TITLE:  Covenant with Abraham
TEXT:  Genesis 15:17-18
PROPOSITION:  God made a covenant with Abraham that includes us.
QUESTION:  How?
KEY WORD:  Symbols
SCRIPTURE READING:  Same

 INTRODUCTION:

1. We have studied what a covenant is, and the steps involved in making covenant.
2. We now want to look at the covenant God made with Abraham.
3. The NT teaches we are under this covenant.

 The Making of the Covenant – Genesis 15

1. This covenant took one day and two nights
   1. Night in verse 5
   2. Day – 7-11
   3. Night – 12
2. I brought you out of Ur to give you this land – 7
3. Bring a 3 year-old heifer, female goat, and ram
4. Bring a turtledove and pigeon
5. Cut them in 2 – down the middle – not the birds
6. Laying on the ground are the heifer, female goat and ram
7. God gives the terms of the covenant (13-16)
   1. Your descendants will be like the stars – numerous
   2. Your descendants will be strangers in a land (Egypt)
   3. They will be slaves for 400 years
   4. They will come out with great possessions
   5. They will return here to this land – 4 generations from now
   6. From the great river (in Sinai) to the Euphrates
8. God made this covenant with Abraham – 18

 Symbols and Meanings

1. Animals – blood must be shed to make a covenant
2. 3 animals – each 3 years old = 3 dispensations
3. Cut in half = total, complete death – not just a drop of blood

1. Jeremiah 34:18-19 – Pass between the parts

4. Smoking furnace (oven), burning lamp = Presence of God
   1. In Wilderness – Cloud of smoke (furnace), pillar of fire (lamp)
   2. Smoke and fire often represent presence of God – Exodus 13:21-22
   3. Burning bush

 We are in that Covenant

1. Galatians 3:6-9 – Abraham believed God, accounted for righteousness, all people blessed
2. Galatians 3:16 – And to your seed, which is Christ
3. Galatians 3:26-29 – If you are Abraham’s seed – heirs according to the promise
   1. Children of God by faith – like Abraham’s - 26
   2. Baptized into the covenant (put on Christ) – 27
   3. No divisions – all one in Christ – 28
   4. If you are Christ’s – then of the seed of Abraham – 29
   5. If you are Christ’s – You are in this covenant