The sign of the Abrahamic Covenant, the sign of circumcision, was “in your flesh” (Gen. 17:13), where it simultaneously marked God’s extraordinary promise and Abraham’s complete impotency.

Abraham was 99 years old when he was circumcised (v. 24). As Paul puts it in Romans 4, he was “already dead,” dependent on the life-giving, resurrection power of God. The generative power of the promise and the hope that blessing might flow out to the nations, was found in God alone. Abraham was helpless.

God would exercise his power in fulfilment of his promise, not simply in spite of Abraham’s impotency, but in and through his impotency. From the beginning of God’s salvation plan, to its extraordinary culmination in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, salvation comes in and through judgment, strength in and through weakness, glory in and through shame, a new creation in and through the death of the old.

There was nothing that God either promised Abraham or commanded him (cf. 17:1, 18:19) that wasn’t either beyond his power or beyond his sphere of comprehension. It’s hardly surprising that he “fell face down” on his knees before God (17:3, 17).

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