Yahweh brought him outside, and said, “Look now toward the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” He said to Abram, “So your offspring will be.”
Parallel Translations
-
Yahweh brought him outside, and said, “Look now toward the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” He said to Abram, “So your offspring will be.”
-
And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
-
And He brought him forth abroad, and said: 'Look now toward heaven, and count the stars, if thou be able to count them'; and He said unto him: 'So shall thy seed be.'
Cross-references (15)
Passages linked to Genesis 15:5 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Hebrews 11:12 Therefore as many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as innumerable as the sand which is by the sea shore, were fathered by one man, and him as good as dead.
- Romans 4:18 Besides hope, Abraham in hope believed, to the end that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, “So will your offspring be.”
- Deuteronomy 1:10 Yahweh your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are today as the stars of the sky for multitude.
- Exodus 32:13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of the sky, and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ”
- Genesis 22:17 that I will bless you greatly, and I will multiply your offspring greatly like the stars of the heavens, and like the sand which is on the seashore. Your offspring will possess the gate of his enemies.
- Deuteronomy 10:22 Your fathers went down into Egypt with seventy persons; and now Yahweh your God has made you as the stars of the sky for multitude.
- Jeremiah 33:22 As the army of the sky can’t be counted, and the sand of the sea can’t be measured; so I will multiply the offspring of David my servant and the Levites who minister to me.’ ”
- 1 Chronicles 27:23 But David didn’t take the number of them from twenty years old and under, because Yahweh had said he would increase Israel like the stars of the sky.
- Psalms 147:4 He counts the number of the stars. He calls them all by their names.
- Romans 9:7-8 Neither, because they are Abraham’s offspring, are they all children. But, “your offspring will be accounted as from Isaac.” That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as heirs.
- Genesis 12:2 I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing.
- Genesis 16:10 Yahweh’s angel said to her, “I will greatly multiply your offspring, that they will not be counted for multitude.”
- Genesis 26:4 I will multiply your offspring as the stars of the sky, and will give all these lands to your offspring. In your offspring all the nations of the earth will be blessed,
- Genesis 28:14 Your offspring will be as the dust of the earth, and you will spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south. In you and in your offspring, all the families of the earth will be blessed.
- Genesis 13:16 I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can count the dust of the earth, then your offspring may also be counted.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (12 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Private notes
Saved on this device only — never synced or sent anywhere.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Gen 15:5 And he brought him forth abroad, and…
Gen 15:5 And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
Ver. 5. And he brought him forth abroad.] Abram having prayed a good part of the day within, is now drawn forth at night to receive the promise. Pray that ye may joy, saith Christ: {Joh 16:24} and, if ye will "rejoice evermore," "Pray without ceasing," saith the apostle. {1Th 5:16-17}
Read full note →
If thou be able to number them.] Then mayest thou number thy posterity; and they, their privileges. It is God only that "telleth the number of the stars, and calleth them all by their names". {Psa 147:4} No man can number them. {Jer 33:22} And yet Aratus and Eudoxus vainly vaunted, saith St Augustine, {a} that they had cast up the stars, and could call them all by their names.
{a} Aug. De Civ. Dei., lib. xvi.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Quest. Seeing the sun was not yet going down,…
Quest. Seeing the sun was not yet going down, Gen 15:12, how could he see the stars?
Answ.
Read full note →
1. He might see them by representation in a vision, or by a Divine power strengthening his eyes to behold them.
2. It was not necessary he should then actually see them. He bids him make trial when he pleased, if he could number the stars which were now present to his mind, and would shortly be present and visible to his bodily eye. This he was not able to do; for though astronomers have presumed to give us the number of those stars which are distinctly visible to the eye, wherein yet they vary one from another, yet there are other stars innumerable, appear confusedly to the eye, and evidently by the help of glasses.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And he brought him forth abroad,.... Out of his…
And he brought him forth abroad,.... Out of his tent into the open air, which was done through his call, and at his direction; or by an impulse upon his mind; or this might not be real and local, only vision:
and said, look now towards heaven; either with his bodily eyes, or with the eyes of his mind:
Read full note →
and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them; this looks as if it were in a vision that this was said to him, and what follows done in the day, since it was in the daytime, before the sun was set, Gen 15:12, when the stars could not be seen; and therefore were represented to his mind, and he was directed to consider them in it, whether they could be numbered by him or not: but this might be in the preceding night, or early in the morning, before the sun arose, that Abram was directed to go out of his tent, and view the heavens, and the multitude of stars in them, and try if he could number them; and he might be employed all the day following till sunset, in preparing the creatures for the sacrifice, in cutting them asunder, laying their pieces in order, and watching them, and driving the fowls from them. The multitude of his seed is before signified by the dust of the earth, which cannot be numbered, Gen 13:16, and here by the stars of the sky innumerable; as they are to man, though not to God: some have pretended to number them, as Aratus, Eudoxus, and Hipparchus, among the ancients, and also modern astronomers; but then they are such only that are visible to the eye, and in one hemisphere, and their accounts are very various; whereas there are multitudes to be discerned by glasses, and some not to be distinguished, as in the galaxy, or milky way, and others in the other hemisphere. Now Abram here is bid to try what he could do, and this was in his own way; for he is said by many Heathen writers (h) to be famous for arithmetic and astrology, or astronomy; but as great a master as he was in these sciences, be was not able to number the stars, which is here plainly intimated, since it follows:
and he said, so shall thy seed be: as innumerable as the stars, as they were, even his natural seed, Heb 11:12; and especially his spiritual seed, who have the same kind of faith he had, and as they will be in the latter day particularly, Hos 1:10.
(h) Apud Euseb. ut supra, (Evangel. Praepar.) l. 9. c. 16, 17. Orpheus apud Clement. Stromat. l. 5. p. 607.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain And he brought him forth - It seems, early…
And he brought him forth - It seems, early in the morning, and said, look now toward heaven, and tell the stars: so shall thy seed be -
1. So innumerable, for so the stars seem to a common eye. Abram feared he should have no child at all, but God tells him his descendents should be so many as not to be numbered.
Read full note →
2. So illustrious, as the stars of heaven for splendour; for to them pertained the glory, Rom. ix, 4. Abram's seed according to the flesh were like the dust of the earth, Chap. xiii, 16, but his spiritual seed are like the stars of heaven.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 5. Look now toward heaven] It appears that…
Verse 5. Look now toward heaven] It appears that this whole transaction took place in the evening; See Clarke on Ge 13:14. Abram had either two visions, that recorded in Ge 15:1, and that in Ge 15:12, c. or what is mentioned in the beginning of this chapter is a part of the occurrences which took place after the sacrifice mentioned Ge 15:9, c.: but it is more likely that there was a vision of that kind already described, and afterwards a second, in which he received the revelation mentioned Ge 15:13-16. After the first vision he is brought forth abroad to see if he can number the stars and as he finds this impossible, he is assured that as they are to him innumerable, so shall his posterity be; and that all should spring from one who should proceed from his own bowels - one who should be his own legitimate child.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Gen 15:5. And he brought him forth — It…
Gen 15:5. And he brought him forth — It seems, early in the morning; and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars: so shall thy seed be — 1st, So innumerable, for so the stars seem to a common eye. Abram feared he should have no child at all, but God tells him his descendants should be so many as not to be numbered. 2d, So illustrious, as the stars of heaven for splendour; for to “them pertained the glory,” Rom 9:4. Abram’s seed according to the flesh were like the “dust of the earth,” Gen 13:16, but his spiritual seed are like the stars of heaven.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 5. Brought him forth abroad — Whether in vision,…
5. Brought him forth abroad — Whether in vision, or on the night following the day of the vision of Gen_15:1, has been disputed. Either supposition is allowable, and some think the whole transaction occupied two nights and one day. Another view is, to regard the whole transaction up to Gen_15:12 as a vision of the daytime. See note at the beginning of the chapter.
Tell the stars — Rather, number the stars. The Lord had promised him posterity numberless as the grains of dust, (Gen_13:16;) now he compares their number to the stars. “God does not tell him how, but a third time, more emphatically and sublimely than ever, the great promise is repeated, and Abram is led forth, ‘whether in the body or out of the body’ it matters not, to look into the deep Asiatic heavens, and the stars are pointed out to him as emblems of his seed.
Read full note →
So shall thy seed be — In numbers, in heavenly splendor. No proof or evidence whatever is offered him, nothing but the naked word of God.” — Newhall.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 5. tell the stars] i.e. count. A proverbial expression…
5. tell the stars] i.e. count. A proverbial expression for the infinite and innumerable, as in Gen_22:17, Gen_26:4.
The word “tell” is Old English for “count,” as in Psa_22:17, “I may tell all my bones”; Psa_48:12, “tell the towers thereof”; Jer_33:13, “And in the cities of Judah shall the flocks again pass under the hands of him that telleth them.” Cf. “And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale” (Milton, L’Allegro, 67, 68).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (5) He brought him forth.—There is no reason for…
(5) He brought him forth.—There is no reason for regarding this as a poetical description of a merely mental emotion. With his senses dormant, but alive to every spiritual impression, Abram feels himself led forth from the tent into the open space around, and is there commanded to count the stars. As a matter of fact, the stars visible to the naked eye are not very numerous, but they have ever been a received metaphor for an infinite multitude, probably because, as men gaze, they perpetually see the faint radiance of more and more distant constellations. Thus they cannot be counted, and Abram’s seed was to be countless, because of the vastness of its number.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain And he (Jehovah, or "the Word of the Lord")…
And he (Jehovah, or "the Word of the Lord") brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them (a proof that Abram"s vision was not a dream): and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. Hence it has been inferred that Abram"s vision was miraculously quickened to penetrate the depths of space and gaze upon the vastness of the stellar world, since the stars visible to the naked eye would not represent an innumerable multitude (Candlish).
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain And He brought him forth abroad, and said, Look…
Gen_15:5-6
And He brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and He said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
Read full note →
And he believed in the Lord, and He counted it to him for righteousness
Abrams faith
These two verses lie close together on one page of the Bible. They are part of a brief event in one human life. Yet, as we read them, they seem to separate from each other, and to stand very far apart. The fifth verse is altogether of the past. It shows us the tent of the patriarch gleaming white in the clear starlight of the Eastern night. We learn with Abraham to look up and believe and be at rest. The sixth verse suggests thoughts of the nearer present. From the hour when St. Paul first cited this fact of Abrahams faith and his justification by faith, this verse has been taken out of the older story and bedded in our modern controversies.
I. In these verses lies the union of two things that God has joined together and that man is ever trying to separate--LIFE AND LIGHT. God revealed Himself to us, not by words that told of a Father, but by a life that showed a Father; not by a treatise on Fatherhood, but by the manifestation of a Son. And so He ever joins the light of precept with the life of practice.
II. We read that Abraham believed God--NOT THEN FOR THE FIRST TIME, NOT THEN ONLY. He had heard Gods voice before, and at its bidding had gone out to be an exile and pilgrim all his days. His faith was no intellectual assent to a demonstrated proposition; it was the trust of the heart in the voice of God. It was the belief, not that solves difficulties, but that rises above them.
III. WHY WAS ABRAHAMS FAITH COUNTED TO HIM FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS? Because, as all sin lies folded in one thought of distrust, so in one thought of trust lies all possible righteousness--its patience, its hope, its heroism, its endurance, its saintliness; and therefore He who sees the end from the beginning reckons it as righteousness. In the faith of Abraham lay all the righteous endurance, all the active service, of his believing life. This simple trust of Abraham made the practical motive power of his life, as it should make that of ours. (Bp. Magee.)
Gods covenant and Abrams faith
I. WHAT WAS THE COVENANT, AND TO WHOM WAS IT REALLY MADE?
1. As we commonly use the term it means an agreement between two equal parties who bind themselves to do, or not to do, certain things. In the realm of Redemption it cannot be so, because God and man are not equals and cannot make mutual agreements. Gods covenant begins and ends with Himself. It comes to us only through His mercy and grace. The power to fulfil its conditions, on mans part, comes through the same grace received into the heart by faith.
2. To whom was this promise made? To Abraham and his seed, which is Christ.
II. WHAT WAS, AND IS, ACCEPTABLE FAITH? We see at a glance that the covenant asked almost nothing of its recipient as he left his home and entered Canaan. He had done nothing, that we can see, which would in the least entitle him to hear so large a promise, so divine. To be sure, we read that he would bring up his children well, but this hardly constitutes a valid reason why he should be selected to become heir of the world and the father of the faithful. We have the exact announcement here: He believed in the Lord; and He counted it to him for righteousness. It need not have been counted, if it had been real and intrinsic righteousness. It would have stood out in its own merits. In a word, it was the obedience of faith--the obedience springing out of, and kept alive by, faith. So far as sight went, there was nothing to justify his acceptance of the amazing promise that his seed should be as the dust and the stars for number, and that he should be the father of a nation which should fill and bless the earth. And although Christ is fully revealed to us, the steps from the life of nature into that of grace are essentially steps into an uncertainty. Only by faith do we know what we shall find when we accept salvation. We make a venture. We put the foot out for a step, and the only confidence we have that we shall not fall is the confidence of faith. Like Abraham we are called to go out into a country that shall be showed us after we have started for it. And how often must we leave kindred and friends behind us, like Christian in the dream of John Bunyan, and set our faces away from all that charms us, and cry aloud: Life! life! nor tarry in all the plain? (E. N. Packard.)
The covenant with Abram
I. GODS REST GIFT TO MAN IS HIMSELF (Gen_15:1). Hitherto God had promised to confer blessings upon Abram. Not till now had He promised to bestow Himself. Abram knew that God was better than His gifts. If He would confer Himself, no good can be lacking. So, taking God at His word, Abrams struggling faith comes to victory.
II. GOD GRANTS TO THE RELIEVING SOUL FREE INTERCOURSE WITH HIMSELF. As yet, whenever God had spoken, Abram had kept silence. Now his lips are opened.
III. GOD REVEALS HIMSELF TO MAN IN A WAY ADAPTED TO HIS PRESENT NEED. Abram had said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit the land? God heeded this request, and gave him a token adapted to his age and country. That was four thousand years ago, and in a barbarous age. To expect now such, or any sensuous phenomenon at the meeting place of God and man, would be to roll back the stream of time and expect the nineteenth century after Christ to be as gross in its spiritual conceptions as the nineteenth century before him. Still, the fact that God regarded Abrams request, and in a manner suited to His comprehension condescended to bind Himself by covenant to His promises of grace, is a lesson of perpetual hope. Gods ear is never closed to His childrens cry.
IV. GODS REVELATIONS TO MAN ARE PROGRESSIVE. There are seven or eight recorded instances of Gods communing with Abram (see Gen_12:1-3; Gen_12:7; Gen_21:13; Gen_21:15; Gen_21:17; Gen_21:22.). As God dealt with Abram He deals with us. The blessing faith asks for and receives today is the type of a richer one tomorrow. To Abram, childless, wandering in a strange land, the highest imagined good was a son and a home. These God promised. But how much greater the blessing when it was revealed that God in him was to reknit the broken bond between Himself and a fallen race, and through his seed to provide a Saviour for an apostate world! Faith, wherever it enters, makes the soul expansive. Today it wants and obtains; and by that very obtaining its wants are heightened still, and these when gratified yet more enlarge the soul, and urge it on to ask and expect yet ampler blessings. Nor is there ever fear that mans increased capacity or desire will exceed Gods ability to grant. The depths of His power and love are unfathomable.
V. THE CHANNEL THROUGH WHICH GODS BLESSINGS FLOW TO MAN IS FAITH. Notice the process by which Abrams faith resulted, Hot only in an imputed, but also in an actual righteousness. He hears the call of God, and comes to the decisive act of trusting Him. He then rises to the successive steps of walking with God, covenanting with Him, communing and interceding with Him, and at length withholding from Him nothing which he regards most dear. From this example of Abram several lessons respecting faith are taught. We learn that--
1. The sinners first duty is to believe what God has spoken. Had Abram disbelieved God, every act born of that disbelief would have been an act of sin. The only right thing he could do was to believe God and accept His proffered favour. So is it now To have confidence in God, to repose in Him, to fall into the arms of His promised grace, is the only first right act a sinner can perform. Hence the Scriptures emphasize the truth that salvation comes from believing.
2. The foundation of faith is Gods promise. God had told Abram what He would do. Abrams faith consisted in believing that God would do just as He had said.
3. Obedience is an essential element in faith. Because Abram believed God he obeyed Him. It is, says Selden, an unhappy division that is made between faith and works. Though in my interest I may divide them, just as in the candle I know there is both light and heat, yet put out the candle and they are both gone; one remains not without the other. So is it betwixt faith and works.
4. Faith is the souls simplest act, and also its mightiest energy. To Abram, weak and sinful, what so simple as to trust, like a little child, in his heavenly Father? Yet thus he became mightier than a conqueror.
5. Faiths highest conquests are not at first. (P. B. Davis.)
Gods covenant with Abram
I. ABRAM HAD EXPOSED HIMSELF TO DANGEROUS REPRISALS BY HIS VICTORY OVER THE CONFEDERATE EASTERN RAIDERS. In the reaction following the excitement of battle, dread and despondency seem to have shadowed his soul. Therefore the assurance with which this chapter opens came to him. It was new, and came in a new form. He is cast into a state of spiritual ecstasy, and a mighty word sounds, audible to his inward ear. The form which it takes--I am thy shield--suggests the thought that God shapes His revelation according to the moments need. The unwarlike Abram might well dread the return of the marauders in force, to avenge their defeat. Therefore God speaks to his fears and present want. Abram had just exercised singular generosity in absolutely refusing to enrich himself from the spoil. God reveals Himself as his exceeding great reward. He gives Himself as recompense for all sacrifices.
II. MAKE THE TRIUMPHANT FAITH WHICH SPRINGS TO MEET THE DIVINE PROMISE. The first effect of that great assurance is to deepen Abrams consciousness of the strange contradiction to it apparently given by his childlessness. It is not distrust that answers the promise with a question, but it is eagerness to accept the assurance and ingenuous utterance of difficulties in the hope of their removal. God is too wise a Father not to know the difference between the tones of confidence and unbelief, however alike they may soured; and He is too patient to be angry if we cannot take in all His promise at once. He breaks it into bits not too large for our lips, as He does hove. The frequent reiterations of the same promises in Abrams life are not vain. They are a specimen of the unwearied repetition of our lessons, Here a little, there a little, which our teacher gives his slow scholars. So, once more, Abram gets the promise of posterity in still more glorious form. Before, it was likened to the dust of the earth; now it is as the innumerable stars shining in the clear eastern heaven. As he gazes up into the solemn depths, the immensity and peace of the steadfast sky seems to help him to rise above the narrow limits and changefulness of earth, and a great trust floods his soul. Belief as credence is mainly an affair of the head, but belief as trust is the act of the will and the affections. The object of faith is set in sunlight clearness by these words--the first in which Scripture speaks of faith. Abram leaved on the Lord. It was not the promise, but the promiser, that was truly the object of Abrams trust.
III. MARK THE FULL-ORBED GOSPEL TRUTH AS TO THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH WHICH IS IMBEDDED IN THIS RECORD OF EARLY REVELATION. He counted it to him for righteousness. A geologist would be astonished if he came on remains in some of the primary strata which indicated the existence, in these remote epochs, of species supposed to be of much more recent date. So here we are startled at finding the peculiarly New Testament teaching away hack in this dim distance. No wonder that Paul fastened on this verse, which so remarkably breaks the flow of the narrative, as proof that his great principle of justification by faith was really the one only law by which, in all ages, men had found acceptance with God. Long before law or circumcision, faith had been counted for righteousness. The whole Mosaic system was a parenthesis; and even in it, whoever had been accepted had been so because of his trust, not because of his works. The whole of the subsequent Divine dealings with Israel rested on this act of faith, and on the relation to God into which, through it, Abram entered. He was not a perfectly righteous man, as some passages of his life show; but he rose here to the height of loving and yearning trust in God, and God took that trust in lieu of perfect conformity to His will.
IV. CONSIDER THE COVENANT WHICH IS THE CONSEQUENCE OF ABRAMS FAITH, AND THE PROOF OF HIS ACCEPTANCE. It is important to observe that the whole remainder of this chapter is regarded by the writer as the result of Abrams believing God. The way in which Gen_15:7 and the rest are bolted on, as it were, to Gen_15:6, clearly shows this. The nearer lesson from this fact is that all the Old Testament revelation from this point onward, rests on the foundation of faith. The further lesson, for all times, is that faith is ever rewarded by more intimate and loving manifestations of Gods friendship, and by fuller disclosures of His purposes. The covenant is not only Gods binding Himself anew by solemn acts to fulfil His promises already made, but it is His entering into far sweeter and nearer alliance with Abram than even He had hitherto had. That name, the friend of God, by which he is still known over all the Muhammadan world, contains the very essence of the covenant. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The covenant with Abram
I. ABRAMS APPREHENSION AND GODS ASSURANCE.
1. The Divine words, Fear not, suggest that Abram was now filled with apprehension.
2. There was strong ground for such apprehension.
3. In this opportune moment of apprehension, Gods gracious voice of assurance was heard in vision by Abram.
(1) Encouraging words. Do not fear!
(2) The ground of the encouragement. I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward.
(a) As his shield, an all-sufficient protection.
(b) As his exceeding great reward, better than all spoils of war or earthly good.
(c) A present help in every time of need is our covenant God.
II. ABRAMS QUESTIONING AND GODS ANSWER.
1. This question was natural.
2. This question was timely.
3. It has been quaintly said: The pious complaint of human weakness before God must be distinguished from impious murmurs against God.
4. Gods answer.
(1) Positive.
(2) All-assuring.
III. ABRAMS FAITH AND GODS ATTESTATION.
1. This act of faith seems to have risen to a sublimer height, and to have been more spiritually appropriating, than any previous act had been.
2. Gods special attestation of this act of faith is peculiarly significant Rom_4:18-25).
3. The solemn ratifying rite.
4. Abrams deep sleep, and accompanying revelation from God. Lessons:
1. The assurance of Gods grace should quiet all our fears, and give abiding strength to our faith in His promises.
2. Let us imitate Abrams sublime faith when (Rom_4:20).
3. Unbelief dishonours God; faith glorifies Him. (D. C. Hughes, M. A.)
The covenant with Abram
I. ABRAM QUESTIONING. He never doubted God. But his faith was tried. His question in Gen_15:2 is a prayer for more light, as afterwards, in Gen_15:8, he asks for some token from God to assure him.
II. ABRAM BELIEVING. He believed that nothing was impossible with God, and that Gods promise must be true. This faith, then, was simply trusting Gods word.
III. ABRAM ASSURED. Abram watched. Abram waited. Then deep sleep fell on him. Gods time often comes when His servants weakness is most felt.
1. God unveils to Abram a glimpse of the future.
2. God allows Abram to see a symbol of the Divine Presence. (W. S. Smith, B. D.)
Lessons
1. Gods infinite condescension. Will God in very deed become a contracting party with man? Shall only the breadth of a sacrifice separate the Most High God from a sinful creature such as even Abraham was? And yet so it was.
2. Let us see here again a type and emblem of the greater covenant between the Father and the Son, the covenant of grace.
3. And we ought, in fine, to enter into covenant, as Abraham did, with God. In every act of firm belief in God and Christ there is implied the idea of covenant obligation. We bind ourselves to be Gods forever; and He promises, not to us by ourselves (as is supposed in a personal covenant), but to us as in Christ, all those blessings, present and future, which are implied in Him. (G. Gilfillan.)
The word count used in two senses
At the last general election some millions of votes had to be counted. And the proceedings on that occasion illustrated the fact that the verb to count is used in two senses. The clerk counts the voting papers he takes out of the ballot box; but presently he comes to one which has been filled up by the voter irregularly, and, throwing it aside, he exclaims, That will not count, or I cant count that. He does not mean that there is any physical difficulty in adding that one vote to the number he has arrived at. He means that it must not be reckoned. The same distinction may be seen in the Bible. When David says of Gods precious thoughts, If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand (Psa_139:18), the word count is used in the ordinary sense of numbering; and the same Hebrew word is sometimes translated number, as in Davids numbering of the people. But when the Psalmist complains, We are counted as sheep for the slaughter Psa_44:22), he means not numbered, but regarded, or reckoned; and the Hebrew word used is elsewhere rendered reckoned, or imputed, as in Psa_32:2, Unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. So also in the Greek of the New Testament; and teachers should particularly note, in studying this lesson, that in the Authorised Version of Romans
4. the words count (which occurs twice), reckon (which occurs three times), and impute (which occurs six times), all stand for one Greek word, which is used eleven times in that chapter, and always means count in the second sense. In the Revised Version this is put right, and in no chapter is the revision more valuable. It renders the word by reckon in every case, and every reader feels the immensely increased strength of St. Pauls argument. Now these two senses of the word count both appear in Gen_15:1-21, in the fifth and sixth verses. (In the fifth verse the English words tell and numbered are the same in the Hebrew, and are, of course, equivalent to count and counted). And in both cases the use of the expression is very significant. (E. Stock.)
Faith takes the righteous character of its object
Just as the hand of a dyer that has been working with crimson will be crimson just as the hand that has been holding fragrant perfumes will be perfumed; so my faith, which is only the hand by which I lay hold on precious things, will take the tincture and fragrance of what it grasps. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Faith in Christ our Righteousness
Like as, in winter, we no sooner go from the fire but we are cold, nor out of light but we enter into darkness, even so we no sooner be parted from Jesus Christ, who is our Righteousness and our Life, but straight we are in sin and death; forasmuch as He is our Life that quickeneth us, the Sun that giveth us light, and the Fire that warmeth, comforteth, and refresheth all His members. (J. Spencer.)
He believed in God
For the first time is that sacred emotion recorded which forms the centre of religion; which confides in things promised but unseen; which conquers every doubt by reliance and resignation; which discovers, through the mists of the present, the sunshine of the future; and which recognizes in the discordant strife of the world the traces of the eternal mind that leads it to an unceasing harmony. (M. M.Kalisch, Ph. D.)
And He counted it to him for righteousness
1. From this confessedly weighty sentence we learn, implicitly, that Abram had no righteousness. And here the universal fact of mans depravity comes out into incidental notice as a thing usually taken for granted in the words of God.
2. Righteousness is here imputed to Abram. Hence mercy and grace are extended to him; mercy taking effect in the pardon of his sin, and grace in bestowing the rewards of righteousness.
3. That in him which is counted for righteousness is faith in Jehovah promising mercy. In the absence of righteousness this is the only thing in the sinner that can be counted for righteousness.
(1) It is not of the nature of righteousness. If it were actual righteousness, it could not be counted as such. But believing God, who promises blessing to the undeserving, is essentially different from obeying God, who guarantees blessing to the deserving. Hence it has a negative fitness to be counted for what it is not.
(2) It is trust in Him who engages to bless in a holy and lawful way. Hence it is that in the sinner which brings him into conformity with the law through another, who undertakes to satisfy its demands, and secure its rewards for him. Thus it is the only thing in the sinner which, while it is not righteousness, has yet a claim to be counted for such, because it brings him into union with one who is just and having salvation. It is not material what the Almighty and All-gracious promises in the first instance to him that believes in Him, whether it be a land, or a seed, or any other blessing. All other blessing, temporal or eternal, will flow out of that express one in a perpetual course of development, as the believer advances in experience, in compass of intellect, and capacity of enjoyment. Hence it is that a land involves a better land, a seed a nobler seed, a temporal an eternal good. The patriarchs were children to us in the comprehension of the love of God: we are children to those who will hereafter experience still grander manifestations of what God has prepared for them that love Him. The shield and exceeding great reward await a yet inconceivable enlargement of meaning. (Professor J. G. Murphy.)
The rationale of faith in God
I. FAITH IN GOD SUPPOSES A DIVINE REVELATION.
1. We must have a revelation of a personal God.
2. That revelation must exhibit God in loving relations to man.
(1) As able to protect him from all evil.
(2) As a sufficient portion.
II. THE ACT OF FAITH RESTS UPON A DIVINE PROMISE.
1. Faith is the present realization of some good which we hope for.
2. Without a Divine promise, faith becomes mere adventure.
III. THERE ARE DIFFICULTIES IN FAITH WHICH GOD IS READY TO MEET.
1. Such difficulties are part of our trial in this present state.
2. Such difficulties need not overtask our faith.
IV. FAITH IN GOD IS MANS ONLY RIGHTEOUSNESS.
1. Man has no righteousness of and from himself.
2. Man cannot attain righteousness by obedience to the works of the law.
3. Man can only possess righteousness by the gracious act of God. (T. H.Leale.)
The firmness of Abrahams faith -
I. GOD SPOKE TO ABRAHAM ABOUT HIS FEAR.
II. GOD SPOKE TO ABRAHAM ABOUT HIS CHILDLESSNESS.
III. ABRAHAM BELIEVED BEFORE HE UNDERWENT THE JEWISH RITE OF CIRCUMCISION.
IV. ABRAHAM BELIEVED IN FACE OF STRONG NATURAL IMPROBABILITIES.
V. HIS FAITH WAS DESTINED TO BE SEVERELY TRIED.
VI. HIS FAITH WAS COUNTED TO HIM FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS. (F. B.Meyer, B. A.)
Justification by faith illustrated by Abrams righteousness
I. How was ABRAM JUSTIFIED?
1. He was not justified by his works.
2. This justification came to Abram not by obedience to the ceremonial law, any more that by conformity to the moral law.
3. The faith which justified Abram was still an imperfect faith, although it perfectly justified him.
(1) Imperfect beforehand. Prevarication as to wife.
(2) Imperfect afterwards. Taking Hagar in order to effect Divine purpose.
4. So far, then, all is clear: Abram was not justified by works, nor by ceremonies, nor partly by works and partly by faith, nor by the perfection of his faith--he is counted righteous simply because of his faith in the Divine promise. I must confess that, looking more closely into it, this text is too deep for me, and therefore I decline, at this present moment, to enter into the controversy which rages around it; but one thing is clear to me, that if faith be, as we are told, counted to us for righteousness, it is not because faith in itself has merit which may make it a fitting substitute for a perfect obedience to the law of God, nor can it be viewed as a substitute for such obedience. For all good acts are a duty: to trust God is our duty, and he that hath believed to his utmost hath done no more than it was his duty to have done. He who should believe without imperfection, if this were possible, would even then have only given to God a part of the obedience due; and if he should have failed in love, or reverence, or aught beside, his faith, as a virtue and a work, could not stand him in any stead. In fact, according to the great principle of the New Testament, even faith, as a work, does not justify the soul. We are not saved by works at all or in any sense, but alone by grace, and the way in which faith saves us is not by itself as a work, but in some other way directly opposite thereto.
II. Let us pass on to consider THE PROMISE UPON WHICH HIS FAITH RELIED when Abram was justified.
1. Abrams faith, like ours, rested upon a promise received direct from God. This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And He brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and He said unto him, So shall thy seed by. Had this promise been spoken by any other, it would have been a subject of ridicule to the patriarch; but, taking it as from the lip of God, he accepts it, and relies upon it. Now, if you and I have true faith, we accept the promise, He that believeth, and is baptised, shall be saved, as being altogether Divine.
2. Abrams faith was faith in a promise concerning the seed. He saw Christ by the eye of faith, and then he saw the multitude that should believe in Him, the seed of the father of the faithful. The faith which justifies the soul concerns itself about Christ, and not concerning mere abstract truths.
3. Abram had faith in a promise which it seemed impossible could ever be fulfilled. The faith which justifies us must be of the same kind. It seems impossible that I should ever be saved; I cannot save myself; I see absolute death written upon the best hopes that spring of my holiest resolutions; In me, that is, in my flesh, there dwelleth no good thing; but yet for all this I believe that through the life of Jesus I shall live, and inherit the promised blessing.
4. This justifying faith was faith which dealt with a wonderful promise, vast and sublime. I do not hear him saying, It is too good to be true. No; God hath said it--and nothing is too good for God to do. The greater the grace of the promise, the more likely it is to have come from Him, for good and perfect gifts come from the Father of Lights. Canst thou believe that heaven is thine, with all its ecstasies of joy, eternity with its infinity of bliss, God with all His attributes of glory? Oh! this is the faith that justifies, far-reaching, wide-grasping faith, that diminishes not the word of promise, but accepts it as it stands.
5. Once more, Abram showed faith in the promise as made to himself. Out of his own bowels a seed should come, and it was in him and in his seed that the whole world should be blessed. I can believe all the promises in regard to other people. I find faith in regard to my dear friend to be a very easy matter, but oh! when it comes to close grips, and to laying hold for yourself, here is the difficulty.
III. In the third place, let us notice THE ATTENDANTS OF ABRAMS JUSTIFICATION.
1. With your Bibles open, kindly observe that, after it is written his faith was counted to him for righteousness, it is recorded that the Lord said to him, I am Jehovah that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it. When the soul is graciously enabled to perceive its complete justification by faith, then it more distinctly discerns its calling. Now, the believer perceives his privileged separation, and discerns why he was convinced of sin, why he was led away from self-righteousness and the pleasures of this world, to live the life of faith; now he sees his high calling and the prize of it, and from the one blessing of justification he argues the blessedness of all the inheritance to which he is called.
2. Abram, after being justified by faith, was led more distinctly to behold the power of sacrifice. By Gods command he killed three bullocks, three goats, three sheep, with turtle doves and pigeons, being all the creatures ordained for sacrifice.
3. Perhaps even more important was the next lesson which Abram had to learn. He was led to behold the covenant. I suppose that these pieces of the bullock, the lamb, the ram, and the goat, were so placed that Abram stood in the midst with a part on this side and a part on that. So he stood as a worshipper all through the day, and towards nightfall, when a horror of great darkness came over him, he fell into a deep sleep. Who would not feel a horror passing over him as he sees the great sacrifice for sin, and sees himself involved therein? Can God forget a covenant with such sanctions? Can such a federal bond so solemnly sealed be ever broken? Impossible. Man is sometimes faithful to his oath, but God is always so; and when that oath is confirmed for the strengthening of our faith by the blood of the Only-begotten, to doubt is treason and blasphemy. God help us, being justified, to have faith in the covenant which is sealed and ratified with blood.
4. Immediately after, God made to Abram (and here the analogy still holds) a discovery, that all the blessing that was promised, though it was surely his, would not come without an interval of trouble. You are a justified man, but you are not freed from trouble. Your sins were laid on Christ, but you still have Christs cross to carry. The Lord has exempted you from the curse, but He has not exempted you from the chastisement. Learn that you enter on the childrens discipline on the very day in which you enter upon their accepted condition.
5. To close the whole, the Lord gave to Abram an assurance of ultimate success. He would bring his seed into the promised land, and the people who had oppressed them He would judge. So let it come as a sweet revelation to every believing man this morning, that at the end he shall triumph, and that those evils which now oppress him shall be cast beneath his feet. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Faith counted for righteousness
The expression counted for righteousness does not signify, considered as a righteous act; but it means, accepted for righteousness. Righteousness, such as would satisfy Gods holy law, he had not; but faith he had: and God takes this faith as a substitute for righteousness, and reckons it to him as righteousness.
1. This faith was an entire surrender of himself to God, and renouncing of his own will and wisdom.
2. It was an implicit confidence in the Divine faithfulness and veracity.
3. It looked to Gods promise; and that promise contained, in germ, the whole doctrine of the gospel.
4. This faith showed itself in holy obedience.
I. WE ARE BY NATURE, AND IN OURSELVES, UNRIGHTEOUS.
II. WE ARE NOT ABLE TO SAVE OURSELVES BY WORKS.
III. TO BE MADE RIGHTEOUS MEANS TO BE SET PERFECTLY RIGHT WITH GODS LAW.
IV. THIS CAN BE DONE FOR US ONLY BY FAITH. In other words, our salvation must be of grace; it must be accomplished for us by God; and we must acquiesce in His method, and surrender ourselves to His power.
V. FAITH, IN RESTING UPON GODS WORD, RESTS UPON A STATEMENT, A DOCTRINE, AND A PROMISE. The statement is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died, rose again, and now sitteth at Gods right hand. The doctrine is that His death was an express and all-sufficient atonement for our sins; so that God now, looking at it, can be just and the justifier of the ungodly. The promise is that all sin shall be remitted, and all righteousness imputed to him who truly repents and shelters in the atoning sacrifice of Christ.
VI. YET FAITH HAS A PRACTICAL RESULT. He who thus believes is saved. He is inspired with love to God; he is renewed in the Divine likeness, and made a partaker of the Holy Ghost; and therefore he must delight to keep Gods commandments and do His will. Application:
1. To the ungodly. Seek justification, and so flee from the wrath to come.
2. To those seeking to be righteous. Will you study Gods method of righteousness, which is by faith, and at once fall in with it?
3. To believers. Cultivate more faith, and rest confident of never perishing, but having eternal life. Beware of relapsing into the spirit of merit mongering and legalism. (The Congregational Pulpit.)
Abrahams faith counted for righteousness
To establish the doctrine of justification by the righteousness of Christ, it is not necessary to maintain that the faith of Abram means Christ in whom he believed. Nor can this be maintained; for it is manifestly the same thing, in the account of the Apostle Paul, as believing, which is very distinct from the object believed in. The truth appears to be this: It is faith, or believing, that is counted for righteousness; not, however, as a righteous act, or on account of any inherent virtue contained in it, but in respect of Christ, on whose righteousness it terminates. That we may form a clear idea, both of the text and the doctrine, let the following particulars be considered:--
1. Though Abram believed God when he left Ur of the Chaldees, yet his faith in that instance is not mentioned in connection with his justification; nor does the apostle, either in his Epistle to the Romans or in that to the Galatians, argue that doctrine from it, or hold it up as an example of justifying faith. I do not mean to suggest that Abram was then in an unjustified state; but that the instance of his faith which was thought proper by the Holy Spirit to be selected as the model for believing for justification, was not this, nor any other of the kind; but those only in which there was an immediate respect had to the person of the Messiah. By Him, all that believe (that is, in Him) are justified from all things, from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses. It is through faith in His blood that they obtain remission of sins--He is just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.
2. This distinction, so clearly perceivable both in the Old and New Testament, sufficiently decides in what sense faith is considered as justifying. Whatever other properties the magnet may possess, it is as pointing invariably to the north that it guides the mariner: so whatever other properties faith may possess, it is as pointing to Christ, and bringing us into union with Him, that it justifies.
3. The phrase, counted it for righteousness, does not mean that God thought it to be what it was, which would have been merely an act of injustice; but His graciously reckoning it what in itself it was not; viz., a ground for the bestowment of covenant blessings.
4. Though faith is not our justifying righteousness, yet it is a necessary concomitant, and mean of justification; and being the grace which above all others honours Christ, it is that which above all others God delights to honour. Hence it is that justification is ascribed to it, rather than to the righteousness of Christ without it. Our Saviour might have said to Bartimeus, Go thy way, I have made thee whole. This would have been truth, but not the whole of truth which it was His design to convey. The necessity of faith in order to healing would not have appeared from this mode of speaking, nor had any honour been done, or encouragement been given to it: but by His saying, Go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole, each of these ideas is conveyed, Christ would omit mentioning His own honour, and knowing that faith having an immediate respect to Him, amply provided for it. (A. Fuller.)
Power of faith
He who walks by sight only, walks in a blind alley. He who does not know the freedom and joy of reverent, loving speculation, wastes his life in the gloomy cell of the mouldiest of prisons. Even in matters that are not distinctly religious, faith will be found to be the inspiration and strength of the most useful life. It is faith that does the great work in the world. It is faith that sends men in search of unknown coasts. It is faith that re-trims the lamp of inquiry, when sight is weary of the flame. It is faith that unfastens the cable and gives men the liberty of the seas. It is faith that inspires the greatest works in civilization. So we cannot get rid of religion unless we first get rid of faith, and when we get rid of faith we give up our birthright and go into slavery forever. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Firm religious belief
Sir Humphrey Davy used to remark, I envy not quality of the mind or intellect in others; nor genius, power, wit, or fancy; but if I could choose what would be most delightful, and, I believe, most useful to me, I should prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing; for it makes life a discipline of goodness; creates new hopes when all hopes vanish; and throws over the decay, the destruction of existence, the most gorgeous of all lights; awakens life even in death, and from corruption and decay calls up beauty and divinity; makes an instrument of torture and of shame the ladder of ascent to paradise; and, far above all combinations of earthly hopes, calls up the most delightful visions and plains and amaranths, the gardens of the blest, the security of everlasting joys, where the sensualist and the sceptic view only gloom, decay, annihilation, and despair.
Abram believed
This is the first time the word believed occurs in the Bible. How wonderful this chapter is in the matter of first uses of words! It seems to be a chapter of beginnings! Believed--what a history opens in this one word! The moment Abram believed, he was truly born again. We may see here some of the great meanings of the word. Paul says of Abram that against hope he believed in hope, and that he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief. Here, then, we may study the word at the fountain head. Believed means supported, sustained, strengthened; Abram nourished and nurtured himself in God; Abram hid his life and his future in this promise, as a child might hide or nestle in a mothers breast. That is faith. He took the promise as a fulfilment; the word was to him a fact. Thus he was called out of himself, out of his own trust, out of his own resources, and his life was fostered upon God--he by-lived, lived-by, believed, God! It was surely a perilous moment. Appearances were against the promise. Doubt might well have said, How can this thing be? But Abram staggered not. Gods love was set before him like an open door, and Abram went in and became a child at home. Henceforward the stars had new meanings to him, as, long before, the rainbow had to Noah. Abram drew himself upward by the stars. Every night they spoke to him of his posterity and his greatness. They were henceforward not stars only but promises, and oaths, and blessings. Thus dust is turned into flesh; bread into sacramental food; and stars become revelations and prophecies. This act of believing in the Lord was accounted unto Abram for righteousness. From the first, God has always made much of faith. In no instance has it been treated as a mere matter of course, but rather as a precious thing that called for approbation and blessing. Faith was counted unto Abram for character; it added something positive to his being; he became more than merely harmless; he became noble, dignified, righteous. To believe, is not simply to assent; it is to take the thing promised as if it were actually given; and this action on the part of man is followed by an exactly corresponding action on the part of God, for he takes the faith as righteousness, the act of belief as an act of piety, a mental act as a positive heroism. What Abram did, we ourselves have to do. He rested on the word of God; he did not wait until the child was born, and then say, Now I believe; that would not have been faith, it would have been sight. It is thus that I must believe God; I must throw my whole soul upon Him, and drive all doubt, all fear, from my heart, and take the promise as a fact. (J. Parker, D. D.)
And he believed in the Lord
Scarcely any event of the Old Testament is more frequently celebrated than this, and made the subject of more lengthy comment. Abraham believed God; and it was counted unto him for righteousness. It is a story as beautiful as it is blessed, if we can but tell it as it should be told. Let us listen, longing that Abrahams faith may be ours. After these things the word of the Lord came upon Abram in a vision, saying--So it ever begins. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Do not let us begin to think of Abrahams advantage in the vision. We have the Word of God as he never had it, or could have it. Above all, we have the Word made flesh, the Only-Begotten, full of truth and grace. A thousand precious promises ever wait to welcome us, and pledge to us the blessing of our God. And it is from the Word that faith springs. Fear not, Abram. Abram was fearing and fretting. And well he might. I am thy shield, come in under My presence, I will screen thee, and I will be thy portion, thy reward exceeding great. Thus God draws His mournful child to Himself that He may comfort him. I am. What God is, is our blessedness. To know Him is rest; to know Him is to rejoice. And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt Thou give me, seeing I go childless? Give thee indeed, Abraham! Surely thou art forgetting how much He has given thee. Has He not given thee already more than enough? Wealth does but leave me poor indeed; lands and fame yield no comfort if He be not mine! O blessed longing, O holy discontent, to find no rest, no satisfaction, except in Christ! No complaint is so welcome to our God as that which comes from a longing for Christ. Then comes the promise of a son distinct and assured. And not spoken only, but God led him forth and bade him look into the heavens. And Abraham believed in the Lord. Unbelief has plenty of ground for the sole of its foot, and might very well have said: My Lord, that is impossible. Unbelief might have whispered again: I do not see hew it can be? Unbelief makes much of that: I do not see how it can be. But what of that? Are there not ten thousand things which I have not sense enough to understand, but which I am glad to be sure of for all that! Of all follies the supreme folly is unbelief. Abraham listened, and God spake. Abraham looked, and all about him was the pledge and measure of this promise: And Abraham believed in the Lord. If God had said it should be, why of course it must be--must be. There is no room for doubt. For thee and me there is a vision brighter than that Syrian sky and the glory of the heavens. We see Jesus. To be like Him--is our high colling and the glorious promise of God. What shall we say? Shall we look at ourselves, at our failings, at our folly? Shall we go through the list of our hindrances and difficulties? Shall we begin to argue about the possibility of it all? Or shall we boldly take hold of the Almighty power of God and rest in the assurance of the word that cannot be broken? The servant shall be as his Lord. See further. The impossibility was Gods possibility. The relation of Abraham to the Messiah was not of nature, but by a new creation, a resurrection. So then for us here is the great secret of the blessed life: It is an utter and absolute surrender of ourselves to God for the fulfilment of His purposes; and then an abiding confidence in Him that He will assuredly fulfil the word wherein He hath caused us to hope. (M. G.Pearse.)
Look now toward heaven
You may be hemmed in on every side; but you are not hemmed in overhead. If you cannot see a great way before you, or on either hand, you can see far enough straight up. When you question what God can do, look above, and see what God has done. This looking at obstacles, fixing our eyes on the hills or the bogs, on the lions or the bad men in our pathway, is discouraging business. It makes us believe that there is no way out of our difficulties. But to look up into the clear sky, and to see the moon and the stars in their marvellous beauty, inspires us to the feeling that there are no difficulties out of which their Maker cannot find the way for us. What is it that has discouraged you? Is it your empty purse; or the business outlook of the times; or the rumours of impending war; or the misdoing or the lack of your wayward boy; or the suspicious looks of those who used to trust you; or the sense of your own poor health; or a fresh conviction of your lack of mental power? Whatever it is that has made you anxious, look now toward heaven: there is nothing discouraging in that direction. If the Lord who made the heavens, and keeps the moon and the stars in their places, has given you a promise, you may be sure that He can make that promise good. (H. C. Trumbull.)
So shall thy seed be
That the Lord assumed any visible form is not likely, and it would lessen the sweetness, solitude, and sublimity of the incident. No! Abraham stands there alone, like a grey granite rock glimmering in the light of stars. Behind him are his tents, where every eye is closed in slumber. Around stretches the wide solitary plain, with the hills of Hebron in the distance. Above is the illimitable firmament, not, as in this climate, spotted here and there with patches and streaks, and points of splendour, but hanging down like a roof of solid and compacted gold; the points, and streaks, and patches being those of the darkness, and serving to relieve the intensity, and to measure the depth of the surrounding glory. In the clear air of the Eastern night, the breeze of midnight blowing and increasing the transparency, as well as the coolness of the atmosphere, the stars look myriads and millions, the Pleiades appear, not as to us, a nest of fireflies tangled in a silver braid, but a hundred distinct particles of glowing light; Orion seems not to us a giant half seen through wisps of mist, but like Nebuchadnezzars golden image in the plain of Dura, blazing equally from every limb; constellations unknown to, or dimly seen in our latitudes, here sparkle like gems of various colours, red, blue, purple, and green; and although only a section of the Great Bear looms above the northern horizon, the southern man is not conscious of the mutilation, and sees instead--oh! rapturous object to the Christian heart, although Abraham is not yet aware of the import of the solemn symbol--the Cross of the South, with its unequal and tremulous, but beautiful angles, appearing like a tree of glory on the remotest verge of the horizon. And while Abraham is gazing at this mass of heavenly splendour, and vainly trying to number its bright atoms, there comes a whisper from above the stars, which, as it passes along, hushes the breeze of night, the voice of distant streams, and the roar of wandering lions, and pierces the very core of his heart--So shall thy seed be. There are their numbers already registered in the book of heaven. (G. Gilfillan.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain Gen 15:5 - Gen 15:18.
Genesis
GOD’S COVENANT WITH ABRAM
Read full note →
Gen 15:5 - Gen 15:18.
1. Abram had exposed himself to dangerous reprisals by his victory over the confederate Eastern raiders. In the reaction following the excitement of battle, dread and despondency seem to have shadowed his soul. Therefore the assurance with which this chapter opens came to him. It was new, and came in a new form. He is cast into a state of spiritual ecstasy, and a mighty ‘word’ sounds, audible to his inward ear. The form which it takes-’I am thy shield’-suggests the thought that God shapes His revelation according to the moment’s need. The unwarlike Abram might well dread the return of the marauders in force, to avenge their defeat. Therefore God speaks to his fears and present want. Just as to Jacob the angels appeared as a heavenly camp guarding his undefended tents and helpless women; so, here and always, God is to us what we most need at the moment, whether it be comfort, or wisdom, or guidance, or strength. The manna tasted to each man, as the rabbis say, what he most desired. God’s gifts take the shape of man’s necessity.
Abram had just exercised singular generosity in absolutely refusing to enrich himself from the spoil. God reveals Himself as ‘his exceeding great reward.’ He gives Himself as recompense for all sacrifices. Whatever is given up at His bidding, ‘the Lord is able to give thee much more than this.’ Not outward things, nor even an outward heaven, is the guerdon of the soul; but a larger possession of Him who alone fills the heart, and fills the heart alone. Other riches may be counted, but this is ‘exceeding great,’ passing comprehension, and ever unexhausted, and having something over after all experience. Both these aspects of God’s preciousness are true for earth; but we need a shield only while exposed to attack. In the land of peace, He is only our reward.
2. Mark the triumphant faith which wings to meet the divine promise. The first effect of that great assurance is to deepen Abram’s consciousness of the strange contradiction to it apparently given by his childlessness. It is not distrust that answers the promise with a question, but it is eagerness to accept the assurance and ingenuous utterance of difficulties in the hope of their removal. God is too wise a father not to know the difference between the tones of confidence and unbelief, however alike they may sound; and He is too patient to be angry if we cannot take in all His promise at once. He breaks it into bits not too large for our lips, as He does here. The frequent reiterations of the same promises in Abram’s life are not vain. They are a specimen of the unwearied repetition of our lessons, ‘Here a little, there a little,’ which our teacher gives His slow scholars. So, once more, Abram gets the promise of posterity in still more glorious form. Before, it was likened to the dust of the earth; now it is as the innumerable stars shining in the clear Eastern heaven. As he gazes up into the solemn depths, the immensity and peace of the steadfast sky seems to help him to rise above the narrow limits and changefulness of earth, and a great trust floods his soul. Abram had lived by faith ever since he left Haran; but the historian, usually so silent about the thoughts of his characters, breaks through his usual manner of narrative to insert the all-important words which mark an epoch in revelation, and are, in some aspects, the most significant in the Old Testament. Abram ‘believed in the Lord; and He counted it to him for righteousness.’
Observe the teaching as to the nature and object of faith in that first clause. The word rendered ‘believed’ literally means to steady oneself by leaning on something. So it gives in a vivid picture more instructive than many a long treatise what faith is, and what it does for us. As a man leans his trembling hand on a staff, so we lay our weak and changeful selves on God’s strength; and as the most mutable thing is steadied by being fastened to a fixed point, so we, though in ourselves light as thistledown, may be steadfast as rock, if we are bound to the rock of ages by the living band of faith. The metaphor makes it plain that faith cannot be merely an intellectual act of assent, but must include a moral act, that of confidence. Belief as credence is mainly an affair of the head, but belief as trust is an act of the will and the affections.
The object of faith is set in sunlight clearness by these words,-the first in which Scripture speaks of faith. Abram leaned on ‘the Lord.’ It was not the promise, but the promiser, that was truly the object of Abram’s trust. He believed the former, because he trusted Him who made it. Many confusions in Christian teaching would have been avoided if it had been always seen that faith grasps a person, not a doctrine, and that even when the person is revealed by doctrine, it is him, and not only it, which faith lays hold of. Whether God speaks promises, teachings of truth, or commandments, faith accepts them, because it trusts Him. Christ is revealed to us for our faith by the doctrinal statements of the New Testament. But we must grasp Himself, as so revealed, if we are to have faith which saves the soul. This same thought of the true object of faith as personal helps us to understand the substantial identity of faith in all ages and stages of revelation, however different the substance of the creeds. Abram knew very little of God, as compared with our knowledge. But it was the same God whom Abram trusted, and whom we trust as made known in His Son. Hence we can stretch out our hands across the ages, and clasp his as partaker of ‘like precious faith.’ We walk in the light of the same sun,-he in its morning beams, we in its noonday glory. There has never been but one road to God, and that is the road which Abram trod, when ‘he believed in the Lord.’
3. Mark the full-orbed gospel truth as to the righteousness of faith which is embedded in this record of early revelation, ‘He counted it to him for righteousness.’ A geologist would be astonished if he came on remains in some of the primary strata which indicated the existence, in these remote epochs, of species supposed to be of much more recent date. So here we are startled at finding the peculiarly New Testament teaching away back in this dim distance. No wonder that Paul fastened on this Gen 13:1-13">, which so remarkably breaks the flow of the narrative, as proof that his great principle of justification by faith was really the one only law by which, in all ages, men had found acceptance with God. Long before law or circumcision, faith had been counted for righteousness. The whole Mosaic system was a parenthesis; and even in it, whoever had been accepted had been so because of his trust, not because of his works. The whole of the subsequent divine dealings with Israel rested on this act of faith, and on the relation to God into which, through it, Abram entered. He was not a perfectly righteous man, as some passages of his life show; but he rose here to the height of loving and yearning trust in God, and God took that trust in lieu of perfect conformity to His will. He treated and regarded him as righteous, as is proved by the covenant which follows. The gospel takes up this principle, gives us a fuller revelation, presents the perfect righteousness of Christ as capable of becoming ours by faith, and so unveils the ground on which Abram and the latest generations are equally ‘accepted in the beloved.’ This reckoning of righteousness to the unrighteous, on condition of their faith, is not because of any merit in faith. It does not come about in reward of, but by means of, their faith, which is nothing in itself, but is the channel only of the blessing. Nor is it a mere arbitrary act of God’s, or an unreal imputing of what is not. But faith unites with Christ; and ‘he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit,’ so as that ‘in Him we have redemption.’ His righteousness becomes ours. Faith grafts us into the living Vine, and we are no longer regarded in our poor sinful individual personality, but as members of Christ. Faith builds us into the rock; but He is a living Stone, and we are living stones, and the life of the foundation rises up through all the courses of the great temple. Faith unites sinful men to God in Christ; therefore it makes them partakers of the ‘blessedness of the man, . . .to whom the Lord will not impute sin,’ and of the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord reckons his faith for righteousness. That same faith which thus clothes us with the white robe of Christ’s righteousness, in lieu of our own tattered raiment, also is the condition of our becoming righteous by the actual working out in our character of all things lovely and of good report. It opens the heart to the entrance of that divine Christ, who is first made for us, and then, by daily appropriation of the law of the spirit of life, is made in us, ‘righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.’ May all who read these lines ‘be found in Him,’ having ‘that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith!’
4. Consider the covenant which is the consequence of Abram’s faith, and the proof of his acceptance.
It is important to observe that the whole remainder of this chapter is regarded by the writer as the result of Abram’s believing God. The way in which Gen 15:7 and the rest are bolted on, as it were, to Gen 15:6, clearly shows this. The nearer lesson from this fact is, that all the Old Testament revelation from this point onward rests on the foundation of faith. The further lesson, for all times, is that faith is ever rewarded by more intimate and loving manifestations of God’s friendship, and by fuller disclosure of His purposes. The covenant is not only God’s binding Himself anew by solemn acts to fulfil His promises already made, but it is His entering into far sweeter and nearer alliance with Abram than even He had hitherto had. That name, ‘the friend of God,’ by which he is still known over all the Mohammedan world, contains the very essence of the covenant. In old days men were wont to conclude a bond of closest amity by cutting their flesh and interchanging the flowing blood. Henceforth they had, as it were, one life. We have not here the shedding of Abram’s blood, as in the covenant of circumcision. Still, the slain animals represent the parties to the covenant, and the notion of a resulting unity of the closest order as between God and Abram is the very heart of the whole incident.
The particulars as to the rite by which the covenant was established are profoundly illuminative. The significant division of the animals into two shows that they were regarded as representing the contracting parties, and the passing between them symbolised the taking up of the obligations of the covenant. This strange rite, which was widely spread, derives importance from the use of it probably made in Heb 9:16 - Heb 9:17. The new covenant, bringing still closer friendship and higher blessings, is sealed by the blood of Christ. He represents both God and man. In His death, may we not say that the manhood and the Godhead are parted, and we, standing as it were between them, encompassed by that awful sacrifice, and enclosed in its mysterious depths, enter into covenant with God, and become His friends?
We need not to dwell upon the detailed promises, of which the covenant was the seal. They are simply the fuller expansion of those already made, but now confirmed by more solemn guarantees. The new relation of familiar friendship, established by the covenant itself, is the main thing. It was fitting that God’s friend should be in the secret of His purposes. ‘The servant knoweth not what his lord doeth,’ but the friend does. And so we have here the assurance that faith will pierce to the discernment of much of the mind of God, which is hid from sense and the wisdom of this world. If we would know, we must believe. We may be ‘men of God’s counsel,’ and see deeply into the realities of the present, and far ahead into what will then become the certainties of the future, if only we live by faith in the secret place of the Most High, and, like John, lean so close on the Master’s bosom that we can hear His lowest whisper.
Notice, too, the lessons of the smoking furnace and the blazing torch. They are like the pillar of fire and cloud. Darkness and light; a heart of fire and a wrapping of darkness,-these are not symbols of Israel and its checkered fate, as Dean Stanley thinks, but of the divine presence: they proclaim the double aspect of all divine manifestations, the double element in the divine nature. He can never be completely known; He is never completely hid. Ever does the lamp flame; ever around it the smoke wreathes. In all His self-revelation is ‘the hiding of His power’; after all revelation He dwelleth ‘in the thick darkness.’ Only the smoke is itself fire, but not illumined to our vision. The darkness is light inaccessible. Much that was ‘smoke’ to Abram has caught fire, and is ‘light’ to us. But these two elements will ever remain; and throughout eternity God will be unknown, and yet well known, pouring Himself in ever-growing radiance on our eyes, and yet ‘the King invisible.’
Nor is this all the teaching of the symbol. It speaks of that twofold aspect of the divine nature, by which to hearts that love He is gladsome light, and to unloving ones He is threatening darkness. As to the Israelites the pillar was light, and to the Egyptians darkness and terror; so the same God is joy to some, and dread to others. ‘What maketh heaven, that maketh hell.’ Light itself can become the source of pain the most exquisite, if the eye is diseased. God Himself cannot but be a torment to men who love darkness rather than light. Love and wrath, life and death, a God who pities and who cannot but judge, are solemnly proclaimed by that ancient symbol, and are plainly declared to us in the perfect revelation in Christ Jesus.
Observe, too, the manner of the ratification of the covenant. The symbol of the Divine presence passed between the pieces. No mention is made of Abram’s doing so. Why this one-sided covenant? Because God’s gracious dealings with men are one-sided. He seeks no oaths from us; He does not exchange blessings for our gifts. His covenant is the free result of His unmotived love, and is ratified by a solemn sacrifice, which we do not offer. We have nothing to do but to take what He gives. All ideas of barter and bargain are far from Him. Our part is but to embrace His covenant, which is complete and ratified whether we embrace it or not. What a wonderful thought that is of a covenant-making and a covenant-keeping God! We do not hear so much of it as our fathers did. The more is the pity. It means that God has, as it were, buoyed out across the boundless ocean of His possible modes of action a plain course, which He binds Himself to keep; that He has frankly let us into the very secret of His doings; that He has stooped to use human forms of assurance to make it easier to trust Him; that He has confirmed His promise by a mighty sacrifice. Therefore we may enter into closest friendship with Him, and take for our own the exultant swan-song of Abram’s royal son: ‘Although my house be not so with God [although my life be stained, and my righteousness unfit to be offered to His pure eyes]; yet He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.