GENESIS
ABRAHAM
Genesis 15:1-21
INTRODUCTION
God has called Abram to follow Him from the land of the Chaldeans (the city of Ur) to the land of Canaan. Abram followed God because of the promise He made to him in Gen. 12:1-3. In that promise God said that He would (1) bless Abram, (2) make his name great, (3) make him a great nation, (4) make him a blessing to all the families of the earth, (5) bless those who bless him, and (6) curse those who curse him.
Although this promise does not explicitly say so, it does imply 2 things: (1) Abram will have a son and (2) God will give Abram certain land. Abram correctly understands that when God promises to make of him a great nation, that God means Abram is going to have descendants, that is, he is at least going to have one son. Moreover, a nation implies territory. As a result, Abram must have land if God is going to make of him a great nation. God reaffirmed this second part of the promise after Lot chose the valley of the Jordan for his dwelling place and left the land of Canaan to Abram (13:14-16).
Up to this point in the story Abram has neither a descendant nor a land to call his own. Maybe this promise had started to fade away in his mind, or maybe he was so preoccupied with heading up such a large company that this promise was put on the back burner of his mind. The events though in chapter 14 probably jolted his memory. God had promised to make of him a great kingdom. In chapter 14 he had not only rescued kings, he had also defeated a coalition of kings. As of right now he was the head of no kingdom. What was even worse was that he had no son which meant he saw no kingdom in his immediate future. Had God forgotten the promise? Just who was it that Abram was following? Remember that he had only 11 chapters in Genesis to live by. Maybe this God he followed was a sadistic jokester. God now seeks to calm those fears and stoke up faith in Abram.
THE WORD OF ASSURANCE (15:1-5)
These thoughts and many more may have been flooding Abram’s mind. Whatever was going on with Abram, God now seeks to reassure Abram of the promise He made him earlier.
“Do not fear, Abram,
I am a shield to you;
Your reward shall be very great” (15:1).
Apparently, Abram is full of fear; otherwise, why did God feel it necessary to command him NOT to fear? Abram had only 11 chapters in Genesis to inform him of this God he was following. This God was telling him to leave kith, ken, and home to go inherit a country not his own. Yet what was in those 11 chapters which informed him that God was faithful to His promises? There is nothing in those 11 chapters which provide evidence that God keeps His promises! Rather in those chapters there is a story of a God who had just wiped out the whole world of mankind because of sin. Somebody once said that they were not impressed with Abram’s faith. Such a person has failed to process the situation Abram found himself in. I am bowled over by his faith! Moreover, God was impressed with Abram’s faith. In fact God is so impressed with Abram that he alone of all the great men of the OT, including David, Samuel, Isaiah, Moses, etc., Abram alone is called “the friend of God” (Is. …; 2 Chron. ….). Now THAT is impressive.
Abram reasons that he might have misunderstood God’s promise at the beginning. Maybe God was not going to give him a son but an heir, for example, Eliezer of Damascus, whom Abram had named to be his heir in case he left no son behind. God now informs him that that is NOT to be: “This man will NOT be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir” (15:4).
One heir though is not going to cut it. God has promised Abram to be the father of a great nation, implying MANY descendants. God then takes Abram outside at night and says:
“Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars,
If you are able to count them. . . .
So shall your descendants be” (15:7).
Creation has so much meaning for us. It gives us life-giving rain even when we’ve been disobedient. It gives us the nourishment of the sun even when we’ve refused to honor God in our lives. Why? Because God is a God of unconditional love. God has placed the rainbow in the heavens to remind us that He will never again wipe out the world with a flood. Now He points to the stars to let us know that God’s promise to Abram of many descendants, physical AND spiritual, is written in the heavens. When we feel that God is not speaking to you, all you have to do is to look at the heavens.
ABRAM’S RESPONSE (15:6)
Abram Believed
When we come to Gen. 15:6, we come to one of the most important verses in the OT: "Abram believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." According to this verse whenever God promised to give Abram as many descendants as the stars of heaven, Abram believed God. He simply accepted as true what God had just said. Abram did not go out and sacrifice 3 sheep when God made this promise to him; he simply believed God, accepted it as true. Neither did Abram go out and give $1,000 to the poor, rather, he simply believed God, accepted what he said was true.
God's Response to Abram's Faith
What was God's response to Abram's response? God reckoned Abram's faith as righteousness. Now what does God mean whenever He says that He reckoned Abram's faith as righteousness? Here God is using a banking or accounting image. Whenever a person wants to buy a new car or home, he wants to know the price of the car or home. The bank or dealership places a value upon that home or car. For example, the bank may say that my home is worth $80,000. To be more precise, the bank reckons my home to be $80,000. Now the home is not the same thing as $80k; however, for all practical purposes they are one and the same. In the same way, when God placed the value of righteousness upon Abram's faith, He was saying that Abram's faith was just as good as righteousness. Now faith is not righteousness; however, in God's accounting system, in His banking system faith equals righteousness.
The Importance of Righteousness
Why is it important that we have righteousness? Righteousness is huge in our relationship with God. If we are not righteous, if we are not right with God, then our souls will spend an eternity away from God. Heaven is made up of righteous people, people who are right with God. If I want to spend an eternity with God and if I do not want to spend an eternity away from Him, then I must be righteous, right with Him.
Well, there are 2 ways people believe you can achieve righteousness. The first way is by doing good deeds. If I perform righteous deeds, then God will consider me righteous. The question I have to ask myself though is "How many righteous deeds must I perform in order to be considered righteous?" In this system I will never know until judgment day whether or not I have performed enough righteous deeds. The second way is the way of Abram. According to this way if I trust God, then He will place the value of righteousness upon my belief. When I do, I am guaranteed that I am already righteous and don't have to wait until judgment day to find out.
Many will say though that this kind of righteousness will lead to sinful living. If all I have to do is believe in order to be right with God, then why worry about trying to do right things? We must always remember that this righteousness based on belief will LEAD and must NECESSARILY lead to righteous behavior, otherwise you have not exercised BIBLICAL faith; HOWEVER, in God's system righteousness is ultimately NOT right behavior. It leads to right behavior, but it is not the same as right behavior. Rather faith and faith alone constitutes righteousness according to God.
Why Abram's Faith Applies to Me
Does this apply to me? Simply because Abraham was made right with God by faith, am I made right with God by faith? The answer is "Definitely, yes!" According to Scripture God's promise of blessing is made to Abram and his seed (descendants). Since I am aligned with Jesus Christ, Abram's ultimate seed, then I too am Abram's descendant. Abram sets the tone for the family of God. Since he the father is saved by faith, we too must be saved by faith.
How This Applies to the Doctrine of Salvation
According to Paul, the way Abram was saved has huge implications for the way all of us are saved (Gal. 3:6-14; Rom. 4:1-12). Baptism is not necessary for salvation since Abram was not baptized. The seven sacraments of the church are not necessary for salvation since Abram knew nothing of the 7 sacraments. We are saved by faith and by faith alone.
RATIFICATION OF THE COVENANT (15:7-21)
Abram wants to know for sure that God is going to keep His word. God performs next what is called a ratification ceremony. God instructs Abram to take a 3-year old heifer, a 3-year old female goat, and a 3-year old ram, cut them into 2 pieces each, and then create an aisle by placing one half of the animal on one side of the aisle and the other half of the animal on the other side of the aisle. Then he was to take a turtledove and put it on one side of the aisle and place a young pigeon on the other side of the aisle.
Why was Abram to split animals? Whenever you passed down the aisle of split animals, you would cite the terms of the covenant, saying this is what you would do and this is what you would not do. The reason you walked down the aisle of the severed animals was that you were declaring that if you broke the terms of the covenant, then you were calling down the fate which befell these animals upon yourself. In other words, if you broke your part of the covenant, then you were saying that just as the animals were cut in half, you too will be cut in half. Just as the animals were destroyed, so you too will suffer destruction.
Evening begins to fall upon the scene. Birds of prey swoop down to feed upon the dead carcasses. Abram chases them off. Something momentous is about to happen which will affect Abram and his descendents forever. He fights off the birds of prey in order to protect his own children.
At this point a smoking oven descends from heaven and passes down the aisle of slain, severed animals. Why a fiery smoking? It represents the awesome majesty of God. What is about to happen is one of the most stupendous events in the history of mankind. All of history is going to be judged by what is about to happen. Whenever we go to church, we want to hear something practical, something that impacts our lives. This event may not impact the way you raise your kids or the way you treat your spouse; however, it will impact the future history of all mankind, including yours.
Note two things about this ratification ceremony. First, a covenant is always made between at least 2 people; you don’t make a covenant with yourself. As a result whenever the 2 made the covenant, they would walk down the aisle together, communicating to each other the conditions they are to meet in order for the covenant to be valid. In that situation the promises are made by 2 people. In this case though Abram does not walk down the aisle with God. Although God and Abram are entering into the covenant together, God lays no conditions upon Abram. For all practical purposes Abram has already met the conditions by responding in faith to God’s promise. By walking down the aisle of slain animals alone, God says that He is going to keep the covenant and that He alone is going to be responsible for keeping the covenant.
Second, notice that God comes to Abram in the form of a smoking fiery pot. Although the physical magnitude of this event is not as great as that which occurred on Mt. Sinai with Moses, the reason is that Mt. Sinai dealt with millions of people, while this event involves just God and Abram. The mountain scene of Sinai was too much for even millions to handle, much more for ONE person to handle. The purpose of this smoking pot is to impress upon Abram and future generations the seriousness of the event. This is a solemn, serious event. It will have a long-range impact upon the future until the return of Christ, even beyond.
This scene actually answers some serious theological questions. How is that the Jews who have rejected Jesus and God since the beginning of their nation continue to be God’s people? The reason is that in this ceremony God committed Himself to Abram and his descendants, physical as well as spiritual. The Jews, no matter how they act, are still descendents of Abram and thereby recipients of God’s promises. This does not mean that they are automatically saved. It does mean that God’s hand is upon the Jew and that He will never take His eye off the Jew. When the great Jewish prime minister of England was asked to prove the existence of God, he said: “The Jew is that proof.” Never has a people group experienced such tremendous persecution as the Jew has. Yet they continue to persist down to this day. The reason that they have persisted in spite of all this persecution is that the God of Abram has for the sake of His covenant with Abram kept His hand upon Abram’s physical and spiritual descendants.
The voice of God emerges from the smoking fiery pot:
“To your descendants I have given this land,
From the land of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates” (15:18).
This covenant sounds so very limited; however, the promise of the land to the descendants compasses what God promised Abram in 12:1-3. If God is giving the land to Abram’s descendants, then God is giving Abram descendants as well, the whole reason Abram follows God in the first place. The promise of the land means that the kingdoms promised Abram are now possible, if not certain.
A closer look at what God says though will show you that trouble is on the horizon. Right before God says passes down the aisle of slain animals and cites the terms of the covenant, God also says:
"Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs,
where they will be enslaved and oppressed 400 years.
But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve,
and afterward they will come out with many possessions. . . .
Something wonderful is about to happen: God is going to give the land to Abram and his descendants, seed. Yet sorrow will precede it: they will be enslaved and oppressed in Egypt for 400 years. Why will they have to go through the period of suffering before they can obtain the Promised Land?
Abram's descendants, like us, are broken people. We are not automatically ready for the wonderful things God has in store for us. He has to prepare us for those wonderful things. The only way to prepare us is through the path of suffering and pain. I don't like pain; however, whenever I respond positively to it, the Marine slogan really makes sense: Pain is weakness leaving the body. Only men and women of strength are prepared for the things God has in store for us. Pain and suffering when responded to properly makes us strong.
The Bible also speaks of pain though in another way. We are ALL sinners. We must die to ourselves before we can truly live. The greatest example of this is the death and resurrection of Jesus. The only true spiritual life that Jesus gives is resurrection life. That's it. There's no other kind of life He gives us. Well, guess what you have to do before you rise spiritually from the dead? You've got to die. You can't rise from the dead if you are still alive. You've got to die to YOUR agenda, to YOUR plans, to YOUR will, to YOUR demands, to YOUR rights. You can hold onto them all day long, and guess what? You'll never die, and as a result, you will never live. At the very beginning of the Christian faith in the story of Abram, we see that death and resurrection are operating.
A SIDE NOTE
note one element in this as in all the other stories about Abram. There is a true note of adventure in this story. Abram's nephew is captured, and Abram takes up arms to rescue him. After his stunning victory over no less than 4 mighty kings from the east, Abram encounters this shadowy high priest of God, Melchizedek. God speaks to him and promises him great things. A fiery smoking pot descends from heaven so that God can communicate with Abram. This is no boring story. In fact the whole story of Abram is not boring; rather it is exciting. Why? Because it is lived out of a dynamic relationship with God. Christ did not die to make us boring, prudish creatures. He died that we might have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10).
The other day I was talking with one of the men's groups about C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. One of the major purposes of the Chronicles is to show us that the Christian life is one of adventure, not boredom. We may not be slaying physical dragons; however, there are real spiritual dragons and monsters in our lives which must be defeated. Lewis closes the Chronicles with what I consider one of the greatest endings to any book that I have ever read.
"And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after.
But for them it was only the beginning of the real story.
All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and title page:
now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read:
which goes on forever:
in which every chapter is better than the one before."
I don't know exactly what shape your adventure with Jesus will take. It may simply be telling others about Jesus, ministering to others in Jesus' name, or showing mercy to those who are down and out. It may be just revealing Jesus in your everyday life to those around you at work, home, and play.
For me the adventure has really been 3-fold these past several years. First, in 2001 B.F. just simply asked me to start up some men's groups. This has been one of the most rewarding ministries I've ever experienced in my life. I have lost count of all the men who have been involved in our small groups. Many have moved away.
Probably the most exciting of the groups was the first one we started at James Hooser's house. He and Jeff Berry said that they could only meet at 5 a.m. on Monday mornings. And meet we did along with Shane Holcomb, Gunter Rodriquez, Lance Cook, and another coach. We would all be up by 4 getting ready to meet. Some days I think we were more asleep than awake. All I know was that it was so exciting. I think the Lord had the following attitude towards: "If they are crazy enough to get up this early, then I am going to bless them!"
Next, in the spring of 2006 Nathan asked me to lead him and 2 of his friends in a study of Mere Christianity. I was honored that any of my kids would want me to lead them in a study. Linda Harrelson 3 years earlier had gotten me back into the Lewis studies; this took me though to a much higher level. Every time I've taught MC I've been so impressed by the insight Lewis brings to the table. More than any other writer outside the Bible, he has helped me to love Jesus more and more and desire to be like Him. Third, this study of Lewis has not only affected positively all the men's groups who have studied MC but also the college philosophy classes that I am teaching. I have never seen young people so lit as I have these who have encountered Lewis' line of reasoning. To see these young lives transformed has been one glorious adventure!