This is our seventh of the Emmaus sessions. We've gone over a whole lot of what we call redemptive history. We have covered really the period of God's dealing with Adam before the fall, after the fall, God's dealing with Noah and that seed promise coming from Adam. It's all about the seed promise after the fall. The Redeemer is going to come, Genesis 3.15. It's carried on the ark. All that God does with Noah is all about redemption. It's all preparing us for redemption that's going to come when the Messiah comes. Even the animals in the Ark become sacrificed. Clean and unclean animals are there in the Ark. That G-Gentile distinction already being set up for redemptive history. The animals for sacrifice. We're going to hear a lot about sacrifice. Well, we'll hear some about sacrifice tonight. But sacrifice is as old as sin, because once man sinned, he had to sacrifice. We see Cain and Abel doing that. Noah steps off the ark, he sacrifices. All that's pointing to the need for a redeemer who would be a sacrifice to forgive our sins. Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sins. So God is preparing everything step by step, perfect continuity. We, in the first couple of weeks, looked at Jesus as true Israel, Church as Israel, because that was kind of out of place. That should have happened down the line. But that was just how it happened. And unfortunately, because I wish that it happened consecutively, it would have been a lot easier. You can always listen to the lessons in order. And we started with Abraham the last time we were together. We looked at Genesis 12. We looked at the first six verses of Genesis 15. And we talked about how all the promises made to Abraham were dependent on what? What were all the promises made to Abraham dependent on? Yeah, we'll see more of that tonight. But what did we say the fulfillment of them was specifically dependent on last time we were together? The seed. The seed promise. Without a seed, without the offspring, nothing comes true. Even the land promise, we said, and we got into the biblical theology of the land, but even the land promise was in some sense dependent on the seed, right? Even the land promise was Even the land promise was dependent on Abraham having physical offspring. Now that seed we know is Christ. We fast forwarded ahead to Galatians. Paul says to Abraham and to his seed were the promises made. That becomes the big verse in a lot of this. To Abraham and to his seed, who is not many, but is one, who is Christ. So Christ was the promised seed. So really, even though all of Israel ethnically comes from Isaac, as the seed, really Christ is the seed, because he's the one to whom the promises are given, who fulfills the promises, who keeps the covenant, who as God and as man, as the God of Abraham and the seed of Abraham, fulfills all things. Now, Abraham is important Because when you come to the New Testament, you can't even understand the New Testament unless you get Abraham. We said that last week. But Abraham is also difficult because God's covenant making with Abraham happens over a period of time. I'm of the opinion with all the old Reform writers that Genesis 12, 15, and 17 are the making of the Abrahamic covenant. There are a lot of writers today who will talk about different covenants, a national covenant, a spiritual covenant, lots of different kind of covenants. I just go with the old reform, easy to understand, promises in 12, ratification in 15, sealing in 17. He gets the sign of circumcision. So tonight we want to talk about the confirmation and the sealing, and we'll get into the seal more. We'll see how far we can get. But looking at 15, the rest of 15, the cutting of the covenant, the cutting of the animals apart and God ratifying the covenant, and then 17, God signifying and sealing it with circumcision, which is called the covenant. Now, go ahead and turn to Genesis 15. And we're going to pick up tonight. on verse eight. I'm sorry, we'll pick up on verse seven, Genesis 15. And we're going to pick up in verse seven and read to the end of the chapter. Before we do, let's pray and ask God's blessing on his word. Father, please be merciful to us. Many of us have had long days or tired. We thank you for your faithfulness. We thank you for your covenantal faithfulness that you are faithful to yourself and to your promises. And as we come to this portion of scripture that highlights that for us, we pray that you would impress it on our minds and hearts that our God, even when we are faithless, as you say in your word, you remain faithful, that you cannot deny yourself. Make us to know the surety and the certainness that when you could swear by no one greater, you swore by yourself saying, surely blessing, I will bless you and multiplying, I will multiply you. And so help us to understand more of these precious portions of your word. Father, send the Holy Spirit, and we might see your Son, Jesus Christ, in all of his glory. We pray these things in his name. Amen. So, beginning in verse 7 of Genesis 15, Then he, that is, the Lord, said to Abram, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to inherit it. And he said, Lord God, how shall I know that I will inherit it? So he said, bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtle dove and a young pigeon. He brought all these down to him and cut them in two down the middle and placed each piece opposite the other. But he did not cut the birds in two. And when The vultures came down on the carcasses. Abram drove them away. Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram, and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. Then he said to Abram, Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years, and also the nation whom they serve I will judge. Afterwards they shall come out with great possessions. Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace. You shall be buried at a good old age, but in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. And it came to pass, when the sun went down, and it was dark, that, behold, there appeared a smoking oven. and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. On the same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, To your descendants I have given you this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Raphaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Gergesites, and the Jebusites. Skip over, if you would, to chapter 17 briefly. When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said, I am almighty God. Walk before me and be blameless, and I will make my covenant between me and you and will multiply you exceedingly. Then Abram fell on his face and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with you. You shall be a father of many nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be called Abraham. For I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful. I will make nations of you. Kings will come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you and their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and your descendants after you. Also, I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession. I will be their God. And God said to Abraham, As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you and your descendants after you. Every male child among you shall be circumcised. And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male child in your generations. He was born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not your descendant. He was born in your house. He was bought with your money must be circumcised. And my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. The uncircumcised male child who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. that person shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant." We're going to end there, reading God's Word. Really, Genesis 15, 7 and following, and 17, 1 through 14 go together. They may not seem like they go together at first on the surface. They may seem like two very distinct things, until you understand that the common thread uniting them is, yes, God's covenant. God says, My covenant throughout, the singular, My covenant that He's establishing, that He established with Adam, that He established with Noah, that seed promise, that covenantal promise of blessing. and everything bound up with blessing. But what connects Genesis 15 and 17 with regard to that covenant is the idea of cutting. You see that common thread. The animals are cut apart in 15. The foreskin of the flesh is cut in 17. That there's a common theme is the cutting of the covenant. There's actually a Hebrew word used to talk about the cutting of the covenant. God says, I will cut my covenant with you. Sadly, a lot of English translations don't pick up on that. The idea of the cutting of the covenant becomes so unbelievably important for us understanding the gospel, because at Calvary, Jesus is cut off from the land of the living. Paul was saying, Colossians 2, 11 and 12, that Jesus was circumcised at the cross. Jesus, remember, would talk about his death as baptism. Mark 10, he said, I have a baptism to be baptized with. That's not John's, because that happened years before. He's talking about the cross. The cross is also, by Paul in Colossians 2.11, spoken of as circumcision. It says that we were circumcised, that's the heart circumcision, by the circumcision made without hands in the circumcision of Christ. So, Jesus' death on the cross was a bloody circumcision. The filth of the sin of our bodies was put on Jesus, and it was cut away in a bloody judgment. And we'll get to that. But before the bloody judgment of the foreskin of the flesh, there's the bloody cutting apart of animals. Now, it's interesting. Abraham, leading into this section, he's doubting God. He's asked God, how do I know you're going to fulfill this? Eliezer is the only dude in my house that can inherit everything. He had probably set up Eliezer ready to be his heir, this servant from Damascus. And God's like, no, you're going to have a child. Go outside, look at the stars. As many as they are, you're going to have that many descendants. Abraham, like us, needs more confirmation. He's weak in his spirit. God's Word at that point is not as sufficient as it ought to be. And he says again to the Lord, even after he believes, he says in verse 8, Lord, how shall I know I'm going to inherit this? So Abraham is asking God for greater confirmation. So the Lord, and I love this, Our God doesn't despise our weaknesses. Even though Abraham has faith, he's weak in faith, God condescends to confirm the covenant. And what the Lord does, we wouldn't understand if we didn't have Jeremiah 34, which we'll get to soon in the study. If you lived in Abraham's day, you would understand very well what God was doing. If you lived in the days of the Jews, even in the captivity, you would understand what was going on with the cutting of the animals. A lot of modern scholars have looked at ancient Near Eastern literature, Hittite treaties, kings and their vassals had these covenantal arrangements where they would mention the names of the party. There were four parts loosely considered. They would mention the names of the party. And then they would set out the stipulations, the conditions, the promises, and then the penalty. And then they would cut apart animals and they would walk through and essentially they would say, the two parties walking through, if I break my part of this covenant, may this happen to me. It was a pledge of death upon violation. They took very seriously their arrangements with other people. Now, I don't think I don't know that God is looking at what the nations did and say, Hey, Abraham, I'm going to do that so you can understand. I think this may have been in practice even before this, maybe even with Noah. Both are reading into the text, but Abraham knows what's happening. He knows what God's doing. And it's interesting that notice in verse nine, what does Abraham bring to the Lord? What does God tell him to bring them? A heifer, three years old. A female goat, three years old. A ram, three years old. A turtle dove and a young pigeon. What would be significant about those animals? They are all the animals used in Israel's sacrificial system. So now what you're going to have in Genesis 15, 8 through 21 is a mini-perspective history of Israel. You're going to have a little mini-perspective, everything's kind of encapsulated in that. All the sacrificial system, because that's how, when we come to the Mosaic Covenant, it's going to be Expanded and all these animals are going to be used in the sacrificial system. God is also going to tell all through this chapter what he's doing with the nation of Israel. He says, your descendants are going to come into a land. They're going to be afflicted. Notice verse 13. No, certainly they're going to be strangers. God prophesies. He foretells in this case to Abraham about the Egyptian bondage. And then I'm going to bring him out the exodus. God tells him God essentially is telling Abraham, here's everything I'm going to do. in Israel's history, especially with regard to bondage in Egypt, deliverance, Canaanite genocide, entering the land, securing the Holy Land Temple, coming into that dwelling place. God is essentially telling Abraham, here's what I'm going to do in my covenant. I'm going to do everything that we then read in the rest of the Bible that he's going to do, which is a confirmation to Abraham. It assures Abraham, not only do I know you're going to inherit everything, not only am I going to give you everything, I'm going to tell you even how it happens in redemptive history, at least at the inception of Israel, dealing with the exodus and the gaining of the promised land. That's important because the exodus and the gaining of the promised land are the typological whole story of the Bible. Because we undergo exodus in Jesus. He's our Passover lamb. He has an exodus at the cross and in his resurrection, and then we go to glory, the promised land. And so that's the entire history of redemption. In Genesis 15, eight through 20. God is telling Abraham typologically, physically, your physical descendants are going to typologically experience the entire plan of redemption I have for my church. And God has him cut these animals in two to make this the sure, confirmed cutting of the covenant. And before I talk about them going through and all the significance of that, notice that there's these two strange little things in 11 and 12. We're told some vultures came down on the carcasses and Abraham drove them away. And then a deep sleep and horror and great darkness came on Abram while the sun went down. Now, there are a litany of explanations for what's going on here. Everything from the vultures represented the forces of darkness and God saying you're going to plunder the gates of your enemies, and Abraham is going to scatter away the enemies of the Lord, as it were. There could be some significance to that. I don't know. I do think that there's legitimacy to the fact that God is essentially saying that there are going to be times of darkness in Israel's history. There's going to be times of darkness in its people's lives, and the gospel is going to come, and God's faithfulness and his covenant faithfulness is going to come, even when it's least expected. Now, Jonathan Edwards will say, the fact that he did this, waited until the sun went down, is that God often waits to do what he does until the time we least expect it, when we are least in a state of capability of doing something ourself. Abraham is essentially sedated. I think those are hard verses. I don't know if I can do a lot better than that on 11 and 12. But what we do know, what we do know very definitively, is that when we come to 17, It is not God and Abraham that go through the pieces. It's God who goes through the pieces. And he goes in two stages through the pieces. It should seem strange if you were an Israelite reading this. You should think that's strange because if you turn over to Jeremiah 34 and you could turn there. I'm not going to go through the whole history of what's going on here, but Verse 8, King Zedekiah made a covenant with the Lord trying to gain God's favor and had the priest walk through essentially the pieces of these animals you see there in verse 8. This is the word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people who are at Jerusalem to proclaim liberty to them. And notice that they are in a sense reflecting back on what happened with Abraham, look at 18. The Lord says, I will give the men who have transgressed my covenant and who have not performed the words of the covenant which they made before me when they cut the calf in two and pass between the parts of it. So God is holding them accountable because his priests went through the parts of the calf. It's it is reflecting back on the Abrahamic covenant. They are making covenant renewal. God didn't tell them to, they're doing that. But the point is, what we learned from Jeremiah 34, 18 is that God holds accountable the parties that make the covenant. God was making the covenant with Abraham, but Abraham doesn't go through the pieces. God goes through for both parties. God substitutionarily, I don't even know if that's a word, represents Abraham. He is a substitute. He is a representative for Abraham. That's important because what's happening in Genesis 15 is the gospel. It's a picture of the gospel. The covenant will be broken. Every person who has ever lived has broken covenant with God. Everyone who God enters into covenant with has at some point broken covenant with God. All men are by nature covenant breakers. All men are by nature are rebels against God. God demands legally. What does God demand, Bill? Perfect obedience. If he doesn't, what does that mean? No, if he doesn't demand it, what does it mean? That he's not just, that he's not holy, that he can bend on his law, that his law is flexible, that he'll just overlook this thing over here and he doesn't have to punish that. He has always demanded perfect perpetual obedience, no less in the Abrahamic covenant than in anything else. And the last time I checked, none of you or me have kept God's covenant perfectly. Fair enough? None of us have obeyed God perfectly. God will say to Abraham, walk before me in chapter 18 and be blameless. There is a legal demand always going through the scriptures. Yes, it surfaces with Moses and the Mosaic Covenant in Sinai more prominently, but it's always there. God never says, I'm not going to demand perfect obedience. Yes, he promises to save us apart from our obedience, in one sense, He promises to save us apart from our law keeping, apart from our works. He saves us apart from our works. Nevertheless, the demand for covenant keeping isn't always there. We see that in 17. Notice what he says in 17. He basically says, whoever does not keep my covenant will be cut off. Whoever breaks my covenant. So God has always demanded legal demands for perfect obedience. Now, I'll read to you before I go on. I want to read to you a few things. One is what Jonathan Edwards says about the smoking furnace and the passing between the pieces. He says another confirmation that God gave Abraham of the covenant of grace was the vision that he had in the deep sleep that fell on him of the smoking furnace and burning lamp that passed between the parts of the sacrifices in the latter part of Genesis 15. The sacrifice, as all sacrifices do, signified the sacrifice of Christ. Well, there in itself, he had to die for our transgressions because we have not kept his law perfectly. He had to die for all of our sin, all of our violations of his law. The smoking furnace that passed through the midst of the sacrifice first signified the sufferings of Christ. I'll come back to that. But the burning lamp that followed which shone with a clear, bright light signifies the glories that followed Christ's sufferings and was procured by them. Now, at the very least, if you were an Israelite and you read the Genesis account for the first time and you had been redeemed out of Egypt, what would the fire remind you of? What two things would the fire going through those pieces remind you of at the very least? The burning bush. and the pillar of fire, which both denoted the presence of God, they were theophanies, they were manifestations of God's presence, let alone the fact that as you read in Samson, if you read in Judges, and many places in the Old Testament, when the fire came down to consume the sacrifice, And in the one instance, the angel of the Lord, who I think is a pre-incarnate son of God, goes up into the fire, thereby showing that he's going to be consumed as the sacrifice in the fire of God's wrath. That's what Edwards is saying. Edwards is reading the entirety of the Old Testament. And what we know about God being a consuming fire, the fire of the sacrifices, the animals being cut apart, Edwards will actually say he believes, and I think he's right, that as the fire went through, it actually consumed the animals. And what that showed was that the covenant would be broken by man, but that God would do everything. God would do everything necessary for the salvation of his people. That God would be both parties. That God would represent us and God would represent him. And that God would go through and that it doesn't matter if men have broken his covenant. God would be faithful to his covenant. God would fulfill his promises. God would do everything necessary for man's redemption. That's what Genesis 15, 8 through 20 is saying. And I think when we come to Hebrews, And the writer of Hebrews talks about, I think it's Hebrews 6, verse 13, Hebrews 6, 13. When God made a promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself. You could just meditate on that verse like all day. He couldn't swear by anybody greater, because there's no greater person than God. So he swore by himself, saying, surely I will bless you and multiply. I will multiply you. And so after he, Abraham, had patiently endured, he obtained the promise, for men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them, the end of all dispute. Thus God, Now listen to this, because this is about you and me. Determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability, the unchangeableness of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath that by two immutable, that is, unchangeable things in which it's impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. Essentially, what the writer of Hebrews is saying is God wanted to make it so crystal clear how sure this was. He swore by himself. He confirmed it. He confirmed it in the covenant. He repeatedly confirmed it. He confirms it in chapter 15 with the smoking oven and the burning torch going through the pieces. God is saying, I am going to keep my promise. I am going to save my people. I am going to bless the world through Abram's seed. I'm going to bring the Redeemer. and you can trust me, and my grace is sure, unlike any other religion in the world. You know, Muslims, if you ever really talk to knowledgeable Muslims, they'll say, you do your best. Bill and I were talking about this today. You do your best, and you leave the rest to Allah. And they will actually say on Judgment Day, Allah could decide you have not done good enough because, number one, Allah is an idol. Number two, they don't have a doctrine of perfect obedience. Allah doesn't demand perfect obedience because he's an evil God, false God. He's not holy. That's the whole point of that. He lowers his standard and then raises it when he wants. He can't do that. If you're God, you're God. And there's no way you can trust him because he could lie, he could turn around. And God, our God, cannot lie. He confirms by an oath and by a confirmation in the covenant that what he's going to do in his son Jesus at Calvary is sure and steadfast. So much so when we come to the Lord's Supper and Jesus is breaking the bread saying, this is my body and this cup is the new covenant. Jesus, I think, and many theologians do, is alluding to the cutting of the covenant. When he breaks the bread, he is saying, I am about to be broken apart for my people keeping this covenant for them. The breaking of the bread carries the symbolism of the cutting apart, the breaking of a broken covenant, broken covenant, broken body. We break the covenant, he gets his body broken. That's the gospel. That's the gospel. That's what we have to get over and over and over and over and over again. If we don't get that, we don't get the gospel. The gospel is we sin, he gets punishment. We break the covenant, he keeps the covenant. We go to him, we're forgiven, we're restored, we're built up, we're actually made faithful in the covenant by grace. But it's not our faithfulness It's his faithfulness and it's his being cut apart He's God. He went through the torches the Son of God went through the pieces He passed through when he made the covenant with Abraham and he had all that happen at Calvary now. I'm gonna spare I'm gonna spare you a biblical theology of circumcision tonight I Will say this If you read 15, if you read chapter 15, it doesn't look like there's any conditions to the covenant there. It looks very unconditional to me. When you read 17, it looks very conditional. I think that's intentional. There is always a conditionality, that there's conditions we have to fulfill, and then there is unconditionality, that God does everything. Now, ultimately, God's covenant of grace is all unconditional. Because he fulfills the legal conditions. Nevertheless, as we read the Old Testament, we see those legal conditions set out very clearly that we are in covenant with God. There are parts that we're to play. When we come to the Mosaic Covenant, you see a whole lot of conditionality, don't you? If you do this, you will live. If you do this, if then, if then, if then, if then, if then. Those are conditional clauses. A lot of if then's in the Mosaic Covenant. Or if then's in the New Covenant, if you by the Spirit put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live. Now, we're going to say those are evangelical conditions. Those are gospel conditions. God will enable us to fulfill through faith and repentance those. But the legal conditions that you see in the Mosaic Covenant, and that even here you're starting to see set up, Christ fulfills. He's born under the law. He'll be circumcised, won't he? Now, circumcision went on the male reproductive organ because Corruption passes generation to generation from Adam through reproduction. Sin nature passes generation to generation from Adam. We have corrupt sin natures because of Adam. We have the guilt and the corruption of Adam's sin. Guilt imputed. Corruption passed. Passed generation to generation. The bloody judgment sign of circumcision went on the male reproductive organs saying the corruption that passed generation to generation could only be dealt with by a bloody judgment. That bloody judgment is the cross. That's why we don't circumcise people in the New Covenant. Blood has been shed. Now, every male in Israel that took that sign was saying, I need my sin taken away. Right? Every Jew that, and made a Jew a Jew, because he does here in verse 14, if he doesn't have the sign, he's not a Jew, he's cut off. So, what made a Jew a Jew was circumcision. If you were bought, if you were a slave, if you were born as a descendant in the house, you got the sign. Every male that got that sign, I take that because that's federal representation in the Old Covenant, and so the second Adam comes, he represents all people. That's why only the males got the sign in the Old Covenant. Because the Adamic federal representation, I'm using big terms, federal government, you know, we have a representative government. So Adam was our representative. Christ becomes the second Adam. So until the second Adam comes, it only goes in the males because they're the representatives of their households. The new covenant, everybody gets it because the representatives come, because Christ has come. Every male that got circumcision was essentially saying, I need my filthy heart circumcised. I need my corrupt nature taken away. I need to be regenerated. I need to have my sins forgiven. I need to be dealt with because I'm a sinner. Now, Jesus takes that sign on himself at 8 days. Jesus takes that sign on himself at 8 days. So he had no sin. Think of the humiliation of Jesus having to, his whole life, bear in his body a divine tattoo saying, you are a sinner, though he was not a sinner. As our representative, taking that on himself, the only one that didn't need circumcision in the whole world, taking that on himself, being born under the law, to deliver us from the curse of the law, Paul says in Galatians 3. And it's interesting that when you read in Isaiah, turn to Isaiah 53 as we wrap it up tonight. I want you to notice, this is obviously, you know, the great suffering servant chapter and so clear why some people call Isaiah 53 the fifth gospel, because it's so clear, so clearly about Jesus. I have read this to every kind of unbeliever, Jewish, Catholic, nominal, atheist under heaven and say, who am I reading about? Jesus. They know. They know. Yeah, they know it's about Jesus. It is so crystal clear. Now, some Jews try to spin it away and say it was Israel. I know that. Or Isaiah. It's a suffering servant. It's the Messiah. And notice notice in verse eight. He was taken from prison and from judgment. Who will declare his generation for he was cut off from the land of the living for the transgressions of my people, he was stricken." Now, what is Isaiah saying? Isaiah is saying that Jesus got the covenant curse that circumcision symbolized as if he had broken the covenant because we broke the covenant. That's what Isaiah is saying. For the transgressions of my people, He was cut off from the land of the living. When he cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus was saying, why have I been cut off from the presence of God? Ultimately, hell is the ultimate cutting off. Hell is the ultimate circumcision judgment for all eternity. cut off in the presence of God. God promised he would cut away the filth of the foreskin of the heart, but if that didn't happen, you would be cut off with covenant curses. Now, what a lot of people don't understand, I'm going to close here and we can pick up on this the next time, is the covenant was always broader than just the elect. There was always more than just true believers in covenant with God. Covenant had, in its essence, promised a blessing and curses. Does that make sense? That the idea of covenant everywhere in the Bible has the idea of blessing and curses. Now, Christ secures those blessings for us in the New Covenant. Nevertheless, nevertheless, someone could be baptized in the New Covenant and not have a baptized heart. They will have greater condemnation because they were part of the covenant community. They profess faith is what Hebrews talks about. Apostasy is going to be worse for them. Jesus said it would be worse for Tyre and Sidon because they heard and saw his deeds. And it would be better for Sodom and Gomorrah who didn't, I want you to think about that culturally with where we're at right now in America, it would be better for homosexual Sodom and Gomorrah who never heard or saw than for the church who saw and heard and didn't believe. So covenant always included that aspect of blessing and cursing. We see that most fully here in circumcision. Either God's going to cut away the foreskin of your heart in regeneration, give you a new heart. Circumcise your heart is the call all through the Old Testament. I'm going to give you a circumcised heart. Get a circumcised heart. Need a circumcised heart. My people are uncircumcised in heart. Everything's about the circumcision of the heart. Paul will pick up on that in Romans 2. He'll say, he's not a Jew who's one outwardly, he's one who's one inwardly. Circumcision's not outward in the flesh, but inward in the heart. If someone were a covenant member and they didn't have heart circumcision, they would be cut off. They would get covenant curses. So circumcision carried with it the idea of judgment. Judgment unto salvation. Judgment unto judgment. Judgment unto salvation through the judgment of Jesus. Judgment unto judgment if you reject him.