Belief credited as Righteousness

 Read Genesis 15

So sometime after Abram’s victory over the 4 marauding armies and after his encounter with Melchizedek, Abram received the word of the Lord in a vision. The vision came with 3 main points.

First, don’t be afraid. We see those words from the Lord and his messengers a lot.

Second, God is your shield, your protector.  You think Abram might have figured part of this out after defeating 4 armies with 318 men.

Third, God told Abram that he had very big rewards for him.

And Abram said, thank you, thank you, thank you, Lord! Not exactly.

The conversation in this vision probably went more like this.

Are you kidding me?  I have no children.  You have given me no children.

One of my servants will inherit everything I have.

The Lord’s reply came again with 3 main points.

Your servant will not be your heir.

Your heir will be of your own flesh and blood.

Your descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky.

Abram believed the Lord and the Lord credited Abram with righteousness because he believed.  Abram sure couldn’t see how any of this would happen, but he believed the Lord.

Abram had lots of questions, but he believed.

But the Lord had more in store for Abram.

He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”

Abram was old and childless, but he was not blind.  He knew that there were many people already living in the land.  It very much seemed to be the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”

And Abram had one more question for the Lord.

How can I be sure of this?

God had just credited Abram with righteousness for his belief, but he still had questions.  God, of course, had his answer, but God answers as God answers.

He did not give Abram an advance copy of the history of the next 500 years. Here you go, read this, and check the copyright date before you start.

God did not give Abram the details of his plan and the when and where each piece would unfold.

God did not give Abram a vision of armies and peoples running from his descendants in fear of the army that was preceded by the Lord.

God answered in his own way.  He told Abram to prepare a sacrifice and prescribed the animals to be used.  After fighting off some scavenger birds, Abram fell into a deep sleep.

We are told that a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.  That’s some imagery—thick and dreadful darkness.  I went back to look at some of the original language and the best straightforward definition that I could find was that the darkness was terrifying.

Understand that Abram slept through the darkness, so I think it means that the terror invaded his sleep.  Why such darkness.

God’s message was the good news, bad news sort of thing.

Yes, you will have descendants as I promised.

But they are going to do a stint in slavery, about 400 years.

Take heart, I will deal with their captors. 

God did not stop with answering Abram, he made a covenant with him concerning the land promised to him and sealed it with the fire passing through the middle of the sacrifices.

The Lord had made reference to giving this land to Abram, shortly after Lot had departed. Now, even though it was centuries down the road, this whole Promised Land business was a done deal.

This covenant process was a tactile and kinesthetic thus saith the Lord.

So, the story of Abram continues.  He is still childless but has God’s promises that he will have children and grandchildren and more great-grandchildren and…

He still doesn’t own all the land around him, but God told him that one day his descendants will and his belief in everything that God told him was credited to him as righteousness.

God told Abram that he would live to a ripe old age and die in peace.  I’m thinking that peace would come from knowing God’s promises to be true.  Abram had some more living to do in the meantime, and some more lessons to learn and share with us.

For now, understand that we can believe God and still have questions. We can not understand and still have faith.  We can fail to understand the what or why of God’s ways, but still be his child and a faithful follower of Jesus.

It’s sort of like we know that God has good plans for us even when we don’t always know the plans.

Our human nature wants to put God in a box so we can understand everything.  God wants to take us beyond our own understanding so we can be blessed by steps that only he knows are good for us.

It’s ok to have questions, just keep the faith.

It’s ok to wonder how is God going to take care of this or of me or of my loved ones, just don’t doubt that he will.

It’s ok to have a conversation with God about difficult things, just listen more than you speak.

It’s ok to have more questions than answers, just know that you know the One who is the answer.

I saved the rabbit trail for the end.  God had just explained how his descendants would go into captivity and be slaves for a long time. Then we get this statement from God.

In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

What does it mean that the sin of the Amorites had not yet reached its full measure?

I can find no direct explanation for this phrase, but think that I have some understanding.  God is righteous and will judge.  He judged some in Old Testament times.  Consider the flood.  That was judgment on a big scale.

Consider what happened to Sodom.  That’s a couple chapters down the road, but that’s judgment. Think about God’s desire to spare Nineveh if they would repent.  Jonah didn’t want to hear that but God got his attention.

Now consider that God is not rushing to judgment.  He is patient.  He desires all to come to repentance and profess Jesus is Lord and know eternal life.

Now to the Amorites.  They were sinful.  They would receive judgment in this age.  It would come at the hands of Joshua and his army.  It was a solid defeat by Joshua’s army, but the Lord threw in some hailstones at the end that killed more than the soldiers did.

Don’t read this account if you don’t like Daylight Saving Time.  What?  Now you have to read it.

So what do we take from this somewhat obscure statement?  How about God will judge the earth, but he is not in a big hurry to do it.

Nonetheless, we should have an urgency in the fulfillment of our commission.  We should take the good news to the world like there will be no tomorrow in this age, only in the age to come.

Back to Abram. Abram didn’t do much in this chapter.  He had a conversation with God and made a sacrifice.

God, on the other hand, did big things.  He made a covenant with Abram and formalized his promise to give Abram the land in which he now lived, with borders that went far beyond what he could see. Check out the First Light message for some provocative thoughts on the boundaries of the Promised Land.

God did another really big thing too.  He credited Abram with righteousness because he believed God.  Abram had questions and Abram could not comprehend how God could do what he said he would do, but Abram believed God.

God counted this belief as righteousness.

Do we see this anywhere else in the Bible?

How about in the words whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

How about what Jesus said later in John’s gospel.

Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.

Those who believe—who have faith in God and in his Son, Jesus Christ—are made right with God.

God promised Abram countless descendants, a land just for them, and that he would die peacefully at an old age.  Abram believed him.  God counted Abram’s belief and faith as righteousness.  God knew that Abram would still have struggles ahead of him, but God blessed Abram for believing.

God has promised us life, life abundant, and life eternal.  He has told us that one sacrifice made with the blood of Jesus made us right with God. We still have struggles ahead of us but do we believe God and do we believe his promises to us?

Do we believe?

If we don’t, this whole course of study is an exercise in futility, but if we do, we have received something that we could neither comprehend nor achieve on our own—right standing with God.

Believe God and believe his good news.

In our belief, God credited us with righteousness.  The righteousness came from Jesus who fulfilled the whole law and went to the cross as an unblemished lamb, but it is imputed to us in our belief.

God credits our belief in Jesus as righteousness.

Believe!

Even when we don’t understand, believe.

Amen.