September 12, 2009: Friends and family gathered to witness the union of my wonderful husband and I; there were sweet love songs, girls in beautiful dresses, bouquets of flowers, and an elegant three-tiered cake. Many hours were spent planning for this one moment and many dollars were spent making it come to pass. However, none of it would have meant anything if we hadn't joined in a covenant.
We signed paperwork saying we were going to live as husband and wife with all of the legal benefits associated with a marriage. There were vows made about how we would view the relationship and how we would treat each other. We promised God we would remain married for life and asked Him to bless our marriage. Each of us exchanged rings as a symbol of our union and we sealed it with a kiss.
"to have an to hold from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do us part."
The story of our life together is built upon the covenant, the promise, we made that day. The way we view and treat each other is built upon that foundation. All that we have created and experienced together only occurred because we agreed to enter this amazing, crazy thing called marriage.
What does this have to do with Genesis? A lot actually. God makes several covenants in the Bible. I would argue that, in order to rightly understand the Bible, you must understand the importance of these covenants.
In the ancient world, a covenant was similar to what we in the modern world would call a contract or a treaty. (One of the most familiar examples of a covenant for us is marriage.) Each covenant that God made, established the basis of a relationship, promises and conditions of the relationship and consequences if those conditions were unmet.
Why do I think understanding covenant is so important? It is because the covenants provide the skeletal framework for how the whole biblical story holds together. As the story of the Bible unfolds, we see God is a covenant making, covenant keeping, and covenant fulfilling God. He establishes covenants with certain people and these covenants are the way God unfolds His redemptive plan. The covenants are the structure of the story. Praise the Lord, we are beneficiaries and participants in one of these covenants.
In week 1 of our reading, in Genesis 9, God establishes a covenant with Noah after the flood in which he resets and renews the blessings of creation, reaffirming God’s image in humanity and the work of dominion. This covenant promises the preservation of humanity and provides for the restraint of human evil and violence. God places a bow in the sky as a symbol of His covenant.
We began this week's reading in Genesis 12 with God initiating a covenant with Abram.
"Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."
Chapter 15 tells us that God visited Abram to confirm the boundaries of the Promised Land. As we get to chapter 17, God restates the covenant and adds to it the requirement that Abram circumcise all males in his household as a "token of the covenant" between Him and Abram.
In this everlasting covenant, God promises Abraham a promised land, that he will be the father of many nations, and to make him exceedingly fruitful. This blessing promised to Abraham would extend through him to all the peoples of the earth. Understanding the Abrahamic Covenant is paramount to understanding theological concepts like a Promised Land, the people of God, Christ's lineage, inheritance and so on. It provides context for understanding conflicts with surrounding nations and divisions between Jews and Gentiles.
There are five major Biblical covenants which give us the context for how God has chosen to interact with humanity. Let me know if you'd like a separate post summarizing the covenants.
In Genesis 15:13-16, the Lord tells Abram that his descendants will spend 400 years in Egypt; after that they will return to the Promised Land to begin to fulfilling parts of the covenant. God states the facts that the "iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full" as the reason for the delay in Abraham's seed fully occupying the Promised Land immediately. In multiple places in the Bible, we see the concept that there is a limit to the amount of wickedness that a nation (or the world) can get away with before it is utterly destroyed by God. The Amorites were heaping sin upon sin, but God chose to delay bringing judgement upon them until their cup of iniquity was full. To me if feels as if, in our world today, we have heaped sin upon sin to the point that we can see the rim of the cup.
Hebraic scholars that study Torah teach that there are multiple layers to the meaning of Biblical texts. It is taught that some stories are patterns that will be repeated, and some stories hold clues for future events. In the first book of the Bible, we have accounts of complete devastation from a world-wide flood, the local region surrounding Sodom being destroyed by hailstones, and the promise to Abram that his descendants would remove the Amorites from the Promised Land. In the last book of the Bible, we are told that the world as we know it will be destroyed. Given that our eyes may see events from the book of Revelation, I think it is worth our time to examine these events and see what we can learn.
Luke 17:26-30 ties the second coming of Jesus with Noah and Sodom by saying, "And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise, also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, the bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed."
In this week's reading from Genesis 18:20, the Lord says that the sin of Sodom and Gomorah "is very grievous." In the next chapter we see the men of Sodom hoping to defile the angelic visitors that came to visit Lot and chapter 20 tells the horrible events of an incestual relationship between Lot and his two daughters. While these stories of sexual perversion are disturbing, to say the least, there is another description of the sin of Sodom I'd like to consider as well.
Ezekiel 16:49-50, "Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy, And they were haughty, and committed abominations before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good."
Idol worship, and all of the abominable acts that are committed in these types of worship, are an afront to God, but I think this passage from Ezekiel sheds light on the type of society that is a hot bed for idol worship. Pride, reliance on wealth, idleness, not giving to the needing, haughty, sexual sins... And I fear for the United States and Western culture.
In the New Testament, God's word states that the destruction of Sodom as an example for the end-times generation regarding the destruction that will occur during their time. Jude 7 says, "Even as Sodom and Gomorah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." Revelation 11:8, "And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified."
In Revelation 18:4,8 there is prophecy of the future destruction of figurative Babylon. "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye received not of her plagues, for her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her."
Just as it was certain that the flood would occur, that Sodom would be destroyed, and the Amorites would be driven from the land, it is also certain that the world will suffer a future punishment. However, the Lord has not forgotten those that love Him, those that enter into covenant with Him. Just as Noah and Lot escaped the storms, God will protect His beloved during the coming storm. Let all praise and glory be to the Lord Jesus for His goodness!
But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children. To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them. Psalm 103:17-18
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