Abram and the Promise of God
This is one of the most important passages of the whole Bible.
2 reasons:
1. Romans 4 and Galatians 3 devoted to explaining its significance.
- Justification by faith Rom.4
- Covenant of grace superior to the covenant of works Gal.3
2. Two historical events stem from it:
- the Exodus (the promise of the land)
- the birth of Christ (the promise of offspring to Abram)
The passage falls into 5 parts:
1. God’s provision
2. Abram’s reservation
3. God’s promise
4. Abram’s response
5. God’s pledge
1. God’s provision
Genesis 15:1 After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.”
In ch.14, Abram had just routed, with only 318 men, the combined armies of four kings. He probably thought that they would be back for revenge. He was worried. This is when God reassures him of his presence and his protection.
God will never leave us unprotected when we take a stand for him.
God will never leave us unrewarded when we seek to honor him. You cannot become a pauper by giving yourself and your substance to God. He will not allow it.
In chapter 14, the king of Sodom had deceitfully tried to offer Abram a reward consisting of material wealth. Abram refused it. Now God says that “I, God, will be your reward.” Just as He said about the Levites in Deut.10 - “The Lord Himself would be their inheritance” - so he provided for Abram.
2. Abram’s reservation
But Abram was troubled. Yes, he was a rich man, but there was one thing he didn’t have. Yes, it was wonderful that God would be his inheritance, but there was something missing. Here was the inheritance, but where was the heir? To whom could Abram pass on his inheritance, his name, his relationship with God? He had 318 men in his household, but not one of them was his son. Abram didn’t have a son. Heirship is based upon sonship. And what’s more Abram was too old to have a son. His wife Sarai was beyond the age of bearing children. So from the human point of view, he was never going to have a son.
That is why he says what he does in v.2-3 about Eliezer of Damascus. We have found from archeology that in those days, if a man was without a son, he could choose one of his servants to become his heir. This is what Abram was thinking would have to happen. But God said “No”. True heirship is based on sonship.
3. God’s promise
Genesis 15:4 Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir.” He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
Have you ever tried to anticipate how God would provide for you? You sort of mentally figure out ahead of time what God is going to do. And are you usually right? No. You find out that God’s answers are always a lot better than your answers. He does exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ever ask or think.
This was Abram’s experience. He knew that God had made a promise to him back in chapter 12 to make of him a great nation. Now a great nation has to start somewhere. It starts with one descendant. But Abram didn’t have that one descendant. So, in keeping with the culture of his day, he thought that God was probably going to use his servant Eliezer as his descendant and heir. Abram had figured out an economy class answer to a first class problem.
But that isn’t what God had in mind at all! God was going to go first class all the way. In the face of impossible circumstances, God was going to provide Abram with a son. That is because God delights in doing things in such a way that there is no doubt that when it is done, God did it.
4. Abram’s response
How did Abram respond to this promise? He responded with belief.
Genesis 15:6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
This verse contains in a nutshell the essence of Abram’s life. Abram was a man who believed God. He was not a perfect man, by any means. He doubted God at times. He took matters into his own hands on more than one occasion. But when all was said and done, Abram was a man who took God at His word.
And because he did, look what God did. God credited it to him as righteousness. Because Abram believed God, God called him a righteous man.
I want to stress that there is a tremendous difference between believing God, as Abram did, and believing in God, as many people do today. When you believe in God, you are simply saying that you believe that there is a God - nothing more. And the Bible says that even the demons believe in God.
But when you believe God, as Abram did, you not only believe that God exists, but you believe what he says to you. The man who believes God believes the Word of God. This is what true faith is. And this is what the NT says is the basis of our salvation. We are justified - that is we are made righteous before God - by faith. We believe God and His Word, and he justifies us.
Whereas Abram believed that God would give him a son…
We believe that God has given us His Son.
Whereas Abram believed that God would quicken his own body which was as good as dead…
We believe that God, by the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, has quickened our bodies which were dead in trespasses and sins.
Whereas Abram believed that his inheritance would be passed on to his son…
We believe that our inheritance in heaven comes to us because we are fellow heirs with God’s Son.
If a man believes God, he believes the Word of God, and the Word of God is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He believes that only God can save him through what Jesus did in dying on the cross.
Abram was credited with righteousness in God’s sight because he simply believed God when God made him this promise.
5. God’s pledge
God entered into a covenant with Abram to demonstrate his sincerity in making these promises to Abram. A covenant is a legal agreement between two people binding them to do something that they have promised to do.
In Hebrew, the expression “to make a covenant” means literally “to cut a covenant”. In ancient times, when two people wanted to make a covenant, they would get an animal, kill it, and cut it in half. They would place one half over here and the other half over there. Then they would together walk between the two halves of the animal. In so doing, they were saying in effect “As this animal is, so will I be if I do not keep this covenant.” This is how they showed that this was a legally binding agreement.
In vv.9-21, we see this taking place between Abram and God, with one significant difference. Abram was told to prepare several animals: a heifer, a goat, a ram, (each three years old) and two birds: a pigeon and a dove. Abram prepared the animals and arranged the pieces just so. Then God caused him to fall asleep.
While Abram slept, God revealed to him several things about what would happen to his descendants:
1. they would be strangers in a country not their own.
2. they would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years.
3. God would punish the nation that enslaved them.
4. they would come out of that country with great possessions
5. Abram himself would die a peaceful death
6. his descendants would come back to this land - the land of Canaan - in the fourth generation (a generation being understood as the age of a man when he had his first son, which in Abram’s case was going to be 100 years.)
Genesis 15:17 When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces.
The torch and the smoking firepot signify the presence of God. Remember when the Israelites were traveling through the wilderness? God guided them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, signifying His presence with them.
This is what is different about this covenant: Notice that only God passed between the pieces. Abram did not. Why is this? Because this covenant depended only upon God for its fulfillment. There was nothing that Abram had promised to do - indeed there was nothing at all that he could do to fulfill this covenant. This was a covenant of grace. It all depended on God. It wasn’t like the covenant that God made with the people of Israel at Mt. Sinai, where he promised to bless them and they promised to keep His Law. That was a covenant of works. But this covenant with Abram was a covenant of grace. That is why only God passed between the pieces. Abram was asleep and helpless when all this took place.
This covenant with Abram anticipates the New Covenant that God makes with us by the blood of Jesus Christ. When God promises to give us eternal life, this promise has nothing to do with our performance. Salvation is a gift of grace. Heaven isn’t a place we can earn by our good works. If you could earn your salvation, then God would owe it to you.
Romans 4:4-5 Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.
Salvation is a gift. God promises to save us. He makes a covenant with us - a covenant of grace which does not depend in any way upon us doing anything. And just as Abram was a helpless, sleeping bystander when God made that covenant of grace with him 4000 years ago, we are helpless - dead in our trespasses and sins - when God makes his covenant of grace with us. There is nothing that we can contribute - all we can do is to believe God.
The Bible says that the words written in Genesis 15:6 were not just written for Abram; they are written for us as well.
Romans 4:19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ