Several years ago, I did a study on covenant (and I’ve written about it here before). To say it changed my life and the way I understood the Lord and His word is a COMPLETE understatement. It. was. AMAZING and completely fascinating. (It’s honestly, one of my favorite things to talk about EVER so if you have questions, let’s chat!)
In studying Abraham, the topic of covenant comes up again. In Biblical times, people would “cut a covenant” as a way of making a binding, holy, irrevocable contract. To cut a covenant, they would perform a covenant ceremony.
I won’t go into a lot of detail here but we’ll use Wrex and Stef as an example. Not every culture did every step but as a whole, it looked like this:
- Exchange of robes – which symbolized the exchange of identities
- Wrex would wear Stef’s coat and Stef would now wear Wrex’s
- If they were seen walking from afar, someone would think Wrex was Stef or Stef was Wrex because they were wearing the other’s coat
- It creates a melding or confusion of identities
- Exchange of belts – which symbolized the exchange of strengths or assets
- Whatever strength Wrex brings to the relationship, Stef now has; whatever strength Stef brings to the relationship, Wrex now has
- Exchange of weapons – which symbolized the exchange of enemies
- Stef’s enemies would now have to come through Wrex first and Wrex’s through Stef – we will fight for each other
- Sacrificial flesh
- animal split down middle
- Walk of death
- Wrex would walk through the middle of the split animal in a figure eight pattern; Stef would do the same. When they were finished, they would be back where they started, facing each other.
- Striking of hands
- Each person would make an incision on their hand or wrist and intermingle their blood
- Some cultures still do this and use gunpowder to create a dark scar
- This scar would be a visible sign of a covenant
- Circumcision was a sign that you were in covenant with the Lord
- Pronouncements of blessings and curses
- Wrex/Stef, as long as you obey the covenant terms, blessed you shall be as you lie down and when you wake, when you go out and when you retrun
- BUT, if you ever disavow or violate the terms of the covenant, cursed shall you be! What has happened to this split animal, may it happen to thee.
- Covenant meal
- Wrex feeds Stef, Stef feed Wrex (think of cake at a wedding)
- As you eat this, you are ingesting me…taking me into your life (and vice versa)
- Exchange of names
- Wrex becomes Wrex Phipps Hedrick
- Stef becomes Stef Hedrick Phipps
- Sealing of the covenant
- Test it/prove it/see if it’s real
So those are the steps to cutting a covenant. Isn’t that fascinating?! Marriage is as close as we get to creating a blood covenant (it can still be broken through divorce) so you can see a lot of how those steps pertain to a wedding ceremony…
If that’s not fascinating enough, let’s look at it through the lens of Jesus creating a covenant with us in the New Testament. So this time, let the parties be Jesus and Stef…
- Exchange of robes – exchange of identities
- Stef gets a robe of righteousness; Jesus gets a robe of sinfulness
- Every time the Father looks at Stef, all He sees is righteousness
- Exchange of belts – exchange of strengths
- Stef gets every strength and power Jesus has; we can walk in His authority
- Exchange of weapons – exchange of enemies
- Stef’s enemy? Death. Jesus took on death and beat it when He arose from the grave after 3 days
- Jesus’ enemy? Satan – who Stef battles now (Ephesians 6)
- Sacrificial flesh
- Jesus was the living sacrifice; He hung on a cross and died and at his death, the veil of the temple was torn in two (Matthew 25)
- Walk of death
- To be in covenant with and follow Jesus, we have to lay down our life and follow His (Matthew 16)
- We are dying to self and following Him
- Striking of hands
- Jesus’ hands/wrists upon being nailed to cross
- Circumcision of the heart
- I will walk in righteousness and disallow sinfulness
- Blessings and curses – this one’s interesting
- There are SO many blessings and promises He has for us under the New Covenant through His death (I’ll never leave you or forsake you, I’ll supply all your needs, we are a joint heir with Christ ) – but were are the curses?
- Curses are no more. Our sin was the curse and through Him taking our sin through death, they are no more
- Covenant meal
- Lord’s supper
- Name exchange
- We take on His name – christian – one who is of Christ
- Son of Man – Jesus is identified many times in this way in the New Testament; He took on our name (man)
- Sealing of covenant
This is the one that got me….number ten. Like, really got me.
To test the covenant, covenant partners would exchange their oldest sons. That’s pretty serious business, yes? Bearing we weren’t married and just using my first example from above, Wrex would handover his oldest son to me and I would hand over my oldest son to him.
So, look at it through the lens of the New Testament covenant. Our Father sacrificed His oldest Son, Jesus, to prove to us the covenant is real…it’s true…it can be trusted. The things He promises us through it WILL be brought to fruition! Because Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice, we don’t have to sacrifice anything in a living sense. Our sacrifice is spiritual; we must die to ourselves and allow Him to be in charge of our lives.
Now, look at that through the lens of Abraham. Remember what the Lord had him do? He asked him to sacrifice Isaac. Can you even imagine?!
Isaac wasn’t a young man at this time; he was able to carry a bundle of wood up a mountain (for his own sacrifice, mind you). Abraham loved and trusted the Lord enough that he was going to be obedient no matter the cost. If he lost Isaac, he would lose everything; Isaac was the one and only heir to all he had been promised by the Lord…
And so he did. They climbed the mountain and just as Abraham was about to kill Isaac, an angel of the Lord stopped him. The Lord had seen that Abraham was serious about this test and the covenant they had made together so the Lord spared Isaac.
As I was studying this last step, I was overcome with emotion. The sealing of the covenant. I don’t know that I could do what Abraham did… I’d like to think I could, but would I? I began to wonder what in my life IS the sign of the covenant I have with the Lord? What has He asked me to sacrifice, and what have I sacrificed, as a sign of His covenant with me? What have I given over that says to Him, I am keeping my end of the deal…that I’m upholding our covenant together?
That really struck me and caused a lot of serious introspection. Does my life look like I’m in a covenant with the one true God?
The beautiful thing about this covenant is it’s a Suzerain Covenant, which is a covenant not between equals, but a covenant when one person has everything and the other has nothing. Kinda like me and Jesus.
All He desires is my loyalty and commitment, which does involve sacrifice, doesn’t it?
We can’t be in covenant with Him and be serious about it and continue on living a life of repetitive sin.
We can’t be in covenant with Him and be serious about it and make decisions based upon our fears or wants or desires without ever asking Him what He has for us.
We can’t be in covenant with Him and be serious about it if we don’t make room for Him as a priority in our lives.
We can’t be in covenant with Him and be serious about it if we continue to water down the truth of the Word and make our own interpretations of right and wrong.
It’s been something that’s been rolling around my head and heart the past couple of weeks and I’m aiming to keep my end of the deal.
I know that I will sin.
I know that my record won’t be perfect.
I know I will fall short.
And I know that the work He did on the cross and His grace alone will cover these things, but I still wanna do my best to live a life that’s signed over to Him…a life sealed with a covenant…a life of witness to the deliverance He’s set forth in me.
