The Covenant God made with Abraham to Ensure he Believes God’s Promise of the Land

God made a covenant with Abraham to ensure he believes God’s promise of the land

God promised Abraham that He will give him a seed, even though both Abraham and Sarah were in their old age; Abraham believed God, and this was accounted to him as righteousness. However, when God promised Abraham the good land, that all the land he sees in Canaan will be his, Abraham found it hard to believe this.

Therefore, in Genesis 15 God made a covenant with Abraham to ensure that the land will belong to him and to his seed. First God promised the land to Abraham, then He made a covenant to strengthen it.

In God’s eyes there are only two covenants that are important in the whole Bible: the old covenant and the new covenant. The old covenant is the covenant God made with Abraham in Genesis 15, and the new covenant is the covenant in the Lord’s blood in the New Testament. The new covenant is the development and the continuation of the old covenant. As for the covenant of the law, it is not that crucial in God’s economy since it was added later because of sin.

In the covenant God made with Abraham in Genesis 15 He bound Himself to fulfill the promise. According to how people made a covenant in those days, God told Abraham to take three cattle and two birds, cut the cattle in half and leave the birds alive, and then God passed through the cut-in-half cattle as smoke and fire. God walked through the sacrificed animals to make sure He will fulfill this covenant!

On the one hand, this covenant shows us that God is faithful and He will never forsake what He has promised; on the other hand, this covenant shows us that everything depends on Christ’s work and not on our doings or strength.

Being perfected in our Christian life has nothing to do with our struggling, zeal, striving, or strength; it has everything to do with us being identified with Christ in His death and resurrection so that the new covenant would be accomplished.

God made a covenant with us, and He sealed that covenant through the death and resurrection of Christ; now all the divine realities in the new covenant are ours based on this covenant!

God made a Covenant with Abraham to Give him the Good Land

It is very interesting to see that Abraham believed God concerning having a seed (which was close to a human impossibility) yet he found it difficult to believe God in His promise of the land. Because Abraham lacked faith to believe God for the promise concerning the land, God confirmed His promise to Abraham by making a covenant with him (see Gen. 15:8-21).

God is so determined to give Abraham the good land that He bound Himself with a covenant to do it. In the same way, God is so determined to give us Christ as the all-inclusive Spirit for us to walk in and labor on for His purpose that He has bound Himself by a covenant!

We may believe that Christ is in us as our life yet we may find it hard to believe that Christ is our living, to good land in which we can walk and live in and live on. So God doesn’t give us a “new promise”; He makes a new covenant, binding Himself through the death and resurrection of Christ, that we will enjoy the good land, walk in it, labor on it, and build God’s habitation in it.

The covenant God made with Abraham was a covenant of promise that would be fulfilled through God’s power in His grace, not through Abraham’s effort in his flesh. The new testament is a continuation of this covenant (see Gal. 3:17 and footnote 1; Gal. 4:22-26 and footnote 2 in v. 24).

Now we need to see what are the main components of the covenant God made with Abraham in Genesis 15:

• Three slain cattle: the three kinds of slain cattle signifies Christ in His humanity being crucified for us.
• Two living birds: the two birds who were not slain but were living signify Christ in His divinity being the living One and the resurrected One (see John 11:25; Rev. 1:18). Christ was killed in His humanity, but He lives in His divinity (see John 14:19; 1 Pet. 3:18 and footnote 3).
• The three cattle: the heifer was for a peace-offering (Lev. 3:1), the female goat was for a sin offering (Lev. 4:28; 5:6), and the ram was for a burnt offering (Lev. 1:10). The fact that they were all three years old signifies that Christ was offered to God and was crucified in resurrection (John 2:19; 11:25; Heb. 9:14).
• The turtle-dove: signifies a suffering life; the pigeon – signifies a believing life. When the Lord Jesus was on the earth, He lived a suffering life and a believing life. These two birds signify testimony – Christ as the resurrected One living in us and for us (see Matt. 18:16; 2 Cor. 13:1; John 14:19-20; Gal. 2:20).
• Five: there were three cattle and two birds, totaling five living beings; five is the number of responsibility, showing us that the crucified and resurrected Christ bears the responsibility for the fulfillment of God’s purpose.

If you read the record in Genesis 15 you may be a little confused as to the significance of all the things happening there; but praise the Lord for the ministry of the age!

There are not too many books which open up the matter of the covenant God made with Abraham (and why was it made), but the Lord opened this matter up in His recovery to our dear brothers Watchman Nee (see, The Two Covenants) and Witness Lee (see, Life-study of Genesis msg. 45), and now this rich spiritual understanding belongs to every member of the Body of Christ!

The Way Abraham (and we) can Fulfill God’s Eternal Purpose

Genesis 15:8, footnote 1, Recovery Version

The extraordinary way in which God enacted the covenant with Abraham implies the way in which Abraham could fulfill God’s eternal purpose. In himself Abraham could not believe that God would give him the land; so God made a covenant with Abraham concerning this, showing him that the promise will be fulfilled not through Abraham’s effort but through God’s power in His grace.

Today we are in the New Testament under the new covenant as a continuation of the covenant God made with Abraham. The way we can fulfill God’s purpose is not by our efforts in the flesh but through God’s power in His grace (see Gal. 3:17-18).

God made a covenant with us through the crucified and resurrected Christ: Christ died on the cross to enact the covenant, and in resurrection, He is now living to apply the covenant and make sure it is being fulfilled.

Abraham believed God for His promise concerning the seed (v. 6), but he lacked faith to believe God for the promise concerning the land. In order to strengthen Abraham’s faith, God was compelled to confirm His promise to Abraham concerning the land by making a covenant with him (vv. 9-21). The extraordinary way in which God enacted this covenant implies the way in which Abraham could fulfill God’s eternal purpose.
The covenant God made with Abraham was a covenant of promise that would be fulfilled through God’s power in His grace, not through Abraham’s effort in his flesh. The new testament is a continuation of this covenant (Gal. 3:17 and note 1; Gal. 4:22-26 and note 2 on v. 24). [Genesis 15:8, footnote 1, Recovery Version]

In His humanity Christ died for us at the time of His crucifixion (signified by the three cattle being slain), and in His divinity Christ is the living, resurrected One living for us and in us (signified by the two living birds) to fulfill the new covenant!

The New Testament is not a list of things for us to do to please God; the New Testament tells us what Christ has done for us. In ourselves we cannot accomplish God’s purpose and His promise, but by identifying ourselves with Christ and recognizing the fact that Christ has been crucified and resurrected, we inherit all the spiritual realities of the new covenant.

All the spiritual realities are in Christ. The good land is Christ. This Christ has been crucified and resurrected: we were in Christ when He died and we were resurrected with Him. This is a divine reality and has nothing to do with us – it has everything to do with God’s new covenant.

Christ has died on the cross for our sins and He has crucified our old man. This is God’s covenant; it cannot change! Don’t look at yourself or what you can do: look at God’s covenant, stand on the blood of Christ, and let Christ live in you and out of you as the good land!

God has promised to do it, He bound Himself by a covenant to accomplish it, and He will make sure that all the believers in Christ will enter into the full enjoyment, possession, and participation of the good land! Hallelujah!

Thank You Lord for making a covenant with us to ensure that we will enter into the full enjoyment and participation of the good land. It’s not of our effort or zeal: it is of God in Christ that we are destined to and will completely enter into the enjoyment of the all-inclusive Christ as the good land. We believe the facts and we stand on the spiritual reality that Christ died in His humanity and He is living in His divinity in resurrection to enact the covenant and ensure that we will possess the good land! Hallelujah!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Andrew Yu’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Genesis (msg. 45), as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Genesis (2), week 4 / msg 4, The Land for the Fulfillment of God’s Purpose.
• Further reading: recommending Gen. 15 with the footnotes in the Recovery Version – very enlightening.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # The veil is rent and opened is / A new and living way; / With boldness thru the precious blood, / We come to Thee to pray. / By Thy redemption we may come / Into the holiest place; / Thy Spirit now anointing us, / We touch the throne of grace. (Hymns #771 by bro. Lee)
  # A better covenant, / And better promises; / A better law of life / And sacrifice this is. / Redemption’s work, done long ago, / A better blood has made it so. / We’re being sonized now; / The life within will do / The deep transforming work / Of making us anew. / In ages past, the work was done— / Now prayer is over—praise the Son! (Hymns #1187)
  # Laboring on Jesus, the good land so real, / Plowing and planting and watering the field. / He yields the produce of reality, / God reaps a harvest of Jesus in me. / O Jesus! You’re God’s good land / For me to labor on! / I’ll bit by bit possess You / Until the whole is won! / With Canaan is God’s purpose, / The labor He will bless; / Lord Jesus, here I gain Yourself, / Your Person to possess. (Hymns #1168)