To careful readers of
Scripture, the importance of Genesis 15 is plain to see. It ritually
establishes the covenant between God and Abram, and it includes repetitions of
the divine promises: to give Abram an heir and possession of the land of
Canaan, as well as to redeem his descendants from their future bondage in Egypt.
Truth be told, some of the
story’s strangeness finds easy explanation in our knowledge of the biblical
world. While the rite which is portrayed seems both curious and macabre to
modern readers, it is not unknown. God asks Abram to take one of each of the
main kinds of sacrificial animals—bull, goat, and sheep (as well as some doves)—and
to cut their bodies in two, arranging the bisected sections so that they are
lined up on opposite sides of each other. This creates a blood-soaked pathway
between the corpses.
To ancient readers of this passage,
this would be a recognizable scene. We have evidence of a similar (though much
later rite) described in Jeremiah 34:18-20, as well as contemporary
attestations from elsewhere in the ancient Near East. This was the act of
“cutting a covenant,” the solemn rite in which the two parties of a covenant
would pledge themselves to the covenant stipulations. Each party to the
covenant was to walk down the bloody pathway, with the implication being that
if either party broke those stipulations, the penalty was the very one depicted
by the outpoured blood at their feet.
This brings us back to Genesis
15, in which Abram has set up the scene of the covenant rite just as God
requested it, and then—presumably waiting for God to show up so they could
proceed with the ritual—Abram falls into a deep sleep, and a great darkness comes
upon him. These are clues that the theophany is at hand: the deep sleep echoes
Adam’s deep sleep as God was bringing forth Eve from his side, and the darkness
foretells a similar darkness that enshrouds Mount Sinai when the presence of
God is there. When the narrative of the ritual scene resumes, we come to the
strangest part of all: “When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a
smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between the pieces” (Gen. 15:17,
ESV).
There are two unexpected and
curious things about this. First, there’s the fact that Abram is not a party in
the covenant rite. He does not walk the bloodied pathway. And second, the
symbols themselves are bizarre: a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch. What
could this mean? Any good set of commentaries will tell you that the basic
symbology of these items—both related to fire—show them to be a theophany. Fire
is a frequent image of God’s presence throughout the biblical narratives, from
the pillar of fire in Exodus to the tongues of flame at Pentecost. The fire pot
and the torch are thus both meant to represent God.
The fact that there are two
such symbols seems to indicate that God is taking the place of both
parties in this covenant rite. Remember, it was supposed to be the two persons
entering the covenant with one another who would pass between the animal
corpses: in this case, God and Abram. But instead, it is God and God, even as
Abram and his descendants are declared to be the heirs of the covenant promise.
And here we come to the first wondrous insight, which thunders with the message
of the gospel: by playing both roles, God is pledging to take upon himself the
punishment for any transgression of the covenant. Should Abram or his heirs
violate this covenant of promise in any way, it is not Abram on whom the
penalty will descend, but it will fall on God himself, for he is one who walked
the avenue of sacrifice in Abram’s place. The punishment that should have
fallen on the rebellious covenant-heirs will fall instead on God. This is
nothing less than the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Yet we still have to reckon
with the specificity of the images involved. God could have appeared in a
plainer and more obvious form—say, as two pillars of flame—but instead he chooses
a smoking fire pot and a burning torch. Why? These are two common household
objects, which everyone in the ancient world would recognize. The element of
fire certainly binds the two together, but there is another aspect by which
these images are related: the burning torch is drawn from the fire pot’s flame.
The first image, that of the fire pot, is the central source of fire for an
entire household, used for cooking and heat and always kept alive in a bed of
glowing embers. Every other fire-bearing implement, in one way or another,
draws its flame from there. The torch, then, shares the very same nature as the
fire pot does—the flame itself—but it is customarily lit from the fire pot, and
not the other way around.
What we have here, then, are
two divine images, which share the exact same nature in all of its qualities,
but one is the Begetter and the other is the Begotten. This is not only the way
that the New Testament describes the relationship between the Father and the
Son; it is also the way that the Nicene Creed articulates the divine nature of
Christ: “Light from Light.” It is perhaps no accident that the very function of
a torch was as a bearer of light, bringing the flame from the fire pot’s heart
out into the darkness of a benighted world. The mystery of the Trinity, which
we still speak forth in the words of Nicaea, written seventeen hundred years
ago, was played out before the patriarch’s eyes all the way back in the pages
of Genesis.
Come back once more to the
story of Abram’s covenant, then. We not only have a double theophany, in which
God himself takes Abram’s spot. We can now describe the scene in even greater
detail: the person of the Godhead who takes Abram’s spot in the ritual is none
other than the Son of God. Here God the Father and God the Son walk the
covenant pathway together, pledging themselves forever to Abram and his heirs,
and it is the Son, moving second through the pieces, who assigns the penalty to
himself should any of the human parties fail. Jesus pledges to take the
punishment that should have fallen on us. This is a passion-play of Calvary,
acted out by God himself two thousand years before the fact. Is it a strange
story? Certainly. But even in its strangeness, we catch clear-eyed glimpses of
a stranger story still to come: that the eternal Son of God, the Light from the
Father’s own Light, would bear the curse of our darkness so that we might
inherit the promises of God.
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