The God of Promise

We humans love the idea of promises. Companies publish calendars with daily reminders of promises. We put them on our pillows, post them on our Facebook wall, write them on our mirrors. We love the promises of our leaders, too. Most political campaigns center around a core set of promises that the politician will enact if elected. We love to hold others to the promises they make. If a friend promises to meet us at 5 pm, we judge him pretty harshly if he is a few minutes late. We love promises, but we are horrible at keeping them.

            This problem with promises goes all the way back to Genesis 3. Remember that God established a covenant with Adam and Eve that they should have dominion over the whole earth and could eat of every tree of the garden, save one. This covenant was simple in its call to obedience, and yet Adam and Eve chose to break covenant with God by seeking the dominion and power of Satan. God made a covenant with Cain by marking him and promising to protect him, and Cain goes immediately and builds a city for his own protection because he did not trust the promises of God. Abraham, as we will see in the very next chapter, could not wait on the promise of God, so he agreed with his wife to have a child by her maidservant. The nation of Israel would promise to do everything that the Law of God required, and yet they failed within just a few days to obey the first two commandments. We humans love promises, we just can’t seem to bear the consequences.

            Yet, we find in Scripture that God repeatedly keeps his promises, even when his people fail miserably. In fact, we find that God loves to keep his promises. God seems to gain the most glory from making a promise that seems impossible to keep. We have one such promise in Genesis 15. There are four quick points that I want you to notice from this text today.

            First, notice two truths from verse 1. This verse starts with the phrase, “after these things”. Remember, Abram has just come from a great victory and from the blessing of Melchizedek, the king of Salem. The promise that God makes with Abram here is directly related to the victory and blessing that Abram received in Chapter 14. You see, the victory and blessing were real-world outcomes of the promise God made to Abram back in Chapter 12, that he would bless him and make him a blessing. Now, God is going to reiterate the other aspects of the promise that he made in Chapter 12.

            Also, in verse 1, there are three phrases that are only used here in the book of Genesis. First, this is the only place in Genesis where we find the phrase, “The Word of the Lord”. This phrase is used extensively throughout the Old and New Testaments, but it is a powerful thing that the only place we find it in Genesis is right here where God makes an unconditional covenant with Abram. The Word of the Lord is used to refer to both the command of God and the prophecy of God. In the first five books of the Bible, it is used to refer to the commandments. But, as you get into the prophetic books, you find it used to speak of prophecies. It is very important to understand that God’s Word creates things. It created the heavens and the earth in Genesis 1, it created the storms of judgment in Genesis 6, and now it creates a nation from one old man in Genesis 15. I want you to understand this because we can often have a wrong view of the prophetic Word of God. We can look at prophecies like this one here or like those in the books of the Prophets and we can think that God is just foreseeing things that would come to be on their own. That is not at all a right view of prophecy. Rather, understand that God’s word is what creates the outcome. Our God decrees all things that come to pass. So, when he makes a promise to an old nomad in the land of Ur that he will have innumerable children, it is God’s decree that makes it so, not the will or ability of Abram.

            The other two words that are used only here are “vision” and “shield”. The word “Vision” is used to speak of prophetic visions. So, Abram is receiving a prophetic vision of things that will come to pass. “Shield” is a popular word in the Psalms, and it is almost always used to refer to God as the shield of Israel. This word is appropriate given that God has just enabled Abram and 300 men to defeat a great army.

            The third truth that I want you to see from the text is found in verse 6. After God has made his initial promise to Abram that his offspring will be as numerous as the stars in the sky, it says of Abram that he “believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness”. This one little phrase is pivotal to the whole story of redemption, so don’t miss it. First of all, notice that it says that Abram believed God, but what did he believe? He believed the promise that God would cause offspring to come from him. Bear in mind that Abram has no evidence of this other than God’s past faithfulness in giving him victory. He and his wife have never been able to conceive and there is no evidence that they will ever, but he believes, nonetheless. Also, the idea of “believing” is not what we typically thing these days. We tend to think of “believing” as knowing or accepting some facts. That’s not what biblical “believing” is. Biblical believing is a believing that changes who you are. It changes the way you live, the direction of your life… everything. Finally, notice that it says that this believing was “counted” to him as righteousness. The word “counted” here is an accounting term. It’s used to speak of “classifying” or “designing” or “planning” elsewhere in Scripture. So, God takes this faithfulness of Abram and he counts it as righteousness.

            Lastly, notice starting in verse 12 that God reiterates this promise by “cutting” a covenant with Abram. He has Abram cut several animals in half, and then he puts Abram to sleep and God himself walks between the halves. Now, this looks weird to us, but this was actually a common practice in ancient times. A king would often “cut” a covenant with his people in much the same way. What this “cutting” means is that the fate that met these animals will happen to the participants in the covenant should one of them break the covenant. But, there is one important detail that you cannot miss. Does Abram walk through these halves with God? No! God put Abram to sleep. God makes this covenant by himself, saying in effect that he should die if he does not keep this covenant.

            But God has kept his covenant to Abram. And, this covenant that he made with Abraham is extended to everyone who by faith believes the promises of God. Paul says in Rom. 3:23-26:

“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

Jesus Christ is the guarantee of the promises that God has made to those who trust in him. Jesus, in his death, died a covenant death. He died the death that we deserved. But, Jesus didn’t stay dead. Rather, he defeated death by rising again, and because he has risen he has kept the covenant and will keep the covenant for all who trust in him.

            Friend, you have never known anyone who can keep their promises completely, but God can, and God does. God has secured an eternal covenant for you and promises every spiritual blessing through Jesus Christ. Turn to Jesus today and trust in him. Enter into the only promise that you will ever need, the promise of eternal fellowship with God.

            Brothers and sisters, as those who have trusted in Jesus Christ, we are the completion of the promise that God made to Abram way back in Genesis 15. Paul says in Rom. 4:16 that everyone who trusts in Christ is a child of Abraham through faith. The Church is what God had in mind when he promised that he would give Abram innumerable offspring. Like Abraham, we are called to faithful obedience. We are called primarily to wait. We are waiting on this great promise of God to be fulfilled in the resurrection that is to come.