The Covenant

We are all familiar with a contract. 

An agreement between two or more persons, in which each party binds their self to do or forbear some act, and each acquires a right to what the other promises.  It is mutual promise upon lawful consideration or promise, which binds the parties to a performance; a bargain; a compact.

Contracts can be legally altered, voided by mutual consent.  Executive decision or judicial authority can overpower them.

A covenant is an agreement between two parties. They are established forever, never become obsolete or outdated and can never be altered or voided by any authority.  The breaking of a covenant requires the payment of a fine by the offending party far greater than the value of the combination benefit of both parties. In ancient Sematic cultures, the breaking of a covenant usually required the death of the one whom breaks it.

There are two types of covenants: bilateral and unilateral. A bilateral covenant is a conditional agreement that is binding on both parties for its fulfillment. Both parties agree to fulfill certain conditions. If either party fails to meet their responsibilities, the covenant is broken and the conditions for breaking the covenant will be paid by the one at fault.

A bilateral covenant was made between Abraham and Abimelech concerning the well that Abraham had dug in Beersheba.

Gen 21:23 Now therefore swear unto me here by God that thou wilt not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my son’s son: but according to the kindness that I have done unto thee, thou shalt do unto me, and to the land wherein thou hast sojourned.

Gen 21:24  And Abraham said, I will swear.

Gen 21:25  And Abraham reproved Abimelech because of a well of water, which Abimelech’s servants had violently taken away.

Gen 21:26  And Abimelech said, I wot not who hath done this thing: neither didst thou tell me, neither yet heard I of it, but to day.

Gen 21:27  And Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them unto Abimelech; and both of them made a covenant.

Gen 21:28  And Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves.

Gen 21:29  And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What mean these seven ewe lambs which thou hast set by themselves?

Gen 21:30  And he said, For these seven ewe lambs shalt thou take of my hand, that they may be a witness unto me, that I have digged this well.

Gen 21:31  Wherefore he called that place Beersheba; because there they sware both of them.

Gen 21:32  Thus they made a covenant at Beersheba: then Abimelech rose up, and Phichol the chief captain of his host, and they returned into the land of the Philistines.

The way a Semitic covenant was made was to sacrifice an animal, dress it and lay it out half on one side and half on the other side.  The two parties would then walk between the two parts of the animal and vow to the obligations of the covenant.  The animal carcasses were symbolic of what could be done to the one who broke the vow.  The seven ewe lambs were the sacrifice for the covenant between Abraham and Abimelech.  Another bilateral covenant was made between Adam and God.  Even though it is not named a covenant, it is a bilateral covenant just the same and illustrates how serious a covenant is.  The covenant is in several parts.  First what God gives as His part:

Gen 1:28  And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

 Gen 1:29  And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

Gen 1:30  And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

God gave dominion of the whole earth to Adam.  Part of Adam’s obligation is listed in verse 28 above when he told him to be fruitful and to multiply but the critical part is found in the following verses:

Gen 2:15  And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

Gen 2:16  And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

Gen 2:17  But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Adam’s part the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  The penalty of breaking the covenant was death.  Adam did eat of the forbidden tree and as stipulated he died that same day.  A day is as a 1,000 years and 1,000 years is a day in God’s time reckoning, so Adam of the covenant was to be fruitful, tend the garden and not to eat of died less than one God day old.  No man since was every to live longer.

A unilateral covenant is an agreement between two parties, but only one of the two parties has to do something. Nothing is required of the other party. 
The Abrahamic Covenant is a unilateral covenant. God made promises to Abraham that required nothing of Abraham. Genesis Fifteen describes the Abrahamic Covenant, containing three promises: The boundaries of the land God promised to Abraham and his descendants, his descendants would be many nations, and the whole world would be blessed through him.  In the ritual of making the covenant it describes what the penalty is for breaking it.

Gen 15:1  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.”

Gen 15:2  Abram said, “O Lord GOD, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”

Gen 15:3  And Abram said, “Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir.”

Gen 15:4  Then behold, the word of the LORD came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.”

Gen 15:5  And He took him outside and said, “Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”

Gen 15:6  Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.

Gen 15:7  And He said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it.”

Gen 15:8  He said, “O Lord GOD, how may I know that I will possess it?”

Gen 15:9  So He said to him, “Bring Me a three year old heifer, and a three year old female goat, and a three year old ram, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”

Gen 15:10  Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds.

Gen 15:11  The birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away.

Gen 15:12  Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him.

Gen 15:13  God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.

Gen 15:14  “But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions.

Gen 15:15  “As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age.

Gen 15:16  “Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”

Gen 15:17  It came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces.

Gen 15:18  On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates:

Gen 15:19  the Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite

Gen 15:20  and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim

Gen 15:21  and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite.”

There were no conditions in the covenant for Abraham; however, God made a fourth promise in the covenant, which was a prophetic promise that would occur in the future.  God knew that Abraham’s descendants would not keep His covenants so by passing between the pieces of the sacrifice He was saying, "If I break this covenant you can do to Me what is done to these animals."  More than that, since it was only God, in the form of the smoking oven and a flaming torch, passed between the meat, He said something more powerful. This ritual said that if you or your descendants break this covenant you could do to Me what you have done to these animals.  Fulfilling this covenant was the responsibility of God alone.  God made the covenant of circumcision in Gen 17 and restated promises of the first covenant:

Gen 17:11  And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.

God’s timing in fulfilling the Abrahamic Covenant is literal and futuristic. God only partially and temporally fulfilled the covenant to date. God blessed Abraham and his descendants by giving him the land of Canaan and this was only truly held by the Israelites during the time of David and Solomon.  They have not yet possessed all the Promised Land, from the “river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.” God blessed him spiritually in that his descendants are God’s chosen people and because “Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Also the world was blessed by Abraham’s seed in God being born in the flesh as a descendant.  God has given him numerous descendants.  Is it as the stars of the skies?  We do not know, perhaps, now that it is the fullness of the gentiles, Abraham’s descendants may number as the stars.   Any way that part of the promise could not be fulfilled until enough generations had passed to generate that kind of population. The important elements of the Abrahamic Covenant, however, demands a future fulfillment with our Messiah’s kingdom rule when He will rule Israel in the Promised Land and Jerusalem as the Capital.  The Abrahamic Covenant was passed on to his son Isaac.  Abraham had other children.  With Hagar he had Ishmael and with Keturah he had Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Ishbok and Shuah.  They were all driven from the home before Abraham died so he could pass the blessing on to Isaac without interference as God told him.

Gen 26:1  And there was a famine in the land, beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines unto Gerar.

Gen 26:2  And the LORD appeared unto him, and said, Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of:

Gen 26:3  Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee; for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father;

Gen 26:4  And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed;

Gen 26:5  Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.

Besides God confirming the covenant of Abraham with his son, Isaac, we should take note here that even though Abraham was saved because he believed and this was counted for righteousness, we see in these verses that Abraham obeyed God’s laws. What most people do not understand is that God had established His Torah; his laws even back with Adam.  They always knew about sacrifices, what was clean and unclean, keeping Sabbath, not to steal, not to covet, not to get involved in idol worship.  As a matter of fact, they knew all the Ten Commandments.   When they went down into Egypt, they forgot God’s Torah and when He brought them out, He stopped them at Sinai to write His Torah in stone so they would not lose them again. Jacob was given the blessing instead of Esau, so it was down Jacob’s descendants that the Abrahamic Covenant was passed and his descendants would become God’s chosen people.  Jacob's 12 sons would become the nation known as Israel.  Therefore, it was Israel that God has an everlasting covenant that shall never be broken.  It is Israel, no other peoples that God has chosen.

Gen 28:1  And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan.

Gen 28:2  Arise, go to Padanaram, to the house of Bethuel thy mother’s father; and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban thy mother’s brother.

Gen 28:3  And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people;

Gen 28:4  And give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham.

The next covenant was between God and the Children of Israel at Mount Sinai.

Exo 19:5  Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:

Exo 19:6  And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.

Exo 19:7  And Moses came and called for the elders of         the people, and laid before their faces all                           these words which the LORD commanded him.

Exo 19:8  And all the people answered together, and said, All that the LORD hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the LORD.

Since these covenants were binding on all future generations and God must respect them according to his word, the promises made to Abraham are to be fulfilled for his descendants accordingly.  What must be understood is that all the covenants made after Abraham were not unilateral covenants but bilateral covenants.  The forefathers of Israel has bound all future generations to all the covenants especially the covenant above where they promised they will do all that the LORD hath spoken.  It is not a one sided thing.  If God must keep his part then also the children of Israel must keep their part forever more, through all generations.  The Children of Israel should keep His Torah because of the promise and because He said if you love Me, keep my commandments.