By Ken Hamrick
And He said to him, “I am Yahweh who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it.” And he said, “O Lord Yahweh, how may I know that I will possess it?” 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.” Then he brought all these to Him and split them into parts down the middle and laid each part opposite the other; but he did not split apart the birds. Then the birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away. Now it happened that when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him. Then God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your seed will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. “But I will also judge the nation to whom they are enslaved, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. “As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. “Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.” Now it happened that the sun had set, and it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces. On that day Yahweh cut a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your seed I have given this land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite.”
Gen 15:7-21 (LSB)
God chose Abraham to be the father of His special covenant people. God instructed Abraham to sacrifice certain animals, cut them in half lengthwise, and lay them out with space to walk between them, as was the custom of the nations of that day when making solemn commitments.* God then made covenant promises to Abraham. Ordinarily, both parties to a covenant would walk together through the bloody path between the pieces, swearing to be faithful to that covenant on pain of being made like the animals through which they walked. However, on this occasion, God made a deep sleep fall on Abraham while God alone walked between the pieces.
Note that the text does not merely describe God as a great light that passed between the pieces, but “a smoking oven and a flaming torch.” From what we know from many places to follow in the Old Testament, when God accepts a sacrifice, He often causes fire to come down from heaven and consume it. Here we must read between the lines, so to speak, as it can be reasonably inferred that the “smoking oven” and “flaming torch” not only passed between the pieces but also consumed them.
But why did God walk between the pieces without Abraham? God was indicating that He alone would bear the responsibility for the faithfulness of both parties.* This did not diminish Abraham’s responsibility for covenant faithfulness. But God knew that fallen men would inevitably fail to keep the covenant. He knew that to successfully accomplish His plans through the means of covenants would require God Himself to eventually become a man who would be perfectly faithful on the human side of the covenant. Abraham would fail. Every leader to come would fail. If the covenant was to accomplish what God had intended, then it would fall to God Himself to keep both sides of it.
But walking through the pieces alone was more than God saying that He will keep the covenant for both sides. It was deeper than that. It was God swearing to take responsibility for the failures and unfaithfulness on the human side of the covenant. In other words, God knew that we would fail, and God promised to bear the covenant penalty for our failure Himself. His people would incur the penalty and deserve to be slaughtered like the animals that lined the path—and God swore to pay that penalty.
But how can an omnipotent, immaterial God be slaughtered? The common covenant oath of, “May I be made like these slaughtered animals if I am unfaithful to this covenant,” holds the key. God—knowing that we would incur the penalty and no man except the Messiah would be faithful—was swearing to take on a flesh-and-blood nature so that He could be slaughtered like the animals of the cutting ceremony. God would take the penalty for Abraham, for David—and for you and me.
The sacrificed animals of the cutting ceremony did more than provide the picture of penalty for unfaithfulness. They also served to atone for the sins of Abraham, so that he was fit to enter into covenant with God. This also must be inferred as the text is not explicit. But such sacrifices were only types that pointed to Christ and what He would accomplish. It all ties together. Walking between the pieces while His fire consumed them as accepted sacrifices for sin, God was simultaneously declaring that the God-man would come and die and that His sacrifice would be accepted to cover all the sins of His people. God would be both the Propitiator and the Propitiated—both the wrath and the sacrifice. This He promised by walking between the pieces alone. This is the gospel in a single vignette.
* The idea that God was promising to fulfill the terms of the covenant for both sides by walking through the pieces alone, as well as the information that the cutting ceremony was common to the nations at that time, are attributed to the book, Kingdom Through Covenant, by Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum. A proper reference note with page numbers, etc., will be added later.
The forgotten Realist 