Does the Genesis 15 covenant ceremony ratify more than physical promises?

[anotherpilgrim]

I've come across several sermons and articles emphasizing the significance of God's actions in the covenant ceremony of Genesis 15 (the one-sided taking on the covenant curses, how violating the promise could only be at the cost of God violating his own nature, etc.). However, when reading the passage, the specific promises that God is ratifying by his words and by the smoking pot passing through the animals seems to be limited to the physical nation of Israel (offspring of Abraham) and their physical inheritance of the land.

From the sermons and articles I've come across, I've had the impression that what God was unconditionally promising here was much more than a physical inheritance. Yet, I don't see that in this passage... Could you help me understand what I'm missing here?

 

[JTB.SDG]

In short: The rest of Scripture makes it really clear that the "seed" meant so much more than just Abe's physical offspring (Galatians 3), and the "land" meant so much more than just a physical place (Psalm 37; Hebrews 11).

 

[Solparvus]

Abraham received circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith before he was circumcised (Romans 4:11) so the New Testament tells us what circumcision was really about—much more than land and a physical people. It was about the Gospel.

If you go back to Genesis 15, God promises to be Abraham’s God, and included in that is forgiveness of sins and imputed righteousness. How else can God become a man’s exceedingly great rewards less He breaks down everything that has disrupted the fellowship between man and God? God promises land and people to Abraham, but Abraham did not believe for the land only—he also believed that God would truly be His God in spite of his sins and make him righteous, so he believed the Gospel contained in Genesis 3. Two chapters and 13 years later God establishes that very covenant with Abraham by granting circumcision. Notice despite the time lapse Paul places the events together as one covenant. God also explicitly says in Genesis 17 as well that he would establish His covenant with Abraham. What Covenant was it? The Covenant that God had been promising before Genesis 17.

As far as the land goes, Paul in Romans 4 says Abraham believed God in order to becoming heir of the world, not just Canaan. Abraham saw in it the redemption and inheritance of the whole earth—which will be the manifest case when Christ returns.

 

[Cymro]

And Hebrews tells us,”they sought a better country”

 

[Jack K]

Galatians 3:8 tells us God was announcing the gospel of justification by faith in Christ when he made his initial promises to Abraham. Granted, that took place back in Genesis 12, not in chapter 15. But a reading of the surrounding verses in Galatians 3 and of Romans 4:16-25 will show that the promises Abraham received in Genesis 12, 15 and 17 are not isolated from each other but are connected... and that together they connect to salvation in Christ.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

anotherpilgrim,

You have the promise, Gen.12.
You have the ceremony, Gen.15.
You have the sign/seal, Gen.17.
From the CT perspective, (I'm granting that Covenant Theology may not be your view) it's all one basic relationship with God, restoration of communion lost at the fall (Gen.3) to be realized in the Promised Seed when he arrives.

CT argues for a unitary vision for divine revelation in Scripture: namely Christ. The chief alternative view among most non-Reformed or half-Reformed people, is a binary focus for Scripture: Israel after the flesh, and Christ after the Spirit. The latter, basically dispensational-perspective has been in vogue, in several versions or expressions (with genetic links) for the past coming-up-on two centuries (J.N. Darby, ca. 1830).