Benzyme's Warp-Zone

This Lord's Day was a blessed day. Despite the recent heavy sadness, there was joyous fellowship. Our Pastor Josh was visiting the Ballarat church plant in the morning to preach and encourage them in the faith, so our other Pastor Hongi took the morning sermon. 

I enjoy Hongi's sermons because he is really gifted in spelling out biblical allegory, especially in genesis and making connections to other parts of scripture. 

What I was blessed by is a deeper look at a Genesis 15. Here is the passage if you have never read: 

[1] After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” [2] But Abram said, “O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” [3] And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” [4] And behold, the word of the LORD came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” [5] And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” [6] And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

[7] And he said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” [8] But he said, “O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” [9] He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” [10] And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. [11] And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

[12] As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. [13] Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. [14] But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. [15] As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. [16] And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

[17] When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. [18] On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, [19] the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, [20] the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, [21] the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.” (ESV)

There is so much rich theology to unpack here, especially for Reformed Baptists who understand and confess a distinct difference between the Old Covenant which is the law that condemns and cannot save and New Covenant which we are brought into by Christ's blood. 

But what I was refocused onto yesterday was the significance of how covenants are ratified. In the ancient tradition, two parties are supposed to walk through the slaughtered animals on a "path of blood". Abraham was supposed to make this pledge. And it makes the covenant then conditional. 

Let what has been done to these animals, be done those that break covenant. Death for sacred promise breaking.

But we know Abram did fall asleep and failed to ratify the covenant. He should have walked it with God. But God prevented him, instead as a theophany, God manifested as a torch and smoking pot and walked the path of blood to ratify the covenant was entirely conditional on God keeping it. 

This fulfilment ultimately climaxes in Christ, who would walk a trial to spill his blood and be torn apart from His people, His sheep, His bride, His church. Christ is the only one righteousness who kept the law, who is able to atone as our sacrifice and keep God's Covenant of Redemption and thus bring us into a Covenant of Grace. 

But what I was blessed by my Pastor teaching, was bringing focus between what the torch and pot representing. God's guiding light burning light in the torch and God's blinding smoking refining pot. 

The smoking pot represents God's affliction of Abram's seed, through which the promises of Christ will arrive, for 400+ years in Egypt (as affirmed by Galatians 3:17-18:  "This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. 18 For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.") 

But God's guiding light would lead them out of this. This allegory is doubled-down by God's choice of guiding the Israelites by a whirling pillar of cloud and smoke by day and a burning pillar of fire by night. In the days suffering and in the night refining. 

For the believer our Lord leads us through the valley of the shadow of death, his people will be bitten by snakes but not die when they look to Christ, have parts pruned off and be burned with refining fire, whatever is not pleasing to God is burned away like straw but what is glorifying to God remains like precious gemstones. 

For all of Old Testament history, the sacrifices of the Levites, the same animals God uses to ratify his covenant, are displayed to the people, a constant trail of blood they must be coated in and one they can never live up to being holy enough to fulfill. No one is righteous enough to not be in need of atonement and blood spilling themselves and the blood of animals can never take away sin, it can only drip and point a path to the one that can remove sin. 

In the New Testament and the New Covenant, we find Christ as our once and for all sacrifice, a promise we will not be burnt up, as Christ cloaks us in his gemstones as His bride and removes our old rags. God fulfilling the covenant to those he pledged to save before the foundation of the world. 

May the Lord continue to bless and call as we realize Grace. We should have died for our covenant breaking, yet Christ pays the penalty for us. He takes a death we deserve and his blood grants us access and protection from God's wrath because we are adopted as recipients of his covenant.