Day Two Hundred Fifty “Cutting a Covenant”
If you come down just a bit on the sale price, I’m confident that we can cut a deal. Hey, I’m willing to negotiate, let’s cut a deal. Maybe we can get together and cut a deal, let’s talk. The lawyers cut a deal that left me with the car, but she gets the house. The prosecution cut a deal with the witness in exchange for his testimony. To cut a deal is a common idiom used throughout the English vernacular today, and I’m sure we have all, at one time of another, tried to cut a deal that profited us. The expression means to come to an agreement with someone from which both of you benefit, to seal a deal, to secure a bargain, to finalize a compromise. You may be surprised that the idea of cutting between two parties has its roots in the Old Testament, although the ramifications were much deeper and spiritually significant.
In the culture of the Near East, the term To Cut a Covenant was not unusual, and was sometimes used in reference to the relationship between a king and his vassal, or servant. But the term takes on significant meaning in a bit of a strange ceremony that takes place in Genesis, chapter 15. God had made some amazing promises to His sojourner, Abram, including land, descendants, and a special blessing. “Look now toward heaven and count the stars if you are able to number them…So shall your descendants be.” Look upward, Abram, can you count the stars? You are going to have such a multitude of blessed children and grandchildren you will be unable to number them. My blessings will overwhelm and stun you. But God, “how shall I know?” replied Abram. I have no children, I am a stranger in this land, how shall I know that these things will come to pass?
God instructs Abram to gather a “heifer…goat…ram…turtledove, and a young pigeon.” Abram is then instructed to cut them in two, down the middle, and place each piece opposite the other. The two Hebrew words, berith and karath are then combined to describe a sacred moment, for God Himself, Yahweh, would cut a covenant with Abram. In a traditional Hebrew covenant common in that culture, both parties would pass between the sacrificial animals, saying, in effect, May what has happened to these creature happen to me if I break the covenant. But don’t miss this, for in this covenant, only God, appearing as a “smoking furnace, and a burning torch” passes “between those pieces;” Abram has no active role. By being the only One Who passes betwixt the animals, God places the penalty of violating the covenant upon Himself only. This is not a covenant between equal parties, the Lord made the covenant with no conditions-independent of Abram-and God would fulfill the covenant in His time.
What a glorious picture of what Christ has done for me through His death at Calvary! That great covenant of grace is complete in Him, freely given to me, opening the door to life eternal in His presence. It is not by works which I have done, but fully on His act of love that I stand redeemed.
Hebrews 12:24 “And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.
Oh, Lord, what a wondrous act of grace, offering salvation full and free to an unworthy creation. What unfathomable love You have for us.
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