Genesis 15

Salvation and hope are anchored in a good God.

This week as I was studying the text and Abram’s grappling with promise, I thought of the ways I have catalogues promise in my own life. Specifically, keeping tabs on prophetic words that have been given to me over the years.

For a while I kept a record of them in a file in apple notes, but the wait seemed too long so it moved to my journal. The reflection of “when will this come to pass? Was this really from you Lord?”

Some significant and some relatively small, words that others felt the Lord desired to share through them about ministry or life… or even things I believe the Lord has shown me to prepare for.

Some have come, others, maybe they were not from God, or maybe my view of timing is way off!

It is not only these types of words. It is also promises. “He who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it…” Relief from sin… When?!

And I bring these things to God, sometimes, in prayer, as if I am reminding him, hoping to be reminded myself, that his promises are true, that my doubts are normal, and still he calls me his own.

Where God, possessor and creator of the universe has no obligation to respond to me, or reveal himself, even in his word, he does, and what he shows of himself is that he is a good God who works salvation and gives us hope. A God whose promises can be trusted.

We see it here in Genesis 15.

The continuing story of Abram, the Hebrew. Father of the faithful, those who will be Israel. From whom will come all the kings, the prophets, the priests, and the Messiah longed for and given to bless all the families of the earth.

We’ve just been with Abram after a significant military victory rescuing his nephew Lot and the kings of the Jordan valley. Where he encountered Melchizedek, king of righteousness and priest of God most high.

We recognized that priest pointing forward to another and Abram’s bowing and honoring as the appropriate response before God.

Life rolls on though and Abram is going through old journal notes… waiting on the promise.

In a fascinating encounter with Yahweh we receive tremendously good news.

Salvation and hope are anchored in a good God.

For our purposes this morning we will cut the text in two and walk through it! Counting and Covenanting.

Counting

Essentially the first 8 verses… and it begins with a vision of the Lord. “Fear not, I am your shield, and your reward shall be very great.” The Hebrew has three words there saying “reward, great (much), very (strength)” so some translate that as Yahweh saying he is Abram’s reward… which I like.

But this a tribe-eat-tribe world, so Abram could be worried that retribution was coming from the defeated kings. After all, they had come back once before. But Yahweh reassures him that he will shield, or protect him.

Then Abram brings his honest doubt given the circumstances. Because Lot chose to stay in Sodom, the heir of his house will be a servant’s child, because Abram has no children.

Remember chapter 12 and the Abrahamic covenant to make his name great, to make him into a great nation. God said his offspring would inherit the land.

Central to God’s promise then are kids! Abram is in his late seventies, not even a bun in the oven.

The word comes, “Your very own son shall be your heir.”

Then Yahweh takes him outside to look up at the night sky (no light pollution) to count stars. “Number the stars, if you can, so shall your offspring be…”

Imagine the moment; stargazing with the One who made them! I can’t wait to sit with Jesus and have him tell me about his stars!

So Abram gets a huge confirmation, not through an oracle, or other people, Yahweh himself says so.

Genesis 15:6 “And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” (ESV)

He believed Yahweh, that he was the “I am” that called him out.

In this moment, Abram has salvation, he is made right through faith in God. No sacrifice, not perfection, not even perfect faith. Belief.

Further down he is told he will go to his fathers, to the grave, in peace. Carrying this righteousness with him. Believing Yahweh, clinging to promise, that which calls for all the families of the earth to be blessed, which will come through the atoning work of Jesus on the cross. Somehow that work is applied even to Abraham who has faith.

It’s no different for you or me.

This is the central tenet of Christianity.

Ephesians 2:8–9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, [9] not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (ESV)

Always a tension, do I have to be good enough - you can’t, but Jesus was perfect for you. And because that’s true we don’t fall back into attempting to earn our place with God. It’s not a birthright, it’s not about behavior, it is belief.

Romans 4:1–8 “What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? [2] For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. [3] For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” [4] Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. [5] And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, [6] just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:

[7] “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,

and whose sins are covered;

[8] blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.” (ESV)

Grace. Anchoring reality for us. Our salvation is secure. Where we are prone to want to create some law to earn or way or “prove” our worth, Yahweh’s voice says otherwise, it is a gift of God.

Abraham makes it into the hall of faith in Hebrews for this, his belief. And the promise held, because you have faith and are included in this nation of Abram’s.

Galatians 3:26–29 “for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. [27] For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. [28] There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. [29] And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” (ESV)

Those that say the Old Testament is all law and earning and the New Testament is grace are reading the Bible wrong! It is all grace, this is how God works.

But there is more here, it is counted as righteousness, the “I am” can be trusted. He will give the land.

Genesis 15:8 “But he said, “O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” (ESV)

Whiplash! Believed, righteousness, then a question of how?

This is Abram following Ronald Reagan’s advice to “trust but verify.”

“Why doesn’t God just say, “How dare you question me? You little thing!” But he doesn’t. He answers him, and when Abram shows more doubts (as we’re going to see), he answers him again. He answers Abram’s fears. Abram gets doubts. He answers his doubts. Abram gets more doubts, and God is about to answer again.

So on the one hand, God is very patient with doubters. On the other hand, he does not let you stay in your doubt. He doesn’t just say, “Oh, well, you know, you’re a human being and you’re going to doubt.” He keeps coming back, and coming back, and coming back.” Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).

This is God, good and holy, in his goodness he is patient with us, he is not afraid of our doubt, so we shouldn’t be either. Questioning is healthy, it’s how we grow.

I always pray to start my coaching sessions that the Spirit would keep us “humble and curious…” Open-handed to what the Lord would teach us, which he often does through our doubts.

Often the trouble lies in our inward focus, “I don’t have any children,” “I am not capable,” “I am too sinful…” When Yahweh wants us to look at him, since he is the One who made the promise.

“The circumstances of life frequently tempt us to doubt God’s goodness. Like Abram in his childlessness, our lives often seem to be spinning out of control. Relationships, work, sickness, anxiety—there is much that threatens to overwhelm us. Above all, our own sin burdens our consciences and weighs us down. Through it all, the Christian gospel is a message of hope founded on our faith in what God alone can provide: the invincible rock of Christ’s atoning work. Leaving our moral resumes at home, we are invited into God’s shining favor if we will bring nothing to him but our need, with trust in his ultimate care. It is Christ-trusting sinners, not the self-trusting “righteous,” who are the children of Abraham and are entitled to all the promises God made to Abraham (Mark 2:17; Luke 19:10; Gal. 3:26–29).” GTB

God doesn’t mean to leave is in our doubt, he will prove himself.

Covenanting

Yahweh’s response to the question isn’t to smite Abram, but he essentially says, “grab a paper and pen and we’ll sign a contract.”

But it is a strange way to go about it.

Genesis 15:9 “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.” (ESV)

All of these creatures would eventually play a part in ceremonial sacrifice and temple worship in the future, and we might, at first glance, think that is what’s happening here, that Abram is to make a sacrifice. Not at all.

We see that by Abram’s response, he got the animals and knew what to do without being told. Cut them in half, except the little birds, and put the halves opposite each other, spread apart with a trail of blood so that you could walk through the carcasses.

In the ancient middle east this is how you made a contract.

We sign a document and trust you will abide by it or end up in court. How did you do it in an oral, concrete culture? You acted. Those of you who like drama will get excited about this. You had to do a play, a physical action. You acted out the consequences of not obeying the covenant, the consequences of breaking your vows. You acted out what was called the curse of the covenant.

Kings before sending soldiers off to war would kill a servant, but them in half, and have the army walk through as a statement that if they didn’t fight valiantly this would be their fate.

“The Hittite ritual required defeated troops to march between the severed halves of a human, a billy goat, a puppy and a piglet, with the fires burning on each side. Essentially, these rites served as self-imprecation oaths, by which people called down curses upon their own heads should they fail to keep their part of the covenant they were solemnly ratifying. The ritual was a way of saying “May what happened to these animals happen to us if we break this covenant”.’

Jeremiah 34:18–20 “And the men who transgressed my covenant and did not keep the terms of the covenant that they made before me, I will make them like the calf that they cut in two and passed between its parts—[19] the officials of Judah, the officials of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, the priests, and all the people of the land who passed between the parts of the calf. [20] And I will give them into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their lives. Their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth. (ESV)

Usually the “lesser” party walked through as a commitment to carry out the agreement with the king.

To this day it is why we say we “cut a contract.”

Abram gets everything in order and is probably waiting to be told to walk through, he even has to wave off birds of prey (maybe foreshadowing future trouble for Israel).

As the sun went down, deep sleep fell on Abram, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him - a terror.

The reality of the presence of a holy God.

Yahweh speaks through the dread… “Know for certain… offspring will be sojourners in a land not theirs, for 400 years, then they will come out with great possessions. Abram will go to his fathers in peace. His offspring will come back into the land when the sin of the Amorites is complete.

And in the darkness, a smoking firepot, and a blazing torch, passed between the pieces.

The first word could be translated as billowing smoke, and the second word could be translated as blazing lightning. These two words both appear when God descends on Mount Sinai, which means these are tokens or emblems of God’s immediate presence. This is God himself showing up physically.

“On that day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram.”

“Abram knew God was not just simply reiterating his older vows when he said, “I will give you this, and I will do this for you, and I will do that for you, and you will go to your fathers in peace, and I will give you all these things.” He wasn’t just reiterating it. He was making an oath. He was walking between the pieces. He was identifying with the pieces, and he was saying, “If I don’t do everything I told you I will do, may I be torn to pieces. May I die. May I be cut to ribbons.” Timothy J. Keller

God is saying this covenant will be accomplished by him alone, he makes the promise and keeps it.

“This was an unconditional, unilateral covenant. God was symbolizing that if he were to break his word, he would be sundered like the butchered animals. It was an acted-out curse, a divine self-imprecation guaranteeing that Abram’s descendants would get the land or God would die. And God cannot die.”

By doing this, God is showing us something tremendous about himself.

Theophany: an appearance of God, an intense manifestation of the presence of God that is accompanied by an extraordinary visual display.

Blazing torch, same word to describe lightning elsewhere… so imagine it, a stationary lightning bolt, its brilliance, sparks, power…

“Every place where God manifests himself in some dramatic, physical way in the Old Testament points to the ultimate expression, the ultimate God come in a physical, fleshly way in Jesus Christ. In other words, every single theophany points us to Jesus Christ and teaches us something about Jesus Christ. There’s nothing more important to know than to know more and more about Jesus Christ.” Timothy J. Keller

Iain Duguid: “By what figure could God have demonstrated his commitment more graphically to Abram? How could it have been displayed more vividly? The only way would have been for the figure to become a reality, for the ever living God to take on human nature and taste death in the place of the covenant-breaking children of Abram. And that is precisely what God did in Jesus Christ. On the cross, the covenant curse fell completely on Jesus, so that the guilty ones who place their trust in him might experience the blessings of the covenant. Jesus bore the punishment for our sins, so that God might be our God and we might be his people.”

Jesus hanging between two bodies…

Mark 15:33 “And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.” (ESV)

Isaiah 53:4–6 “Surely he has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

smitten by God, and afflicted.

[5] But he was pierced for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his wounds we are healed.

[6] All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the LORD has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.” (ESV)

Jesus experienced all of this so he could bless you even when you fail him, so your salvation could be absolutely unconditional salvation.

Galatians 3:13–14 “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—[14] so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.” (ESV)

So that you could hold onto all the promises that find their yes in him.

Promises:

Salvation is for all who believe in the Son.

All things work out for good for his children.

You will be comforted in trials.

You will have every spiritual blessing in Christ.

He will finish the work he has started in you.

He will give you peace when you pray.

He will supply your needs.

He will give you rest, abundant life, eternal life, power from on high.

And Jesus will return for us.

He has promised, he has given himself to fulfill the covenant. You can know for certain.

Hebrews 6:13–20 “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.” (ESV)

Salvation and hope are anchored in a good God.

Have faith - The Abrahamic covenant is the basis for the expectation that God’s promises will be fulfilled. God is free to choose when and how he will fulfill his promises, but he is faithful, and so his true children live by faith.

Believe Yahweh, Believe in the Son.

Covenant with Christ - Commit to living for his glory, it is your good.

God can handle your doubts, impatience, restlessness.

“God was revealing to Abram that he is patient beyond human calculation. This long-suffering on the part of God was memorialized by Paul in this question: “Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4). Long-suffering is God’s modus operandi in history.” Hughes

He desires for you to have peace and confidence in him, in your salvation and eternal hope.

What grace this is - how glorious - how good is this God!