Genesis 15 (ESV)
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.” 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?” And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” 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.” 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.” And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
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.” But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” 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.” 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. And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. 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. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 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, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”
Genesis 15 is a formal covenant scene. This is a covenant making chapter. It's not a casual chat between God and Abram. No, this is a kind of almost a legal contract that is being drawn up between God and Abram.
There's this odd list of animals that are split in two. And this is what happened in the ancient Near Eastern treaty rites. The parties would walk between the pieces and say, "May this thing happen to me if I break my word." And so there's this desire to be split apart. These are the consequences if I fail to hold up my end of the covenant. I will be torn asunder, ripped in two.
Now, notice that in this passage, there's only one person who actually passes through the torn up animals. It is only God who appears here as a smoking fire pot and a blazing torch that passes through the animals. This is a one sided promise, a grace driven promise by God. Abram could not uphold his side of the bargain. That is part of the story we have to understand. Humans cannot work their way into salvation. God does not have to respond to our works because we can never be good enough to please him. And so when God makes a covenant with Abram here, it is a one-sided agreement. God promises these things and God says, "If this may not be so, may I be the one."
Because this covenant has not been fulfilled. And so what we see here already is a picture of justification by faith. Even before Mount Sinai, before the picture of circumcision that we get there, before the Mosaic law. Verse 6 here is the gospel in its kind of seed form. "Abram believed the Lord and the Lord counted to him as righteousness." Faith leads to justification. Faith leads to being right before God. Abram couldn't keep the law because there was no law. Abram wasn't some hero like in the ancient tales of heroism that we see in, for example, Greek mythology. Now there's just trusting that God, what he says is true.
And again, all throughout the New Testament, we see the same thread. Justification happens by faith alone, not by works so that no one may boast, but by faith in God. And we see this again and again.
But notice one other thing that's important here. Is that Abram says, yes, the covenant is going to be fulfilled. These promises are going to come to fruition. Out of you will come a great nation. There will be a blessing to the world and that Abram's name is going to be made great. But before that happens, there's going to be 40 years of slavery. And we will see that as the story of Israel progresses.
We need to recognize that God's timeline does not line up with ours. I'm sure Abram would have loved to see all of those things come true in his own lifetime. But of course it takes hundreds of years for this to actually happen. Why does it take hundreds of years? Well because of course God is sovereign and his timeline isn't yet complete. Notice again what the text says. "The sin of the Amorites is not yet complete." So God is still providing the Amorites who is living in the land the opportunity to repent, to turn to him, to walk away from their sin and come towards him. But he knows at the same time that that's not actually going to happen. And so this promise to Abram that he would inherit this land won't come to fruition until the people living in the land have been given every opportunity, squandered every opportunity to turn back to him. And so God is being patient but just at the same time.
Now why does this matter to us? Well for a couple of reasons. The first and I think most important one is that we have a tendency as human beings to want to earn our righteousness before God. But Abram's righteousness is credited to him. He hasn't earned it. Our performance before God will never be good enough. It is faith in Christ Jesus that will save us.
The second thing is that God's promises to us often come after a long period of waiting. In fact, Abram wouldn't end up living to see his promises fulfilled in his lifetime. Many of us might sit in prolonged seasons of not yet, of waiting for God to act. Maybe it's infertility, maybe it's chronic illness, maybe it's ministry plans that have failed for various different reasons. Genesis 15 reminds us that even though these delays are real, they don't mean that God is absent from us. God takes his time to bring about his promises in his way. And at least in the case of Abram, that meant that Abram would not see this promise fulfilled in his life. The question is not whether God will fulfill his promise. He will. The question is, will we be patient enough to wait until that happens?
Ultimately, God's promise that through Abram's offspring all nations will be blessed comes to fruition only through Jesus. And what happens when Jesus comes to bless all the nations? Well, it is the Son of God at the cross who bears the covenant curse. Remember what ancient Near Eastern covenants were like. They were saying, "Let me die like these animals if this does not come to fruition." Ultimately, God does what is necessary to make the promise come to fruition. Jesus himself walks through death on the cross in order for every nation to be blessed.
Prayer:
Dear Lord, thank you that we have Jesus who walked through the flames and death for us on the cross. Thank you that our righteousness before you does not depend on our performance and our works, but on the completed work of Jesus for us. Help us to remember and live in gratitude for the grace that you have already shown us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
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