Genesis 15

9 So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon 

10 Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half.

11 Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away 

13 As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him…

17 When the sun had set, and darkness had fallen: a smoking furnace and with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces

God has called Abram from Ur in Chaldea. The latter obeys if not with immediate alacrity. Man, was dead, separated from God, the very source of life. God is righteousness and only the righteous can be at one with him. Man has missed this and has ended up in death. Yet, mankind as friend is the desideratum that God craves. He wants man and He wants to bond with him. The sheer madness of man to buy into the teachings of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, have brought in their wakes, unrighteousness, unbelieve and disobedience

Man can now only access God by revelation, which is hard to come. Man is at a distance to God a his true nature. We hear of Enoch, Abel, Noah… Even Job. They answer to God’s righteousness; it’s imperfect righteousness. They maintain relationship with God through sacrifices which involve symbolic exchange of their unrighteous nature life with that of the innocent animals of sacrifice. Even then, the practice is fast thinning out. For an unfathomable reason, wisdom and knowledge, God apprehended Abram in the vast world and instructed him in His ways, including coming into oneness with Him, a kind of merging of man with the divine essence. For the first time since his coming to earth through creation, the estranged man begins to take positive steps, even if like toddlers’, towards the inviting love of God.

God, will in this passage, is now entering into covenant with man. In Africa, this is called cutting a covenant. It takes two individuals or parties to cut a covenant. Covenant ia usually associated with mutual protection. The two patties cut their flesh and mix their bloods. Here God is cutting a covenant with Abram. Covenant ia supposed to be initiated by the two parties, but this is being initiated by only one party; God is one. This covenant involves sacrificing some animals: heifer, a she-goat, a ram, a turtledove and a pigeon. The heifer, a cow that hasn’t calfed symbolises scacrifice; the shegoat also stands for sacrifice; the ram means mature, perfect as well as sacrifice. The turtledove and pigeon signifies innocence, meekness and peace. All are pictures of the coming Lord Jesus Christ, the righteous. Jesus was made perfect by all He suffered, he thus became the source of eternal salvation for all who believe in him (Hebrews 5;9). Christ is the means by which God an eternal covenant with man. It’s a process of making man at–one-ment with Him

In the process of enacting this ritual of atonement, birds, the symbol of the devils who peck at and pick the word of God in the heart of man, come in the evening, as the sun begins to set. But Abram is alert and vigilant, driving them away. Then he experiences some forms of deep darkness. Believers in Christ tend to receive assaults from the dark world. Paul writes that the saints of God are in battle against principalities, powers, rulers of darkness of this world and spiritual wickedness…(Epesians 6:12). Yes, the life of the saints as sacrifice to God, solidifying the at-one-ment brought by the Lord Jesus Christ also involves assaults and impinging forces of darkness.

It’s when the sun has set that God walks through the sacrifices of animals arranged in halves opposite one another. It means, “Abram, you and I are together in this. Whatever happens to you happens to me. Whoever touches you touches me, the apple of my eye. Whatever happens to you happens to me.” Abram should also know that whatever happens to God happens to him, too… God cannot betray His friend Abram, whatsoever. The smoking furnace and blazing torches indicate the person of God walking through the split animals. It means that He has sanctioned these sacrifices and He will suffer the same fate as these animals if He fails to stick with Abram. Abram shouldn’t expect less to himself if he betrays the Lord God. But who can fight for Him? Who has ever given to God, that Christ should repay him. For from him and through him and to him are all things (Romans 11:15).

These are the shadows of the atonement of God, it’s fully and has substantially come to us through Christ. The believers in Christ are at-one-ment with Him. The believers are His saints who are one with Him; they have merged into Him and He into them. They, he says, are in Him as He is in God, the Father; He is with the believers, His saints, in God. The believers have the right to freely go to the mercy seat of God where the Son ministers as the high priest and work with Him. The original plans of God at creation are here!

The complete realisation of the Abram, no more in shadows, has come fully in Christ. We are one with God in Christ. We are joint heir with Him. This doesn’t depend on my anticedent, not my present state or the future. I’ve acquired the life, in the Lord Jesus Christ, that conguers sin and death. There is now no condemnation to me. I’m in Christ Jesus Christ. I walk not after the sin-nature but after the Spirit for the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus is has fun ever set me free from the spirit of sin and death (Romans 8:1-3). I’m at one with the Creator of the universe. I’m urged to come boldly to the King, not in my own merits; I have none. I’m all of demerits. But I’m conscious of the fact that I’ve exchanged my demerit ridden life with that of Christ. I enter to the divine presence, the holiest place, by this exchange of one life for the other, on the life of the other. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus…..let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith…(Hebrews 10:19-22). Now, on the basis of the acquiring the life of Christ given to me through sacrifice like the taking away of the lives of the heifer, the she-goat, the ram, turtledove and pigeon…, I’m now forever one with God. I love to walk worthy of Him, to stand perfect in all His will… I’m reckoned with in the heavenlies. In the sacrifice of Himself on the Cross, I died with Him. He was raised for my justification. I’m not less than what He bargained for me with His sacrifice on and death.

I’m at full one with Him, the Lord.

Father, thank You for initiating this millennia ago and for completing it in this age. Thank You for the death of the Lord Jesus Christ for my iniquity and thank You for raising Him for my justification. In us, Christ is all and in all.

Thank You Lord for this