into a great nation. You will become famous and be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you, but I will put a curse on anyone who puts a curse on you. Everyone on earth will be blessed because of you.’”
This call is accompanied by a promise of immense magnitude. Quite literally God, YHWH, tells Abram, as he was known at that time, that his descendants will become a great nation that is a light to the world. Where these other nations bless Israel, then they will be blessed themselves. But where nations curse Israel, or diminish/make small Israel, then they themselves will be diminished or made small. It is hard to take in the magnitude of this promise to a 75 year old man, but it was enough to get Abram moving. And so he begins his walk with God. But like me in my walk, Abram wavered – before you know it he is passing off Sarai as his sister to prevent any trouble with an Egyptian Pharaoh. Yet, God gives Abram riches, victory in battle and Abram is walking with God.
A niggling doubt
But there is a worm of doubt working away in him. In essence he is living a lie, because whilst everything seems to be going swimmingly, something is nagging at him. It surfaces in Genesis 15, when YHWH visits him in a vision to encourage him. Suddenly it all comes bubbling out:
“Later the Lord spoke to Abram in a vision, ‘Abram, don't be afraid! I will protect you and reward you greatly.’ But Abram answered, ‘Lord All-Powerful, you have given me everything I could ask for, except children. And when I die, Eliezer of Damascus will get all I own. You have not given me any children, and this servant of mine will inherit everything.’”
God swiftly and decisively reassures Abram:
“‘No, he won't! You will have a son of your own, and everything you have will be his.’ Then the Lord took Abram outside and said, ‘Look at the sky and see if you can count the stars. That's how many descendants you will have.’ Abram believed the Lord, so the Lord was pleased with him and accepted him.”
Finally, Abram has got it, and God is delighted. But in the very next verse Abram is wavering again.
Finally, Abram has got it, and God is delighted. But in the very next verse Abram is wavering again. How can he be sure that he didn’t just imagine this? And so came a moment when the Living God did something amazing, not just in Abram’s life, but in the life of each of us who will ever look to father Abraham.
A covenant of blood
“Then the Lord told him, ‘Bring me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a dove, and a young pigeon.’ Abram obeyed the Lord. Then he cut the animals in half and laid the two halves of each animal opposite each other on the ground. But he did not cut the doves and pigeons in half. And when birds came down to eat the animals, Abram chased them away. As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and everything became dark and frightening. Then the Lord said: ‘Abram, you will live to an old age and die in peace. But I solemnly promise that your descendants will live as foreigners in a land that doesn't belong to them. They will be forced into slavery and abused for 400 years. But I will terribly punish the nation that enslaves them, and they will leave with many possessions. Four generations later, your descendants will return here and take this land, because only then will the people who live here be so sinful that they deserve to be punished. Sometime after sunset, when it was very dark, a smoking cooking pot and a flaming fire passed between the two halves of each animal. At that time the Lord made an agreement with Abram and told him: I will give your descendants the land east of the Shihor River on the border of Egypt as far as the Euphrates River. They will possess the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.’”
The verses we read here sound completely astounding to us. Indeed, in our vegan, woke world that we live in today, complaints of hate crime would be likely. However, in the lawyer-free world of Abraham, this was the way things were done. Marriages, alliances, anything of significance – people cut a blood covenant.
Each party brought a set of animals. They were cut in half and set out either side of a trench for the blood to run into. One or both of the parties walked through the blood, by which they effectively said: ‘If I break this agreement, I will pay the price of blood, this will be done to me.’
And here comes the key point. When a covenant was cut with someone important, such as a king, then the other simply took the king at his word. It would be the lesser partner who walked between these cut pieces; the junior partner in the covenant who made the blood covenant promise.
When a covenant was cut with someone important, such as a king, then the other simply took the king at his word. It would be the lesser partner who walked between these cut pieces.
Yet in this Genesis 15 passage, we read that YHWH brought ‘a deep sleep’ on Abram. The Hebrew word used here ‘watardemah’. This is not a sleep as we would think of going to bed at night – this is something supernatural, done by God, and done in order for something miraculous to take place. It is also a word that can be seen as a form of death, as Jesus spoke of Lazarus in the gospels.
A significant deep sleep
The first example of this word came when God laid a deep sleep upon Adam. It was during this deep sleep that God pulled a bride from Adam’s side. When Adam emerged from this deep sleep, he was able to know his bride as God intended. This word also appears in 1 Samuel 26, where David is being chased by Saul. David enters Saul’s camp one night with Avishai, and discovers Saul asleep with his spear stuck in the ground right by his head. Avishai is ready to take the opportunity to resolve the Saul problem once and for all, but David will not – he simply removes the spear and water jar while a ‘tardemah’ from the Lord was upon the camp.
Here are three beautiful images. With Adam, God uses a ‘tardemah’ to create a bride; with Abraham, He makes a blood covenant; and for David, it allows him to disarm his enemy.
If we view Jesus’ time in the grave as a ‘tardemah’, then we see that He brought forth a bride, sealed a covenant and disarmed the greatest enemy: “Through His death, he renders powerless him who holds the power of death, that is the devil” (Heb 2:14). Truly, the enemy has been disarmed.
An unshakeable promise of incredible grace
Yet there is much more to understand here. Whilst this ‘tardemah’ is upon Abram, YHWH Himself walks through the blood covenant; the smoking pot and brand are signs of what academics calls a ‘theophany’ – meaning God taking material form. In effect, God says to Abram, ‘relax, I have got this, Abram – I am making you an unshakeable promise’.
YHWH Himself walks through the blood covenant; the smoking pot and brand are signs of what academics calls a ‘theophany’.
In doing this, God makes this promise whilst Abram is still not fully onboard – he still has questions, he is still wavering. But God does not mind; He accepts Abram, doubts and all, and makes a promise that will endure for all time. He is saying that if this covenant is ever broken, then He, YHWH, will pay the blood price. That is why Jesus had to shed His blood for us. The covenant was broken, by man, and God paid the price. This is the power of the blood.
My sense is that as Christians we have lost sight of this. We have lost touch with the blood. Far too often today I see preachers bringing a ‘get your act together’ message; I encounter Christians who are just ‘getting themselves right with God’. The incredible message I take from this passage is that God doesn’t need us to get our act together, doesn’t need us to get right. His love, His grace is so immense, so great, that He made this blood promise when we weren’t right. He knows that we are not perfect, that we have not got it all together, and yet He still loves us enough to make the covenantal promise on our behalf, to bond Himself to us. He knows that He will have to discipline us, correct us, and bear with us, but in God’s eyes He is good with that.
His love, His grace is so immense, so great, that He made this blood promise when we weren’t right.
This is grace. God’s great grace. In a world where so much of our faith seems to have become a mental nod to an idea or concept, we are actually faced with the reality that there is power in the blood. We are the recipients of a blood covenant where God Himself committed to us. Just a few weeks ago I heard a pastor saying how he was shocked when a fellow Christian had said to him, “I am washed clean in the blood, brother”. He simply didn’t know what it meant. He needed to hear this word. The old hymn writers, preachers, evangelists knew what they were talking about when they hailed this power in the blood. Our faith has become too genteel, too safe. Our faith is forged in blood, the promises of God washed in blood. There is power in the blood – and we are beneficiaries of that power.
This is our God, and this is His grace.