The Gospel According to Abraham

Introduction

While I am excited to be here, you’re probably less excited than I am - especially after taking a look at the passage we’re going through this morning.

It isn’t an understatement to say that Genesis 15 is a confusing passage.

I mean it has everything: weird names, sacrificed animals, and a torch and pot walking through slain carcasses.

This might not be what you expected to hear when you came to church this morning, and you might not even be wanting to hear the rest of it.

But even if on the surface this passage might not be what we wanted when we woke up this morning - this is a passage of Scripture that we need.

This passage takes place during one of the most vulnerable and confusing moments in Abraham’s life.

He’s scared and confused

His heart is filled with questions that no one but God can handle.

But in the middle of all this fear and doubt - God shows up.

God meets Abraham in the mess, and preaches an Old Testament version of the gospel to him

He points Abraham beyond his own life, beyond His confusion and fear to the Promised Messiah

And it is by faith in this Promised One that Abraham has his heart settled, even if he doesn't have all his questions answered

It is not only likely but inevitable that some of you came in here today feeling much the same way that Abraham does here - vulnerable, scared, confused.

You’re carrying the weight of big questions, real doubts, and genuine fear

You’re so tired you don’t even know if you have faith anymore

It's also possible that some of us have faith, but have placed our faith - not in Jesus for redemption and security - but in ourselves

In our religious performance or piety

What we’re going to see this morning is that Genesis 15, with all its craziness, is like a bright neon sign - pointing both the religious and the fearful, the legalist and the skeptic - beyond ourselves and to the person and work of Jesus Christ.

God is inviting Abraham to look outside of himself, and to place his faith in the Promise of Jesus, and it's the exact same invitation he is extending to you today.

We’re going to see this play itself out in two sections, highlighted by the two main questions Abraham asks God in this chapter:

V. 1-6: A Question About God

V. 7-21: A Question About Himself

Just to clarify before we jump all the way in - the Abram in this chapter is the Abraham of the rest of the Bible.

His name hasn’t been changed yet - but just to not confuse anyone or myself, I’m going to refer to him as Abraham

But I might slip up here or there - so pray for me, and please have grace for me.

So let’s jump in and read v. 1-6

#1. 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.”

4 Now the word of the Lord came to him: “This one will not be your heir; instead, one who comes from your own body will be your heir.”

5 He took him outside and said, “Look at the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “Your offspring will be that numerous.”

6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

So did you notice the phrase, “After these events?”

The events of Genesis 15 take place on the heels of one of the most epic moments of Abraham’s life, and leads into one of the most vulnerable moments of his life.

In Chapter 14 Abraham went through his Liam Neeson “Taken” phase.

His nephew Lot was kidnapped by nomadic tribes, and Abraham showed some old man strength and rescued Lot and his family.

But now that Lot was safe and the attackers were all gone, Abraham went from being a hero to a regular guy.

From Liam Neeson in Taken, to Liam Neeson in Love Actually.

How did this happen?

Well as the victor Abraham was offered the bounty from his victory - land, armies, servants…all things that a normal conqueror would have gladly taken.

But Abraham turned it down - why?

In the initial promise to Abraham in Genesis 12, God promised He would provide Abraham offspring and land

God would do this through Abraham’s family line - not out of Abraham conquering someone else’s line and taking the credit.

So Abraham turned down the plunder because he trusted that God would keep his promise and provide land and offspring.

But refusing that bounty meant he went from having protection to being utterly vulnerable.

Think about it…there was nothing stopping these tribes from coming back to give Abraham an Old Testament version of the People’s Elbow.

He’s an old, traveling nomad with no protection

He’s utterly vulnerable - and it is in this vulnerability that God speaks to him.

So what’s the first thing God says to him when he shows up?

Don’t be afraid of those tribes.

Don’t be afraid of what might or could - or if you’re from the South, what might/could happen.

Why?

God is the Great Protector of His people.

Who needs a metal shield when God is your shield.

Furthermore, God reassures Abraham 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 Abraham’s mind, because right after this statement he asks God his first question:

Did you notice the way that question was phrased?

“God, what can you give me since I have no heir?”

His question is a call-back to the promise from Genesis 12.

About ten years before the events of Genesis 15, God revealed Himself to Abraham, and changed him from a pagan star-worshiper to a servant of the Star Creator.

God also promised Abraham that something unprecedented would happen.

Abraham and his wife Sara, in their old age, would have children.

And through this family line, a Promised Offspring would come.

And this Offspring, this single Descendant wouldn’t just bless his family, but bless all nations.

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

The nations would be blessed by Abraham’s family because one of his offspring would do for them what they could not do for themselves - save them from their sins.

And on this side of the cross, we know that the Promised Son did come - Jesus of Nazareth

But in this chapter - Abraham is shook.

Genesis 15 takes place ten years after the initial promise in Genesis 12.

Ten years.

A decade has gone by and two things have happened: Abraham has gotten older, and 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, Abraham thinks back on God’s promise, and he has questions.

Wrapped up in Abraham’s question about the promise is a question about the faithfulness of God.

God, can I actually trust you to do what you said you would do?

Because right now…it doesn’t look like it.

He’s feeling a tension between God’s Promise and God’s Providence.

Between what God said he would do, and what is actually happening in real life.

God welcomed Abraham’s questions and confusion, but He didn’t let Him stay there.

With the gentleness of a Father, God hears Abraham’s question, and responds to it with an affirmation of the original promise from ten years prior.

He brings Abraham outside and has him look up at the stars in the night sky.

God is using creation as an object lesson - God is the professor, Abraham is the student, the stars are His bullet points, the milky way is His outline.

And in this divine lesson God both affirms and expands on his original promise.

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, in chapter 15, the offspring is referring to everyone who would be a part of that Kingdom.

Or like Jesus refers to them, “true children of Abraham”. These offspring are all who would embrace the Triune God by faith.

We, church, are up in those stars

We could summarize this Promise like this:

In the same way God created the innumerable, radiant stars above Abraham’s head, God would also create His radiant Church through the Promised Offspring of Abraham.

Transition

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

Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

An entire sermon could be preached on this sentence alone, but for your sakes I’ll retrain myself

Abraham hears the promise of the Gospel, and He embraces it by faith.

God, then, takes Abraham’s faith on credit, and applies righteousness (moral credit) to him.

Some translations say “counted him as righteous”, but I really like how the CSB translates it here.

What’s happening here?

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

Justification is a legal term

A person is justified in a legal sense when they’re pronounced innocent in the sight of a judge

It is a declaration of acquittal

To be justified by faith means a person is declared morally credible before God only by faith in Jesus

God takes faith on credit, and applies His righteousness - His moral credit - in the place of our unrighteousness (moral debt)

That's what is happening here to Abraham

Application

So what do we do with what we’ve seen so far?

There are two applications I want to briefly address before we move to the next section.

I want you to see that we are like Abraham in two ways:

Our need to be justified

Our need to life by faith

Our need to be justified

We, Abraham, and all of humanity are in the exact same position

No one is neutral in their standing with 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 moral debt, and we’re on trail before the Judge of all the earth

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 - our sin makes this impossible.

So it has to come from outside of us - what Luther calls, “an alien righteousness”.

I don’t know who may relate to this…and this won’t surprise Ian, but 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 did not pay it off for years.

I didn’t just have no credit - I had terrible credit. I was the target audience for all those credit repair ads.

But then - a miracle happened…I got married.

My wife had amazing credit. Banks loved her.

But now she was stuck with me.

So to get me out of a credit dump - she added me to her accounts.

She linked my terrible credit with her perfect credit so that my financial life was now identified with hers.

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.

On the cross Jesus took the credit hit

he identified with us in our sin, and took the penalty associated with it

Now anyone who identifies with Him by faith is given His perfect credit instead of the justice they deserve

This is the message of the Gospel

This is what it means to be a Christian

What differentiates a Christian and a non-Christian isn’t sin - we’re all sinners - its forgiveness

Christians aren't good people, Christians are forgiven people

Friend, have you been forgiven? Have you been justified? Have you been acquitted by faith?

If not, place your faith in Jesus today - right there in your seat - and have his perfect moral credit applied to your account

So we see Our Need to be Justified, and also see here…

Our need to live by faith

Throughout the New Testament Abraham is upheld as an example of the Christian life - not in spite of these moments, but precisely because of moments like this.

Commenting on this passage, Ed Clowney, Old Testament theologian says it this way:

“It's that stretch, it's that tension, it's that utter incompatibility between the promise of God and the realities between how men see them that has always been the stretching space of faith. This is the span of faith - to live between the time of the giving of the promise and the completion of the promise when the promise looks utterly impossible.”

That’s what Abraham is doing here, and that is the Christian life - living in the space between. In the already-not, yet.

If you follow Jesus, think about the things that are already yours in Christ:

Already: forgiven from sin, justified by faith, reconciled back to God, brought into the church - the family of God, met with unending grace from a loving Father.

And yet, everything is still not as it should be

Not yet: we’re not yet free from sin (we still sin, we are still sinned against) we still live in a broken world, we have a future home we’re going towards and we long to be there - but we’re not there yet.

As followers of Jesus we live right in the middle of these two realities.

Just like Abraham we long for the future just over the horizon. And just like Abraham we can count on the promises of God right here and right now to carry us through day by day.

Transition

So we are like Abraham in many ways, but in this next section I also want you to see that this passage doesn’t merely tell us to “be like Abraham”, “do what Abraham did”

It is also telling us to look beyond Abraham.

In this next section we see that Abraham quickly realizes he can’t bear the weight of the Promise if any of it relies on him.

He needs someone greater than him, he needs a Truer Abraham to do what he can’t do in his place. And so do we.

Abraham’s first question was about the Promise - about God’s faithfulness to do what He said He’d do.

Now that that’s settled, his next question isn’t about God. It’s about himself, and it's a question that uniquely connects to us as well.

#2. A Question About Abraham (v.7-21)

He also said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”

8 But he said, “Lord GOD, how can I know that I will possess it?”

At the end of this divine astronomy lecture - God reminds Abraham of another element of His faithfulness.

He’d taken care of Abraham before, and he would do so again.

But this sparks another question in Abraham’s mind.

He’s assured of God’s faithfulness, but unsure of his own.

He is essentially saying, “Okay God - I get that you’ll keep your end of the bargain…but, how can I be sure I’ll keep mine?

And what happens if I don't?

What if I sin?

What if I fail?

Application

How much does that sound like us?

Yes, God, okay - you’re faithful, I can trust you in the “already-not, yet”

But my faith is really small. If any of this is based on me - I’m doomed

What happens if I sin?

What if I sin egregiously?

God I know you won’t fail, but what happens if I fail?

Will you keep welcoming me back even if I fail miserably?

Once again, God is not shaken by Abraham’s questions, and he’s not shaken by ours.

He doesn’t rebuke him. He doesn’t tell him to suck it up buttercup.

He doesn’t tell him to manifest future outcomes He wants by focusing on positivity.

No - instead, God answers Abraham’s questions, and our questions, with a covenant.

Let’s go ahead and read what happens and then I’ll come back and explain it.

V. 9-16

He said to him, “Bring me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”

10 So he brought all these to him, cut them in half, and laid the pieces opposite each other, but he did not cut the birds in half.

11 Birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abraham drove them away.

12 As the sun was setting, a deep sleep came over Abraham, and suddenly great terror and darkness descended on him.

13 Then the LORD said to Abraham, “Know this for certain: Your offspring will be resident aliens for four hundred years in a land that does not belong to them and will be enslaved and oppressed.

14 However, I will judge the nation they serve, and afterward they will go out with many possessions.

15 But you will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age.

16 In the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.

Alright, there's a lot going on there but hang with me.

V.9-16 set the stage for God’s covenant with Abraham.

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 Abraham’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.

What we also see here are the covenant conditions.

God instructs Abraham 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.

This is called a Suzerain/Vassal covenant:

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.

The subject (the lesser) 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.

And at first that’s what we expect to happen in this story.

God is God, Abraham is just a man. He’s the King, Abraham’s the servant.

Furthermore, Abraham is unsure of his ability to uphold his end of the bargain.

So it looks like God is about to double down on him to ensure He keeps his faith

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

Take a look at what happens:

17 When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the divided animals.

Darkness descends over the land.

And instead of Abraham standing in between the slaughtered animals, he’s awestruck as he watches a smoking pot and a flaming torch appear.

Standing in his place.

These aren’t just hallucinations…

Both of these images strikingly represent the presence of God.

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

Additionally, the word for flaming torch, 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.

This is what theologians call a Theophany.

In a Theophany God is directly revealing Himself in physical form.

So suddenly, in the middle of the darkness, God shows up.

Abraham’s been hearing God’s voice so far. But now - here He is.

And further, He is standing where Abraham should be.

The servant, Abraham, should be walking through the slaughtered animals.

And yet, instead of Abraham walking through the slaughtered animals - God, the Light of the World, walks through instead.

God is turning the covenant on its head.

He is saying to Abraham: “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!”

God would do what He said, even if Abraham didn’t, to God’s own peril.

Ed Clowney says it this way,

“In binding himself in this covenant to Abraham, God takes upon himself this oath in this particularly vivid form, committing himself as it were his own life and existence to the fulfillment of the promise he’s given to Abraham.”

What’s happening here?

The Light of the World is willingly descending into darkness.

The Infinite God is stepping into finitude.

God is pointing forward to something beyond Abraham

A few 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 of the World was having his life choked out of him on a bloody cross.

The Infinite became finite.

The Light descended into darkness.

The Truer and Greater Abraham is standing in our place - doing for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves

Why?

God was keeping his end of the bargain.

In the middle of this darkness, when Jesus cried out, “tetelestai”, “it is finished”, we’re meant to think back to this promise - this covenant.

On the cross, God’s promise to Abraham came true.

Abraham did sin, he did fail. Over and over again.

And so have we!

We’ve failed and sinned in more ways than we could begin to count.

But rather than give us exactly what we deserve, Jesus Christ, the Son of God was slaughtered like an animal in our place.

He took the guilt of sinners.

He wore the shame of failures.

He died the death of traitors.

Like you and me.

Bearing shame and scoffing rude,

In my place condemned He stood,

He sealed my pardon with His blood,

Hallelujah, what a savior

But he didn’t stay dead.

The Son of God died in the place of sinners - but he is not dead anymore.

3 days later he rose from the dead.

Jesus paid for our debt by dying in our place.

And the resurrection shows us the check cleared.

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

Application

So let’s revisit those questions again.

What if I sin, what if I fail?

Will God keep welcoming me back after I sin again and again?

Will God reject me if I fail?

Because Jesus, the Son of Abraham, has died in your place, you can answer all of these questions and more with this simple hymn:

I have no other argument,

I need no other plea.

It is enough that Jesus died,

And that He died for me.

In your sin.

In your doubts.

When your good works fail you.

When you wonder if God could possibly take you back again.

It is enough that Jesus died, and that He died for you.

Conclusion

The cross can really be described in 4 words: promise made, promise kept.

Genesis 15 - promise made. Mark 15 - promise kept.

In your fear, questions, doubts, unbelief - God is extending to you the same offer He made to Abraham - to embrace by faith the God who would die in your place.

When you do this - you won’t be met with flighty, superficial, trivial love.

But unending love. Full, faithful, steady, consistent love.

Ray Ortlund says it this way,

“The death of Jesus was the opening and the emptying of the full heart of God.

It was the out gushing of that ocean of mercy that heaved and longed for an outlet.

It was God showing how he could love a poor guilty sinner…like you and me.”

Place your faith in the One who died for you, and let Him love you.

Let’s pray