Genesis 12, 15 and 17 · Doctrine · Featured Study
The Abrahamic Covenant
The covenant runs through Genesis 12, 15 and 17 and is taken up in Romans 4, Galatians 3, Hebrews 6 and James 2.
God calls one man out of Ur and binds Himself to him by oath to give land, seed, and blessing to all nations. Every covenant after this one stands on it, and so does every believer who belongs to Christ.
- First taught
- Genesis 12:1 to 3 “Then the LORD said to Abram, “Leave your…”
- Fullest statement
- Genesis 17:1 to 21 “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD…”
József Molnár, The March of Abraham, 1850. Public domain.
Summary
Genesis gives the covenant in three scenes across twenty-four years, from the call at Haran to the sign of circumcision.
- In Genesis 15 Abram sleeps while God alone passes between the pieces, the form of a royal grant.
- Genesis 15:6 is quoted three ways: Paul's timing argument, his chronology argument and James's completion argument.
- Paul says the Scripture foretold the gospel to Abraham, and he reads the promised seed as Christ.
- The grant reading and the one-covenant-of-grace reading are set side by side, each with its holders.
- Five Hebrew words carry the covenant's vocabulary, from berith, covenant, to olam, everlasting.
Three Scenes, One Oath
Genesis 12 gives the covenant in words, Genesis 15 in blood and Genesis 17 in the flesh.
THE CALL, IN WORDS
Abram is seventy-five, with no child and no land, when God calls him to leave his country, and he goes as the LORD directed him. Nothing is cut yet, and everything is spoken.
THE CUTTING, IN BLOOD
The promise becomes a covenant, cut on the night Genesis 15 records.
THE SIGN, IN THE FLESH
Genesis records nothing of the thirteen years after Ishmael's birth, and then God appears again. He calls the covenant everlasting three times, renames Abram and Sarai, and seals the promise with a mark carried in the body of every son.
Then the LORD said to Abram, “Leave your country, your kindred, and your father’s household, and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you; and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”These three verses hold the whole promise, and the rest of the Bible tells how God keeps it.
“Get out for thyself (so some read it), that is, for thy own good. Note, Those who leave their sins, and turn to God, will themselves be unspeakable gainers by the change, Prov. ix. This command which God gave to Abram is much the same with the gospel call by which all the spiritual seed of faithful Abram are brought into covenant with God.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Genesis 12:1Puritan
The Covenant from Genesis to Hebrews
Six texts carry the one covenant from its first words to the oath Hebrews rests on.
A chain of six texts: the promise is spoken in Genesis 12, cut by God alone in Genesis 15, called everlasting in Genesis 17 and sworn by oath on Moriah in Genesis 22.
- What it adds to the covenant
- the first words of the covenant, spoken to Abram before he leaves Haran
- What it adds to the covenant
- the LORD makes a covenant with Abram and gives the land to his descendants
3The covenant called everlasting
- What it adds to the covenant
- God establishes His covenant with Abraham and his descendants for all time
- What it adds to the covenant
- God swears by Himself after Abraham does not withhold his only son
- What it adds to the covenant
- the Scripture foresees that God will justify the Gentiles by faith
- What it adds to the covenant
- the promise and the oath give the heirs strong encouragement
Galatians 3:8 and Hebrews 6:17 to 18 close the chain in the New Testament.
Land, Seed, Blessing
The covenant carries three promises, and each runs on through the rest of Scripture.
LAND
God promises the land of Canaan to Abram's offspring, and Abram builds an altar where the promise is given.
SEED
God promises Abram descendants as many as the stars of heaven, and in Genesis 22:17 to 18 as many as the sand on the seashore.
BLESSING
All the families of the earth are to be blessed through Abram, so the promise reaches past his own household to every nation.
Adam Clarke on Genesis 12:31 paragraph
Clarke's Commentary on the Bible names the means of the blessing, the Messiah born of Abraham's line. He takes on human nature from Abraham's descendants and tastes death for every man. His gospel is preached through the world, so the blessing reaches every family of the earth.
Genesis 12:3 in Rashi's plain sense2 paragraphs
Rashi, the eleventh-century Jewish commentator, takes the plain sense of the words as a formula of blessing: a father blesses his son by wishing that he become as Abraham. He cites Genesis 48:20, where Israel blesses his grandsons by the names of Ephraim and Manasseh (Rashi on Genesis 12:3, in the translation of M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929 to 1934).
Here a Christian reader meets a point of difference. Rashi's reading keeps the blessing within the words a family prays, and Paul reads the same promise as the gospel that reaches the Gentiles through Abraham's one offspring, Christ (Galatians 3:8 and Galatians 3:16).
One Verse, Three New Testament Arguments
Paul quotes Genesis 15:6 twice and James quotes it once, and each proves something different.
Abram believed the LORD, and it was credited to him as righteousness.In the Berean text this is the first verse of the Bible to use the words believed and righteousness.
PAUL'S TIMING ARGUMENT
Abraham was credited as righteous in Genesis 15, two chapters before his circumcision in Genesis 17. So righteousness cannot come from the sign, and Romans 4:11 calls circumcision a seal of the righteousness he had by faith.
PAUL'S CHRONOLOGY ARGUMENT
The promise stood 430 years before the law came, and Galatians 3:17 says the later law does not revoke the covenant God had already established. Faith was the way in before the law was given.
JAMES'S COMPLETION ARGUMENT
James quotes the verse after Abraham offered Isaac on Moriah in Genesis 22 and says the Scripture was fulfilled. The offering showed that the faith credited in Genesis 15 had been real all along.
Matthew Henry and Ambrose on the faith that was credited1 paragraph, 2 quotations
Henry follows Paul's use of the verse in Romans 4, and Ambrose reads Abraham's faith through John 8:56, where Jesus says Abraham rejoiced to see His day.
“Note, Those who would have the comfort of the promises must mix faith with the promises. See how the apostle magnifies this faith of Abram, and makes it a standing example, Rom. iv. He was not weak in faith; he staggered not at the promise; he was strong in faith; he was fully persuaded.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Genesis 15:6Puritan
“And how did Abraham's progeny spread? Only through the inheritance he transmitted in virtue of faith. On this basis the faithful are assimilated to heaven, made comparable to the angels, equal to the stars. This is why he said, ‘So will your descendants be. And Abraham,’ the text says, ‘believed in God.’ What exactly did he believe? Prefiguratively he believed that Christ through the incarnation would become his heir. In order that you may know that this was what he believed, the Lord says, ‘Abraham saw my day and rejoiced.’”
Ambrose of Milan · On Abraham · on Genesis 15:6Patristic
Ambrose on circumcision as a sign of another reality1 quotation
“I know that this part of the text is disturbing to many. Indeed, if circumcision is a good thing, it should be maintained today as well. If it is useless, it never should have been mandated in the first place, particularly not by divine precept. But, inasmuch as the apostle said, ‘Abraham received the sign of circumcision,’ certainly the sign is not the reality itself but points to another reality. That is, it is not the truth but points to the truth.”
Ambrose of Milan · On Abraham · on Genesis 17:11Patristic
The Night Only God Walked the Blood Path
Genesis 15 follows the covenant rite of the ancient Near East and changes one thing in it.
In Abram's world a covenant was cut. The parties halved animals, laid the pieces in two rows and walked between them, an oath that meant may this be done to me if I break my word. Jeremiah 34:18 still speaks of the calf cut in two to pass between its pieces.
Genesis 15 stages that ceremony and turns it inside out, because Abram, the human party, is asleep when God alone passes between the pieces.
When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, behold, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the halves of the carcasses.The fire passes along the path Abram never walks, and fire will later lead Israel as a pillar.
On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land—from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates—God says I have given, the tense of a deed already done, where Genesis 12:7 said I will give.
The royal grant and the vassal treaty1 paragraph
Moshe Weinfeld named the pattern in the Journal of the American Oriental Society (1970). Ancient Near Eastern kings made two kinds of covenant: the suzerain-vassal treaty, which laid obligations on the lesser party, and the royal grant, a gift the king swore to a servant. Sinai reads like the treaty, and Genesis 15 reads like the grant, in which God alone swears, walks and is bound.
In an ordinary covenant both parties were bound1 table
A table of two rows with three columns: the covenant, who walks between the pieces and who is bound.
| Covenant | Who walks between the pieces | Who is bound |
|---|---|---|
| An ordinary covenant | both parties | both parties |
| Genesis 15 | God alone, while Abram sleeps | God alone |
What the Text Leaves Unsaid
Genesis leaves three questions about the covenant unanswered.
Genesis gives no reason why God chose Abram. Joshua 24:2 says only that Terah, the father of Abraham, lived beyond the Euphrates and worshiped other gods.
Genesis 15 does not say whether Abram saw the fire pass between the pieces. Genesis 15:12 says he had fallen into a deep sleep.
Genesis 17 gives no reason why the sign is set in the flesh of every male. It names the sign, its keeping in every generation, and the male who is cut off from his people for refusing it (Genesis 17:14).
The Gospel Foretold to Abraham
Galatians 3 and Hebrews 6 read the promise through Christ and through God's oath, and John Wesley reads Abraham's new name through Romans 4.
The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and foretold the gospel to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”Paul's verb, proeuangelizomai, joins the verb for telling good news to a prefix meaning before, so Abraham heard the gospel itself long before the cross.
The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say, “and to seeds,” meaning many, but “and to your seed,” meaning One, who is Christ.Paul reads the singular seed as one Person, so the line of promise runs from Genesis 3:15 through Abraham to Christ.
And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.This verse opens the covenant to every believer, Jew or Gentile, through Christ.
When God made His promise to Abraham, since He had no one greater to swear by, He swore by Himself,Hebrews looks back to Genesis 22:16, where the LORD says By Myself I have sworn.
So when God wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear to the heirs of the promise, He guaranteed it with an oath. Thus by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be strongly encouraged.The promise and the oath are the two unchangeable things, and in Hebrews 6:19 this hope becomes an anchor for the soul.
John Wesley reads the new name Abraham, father of many nations, through Romans 4:16 to 17.
“That all believers, in every age, should be looked upon as his spiritual seed, as the father of the faithful. In this sense the apostle directs us to understand this promise, Rom. iv, 16, 17. He is the father of those, in every nation, that, by faith, enter into covenant with God, and (as the Jewish writers express it) are gathered under the wings of the divine majesty.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament · on Genesis 17:5Evangelical
Galatians 3:29, Hebrews 6:13, Hebrews 6:17 to 18, John Wesley
Everlasting, and Contested
Two readings answer whether the covenant carries conditions, and each has its holders.
I will establish My covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.God calls the covenant everlasting here and again in Genesis 17:13 and Genesis 17:19, and in Genesis 17:8 He promises the land as an eternal possession.
The unconditional-grant reading1 paragraph
The one-sided ceremony of Genesis 15, the royal grant form Moshe Weinfeld described, the word everlasting and the self-sworn oath of Hebrews 6 read the covenant as a gift God alone secures. On this reading the commands inside it, circumcision and walking blamelessly, govern the enjoyment of the covenant and never its ownership. Dispensational teachers hold it, among them John F. Walvoord in The Millennial Kingdom (1959) and J. Dwight Pentecost in Things to Come (1958). Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on the Bible, takes olam in Genesis 17:7 in its proper sense of everlasting, because the covenant is to be a God to Abraham and to his seed after him.
The one-covenant-of-grace reading1 paragraph, 2 quotations
Covenant theology reads Abraham's covenant as one administration of a single covenant of grace, running from Eden to the new covenant, and the church inherits its promises in Christ. R. C. Sproul's 1997 book What Is Reformed Theology? summarizes this reading. Genesis 17:1, “Walk before Me and be blameless,” keeps real obligation inside the relationship, as Matthew Henry and John Wesley teach.
“What God requires that we should be to him. The covenant is mutual: Walk before me, and be thou perfect, that is, upright and sincere; for herein the covenant of grace is well-ordered that sincerity is our gospel perfection.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Genesis 17:1Puritan
“The covenant of grace is everlasting; it is from everlasting in the counsels of it, and to everlasting in the consequences of it; and the external administration of it is transmitted, with the seal of it, to the seed of believers, and the internal administration of it by the Spirit to Christ's seed in every age. This is a covenant of exceeding great and precious promises.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament · on Genesis 17:7Evangelical
The two readings meet at two points. Both hold that God's promise to Abraham has not failed, and both read Galatians 3:29 as true, so everyone in Christ inherits this covenant's blessing. They differ on whether Israel's national promises remain a distinct track still to come, and the page Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism sets the two frameworks side by side.
Books to Read Next
Four works that have carried this covenant, two of them free to read online.
Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis
John Calvin · 1554
Calvin reads chapters 12 to 17 verse by verse, and the covenant with them.
Read it free at CCELCommentary on the Whole Bible
Matthew Henry · 1710
Henry walks through the Abraham narratives at length and draws the devotional lesson of each scene.
Read it free at CCELThe Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and in the Ancient Near East
Moshe Weinfeld · 1970
The article appeared in volume 90 of the Journal of the American Oriental Society, on pages 184 to 203.
In print: find it wherever books are sold.
Treaty of the Great King
Meredith G. Kline · 1963
Kline argues that Deuteronomy follows the full form of an ancient treaty, the other half of the study of covenant forms.
In print: find it wherever books are sold.
The Promise Kept in Christ
The oath God swore alone is kept in Christ Jesus.
God bound Himself to Abraham while Abraham slept. The text asks the reader to do what Abram did, to believe the LORD and to receive righteousness as His gift.
He redeemed us in order that the blessing promised to Abraham would come to the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.Paul adds a gift Genesis 12:3 never names, so the blessing of Abraham now carries the Spirit to the Gentiles.
Five Hebrew Words of the Covenant
Hebrew cuts a covenant, credits righteousness and calls the covenant everlasting.
A table of five rows: berith, karath, chashab, tsedaqah and olam, each with its sense and its verses.
| Word | Meaning | Where it stands |
|---|---|---|
| berith | covenant, the word behind the names Old Testament and New Testament | Genesis 15:18 and through Genesis 17 |
| karath | to cut: Hebrew speaks of cutting a covenant, and Genesis 15 shows why | Genesis 15:18 |
| chashab | to credit or reckon, a word of accounts | Genesis 15:6 |
| tsedaqah | righteousness, right standing before God | Genesis 15:6 |
| olam | everlasting, said of this covenant and of its land | Genesis 17:7, Genesis 17:8, Genesis 17:13 and Genesis 17:19 |
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible.
- Rashi on Genesis, in Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary, M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann (1929 to 1934)
- Moshe Weinfeld, The Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and in the Ancient Near East, Journal of the American Oriental Society 90 (1970), 184 to 203.
- R. C. Sproul, What Is Reformed Theology? (1997)
- Meredith G. Kline, Treaty of the Great King (1963)
- John F. Walvoord, The Millennial Kingdom (1959)
- J. Dwight Pentecost, Things to Come (1958)
- The Greek New Testament, Galatians 3:8.
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