The Covenant With Abraham

0:00Good morning again. I'm going to preach your manager. Yeah, there it is. Go ahead and turn with your Bi turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 17. I'm going to say as a caveat before we officially begin, we're going to be talking about this idea of covenants this morning and signs of covenants. And I'm going to use this analogy. This topic is somewhat like a, the idea of covenants is somewhat like a giant tree. And as you move up, there's all these different branches that kind of extend off of the central idea of covenant. So in saying that, when we're talking about covenants and specifically signs related to covenants, circumcision and baptism, there is a tendency to have to divert into all these other tangents, and really a need to divert into a lot of other tangents. So it's difficult, I guess, what I'm saying, to stay on one central topic when we're talking about such a deep theological thing. Maybe that's my preface to say there are some tangents, and you might you might end this week feeling like I said a lot of different things, but understand that they're all part of one giant tree, and there's a necessity to kind of look at some of those things. So anyway, there's my fair warning. We're going to cover this morning verses 1 through 27, although we're not going to read that entire section of chapter 17. And yes, we have jumped forward quite a bit in the book of Genesis from where we were last week. So certainly on your own, go and read through the sections that we missed, which is the section on Lot, right, in Sodom and Gomorrah and chapter 16 covering Sarai and Hagar and that whole section. Those are in the vein of redemption history, of course, but those are more judgment-centered. And I want to keep us Christ-centered certainly from the pulpit moving forward. So go back and read those, though. And I promise that's the last time I'll make some justification for skipping passages. We understand we're trying to get through Genesis 40 plus chapter, 40-ish chapters in 24 weeks. So we're going to have to do some skipping. So hang with me on this journey. This week we're going to be moving into the official signing of this covenant with Abram, now Abraham. God makes these promises or made these promises to Abram last week, right? That's what we talked about. When he called him from his homeland and brought him to this new place in which God was going to show him. Now as we move into this week, God is formalizing these promises that he gave to Abraham by way of an official covenant that is signed and sealed through the shedding of blood. We will, of course, be connecting this covenant with Abraham to the new covenant given to us by Christ himself, which was also signed and sealed through pain and the shedding of blood, but carried with it a new sign, which is baptism, and we'll make those connections this morning. In doing that, I want us to see how often we misuse or misapply the sign of baptism, and how how we're to think about this in terms in biblical terms. It's hardly uncommon for humans to misapply covenantal signs. Moses in Exodus IV neglected to circumcise his son, although he knew he had to. So his wife Zipporah had to step in and do that for him, because the Lord was about to kill him as a result of that disobedience. So that would be an underemphasis of the covenant sign. Of course, in the New Testament, we also have these Judaizers who are requiring that the old sign be given for acceptance under the new covenant, which is both an over-emphasis and a misapplication of the sign. And I bring uh bring that up as examples to say that we need to take this matter very seriously. And as Christians, it should be important to us that we have a biblical view on covenants and the signs of covenants. It can be somewhat a fine line between treating such matters as non-essential and unimportant and treating it as too important, right? Or salvific, like some salvific requirement. And clearly these covenantal signs are incredibly important to our God because he gives them all throughout the redemptive history. And they should be important to us, if for no other reason than they are and were important to God. And I think there's many reasons why they are and should be important above and beyond just that they're important to God. And most importantly among those, I said important way too many times just then. But most, yeah, there it is. Most importantly among them is that they tie us to and identify us with the one true God, our Savior. Okay, so that's where we're going this morning. Let's read. You want you to stand with me? We're going to read Genesis 17, starting in verse 1. When Abraham was 99 years old, and the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty, walk before me and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly. Then Abram fell on his face, and God said to him, Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall you be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come to come from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you. I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. And God said to Abram, Abraham, excuse me, as for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and that shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring. But he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh, an everlasting covenant. Any circumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray once more. Lord, thank you for your word, and I pray and ask now that you would speak for Christ's sake, and it is in his name that I pray. Amen. We have to this point mentioned many times how God uses physical things to represent spiritual realities, right? And how God works his purpose through the actions of man. I've belabored that point now for many weeks. We use the negative example of the cross to demonstrate this idea. Providentially, we talk about this next door as well. The crucifixion was the foreordained plan of God to be the means through which he redeems a people for himself, right? I'll say that again. The crucifixion was the foreordained plan of God to be the means through which he redeems a people for himself. At the same time, it was the wicked will of man that sought our Lord and nailed him to the cross, right? God's plan requiring before the foundations of earth the bent will of man. How can that be? Well, the same is true in a positive sense. In Exodus, when God had mercy on his people by passing over them, remember? In that Passover, he required the sprinkling of the blood on their doorposts, and by that act they were passed over. This, of course, is a foreshadowing of the final Passover, right? The sprinkling of Christ's blood, but the reality that if Israel had refused to sprinkle the blood on their doorposts, the death angel would not have passed them over, and God's plans would have been thwarted. Again, God's will working through the actions of man. Again, how can that be? And I bring that up because as we look more deeply into this sign of circumcision and for us baptism, I want us to see the spiritual, that the spiritual realities that are being communicated shouldn't take away from the physical sign and its necessary action. The physical sign is a God-ordained part of the spiritual reality. And we see this play out with Abraham, in that God puts forth certain conditions that Abraham must adhere to in order to be brought into this covenant. And those conditions are that he should walk before God and be blameless. It's important to note that being blameless doesn't mean sinless, because clearly that is something that Abraham could not do, but rather it means whole or complete. It means devoted to God. It means seeking Him and His will, serving Him. And on those conditions, God enters into a covenant with Abraham. And with that promise comes many blessings. And those blessings are that he gives him a new name. God promises to make Abraham exceedingly fruitful and to bring forth nations of people from him. Further, he says, kings shall come from him, land shall be given to him. And this promise is an everlasting one, eternity forward without end. Additionally, God promises to be the God of the people who descend from Abraham. Understand how important that last promise is, especially to Abraham, who came from a pagan background, right? We talked about that last week. The other gods are not like the true God. The demon gods that the pagans worship are not benevolent and kind like our God. They do not bless and offer everlasting life. So to have all those blessings that God offers is a wonderful thing, but more than anything, to have the great I am, the one true God as your God to watch you and to protect you and to care for you, this is worth more than all the other gods combined could ever hope to give. So God makes all these promises to Abraham. With Abraham face down before him. That was verse, that was verse 3. Then Abraham fell on his face. So God makes all these promises to Abraham with Abraham face down before the presence of God on the condition of Abraham having his completeness in God. His faith, trust, and devotion in God. The covenantal condition then is faith. It is upon that faith that the covenant is made. And we don't understand this fully just by reading in Genesis, and it's why it's important for us now, because we have the New Testament, to use the New Testament to give us clarity. So that's what we're going to do in Romans chapter 4. You can turn here if you want. Romans 4, 10 to 12. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that the righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised, but also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. We're going to elaborate on that further, but I want us to see that the intent was always to make the sign, right, in this case circumcision, not be the justification, but the sign was an act of obedience through the justification. God then gives Abraham a sign of this covenant that is now being made, again, by faith. And this is a sign that serves as a reminder of the promise made by God, right? The sign of circumcision is a reminder of the promise made by God for all those blessings, again, that was by faith. And God always does that, doesn't he? When he makes a promise, he gives a sign as a reminder of that promise. Remember back when Adam and Eve first sinned? And God gave them a promise to that he would crush, that the seed from Eve would crush the head of the serpent, right? That's a promise made by God. And shortly after that, he gave them proper clothes to serve as a sign to them that he indeed is a God who covers our shame, right? They were naked and they were ashamed. And God gave them clothes. From that day on, when they looked at their clothes, they would be reminded of their shame and the God who covers it for them. The merciful God who made the promise that he is going to set all of these things right. He did this with Noah, right? The rainbow. The sign. Of course, later with the Passover meal, we talked about that, and finally with the Lord's Supper. Many other times we see these visual reminders given to us by God to serve as a remembrance of his everlasting faithfulness. So Abraham is given this sign of circumcision and told by God that any who do not receive this sign will be cut off, he says. Right? Anyone who does not receive this sign will be cut off. That seems a little harsh, doesn't it? To cut off anyone who doesn't receive this sign? We just established that Abraham was justified apart from the sign. So why does God threaten to cut off anyone who doesn't receive the sign? The point is the establishment of what the sign represents. Namely, being under the covenantal blessing and protection of God, the true God. So for Old Testament believers, circumcision meant that God was your God and you were his people. And rejecting that sign meant rejecting God. At the same time, though, receiving the sign didn't necessarily mean that you're automatically in the fellowship of God, right? Remember the words we just read this from Romans. I'll read it again. This is Romans 4, probably this is verse 11, the second half of verse 11. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that the righteous would be counted, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who were not merely circumcised, but also walk in the footsteps of faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. So the righteousness that we all need comes to us by faith, apart from circumcision. And for those who didn't know or couldn't observe it to the letter of the law, right? So righteousness that we all need comes to us by faith apart from circumcision for those who didn't know or couldn't observe it to the letter of the law that God required. And it was that same faith that interceded for and made righteous those who were merely circumcised out of tradition. Essentially, that is Paul saying that true faith, it even saves us from blind trust in the sign. Okay? But it's still about faith. We cannot be saved simply by cutting our skin or doing things or not doing things. The point of the sign is to point us back to God alone, who is the one who makes promises and keeps covenants. This is the point that Paul is making in Romans 9 when he stresses that salvation was never meant to be a hereditary, right, in a fleshly sense. Salvation isn't passed down to us from our parents. Why did Jacob serve and Esau sell his birthright? Why does one sibling follow and God and others don't? Paul says so that God's purposes and election might stand. And what does he mean by that? So that we may know that we are justified not by works, but because of him who calls. We are not saved because we did something that others didn't. We're not saved because we were raised in a Christian house. We're saved because our gracious God has from eternity past promised to pluck you out of a pagan land, to give you a new name, to give you an inheritance, and to be your God. And if you are here this morning and are a Christian, it has nothing to do with anything that you have done. It can't. You believe because a merciful God has made a covenant to bring forth a people who would be justified by faith and freely gives a righteousness that God Himself earned on your behalf. What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. As Paul clarifies for us, this is what God is communicating to Abram, Abraham, sorry, I keep wanting to say Abraham, and gives Abraham a sign to mark that promise. But the fact that the sign is a requirement, and it was for Abraham, and the fact that that sign is a requirement or was, doesn't take away from the reality that Abraham's justification was by faith and not by the taking of or the sign itself. Okay? That needs to be very clear in our minds. Alright, so now we bring this into the New Testament context and we see the new promise that is made to us in Christ. And first, I think it's important to know whether or not. The Bible makes a connection between circumcision and baptism. Does God's word tie those two together, or are they completely separate, and should we keep them completely separate? The answer is that the Bible does tie them together. Colossians 2, 11 and 12. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith and the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead. It's Colossians 2, 11 and 12. The sign of circumcision, which was a physical sign, meant to point back to those realities and promises of God which were fulfilled in Christ. The sign of circumcision, which is a physical sign, meant to point back to those realities and promises which were fulfilled in Christ. Christ is our circumcision. He is the seal of the new covenant. That he began with the shedding of his blood. And further, we see that the physical act of circumcision was but a shadow of the full truth that was yet to be revealed in Christ. This is Romans 2, 28 to 29. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor circumcision outward and physical, but a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. Again, Romans 2, 20, 28, and 29. This has always been a heart issue, not a physical one. The outward sign only served as an external justification of an internal and spiritual reality. And Paul often labors this point not to minimize the sign because the sign was given by God. So Paul is not trying to minimize the sign, but to minimize our dependence upon the outward sign as the means of our justification. And this is why Paul says in 1 Corinthians that he is happy that he didn't baptize anyone in Corinth, right? And that God didn't send him to baptize, but to preach the gospel. And far too often preachers are measured or graded on the number of baptisms they perform or the number of professions of faith that they receive or that they persuade from people. So much so that the gospel ends up becoming the means to an end, which is for them baptism or something else. The preaching of the gospel is not the preacher's focus, right? But he preaches the gospel so that he can persuade people to respond by this work of baptism. With that in view, I echo the words of Paul that God did not send me out to baptize, but to preach the gospel. I want you to feel the weight of your own sin. I want you to feel the weight of your separation from God. I want you to see the blessed promises of our sovereign God. I want you to know that despite your continued rebellion against the holy God, he has set his affections upon you. He loves you and is praying for you that you would remain in him. I want our God to circumcise your heart and make it clean. I want you to see the power of a God who can take a dead heart, a heart of stone, and remove it and replace it with a beating, vibrant heart of flesh. I want your old self to be buried with Christ. I want you to die to your old ways and be raised again to walk in the new life that Christ has purchased for you. And once our eyes have been opened to that reality, we then run to the waters not as the end, but as the beginning, right? The sign to proclaim that God is our God and we are his people. And in case you're wondering, that's why I'm still, and likely always will be a Baptist. I think the Old Testament communicates that Abraham was justified by faith and then he received the sign. And to baptize infants because Abraham circumcised infants, I think misses the focus of the sign. We don't take the sign out of some ritualistic obedience. Because circumcision or uncircumcision doesn't count for anything in and of itself. We read that. Rather, it was a type. It was a shadow looking forward to the obedience of Christ and the circumcision of the heart that he was going to give to us. The new sign, right? Baptism, points to us dying to our old selves, being raised again to walk in newness of life in Christ. And I think that sign loses its meaning if it's not administered to someone after they have believed, had faith in Christ. Because how can an infant die to their old self and then be raised again? If baptism infused the infant with grace or did something spiritual, then I'm all in. But we just we don't feel that that is the correct interpretation. We are shown grace through faith, and this is purely a gift of God. Okay, so the baptism then isn't, it's not important, right? It's not necessary, certainly not required, since it's only a sign, right? Of course not. Don't believe that. Because remember what Peter had to say about baptism when he connected it to Noah and the flood, right? Remember what Peter said when he connected it to Noah and the flood. For Peter, baptism is an appeal to God to be cleansed and spared from his judgment. Right? By way of the final ark, which is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Noah was justified by faith, but he still built the ark in obedience to God. Abraham was justed by faith, was justified by faith, but he still received the sign of circumcision in obedience to God. Baptism, then, as I have said, hand in hand with repentance is the first fruit of obedience that comes by the Spirit working in the heart of a sinner that has been turned to God. Just as James says that faith without works is dead, and that is in the Scripture, we can say that belief without belief in Christ without baptism is dead. We can say this because of the biblical testimony that we are given shows that everyone who truly believes in Christ cannot wait to get into the waters of baptism. Think of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. When Philip teaches him about Christ and gives him the gospel and the eunuch believes, the first body of water they come across, he says, Look, there's some water, let's go and do this now. That's a paraphrase. The point is that if baptism is the sign given to us by God to connect us to and identify us with Christ, and serves as a remembrance of us having been buried with Christ and now raised again to walk in new life, and is our first willing act of obedience to a merciful God who has now saved us, we should be pushing people out of the way to get into the water. If Ephesians 2 is true, that I was dead in my trespasses and sins, in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. If that is true, why would we not take the sign of such a promise from such a kind and loving God as quickly as we can? The answer is we must. And if our God has saved you, you will. You will. Take the sign. So again, that's my perhaps disjointed sermon on circumcision and baptism, and my prayer as always is that it pleases the Lord to stir your heart to him through such a humble message as this. And may our gracious God have mercy on us this morning. And may we thank him for the gracious signs that he gives us. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you again for these wonderful signs that you've given us, Lord, that remind us of who you are, what you have done for us, Lord, that bring us into a covenant, Lord, and show us that you have before the ages began called us, Lord. You love us and we don't know why. You have set your affections upon us, despite the fact that we are not worthy of such affections, especially from a holy God. You sent your son to die for us while we were still in sin, Lord. We killed your son when he came, Lord. I don't know why you continue to love us, Lord, but we thank you. And we worship you because you do. Lord, and may there be anyone here, Lord, who is yet to receive that sign of baptism, Lord. May this be convict to us all, Lord. May we desire to be identified with you and with Christ. May we long to receive the sign so that we can know, Lord, that you are our God and we are your people. And we thank you for that sign, Lord. And we thank you for the salvation that we now proclaim through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ by the shedding of his blood and the breaking of his body, Lord. And we proclaim that now as we receive this supper. Lord, we love you and we thank you, and we ask all these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.