Transcription
So, the most mysterious passage in the Old Testament is also the most mind-blowing passage when you understand it. Stick with me here. The payoff's huge.
So, in Genesis 15, God says he wants to quote "make a covenant," which was like a contract with Abraham. Except in Hebrew, it doesn't say "make a covenant." It says "cut a covenant." And in order to "cut the covenant," he tells Abraham to go get a bunch of innocent animals, slaughter them, and then make an aisle out of the bloody pieces. Interesting.
Now, what would normally happen in a covenant is the lesser being, Abraham, would walk between the pieces reciting the promises of the covenant as if to say, "Hey, if I break the terms of this covenant, may I become like these slain animals?" But in Genesis 15, something happens that occurs nowhere else in all of recorded ancient Near Eastern literature.
Just when Abraham was going to walk the pieces, God puts him in a deep sleep. God himself appears as a flame of fire, and God walked the pieces to make the covenant. In other words, God was saying, "If you break this covenant, I'm going to be torn to pieces."
And my friends, that is exactly what happened 2,000 years later. Jesus, the Lamb of God, was ripped to shreds at the cross. Why? We had broken the covenant, but God was walking the pieces.