God knows what you need, and He makes His promises visible to you.
Genesis 17:9-14 (NIV)
CONTEXT: God comes to Abraham when Abraham is 99 years old to renew His promises and to command Abraham to signify their covenant with an external sign.
9 Then God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. 10 This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner—those who are not your offspring. 13 Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”
Listen to passage & devotional:
Belgic Confession of Faith, Article 33: The Sacraments
We believe that our good God,
mindful of our crudeness and weakness,
has ordained sacraments for us
to seal his promises in us,
to pledge his good will and grace toward us,
and also to nourish and sustain our faith.
He has added these to the Word of the gospel
to represent better to our external senses
both what he enables us to understand by his Word
and what he does inwardly in our hearts,
confirming in us
the salvation he imparts to us.
For they are visible signs and seals
of something internal and invisible,
by means of which God works in us
through the power of the Holy Spirit.
So they are not empty and hollow signs
to fool and deceive us,
for their truth is Jesus Christ,
without whom they would be nothing.
Moreover,
we are satisfied with the number of sacraments
that Christ our Master has ordained for us.
There are only two:
the sacrament of baptism
and the Holy Supper of Jesus Christ.
Summary
It had been over 16 years since God had promised to make Abram into a great nation, and yet at 99 years old, he and his equally old wife remained childless. In the meantime, Abraham had tried to help nudge along God's plans by having a son with his wife's servant. But God makes clear to Abraham that Ishmael was not the promised son. In a real sense, God's conversation here with Abraham can be summarized in just two words: "Trust me."
Those words ring hollow to us here and now, especially in the midst of election season when each day it becomes more and more apparent that we really can't trust anything that we're told by people in power. Promises that get made so flippantly and easily on the campaign trail are so quickly forgotten or reneged upon after the votes have been counted. If you're feeling a bit cynical about promises now at the close of yet another campaign cycle, you have a small inkling of what Abraham likely felt like after over a decade and a half of seemingly unfulfilled promises.
Of course as we read Abraham's story thousands of years later, we know just how rock solid God's promises were. Abraham certainly was made into a great nation, and his descendant would come to save people from every nation. But those promises were just words as God spoke to Abraham at 99 years of age, and Abraham had heard them before.
Abraham needed something more to cling to as He waited and trusted upon the Lord.
Dig Deeper
Our Confession tells it like it is: God is mindful of our crudeness and weakness. He knows that we need more than just words to hold on to in those long and often lonely times between when we first hear the promises God makes to us and when they finally will be completely fulfilled. We need something tangible that we can see, touch, feel and even taste to fully understand what God has promised.
So starting here with Abraham, God made His Word visible. We call this aspect of divine revelation sacraments. You won't find that particular word in the Bible. Early Christians borrowed it from the Latin word sacramentum, and in doing so they made a good choice in describing what God meant in giving us these signs and seals.
A sacramentum referred to the sacred oath of allegiance that Roman soldiers would swear upon entering the army. This oath was a personal commitment to loyalty and obedience to their commanders and the Roman state. The oath was made with their right hand raised, and their left hand resting on a symbol of the powerful Roman military, such as an Aquila (eagle). It was a two way commitment; the recruit certainly swore his commitment, and in response, the military gave him an identity as a Roman soldier.
We'll be learning in these coming weeks exactly how and why the sacramental symbols are different for us than what God initiated here with Abraham and later with the Israelites as they escaped slavery in Egypt. But remember each time you witness baptism and participate in communion that you are experiencing the same promise made visible that God first extended thousands of years ago.
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Yahweh, our covenant God and Father;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Thank God for making His Word visible to you and pray that you will be faithful to the sacramentum you've made with Him;
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
Read the New Testament in a year! Today: John 11
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