Introduction

There are seven main instances in which God makes promises to Abraham. In Part One, we examined the first three: Abraham’s initial call, his arrival in the Land, and Lot’s separation. The promises in summary are that God will give Abraham land, seed, and blessing. These are reaffirmed and expanded upon in the final four instances of promises to Abraham, but also later to Isaac, to Jacob, and in various ways throughout all of Israel’s history after them, finding their yes and amen ultimately in Abraham’s Seed who is Jesus the Christ. Here, we will examine the next two episodes, the path of blood covenant, the circumcision covenant, and the promises attendant in each.

Path of Blood Covenant

Christ’s Victory Over His Enemies

The next set of promises come after Abraham rescues Lot. The Sodomite people, along with Lot, are captured by a king from the East named Chedorlaomer and his coalition. Abraham and his army pursue, attack, and defeat king Chedorlaomer and return Lot from captivity. Another captivity and return pattern. Abraham’s military victory continues his nascent inheritance of the Holy Land. It is a precursor to Israel receiving the Land in military conquest under Joshua, and Israel according to the spirit in the new covenant receiving the earth in spiritual warfare under the Greater Joshua. But remember, spiritual warfare is not absent from Joshua’s conquest, and earthly warfare is not absent from Christ’s conquest.

Chedorlaomer means Protector of La’omer. La’omer was an Elamite goddess. This king was her protector, and Abraham defeats this king and frees Lot and the Sodomites, anticipating the Lord freeing the Jews from Babylonian and then worldwide captivity, and freeing all men from spiritual captivity, which also manifests in earthly freedom from captivity. The end of Roman persecution of Christians under Constantine, for example. Abraham defeats a king who protects his god, but God comes to Abraham and says I protect you. Again, the glory is brought back to God.

Abraham plunders these kings and is given bread and wine from Melchizidek, the priest-king of Salem. Melchizidekian bread and wine signifies Christ’s Melchizidekian ministry in his broken body and shed blood for us. Lot’s rescue from captivity, Abraham’s military victory over the kings of the earth, paired with the Melchizidekian ministry of bread and wine connects Christ’s sacrifice with His gaining our salvation from captivity, but also giving us victory over our enemies, spiritual and earthly. These things are ultimately Christ’s victory over all things, including death. These promises are saturated with Christological anticipation.

Abraham’s Faith Anticipates Gentile Inclusion

“After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”¹ God identifies Himself with Abraham’s inheritance. God is reestablishing the communion that was forfeit in the Garden. God is giving Abraham children, land, and a great name, but here is giving Abraham Himself. I am your exceedingly great reward. Another statement anticipating Christ giving Himself on the cross.

Abraham suggests that his servant Eliezer of Damascus will be his heir. But God says no, he will not. God doesn’t say who will be the heir. He specifies to Abraham that it won’t be Eliezer who will be Abraham’s heir, but one that comes from Abraham’s body. Then God brings him outside and asks him to count the stars. If he can count the stars, so will his descendants be. This is contrasted with dust earlier. It is an elevation over the earth and a ruling over the earth, and is also exceedingly numerous, which again speaks to seed being plural as well as singular.

Abraham believed God would do this and it was credited to him as righteousness. He believed God’s promises and he was justified. St. Paul tells us it’s significant that Abraham was justified by faith before he received circumcision.

“We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received circumcision as a sign, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he is then also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also follow in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.”²

Here again we have a greater Israel. The sons of Abraham are greater than merely Israel according to the flesh. Both those who are circumcised and uncircumcised are counted as sons of Abraham if they have the faith of Abraham. Abraham’s justification precedes the sign and seal of the righteousness of his faith, namely circumcision, which is given to him later. St. Paul says this happened, in part, to show that justification is by faith alone for both Gentiles and Jews, uncircumcised and circumcised. In the new covenant, the sign and seal of faith given to all those who have the faith of Abraham is baptism, which will come into view again later.

The Anticipation of Christ’s New Covenant in The Path of Blood

God reaffirms the land promise to Abraham, and Who it is who is making the promise. “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it.”³ Again, these things are happening because God is sovereign, and gracious, and keeps His promises, and He is jealous for His own name.

Abraham asks how he will know he will inherit it. God answers by making a covenant in blood. God has Abraham bring what will later be called clean animals in the Levitical sacrificial system. Each represents different aspects of sacrifice for sins, purification, atonement, etc., which is elaborated further in the Levitical laws. We will not go into further detail here of these animal sacrifices, but it is worth it’s own study. Abraham cuts most of the animals in two. Vultures come. Perhaps signifying the devil’s attempt to thwart the purposes of God. Abraham drives them away. Faith prevailing in the face of the Adversary. Sunset approaches. Abraham falls into deep sleep. Deep horror and darkness come upon him. This signifies death, similar to Adam’s deep sleep when God made Eve. It anticipates the need for Abraham and his descendants to die and resurrect. God also directs the symbolism of death and resurrection toward Himself in the form of a smoking fire pot and flaming torch passing between the bloody animals halves.

In the ancient Near East, this is what cutting a covenant looked like. When someone walked through the cut animals they would make an oath saying, “May I be cut like these animals if I break this oath.” Of course, God does not break His oath. He keeps every oath He has ever made. But we have all broken our oath to Him. In other words, we have all sinned and fallen short, and we have inherited the curse of Adam’s disobedience. And so God assumes in His Son Jesus the due penalty for our sin in His death on the cross, which is symbolized here by Abraham falling into deep sleep and God passing through the cut animals. We receive the benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection through faith by baptism when we are united with Christ in His death and resurrection. Baptism becomes the sign and seal of our justification.

Paired with Abraham’s deep sleep is God’s declaration that Abraham’s seed will be strangers and afflicted in a land that is not theirs. They will serve them. This is about the slavery in Egypt Israel will experience. Abraham’s sleep and Israel’s descent in Egyptian slavery are both symbols of descent and death, Christological in type.

God says, Abraham’s descendants will serve and be afflicted by a nation, that God will judge this nation, and that Abraham’s descendants will come out with great possessions. Again, here we see the continuation of the Christological pattern. Descent into the grave (Egypt), resurrection from the grave (exodus), gaining great possessions of eternal life, a transfigured body, all of heaven and earth (plundering the Egyptians, receiving the Mosaic covenant, entering the promised Land). God, in the form of a smoking fire pot and flaming torch, makes a covenant with Abraham. God, in the form of a cloud by day, and pillar of fire by night, makes a covenant at Sinai with Abraham’s children. And during this, the crossing of the Red Sea, anticipates new covenant baptism in Christ. Abraham typologically anticipates Israel. Israel typologically anticipates Jesus. Jesus fulfills both.

Abraham’s children’s descent to Egypt won’t happen immediately. God promises Abraham will go to his fathers in peace at a good old age. But in the fourth generation Abraham’s descendants will return to the land because the iniquity of the Amorites is yet complete. The Christ pattern continues. Christ conquers sinners after His resurrection and ascension through conversion, but also through judgment. The time of the Gentiles is not yet! A divine irony or inversion to the pattern after Christ’s resurrection, is that the Jews of the Holy Land are either spiritually killed through sword of the Spirit in conversion, or they are killed or expelled from the Land through the sword of Rome. In any case, God brings judgment on the Amorites after Israel’s Exodus, and brings judgment on Israel after Christ’s Exodus. Both are a purification of the Holy Land.

The Promise of Greater Israel

Returning to the God’s covenant with Abraham. The sun goes down and it becomes dark. God passes through the animal parts. The covenant is made in darkness. This anticipates the crucifixion darkness, where it literally became dark for several hours in the middle of the day as Christ died for our sins. The New Covenant is established in darkness at calvary. The Last Supper, where Christ institutes the sacrament of the new covenant, is also made in darkness. This path of blood covenant anticipates the new covenant as it is made in darkness. God then speaks to Abraham.

“To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates— the land of the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”⁴

This is the first time God specifically demarcates the Promised Land. It extends to the river of Egypt and to the River Euphrates, which is greater than the territory conquered by Joshua, but also somewhat ambiguous. There’s plenty of debate as to the exact extent of the territory described here, but it approximates what is now known as Greater Israel. Conservative conceptions of Greater Israel expand modern day Israel to include parts of Egypt, Gaza, Judea, Samaria, and the Golan Heights, approximating Joshua’s conquest. Liberal conceptions of Greater Israel include these expansion, but go further by including all of Jordan and Lebanon, and parts of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, and Turkey, approximating the Solomonic kingdom. I am inclined toward the liberal conception, but am not overly concerned with getting bogged down in the specifics because I believe God will sovereignly grant what exactly belongs to them when this expansion inevitably happens. No one will be able to force it. And no one will be able to stop it. It will happen because God said it will happen.

God gives the Land to Abraham’s seed, which we have already established is principally received by Jesus. This is reinforced in the Christological types surrounding these promises. Jesus is the covenant head of His people and he distributes His covenant blessings to His covenant people. The Body receives that which they Head receives. There is secondary reception of these promises to old and new covenant Israel. Israel receives this promise in Joshua’s conquest of Canaan.

“So the Lord gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it. The Lord gave them rest all around, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers. And not a man of all their enemies stood against them; the Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand. Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass.”⁵

And yet we see the Lord also saying they had not taken possession of all of the Land. God speaks to Joshua saying, “You are old, advanced in years, and there remains very much land yet to be possessed.”⁶

The Israelites were already told through Moses that the taking of the Land would be incremental. “And the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you little by little; you will be unable to destroy them at once, lest the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. But the Lord your God will deliver them over to you, and will inflict defeat upon them until they are destroyed.”⁷

Under the reign of King Solomon, Israel appears to receive all the Land promised to Abraham.

“Solomon reigned over all kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt. They brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.”⁸

King Solomon himself recognizes the promises of God kept in his own day.

“Blessed be the Lord, who has given rest to His people Israel, according to all that He promised. There has not failed one word of all His good promise, which He promised through His servant Moses.”⁹

There is a trajectory here of expansion and growth. The Kingdom of Heaven is like leaven or a mustard seed. It starts out small and grows. It expands. It’s imperial. And the fulfillment doesn’t terminate with Joshua or Solomon because God says the Land is given to Israel forever.¹⁰ And this is confirmed when the prophets after Solomon prophesy a return from captivity and continued fulfillment of Land promises.

The Lord, speaking through His prophet Amos says,

“I will bring back the captives of My people Israel;
They shall build the waste cities and inhabit them;
They shall plant vineyards and drink wine from them;
They shall also make gardens and eat fruit from them.
I will plant them in their land,
And no longer shall they be pulled up
From the land I have given them.”¹¹

Notice the promise to never be pulled up from the Land. This makes it difficult and perhaps impossible to apply to Israel’s return from Babylon. Of course, there is the spiritual reading which is true and applies to all those in the New Covenant in various ways, especially as it relates to permanent dwelling in heaven, the permanence of the decretally elect in Christ and the Sabbath rest of salvation. And I affirm all of these without denying the earthly and particular, yet to be fulfilled, promises to Israel according to the flesh.

Isaiah prophesies that,

“It shall come to pass in that day
That the Lord shall set His hand again the second time
To recover the remnant of His people who are left,
From Assyria and Egypt,
From Pathros and Cush,
From Elam and Shinar,
From Hamath and the islands of the sea. He will set up a banner for the nations,
And will assemble the outcasts of Israel,
And gather together the dispersed of Judah
From the four corners of the earth.”¹²

Notice the prophet says the Lord will do this a second time. This could reasonably be interpreted many different ways. One of those ways is that the first time was return from Babylon. The second time was return from global exile in 19th and 20th centuries, and continuing even now to the present day.

There are other indicators such as the rest and peace from enemy attacks seen in several prophecies that indicate these have not been fulfilled entirely in any period of Israel’s history. These promises have been fulfilled in Christ, and Christ has given the earth to believing Jews and Gentiles for the past 2,000 years. It began when Jews from all over the world were gathered to Jerusalem at Pentecost and received the Holy Spirit. But even here, we may conceive of this more like Joshua’s conquest than Solomon’s kingdom. There are still battles to be fought and enemies to be conquered until Christ has put all enemies under His feet before He returns to conquer the last enemy: death.

The Covenant of Circumcision

The Obedience of Faith

After God promised that Abraham’s heir would come from his own body, Abraham tries to make this happen in his flesh, rather than by faith, in producing Ishmael with Hagar. Sarah is Abraham’s true body. They are one flesh. So, when God says the heir will come from his own body, He means the child will come from Abraham and Sarah. Not Abraham and Hagar.

Four years after the birth of Ishmael, God establishes His covenant promises through circumcision. Abraham is 99 and still has yet to produce an heir. God says to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless.”¹³ Walking before God and being blameless is mentioned for the first time here. Being in covenant with God is not a call to unfaithfulness, but a call to faithfulness. Faith without works is dead. Abraham had not walked blamelessly with Hagar, and God’s words are a statement of grace to Abraham showing God’s faithfulness to him, while also saying “Go and sin no more.” God continues, “And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.”¹⁴ Time seems to be running out for Abraham and yet God reaffirms his promise to multiply Abraham exceedingly. Abraham falls to the ground, probably in sheer exasperation. How can the impossible happen!?

Father of Nations and Kings

God continues and says Abraham will be a father to many nations. This is an expansion of the promise earlier. Previously, God said all families will be blessed through Abraham. Now God is elevating the promise to fatherhood of nations. The new covenant brings in this explosive growth of nations who are sons of Abraham.

God changes his name from Abram to Abraham to reflect this. Up to this point his name was Abram which means Exalted Father. He goes most of his life without children while named Exalted Father, and then God doubles down and changes his name to Abraham meaning Father of Many, “for I have made you a father of many nations.”¹⁵ The name change also introduces breath into his name, AbraHAm. God’s breath is life. It is the Spirit. God is breathing life into Abraham similarly to how God breathed life into Adam. And ultimately how God breathes life into all those who are born again, through the Holy Spirit.

God says he will make Abraham exceedingly fruitful, nations will come from him, and kings will come from him. That kings will come from Abraham is another addition previously not mentioned in the promises. From Abraham comes King David, King Solomon, and ultimately the King of kings, Jesus the Christ. Kings from Abraham continue in even greater degree with Constantine, Theodosius I, Justinian I, Clovis I, Charlegmagne, Alfred the Great, Vladimir I of Kiev, Louis IX of France, Philip II of Spain, James I of England, John III Sobieski of Poland, George Washington, John Adams, Charles de Gaulle, Winston Churchill, Woodrow Wilson, Donald Trump, and so many more that we might say it would be like counting the stars! All of these were going to come from this 99 year old man of faith, Abraham.

The Holy Land Given as an Everlasting Possession

Then God says, “I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” (vv. 7-8) This is the first time God says the covenant promise of Land possession is everlasting. The Land is given as an everlasting covenant to him and his descendants. This can be viewed in two ways. The natural and the supernatural. The physical descendants, and the supernatural descendants in Christ. The land of Canaan, modern day Israel, is given to the natural sons of Abraham as an everlasting possession. The allegorical meaning of Canaan as the entire earth and heaven are given to the supernatural sons of Abraham as an everlasting possession. All of Canaan, all the earth, and all of heaven will ultimately be possessed by those who have faith in Christ, who is the primary recepient of these promises.

The Sign of Circumcision Anticipates Christ

Then God institutes circumcision as the sign of the covenant. It is to be given to every male child of Abraham’s descendants and those in the household, such as purchased slaves. It is to be given to infants on the eighth day after their birth. It is established as an everlasting covenant. And the children who are not circumcised are cut off from God’s people. They break covenant.¹⁶

Circumcision signifies the coming of Christ in at least four ways.

1. The sons carry on the covenant through the shedding of their blood, which anticipates God’s only begotton Son who will shed His blood for the establishment of the new covenant.
2. Foreigners who are part of Abraham’s household are incorporated into the covenant through circumcision blood, just as foreigners are incorporated into Abraham’s household in the new covenant through Christ’s blood.
3. It is given on the eighth day which is the number of new creation. The world was created in seven days. The next day is the eighth day, a new creation week, which is what the new covenant is, a new creation, a new heavens and earth, the regeneration. It is the day Jesus resurrected from the grave. The first day and eighth day are the same.
4. Circumcision cuts off flesh. It puts away flesh. It signifies putting away the sinful flesh of sin. It signifies repentance and being a new creation in Christ. It is what Moses and the prophets refer to when they talk about the circumcision of the heart. “And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.”¹⁷ God’s people have always understood that these outward signs pointed to inward realities. Only in Christ are we and our children given circumcision of the heart. But the inward and outward realities are equally important because the uncircumcised child is cut off from God’s people. The Lord sought to kill Moses’ son because he was not circumcised. Zipporah circumcises the child and saves his life.¹⁸ In the new covenant, the sign of the covenant is baptism. This is why it is important to baptize infants. The sign and seal of Abraham’s faith, circumcision, is given to every covenant male infant. The sign and seal of Christ’s faith, baptism, is given to every covenant infant.

Since all the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ Jesus, including these covenanted promises to Abraham, circumcision is no longer an obligation of the covenant. The substance of the covenant is given to Christ and distributed by Him to His people.

St. Paul says, “Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing…For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.”¹⁹ St. Paul is most emphatic about this, especially as it relates to Gentiles. He prohibits Bp. Titus from being circumcised.²⁰ The Jerusalem council clearly ruled against Judaizers who said converted Gentiles needed to be circumcised to be saved, and they were obligated to keep the law of Moses. The Council said they issued no command that these things were obligatory, but only that Gentiles abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and sexual immorality, which were mostly observances required of foreigners in Leviticus 17 and 18. The main issue is justification, and for both Jews and Gentiles, justification is by faith alone in Christ alone by grace alone.

St. Paul does not prohibit Jews from continuing to circumcise it would seem, as he had Bp. Timothy circumcised after the Jerusalem Council.²¹ This was done to accomodate ministry to the Jews, and so it seems we can continue to permit this practice in our ongoing ministry to the Jews, provided they know it is unnecessary for salvation. St. Paul says to the Corinthians, “Was anyone called while circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised. Was anyone called while uncircumcised? Let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God is what matters.”²² There is a new covenant in Christ and that means a new covenant body where the distinction between Jew and Gentile is abolished as it relates to justification and salvation.

“For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”²³

The new covenant sign is baptism into Christ, which St. Paul calls the circumcision of Christ, and the promises of Abraham are given to all those who are in Christ. But this union in Christ does not remove the roles that different types of people continue to assume. A male is still the head of the female in marriage. A freeman is still the master of a slave. A Gentile inherits the land of his nation. And a Jew will inherit the land of his nation.

Sarah and Isaac

Then God changes Sarai’s name to Sarah, meaning Princess. The name signifies God breathing life into her. SarAH. As mentioned above, this recalls God breathing into Adam and making him a living soul, and anticipates God breathing the Holy Spirit into men who are dead in their tresspasses and sins, and making them alive in Christ. Sarah’s womb is dead, but God is breathing life into it. Similar to the Holy Spirit overshadowing the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. God says multiple times that He will bless Sarah. He specifies that He will give Abraham a son through her. He says that she will be a mother of nations and that kings will come from her. She is a new Eve, mother of all the living, just as Abraham is a new Adam, father of a new humanity. All the kings of Israel come from Sarah, and culminate in the King of kings, Jesus the Christ, and continue into the new covenant with Christ as King over heaven and earth and kings and nations under His rule.

Abraham falls on his face and laughs. This foreshadows Isaac because Isaac means he laughs. The entire build up to Isaac’s miraculous birth is a comedy in the classical sense. It is frought with hardship and trial, but ends with resolution and joy. Abraham’s laughter betrays feelings of bewildered doubt struggling to believe, but ultimately conveys to us elated comedic laughter anticipating the birth of Christ, and the resolution of all things in the eschaton. Abraham fell to the ground and Isaac’d, laughing at the prospect of a hundred year old man and 90 year old woman having a child. And pleads with God to consider Ishmael to be the promised heir. “Oh that Ishmael might live before You!”

But God says no. He says Sarah will bear him a son, and he is to name him Isaac. And that God will establish His covenant with Isaac as an everlasting covenant. And not just with Isaac, but with his descendants or Zerah/Seed, which means the everlasting covenant is given to Christ and all those in Christ. Abraham, with speedy obedience, circumcises himself and his entire household the same day God told him to do it.

1. Genesis 15:1 ↩︎
2. Romans 4:9–12 ↩︎
3. Genesis 15:7 ↩︎
4. Genesis 15:18–21 ↩︎
5. Joshua 21:43–45 ↩︎
6. Joshua 13:1 ↩︎
7. Deuteronomy 7:22–23 ↩︎
8. 1 Kings 4:21 ↩︎
9. 1 Kings 8:56 ↩︎
10. Genesis 13:15; 17:8 ↩︎
11. Amos 9:14–15 ↩︎
12. Isaiah 11:11–12 ↩︎
13. Genesis 17:1 ↩︎
14. Genesis 17:2 ↩︎
15. Genesis 17:5 ↩︎
16. Genesis 17:9-14 ↩︎
17. Deuteronomy 30:6 ↩︎
18. Exodus 4:24-26 ↩︎
19. Galatians 5:1-6 ↩︎
20. Galatians 2:1-5 ↩︎
21. Acts 16:1–3 ↩︎
22. 1 Corinthians 7:18-19 ↩︎
23. Galatians 3:26-29 ↩︎