Confirmed By Sign – Genesis 17:7-14, 22-27

Covenant signs accompany the revelation of God to His people from the earliest pages of scripture. At times individuals would ask for a sign from God to confirm His word, at other times God presented His word accompanied by unsolicited signs. God sends a bow in the sky to confirm to Noah He will spare the earth whole-scale destruction by flood. He establishes many memorial ceremonies and rites in the worship prescribed for tabernacle assembly for similar reasons. A sacrificial lamb confirms that God will provide substitutionary atonement. The tabernacle furniture proclaims that through His ordained priesthood we have audience with a holy God. Even the skins covering Adam and Eve in the garden served perhaps as the earliest of covenant signs communicating the hope of salvation by the shed blood of a sacrifice. By symbol or object lesson, covenant signs illuminate spiritual realities to the people of God. By virtue of divine condescension, God stoops low, accommodating Himself to our finite limitations to make Himself known to His people. The Old covenant was revealed with many attending symbols, signs, and ceremonies representing and illustrating Gospel realities. Though most of these have become obsolete following the advent of their fulfillment in Jesus Christ, there yet remains 2 covenant sings prescribed for the church yet today. Sometimes called ordinances or sacraments, these signs serve to illuminate the Gospel to us yet today. They are, of course, communion and baptism. We can appreciate these all the more in light of their precursors. Our text today documents the history of baptism beginning with the sign of the Abrahamic covenant.