Articles
A Covenant of Change
Reading: Genesis 17
A great change was needed. Abram had tried—and failed—to see God’s promises accomplished by human wisdom, will, and working (see previous chapter). It is here that God Himself, El Shaddai (God Almighty, v. 1), reinforced His covenant with Abram with greater clarity and direction. It was not Hagar’s son Ishmael who would carry on this covenant, but Sarai’s soon-to-be-born son Isaac (18-19).
As a sign of this everlasting covenant, God instructed Abram to circumcise himself, the males of his family, and all his descendants thereafter (10-11). God also renamed the patriarch and his wife: Abram was now Abraham (5), and Sarai was now Sarah (15). These great changes brought the attention off of the humans involved and directed the glory to God as He showed His faithfulness to this covenant.
Those who are children of Abraham’s faith today also have a circumcision, but it is a spiritual operation. To Christians in Colossae Paul wrote, “In [Christ] also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead” (Colossians 2:11-12). By being baptized into Jesus Christ, a person undergoes a great change as one enters into covenant with El Shaddai through His Son. In this act of faith, we put the old self to death and are raised up as a new creation with a new identity given by the all-powerful God Himself.
