Genesis 15:1-21
God’s Covenant with Abram (Hebrews 11:8–10)
1 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.”
2 But Abram said, “Lord GOD, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 Then Abram said, “Look, You have given me no offspring; indeed one born in my house is my heir!”
4 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.” 5 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.”
6 And he believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.
7 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.”
8 And he said, “Lord GOD, how shall I know that I will inherit it?”
9 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.” 10 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. 11 And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
12 Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. 13 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. 14 And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. 16 But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
17 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. 18 On the same day the LORD 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— 19 the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”
Abram trusted God with supernatural faith yet still asked how he would know the promise to inherit the land would happen. It is as the man who told Jesus he believed but asked Him to help his unbelief (Mark 9:23-24), to assuage his doubts as he held to that trust. The spirit can hold onto God’s word by faith while the mind wrestles with the certainty by needing explanations of our belief at times. The LORD God told Abram directly that He was his almighty shield to protect him and the immeasurable reward of his soul. Abram had doubts still and asked how he could have an heir to fulfill the promise to become a nation of nations (Acts 7:5) when all he had was unseen as of yet. Yet Abram still trusted to the promise because of Him who had promised was entirely faithful and omnipotent, unable to lie or go back on His word (Numbers 23:19), and perfectly able to do all He said. The LORD then told him to try to count the stars in the heavens as a picture of how many descendants he would be given. Because Abram believed God when He told him this, that faith was marked on his account as righteousness, just as our trust in God’s Son and His sacrificial atoning work on the cross by faith (Ephesians 2:8-9) results in His righteousness imputed to us as if it were our own. This is the faith of believing Abraham spoken of (Galatians 3:9, 14) later by Paul to illuminate what was hidden (Ephesians 3:9-11) before in the Old Testament and revealed in all its glory in the person and work of Jesus Christ. We are saved just as Abram by trusting God’s word and work of His unbreakable promise. We are therefore Abram’s spiritual descendants of this faith (Romans 9:7-8) that takes God at His word and puts all trust in His work and righteousness. We know that we will inherit the kingdom of God as history unfolds before us, just as Abram was told that his descendants would be afflicted for four hundred years in Egypt as strangers in a strange land until they would be set free from bondage while their masters would face judgment for this. This is a picture of how we are in bondage to sin until delivered out of this strange land opposed to Him and His word and then are delivered (saved) from that bondage to sin to enter into His Kingdom by repentance, faith, and grace. Abram was given a covenant promise of these things by God honoring him with a burning sacrifice to seal the covenant; our New Covenant (Hebrews 8:10) is sealed with the lifeblood of God’s Son as He sacrificed Himself for us to establish an eternal and unbreakable covenant with Him. This trust of faith and assured promise keeps us through all trials and tribulations until His return when this sin-filled world is judged as Egypt was for enslaving the people of God and we then enter into the fullness of the promised country (Hebrews 11:16, 13:12-14) to come.
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