Old Testament saints were saved in exactly the same way that NT saints are, through faith in Christ. They anticipated the coming of Christ ahead of time and trusted God to fulfill his promises (John 8:56); we look back with the benefit of hindsight and trust in the reality. The Mosaic law, given to Israel by God at Mount Sinai, was never intended to be an alternative method of salvation. It could never have supplanted the promise of the Abrahamic covenant that our salvation is by grace, through faith in God’s work of salvation (Galatians 3). Nor are the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants in ultimate tension with each other, as though the Abrahamic covenant were a covenant of grace alone while the Mosaic covenant was purely legal. The God who covenants with Abram under the form of a smoking firepot and flaming torch is the same God who reveals himself in fire and cloud on Mount Sinai, while the animals that are cut in two by Abram are the same as those sacrificed in the Levitical order.
How then do these covenants relate to one another? First comes the Abrahamic covenant with its emphasis on God’s sovereign choice and gracious promise to Abram, to which he responds by faith. That faith then shows itself as a living reality in a life lived in accordance with God’s character, as it has been revealed to Abram, out of gratitude for the promise (e.g., Gen. 17:1; cf. James 2:21–23). The Sinai covenant works out in far greater detail what obedience to God looks like for Israel as she lives in the Promised Land.
Yet the Abrahamic covenant is a constant reminder to Israel not to treat the law as a means of self-salvation. Salvation is of the Lord from beginning to end, and it requires the Lord to take on flesh and dwell among us as the new Israel, the one who keeps the terms of the Sinai covenant perfectly. In that way he merits our salvation and clothes us in his righteousness while at the same time giving himself up to experience the curse of covenant breaking on our behalf (2 Cor. 5:21). This is how the demands of the law have been fully satisfied and we may be saved by faith alone, through grace alone, to the glory of God alone (Eph. 2:8–10).Genesis 15
Or I shall die
Hebrew what will come out of your own loins
Or have given
15:1–6 The Lord appears to Abram in a vision (v. 1), the first reference to such an event in the Bible. Abram is called a prophet in Genesis 20:7, and this chapter contains information about the Lord’s future plans, concerning not just Abram personally but the future of the nation that will come from him. Even though this revelation is termed a “vision,” the verbal content of the revelation is more important than what, if anything, the prophet actually sees. Thus we are told that “the word of the Lord came to Abram” (15:1, 4)—the standard form for a prophetic revelation (e.g., Jer. 1:2) but the only use of the form in Genesis.
The initial vision takes place at night (Gen. 15:5) and seems to continue until the end of the following day (v. 12), unless two distinct visions have been combined. Both sections begin with an “I am” statement by the Lord, marking out the structure of the passage: “I am your shield; your reward shall be very great” (v. 1); “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess” (v. 7).
It is very common when the Lord or an angelic figure appears to someone in the Bible for the first words communicated to be “Fear not” (v. 1). It is an overwhelming experience to encounter God in this way, and so words of reassurance are in order. However, in this context these words are far more than pro forma. Fear is connected closely to unbelief (cf. Matt. 25:25), and Abram has clearly been concerned about the continuing lack of an heir, despite God’s promise to make him into a great nation (Gen. 15:2; cf. 13:16–17). In the absence of a son God’s promises could easily ring hollow and start to create doubt in Abram’s mind.
God’s promise to be a shield to his followers is common in the Psalter (cf. Pss. 3:3; 18:2; etc.) and forms a concrete image to support the imperative “Fear not.” The further assurance “Your reward shall be very great” emphasizes the Lord’s provision for as well as his protection of Abram, both of which have been in the forefront of the preceding chapters. Yet these assurances leave unaddressed the great promises of offspring and land that the Lord has also made to Abram, and as a prophet Abram boldly confronts the Lord, seeking clarification about his lack of offspring to serve as an heir. As things stand, his heir would be Eliezer of Damascus, a servant in his household, not a member of his family (Gen. 15:2–3). This is the only explicit reference to Eliezer, though it is plausible that he is the servant sent to find a wife for Isaac in Genesis 24. It was common in the ancient Near East for childless couples to adopt a servant to fill the role of a son in providing for them in old age, in return for becoming their heir. Once such an adoption had been completed, however, it could not be revoked, so it appears that Abram has not yet formally adopted Eliezer.
The Lord in turn reiterates his promise that he will give Abram a seed from his own body (“your very own son”; v. 4), not just an adoptive heir. He will provide not merely a single heir to inherit Abram’s possessions but an abundantly numerous family of descendants. The Lord illustrates this truth by taking Abram outside and showing him the stars: just as the stars are uncountable, so also will Abram’s offspring be (vv. 4–5). Yet the vision of the innumerable multitude of heaven is also intended to remind Abram that the one who called these stars into existence could surely also raise up a son for him, even if it were beyond all human hope and help. As the prophet Jeremiah puts it, “Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you” (Jer. 32:17).
It is worth noticing that there is no fundamental change in Abram’s circumstances at this point. The Lord has not yet provided a son for him. Even the promise is not exactly new; in chapter 13 the Lord promised to give Abram offspring as numerous as the dust of the earth, a similarly immeasurable quantity (Gen. 13:16). Yet on the basis of the bare word of promise Abram believes God (15:6), just as he had when he left Haran, trusting that the Lord would certainly do what he had said. This is the posture of faith in its most dependent form, and God acknowledges it, reckoning it as righteousness for Abram. That is, Abram’s continuing faith in God’s promise forms the basis on which the Lord will enter into covenant with him later in the chapter, a covenant whose fulfillment rests entirely in God’s hands, not Abram’s (cf. below). The order of events is important: The Lord promises. Abram believes the Lord’s promise. His faith is vindicated in the Lord’s ratification of the covenant between them. Abram’s salvation is thus “by faith” and not by works every bit as much as the salvation of Christians is (cf. Eph. 2:8–10).
15:7–16 The second interaction between Abram and the Lord follows a similar statement-question format. The Lord reminds Abram that he was the one who had brought Abram all the way from Ur of the Chaldeans in order to give him this land of Canaan (cf. Gen. 12:7). The phrasing anticipates the opening of the Decalogue in Exodus 20:2: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt,” which invites a comparison of this covenant with the Sinai one. In both cases the Lord’s past faithfulness is the starting point for the covenant about to be enacted.
Once again Abram points out that the promise remains yet unfulfilled; what assurance could Abram have to be sure of the Lord’s commitment to this promise (Gen. 15:8)? It is clear that faith—even deep and genuine faith—does not eliminate profound questions. On the contrary it provides the relational context in which believers can ask their deepest questions to God. In the first interaction the Lord simply showed Abram the night sky in response to his question, but his response in this second section is to invite Abram to a covenant-making ceremony, in which the Lord will underline the full depth of his commitment to fulfilling his promises to Abram and, through him, to all humanity.
First, Abram is told to gather a representative selection of sacrificial animals and cut them in two: a three-year-old (i.e., fully grown) young cow, a similar female goat and ram, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon (v. 9). Although these are animals regularly offered as sacrifices in the later Israelite cult, here they are not sacrificed, for there is no altar and no instructions concerning their blood. Rather they are killed and cut in two, except for the two birds, which are simply killed, perhaps because of their small size (v. 10; cf. Lev. 1:17).
The significance of this action is not explained in the text since it was well known to its original audience. At the conclusion of some ancient Near Eastern covenant ceremonies it was the practice for both of parties to pass between the pieces of slaughtered animals as an oath of self-malediction. In effect the participants would be saying, “If I break the terms of this covenant, may I become like these animals.” Thus one of the Sefire treaties from around 750 BC declares,
Given the symbolic importance of this action, the birds of prey that immediately threaten to consume the animals before the covenant is consummated likely speak of the difficulties and dangers that will surround Abram’s offspring as they travel to Egypt (cf. Gen. 15:13). The setting sun and the arrival of thick darkness (v. 12) also add to the threatening and fear-inducing atmosphere of the scene. The Lord proclaims Israel’s forthcoming fate in three distinct stages: going down to Egypt, being enslaved, and then being afflicted (v. 13). This would be followed by a corresponding three-stage liberation process: judgment on their afflicters, freedom and deliverance from Egypt, and return to the land (vv. 14–16). The period of exile will be four hundred years (v. 13; Ex. 12:40 records it more precisely as 430), which corresponds approximately to the “four generations” of verse 16 if “generation” (Hb. dor) here stands for an entire lifetime.
The Lord’s sovereignty over history is on full display here. There is no question as to how Israel’s future will unfold: the Lord is as sovereign over its suffering and exile from the land as he is over the time of its return to the land. Moreover, that timing is interlinked with the completion of the sin of the Amorites (Gen. 15:16), which provides the moral basis for the conquest under Joshua. The actions of the Lord’s enemies are as under his control as those of his servants are, and even the sinful acts of human beings cannot do anything other than his good purposes (50:20). Only the Lord can do such things; no other god can compare (cf. Isa. 44:6–8).
As for Abram himself, his own departure will be peaceful, after a long life (Gen. 15:15). He will experience God’s goodness and see the beginnings of the fulfillment of the promise in the shape of Isaac. When Abram dies, he will go to his fathers (v. 15), a statement that necessarily implies a concept of some form of life beyond death. But the fullness of God’s promise to him will remain unfulfilled in this life. Abram must recognize that the land he is seeking is a heavenly country, not an earthly one. God has already demonstrated his goodness to Abram, and he will continue to do so throughout his lifetime. Yet the chief and crowning blessing of his life awaits him on the other side of the grave.
15:17–21 Abram had fallen into a deep sleep at sunset (v. 12). Once it is fully dark, God’s verbal revelation that the promised offspring would indeed inherit the land of Canaan, though only after a lengthy period of suffering in a faraway country, is accompanied by a dramatic sign driving home the Lord’s personal commitment to the promise. Abram sees a smoking firepot and flaming torch pass between the pieces (v. 17). The smoke and fire represent God himself in a way that clearly anticipates the pillar of cloud and fire that will lead Israel out of Egypt (Ex. 13:21), as well as the Lord’s self-revelation to Moses at Mount Sinai (Ex. 19:18). As noted earlier, the general pattern in covenant making was for both parties to pass between the pieces of the animals, symbolizing a self-imprecatory oath, yet here only one of the parties passed between the pieces: the Lord. Clearly this is a unilateral covenant, in which the Lord is taking upon himself full responsibility to fulfill the promises of seed and land confirmed to Abram in this chapter. Abram’s only responsibility is to place his faith in God’s promise and to trust him to fulfill it.
This is a pivotal moment for mankind and especially for Israel. The solemnity of the occasion is underlined by the phrase “on that day” and the note that God is making (or “cutting”) a covenant with Abram (Gen. 15:18). The same God who will later give his people the law on Sinai is declaring four hundred years earlier that he alone will be responsible for fulfilling his commitment to Abram and his offspring. Grace comes first, before the law, over which it has ultimate priority. As a result, our salvation is by grace through faith from beginning to end (cf. Galatians 3).
Yet what could it mean for the ever-living God to pledge himself to be torn apart like those animals, rather than letting his covenant with Abram fail in its purpose? It must seem like a metaphor to Abram, a pledge of the impossible as an assurance of God’s determined purpose. Yet in the gospel the figure becomes an outrageous reality: the eternal, immortal God takes on human nature and tastes death in the place of the covenant-breaking children of Abram. On the cross God takes upon himself the full burden of making the covenant effective, despite our weakness, sin, and failure. In Jesus God himself bears the punishment of being almost literally torn apart by the whips, the thorns, the nails, and the spear for our sins, so that he could be faithful to his promise to be our God and that we might be his people through simple faith in him.
To Abram the Lord makes the unbreakable commitment to fulfill his promise to give Abram the land of Canaan—and more. In this case the boundaries allotted to the land stretch from the “river of Egypt” (Hb. nahar mitsrayim) to “the great river, the river Euphrates” (Gen. 15:18). The former landmark is sometimes identified with the “Wadi of Egypt” (nakhal mitsrayim), which represents the traditional southwestern boundary of the land (e.g., Num. 34:5). However, since the latter landmark—the Euphrates—is far beyond the normal boundaries of Israel, it may be that this boundary also reaches into Egyptian territory, perhaps as far as the eastern arm of the Nile delta. Certainly, the land described here is never controlled and inhabited by Israel, not even at the height of the Solomonic empire, which suggests that the Lord is already directing Abram’s eyes beyond mere real estate in the middle east to what the Promised Land has always represented: an eternal heavenly dwelling with God (Heb. 11:10).
At the time of the original audience, as in Abram’s day, this land was still occupied by no fewer than ten different tribal groupings: the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites (Gen. 15:19–21). Israel’s commission under Joshua, trusting in the Lord’s promise, was to drive these tribes out on the basis of their sin (v. 16)—just as Abram had trusted the Lord to do the impossible four hundred years before them.