Genesis 15:6-16:5

It’s important at this point to say something about Bible translations. We base this Home Group study on the New King James version simply because it’s easier to read for many people especially those new to the Bible. In today’s world, most new believers are not familiar with the speech of the time the Bible was translated into English.

However, the easy way’s not always the best way and this is true right here in chapter 5. I’m going to read again from the New King James version and then from the “Authorized” or the King James version.

 

Genesis 15:5 from the New King James reads, “Then He (God) brought him (Abram) outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”

Genesis 15 verse 5 from the King James reads, “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.”

Notice the difference? “Descendants”, plural against “Seed” singular.

At first glance, you’d think it was the same thing just portrayed differently but God’s painting a picture here that’s much more than we first realise.

So, first, how do we know that God meant this verse to read “seed” singular? Well, we can look to the greatest scripture teacher that ever walked the earth second only to the Lord Jesus Himself, the great apostle Paul.

In Galatians chapter 3 Paul strongly takes the Galatian Christians to task for slipping back from what Paul taught them, that salvation was by faith only. They’d started going back to the belief that salvation had to be “earned” by following the Law. But the part of chapter 3 that should stand out for us is verse 16. and I read, “Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “AND TO YOUR SEED,” who is Christ.” In this verse, the word “Seed” is used rather than descendants, even in the New King James version from which I’ve just read.

So, what’s going on here?

We, as modern-day Gentiles, don’t understand the subtle differences and deeper meanings in the original Bible languages of Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. These languages have many devices that give far deeper insight into what the writer meant. They were much more descriptive than our language today. However, God’s not left us in the dark. He’s given us the Holy Spirit who reveals all things to us, mostly through the teaching of the Apostles and by explaining scripture in different ways in different places.

Between Genesis 12:2 and Genesis 15:6, God’s promised Abram both a physical and a spiritual offspring that would come from his body. First, He’s promised Abram a great physical nation, the nation of Israel. This nation will be made up of a vast number of individuals that cannot be numbered. The spiritual nation, The Seed, singular, is Jesus Christ. He would also come from the physical nation of Israel in the form of a man, but He’ll also be from God. One in perfect unity with God. In fact, God in the flesh. This is the one who will fulfil the promise God made to Abram in Genesis 12 verse 3, “And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” The Seed, singular, is also made up of a body. The parts of that body that make up the whole are all those who have believed God as Abram did. If you and I are believers of what God has promised then you and I are critical parts that make up the seed. There’s a great number of us, in fact, we’re numbered as great as the stars.  And since we’re all one in Christ you and I are “The Seed” singular even though we’re individual personalities.

A crude but helpful example is our own body. It’s one body but made up of countless individual parts. Some may look similar such as the right eye and the left eye, but each is absolutely unique. Each part is required to function properly and in perfect harmony with all the others in order to make the body function as it should. When those body parts start to fail we start to lose some, our bodies cannot function perfectly. Take another example, a crowd. It’s one entity yet made up of many individuals. Society is another single entity made up of many different individuals, each one making up the whole. What a great mystery the Body of Christ is. Only God can know the mechanics of how He put this together. All we’re called to do is believe.

So, these wonderful verses subtly, yet clearly refer to both the physical offspring of Abram as a whole group, a nation, the Nation of Israel and, at the same time to the seed who would come from that Nation, Christ and in that seed You and I as believers are included, and we are numbered with the stars.

Did Abram know this? Yes if we look at John 8:56 where Jesus is debating with the Jewish leadership about who He was He said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.” Then in Galatians 3verse 8 Paul says, “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations shall be blessed in you.”

Here we have an explanation of why Abram, then Abraham, obeyed God in offering up His son His only son. We’ll see this in a little bit. He knew he was acting out prophecy. He was painting a picture of the greatest act of all history, the offering up by a loving father His only son as a sacrifice for the sin of the world.

And now we come to one of the greatest verses in the Bible, Genesis 15 and verse 6, “And he (Abram) believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.”

Abram believed in the Lord and He (The Lord) counted it to him for righteousness. Abram simply believes. Here we have the foundation of the Christian belief.

Paul expands on this in Romans 4:1.

“What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? (Found here means to get or to obtain). For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. In other words, he might be able to boast to us humans about how good his works were but not to a perfect and Holy God. Reading on in verse 3  For what does the Scripture say? “ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS ACCOUNTED TO HIM FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt, But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness,” Abram just simply believes God, nothing else. He accepted what God said and believed God. He knew his own works could never create what God had promised him. He knew he could never produce a vast offspring from his own 80 year old body and Sarai’s barren womb, much less give that offspring a vast land for eternity. He knew that if ever one tiny aspect of this promise was ever to be a reality it had to be made to happen by All powerful, Almighty God Himself.

That’s the way to salvation. To believe that God has done something for us. That Christ died for us and rose again and God will declare you righteous by simply accepting Christ.

We also see in the 3rd chapter of Galatians there’s that same great truth. let’s read in verse 3, “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” We also see in verse 6 just as Abraham “BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS ACCOUNTED TO HIM FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” Now verse 9, “So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.”

The faith that Abraham had made him faithful but he’s not saved by being faithful, he’s saved by believing God and that’s vital for us to grasp. The gospel was preached to Abraham, or Abram as he was still called and Abram believed. Abra is saved the same way you and I are. There’s only one way to salvation, through believing God. Not believing IN God that He exists but believing what He says. There simply is no other way.

Abram saw Christ by the eye of faith, and then he saw the multitude that would believe in him, the seed of Abraham, the father of the faithful.

The faith which justifies and makes righteous focuses on the person of Christ, not just theory or concepts. If our faith simply believes in a principle or rule or a creed it won’t save us.  A great deal of confusion in Christian teaching could be avoided if it could simply be seen that faith grasps a person, not a doctrine or a tradition or a ritual. Even when the person is revealed through doctrine, tradition and ritual, it’s Him, and not the doctrine, that faith holds on to. Whether God speaks promises, teachings of truth, or commandments, faith accepts them because it trusts Him.

When our faith believes that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them, we are believing in much more. When our faith turns to God in human flesh and rests, confidently, on him and Him alone then that is what justifies us. When we choose to believe God in spite of our feelings and emotions and in spite of our own view of the situations of our lives, that’s the faith of Abram.

Now we see that Abram is a practical man. Even though he’s the father of the faithful, there’s no Law as yet, there’s no ritual of circumcision, there’s no written scripture and Abram, this man whose whole life up to the last few years was surrounded by false Gods and pagan beliefs, wants to know how God will seal these promises to him.

We read verse 7, “Then He (God) said to him (Abram), “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it.””

Verse 8, “And he (Abram) said, “Lord GOD, how shall I know that I will inherit it?” 

Here’s what God told Abram to do. Genesis 15 verses 9 and 10, “The LORD told him, “Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”

So Abram presented all these to him and killed them. Then he cut each animal down the middle and laid the halves side by side; he did not, however, cut the birds in half. 

Again, Abram is a very practical man. He believes in dealing with reality. We all need that reality in our Christian walk. What’s the point in clinging to that which is not real? Romance and reality! Let’s start finding out what’s real and living according to that reality.

Abram wants to know something, and he would like to have that something confirmed in writing so to speak.

Here we see the wonderful relationship between God and Abram. God doesn’t cause thunderclaps to explode overhead and lightning bolts to blast down at Abram. We don’t hear God roaring so the whole universe can hear it, “How dare you question me? I’m God.”

No. God with all his Grace and Mercy and all His loving kindness gently gives Abram the assurance he’s after. He’s going to make a covenant with Abram. It’s a more sure and more binding covenant than any we make in our world today. God told Abram to prepare a sacrifice.

He was to get a heifer, a she goat, and a ram and divide or split them down the middle and put one half on one side and one half on the other.

The turtledove and the pigeon he did not divide, but put one over here and one over there.

When men made a contract in that day, this is the way they made it. In a trade or a purchase, they would prepare a sacrifice in this manner.

Each of the parties joined hands and they stated their contract, and then they walked through the sacrifice.

In that day this was exactly like going to court with documents to be signed by a notary public in our day.

So we see that God is using the legal procedure of that time with Abram.

In Jeremiah 34:18 we have a reference to this custom of that land, not just among these people, but among all peoples in the day.

The method in that day was to take the sacrifice and divide it, and the men would then make the contract.

Notice Abram got everything ready according to God’s instructions.

 Let’s read verse 11, “And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.”  

We can picture the scene. Laying all over the ground are these slaughtered carcases. You’d have been well aware of what you were doing. You’d be completely familiar with this process of making a covenant.

Abrams waiting for God to turn up and perform his part, which was to walk through this mess with him. The old crows and the gulls and the buzzards are all swooping down on it all and Abrams running around shooing them away.

Now notice what happens.

Verse 12,  “Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him.”

Here we have God putting Abram into a deep sleep.

But hold on, Abram’s got to walk through this sacrifice with God to complete the covenant. But God’s putting him into a paralyzingly deep sleep.

Well, this is a most unusual covenant, not from the method that was used but because God’s going to walk through this prepared covenant sacrifice by Himself.

Abrams not going to do a thing. This covenant is all God’s promise to perform the covenant. Abram is going to have no part to play in its fulfilment except to believe. Only believe.

This is exactly what took place on a cruel cross on a hilltop in Judea 200 years ago.

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. The Son agreed to come to the earth and die for the sin of the world, your sin and mine. And whosoever believes on Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

Now where were we in the making of that covenant? We had no conditions to fulfil. We weren’t even born yet. When we were born we were paralysed just like Abram was. We were paralysed, in a horror of deep sleep by our sins.

God’s not requiring Abram to do a thing. Let’s say God had walked through that covenant sacrifice with Abram and God said, “Well Abram, if you say your prayers every night you’ll fulfil your part of the covenant and what I have promised I’ll do.”

You know what would have happened. Abram would have forgotten to pray one night, probably the very next night, and the covenants now collapsed, it’s broken and God’s released from His promise.

No, God’s only asking one thing of Abram just as He’s asking only one thing from you and me. Believe. Believe that what God says will come to pass no matter what the circumstances.

This contract is all on God. None of it’s on man. If God were to break this covenant the entire universe would instantly cease to exist. Hebrews 1:3 tells us that it’s the Word of God that upholds all things. One of the things it’s impossible for God to do is lie, so says Hebrews 6 verse 18.

Now verse 13, “Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years.”

In the scripture, it’s predicted that these people would be put out of the land and into captivity 3 times.

It’s also predicted that they’d turn back to the land. and they did return.

In the year 70 AD Jerusalem was conquered and sacked by the Roman general Titus Vespasian and more than 1 million 100 thousand jews died. The rest were scattered throughout the world. Then in 1948 Israel once again officially became a state and the Jewish people flooded back to the land, even though they’re a long way from occupying all of it and in the way God promised. However, that time will come.

To verse 14, ” But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and in the end, they will come away with great wealth. ” God certainly kept his word there.

Verse 15, “Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age.”

Abram of course, won’t see this slavery.

Verse 16, “But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

God’s saying to Abram I can’t put you in this right now because I love the Amorites also and I’m giving them a chance to turn to me. He gave them 400 years to do that. The only one that did turn to him was the Canaanite harlot Rahab. She simply believed God and she was saved.

Verse 17, “And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. “

Both of these, the smoking oven, which is kind of fire pot, and the burning torch speak of Christ. The smoking oven or firepot speaks of His judgement while the burning torch speaks of Him as the light of the world.

Verse 18, “On the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates.” 

Again the King James has descendants as Seed.

Now we come to Genesis chapter 16. This chapter is, quite frankly, a bit of a letdown.

We’ve seen Abram in chapter 15, as the great father of faith. We tend to think Oh, if only I could have that level of faith and we admire Abram for the way he simply believes God. But Abrams not perfect and now we see that he’s no different from us. He has a lapse of this great faith, and that lapse has to do with his wife to Sarai and Hagar, the Egyptian maid.

We see here the unbelief of both Sarai and Abram, and the birth of Ishmael. What a letdown after the wonder of the last chapter.

Let’s pick up at Genesis 16:1, “Now Sarai Abram’s wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.”

Abram got two things down in the land of Egypt which caused him a heap of trouble: one was wealth, and the other was this little Egyptian maid.

Verse 2, “So Sarai said to Abram, “See now, the LORD has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai.” 

What Sarai was suggesting was a common practice of that day. When a wife couldn’t bear a child, there was the concubine.

Now, let’s not for a moment think that just because this is written is written in scripture that God approved it. God certainly did not approve of this at all.

There are many things written in the Bible that God is against. There’s an old saying, “Everything in the Bible is truly stated but everything in the Bible is not a statement of truth.

This was Sarai’s idea, and Abram listened to her. He’s basically surrendering his position as head of the home here, and he’s followed her suggestion. It’s going to cause trouble for everyone involved not only at that point in time but right throughout the ages right up until today.

Verse 3, “Then Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan.”

This Egyptian maid, Hagar, becomes Abram’s concubine, and it’s certainly not according to God’s will. God’s not going to accept the offspring at all—He didn’t, and He wouldn’t. Why? Because it was wrong. We mustn’t ever say that God approved of this however, it’s in the record because it is an historical fact.

Verse 4, “So he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress became despised in her eyes. “

See, the troubles already started. Hagar said, “I’ve mothered a child of Abram, and Sarai couldn’t do it.” Can you not clearly see the tensions between these 2 woman? Hagar looked down on Sarai, and Sarai despised Hagar and poor old Abram’s right in the middle. It probably made the running down of the armies of the kings outside Sodom seem like a walk in the park for him.

To verse 5, “Then Sarai said to Abram, “My wrong be upon you! I gave my maid into your embrace; and when she saw that she had conceived, I became despised in her eyes. The LORD judge between you and me.” 

This verse is important because it emphasises what we’ve already said. God did not approve of this. God says that it is wrong, and now Sarai sees that she has done wrong.

“My wrong be upon you”. She is wrong, my friends. God won’t accept this, and it’s going to turn out to be a real heartbreak to old Abram.

But, you see, Abram and Sarai are not really trusting God as they should. And before we condemn them remember, Abram’s nearly ninety years old and Sarai’s eighty and never been able to bear a child. They’ve come to the conclusion that they are not going to have children. Would we have done better? I doubt it!

Sarai probably rationalised and said, “Maybe this is the way God wants us to do it, after all, it is the custom of the day.”

It was the custom of that day, but it was contrary to God’s way of doing things. As we’ve already said, if we think that just because something’s recorded in the Bible God approves of it.

The moral side that you and I read into this is not really stated here in the historical record. Abram and Sarai were brought up in Ur of the Chaldees where this was a common practice. The moral angle is wrong but it’s not the worst thing. The terrible thing was that they just didn’t believe God. The wrong that they committed by Abram taking Sarai’s maid Hagar was a sin, and God treated it as such. But in the context of the Bible, it was the unbelief that was the major sin here.