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Genesis 15 - God Confirms the Covenant with Abram
A. God speaks to Abram’s fears and doubts with a promise.
1. (1) The word of the Lord comes to Abram in a vision.
After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”
a. After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram: How does the word of the Lord come to us? In the Bible, it happened in many different ways: by a personal appearance of God, by an audible voice, by visions or dreams, by the ministry of angels, by the working of the Spirit of God upon the mind, by the making alive of a passage of Scripture to our hearts, or by the ministry of a prophet or preacher.
b. Do not be afraid . . . I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward: There was a good reason why God said this. Because Abram had just defeated a much larger army, from a confederation of five kings, he had reason to be afraid for his security. An attack of retribution was to be expected.
c. Your shield . . . your reward: Abram needed a shieldbecause he was expecting to be attacked. He needed rewardbecause he had just forfeited great reward offered from the king of Sodom.
i. God is telling Abram that though he has sacrificed for His sake, he will not be the loser for it. God will more than make up what Abram has given up for the Lord.
ii. God knows how to become the answer to our need. When we need a shield or a reward, He becomes those things for us.
d. Do not be afraid: So God told Abram this because he wasafraid, and afraid for good reason. But God will give him areason to put away his fears. God never tells us do not be afraid without giving us a reason to put away our fears.
2. (2-3) Abram honestly expresses his doubts.
But Abram said, “Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” Then Abram said, “Look, You have given me no offspring; indeed one born in my house is my heir!”
a. Lord God, what will You give me: Though certainly Abram appreciated the promise from God, at the same time, there was a sense in which it seemed to ring hollow in Abram’s ears. It was as if Abram said, “What good is it that You are my shield and reward? The only thing I’ve ever wanted with any passion in my life is a son! Where are the descendants You promised me?”
i. It is almost as if Abram meant, “Lord, You’ve given me lots of stuff, and now promise to give me more, and to protect me. But what good is it if I don’t have a descendant to give it to? I want the son You promised me!”
ii. Eliezer of Damascus was Abram’s chief assistant, his right-hand man. He was a good man, but not a son to Abram.
b. Look, You have given me no offspring: Abram’s bold honesty before the Lord is worthy of our imitation. Instead of bottling up his feelings, he lays them out before the Lord.
c. No offspring: Did Abram’s question mean he doubted God? Yes. But there is a difference between a doubt that deniesGod’s promise and a doubt which desires God’s promise. Abramwants to believe and is looking to God to strengthen his faith.
3. (4-5) God speaks to Abram’s doubts with a promise.
And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.” Then He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”
a. This one shall not be your heir: God reminds Abram of the promise originally recorded in Genesis 12:2 and 13:15-16. God does this because He knows how much we need to be reminded.
b. One who will come from your own body shall be your heir: God often states a promise with such certainty, we believe it will be fulfilled right away, but the fulfillment of this promise was still 15 years away.
i. No wonder the writer to the Hebrews says: And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. (Hebrews 6:11-12)
c. From your own body: God explained exactly what He meant in His promise to Abram. He meant that it wasn’t a spiritual descendant who would inherit the promise (such as Eliezer), but an actual flesh-and-blood descendant. This was necessary, because we sometimes misunderstand God’s promises.
d. Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them: God not only tells Abram the promise again, but He confirms it with an illustration: the stars in the sky show how vast the number of Abram’s descendants would be.
i. And one of those descendants would be the Bright and Morning Star (Revelation 22:16).
4. (6) Abram’s response of faith to God’s promise.
And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.
a. And he believed in the Lord: When Abram put his trust in God, specifically in God’s promise to him (descendants who would also produce the Messiah), God credited this belief to Abram’s account as righteousness.
i. There are essentially two types of righteousness: righteousness we accomplish by our own efforts, and righteousness accounted to us by the work of God when we believe.
ii. Since none of us can be good enough to accomplish perfect righteousness, we must have God’s righteousness accounted to us by doing just what Abram did: he believed in the Lord.
iii. God’s accounting is not pretending. God does not account to us a pretended righteousness, but a real one in Jesus Christ.
b. And He accounted it to him for righteousness: This is one of the clearest expressions in the Bible of the truth of salvation by grace, through faith. This is the first time believe is used in the Bible; this is the first time righteousness is used in the Bible. It is the gospel in the Old Testament, quoted four times in the New Testament.
i. What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”(Romans 4:1-3)
ii. Does this blessedness then come upon the circumcised only, or upon the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. How then was it accounted? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised.(Romans 4:9-10)
iii. And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform. And therefore “it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead (Romans 4:19-24).
iv. Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?; just as Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham.(Galatians 3:5-7)
c. He accounted it to him for righteousness: Romans 4:9-10makes much of the fact this righteousness was accounted to Abram before he was circumcised (Genesis 17). No one could say Abram was made righteous because of his obedience or fulfillment of religious law or ritual. It was faith and faith alone that caused God to account Abram as righteous.
i. “When the article of justification has fallen, everything has fallen . . .. This is the chief article from which all other doctrines have flowed . . .. It alone begets, nourishes, builds, preserves, and defends the church of God; and without it the church of God cannot exist for one hour.” (Luther, cited in Boice)
d. He believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness: The faith making Abram righteous wasn’t so much believing in God (as we usually speak of believing in God), as it was believing God. Those only believing in God (in the sense of believing He exists) are merely qualified to be demons (James 2:19).
B. God speaks to Abram’s doubt with a covenant.
1. (7-8) Abram’s doubts surface again.
Then He said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it.” And he said, “Lord GOD, how shall I know that I will inherit it?”
a. Then He said to him: We don’t know if the events beginning with Genesis 15:7 followed close upon what happened inGenesis 15:1-6; the flow of the text seems to indicate they did.
b. After God makes such a dramatic and solemn statement like I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it, how could Abram answer God by essentially saying, “prove it”?
i. How could Abram ask “How shall I know that I will inherit it,” when God had just accounted him righteous? Abram is experiencing what many of those who are accounted righteous experience. It is as if he says, “I believe when I hear God say it, but five minutes later, I’m not sure!”
ii. Remember, Abram had no title deed to the land, nothing to make anyone else believe he actually owned the land. All he had was the promise of God.
2. (9-11) Abram prepares to make a covenant with God.
So He said to him, “Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, down the middle, and placed each piece opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
a. Verse 9 reads more like a shopping list for a witch doctor than something the Lord would ask for. Is God going to concoct some strange potion that will remove all doubt from Abram?
b. But Abram knew exactly what to do with these animals: hecut them in two . . . and placed each piece opposite the other. Abram understood God was telling him to get a contract ready for signing.
i. In those days, contracts were made by the sacrificial cutting of animals, with the split carcasses of the animals lying on the ground. Then both parties to the covenant would walk through the animal parts together, repeating the terms of the covenant. The Lord made a covenant in Genesis 15:18is literally, “the Lord cut a covenant.”
ii. Jeremiah 34:18-20 makes reference to this same practice of a covenant made by cutting animals and repeating the oath of the covenant as one walks through the animal parts.
iii. The symbolism was plain: first, this is a covenant so serious it is sealed with blood; second, if I break this covenant, let this same bloodshed be poured out on my animals and me!
iv. There is no mistake about it: when Abram has his doubts, and wants assurance from the Lord, God says to him plainly, “let’s sign a contract and settle this once for all.”
c. As Abram waits for the Lord to appear and walk through the carcasses with him (to sign the covenant), God doesn’t come right away, but the vultures do.
i. Abram fully expects God to come down and walk through the animal parts with him, because God had previously appeared to him (Genesis 12:7).
3. (12-16) Prologue to the covenant.
Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
a. At the end of the day, God has still not appeared to walk through the animal parts with Abram. Instead, God causes adeep sleep to fall upon Abram. Apparently, at least part of what follows came to Abram in a dream while he was under this deep sleep.
b. Know certainly: Abram wanted concrete proof from God, and God will sign the covenant; but Abram should also know he will have land and descendants, but all will not go well with them at all times. Now he knows some dreadful news for certain.
i. After God told him some of the hardship that would befall his descendants, Abram might have said, “If that is what is going to happen, I don’t want any children!”
c. Specifically, God tells Abram of the slavery and hardship Israel will endure in Egypt (Exodus 1:1-14), yet they would, after four generations, come back into the Promised Land.
4. (17-21) The covenant is made.
And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. On the same day theLord made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates; the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”
a. As Abram is either asleep or perhaps still groggy from the deep sleep he had been under, he sees God do an amazing thing: pass through the animal parts all by Himself, while Abram watches on the sidelines.
b. God represents Himself by two emblems: a smoking oven and a burning torch.
i. The smoking oven reminds us of the pillar of cloud representing the presence of God (Exodus 13:21-22), the smoke on Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:18), and the cloud of God’s Shekinah glory (1 Kings 8:10-12).
ii. The burning torch reminds us of the pillar of fire representing the presence of God (Exodus 13:21-22), of the burning bush displaying the presence of God before Moses (Exodus 3:4), and of the fire from heaven which sometimes consumed sacrifices God was well pleased with (1 Kings 18:38; 1 Chronicles 21:26; 2 Chronicles 7:1).
c. God, represented by the smoking oven and the burning torch, passed through the animal parts by Himself; as Abram watched, God showed this was a unilateral covenant. Abram never “signed” the covenant, because God “signed” it for both of them.
i. Therefore, the certainty of the covenant God makes with Abram is based on who God is, not on who Abram is or what Abram does. This covenant cannot fail, because God cannot fail.
ii. In a sense, the Father walked through the broken and bloody body of Jesus to establish His covenant with us, and God signed it for both of us. We merely enter into the covenant by faith; we don’t make the covenant with God.
d. By entering into this contract, there is a sense in which God was saying, “If I don’t keep My word, let Me be put asunder.” God was putting His Deity on the line as a confirmation of His oath to Abram.
i. This covenant God signed alone; Abram did not haggle with God over the terms. God established and Abram accepted. Abram cannot break a contract he has never signed!
ii. “A Divine covenant is not a mutual agreement on equal terms between two parties, but a Divine promise assured.” (Maclaren)
e. By quoting the specific lands Abram’s descendants will inherit, God makes it plain this is not a “pie in the sky” spiritual promise. It is real, and through it, Israel will inherit real land.
i. “For a very brief time, under Solomon (1 Kings 8:65) and possibly again under Jeroboam II (2 Kings 14:25), the children of Israel ruled all this territory, as a token of the final and permanent possession they will have in the future.” (Morris)
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