'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 believed in the Lord; and He counted it to him
for righteousness. And He said unto him, I am the Lord
that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give
thee this land to inherit it. And he said, Lord God,
whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? And He
said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and
a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years
old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon. And he took
unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and
laid each piece one against another: but the birds
divided he not. And when the fowls came down upon the
carcases, Abram drove them away. And when the sun was
going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an
horror of great darkness fell upon him. And he said unto
Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger
in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and
they shall afflict them four hundred years; And also
that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and
afterward shall they come out with great substance. And
thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be
buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation
they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the
Amorites is not yet full. And it came to pass, that,
when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking
furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those
pieces. In the same day the Lord made a covenant with
Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land,
from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river
Euphrates.'--GENESIS xv. 5-18.
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 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. 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 verse 7 and the rest are bolted on, as it were, to verse 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 Hebrews
ix 16, 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.'