“On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying to your offspring I give this land, from the River of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates.”
– Genesis 15:18
This word covenant is so critical to understanding the story of scripture, to understanding what’s happening here in Genesis, and then Exodus after this and really all throughout the Bible. This picture of covenant in Genesis 15:18 is a commitment. Picture like a marriage relationship, think about what happens in the covenant of marriage. A man and a woman make promises to one another and commit themselves to one another. This is the picture that’s playing out in Genesis 15 and Genesis 17. God is saying to Abram I am committed to you.
God is faithful to His promises. Christ’s commitment to His bride is sealed by the blood He shed on the cross.
Just think about this. God, speaking to this sinful man, saying I am making promises to you that I will be committed to you. It’s not just for a lifetime, this is for not just Abram but his descendants and all the way through. We read this all the way through into the New Testament, this covenant is still being talked about because God is faithful to his word, he’s faithful to his covenant. What we see, which we had time to dive into this more, but all throughout the Old Testament this covenant just kind of builds, there’s the Abraham covenant here and then the Mosaic covenant, the covenant with Moses that builds upon that.
It’s almost like just each of them successively building on each other, and then what does Jesus say when he is preparing to go to the cross? He’s sitting with his disciples, he takes a piece of bread, he takes the cup and he said, “This is the cup,” of a new what? He said, “This is the cup of a new covenant.”
This Verse Reminds Us That God Is Committed To Us
A covenant that builds on everything before, but this covenant, Jesus saying, “My commitment to you is sealed.” My commitment to you, my love for you, my relationship with you, with all who trust in me is sealed by my blood that I’m about to shed on the cross, this cup represents my blood given for you. Do you realize you have trusted in Jesus that the God of the universe is totally committed to you? He loves you, he has sealed his relationship with you by the blood of his own son. His blood is covered over all your sin and you don’t have to worry about a thing in this world.
Genesis 15:18 Praises Jesus For His Relationship With God
You don’t have to worry about a thing beyond this world because God is committed to you. Because God is in relationship with you, because God’s promises to you, as his child, will never, ever, ever, fail. So God we praise you. We praise you for the privilege of being in covenant relationship with you. Jesus we praise you for dying on the cross for our sins. For the blood of the covenant, for your blood that covers over all our sins.
So we praise you that we are forgiven and we are free, free to live in relationship with you, free to enjoy you, free to walk with you, free to experience life and all that you’ve designed for it to be for us. Free from the power of death, free to have eternal life with you. We praise you for the privilege of being in covenant relationship with you.
All who are of the faith of Abraham, who’ve trusted in you, trusted in your provision of salvation. Above all Your grace through Jesus all glory be to your name Jesus for the new covenant that we now live in and will live in forever. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
