“So, the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.” Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.
As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there.
But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in Peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates—the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.” Genesis 15:9-21.
This passage describes an Old Testament ritual of sacrifice. In the ancient Near East, when two parties entered into a covenant, they would seal their commitment in a similar manner. They would cut the animals in half and place them on the ground with a path down the middle of the two halves. Then the lower and lesser party of the agreement would pass between the halves, reciting the terms of the covenant. The ritual served as a visual reminder of the severe nature of the commitment. The lesser party essentially said they would end up like those unfortunate animals if they broke the covenant terms.
In this covenant account, it is not Abraham who passes between the animals, but God’s presence, symbolized by the blazing torch and the fire pot. It should have been the lesser party, Abraham, putting his life on the line if he ever broke the covenant. But it is not. It is God who takes that upon himself. In choosing Abraham as his representative, God entered into a covenant on behalf of all humanity. In promising to bring Peace through Abraham’s offspring, God puts his own life on the line. Knowing that Abraham would fail like all the others and that God would be faithful like He always is, God gives us an image of the future—the promise of Peace. Jesus will lay down His life as a sacrifice for our sins, taking on the judgment that should be ours and shedding His blood on the cross for our salvation.
According to scripture, the Peace of God, “which transcends all understanding,” is the harmony and calmness of body, mind, and spirit, achieved by trusting in the power and grace of God. It’s comforting to know that the promise of Hope and Peace was fulfilled in the birth, death and resurrection of Christ. Are you in covenant with God? Accept that you are a sinner, and that Jesus was sacrificed at the cross so our sins are forgiven, and we can be in covenant with God for all eternity.