This weekly feature is dedicated to Adventists who are looking for biblical insights into the topics discussed in the Sabbath School lesson quarterly. We post articles which address each lesson as presented in the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, including biblical commentary on them. We hope you find this material helpful and that you will come to know Jesus and His revelation of Himself in His word in profound biblical ways.
Lesson 7: “The Covenant With Abraham”
COLLEEN TINKER
Problems with this lesson:
- The lesson does not address that Abraham’s faith (Gen. 15:6) was what God counted to him as righteousness.
- The lesson does not emphasize that God’s covenant with Abraham was unconditional.
- The author again took episodes from Abraham’s life and made moral lessons out of them.
God’s covenant with Abraham is the backbone of all His promises to Israel and to the believing gentiles who are grafted into God’s olive tree through faith (see Romans 11). Moreover, the faith of Abraham, which Paul used as the central focus of Romans 4, is the prototype of all believers’ faith throughout the rest of history—yet this lesson ignores these two facts, avoiding addressing them directly.
God’s covenant with Abraham was not primarily about the cut animals that the lesson said foreshadowed the sacrifice of Jesus. In context, the sacrificial animals in Genesis 15 were exactly the type of sacrifices used sin ancient Hittite treaties between a suzerain king and a vassal king who entered an agreement after the suzerain conquered the vassal. Those ancients treaties were agreements outlining what the suzerain would provide and what the vassal would do for the suzerain, and they sealed their deals by cutting a covenant with a self-maledictory oath. They would walk among the cut pieces of sacrificed animals and pledge a blood-oath to keep their respective sides of the treaty: “So be it to me if I ever break this covenant.”
God used this well-known model for His unconditional covenant with Abraham. He even had Abraham gather the animals and cut them, laying them out for God to appear for the ratification of the covenant. When God appeared, however, He caused Abraham to fall into a deep sleep. Unable to participate at all in the covenant ratification, Abraham, asleep, nevertheless heard and saw a smoking pot and a blazing furnace move among the sacrificial animals while God told Abraham that He promised him offspring and land, even telling him that his descendants would go into slavery for 400 years after which God would bring them back to the land He had promised Abraham.
Abraham did not participate in making that covenant; it was unilateral between God and Abraham. Moreover, the symbols of the smoking pot and furnace can be understood to represent the Father and the Son—the two parties involved in ratifying the new covenant which God made with Israel and with all who believe.
The lesson mentions the presence of the furnace at the covenant ratification but never mentions the pot. Further, the lesson never points out that Abraham had nothing to do with these promises when God unilaterally promised Abraham that He would fulfill His promises of land, seed, and blessing.
God did not allow Abraham to make weak promises; He made all the promises Himself, and those promises were unconditional. God swore by Himself, as the author of Hebrews says of God, that He would do what He promised.
Furthermore, this covenant with Abraham is the core of Paul’s argument in Galatians, that the law did not replace (nor enhance) the promise made to Abraham. In fact, Paul will compare Mt Sinai to the slave Hagar and say that Sarah and her son of promise are the representatives of all who believe. Those who hold onto the law are slaves and are not free (Gal. 4).
Abraham’s faith
Genesis 15:6 gives us the core statement of Abraham’s position before God: Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. This statement tells us how every person in the history of the world is saved: they BELIEVE GOD.
In fact, it was not believing God that plunged Eve and then Adam into sin. Instead of staking their eternal future on God’s word to Adam, Eve bargained and discussed God’s word with a snake. Had she clung to His word and believed what He said about eating that fruit, she wouldn’t have fallen into sin.
The lesson, however, does not discuss Abraham’s righteousness as connected solely with his faith. Instead, this is what the Teachers Comments say:
In the case of Abram, his righteousness is evaluated on the basis of the divine works for him. What makes Abram righteous is not the sum of his deeds but his willingness to rely on God’s deeds for him (Rom. 4:2–4).
The Bible does not make the point the lesson makes. It states that Abraham’s FAITH is what is counted as his righteousness. It does NOT say that his righteousness is “on the basis of the divine works for him” or that Abraham was willing “to rely on God’s deeds for him”. On the contrary, God gave Abraham the faith to believe HIM—and before God ever made the covenant with Abraham, he believed God.
Of course this fact is too big an admission for the lesson; to acknowledge this would create a huge Adventist problem: what about the Sabbath?!
Abraham did NOTHING to guarantee God’s promises; they were UNCONDITIONAL. Sin can cause one to veer away from the truth and from the core of the gospel—but the lesson’s assumption that Abraham fell away from faith by taking Hagar and by otherwise sinning is incorrect.
Scripture never tells us that Abraham fell away from his faith; instead, Scripture reveals truth and reality are known when we BELIEVE God. Belief is what Abraham had—and even the faith to believe was from God (Eph. 2:8-9).
Abraham did act outside of faith by taking Hagar, but that sin did not pull him away from being counted righteous or from being intimate with God. Yes, he had consequences for his actions, but no—he did not fall out of God’s grace to him.
Moral lessons
Finally, the lesson uses the accounts of the destruction of Sodom and the feeding of the three strangers who turned out to be angels and the Angel of the Lord to teach hospitality and intercession.
Of course, these activities are good and godly—yet they are not the points of the accounts the lesson uses. God was revealing Himself as the righteous judge who is never mocked, and He also revealed Himself as keeping His covenant promises!
Abraham is the prototype of all who believe, and God reveals Himself as the covenant-keeping God whose promises are unconditional, regardless of whether or not those to whom He makes His promises are obedient. He will discipline when necessary, but His promises are SURE. His unconditional covenants are eternal, and He will keep all of them through Christ—even the physical promises involving Seed, and, and blessings.
For more information about God’s covenant with Abraham, listen to this episode of Former Adventist Podcast: Really Big Covenant.
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