The Abrahamic Covenant and how is it being challenged today
The Abrahamic Covenant and how is it being challenged todayRising Anti-Israelism
Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hates Israel. He has called for it’s destruction saying, "As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map[i]," Ahmadinejad asserts that Israel will soon disappear , he also said, “Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury[ii],” While working on building Iran’s first nuclear bomb, you can guess that his primary targets are the United States of America and Israel. Think EMP[iii].
The Palestinians hate Israel. Yassar Arafat, winner of a Nobel Peace prize – no longer noble, nor for peace[iv] - said, “We plan to eliminate the state of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion. . . . We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem[v].”
Europe hates Israel[vi], and even Jews hate Israel[vii]. Why? Why such hate for the chosen people of God, for those who brought us law, the 10 commandments, and even the line of David leading to Rabbi of 2.1[viii] billion people – most of whom don’t even know that Jesus is Jewish.
The hate is because of many things, but a lot of it today stems from the challenges to the Abrahamic Covenant between God and Israel hundreds of centuries ago. Let’s examine the nature of that covenant and it’s ratification.
Nature of the Covenant
The parties the Abrahamic Covenant established by God, are God, Abraham and his physical descendants. Genesis 15:18 says, “On the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, "Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the River Euphrates…[ix]” Then Genesis 17:4, 6-7 says, “As for Me, behold, My covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.” And, “… I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish My covenant between Me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee.” This was an everlasting covenant to Abrahams, physical descendents. He established it with Abraham and then He said the same to Isaac and Jacob, all of Israel (Genesis 26, 28, 35, 48, and 50).
Ratifying the Covenant
A most important and oft overlooked fact about the Abrahamic Covenant, is it’s ratification. With any covenant between two parties, ratification is important. Ratification can be defined as, “The process whereby a state may express its consent to be bound by a treaty, involving formal confirmation by the state of its initial signature to the treaty[x].” This “consent to be bound requires that two parties perform an act signifying that consent. In modern times, between nations it involves governments voting the treaty into national law and signing a document attesting to either the fact that this has been done, or their consent to do so. In the time of Abraham, the process of ratification, called making a covenant, can be seen in Genesis 15. After reconfirming His covenant with Abraham, Abraham performs a ritual whereby he splits animals apart and waits for God to perform the ritual with him. “Navigating the Bible II,” says of this ritual:
“This was the way of making a covenant (Rashi). Indeed, the words b'rith (covenant) and bathar (split) appear to be closely related (cf. Radak, Sherashim, s.v. Barath). It symbolized that just as the two halves of the animal were really one, so were the two people making the covenant. Moreover, just as one side cannot live without the other, so the two cannot live without each other (Ralbag; Ikkarim 4:45). It was also seen as a malediction; anyone violating the oath would be torn asunder like the animals (Bachya).”
Both parties were to walk between the split animals, However, in an unprecedented move, God knocked Abraham out and completed the ritual Himself, making the covenant binding only on God and His eternal resources. Abraham could now do nothing to break this covenant. It was a one-way covenant. It was unconditional.
Thousands of years later, the Temple razed to the ground, the people of Israel scattered to the four winds, we still read in the Bible that Israel would be in the land that God promised them, and that there would yet be a temple in the last days. A pastor reading this in 1930 would have had to either spiritualize it away, or better yet, take it on faith. A pastor in 1949 would have already witnessed the power pr prophecy as Israel was back in the land, ”And it shall come to pass in that day, [that] the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth [xi]”.
Israel may not know it, The U.N. may not know it, even the Jews in the United States of America might not know it, but Israel’s being where it is, the preparation for a new temple[xii], the contention over Israel[xiii], and the friction over the unconditional Covenant that God made with them are all part of prophecy, part of God’s awesome plan that is coming to fruition right before our very eyes, through the contention for the Covenant.
[i] http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/15E6BF77-6F91-46EE-A4B5-A3CE0E9957EA.htm
[ii] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1129540608312&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
[iii] http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/bg1784.cfm
[iv] http://frontpagemag.com/articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=7962
[v] http://en.thinkexist.com/quotation/we_plan_to_eliminate_the_state_of_israel_and/346613.html
[vi] http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Briefs/4732.htm
[vii] http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21394
[viii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity
[ix] http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=%20Genesis%2015:18&version=48
[x] http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&rls=GGIC%2CGGIC%3A2006-16%2CGGIC%3Aen&q=define%3A+ratification
[xi] http://www.blueletterbible.org/tmp_dir/popup/1161549492-9716.html#10
[xii] http://www.templeinstitute.org/events.htm
[xiii] http://www.blueletterbible.org/tmp_dir/popup/1161549409-1261.html#2
posted by Keloki @ 2:41 PM
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