Genesis 15:7-21 | “Can God Be Trusted?”

Sunday morning sermon audio from Preston Highlands Baptist Church.

Do We Trust God?  Can God Be Trusted?

Do you trust God?  Can God be trusted?  These are perhaps the two most important questions for us to answer this morning.  They are relevant questions no matter your age or stage of life.  These are the questions addressed in Genesis 15.

Last week in verses 1-6, we saw Abram wrestling with the delay in God fulfilling his promises (vv. 2-3).  God responds by reaffirming his promises in verses 4-5.  God doesn’t come to Abram and begin by working on his inward psychological state or by changing his circumstances.  He begins by giving him promises.  He doesn’t come and clean up his life.  He comes announcing big and bold promises.

Verse 6 tells us how Abram responded to the promises of God.  He trusted God and God counted him as righteous.  What does it mean to “trust God”?  The nature of saving faith is often described as having knowledge, ascent, and trust.  You have to know something, ascent to it as true, and rest in it.  It’s knowing that God is with us and for us.  This is the kind of faith that’s credited to us as righteousness.

Faith is valuable because of its object, because it joins us to God, linking us to his promises, so faith is counted, or credited, or reckoned, or assigned to us as righteousness.  Abram is declared righteous before he’s circumcised, before he was willing to sacrifice Isaac.  These were works of his faith, results of him trusting God’s promises.

Faith is the means, not the ground, by which Abram acquires righteousness.  Faith is not the drink; faith is the straw by which the water of God’s righteousness comes into our mouths and satiates our thirst.

When we, like Abram, trust God’s promises, God looks at us and says, “That’s enough, that’s the sort of person I’m looking for, that’s the sort of life and heart I’m looking for.  You’re not trusting what you’ve done or accomplished, but what you’ve received.”

Many of us are struggling today to believe the promises of God.  You may be looking at your life and be thinking this isn’t where you’d like to be.  You look at your spouse and you wonder if you married the right person.  You look at your children and you worry about how they’ll make it in this world.  You look at your singleness and wonder if God has forgotten about you.  You look at your finances and you wonder how you’ll pay for everything.  You look at a nagging health issue and wonder why God doesn’t take it away.  We wonder how things are going to turn out and if God really knows what he’s doing.  We wonder if we can really trust God?

God’s Covenant with Abram

This brings us to the second part of Genesis 15.  Verses 1-6 show us that, yes, Abram trusted God.  Verses 7-21 show us that, yes, God can be trusted.  We’re going to see that the reason why God can be trusted is because he’s a covenant-making God.

The nature of God’s relationship with his people is often expressed in terms of a covenant.  A covenant in the Bible is a relationship between two parties that involves “permanent and serious commitments of faithful, loyal love, obedience, and trust.”[1]  A marriage is often referred to as a covenant relationship because two parties make binding promises to each other.  Our church members sign a covenant when they join our church.  A covenant isn’t a business contract, but a relationship with blessings for obedience and consequences for disobedience.

Why does God enter into a covenant with Abram, aren’t his promises to him enough?  Why does God formalize, or enshrine, his promises to Abram in a covenant?

Two reasons.  First, to calm his fears about children and land.  The chapter begins with the Lord telling Abram to not be afraid (v. 1).  Entering into a formal relationship with his righteous servant is meant to comfort him.  It’s like when a man finally “puts a ring on it” and gets engaged to his girlfriend, allaying her fears about whether he’s really committed.

Secondly, God enters into the covenant because he knows that Abram won’t live to see the promises fulfilled.  So God makes a covenant with Abram to guarantee that he will fulfill his promises, even if he doesn’t live to see it.

Chapter 15 has two parts that correspond to the two main aspects of God’s promises with Abram.  Verses 1-6 are about the promise of offspring.  Verses 7-21 are about the promise of land.  Verse 18 says that the promise of offspring and land are part of this covenant God is making with Abram.

The Prologue to the Covenant

Let’s begin in verse 7 and work our way through this covenant-making ceremony.  Verse 7 lets us know that God is about to establish a formal covenant with Abram.  In keeping with other Near Eastern treaties or covenants, verse 7 gives us the historical prologue.  It sets the historical context for the covenant.  It says what the Lord did for Abram, “I brought you out from Ur.”  It establishes the parties of the covenant, the Lord and Abram.

We hear echoes of the Mosaic covenant that comes later in Exodus 20, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you ought of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (v. 2).  Then there’s a prologue followed by the stipulations and promises of the covenant.

Then Abram asks in verse 8, “How can I know?”  He’s saying, “I believe, help my unbelief.”  He’s struggling with the delay between the making of the promises and their fulfillment.

A Strange Ceremony

Then in verses 9-10, God gives Abram this strange ceremony.  He’s to cut several animals in half and lay them opposite each other so that there are pieces of dead animals on either side with a pathway in between.  The Lord doesn’t explain what it means because it’s meaning would’ve been commonly understood in Abram’s time.  Abram would’ve understood that it was a ratification ceremony for a covenant.

Word and Sacrament in the Local Church

In covenant ceremonies, God always gives a verbal declaration and then some sort of visual demonstration.  This is the beginning of word and sacrament, of oath and ritual, of declaration and demonstration.  God verbally makes promises to us and then ratifies and shows these promises to us with a covenant sign.

We have this in the church: word and sacrament.  The word of God is declared through the preaching of the gospel.  And the word of God is demonstrated through baptism and the Lord’s Supper.  The Reformers argued that the true church was where the word was rightly preached and the sacraments rightly observed.  Of course, as Baptists we believe that their understanding of baptism was incorrect.  But we agree that the sacraments, or ordinances, are visual demonstrations of God’s word to us in the gospel.

If you’re a Christian but you haven’t been baptized as a Christian by immersion, you need to be.  Baptism doesn’t save you, but it does demonstrate and declare that you are united to Christ and to his church.  Baptism is our visible entrance into the church.  This is why baptism should result in church membership.  Parents, as you evangelize your children and talk to them about baptism, think in terms of when will they be old enough to carry out the terms of a church covenant.  In other words, because baptism should result in church membership, children should only be baptized if they’re old enough to understand and live out the church covenant.

The Lord’s Supper is our covenant meal.  It’s our visible demonstration that we’re still connected to Christ and his church.  It’s the renewal and celebration of our faith in the gospel.  It doesn’t save us, but it does remind us that we are saved.  This is why those who choose to live in unrepentant sin are removed from church membership, which means removed from taking the Lord’s Supper.  If the Supper is for those who’re continuing with Jesus, then those whose lives are marked by not continuing with Jesus should not be allowed to take the Supper.

When we do the Lord’s Supper, this is why I say, “The Lord’s Supper is for repenting sinners, for those who have union with Christ and his church.  Practically this means that the Supper is for those who’ve trusted in Christ, been baptized, and who belong to a local church.  If you’re not yet a baptized follower of Jesus who’s a member of a local church, we’re glad you’re here, but we’d encourage you to refrain from taking the Supper.  If you’re a visitor and you’ve been baptized as a believer and you’re a member in good standing at another gospel-preaching church, you’re welcome to observe the Supper with us.”  This is the elder’s way of protecting the sacrament from being observed by people who aren’t believing the word.

Strange Birds

The birds of prey in verse 11 are sort of strange.  Some think they represent foreign nations trying to intrude on the promised land or that they represent a demonic attack or show how Abram didn’t let distractions get in his way.  But they likely connect to what’s coming next in verses 12-16.  They symbolize the trouble that Abram’s offspring will face in 400 years of bondage in a foreign land.  They’re coming to try to spoil the promise of God but Abram shoos them away for now.

Bad News Before Good News

In verse 12, a deep sleep comes on Abram.  The last time we saw something like this was in chapter 2, when God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep when he created Eve (v. 21).  Just as Adam entered a deep sleep before entering the covenant of marriage, so Abram enters a deep sleep before he enters into covenant with God.  This tells us that something weighty and solemn is about to happen.

The message that God delivers to Abram is not an encouraging one at first (vv. 13-15).  In verse 8, Abram asks, “How shall I know that I shall possess the land?”  Then in verse 13, the Lord tells him that before his offspring possesses the land, they’ll be sojourners in another land for four hundred years.  There’s bad news before there’s good news.

God is saying that the great nation that he’ll make of Abram will be a nation of slaves for four hundred years.  That’s roughly the time from the landing of the Pilgrims on the Mayflower to now.  But God will not abandon them in a foreign land.  He’ll bring them home, and he’ll bring them home well-supplied (v. 14b).

Why the Canaanite Genocide?

Verse 16 gives us some information that we need to make sense of one of the harder parts of Scripture.  The Amorites stand for all the other people in the land.  Verses 19-21 mention ten peoples in the land, though there were more, ten being a number of fullness.

One of the most difficult ethical questions in the Bible, one that skeptics love to raise in order to discredit the Bible, is about what’s called the Canaanite genocide.  In Joshua, God tells the Israelites to wipe out the peoples living in Canaan.  Why would God want all these people wiped out?

Verse 16 gives us one of the main reasons.  God judges nations.  God looks upon nations and counts their sins and judges them accordingly.  As we thank God for our country this weekend, we wonder where the United States of America stands in the balance of God’s righteous scales?  God waited 400 years before he drove out the Amorites and gave their land to the Israelites.  Why?  Because that’s how long it took before they deserved what they got.

Far from being some capricious tyrant, God waited four centuries before he sent judgement on the pagan nations of Canaan.  Peter says, “God is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).

God Walks Alone

Verses 17-8 tell us about the making of the covenant.  In verse 17, Abram sees a smoking oven and flaming torch pass through the cut-up animals.  Smoke and fire elsewhere reveal the Lord’s presence.  In Exodus 13, God leads Israel with a cloud of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night.  In Exodus 19, God descends on Mount Sinai in the most powerful pyrotechnic display ever, when he comes down in smoke and fire.  These things symbolize God’s unapproachable holiness.  These are theophanies, or visible manifestations of the presence of God.  In verse 17, Abram sees God’s presence move through the pieces of animals.

This kind of ceremony was a common way of solidifying an oath between two parties.  There are examples of these types of ceremonies in literature outside the Bible.  But in Jeremiah 34:18, we learn more about what these types of ceremonies entailed.  It says, “The men who transgressed my covenant and did not keep the terms of the covenant that they made before me, I will make them like the calf that they cut in two and passed between its parts.”

This was written 1500 years after Abram, but it tells us what these kind of covenant ceremonies meant.  Those who don’t keep the covenant will become like the animal cut in two that they walked through.  When you walked through the animals, you were saying, “May I be torn in two if I don’t keep the covenant.  May I be severed limb from limb if I’m not true to my word.”

But in verse 17, notice who does and who doesn’t pass through the animals.  It’s God, not Abram.  Normally both parties of the covenant would walk through the animals because both parties are saying the same thing to each other.  Both parties were required to sign on the dotted line.  But this is a unilateral covenant.  Yes, Abraham must believe the promises.  But God is the one making all the promises.

Here only one person walked the aisle between the severed animals.  Abram wasn’t asked to join the ceremony.  God walked the aisle alone.  God alone ratified this covenant.  God is taking full responsibility for the promises.  God alone will ensure that the promises are realized.  God called a curse of death down on himself if he failed to keep his promises.  God is showing that he can be trusted because he’s willing to walk through the valley of the shadow of death alone.

The Lord was saying to Abram, “I’ll make this covenant happen, not you.  If I break my word, I’ll be like these butchered animals.  I’ll do what I’ve promised or I’ll die.”  But God, of course, cannot die.  God is saying to Abram that his covenant with him is as sure as his existence.

God Walks a Path of Blood

The Lord is saying that he’ll do for his people what he promised to do, and he proved this through a ceremony involving blood.[2]  I love how Ray Vander Laan describes this scene:

“Imagine!  The Creator of the universe, the holy and righteous God, was willing to leave heaven and come down to a nomad’s tent in the dusty, hot desert of the Negev to express his love for his people.

‘Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram…along with a dove and a young pigeon,’ God told Abraham.  Then, when those animals had been sacrificed and laid out on both sides of their shed blood, God made a covenant.  To do that, he walked ‘barefoot,’ in the form of a blazing torch, through the path of blood between the animals.

Think of it.  Almighty God walking barefoot through a pool of blood!  The thought of a human being doing that is, to say the least, unpleasant.  Yet God, in all his power and majesty, expressed his love that personally…

Picturing God passing through that gory path between the carcasses of animals, imagining the blood splashing as he walked, helps us recognize the faithfulness of God’s commitment.  He was willing to express, in terms his chosen people could understand, that he would never fail to do what he promised.[3]

Grabbing the Hand of God

This chapter began with Abram wondering if he could really trust God.  In this covenant ceremony, the Lord is telling him, “You can trust me.”

If you’ve had children, you’ve had the experience of walking through a crowded store or crossing a busy street with them.  The child hesitates, and what do you do?  You put your hand down.  You’re saying, “You can trust me.  I can get you through this.  I know it’s fearful for you, but I can see the way through this.”  And all the child has to do is reach up, grab your hand, walk, and trust you.

The life of faith we’re called to live is more than agreeing to a Statement of Faith at a church, as important as that is.  It’s grabbing hold of the hand of God, not just with knowledge and ascent, but with trust that our Father is good and that he knows what’s best for us.

God Splashed through the Blood for Us

God can be trusted because he’s a covenant-keeping God.  God is a covenant-keeping God and we continually prove to be covenant-breakers.  But who is it that was torn to pieces?  Not Abram.  Not us.  But God’s own Son.

Ray Vander Laan continues:

“Because we look at God’s dealings with Abraham as some remote piece of history in a far-off land, we often fail to realize that we, too, are part of the long line of people with whom God made a covenant on that rocky plain near Hebron.  And like those who came before us, we have broken that covenant.

When he walked in the dust of the desert and through the blood of the animals Abraham had slaughtered, God was making a promise to all the descendants of Abraham – to everyone in the household of faith.  When God splashed through the blood, he did it for us…

When God made covenant with his people, he did something no human being would have even considered doing.  In the usual blood covenant, each party was responsible for keeping only his side of the promise.  When God made covenant with Abraham, however, he promised to keep both sides of the agreement.

‘If this covenant is broken, Abraham, for whatever reason – for My unfaithfulness or yours – I will pay the price,’ said God.  ‘If you or your descendants…fail to keep it, I will pay the price in blood.’

And at that moment, Almighty God pronounced the death sentence on his Son Jesus.”[4]

On the cross, God “splashed through the blood” for covenant-breakers like us.  In Jesus, God bled for people like us, people who hate instead of love their enemies, who gossip and slander, who grumble and complain, who harbor bitterness instead of forgiveness, who prefer to take rather than give, who walk in pride instead of humility, who constantly covet things their neighbors have, who lust after women or men, who kill – whether in their hearts or with their hands, who lie and cheat and deceive, who find their identity in being a conservative rather than being a Christian, who always work and never rest, who work hard to promote their name rather than God’s name.

In Jesus, God splashed through the blood for sins he didn’t commit.  He paid the price in blood that we owe.  He offers us righteousness through faith because we don’t have any.  Everyone who confesses their sin and acknowledges their guilt before God and turns to Christ in faith will be washed by the fountain of blood that flows from Jesus’ veins.

Jesus is a God who can be trusted because he’s a God who seals his promises with blood, because he’s a God willing to bleed for his people.  Do you trust God?  Can God be trusted?  The blood of Jesus’ cross says, “Yes, he can.”

[1]Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants, 2nd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 165.

[2]R. Kent Hughes, Genesis: Beginning and Blessing (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2004), 230, 234.

[3]Ray Vander Laan with Judith Markham, Echoes of His Presence: Stories of the Messiah from the People of His Day (Colorado Springs: Focus on the Family, 1996), 8-9, quoted in Gentry and Wellum, 293.

[4]Ibid., 293-4.