(Note: This is an original piece of biblical exposition. I've written and spoken about it on a couple of occasions, but never in a full article like this. It's an interpretation that has not been noted before in the history of Christian exposition so far as I can tell, but I believe it holds up. I'm working toward producing an article on this topic for a peer-reviewed theological journal, and I'll certainly post here if that happens.)

Tucked away in Genesis 15 isone of the strangest stories in the Bible—a bizarre theophany in which Godappears to Abram as a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch, together makingtheir way down a blood-soaked avenue between bisected animal corpses. Thisstory is easy to overlook, both for its strangeness and for the fact that itfalls between the Melchizedek story on the one hand, and the Hagar/Ishmaelstory on the other, and so is obscured by better-known arcs in the Abrahamicnarrative. But this curiously unsettling story is actually something quiteimportant—something that, if we had eyes to see, would unveil for us an enactedparable of the gospel itself. Its imagery, passing before Abram’s wonderingeyes some two millennia before the Incarnation, portrays in visible form thevery ideas that later Christians would call upon to articulate the mystery ofChrist. The strange story of Abram’s covenant shows the gospel of Jesus Christ,painted in terms that would later find their echo in the great creed of Nicaea.

To careful readers ofScripture, the importance of Genesis 15 is plain to see. It rituallyestablishes the covenant between God and Abram, and it includes repetitions ofthe divine promises: to give Abram an heir and possession of the land ofCanaan, as well as to redeem his descendants from their future bondage in Egypt.

Truth be told, some of thestory’s strangeness finds easy explanation in our knowledge of the biblicalworld. While the rite which is portrayed seems both curious and macabre tomodern readers, it is not unknown. God asks Abram to take one of each of themain kinds of sacrificial animals—bull, goat, and sheep (as well as some doves)—andto cut their bodies in two, arranging the bisected sections so that they arelined up on opposite sides of each other. This creates a blood-soaked pathwaybetween the corpses.

To ancient readers of this passage,this would be a recognizable scene. We have evidence of a similar (though muchlater rite) described in Jeremiah 34:18-20, as well as contemporaryattestations from elsewhere in the ancient Near East. This was the act of“cutting a covenant,” the solemn rite in which the two parties of a covenantwould pledge themselves to the covenant stipulations. Each party to thecovenant was to walk down the bloody pathway, with the implication being thatif either party broke those stipulations, the penalty was the very one depictedby the outpoured blood at their feet.

This brings us back to Genesis15, in which Abram has set up the scene of the covenant rite just as Godrequested it, and then—presumably waiting for God to show up so they couldproceed with the ritual—Abram falls into a deep sleep, and a great darkness comesupon him. These are clues that the theophany is at hand: the deep sleep echoesAdam’s deep sleep as God was bringing forth Eve from his side, and the darknessforetells a similar darkness that enshrouds Mount Sinai when the presence ofGod is there. When the narrative of the ritual scene resumes, we come to thestrangest part of all: “When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, asmoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between the pieces” (Gen. 15:17,ESV).

There are two unexpected andcurious things about this. First, there’s the fact that Abram is not a party inthe covenant rite. He does not walk the bloodied pathway. And second, thesymbols themselves are bizarre: a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch. Whatcould this mean? Any good set of commentaries will tell you that the basicsymbology of these items—both related to fire—show them to be a theophany. Fireis a frequent image of God’s presence throughout the biblical narratives, fromthe pillar of fire in Exodus to the tongues of flame at Pentecost. The fire potand the torch are thus both meant to represent God.

The fact that there are twosuch symbols seems to indicate that God is taking the place of bothparties in this covenant rite. Remember, it was supposed to be the two personsentering the covenant with one another who would pass between the animalcorpses: in this case, God and Abram. But instead, it is God and God, even asAbram and his descendants are declared to be the heirs of the covenant promise.And here we come to the first wondrous insight, which thunders with the messageof the gospel: by playing both roles, God is pledging to take upon himself thepunishment for any transgression of the covenant. Should Abram or his heirsviolate this covenant of promise in any way, it is not Abram on whom thepenalty will descend, but it will fall on God himself, for he is one who walkedthe avenue of sacrifice in Abram’s place. The punishment that should havefallen on the rebellious covenant-heirs will fall instead on God. This isnothing less than the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Yet we still have to reckonwith the specificity of the images involved. God could have appeared in aplainer and more obvious form—say, as two pillars of flame—but instead he choosesa smoking fire pot and a burning torch. Why? These are two common householdobjects, which everyone in the ancient world would recognize. The element offire certainly binds the two together, but there is another aspect by whichthese images are related: the burning torch is drawn from the fire pot’s flame.The first image, that of the fire pot, is the central source of fire for anentire household, used for cooking and heat and always kept alive in a bed ofglowing embers. Every other fire-bearing implement, in one way or another,draws its flame from there. The torch, then, shares the very same nature as thefire pot does—the flame itself—but it is customarily lit from the fire pot, andnot the other way around.

What we have here, then, aretwo divine images, which share the exact same nature in all of its qualities,but one is the Begetter and the other is the Begotten. This is not only the waythat the New Testament describes the relationship between the Father and theSon; it is also the way that the Nicene Creed articulates the divine nature ofChrist: “Light from Light.” It is perhaps no accident that the very function ofa torch was as a bearer of light, bringing the flame from the fire pot’s heartout into the darkness of a benighted world. The mystery of the Trinity, whichwe still speak forth in the words of Nicaea, written seventeen hundred yearsago, was played out before the patriarch’s eyes all the way back in the pagesof Genesis.

Come back once more to thestory of Abram’s covenant, then. We not only have a double theophany, in whichGod himself takes Abram’s spot. We can now describe the scene in even greaterdetail: the person of the Godhead who takes Abram’s spot in the ritual is noneother than the Son of God. Here God the Father and God the Son walk thecovenant pathway together, pledging themselves forever to Abram and his heirs,and it is the Son, moving second through the pieces, who assigns the penalty tohimself should any of the human parties fail. Jesus pledges to take thepunishment that should have fallen on us. This is a passion-play of Calvary,acted out by God himself two thousand years before the fact. Is it a strangestory? Certainly. But even in its strangeness, we catch clear-eyed glimpses ofa stranger story still to come: that the eternal Son of God, the Light from theFather’s own Light, would bear the curse of our darkness so that we mightinherit the promises of God.