The Sign of God's Promise

I'll get you to turn to Genesis chapter 17 this morning. We've already introduced to you the idea that we are having Lord's Supper today. The Lord's Supper is one of two sacraments in the church. We've begun thinking about the ritual of us meeting together on a Sunday morning, the speaking that God does through His word to us every time we meet together, and God will be speaking to us in these symbols, these elements again this morning. But there is a moment where God gave a sign to His people right in the beginning.

It's the sign of circumcision. And this morning, we're going to be exploring why God gave that sign, how it's still relevant to us even as Gentile believers today, and the significance of God and rituals. Why does God give these physical symbols for people to believe and enter into? But firstly, let's read from Genesis 17, verse 1. When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty.

Walk before me and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you and may multiply you greatly. Then Abram fell on his face and God said to him, Behold, my covenant is with you. You shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham. For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.

I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. And God said to Abraham, as for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you.

Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or brought or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring. Both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh, an everlasting covenant.

Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant. And God said to Abraham, as for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations.

Kings of people shall come from her. Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, Shall a child be born to a man who is 100 years old? Shall Sarah, who is 90 years old, bear a child? And Abraham said to God, Oh, that Ishmael might live before you. God said, No.

But Sarah, your wife, shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father 12 princes, and I will make him into a great nation.

But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year. When he had finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham. Then Abraham took Ishmael his son and all those born in his house or bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham's house. And he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very day, as God had said to him. Abraham was 99 years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, and Ishmael his son was 13 years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.

That very day, Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised and all the men of his house, those born in the house and those bought with money from a foreigner were circumcised with him. This is the word of the Lord. There was nothing particularly special about the man Abraham. Until God burst into his life in Genesis chapter 12, there was little to make him stand out from among his pagan brothers and father. He was just a man who lived in ancient Babylon, a place called Ur of Qaldiyah, which is roughly modern day Iraq today.

He wasn't particularly nicer than his neighbours nor was he more spiritual than other people, even though his father was an idol maker, a craftsman of idols. God simply comes to Abram, and God sovereignly chooses to graciously bless Abram. It's a powerful picture once again of God's unconditional election of believers. God, out of grace, simply chooses to love Abram and chooses to save him. But this is how the story of Abraham begins in Genesis 12.

Now the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonours you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. What is God promising Abraham in these opening verses? God promises Abraham many descendants.

He promises Abraham his own country, the country of Canaan, which is where we find Abraham now in Genesis 17. And in Genesis 12, God promises Abraham to be his God, to be his God. Helpfully, you can understand those three blessings, three promises as God promising Abraham a people, descendants, a place, Canaan, and God's presence, I will be your God. People, place, and presence. Now these are not random promises if you understand the book of Genesis.

Go right back to the start of Genesis, and you'll see God's original plan with Adam and Eve is centred around the same three aspects. If Adam and Eve were to live as God's created humanity before Him, God would give them descendants, a people, the safety and the protection of the garden, a place, and God would continue to walk with them in the coolness of the day. God's presence. People, place, and presence. We know what happened there.

Right? They are removed, and they start losing all of those things. Abraham, Adam and Eve's boys are fighting, one kills the other. The place, they are removed. God blocks them from ever returning to the garden, and God is now not visible to them.

God does not meet with them in the same way. And so what we find here in Genesis 12 is actually the beginnings of God's repair job to save and redeem His lost humanity. Now we know it's not the whole story just yet. It's the start. But God promises Abraham a people, a place, and His presence.

Then we come to Genesis 17, and we see that a contract is confirmed with Abraham. A contract is made. It's been many years since those opening promises in Genesis 12. A lot has happened. But Abraham now is in the promised land.

He is in the land of Canaan. But it's a land of sojournings, God says. It's a land of wandering for Abraham. He doesn't own it yet. He doesn't yet have anything resembling a nation with him.

He doesn't even have a legitimate son. And Abraham is now 99 years old. And God again comes to Abraham and says, verse 1, I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be blameless that I may make my covenant between me and you and may multiply you greatly. In other words, God comes and He re-establishes that blessing.

He re-sums again the promise. But look at those words, if God's confirming the covenant, He's saying, I'm going to confirm, I'm going to make my covenant between me and you. What is it that has originally happened? Where did God create the covenant?

So He's saying, I'm confirming it with you. Where did it originally come from? Was it in Genesis 12? Well, no, we have to jump back just two chapters to Genesis 15, where this word covenant, which is a solemn promise, is mentioned. Genesis 15, if you want to have a quick overview, is another meeting between God and Abraham, and here the word covenant is mentioned specifically.

We find God inaugurating a solemn, serious promise. It's a type of oath that God makes to Abraham. But the word, the blessings are the same. A people, a place, and my presence. Have a look at verses 9 to 17 of that chapter, chapter 15, and we find a description of a strange scene of dead carcasses and a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch that magically hovers between these dead carcasses.

And if you read it for the first time, you'll ask, What on earth is happening here? What we see happening there is a ritual, an ancient rite that signified the making of a covenant. Say, ritual, when people made covenant to each other, a solemn, serious promise that they would sacrifice an animal, they would cut it in half, and the blood and the entrails that are there as they do that, they would cross over, they would walk through, and as they make the promise to each other that I will do this for you if you will do this for me, they say to one another, May I become like this dead animal? May a curse come upon me and may I die if I don't go through with this serious solemn pledge I'm making to you. And that is what we see happening with Abraham and God in Genesis 15.

God is saying, This blessing will be yours. And may I, God, die a death like this if it doesn't happen. Verse 18 in that chapter sums up the significance of that moment. On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abraham, saying, To your offspring, I give this land. Verse 6 adds this important detail that Abram believed the Lord and it was credited to him as righteousness in God's eyes.

Okay. So back in Genesis 15, God inaugurates the covenant. But what is happening here in chapter 17? Well, our newly graduated lawyer amongst us, Brian, who surely studied contract law, I won't get him up to come and explain that to us, will tell you that, well, if he's done the work, that chapter 17 is actually set up like a contract. There's an identification of all the parties involved in the contract, stipulated beautifully.

We don't see it in verse 4 as clearly in our ESV translations. Other translations do it better. But it begins with As for me. God is speaking. He says, As for me, and He begins listing all the stipulations of His obligations to Abraham.

Then have a look at verse 9. God said to Abraham, As for you. So, title Abraham, stipulations of what Abraham is going to do. Then in verse 15, God said to Abraham, As for Sarai. Sarai, underlined, here are her stipulations. We see a preamble of the contract in verses 1 and 2.

God summarising again what's at stake here, what's going to happen. This is a contract between me and you. You are to walk before me and be blameless. This is what you are to do, and I will make my covenant between me and you, and you will be multiplied greatly. That's the end result.

So we have a contract. But God is coming to Abraham, not in Genesis 12 with a contract, not in Genesis 15 with a contract. He comes to Abraham at 99 years old, years and years and years later. Having years before made a solemn oath to keep His promise, having called on this self-maledictory oath that, May I become dead like this animal if I don't go through with this promise. But here, a covenant is signed.

Again, it's wonderful to put yourself in Abraham's sandals for a minute. Imagine those words coming to you at 99 years of age, your wife, 90 years of age, and you're told these incredible promises once again. Firstly, I'm going to make you a father of nations. Verse 5. So sure of His ability to keep this promise, God says, I have made you a father of nations.

It's in the Hebrew past tense. It's in the past tense. Abraham, I have made you the father of nations. Abram's got no kids, but he is the father of nations. It's as good as done.

Father of nations, Abraham thinks, I don't even have any children. Out of your nations, God says, kings will come. My goodness. He's a nomad in the land of Canaan. He doesn't own anything.

Kings will come. What's the first question that would pop into your mind if these statements were made to you? The first question I would ask is How on earth is that going to happen? I'm 99 years old, my wife is 90, having a child at this age is what? Impossible.

Verse 17 tells us that's exactly how Abraham responds. He falls on his face and He laughs. He said to himself, Shall a child be born to a man who is 100 years old? Shall Sarah, who is 90 years old, bear a child? Abraham looks at his situation, and as the apostle Paul will write in the book of Romans, he considers himself as good as dead.

Done for. How can Abraham trust this promise? Well, he gets given an insight to the nature of God's character. And we see a reminder of that in the preamble sentence of that contract. Notice the title that God uses in introducing Himself in verse 1.

I am God Almighty. Who, 10 points for those who can say what that Hebrew title is. El Shaddai. El Shaddai. This is the first instance of the title being given in the Bible.

I am God Almighty. To be Almighty means what? It means you have unlimited power. Theologically, we say the word omnipotent. Omnipotent. Biblically speaking, whenever God uses that title for Himself, He always does so in opposition to the bleak situation that He is addressing.

God's power, in other words, is always being seen in opposition to man's frailty, to man's weakness. And here is Abraham, weak and frail, as good as dead. God says, I'm going to give you your son now. Friends, whatever situation you are facing today, be comforted with the knowledge that whatever is bleak, whatever may seemingly be impossible, you are a child of the God who is El Shaddai. Almighty God, remember and pray according to that hope.

Now, even as God reveals this significant title to Abraham, He now also gives Abraham and Sarah different titles, different names. Abraham is changed to Abraham. Notice that in verse 5, a syllable has been added to his name, which now means multitude. Firstly, it was just father, now it's father of many. Then, Sarai's name is changed to Sarah, just one letter this time, but enough to remind her that she is the mother of a royal lineage.

Sarah means princess. In other words, these two will become a nation, and from these two will come royalty. So God makes these incredible promises to Abraham and Sarah, and He does so in a formal contract. He's given them His obligations again to them. I'm going to give you a son.

He's going to be that blessing that will bless the whole world. But what is their obligation? This is a contract with different parties. God said, Again, this is what I'm going to do for you. What must they do in response?

Well, their singular obligation is to have their males circumcised. God says to Abraham in verse 11, You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins. Sorry, let me just put that. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you, a sign of the covenant between me and you.

Now, if you've been a Christian for a while, I wonder if you've ever asked the question, Why circumcision? Why that particular thing? I mean, it's a very visceral, a very intimidating thought. I mean, why not a piercing? That can be pretty permanent.

Why not a tattoo? You know, why something like that before anesthetic? Before antiseptic cream? Why this sign? Interestingly, I always thought that this was a very unique physical sign for the Israelites, that this really separated them from other men in surrounding nations, but it's not true.

The Egyptians practised it as well. The Hittites, the Ammonites, in fact, you would say the majority of Israel's neighbours had the same practice. So why does God institute that sign for the covenant? Well, it's a throwback to that same ceremony in Genesis 15. The cutting ceremony of sacrificed animals.

The dismembering ritual of those animals as a reminder of what? The judgment that will come for those who break covenant. This is why God will say here in verse 14, Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be, what? Cut off from the people. It's pretty clear what that is alluding to.

Secondly, why is that sign made on the male reproductive organ? The blessing is for what? Many descendants. How are descendants made? You get the picture.

The sign is a sign in the flesh to remember the solemn promise that God made in Genesis 15 and in Genesis 12, to give a people, a place, and His presence. Now, from Abraham, for thousands of years, God's covenant of grace, that covenant of electing divine grace to choose Abraham and to make him a nation that will bless the world, that covenant is passed on from male representative to male representative, and that is a daily reminder to them of God's promise. But then, all of a sudden, we get to the New Testament, and you have apostles telling you now that it's no longer necessary to receive that sign to be part of God's people, to be recipients of God's covenant of grace. So what happens with circumcision? Why don't we go through the same ritual?

Well, amazingly, it's because that covenant oath and its subsequent curse was paid for. As we read the story of the Bible, you see that Abraham's descendants become covenant breakers. They don't keep this covenant. In fact, by the time we get to Moses in the book of Exodus, what has to happen with him? He has to be circumcised.

Four hundred years have passed since Joseph, and they have completely forgotten the covenant sign. Moses has to reintroduce this. In fact, when Joshua and the Israelites come to the promised land, he goes through the entire nation, and they have to be circumcised because there's a whole generation in the wilderness that weren't. Incredibly, incredibly, they have already forgotten.

But then it's not just that physical sign. They break covenant with God by choosing other gods, following after them. God's people forget God. They turn their backs on Him and they break His commandments. And then, who does the curse fall on?

Well, some will say, On God's people. They are broken. They're taken away from the promised land. No, they returned to the promised land.

Nothing changed for them. They're given the land back after their exile. What we see in Jesus Christ is the curse being paid. Incredibly, looking at Genesis 15, you notice that Abraham never participates in the ceremony. He falls into a deep slumber.

He has this vision of the smoking fire pot and the flaming torch. There are two parties involved, but both of them are God. God makes the promise on His behalf that I will become like this if I don't uphold my end of the bargain, and He says, Abraham, if you and your descendants don't, this is what's going to happen to me. May I become like these slain animals if the covenant isn't kept. And friends, the amazing thing is that Jesus becomes that slaughtered animal, the spotless lamb sacrificed on the cross, punished for Abraham's unfaithful children.

But then we come to the apostle Paul who says in Colossians 2 that baptism replaces circumcision now. Now it is the sign of the covenant. The covenant promises, therefore, don't end with Jesus. They don't end with the so-called new covenant. God's promise given to Abraham's descendants is not a sign in the flesh so much.

It is a sign to His true descendants, His descendants in the faith, those who had the same faith of Genesis 15, verse 5. Abraham believed the Lord and it was credited to him as righteousness. The heirs of Abraham's faith receive the same promise, a people, a place, and a presence. This time, the people is the church. The place is the kingdom of God.

Both the one that we experience today, but the one that will finally be revealed in Jesus' return. And then finally, the presence is the Holy Spirit with us now. So, to the question, Why circumcision in the Old Testament? Old Testament scholar Meredith Klein puts it this way. Circumcision threatened the covenant breaker with ultimate excision.

You will be cut off. Nevertheless, he says, Its proper purpose was found in its significance as an invitation of grace to undergo God's judgment in the Redeemer's substitute, and so experience the death passage as the way of life. Circumcision ended because God died as our substitute, becoming our Redeemer. He received the curse on our behalf, and yet another sign replaces circumcision, baptism. Baptism becomes the sign of the covenant.

Now again, we will ask, and it's a good one to ask, Why baptism? Why water? Why this symbolism now? Well, this is also an interesting thing for many of us. Baptism isn't simply a sign of the washing away of sin.

You know, that idea that water washes away dirt and so our sin has been washed away. Although it does carry that overtone, and I think it's the apostle Peter that makes that point, baptism mainly signifies judgment. Baptism mainly signifies divine judgment. It symbolises the curse of death. For example, in 1 Peter 3, so we're in the New Testament, Peter links baptism with Noah's flood and says that the whole earth was baptised by the waters of judgment.

Noah was baptised, but he passed the judgment. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul says that Pharaoh and the Egyptians in the Old Testament were baptised alongside the Israelites, who were baptised in what? The Red Sea. Both Israel and Pharaoh were baptised. One passed judgment, the other one didn't.

John the Baptist describes Jesus coming as what? A baptising of fire. Instead of his baptism of water, He will come and bring judgment. Finally, Jesus talks about His death on the cross in Luke 12 to His disciples in the same terms. The disciples are squabbling with each other saying We want to be as, you know, great as Jesus.

We want to be with Him in His kingdom. And He says, Will you be able to undergo the same baptism that I'm going to undergo? When you and I receive the sign of baptism, it points for us to the judgment of God. To that one day when the world will fall under the enormous flood of God's divine wrath, that we will be swallowed up, the world will be swallowed up under the deluge of holy anger, of the putting to an end of evil and wickedness. And so, when we remember our baptism, we remember it like the Israelites remembered their circumcision.

It's a warning to us to keep covenant with God, to daily decide to be His people, to allow Him to be our God. But that judgment sign of baptism, thankfully, just like it did for circumcision, points to the Redeemer Substitute, the one who took the curse on Himself so that the covenant of grace would not be broken, so that God could bless the people, so that God could guarantee a place for them free from their enemies, free from their pain, and that God Himself would be their God and be with them. Jesus Himself was the one that was overwhelmed by God's divine fury, dying that eternal death so that we should live. What's the point of all this? Why this sign?

Why circumcision? Why baptism? What can we learn from these things? Just a few things. What the covenant means.

Firstly, God doesn't change. God doesn't change. You don't have to worry that He's going to change His mind about you. That He might love you today. He might save you.

He might call you into His people. You might be baptised later, and all of a sudden, He doesn't like you as much anymore. God doesn't change. What He promises, who He chooses, who He brings into His family, He's going to work to keep. Secondly, the redemption of His kingdom is still the finish line.

That is the goal. Your future, in other words, under God is still the one of receiving a people, a place, and His presence. That is God's plan in the Bible. Thirdly, entry into His redemption is still the same. A heart like Abraham that was willing to simply hand over the reins of his life to God, simply trusting that God will be who He is and say what He does.

Fourthly, the Bible is one perfectly continuous story of redemption. There's a bubbling philosophy in Christianity today which is really, really concerning. Christians see the Bible in two halves. The Old Testament is something we never engage with. The Old Testament is a God that is judgmental and angry and fearful, and we don't want anything to do with Him.

The New Testament is the God we want. It's the God of grace. It's the God of love. The Bible tells the story of the same God, the God of grace from beginning to end. It means that we can enjoy the whole counsel of God's word.

We can understand it and enjoy it in all its diversity, intricacy and beauty. There are no different suspensions or eras or halves in the Bible. And then, fifthly and finally, this is an important one. Rituals and signs are still important to God as much as it was back then, so it is now. What that means, and I want you to listen to this, if you haven't been baptised, if your children haven't been baptised, if you haven't made a profession of faith publicly declaring what I've received in the baptism, I receive in my heart as true for me. If you're a non-believer and you participate in the second sign we've been given, the Lord's Supper, and you are an unbeliever and you don't believe and participate, or if you don't draw the strength and the hope that these things signify to you as a believer.

And friends, you are disobeying God. And the things that are important to Him, the outward rituals, the signs He's given us, well, they're disrespected and they're thrown underfoot. God honours our physical reactions to His grace. Rituals and signs are important to God, and we must make the effort to go through all of them. Be baptised if you're not.

Do your profession of faith if you haven't, and celebrate and prioritise the Lord's Supper when we celebrate it. May we remember these things and live accordingly. Let's pray. Oh Lord, You don't play games. And the things that we do are not meaningless.

They're not mere superstition. They're not things we do because we don't have better things to do. What we do with our bodies, what we do with our minds, what we do with our daily choices are of eternal significance. Lord, I pray that we won't throw underfoot the things that You have deemed important. We pray that You will give us the right understanding of how all of these things fit together in the great framework of Your people, Your church, and what story, what narrative, what plan You are telling us as we celebrate these rituals, these signs, these sacraments.

Well, we pray now as we participate in the Lord's Supper that our hearts and our minds will be elevated and that we will again be renewed in our faith and encouraged to walk obediently before our living God. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.