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God's Covenant with Abraham...and Us August 2000 RSV Genesis 15:1 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."
How many times have you been in a situation where everything looked hopeless? You knew God had promised to be your guide, your hope, your helper in times of trouble -- but how could he possibly help in this particular situation? You think: "Perhaps, in other situations God would be a help to me, but in this one, I have no one to blame but myself." How many times have you been weak in the face of fear, or given into a temptation, when you realize God's goodness to you, and you did not want to sin against him, yet you do not believe he would provide a way for you to escape? These are the times, we must remember to lean NOT on our own understanding, but to trust in the LORD with all our heart. With man it is impossible! But with God all things are possible!
RSV Genesis 15:1 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." Abraham had left his land of Ur of the Chaldeans by faith because the LORD had appeared to him and told him to leave the land of his fathers. The LORD was going to bless him with a great inheritance as he promised him in Genesis 12: 1-4: 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. Time had passed since he had first left his homeland and he did not as yet see the fulfillment of these promises. The LORD appears to him in a vision and tells him that he will be his shield and protector and that also his reward will be great. Abraham was confused, he only had Eliezar of Damascus, his servant…he had no son. How was he to inherit all these things? He cannot understand how these things could be. According to Abram, the slave born in his house will be the inheritor of everything, including Abram's name and heritage. At this time in history, if patriarchs died without a seed, without children (a great shame in this culture), then a slave would inherit all that the patriarch had. For Abram, it was a difficult thing to believe that God could indeed bless him and make his name great at this point. But God tells him that he will graciously and sovereignly provide for all his needs. In fact, he will provide the seed Abram needs in order to make all his promises come to pass. God says your "son" will be your heir. Abram might have replied, "What son, O Sovereign LORD?" Then God, reminds Abram what he had told him previously in Genesis 12, that indeed his descendants, Abram's seed will be not only like the sand of the seashore, but also the stars of the sky. You can imagine Abram looking up at night and seeing the innumerable number of stars that seemed so close you could touch them. All of these stars were dazzling before him as a man who would have laid many a night to rest on his back and been able to observe the great content of these heavens created by God. At this point in Abram's life, he did not see all of God's provision and all of his promises would be quite impossible to believe. However, that is just what Abram did. He believed God, in spite of how things seemed at the time. 6 And he believed the LORD; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness. Despite how things seemed at this point in Abram's life, he believed God and God reckoned or counted this to him as righteousness. The righteousness that comes from God alone by faith alone. Abram knew that true faith was indeed the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. Abram had followed God and believed him from the beginning when he left his home and believed God's promises. However, this time, for the first time, Moses teaches us that Abram's faith was credited or reckoned to him as righteousness. Abram knew that if any of God's promises were to come to pass, it would not be based upon his own wisdom and efforts, but it must be dependent on the LORD who had revealed himself to Abram and will continue to be faithful to him. God has sovereignly and graciously revealed himself to Abram by promising him a great reward and inheritance, and all Abram had to do was believe. This can be quite amazing when you think about it. The LORD, the Sovereign Creator of heaven and earth appeared to a simple and sinful Chaldean man to bring him knowledge of himself and to even reward him with a great inheritance- -all because of faith! It is just because that faith is extraspective in character. That is, it looks away from oneself to the only LORD and God that can truly provide; the only God who man can truly believe. This great and sovereign God revealed himself to Abram in a vision, just so he could bless he and his descendents. What grace the LORD shows to his people. Sure Abram had concerns about how this was all going to "pan out"- - he is human. He doesn't know how this will all come about, but because God has graciously revealed himself to Abram, he knows the LORD is able to keep his promises. In fact, the LORD not only accommodated and stooped to reveal himself to sinful Abram, but was about confirm his promise in an even more astounding manner. What was about to happen, Abram could have never imagined. 7 And he said to him, "I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess." So Abram had believed God and God credited this or reckoned this to him as righteousness, nevertheless Abram sought a little bit more information. He believes God and believes God can do it, but he wants to know how. He asks, "But LORD how am I to know that I will possess it?" You see, faith is imperfect. Abram's faith was not a perfect faith. It was a small faith, but God was great. In God's sovereignty, he had enabled Abram to believe, but Abram still had questions. The LORD then tells Abram to participate with him in a covenant ceremony. The LORD was not only gracious enough to promise Abram a great inheritance, he was willing to show Abram just how great his grace and promises are to him. The LORD God of heaven and earth is about to not only reveal himself but to "cut" a covenant with him as well to assure and confirm that all of his promises to him are "yes" and "amen". Now, before we continue, allow me to explain what a covenant is as clearly as possible. In the OT, one of the principal ways of describing God's dealing with his people is that of covenant. A covenant is simply the formal expression or establishment of a relationship. In the OT, almost all references to covenant are to God's formal relationship to his people. The covenantal form in the OT is patterned after other Ancient Near Eastern covenants, so that Abraham, and later Moses and the rest of God's people could grasp what God was doing. It was unbelievable. Covenants typically had four parts. (1) A historical prologue which named the parties and gave the background to the relationship []; (2) a statement of the nature of the relationship []; (3) stipulations about the obligations of the parties in the covenant []; and (4) sanctions, or blessings and curses to be brought to bear upon fulfillment or violation of the covenant's terms []. Covenants were usually ratified or sealed by some oath-taking ceremony which represented the curses, such as a killing of animals or circumcision. It is important for us to realize that in 15:6, "Abram believed the Lord, and he credited to him as righteousness," is found in the course of a covenant-making. The Lord had promised Abram descendants as numerous as the stars. And following on the heels of Abram's "justification by faith," is a covenant-making ceremony. The LORD tells Abram to divide some animals, and when Abraham goes to sleep, he hears the promises of descendants and land reiterated, and then "a smoking firepot with a blazing torch passed between the two pieces." On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said: "To your descendants I give this land" in Gen. 15:17-18. The smoke and the fire were representative of God's presence; this ceremony was one in which God took the covenant oath. Notice that Abram arranges the sacrifices for God as he instructed him. Suddenly, Abram is in the midst of terrifying darkness and in a deep sleep. The LORD tells him that his promises will be fulfilled, but not immediately. In fact, the LORD reveals to Abram how the whole of history is under his sovereign control and direction. In addition, God teaches Abram that the path he will take has been well orchestrated by him. There is nothing in the future that is uncertain or unknown in his great omniscience. The LORD tells him that before his seed inherits all of the promises, they will be oppressed for over four hundred years, but this is not by accident. Part of it had to do with the sin of the Amorites "not being full" until that time. This shows us two things about God's grace and wrath. One, he sovereignly explains to Abram that the sins of the Amorites or Canaanites will be judged and his wrath executed against them. At the same time, he teaches that God is not slow concerning his promises, but that he is patient not wanting any man to perish but to come to repentance. The oppression and slavery of Abram's seed would be held in slavery a long time, but that would not deter God from keeping his promises to Abram, neither did it mean God was caught by the unexpected when this eventually happened with Jacob and Joseph and his brothers later in Genesis. This oppression would be eventually to make God's power known before he judged the Israelites and brought them out into the land under Joshua. Meanwhile, God "cuts" a covenant with Abram affirming his promises. At this time in history, when a king "cut" a covenant with his people, to keep his promises to them. The people would respond to the king's demands by walking through two portions of an animal or beast. This signified that the person who fails to keep his promises to the king, would be cut in half- - they would be killed for disobedience and failure to keep their oath to the king. In contrast, what we have here is not only the unexpected, but the unbelievable. The Sovereign LORD of heaven and earth has not only revealed himself by his grace to sinful man in spite of what they deserve; he has not only promised, literally the world to Abram and his seed; he has not only reckoned Abram righteous because of his faith and belief in God's promises; but God covenants with Abram that if the promises are not kept, God himself would be cut in half, God would have to die! The symbolism of the smoking fire and flaming torch, or the cloud and the fire that God reveals himself through later, is none other than an appearance of God Almighty as he passes through the pieces. This is not just amazing grace, but astounding grace! This is incomprehensible grace, but then that is the YHWH who Abram believed by faith! We see this ultimate death of God not in the minds of atheistic philosophers, but in the historical reality of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, when the God who became flesh laid his life down for covenant-breakers! Jesus Christ took the penalty and guilt of covenant-breaking upon himself as he suffered the curses of God in behalf of his people, and offered life to his people in his resurrection and ascension from the dead! What grace! What hope!
Meditate upon the grace of God revealed in Galatians 3:11-29:
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