Welcome to the Word of Life Study Series- The Covenant Part 2! In the previous episode we had laid a foundation concerning blood covenant. There are many benefits to entering into an earthly blood covenant: Protection, Provision, Posterity and Relationship. The generation of Job and Abraham did not know anything other than God protecting and blessing them financially. You can’t sell that old lie of the devil that God brings poverty on all of us to keep us humble to the Jewish folks, their Bible does not say that, neither does ours. Nor that God makes us sick or a victim of trials, tests and temptations.
1. God’s Covenant with Job
Job had a covenant with God, a life keeping Covenant. The reason I say that he had a life keeping Covenant is because in Job 2:6 the Lord forbids Satan from taking his life. If you read Job 1:1-11 we see some insights, God does not put a hedge of protection and bless everything that an individual has for no reason. Job had to have a covenant with God in order for God to legally intervene in Job’s life on his behalf. Moreover, we see in verse one that Job kept the requirements of the covenant and in verse 5 he sacrificed burnt offerings to the Lord on a regular basis- we see these things are not automatic.
2. God’s Covenant with Abraham
Adam, Job, Noah and others could have served as God’s choice to create a nation through which the promised Seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. However, none of them were suitable for what God needed until He found Abram in Ur of the Chaldeans. So what was so special about Abraham that made him acceptable in God’s sight? Genesis 18:18-19 provides the reason why. Certainly Abraham had chosen to walk by faith and live a life of obedience in regards to God’s directives. However, more importantly, he would pass the legacy of his covenant with God onto his children- that was God’s main requirement!
3. Abraham’s Test of Faith
Do you recall that Abraham slept through the covenant? God did it all. Abraham had nothing to do with it. God is proving Himself faithful so now it’s time to test Abraham’s faithfulness to the covenant. Did he really believe in his heart? Was it just mental assent, an empty ritual he was going through? Remember, when a covenant is cut, each part completely surrenders himself in loving trust to the other party. He must be willing to give his total being, his total life, his total heart to the one he is in covenant with. It is a dying to one’s self and a surrender of yourself to the one you are in covenant with. The blood covenant is not a mere intellectual understanding between Abraham and God, or you and God. There is only one way to find out Abraham’s commitment to the covenant. That way is to test Abraham with that which is most dear to him- his only son Isaac.
4. The New Covenant Parallel
Jesus, speaking to the Jewish leaders said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad” in John 8:56 RSV. The apostle Paul writes that the gospel was preached to Abraham (Galatians 3:8). In Romans 9:8 in the Living Bible Paul writes, “not all of Abraham’s children are the children of God, but only those who believe the promise of salvation He made to Abraham.” God asks us to believe the same thing He asked Abraham to believe. He asks us to believe that Jesus, the Son of God, has entered into a covenant with God the Father on our behalf.