Reflections on Scripture

Genesis - Chapter 15

Entered: July 11, 2006
Abram's faith was credited to him as righteousness. God's salvation has always been by faith. Even though Abram believed God, he had questions and desired some evidence that he would indeed possess the land. God provided a supernatural event to give Abram assurance that He would do what He said.

Entered: June 23, 2011

As Abram continued to respond to God in faith, God gave more details of His plan for Abram and greater assurance of His care for him. With each encounter of faith God speaks to Abram as in this chapter. In the previous chapter Abram returned from military victory and worshipped the Lord by tithing from his spoils of victory. He further demonstrated his faith in the Lord by refusing the deal offered by the king of Sodom to keep his possessions that Abram had recovered. Abram would receive his wealth only through God's provision.

Now in chapter 15 God came again to Abram to make a treaty with him as a precursor of a covenant He would later establish with Abram. In this encounter with God, God began with an assurance to Abram of His protection. "I am your shield," God said. After promising that Abram's offspring would be as numerous as the stars in the sky, God then identified Himself as "the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess." (15:7) A further assurance that God would do what He promised. 

God's promise of numberless offspring was rather astounding considering Abram was 80 years old and childless. That being the case, Abram thought maybe his heir would be a slave born in his house rather than an actual son, but God assured him the heir would be "one who comes from your own body." (15:4) To one who is not a stranger to scripture, the incredibleness of God's promise to Abram should be no surprise. God does not normally give promises that can be fulfilled through normal human accomplishment. Their fulfillment can only be explained through God's supernatural powers. Therefore, it is no coincidence that God's promise of numberless offspring was made to a man who had no offspring and did not seem liking to ever have any.

Verse 6 tells us that "Abram believed the LORD, and He credited it to him as righteousness." It is important to recognize here that it is our faith, and not anything we do, that God counts toward our salvation. It is further important to note the timing of the assurance God gave Abram concerning the fulfillment of these promises. Abram asked for assurance that he could "know that I will possess" the land of Canaan. (15:8) The following verses tell of the signs God gave him. It should be noted that these signs were given, not so Abram would have faith, but to confirm the faith he already had. God does not tend to prove Himself to unbelievers but to confirm Himself to those who already believe.

Entered: June 27, 2011

Abraham, the father of our faith, experienced in the accounts of this chapter a lapse of faith. From it, we learn that God is forgiving, but we also learn that there can be unpleasant repercussions from our lapses in faith despite God's forgiveness. 

Humanly speaking, what Sarai and Abram did in this account are understandable. Ten years after God had given His promise of many descendants from Abram and Sarai, they were still childless. Therefore, they decided to help God with His promise. We are prone to measure faith in terms of actions. That is, what we are willing to do based on our faith in God. But often the greatest demonstration of our faith is to wait upon God, trusting, despite the passage of time, that God will do what He said we would do. Besides being a greater demonstration of faith, waiting can also be more difficult than taking action. In fact, it is action we turn to, as did Sarai and Abram, when we have given up on waiting. We can no longer wait so we act. And in our acting, we take things into our own hands and out of God's hands.

Sarai decided not only that God was not going to give her a child in fulfillment of His promise, but she concluded that God was restraining her from bearing a child. It was in this loss of faith that she enacted her own plan. Thus she suggested her husband sleep with her handmaid and have the promised descendant through her. This was a common practice of the time for the wife's handmaid to serve as a proxy for bearing children when they were childless. By turning to common practices when we take God's plans into our own hands, we more easily deceive ourselves that we are acting acceptably.

Once Hagar, Sarai's handmaid, was pregnant human nature took over. Actually, human nature took over when Sarai decided to take the situation into her own hands and Abram agreed to the plan. Now human nature was following its natural course. Once Hagar was pregnant she thought herself better than Sarai since Sarai could not become pregnant, and Sarai retaliated by treating Hagar harshly. Because of the harsh treatment, Hagar ran away. At this point God intervened and told Hagar to return and submit once again to her mistress. God also told her she would become the matriarch of the Ishmaelites. 

It was through Hagar's obedience, not Sarai and Abram's, that God's plan got back on track. Obeying God's instructions to go back and submit and telling of her experience with God was undoubtedly a reprimand to Abram and Sarai of their mistaken actions. Although Abram and Sarai submitted themselves once again to God's plan, the damage was done. The repercussions of this lapse in faith continues to plague Abraham's descendants in Israel through the descendants of Hagar.