Devotions ... The Long Journey Home: A lopsided agreement

It’s been a bit, but let’s pick back up where we left off in the story of Abraham and the unfolding of God’s rescue plan for a humanity that had rebelled against His perfect design. From the moment God comes to Abraham and calls Him to follow where He will lead, Abraham’s life is characterized by ups and downs as he learns to trust God in the everydays of every day. For those of you familiar with Abraham’s story, you know that the route their developing relationship takes is dynamic. Not because God is unpredictable, but Abraham is. His relationship to God is marked  by moments of spectacular faith followed by epic failures. The constant we see in the life of Abraham, a man who is identified as “a man of faith,” is not his faith… but the faithfulness of God. 

And it is against this developing backdrop of Abraham’s relationship with God that in Genesis 15, God makes an agreement or covenant with him. In this covenant, God is establishing the nature of the relationship that He and Abraham will have moving forward and it is a relationship rooted in a promise. Not a promise Abraham has to make to God, but a promise God makes to Abraham.

If you read the story it probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense because it involves ancient  customs that are different from our own practices in 2024. In our day, a contract would involve pages of fine print, multiple signatures and witnesses and notaries. Ultimately what would be elaborated is who is responsible for what and under what terms each party will be held accountable. In Abraham’s day, an agreement of a serious nature between two men was a little more involved and a tad bit gruesome. Animals are killed and cut in half and placed apart so that they serve to create an aisle or pathway down which the two parties of the contract would walk. The nature of the contractual relationship or agreement was sealed with an understanding that should either party break the contract they should expect and accept to have done to them what has been done to the animals and the agreement would be null and void.

In our story, Abraham sleeps while God passes through the severed animals alone. What is significant about this is that in walking solo, God is saying the promise or agreement being made isn’t contingent on Abraham’s ability to keep the terms. God assumes all the responsibility.  He assumes the risk … Abraham receives the reward. 

And in this move, we see how God intends to rescue those helpless to rescue themselves. And our minds go from a weird dream in the desert to a cross … where He substituted Himself in our place … took on the consequence we deserved … so that we could receive all that He promised and all that could be ours in relationship to Him. This is the good news Abraham saw, believed and received. It’s the “good news” offered to you and me and any who will believe.

(Aaron Gesch is pastor of Basin First Baptist Church.)