The Gospel According to Abram

Introduction

As you’ve just heard, our sermon text this morning is a passage of Scripture that seems pretty unusual.

There is a lot going on in this chapter, and so much of it feels foreign when we first read it.

But as we explore it this morning I think you’ll find that what’s happening to Abram in this chapter is actually something most if not all of us can relate to.

Genesis 15 is about doubts and affirmation. Questions and answers. Unbelief and redemption.

In the midst of one of the most vulnerable, frightened moments of his life Abram is unsteady and filled with questions. And in an act of sheer grace - God shows up.

He not only answers Abram’s questions, but in His answers God points Abram beyond the events of his own life to the person and work of Jesus Christ.

So even in a passage that seems foreign and distant from us, what we’re going to see here is how God invites doubters like you and me to embrace Him by faith in the Promised Son of Abram - Jesus Christ.

We’re going to explore this in three sections:

A Question About God (v.1-6)

A Question About Us (v.7-21)

What All of This Means for Us

Transition:

First - a question about God.

A Question About God (v.1-6)

After these events, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield; your reward will be very great.

2 But Abram said, “Lord GOD, what can you give me, since I am childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 Abram continued, “Look, you have given me no offspring, so a slave born in my house will be my heir.”

As a point of clarification, the Abram in this chapter is Abraham, the Abraham from the rest of the Bible. This event is occurring just a few years before his name was changed. So in keeping with the chapter I will be referring to him as Abram.

The events of Genesis 15 take place on the heels of one of the most incredible moments of Abram’s life so far.

He just went to war with kings and tribes to rescue his nephew Lot and his family. But now that Lot was safe and the attackers were gone, Abram went from being a heroic conqueror to a regular guy.

From Gerard Butler in 300, to Gerard Butler in PS I Love You. There was nothing stopping these tribes from coming back to give Abram an Old Testament version of the People’s Elbow.

He refused the conqueror’s bounty he earned, because He trusted that God, not the spoils of war, would give him the land of promise. But refusing that bounty meant he went from having protection to being utterly vulnerable.

And it is in this vulnerability that God begins his dialogue with Abram.

After these events, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision:

The phrase here, “the word of the Lord came” only appears here in the Pentateuch, the first 5 books of the Bible. It is the same phrase used over and over again in the Prophets when God speaks. So at this moment, Abram is operating in the ministry of a prophet.

Do not be afraid, Abram.

Don’t be afraid of those tribes. Don’t be afraid of what might happen. Why?

I am your shield;

God is the Great Protector of His people. Who needs a metal shield when you have the God over all Creation promising to protect you?

Your reward will be very great.

And then, God reassures Abram that even though he passed over the previous reward, there was a better reward coming his way.

This last affirmation of a greater reward must have sparked something in Abram’s mind, because right after this statement he asks God his question: “Lord GOD, what can you give me, since I am childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”

Abram’s question refers to the promise God made to him in Genesis 12. God revealed Himself to Abram, and told him that through his family line, a Promised Offspring would come. And that Offspring would be a blessing to the nations.

In Galatians 3, Paul teaches us that bound up in this promise is the message of the gospel.

There would eventually be a member of Abram’s family who would bless the whole world by doing for them what they could not do for themselves - saving them from their sins.

But in light of all this, we don’t see resolute faith from Abram in this chapter. We see doubt.

Genesis 15 takes place ten years after the initial promise. A decade has gone by and not only has he aged, but he still doesn’t have a son. So the next person in line to carry on the family is Eliezer - his slave.

So as soon as he hears God promise a reward, Abram has questions. We could rephrase this question to say something like: “God, how do I know you’ll do what you say? How do I know you’re good enough to keep your promise?”

Abram’s question wasn’t just about the promise - it was about God.

A question like this might make some of you uncomfortable. For others, it might sound a lot like the questions you have.

But I want you to notice that this question doesn’t faze God. He is not afraid of Abram’s questions, but rather He embraces them. And by the way, He isn’t afraid of your questions either.

In fact, what you just might find when you ask God your questions is that in your doubt, confusion, and frustration - though He felt far away, God may have been closer to you than you realized.

Madeleine L’Engle, the author of A Wrinkle In Time, talked about her experience with doubts like this in an interview a few years ago. Listen to what she says.

“There have been periods in my life when everything has gone wrong. When my faith has been a mess, and I have been furious with God. But the second I’m furious with God, I’m totally close. Because you cannot be furious with someone who's not there.”

Our questions don’t push God away from us. Like we see with Abram, questions can actually draw us closer to God. Instead of bottling them up, Abram brings his questions to the God who is there.

What’s amazing about God is he doesn’t let Abram sit in His questions. He lets him ask them, but he doesn't let him stay there. Instead, God responds.

And behold, the word of the LORD came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” 5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 6 And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

Explanation

With the loving mercy of a Father, God hears Abram’s question, and responds to it with an affirmation of the original promise from ten years prior. He brings Abram outside and has him look up at the stars in the night sky.

God is using the nighty sky as a teaching tool. He’s effectively saying to Abram:

“Not only will I keep my promise to you Abram, but I’ll do you one better. You see those stars? Your family is going to be as brilliant and numerous as those stars. They’ll light up the darkness just as these stars light up the sky”.

Here God is both affirming and expanding on his original promise to Abram. The offspring of the promise in chapter 12 referred to Jesus - the one who would bless the nations by saving them from their sins and ushering in a New Kingdom.

Here, the offspring is referring to everyone who would be a part of that Kingdom. Or like New Testament refers to them, “true children of Abraham”. These offspring are all who embrace the Triune God by faith.

You and I are up in those stars.

God is giving Abram an Old Covenant gospel-presentation. The Promised Son would come through the line of Abram, and create a new people - the church.

In this promise, God was inviting Abram to place his faith in the promise and hope of the gospel. And Abram takes up God on his invite. He believes.

This in and of itself is astounding, but what happens next is even more remarkable. Take a look at v.6 again.

And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

There are many verses in the Old Testament that set the stage for God’s work in and through Jesus Christ - but there aren’t many as important as this one.

The New Testament picks up this sentence as a descriptor of how someone becomes one of those shining stars in the midst of the darkness…about how we become children of God.

This sentence is the foundation for what theologians call the Doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone.

Notice how justification by faith plays out for Abram. He hears the promise of the Gospel, and in response to the Gospel, Abram believes. He embraces God by faith.

God, then, takes Abram’s faith on credit. The ESV says here God, “counted it to him as righteousness”. Other translations have also said God, “credited to him as righteousness”.

I think the word credit is probably the most helpful one here.

Before I got married I had horrendous credit. I was one of those 18 year olds who got a credit card, racked up debt, and didn't pay it off for years. I didn’t just have no credit - I had terrible credit.

And then something amazing happened - I got married. My wife had amazing credit, but now she was stuck with me.

So to get me out of a credit dump - she added me to her accounts. She took a hit, but suddenly my bad credit soared because a perfect credit score outside of mine was now being applied to me. Out of no effort on my part, someone else’s perfect credit was now repairing my broken credit.

Application

Do you see the connection here?

We, like Abram, are not born neutral towards God. We come out of the womb raging against Him. We don’t just have no credit, we have bad credit. Our account is filled with unrighteousness - wickedness, sin, evil. There is none righteous, no not one.

Therefore in order to be made right with God we need two things to happen: our account needs to be wiped clean, and new perfect righteousness put in its place.

But we can’t get righteousness on our own - it's impossible. So it has to come from outside of us, what theologians call an alien righteousness.

On this side of the cross, Paul and the New Testament writers saw this sentence as an ancient picture of a present reality for all who are in Christ.

Jesus, the Son of the Promise, accomplished righteousness on our behalf. No sin. Perfect credit.

And on the cross He took the guilt and punishment our unrighteousness deserved, so that now all who embrace Him by faith can have His righteousness credited to their account.

This is called imputed righteousness. God gives Jesus’ perfect credit to all who embrace Him by faith.

This is the invitation God extended to Abram, and is the same invitation He gives to you and I today.

So far we’ve seen that God meets Abram in his doubts, and answers his questions with the hope of the gospel. But Abram’s next question isn’t about God - It’s about himself, and it's a question that uniquely applies to us as well.

A Question About Us (v.7-21)

And he said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” 8 But he said, “O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?

Explanation

At the end of this reaffirmed promise, God reminds Abram of another element of the promise. God had called him from a foreign people, established a relationship with him, and would give him a land where the promise of the Messiah would unfold.

But this sparks another question in Abram’s mind. This one wasn’t about God - but about himself. Abram is asking God for confirmation that this will happen to strengthen his own faith. He’s assured of God’s faithfulness, but unsure of his own.

He is essentially asking God, “how can I be sure I’ll keep my end of the bargain? And what happens if I don't?”

Application

I love this passage for so many reasons, and one of those reasons is how much these questions connect to real life. Abram asks for confirmation because He knows His heart is just like ours - weak.

How many of us could ask questions like this?

- God what happens if I sin, what happens if I fail?

- How do I know if I’m even being faithful to you?

- Lord I believe, help my unbelief

Once again, God is not shaken by Abram’s question. He doesn’t rebuke him. Or tell him to buck up. Or give him empty positive platitudes.

No - instead, God answers Abram’s question with a covenant.

Explanation

He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. 11 And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. 13 Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

V.9-16 set the stage for God’s covenant with Abram. And like every covenant, what we see here are covenant obligations and covenant conditions.

God provided the obligations of the covenant through His word in v.13-16.

He promises that Abram’s descendents will inherit the land they were promised, and that they would do so after a period of slavery and exodus.

And after the covenant is ratified he further defines what land will be possessed in v. 18-21.

But what we also see here are the covenant conditions. God instructs Abram to get all of these animals, slaughter them, cut them in half, and place them across from each other creating a row in between.

This is the Ancient World’s version of terms and conditions. When we sign a contract we’re asked to agree with certain terms and conditions. And even if we don’t read them - our agreement to these terms means we agree with what happens if we keep or violate those terms. We’re agreeing to the promises and the consequences.

The same thing is happening here. The animals represent the terms and conditions. After the terms of the covenant are established, the agreeing parties would walk through the slaughtered animals one after the other effectively saying to one another, ‘if I don’t keep my end of the covenant, let me be slaughtered like these animals.”

These covenants could happen between equals, but more often than not they took place between Kings and their Subjects. Or what’s historically been called a Suzerain / Vassal covenant.

The subject would walk through the animals first, and pledge himself as the first and sometimes the primary person to receive the consequences if they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.

Transition

And at first that’s what we expect to happen in this story. Abram is unsure of his ability to uphold his end of the bargain, so God is going to double down on him to ensure his commitment, right?

But this isn’t what happens at all. God does something that shocks Abram to his core.

Look at what happens:

17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.

Explanation

Darkness descends over the land. And instead of Abram standing in between the slaughtered animals, he’s awestruck as he watches a smoking pot and a flaming torch appear. Standing in his place.

Both of these images strikingly represent the presence of God.

In the Old Testament the direct presence of God is associated with smoke - think Exodus 32 when God descends in fire and smoke on Mt. Sinai.

The word for flaming torch, however, is a really unique word. This translation is our best effort at putting the idea into English.

Don’t picture an Indiana Jones torch that’s mostly wood with a little bit of light at the top. The idea here is almost like a bolt of lightning. A steady stream of violent, raw, light, walking through the pieces.

Do you see what’s happening here?

Suddenly, in the middle of the darkness, God shows up. Abram’s been hearing God’s voice so far. But now - here He is.

This is what theologians call a Theophany. In a Theophany God is directly revealing Himself in physical form. And here we have the Holy One, the Light of the World - standing between the slaughtered animals.

As King, God set the terms of the covenant. And yet, instead of Abram, the subject, walking through the animals - God walks through instead.

What’s happening here?

God is turning the covenant on its head. He is saying to Abram: “If I don’t keep my promises, let me be torn apart like these animals! And even if you don’t keep your end of it, let me be torn apart instead of you!”

The book of Hebrews points out that God swore by Himself because there was no one higher to swear by! God would do what He said, even if Abram didn’t, to His own peril.

“Abram, when you sin, when you fail, when you’re faithless, I will be torn apart in your place.”

The Infinite God is stepping into finitude. The Light is willingly descending into darkness.

Just over a thousand years later, a very similar darkness would descend.

In Mark 15 the sun was blotted out by a deep, overwhelming darkness. And in the midst of the darkness, the Light was having his life choked out of him on a bloody cross.

The Infinite became finite. The Promised Son of Abram descended into the darkness and was slaughtered. He willingly laid his life down to be snuffed out.

Why?

Application

God was keeping his end of the bargain. He was keeping His promise of the covenant.

We have been unfaithful. Every last one of us. But rather than give us exactly what we deserve, Jesus Christ, the Son of God was slaughtered like an animal in our place.

And when in the darkness he cried out, “tetelestai”, “it is finished”, we’re meant to think back to this and other promises like it. God’s promises to Abram have come true.

This is what Paul meant in Galatians 4, “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a Woman, born under the law to redeem those who are under the law.”

Redemption has been accomplished.

And now, all who place their faith in Jesus will not be slaughtered, because He was slaughtered for you.

Bearing shame and scoffing rude,

In my place condemned He stood;

Sealed my pardon with His blood.

Hallelujah! What a Savior!

In my place, in your place, condemned He stood. The Son of God died for sinners to bring them to himself.

This means a lot for us, but I’ll close with two things.

What All of This Means for Us

1. God Embraces Doubters

Some of you might be familiar with a context where it was wrong to ask questions. Or on the other end, some of you might be sitting in a place of constant question asking.

Like the philosophers in Acts 17 you’re always interested in something new, and asking questions without seeking answers.

What we see in the Bible is that God simultaneously welcomes our questions, but doesnt let us stay there. He’s undaunted by questions, but a loving Father who moves us through our questions to see Him all the more clearly.

Do you have questions? Ask them. Bring them to your Lord, bring them to the Word, bring them to one another in the church.

And as you do, be prepared for God to move you even closer to Him through your questions.

And secondly, we see that:

2. The Gospel is For You

What we’ve seen here in Genesis 15 is an Old Testament picture of the gospel. Jesus died for sinners, rose to life, and now rules and reigns on high as the glorious King of all. The good news of the gospel is that if you embrace this Jesus who died for you, all of His promises can be yours.

Righteousness credited to your account.

Right standing with God.

Forgiveness of sin.

Unending approval and justification from the Triune God.

And a future unlike anything this world can offer you.

If you’re not a Christian, I want you to know this is what God holds out to you today.

Friend, can I ask you -

Where else could you find love like this? There’s no love like the sacrificial love of Jesus.

Is your heart longing for approval, but unable to achieve it?

Do you need righteousness credited to your account, your bad credit wiped away?

Have all the promises this world has offered you kept up their end of the bargain?

Have you felt like a fraud and a failure to your own standards, let alone the standards around you?

Here is where you can find the answers to all the questions and longings of your heart.

In Him there is life, the approval your heart has been longing for, the righteousness you’ve always needed, and grace for all your sins..

Embrace Him today. He will not turn you away.

If you’re a Christian - this is the gospel message that saved you. But it doesn't stop there.

The writer of Hebrews takes this chapter and applies it to Christians by saying that the certainty of God’s promise in the gospel is the unique resting place for our souls.

Listen to his words in Hebrews 6

13 For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, 14 saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” 15 And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise.

16 For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation.

17 So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, 18 so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.

19 We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, 20 where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

Jesus is both the refuge we hide under, and the anchor that grounds us.

He keeps us still in the chaos. He is the unwavering hope in the midst of constant change. And His death on our behalf is not only what saves us, but also what sustains us until He comes back for us again.

This is the hope of the Gospel God is inviting you to take hold of today.

Friend, do you believe it? Will you place your faith in God and His Gospel?

Let’s pray.