BWV #33 Justified By Faith

INTRODUCTION Genesis 15.

The spiritual journey of Abraham continues in chapter 15.

This journey of faith is predicated on His understanding of YHWH.

Thus far we have seen the call of God upon Abram’s life.

We have see the faithfulness of YHWH to fulfill that call.

Each of which is instrumental in the spiritual journey of Abram.

Our walk with God is dependent upon our understanding of Him.

This is why Bible study is so important.

The Bible is at it’s most basic level the revelation of the person of God.

Page by page, story by story, God is revealing Himself through His providential encounters with humanity.

When it comes to the big picture of salvation, there are three key chapters in Genesis.

Chapter 1 which tells of the creation of all things, with an emphasis on the creation of man by the eternal and self-existent God.

Chapter 3 which tells of the fall of man into sin.

And the third pivotal chapter is this one, chapter 15 which explains Abram’s justification by grace through faith and lays the foundation for the salvation of all who would be saved.

To sum it up, man is created, man falls into sin, and man can be saved from that sin.

In some ways, chapter 15 is the most important chapter for us today because it spells out so clearly how one is saved from His sin.

And if this is the most important chapter, then verse 6 is the most important verse for it lays out exactly how a person is made right in the sight of God.

All of this I just described falls under the theological heading of “soteriology”

Soteriology is the doctrine of salvation.

And in Genesis, particularly these three chapters just mentioned, we see the thread of salvation.

The picture is becoming clearer and clearer.

For the better part of 14 chapters the focus has been on the depravity of man, but now we see how man can be rescued from that depravity.

This is the main thrust of Genesis 15.

We know that others prior to Abram have been saved, and that their salvation too was by grace through faith.

But this is the first mention of faith and justification and their link to one another.

Up until this point, the means of salvation has been foggy, and unclear.

But now we see clearly, salvation is by grace through faith.

And Genesis 15:6 becomes the bedrock of soteriology and the Christian faith.

Martin Luther, whose rediscovery of the truths about justification in the sixteenth century launched the Reformation, considered this the doctrine by which the church stands or falls:

Listen to his words, “When the article of justification has fallen, everything has fallen.… This is the chief article from which all other doctrines have flowed.… It alone begets, nourishes, builds, preserves, and defends the church of God; and without it the church of God cannot exist for one hour.” It is “the master and prince, the lord, the ruler, and the judge over all kinds of doctrines.

John Calvin was equally emphatic when it came to this doctrine calling it “the hinge on which true religion turns.”

The famous puritan Thomas Watson, a pillar of the puritan movement observed, “Justification is the very hinge and pillar of Christianity. An error about justification is dangerous, like a defect in the foundation. Justification by Christ is a spring of the water of life. To have the poison of corrupt doctrine cast into this spring is damnable.”

These are not exaggerations.

They are simple truth because justification by grace through faith is God’s answer to the most basic of all religious questions, namely how can a person be made right with God?

How can a sinful being be made acceptable to God?

And the answer first appears explicitly in Genesis 15:6.

This doctrine says, that we are made right with God not by our own works, but solely by the work of Christ received by faith.

You might say but wait a minute, Abram lived long before Christ, so how is he saved?

The very same way, except for one detail, he looked forward in time to the promise, we look back.

In chapter 15, Abram is about to get another lesson in who YHWH is, more specifically what He is capable of.

His power is promised and is going to be proven as He fulfills His covenant with Abram.

Verse 1 opens with an interesting promise, Do not fear Abram, I am a shield to you.

YHWH OUR PROTECTOR

It might seem strange for YHWH to say this to Abram.

After all Abram has just won a great victory and returned home with much spoils and family.

But it is reasonable to assume that Abram did not wipe out the entire force from Mesopotamia.

And we know, that it is God who delivered his enemies into his hands.

Therefore, he was probably wondering, what happens next.

His going to war may have been more of a surprise raid.

Get Lot and the spoils and get out.

And so now there is a very real possibility of reprisal.

Thus, Abram receive the Lord’s assurance, I’ve got this.

The shield was a defensive piece of armor.

The shield when utilized properly is positioned between the subject and his enemy.

The shield then receives the blows, or arrows, or what ever.

My son Josh was in the army.

And the first time we hunted together after he had enlisted, I noticed his stance when firing a rifle was strange.

Typically we stand side ways to fire the rifle.

But Josh stood square shouldered to the target.

I asked why as it looked uncomfortable.

His reply was simple, our body armor protects the front of our torso and the back, but our sides are exposed.

So you present yourself in such a way in combat as to utilize your shielding.

YHWH has promised to be just that for Abram.

Abram need not worry about what the armies of the east might or might not do because YHWH is his shield.

YHWH has his back.

YHWH is revealing Himself to Abram one attribute at a time.

We study God’s word so that we can gain a better understanding of the Lord.

But Abram did not have that luxury.

Thus YHWH must appear in visions, and have conversations if Abram is to gain a deeper knowledge of God.

YHWH is revealing Himself in the only way possible during this time in human history.

Again, YHWH revealed Himself in part when He called Abram to come walk with God.

He revealed Himself when He made a promise to Abram.

He revealed His faithfulness when He patiently turned Abram around from sin.

He revealed Himself when He delivered the eastern army into Abram’s hand.

And now, He is revealing Himself through a promise of protection.

Next, YHWH reminds Abram of the promised reward.

Abram was promised that His name would be great, He would be a great nation, and He would be blessed.

For us at this point I have to ask, in whom do you put your trust for protection?

Our culture has effectively insulated ourselves from personal loss and harm.

We have security systems.

Health insurance, auto insurance, Home owners policies.

We have friends and families.

IRA, investments, retirement accounts.

And all of that is fine, but they are not infallible.

The only sure protector and shield available to us is our God.

There is a reason we call Him the Almighty.

Insurance is not on your side.

Investments fail.

Friends and family can be fickle.

But only YHWH can be trusted fully.

This is the lesson Abram is being taught.

YHWH IS OUR REWARD

The Hebrew construction in verse 1 indicates that it is YHWH Himself that is our very great reward.

This foreshadows the believers inheritance.

We talk a lot about our inheritance, and when we do our thought always seem to go to things.

Mansions, streets of gold, pearly gates.

But we have already received a downpayment on our inheritance.

And that downpayment was not stuff, it was a person.

The Spirit of God is our downpayment that guarantees our future inheritance in full.

Thus I would suggest, that our true inheritance isn’t stuff at all, it is God.

We are co-heirs with Christ, and all that God has is ours.

Mainly, we shall share in the life of God.

Abram knows the promises, but he is getting old, and there are doubts that linger and so he asks in verses 2 & 3, how can I be sure?

How will I ever be a great nation?

How will my name be great, I don’t have any children?

Will a slave child be my legacy?

And then the kicker, since You have given me no heir?

Sound familiar?

That has the sound of Adam behind it, that woman You gave me.

But in on a human level it is legitimate.

Abram and Sarai are getting old, possibly already beyond the age of being able to have a child.

And the beauty of this passage is that YHWH again meets Abram where he is, and gives Abram words of assurance.

The assurance of God comes with supernatural power.

From you own body one will come forth and he shall be your heir.

Then to further state the surety of, just count the stars if you can.

That is a supernatural assurance that demands supernatural power.

The ball is now back in Abram’s court, and the only question is, will you believe Me Abram?

JUSTIFIED BY FAITH

And at that point in time, Abram has finally come to the point of belief.

YHWH has been bringing Abram along, revealing Himself bit by bit, and Abram has come to the place where he is finally able to know and trust YHWH.

I have held all along, that coming to the point of faith is a process.

Yes there is a moment when we are born again, but it is a process that brings us to that place.

The process is how God reveals Himself to us.

Bit by bit YHWH has made Himself known, and Abram now believes fully.

And YHWH declares Abram righteous.

This is always the order, faith must and alway does precede righteousness.

Righteousness is a gift from God in response to man’s faith in Him.

Throughout human history this has been the struggle, will man come to God in faith, or will he try and earn God’s favor.

And sadly, due to man ugly pride, he has settled on the latter more often than not and tried to earn his own righteousness.

Man’s attempts to earn God’s favor and acceptance began very early in our history.

Adam and Eve tried to cover their shame and guilt by hiding their nakedness behind foliage..

Cain came before God with the fruit of his labors.

At the tower of Babel man tried to ascend to God.

And it progressed from there.

Today, there are 22 major religions in the world, and all but one of them is works based.

This text of scripture where Abram is declared righteous based on his faith has become the bedrock of Christian doctrine.

There have been many attempts to explain Genesis 15:6, and most of them wrong.

Some have said that YHWH was looking for anything, something good in Abram so that He could justify Abram.

There are many varieties of this approach, and they all have this in common, a desire to find something worthy of salvation in Abram.

This is of course unacceptable.

The truth is, there is nothing good in the unregenerate sinner of which Abram has proven he is.

What then is meant by “He (YHWH) credited it to him (Abram) as righteousness?”

What is the antecedent, the “it” in this statement.

“It” demands a noun, or a verbal noun, an antecedent for the statement to make any sense.

And the only possible answer is believed, which is synonymous with faith.

It is important that we recognize that the Bible never says a person is saved because of their faith, or on the basis of their faith.

It always says we are saved by faith.

This is a very important distinction.

Because faith does not save anybody.

I was not saved because I believed, that would put the work of salvation on me.

God alone saves.

So what do we mean when we say we are saved by faith?

Saved by faith, mean faith is the channel to salvation.

Faith does not save us, but we are saved through the channel of faith.

This is why in Ephesians 2 Paul frames salvation in this manner, we are save by grace, ie God through faith, the channel.

Next is the word credited or reckoned.

When this word appears in Hebrew it is “hashab” and in Greek it is “logizomai”

Both in Hebrew and in Greek, the word reckoned refers to precise and accurate record keeping of finances.

The word literally means to accurately and precisely record.

In accounting, you have two columns, debit and credit columns.

In the keeping of financial records, for every debit, there must be an equal credit applied in the books and visa versa.

If I make a purchase of building materials, the value of my inventory goes up, but the balance in my check book goes down.

That is really the idea behind this word reckoned or credited.

So to be reckoned as righteous does not mean that God simply erased your sin and you are now righteous.

Reckoned means, that in reality two transactions have take place.

Your sin was removed from your record, and placed on the record against Jesus.

And His righteousness was then added to your account.

This is why Genesis 15:6 is stated this way.

The Father is the accountant who keeps the books, and the books always balance.

Because for all sin removed, righteousness is credited.

This is why Psalm 32:2 is framed the way it is.

Psalm 32:2 LSB

How blessed is the man whose iniquity Yahweh will not take into account, And in whose spirit there is no deceit!

This does not say YHWH has erased it, it says it is not longer on the man’s account.

Why?

Because it has been applied to another account, the Lord Jesus Christ’s.

This is in fact the only means of salvation available to Abram, for he was a sinner.

The great error of the Jews is that they ignored his sin and put Abram on a pedestal.

The reason we have the information about Abram in chapters 11, 12 and 13 is to demonstrate that Abram was a sinful man who needed God’s grace for salvation.

If you miss the importance of those chapters, then you miss the magnitude of Chapter 15.

So again, salvation by grace through faith is the foundation of the Christian church.

Paul uses Abram as the supreme example, of salvation by grace through faith in Romans chapter 4 and again in the book of Galatians.

Let me show you a great truth from Galatians 3:8-9

Galatians 3:8–9 LSB

And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, proclaimed the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations will be blessed in you.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.

I appreciate your trust in me, but I also want to ask you, why did nobody ask me why I believed that the phrase “all the nations will be blessed in you” is Messianic?

Well now you know.

In fact, in some instances, Messianic Prophecy is so vague, that the only way we know it is Messianic is because the NT affirms it to be so.

This was a critical argument and still should be when evangelizing the Jews.

Their salvation was based on a doctrine of works.

And so it was only fitting, that one of the two most admired men is their past be used to teach them that salvation has always been by grace and through faith.

Grace because YHWH was in no way obligated to save Abram or anybody else for that matter for any reason.

There is only one thing that man is worthy of and that is death.

So if man is to receive any blessing what so ever it is by grace.

Then in response to Abram’s faith, YHWH reiterates the promise yet again, the land will be yours.

Notice how it begins, “I am YHWH”!

Let me say it another way, I am the Almighty God.

I brought you up from UR.

I brought you back from Egypt.

I gave you a mighty victory.

I am the God who did all this and can do so much more.

God has shown Himself great, blessed Abram with the revelation of Himself.

And now Abram basically asks for a sign.

This wasn’t a lack of faith.

He is simply asking, how can I know and be sure of these things, because I cannot see it?

You know, it is not always wrong to question God.

Mary did so.

She was a virgin, and she knew enough to know it was impossible that she could be pregnant.

It just wasn’t physically possible and she knew it.

So how?

Then the Angel explained, the Spirit shall come upon you.

Same thing here.

This is nothing like Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist.

In his case, he was arguing with the angel.

Basically denying the possibility of it.

So to demonstrate the power of God, Zacharias was struck and became mute, instantaneously.

But this was not Abram attitude, his was one of curiosity rather than doubt at this point.

Abram was really seeking a greater understanding, and that did not irritate YHWH.

I would suggest that for us today, the same is true.

Yes it is wrong to question God with doubt and unbelief.

But when we ask for a sign because we want to understand, and know our God on a deeper level, I don’t see anything wrong with this,.

It all comes back to attitude.

All of which brings us to a ratification ceremony.

THE COVENANT RATIFIED

Beginning in verse 9 we come to the ratification ceremony of the covenant..

This ceremony is meant to convey the message, the covenant will come to pass.

YHWH has made the promise, and this ceremony is to demonstrate to Abram that He will bring it to completion.

This ceremony is not unlike what we saw in Genesis 9.

There, God established a unilateral covenant, promising to never destroy the earth by flood again.

A covenant is really nothing more than a promise.

Usually each side makes a promise.

But in the case of a unilateral covenant, only one side makes the promise.

This time, the sign rather than a rainbow, is a ceremony.

We need to be fully understanding of a unilateral covenant.

First, they are established and guaranteed by God.

Second, they are eternal and therefore irrevocable.

And last, they are based on grace.

No people or individual deserves the promises of blessing that God makes.

Abram though lived with tension.

In that culture, having off springs was considered to be a blessing of God.

Thus if you had many children, you were highly blessed.

If you had no children, then you were not blessed.

YHWH had promised to bless Abram, yet Abram had no children.

This is the tension.

So Abram is seeking to know, how is it going to happen?

I would suggest, that Abram rightly understood that the promise depended upon an heir.

And so YHWH gives Abram confirmation

It begins with sacrifice.

In our culture today, a covenant is a contract.

And to guarantee the contract is fulfilled….

We hire lawyers to write it and eliminate loopholes.

We sign the contract.

And a witness, usually a notary affirms that they witnessed the signing.

And yet, even after all of that, man regularly break his contracts.

What we see here in these verses was a very common ceremony, usually performed when two people entered into a covenant with one another.

The component of the covenant are……

First animals were sacrificed.

Blood was a necessary element to ratify a contract.

It is interesting that pagans adopted blood as a sign.

It demonstrates the impact God has had one the world.

YHWH is the one who instituted blood ratifying covenants.

I see this in the same light as I see how so many ancient cultures have flood accounts.

It’s origin was with God.

Second, the larger animals were cut in half down the spine.

Third the carcasses were arranged where one half formed a line, and that line ran parallel to the other halves, forming a path between.

Fourth, each party entering in the covenant passed between the carcasses together, and as they did they spoke their promise of the covenant.

This was an oath on each part, and it was considered sacred because of the blood sacrifice involved.

Therefore, to fail to keep your promise was a supreme dishonor.

Jeremiah 34:18-20 demonstrates the seriousness of this type of covanant.

Jeremiah 34:18–20 LSB

‘And I will give the men who have trespassed against My covenant, who have not established the words of the covenant which they cut before Me, when they cut the calf in two and passed between its parts— the officials of Judah and the officials of Jerusalem, the court officers and the priests and all the people of the land who passed between the parts of the calf— And I will give them into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their life. And their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth.

So Abram did as instructed.

Then for the rest of the day, Abram kept watch over the carcasses and drove the birds of prey away.

And then evening came, and Abram fell into a deep sleep.

And then, behold, terror and great darkness fell upon Abram.

My best guess is as God began to make His presence known, this terror fell upon Abram for the same reason Isaiah cried out woe is me.

Our utter sinfulness is manifested in totality when in the presence of the Holiness of God.

It utterly amazes me, that so many claim to have had an encounter with God, and they never talk of being afraid.

Men and women today claim to have had conversations with God, and they never talk of being afraid.

Yet in the Biblical record, when the holiness of God appeared, people were terrified.

CONCLUSION

We are out of time and will have to wait until next week to finish this chapter.

But I want to say again, it is important to see the thread of soteriology that the Lord has woven into the book of Genesis.

Genesis 1, man is created in the image of God, he has fellowship with God, and it is very good.

Genesis 3, man sins, he dies spiritually, fellowship is broken, and the image of God is marred, not destroyed, but badly marred.

Genesis 15, the means of restoration and salvation are made clear, salvation is by God grace and through the channel of faith.

When I say channel, it is like a river channel that allows you to get from one place to another.

But make no mistake, faith is not some mystical power as some in the charimatic movement say.

Faith is powerless in and of itself.

You could have all the faith in the world that I am going to give you a million dollars, but in the end you will be no better off.

Because the truth is, your faith has no bearing on my bank account, and I don’t have a million dollars to give.

The power of faith is not in faith itself, but in the object of ones faith.

Abram believed God.

The object of our faith is the one who can actually save, and that is Jesus Christ.

For there is salvation in no other name.