The Gospel B.C.
“Discovering God’s Redemptive Plan”
“God’s Covenant and Abraham’s Response”
Genesis 15:1-21
Introduction
The sermon illustration I will never use again – the injured eagle in the chicken coop.
In Genesis 15 we find a man named Abram, who has just finished rescuing his nephew Lot from being kidnapped by several local kings that had war with eachother. And earlier in Genesis 12:1-3 “Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” If you go and follow the Lord, He will use you to bless the world.
So now since Genesis chapter 12 and chapter 15 some time has passed, and God has approached Abram multiple times. “There were nine successive manifestations of God to Abram, of which this is the fifth.”[1] This is the first time Abram responds back.
God Promises Abram an Heir (vv. 1-6)
(After these things) the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision[2]: “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.”
God has already promised to make him into a great nation, and now God tells Abram that God is his shield and his reward (which will be great). God is Abram’s protection, and his reward for following Him would be great. The word for reward is the payment to the victor for winning the war (the divided spoils of war).[3] In the battle God will protect him, and when it’s all over there will be a great reward. They would fight together.
The promise is a relationship with God,
the great reward is a continued relationship with God.
And with an heir this relationship could pass from one generation to the next.
The fear, to which God responds, “Fear not,” is that Abram will not have an offspring to inherit the reward from the Lord. How will he be a great nation, and how will his reward be great if it all stops with him? Abraham and Sarai don’t have any children.
In ancient times when a couple don’t have children, they would typically adopt a person to serve as their child to make sure they are taken care of in their old age, the see that they have a proper burial, and that person would then inherit their estate. It would seem that this adopted person was named Eliezer of Damascus.
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.
God says to Abram, very forcefully, “This man shall not be your heir,” – no, he was going to have a child from his and his wife’s own body. To impress upon him how many children he would have, and to what a great nation his offspring would become, he took him outside and had him look up at the stars, “So shall your offspring be.”
In God’s trying to show how vast the influence Abram’s offspring would be, and how wide of a sweep of God’s purpose for him, he gives Abram three visuals; 1) “The dust of the earth,” Genesis 13:16 2) “stars in the sky,” Gen. 15:4 & 3) “the sand of the seashore,” Gen. 22:17. All three can not be counted – the impact of those who are Abram’s offspring is so vast and so important that it cannot be measured.
(v. 6) “And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” – In response to these promises, Abram puts his faith in God. “This is the first time that this word – aman – appears in the Bible, and it will be used only two more times in Genesis (42:20; 45:26).[4] Abram has already taken actions of faith but here it is highlighted.
In v. 1 and v. 4 both say, “the word of the Lord” came to Abram. This is the first time when this phrase is used, and it’s the first time that faith is defined as believing. Faith is believing the word of the Lord.
If God is talking about having many people be a great nation, why is there a mention of Abram’s righteousness? Abram up to this point has seemingly done nothing wrong. He was told to leave his homeland, so he left. He showed hospitality when God visits with him, and he fought bravely to rescue his nephew. He shows us that the best of men are still sinners – they still need to be made right before God (and they are not made right by their actions) if they are to have a relationship with Him.
Here we are introduced to the theological idea of justification – “the act of God by which he credits the righteousness of Christ to the believer and declares him just.”[5] How is Abram made righteous? God counted righteousness to him because he believed what God told him. Justification by faith alone. The plan of redemption for the world begins with a person being made right with God by faith alone.
Abram would go on to have a people that would come from his son Isaac, and there would also be many who would be considered children because they also had faith in God. Romans 4:13 “For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.” Galatians 3:7 “Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.”
If justification (being made right with God) is by faith alone,
why was there a need for a bloodline?
Why the need for an eventual separate nation?
As part of the serpent’s curse in the Garden of Eden, Genesis 3:15 says “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” There are two races of people mentioned, the serpent’s offspring, and Adam & Eve’s offspring. These races would fight and ultimately Adam and Eve’s offspring will strike a death blow to the serpent’s offspring. There would be the race of people who live by faith in God, and the race of people who do not. Those that have faith in God will inherit a promised place where God is present with them.
One other thing before we move to v. 7. Abraham was 75 years old when God first made the promise that Abraham would be made into “a great nation.” Genesis 21:5 tells us that Abraham was 100 years old when Sarah gave birth to Isaac, which means Abraham had to wait 25 years! “Those who believe the promise and hope against barrenness nevertheless must live with the barrenness.”[6] We must wait for God to keep His promise.
God Seals the Covenant with Abram (vv. 7-21)
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[7], “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”
Here is another promise from God to Abram, that he will give him the land where he was standing (a promised land). He tells him the reason why he commanded him to leave his homeland of Ur was to give him this land to possess. Abram responds by asking for a guarantee that these things would take place. In ancient times this form of agreement, a guarantee, would often take the form of a covenant. So . . .
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.
God commanded Abram to get a three-year-old heifer, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtle dove, and pigeon. Everything except for the birds were cut in half – and each half was laid so that a path of carnage was made. And the detail was given that as the day was going on, birds of prey would come and pick at the carcasses, and Abram would drive them away.
A promise has been made by God, Abram is waiting for God’s timing and while he is waiting the birds of prey are trying to drag off the carcasses to eat them. He has to stand guard and be ready for when God appears.
Typically, both parties would make a promise, invoking their individual gods, that if we don’t keep part of the agreement, then may this (carnage) happen to me and then they would walk through the middle of the bodies as part of the covenant ceremony.[8]
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.”
(v. 12) “a deep sleep fell on Abram,” – a deep sleep and the darkness thrown upon Abram, in other words God caused him to go to sleep. The covenant ceremony had begun, and Abram couldn’t move, he was asleep.
God then outlines for the father of this coming nation what was going to happen. God tells Abram of the eventual Egyptian slavery, how judgement would come upon Egypt, and when they leave this servitude, they will have great wealth. But he would not have to go through this time, “you shall go to your fathers in peace,”
Abram and Sarai had to wait 25 years for a child, His children would have to wait 400 years to receive the promised land. Faith involves waiting for God to do what He has promised.
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.”
The covenant ceremony continues as the sun had gone and it was dark. In this type of ceremony each side would say what role they will play, rules they will follow, boundary lines they would agree to keep, etc. Promises have been made from God to Abram (a relationship where he would be a shield for him, a child from his and his wife’s own body, offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky, a promised land) – Abram has faith in what God has promised.
Now it is time for the two people making the covenant to walk through the carnage, agreeing that if I don’t keep my part, my promise, then may this happen to me. But God has caused Abram to sleep- he can’t walk through the path of blood.
(v. 17) “a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.” – Later God will lead his people in a pillar of smoke during the day, and pillar of fire at night (Exodus 13:17-14:29). Some commentators say the fire pot represents a purifying furnace, and the torch light, etc. It is difficult to say exactly what each means – but it clearly means that God went through the animals, that He was making a promise to Abram, and then following through the ceremony alone.
But why did God make Abram go to sleep, why not make him walk through the animals? Because God’s plan of redemption involves Him doing all the work, and ultimately salvation comes from Him alone. Our part is to have faith, God provides everything else for us to be made right before Him.
God’s plan for redemption is divinely one-sided.
God promises, God gives, God assures, Man receives.
Later God will gather His people at Mt. Siani and Moses would go up and receive the ten commandments. But as much as God’s people wanted to keep the commandments they could not. Humanity is not capable to keeping the law – we cannot do, in our own effort, what is required. God made Abram go to sleep because he could not keep a promise to God. So God in His grace, said “I will do what is needed to have a relationship with you.” His only requirement of His people is that they trust Him to keep His promises.
_______________________
[1] W.H. Griffith Thomas, Genesis, A Devotional Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan; WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1971) 136.
[2] The word for vision (mahazeh) is only used here and in reference to Balaam (Num. 24:4,16).
[3] John E. Hartley, New International Biblical Commentary, Genesis (Peabody, Massachusetts; Hendrickson Publishers, 2000) 155.
[4] Victor P. Hamilton, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament, The Book of Genesis Chapters 1-17 (Grand Rapids, Michigan; William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990) 423.
[5] Daniel L. Akin, General Editor, A Theology for the Church (Nashville, Tennessee; Broadman and Holman, 207) 746.
[6] Hartley, 157.
[7] In v. 2 and in v. 8 Abram responds back to God with a question, “But Abram said,” is not a sign of doubting God, but similar to the father in Mark 9:24 “Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” He believes what God is saying, and is asking for more clarification.
[8] “This idea of self-imprecation is reflected in the prospective witness who swears under oath: ‘I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.’ If I prevaricate on the witness stand, then I will have to contend with God.” Hamilton, 430.
