Our New Covenant in Christ (Genesis Part 11)

Why God Put Everything on the Line

What would you think if someone made you the most extraordinary promises imaginable — land, wealth, descendants — and then, rather than simply giving their word, went through a dramatic and costly ceremony to guarantee it? What if the person making those promises took all the responsibility on themselves?

In this episode, Matt continues the Genesis series by exploring one of the most significant and misunderstood concepts in the Bible: covenant. It is, as he puts it, the topic that has helped him understand the Bible and God more than any other.

More Than a Contract

Matt begins with a photo from 1998 — his wedding day with Sharon. Without oversimplifying, he explains that a marriage involves three things: a ceremony, an exchange of vows, and a covenant. Ancient covenants worked the same way.

But covenant is not a contract. That distinction matters enormously.

"A contract can be broken, usually with very little consequence," Matt says. "If I break my mobile phone contract, it's not like EE is going to come and kill me. I'm just going to get fined."

Covenant is different. The only way out of a covenant is death. And if it cost you your life to fulfil the terms of the covenant, you were expected to do it. The phrase "till death do us part" is not sentimental — it is covenant language.

The Bible is essentially a record of covenants. The word "testament" means covenant. The Old Testament is the old covenant. The New Testament is the new covenant. There are covenants with Noah, Moses, David, Abraham, and ultimately the new covenant through Jesus.

A Gory but Significant Ceremony

The focus of the episode is God's covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15. God tells Abraham to bring a heifer, a female goat, a ram, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. Abraham cuts the larger animals in half and lays the halves opposite each other, creating a pathway between them — a pathway filled with blood.

In ancient covenant ceremonies, both parties would walk through that blood-soaked pathway together, exchanging vows. The symbolism was blunt: "May what happened to these animals happen to me if I break this covenant."

Matt acknowledges this feels alien to us. "We do not do this thing that in effect butchers animals. It feels odd." But for Abraham, this was entirely normal. It was the most serious agreement a person could enter into.

God Takes All the Responsibility

As the sun goes down, Abraham falls asleep. God speaks to him in a dream — not just about the promises (land, wealth, descendants), but about the consequences too. Abraham's descendants will go into slavery for 400 years. Full disclosure.

Matt finds this fascinating and draws a parallel to Jesus, who told his followers: "In this world you will have tribulation." God does not hide the difficult parts. But the promise comes with it: "Take heart, because I have overcome the world."

Then something happens that would have been utterly mind-bending to anyone in the ancient world who understood covenants. Genesis 15 says: "When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham."

The smoking fire pot and flaming torch represent God — consistent with how God appears elsewhere in Scripture, such as the burning bush with Moses and the pillar of fire with Israel.

Here is what is staggering: normally, both parties would walk through the animal halves together. But Abraham is not there. He is asleep. God alone passes through. God takes all the responsibility for the covenant upon himself.

"In the ancient Near East, this would be utterly mind-bending," Matt says. "Gods weren't interested in people — that's what they thought at the time. But we see a God that's not only interested in humanity but is making covenant with them and taking all the consequences on himself."

A Covenant That Reaches Us

The covenant God made was not just with Abraham. It was with Abraham's descendants. And the Apostle Paul, writing to the Galatians, makes this connection explicit: "If you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring and heirs according to the promise."

This means the covenant reaches across time to include anyone who puts their trust in Christ. When God walked through those animal halves, he was making a covenant with us too.

What This Changes

Matt explores what covenant means practically. It transforms marriages — because covenant is based not on feelings but on a decision to live up to the vows exchanged. "Great marriages are built around honouring our covenant vows every single day," he says. "No ifs, no buts, no outs."

It transforms our relationship with God. Many religions operate on a transactional basis — do good, get good. Covenant is fundamentally different. "Your worst day doesn't disqualify you from God's love, but your best day doesn't earn it either."

And it transforms how we read Scripture. Promises like "I will never leave you, I will never forsake you" take on new weight when understood as covenant promises sealed in the blood of Christ. As Paul writes in Romans: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? No — in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us."

Matt says these are among his most favourite verses in the Bible. "It doesn't matter what I am going through. Nothing can separate me from his love."

A New Identity

Covenant also changes identity. Paul wrote to the Galatians: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female — we are all one in Christ Jesus." Just as in marriage two become one, in covenant with Christ we are bound together with him.

"Old, fragmented, broken identities are replaced with our covenant identity with Christ," Matt says.

The episode closes with communion — bread and wine — as a tangible sign of the new covenant sealed in Christ's blood. It is not a ritual. It is a remembrance of the most costly agreement ever made.

What would change in your life if you truly believed that God had put everything on the line for you?