Covenant – a permanent agreement sealed with blood

Genesis 17:4-6
“This is my covenant with you: I will make you the father of a multitude of nations! What’s more, I am changing your name. It will no longer be Abram.  Instead, you will be called Abraham, for you will be the father of many nations. I  will make you extremely fruitful. Your descendants will become many nations, and kings will be among them!

Genesis 17:7-8
“I will confirm my covenant with you and your descendants after you, from generation to generation. This is the everlasting covenant: I will always be your God and the God of your descendants after you. And I will give the entire land of  Canaan, where you now live as a foreigner, to you and your descendants. It will  be their possession forever, and I will be their God.”

2 Promises of the Covenant:

1. I will always be your God.

Genesis 15:6
And Abram believed the LORD, and the LORD counted him as righteous because of his faith.

2. I will give you the entire land of Canaan (Promised Land)

Hebrews 11:16
But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

Galatians 3:27-29
For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes.  There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.

Genesis 17:9-14
Then God said to Abraham, “Your responsibility is to obey the terms of the covenant. You and all your descendants have this continual responsibility. This is the covenant that you and your descendants must keep: Each male among you must be circumcised. You must cut off the flesh of your foreskin as a sign of the covenant between me and you. From generation to generation, every male child must be circumcised on the eighth day after his birth. This applies not only to members of your family but also to the servants born in your household and the foreign-born servants whom you have purchased. All must be circumcised. Your bodies will bear the mark of my everlasting covenant.

Genesis 17:14
Any male who fails to be circumcised will be cut off from the covenant family for  breaking the covenant.”

Why Circumcision?

1. There must be the shedding of blood to seal the covenant.

2. It was a sign of Abraham’s faith.

Romans 4:11
And he received circumcision as a sign, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised

Circumcision was a sign that Abraham already had faith and that God had already accepted him and declared him to be righteous—even before he was circumcised.

3. It represented the original sin of Adam being passed down through the seed of the father.

Romans 2:28-29
For you are not a true Jew just because you were born of Jewish parents or because you have gone through the ceremony of circumcision. No, a true Jew is one whose heart is right with God. And true circumcision is not merely obeying the letter of the law; rather, it is a change of heart produced by the Spirit. And a  person with a changed heart seeks praise from God, not from people.