Genesis 15
messenger dox
Call to worship:
pastor shane sluka
OT: Genesis 12.1-3
pastor bobby owens
NT: Romans 4.1-3
song:
Christ our hope in life & death
apostles creed:
dr. brett eckel
song:
how deep the fathers love
Confession & Pardon:
pastor Andrew loginow
prayer over tithes & offering:
pastor michael champoux
song:
king of kings
Sermon:
dr. al loginow
Genesis 15
Introduction
What do you think of when you hear the word covenant? It’s not a word that gets a lot of play in modern vernacular. I asked Google if anyone uses the word covenant anymore. Google said it’s used in wedding ceremonies, inherited from the Christian tradition; apparently, it’s also used in real estate – “restrictive covenants” define limitations of property usage. And, of course, Google noted that covenant is used in religious and theological contexts.
But because of noteworthy biblical illiteracy and the rise and spread of dispensationalism in the last 160 years or so, the emphasis on covenant has fallen on hard times, even in Protestantism. It reminds me of that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark when Army Intel recruits Indiana Jones to help figure out what Hitler and the Nazis are up to. Dr. Jones realizes Hitler’s after the Ark of the Covenant. The two government suits don’t know what the Ark of the Covenant is; Indy says, “didn’t you guys ever go to Sunday school or anything?!”
The ignorance on biblical covenants that plagues American Christianity isn’t true of you guys – you’ve been to Sunday school! We’ve talked about the covenantal structure of Scripture quite a bit, haven’t we? In sermons, classes, and Bible studies, we’ve tried here at CCC to understand the covenants of the Bible. That being said, some of you may be newer Christians, or maybe you haven’t been with us that long, or maybe you’re a young Christian and you’re still absorbing the teaching you get here at church, or at home with your parents or grandparents. The covenants in the Bible are like the monorail at Disney World – they get you from where you are – any passage, specifically the OT – to your desired destination: Jesus Christ.
Our Scripture passage here in Genesis 15 is one of those monorails, or important pillars, in the Bible’ s storyline. God established his covenant of grace with Abraham in Genesis 12.1-3, and here in chapter 15, God confirms his covenant with Abraham. Derek Kidner says this:
“The New Testament finds this a momentous chapter in 2 respects: 1st in its declaration that Abraham was justified by faith in vs 6. That phrase is at the heart of Paul's gospel in Romans, ch 4 and in Galatians, ch 3; secondly it finds this chapter to be momentous because it records for us the covenant. For this, rather than the covenant of Moses at Sinai, is the foundational covenant of the OT. It speaks of grace as the apostle Paul reminds us in Galatians, ch 3, vss 17-22. To honor this promise God would bring His people out of Egypt and send His Son into the world.”
The story of the church, our story, your story is connected to the story of Abraham through the story of Jesus. Genesis 15 teaches us that we are Abraham’s children and the new heavens and new earth are our inheritance in and through Jesus Christ.
We are Abraham’s Children (vss. 1-6)
Our pericope can be divided in 2 sections – (1) vss 1-6 teach us about Abraham’s children; (2) vss 7-21 teach us about Abraham’s land. Both sections follow the same pattern: God speaks, Abraham questions, God responds, and then God gives Abraham a sign or picture of the promise. In verse 1 the phrase, after these things, organically transitions us from chapter 14 to chapter 15. After Abraham celebrates with Melchizedek, yhwh speaks to Abraham for 1st time since chapter 12. We don’t know how long it’s been since God spoke to Abraham (10-year span between chs 12-16), but we’re reminded that it didn’t happen often. There was only a handful of times in Abraham’s life that God spoke – this is a special, redemptive-historical event.
yhwh says 3 things to Abraham in verse 1: (1) Fear not; (2) I am your shield; and (3) your reward will be very great. (1) Why was Abraham afraid? Because God promised him a son and land and Abe still had neither. As He does 364 other times in Scripture, God reassures Abraham – fear not. (2) The word shield recapitulates the words of Melchizedek from 14.20 – shield and delivered are from the same Hebrew root (מגן). God says, “Melchizedek was right, I did deliver you, and I will continue to be your shield.” (3) reward: Abraham did not take the spoils of war offered by the king of Sodom because he trusted God to provide; God says, “I will be your reward.”
In verses 2-3 Abraham asks God how He’s going to keep His promise since Abraham still has no son. God reiterates that Abraham will have a son of his own that will be his heir and then God gives a sign or picture to accompany His Word. God tells Abraham to look to the sky and number the stars, if he is able. Before the Lion King or Coldplay invited us to look to the stars, God pointed Father Abraham to the heavens and challenged him to number the stars, if he can.
And the truth is Abraham can’t number the stars, but God can! God’s point is, “Abraham, this is out of your league, above your pay grade; you need to trust me.” And Abraham did. Verse 6 says, and he believed yhwh, and he counted it to him as righteousness. Justification by faith alone as a concept was not born during the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century; no! Abraham is declared righteous by faith 2 millennia before the Christ event!
Genesis 15.6 is explicitly quoted in Galatians 3.6, James 2.23, and throughout Romans 4 (Rom 4.3, 9, 23). In Romans 4 St. Paul teaches that we – the church – are Abraham’s children, the righteous ones by faith. Just as Father Abraham couldn’t number the stars, he never could’ve imagined all the elect throughout history who are justified by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. This passage is about us! These promises are for us! We are Abraham’s children when we place our faith in Jesus Christ.
The New Heavens and New Earth are our Inheritance (vss. 7-21)
Verse 7 begins the 2nd round of this pattern: God speaks, Abraham questions, God responds, God gives Abraham a sign or picture of his promise. God reminds Abraham that God is the one who called Abraham, not the reverse. God initiated this plan and these promises – another way to say that is grace. Abraham did not seek God 1st, God called Abraham. God will keep the promise because God made the promise.
Abraham then asks the question we all wonder sometimes, even if we don’t dare to say it out loud – how do I know? God, how do I know? Abraham is just like me; he’s just like us, isn’t he? How can we know that God’s promises are sure?
God’s response is fascinating! Abraham asks, “how do I know?” and God says, “bring me a heifer, a goat, a ram, a turtledove, and a pigeon.” Abraham doesn’t say, “what are you talking about?” No, Abraham understands exactly what’s going on.
In our culture we legitimize things by signing them (contracts, wedding license, etc.). In the ancient Near East there was a more brutal ritual. The prophet Jeremiah helpfully gives us some exposition of Genesis 15:
And the men who transgressed my covenant and did not keep the terms of the covenant that they made before me, I will make them like the calf that they cut in two and passed between its parts— 19 the officials of Judah, the officials of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, the priests, and all the people of the land who passed between the parts of the calf. 20 And I will give them into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their lives. Their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth (Jer 34.18-20).
God is initiating a covenant ritual with Abraham. The Hebrew actually says God cut a covenant -- כָּרַ֧ת בְּרִ֣ית. Just like Abraham cut the animals in ½, God is cutting a covenant. And then a dreadful and great darkness fell upon Abraham – a kind of existential terror, like the prophet Isaiah experienced in Isaiah 6.
Then in verses 12-16 yhwh tells Abraham that it won’t be him who inherits the land, but his posterity. His descendants will be sojourners and servants in another land where they are afflicted for 400 years, but God will rescue them. The promise is not for Abraham now, but for his future family. Abraham will live to an old age and be buried, and the only land Abraham would ever end up owning was the land that he and his wife were buried on. The land described in vss 18-21would begin to be fulfilled at Joshua’s conquest of Canaan but would not be fully realized until the reign of King Solomon.
But remember in Genesis 12 God promised that all the families of the earth would be blessed through Abraham. In the promise to Abraham God is not merely promising a sliver of land in the Near East to a specific ethnic group, no, God is promising to lift the curse of Genesis 3. In passages like Hebrews 4, Romans 8, and Revelation 21-22 the NT teaches us that the land promise to Abraham is ultimately the new heavens and the new earth. When the Lord Jesus returns, he will raise the dead, judge the world, and make all things new. On that day the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea (Hab 2.14).
In and Through Jesus Christ (vs 17)
And this brings us to the best part, verse 17 – the gospel. Abraham knew what to do with the animals that the Lord required him to bring, but Abraham wasn’t expecting what happened next. You see, we know from history and archeology that this covenantal ceremony was called the suzerain-vassal covenant. Traditionally when a King made a contract with a lesser king, also known as a vassal, either both parties, or the lesser king would walk down the aisle through the dead animal halves, which was a way of acting out the stipulations of the contract and the ramifications of breaking the contract – if you break the contract, you’d end up like these animals.
Abraham no doubt would have expected to walk that morbid aisle, but he doesn’t. Scripture says a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between the pieces. This imagery would not be lost on Abraham’s children 400 years later. This is what they saw on the mount when God gave Moses the 10 Commandments. It was a pillar of smoke that led them through the wilderness by day and the pillar of fire that led them at night. They knew that this was God Himself.
Abraham asked God, “how do I know?” God responds, “this is how you know – if I don’t keep my promise, may this happen to me. May the immutable experience mutation, may the immortal experience mortality, may the eternal experience finitude, may the omnipotent experience humiliation.” And it’s not just if God doesn’t keep his end of the bargain, but also if Abraham doesn’t keep his end of the bargain, then that’s on God too.
And that’s what happened, isn’t it? The eternal experienced finitude when he was conceived by the Spirit and born of the virgin. The immutable experience mutation when he grew in wisdom and stature, yet without sin. The immortal experienced mortality when he died on the cross for the sins of his people, and great darkness fell over all the land.
And Romans 4.23-25 says:
But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for [Abraham’s] sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
Jesus was delivered up, cursed, cut off for our trespasses and he was raised for our justification. That’s what Genesis 15.6 means when it says Abraham believed and it was counted to him as righteousness. It means if you believe in Jesus, like Abraham did, it will be counted to you as righteousness too. If you repent and believe the good news of Jesus, the promises of God are yours.
And God’s covenant promises mean we can also have full assurance of our salvation. We can know for sure that if we repent and believe the gospel of Christ, we are justified, our sins are forgiven, and we be resurrected when Christ returns to live forever with him in the new world. Humanly speaking, this is why the Protestant Reformation spread like wildfire all over Europe in the 16th century – assurance of salvation! Justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone give us assurance because it stands on the unwavering promises of God. These promises are for us and for our children and God stakes His own reputation on it!
Conclusion
Like Abraham, we can find ourselves asking,” how do I know God’s promises are true?” And like he did with Abraham, God gives us His Word and a sign, a sermon and a sacrament. For Abraham, it pointed forward; for us it points backward; for both it’s bloody. Maybe you’re here today wondering, in your sin or in your suffering, wondering how you can know God’s promises are true. See and taste Jesus’ answer – this is my body, which is for you…this cup is the new covenant in my blood poured out for the many.