Lech Lecha - A Sign of the Covenant

Go Forth, Genesis 12:1-17:27/ Galatians 4:21-31

"It shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you"

This week we come to the Torah portion known in the Hebrew as Lech Lecha, meaning ‘Go forth (out of),’ which are the first words in scripture given to Abram by God. This section of scripture tells the story of the calling of Abram to leave his native land and go to the land that would one day become Israel. More importantly, it also tells of the promise God made to Abram to give him land, lineage, and to be the source of blessing for the whole world. This covenant for which God took complete responsibility for (Gen 15:7-21) reflects in structure and content what was known known in the Ancient Near East (ANE) as a Land Grant covenant, which was a gracious gift given in perpetuity by a king to a faithful individual (Hegg, 1989). The Apostolic Scriptures, especially Paul’s letters to the Romans and Galatians, reveals that within this covenant was the promise of salvation. Since I focused on the idea of covenant last week, this week I want to focus on two surprisingly related aspects of this portion: the story of Hagar the maidservant, and the sign of the covenant: circumcision.

Ten years after God had made his promise to Abram, the offspring and heir promised to him and Sarai had still not arrived. So, Sarai decided to take matters into her own hands and gave her servant Hagar to Abram so that they could have a child. She believed that God had kept her from for having children, so she concluded that this must mean the heir would need to come some other way. And indeed, Hagar did conceive and gave birth to a son who was named Ishmael. However, in the following chapter, God clarified that this was not the heir promised. Rather, he would be given through Sarah (Gen 17:15-19). For this to take place required a miraculous act on God’s behalf, and great faith on Abraham and Sarah’s part. That Sarah tried to fulfil the promise by her own efforts reveals a lack of faith on her part, and understandably so. But nonetheless, just as we saw with Noah, the fulfillment of this promise would be completely a work of God.

Paul uses this story as an illustrative example, or allegory, of trying to achieve one’s salvation by means of the flesh. In the first century, many Jews believed that it was by virtue of their ethnic status they would be saved. And this status was maintained by obedience to their community’s interpretation of the Law. This interpretation, as we find from the Dead Sea Scrolls, was referred to as ‘works of the law.’ Thus, in Galatians 4:21-31, Paul explains that Ishmael represents the one relying on their ethnic status (“according to the flesh”), while Isaac refers to those relying on the promise of God (according to faith). Also, by describing Hagar as a slave, Paul is explaining that those who were relying on their ethnic status were in fact slaves to sin (Rom 6:1-11), which some of the Jews of Jesus’ day found difficult to accept (John 8:33-35). On the other hand, those relying on faith to be reconciled to God were the ones who could experience sonship.

It was most likely in response to this incident that God gave Abraham the sign of circumcision. A sign, in this context is a demonstrable token or pledge of faithfulness and participation in a covenant. Since this is the same word used of the rainbow in Genesis 9, we could quite possibly understand a sign as being for the benefit of the other party. As the rainbow was there to remind us that he will be faithful to His promise to Noah, circumcision was there to demonstrate loyalty to God and faith in His promises. And for Abraham, this was particularly fitting. Since the promise of descendants required a miraculous act of God, a cutting of the flesh of the male reproductive organ was a symbolic way to show, “I’m trusting God to fulfil his promises.” What is also interesting, is that in the ANE it was said that a covenant is 'cut' between people. For example, "On that day the Lord made (karat -to cut/off/down) a covenant with Abram." (Gen 15:18). This reflects the cutting of the animals in this chapter, and the act of cutting the foreskin.  Moreover, that the covenant promises made to Abraham included justification by faith by means of his descendant, which Paul explains is Jesus, means that the perpetual covenant sign of circumcision was most significantly a declaration of faith that it is the Messiah, Jesus, and not our works that makes us righteous.    

As Paul explains in Galatians:

And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” …[Thus, it is] in Christ Jesus [that] the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith (Gal 3:8-14).

Although Abraham is a great role model of incredible faith, the more significant instruction for the church is that the story of Abraham is an even greater reminder that it is not by our efforts or our blood lines that we are made right with God, but rather, by faith. This message of ‘faith alone’ is very timely as we approach the 500^th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation as this was at the heart of the reformers message.  And the fact that we find this all the way back in the early chapters of Genesis reveals that justification by faith is not a 16^th century concept, nor a “New Testament” idea, but rather an eternal truth that it has only ever been by faith that we can please God.

Our next section is Genesis 18:1-22:24


Hegg, T. "The Covenant of Grant and the Abrahamic Covenant." Torah Resource:1989.