The Unconditional Abrahamic Covenant (Gen 15)

Introduction

If you have your Bible, please turn it to Genesis 15.

As you turn there, let me just give you a bit of an idea of what we’re dealing with today. Back in Genesis 12, God makes a covenant with Abram, we call it the Abrahamic Covenant and it concerns Abram having a family, having descendants as numerous as the stars, and of obtaining the Promised Land. We aren’t entirely certain on how much time has passed between Genesis 12 and 15, but what we see in ch. 15 is Abram having some doubts concerning this covenant.

Abram is struggling with a lack of trust in God—and I think we can all relate to this because I think we’ve all faced issues in which we’ve struggled with doubt or a lack of trust in God.

What we’ll focus on today is how to deal with that lack of trust or that doubt when it rears its head at us—in particular, I want to help you see a way to deal with it in the moment, but I also want to encourage you to deal with doubt in a good and healthy way concerning long-term doubt.

Let’s read Genesis 15 together.

Genesis 15 ESV

1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” 2 But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” 4 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. 7 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?” 9 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. 12 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.” 17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, 19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”

As we study this passage, we’re going to look at this passage in two parts: (1) The Reiteration of the Covenant (1-6) and (2) The Covenant Ceremony (7-20). The passage at hand shows us an event that seems unusual for us because it’s very much steeped in the Ancient Near Eastern culture, but when we understand what’s going on in the context of that culture, what we see is that God fully intends to keep His covenant with Abram—in fact, the ceremony shows us that God fully intends to keep this promise unconditionally. And when you understand this covenant in the context of redemptive history, what you see is that the covenant made by God to all genuine believers is something He fully intends to keep unconditionally. Think about this as I ask the Holy Spirit to open our eyes and ears and soften our hearts.

Prayer for Illumination

The Reiteration of the covenant (1-6)

Our text starts by first reminding us of the setting (1a), but much like other passages in Genesis, we aren’t given too many details about the setting. Really, the only thing that we learn is that this occurred after the events of last week’s text.

Remember, during last week’s text, Abram, the king of Sodom, and Melchizedek met together.

The king of Sodom met to discuss the spoils of war; however, Abram was not interested in dividing the spoils of war because it would give the appearance of partnership with a king known for wickedness.

Abram and Melchizedek worship the Lord together—Melchizedek blessed both God and Abram before Abram worships the Lord by giving a tithe of all that he had.

The overarching idea being that it is worth stopping a meeting with an earthly king to worship the Lord, it is worth giving of yourself to worship God, it is worth even giving your financial means to worship the Lord.

v. 1 tells us that the events of Genesis 15 occurred after this meet-up. The Bible says that Abram had a vision and I want to clarify something because this is the first mention of a vision in the Bible.

For your own edification and just to clarify, visions occur when the individual is awake, not when he is a sleep—if Abram was asleep, this would be a dream given to Him by God, but the Bible calls this a vision, thus, he is awake.

How aware he is that he’s awake is a different issue; and what exactly this would look like or feel like—I don’t have a clue because the text doesn’t really tell us.

However, knowing that this is a vision from God tells us that this is a direct communication between Abram and God.

As we continue in the text, we witness the vision given by God to Abram.

It starts by God reiterating a promise that He had made to Abram at the end of v. 1, “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”

Now, you might ask, “how do we know that God is reiterating His promise to Abram,” its in the idea of God being his shield and the idea of Abram’s reward being great.

If you remember with me, Genesis 12, which is the first mention of the covenant with Abram, God uses similar terminology. Genesis 12 as God first speaks of Abram’s descendents being a great blessing to not just Abram but to all the nations.

God, in Genesis 12 tells Abram that He will bless those who bless both him and his descendents and curse those who curse him and his descendents, which sounds similar to this idea of God being his shield—protecting him.

Not to mention, Abram clearly understands this idea as referring to the original covenant in Genesis 12 and you can see that Abram understands God’s statement in this way from the concern that he brings up.

Abram’s concern is given in vv. 2-3 and it reveals a lack of faith or a lack of trust. Abram says, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damasus? . . . Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.”

Abram’s concern is that even though God had made a covenant with him, that God had made a promise to him, that he hadn’t seen the fulfillment of that promise.

Note that he doesn’t have anything against Eliezer of Damascus, he’s obviously somewhat important to Abram because he is his heir, which means he’s probably the steward of Abram’s estate, but the reality is that Eliezer still isn’t Abram’s son.

And in Abram’s mind, even though he knows that God has made a covenant with him, Abram is growing anxious and he’s not quite trusting God or having faith in God to actually do what He said he would do.

Abram is struggling with a bit of unbelief or doubt.

But God reassures him by reminding Abram of the covenant at hand in vv. 4-5, “The word of the Lord came to him: ‘This man [meaning Eliezer] shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir. And he [meaning God] brought him [meaning Abram] outside and said, ‘Look toward heaven, and number the starts, if you are able to number them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’”

Not only is God intending to keep His promise to Abram, He intends to do it in a way that is overwhelmingly something that only God could do.

And Abram already recognizes this fact when he points out that God hadn’t given him offspring—the promise, the covenant between God and Abram is truly something that only God could accomplish.

After hearing God’s reassurance, this section of the passage concludes with Abram’s belief in God. V. 6 states, “And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.”

There is sometimes a misunderstanding even amongst Christians concerning how exactly Old Testament believers were saved—v. 6 shows us exactly how they were saved.

They were saved in the same manner that we are saved today—through repentance of sin and belief. It is by faith that Abraham believed and was counted righteous.

Whereas we’re saved by our faith in Jesus Christ who died in the past for our sins; the Old Testament saints are saved by their faith in God’s promise to redeem man from sin with a future Messiah.

Salvation has always been by faith through grace even in the Old Testament.

Even during the time of the Mosaic Covenant, it was always salvation by faith through grace—not because of the sacrificial system.

The only time salvation wasn’t by faith through grace was in Genesis 1-2 prior to the fall of man, in which there was no need for salvation, but the moment Adam and Eve sinned, the process for salvation has always remained the same.

We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

Now, the Bible says that Abram believed and it was counted to him as righteousness. Nevertheless, the text continues with a unique ceremony and it is through this ceremony that God seals His covenant or His promise to Abram. Let’s re-read the last 14 verses:

The Covenant Ceremony (7-20)

Genesis 15:7–20 ESV

7 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?” 9 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. 12 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.” 17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, 19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim,

As Abram’s vision continues, God makes a statement that He is the one who brought Abram out of Ur and He is the one that will give Abram the land that was promised to him, but Abram brings up a second concern, v. 8, “how am I to know that I shall possess it?”

While it doesn’t seem like that bad of a question, it does sound a lot like Abram questioning what God had already promised him.

Abram’s concern here might seem innocent enough, but God had made this promise to Abram in Genesis 12 and he had already confirmed part of that promise in the first part of Genesis 15.

In many ways, Abram is hearing what God had said and he’s essentially saying that he knows what God had said, but he still doesn’t trust God enough to just believe—to have faith.

Now, we know from v. 6 that he has the belief that he needs for salvation, so this isn’t the same concept at hand, but rather, this concern of a lack of faith would be a lack of trust in what God has said.

We experience similar situations except we normally don’t look at it as a lack of trust or a lack of faith—often, we’d say that we have our doubts.

And doubts aren’t necessarily wrong—to have a doubt doesn’t necessarily mean you aren’t saved, but what you do with your doubt makes a massive difference. In Abram’s case, he speaks to God about his doubt.

Which, let’s be honest, isn’t typically how we handle our own doubt—most of us, instead of asking questions and seeking answers, we just allow our doubt to fester.

I think part of that just has to do with a fear of what people might think if they found out that we experience a bit of doubt.

I also think it has to do with the fact that many people have been taught since childhood that you simply need more faith, but that sentiment does little to help absolve doubt.

We’ll talk more about doubt in our application.

And in vv. 9-20, we see God perform a unique ceremony that’s meant to reassure Abram.

God tells Abram in vv. 9-11 to bring together a heifer, female goat, a ram, a turtledove, and a pigeon. He cuts the non-bird animals in half and lays them in two separate rows.

Already, you’re probably thinking, “what in the world is going on.”

Let me explain. In the Near Eastern Culture, they had a custom concerning vows, covenants, and promises.

That when they were making a significant vow, covenant, or promise, they would sacrifice an animal by cutting it in half and the two parties would walk in between the two halves of the animal.

The idea is this, that if I break my part of the covenant, you should do to me what we did to the animal—if you make a vow in this manner, it means that you intend to keep this vow, promise, or covenant or die trying.

And after Abram does this to the animals, the Lord causes him to go into a deep sleep and God tells him in vv. 13-15 a reiteration of the covenant.

That Abram’s family will be many, but they will start by being afflicted as slaves. That God would then punish the nation that enslaved them, but his descendants would then come out of this other nation’s land with great possessions and they would obtain the land promised to Abram.

God says all that and then in v. 17, we read that “the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.” Now let’s think through that a bit.

During this cultural time period, people would make vows, promises, and covenants by cutting an animal and walking between the two halves of the animal—again, with the idea, “if I don’t fulfill my part of the covenant, let me be cut in half like this animal.”

We also know from other parts of Scripture that God is often represented in certain ways—and I’m particularly thinking of how God was represented when the nation of Israel wanders in the wilderness—during the day, God was represented as smoke and during the night He was a pillar of fire.

In v. 17 we see a “smoking fire pot and a flaming torch.”

With all this in mind, what we see in vv. 7-20 is God giving an assurance to Abram about the promises, vows, covenants that He made to Abram.

That Abram would have descendants as numerous as the stars, that they would eventually obtain the Promised Land, that all nations would be blessed by them.

And He makes this covenant in the traditional custom of the time, by His presence seen as a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passing through the halved animals alone.

That word alone is important—because often this custom was kept between two people seeking to make a covenant together and the idea is that each side had a role to fulfill.

The symbolism behind God going through alone is that Abram doesn’t have a role to fill concerning this covenant—this is an unconditional covenant between God and Abram.

And God will fulfill this covenant regardless of what Abram does.

This is what gives reassurance to Abram concerning the Abrahamic covenant—God will fulfill what He said He would fulfill regardless of if Abram messes things up or not, which is good because Abram messes things up pretty quick.

And as we think on these issues in light of redemptive history, it is this covenant that eventually leads to the Mosaic Covenant; and it is the Mosaic Covenant that shows us how desperately we need the New Covenant. And the beauty of it all is that the Abrahamic Covenant here, of which we’re part of spiritually by faith according to Paul in the letter to Galatia, just like the New Covenant, is an unconditional covenant. Or, in other words, just like Abram couldn’t do anything to mess up the covenant, neither can we to mess up the covenant if we genuinely believe.

Just like Abram believed and it was counted to him as righteousness; so too do we believe and it is counted to us as righteousness.

So, now the question is, how do we apply a passage like Genesis 15 beyond just saying “God made Abram a promise, just like He made us a promise and since God kept His promise to Abram, we know He’ll keep His promise to us?” And I think, the best way to apply this passage is to consider how Abram responds to God’s promise to Him—we’ll start that idea today, but we’ll finish that idea next week.

Application

So, as we worked through Genesis 15, one detail is pretty prominent in how Abram thinks. God made Abram a pretty significant promise—that Abram would have offspring, that the offspring would grow and expand to be a nation, the nation would then bless all the other nations. That promise extends to the idea of Israel receiving the Promised Land as well.

Abram is very much aware of that promise, we see it in Genesis 12 and we know he remembers it because the covenant is the premise for his complaints in Genesis 15; and yet, he still responds to God with doubt. God tells Abram to “Fear not” because God is His shield and Abram responds with a question concerning his childlessness. What’s going on is that Abram is recalling God’s promise and he’s calling God out for seemingly not keeping his promise—he’s responding with doubt or a lack of trust.

God reaffirms that promise in the first section of the text before reminding Abram that Abram will receive land from God and in another act of doubt or a lack of trust, Abram asks “how am I to know that I shall possess it?” Again, despite God’s promises, Abram still wants further confirmation—it reveals a lack of trust.

The reality is that we do the same thing—I can give countless examples of how we do this, but let me give you five:

If we doubt God’s ability, we might see it as an uncertainty that God will genuinely save us.

If we doubt God’s goodness, we might see the difficult situations in life as validation that He isn’t good or we might see life from a nihilistic (woe is me) mindset.

If we doubt God’s love, we might see God as only ever being vengeful or angry.

If we doubt God’s justice, we might see God as unjust.

If we doubt God’s sovereignty, we might see everything around us as being completely out of control.

And when we doubt, it causes us to live a life of fear, anxiety, possibly depression and discouragement. When we suffer in our doubt, unless we allow the doubt to lead us into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ, it will lead us further away from Him.

Now, ultimately, doubt should lead you to want to know more of Jesus and really to know Him better, but in the moment, you might just be struggling with how to deal with the issue of doubt; and I think Abram actually gives us a good pattern for this (and I think it’s a good pattern despite the fact that he doesn’t actually follow this pattern). When struggling with doubt in your Christian faith, your immediate response really ought to be something like this: (1) remind yourself of God’s promises, (2) reflect on His faithfulness, and (3) trust Him to keep His promises. Let’s talk about each one of those ideas:

Remember God’s promises—now, ideally, we could’ve utilized Abram as an example of this, but in Abram’s case, he remembered God’s promises, but chose to assume that the promises weren’t actually going to happen.

The idea is to remember and then reflect on God’s promises. If we’re thinking of the five ideas that we can doubt:

God said that if we genuinely believe in our heart and confess with our mouth that God will save us—that’s a promise, which means that God is able.

God said that difficult situations in our life aren’t purposeless and that He utilizes all things in our life for our good, to conform us into the image of Jesus Christ—that’s a promise, which means that God is good.

God said that He absolutely loves His own people and that He’s even jealous for His people (meaning He longs after HIs people)—God’s love is a promise for His people, which means that God loves us.

In conjunction with God’s goodness, we learn that God is absolutely just, He can do no wrong and James makes it clear that He can do no evil nor any sort of sin—God’s justice is part of His character and He promises to always act within His character, which means that God is always just even if we feel like something that He does or did is unjust.

The Bible teaches that all things are under the command and authority of God—that’s a promise, which means that God is absolutely sovereign even when things are completely out of our own control.

The idea is that when you reflect on these sorts of promises, it ought to help calm down your doubt.

And it ought to help you to shift your focus on you and your doubt to the God who is able, to the one who is good, to Him who loves you and is always just and always in control.

And doing this will then help you to get to the next step of dealing with your doubt in the moment.

Reflect on His faithfulness—you can do this in two ways: (1) consider how God has been faithful in your own life and (2) consider how God has been faithful in the lives of others.

If you’re honest with yourself, it shouldn’t take you long to reflect and think of all the things that God has done in your life that has shown His faithfulness.

For most of us, the simple fact that we’re here worshiping together is a reflection of God’s faithfulness in our lives.

But maybe you’ve dealt with significant trauma, difficulty, maybe addiction and you can see how God has been right alongside you through life’s journeys—through the Bog/Swamp of Despondency or even as you played and got distracted in Vanity Fair (to steal some ideas from John Bunyan).

It shouldn’t be too hard for you to think of God’s faithfulness in your own life, but on occasion, it helps to think of how God has been faithful in other people’s lives.

Occasionally, I think of George Muller, who was a pastor who started orphanages for children who needed homes. He was well-known for being someone who prayed and prayed and prayed.

In his autobiography he speaks of several occasions when the orphanages just didn’t have enough money or food to feed the children and he would just pray with the children for God to provide and they’d receive anonymous donations of food.

You can read countless biographies and autobiographies about Christians dealing with significant hardship and how they still insist that God is with them and God was faithful to them (Foxe’s Book of Martyrs; Jesus in Beijing; Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus).

If you’re not a fan of biographies and autobiographies, just look at the Bible.

The promises given to Abram do get fulfilled.

The promise in Genesis 3 to send Messiah does happen (and then just think of the promises that are all fulfilled through that singular promise).

The promise given to David concerning his son building a temple happens.

God is always faithful, it’s part of His character, and that fact leads to the last bit.

Trust Him to keep His promises—this is often the hardest part for Christians today because it’s hard to simply trust especially when we have no control over what we’re trusting God for.

Yet, trust is the very essence of faith.

And God has an unblemished track record of keeping all His promises.

Thus, the real question is, if God’s record of keeping promises is unblemished, what’s stopping you from trusting Him?

Sometimes what’s stopping you is sin, sometimes what’s stopping you is a lack of belief, sometimes what’s stopping you is your lack of control. Maybe its just that you don’t understand God as well as you think you do.

But all these issues stem from and are the result of a lack of trust in Him.

But again, His track record is unblemished.

So, when you’re dealing with doubt in your life, this is how you ought to deal with it in the moment.—remember God’s promises, reflect on His faithfulness, and trust Him to keep His promises.

Now, real quick before I wrap everything up. Doing this in the moment might help you deal with the feelings of doubt, but it probably won’t remove your doubt completely. You may have questions and you may have thoughts that are causing you to doubt. And the only way that you’ll find answers to those questions and responses to your thoughts is by running to Jesus in prayer and soaking in His Word. And honestly, if your doubt is significant enough, you might just need to talk with someone for more help dealing with your doubt.

What Genesis 15 teaches us is that doubt is a very real thing. In the moment, the proper response is to remember God’s promises, reflect on His faithfulness, and trust Him to keep His promises. If the doubt is significant enough, the proper response is then to run to Him in prayer, to soak in His Word, and seek more help from spiritual leaders you trust.

The reality is, when we struggle with doubt, the key is to remember God’s covenant-keeping love for His people.

Pastoral Prayer