Abram, called out from familiar land and father's house, journeyed the whole of the Fertile Crescent to the south of Canaan, building altars through the land he where he was summoned. Pressed to Egypt by a famine, he nearly lost his wife Sarai to the king's clutches, if not for the hand of God to set matters to rights. Emerging laden with the treasures of a foreign land, he soon found coexistence with his nephew Lot to be troubled; their abundance required distance between them to support it. Yet time and again through this, the LORD God directed him by speech and by appearance, building up a lavish picture of promise. When invaders swept around the land and stole his estranged nephew away, he dropped everything and rode to the rescue, aided by more than beginner's luck. Returning, he met King Melchizedek of Salem, a priest who communed with him in holy bread and wine and offered him a blessing, and to whom Abram tithed from the booty of the battle. But he met also King Bera of Sodom, whose seeming generosity hid a smiling temptation which Abram sagely caught and defused by a stunning act of self-denial, hurling away from himself all his share in the fruits of victory.
We want to remind ourselves of what's been happening in Genesis, because today's passage opens with the line “after these things...,” or “after these words...” (Genesis 15:1). It matters that what we just read comes on the heels of chapter 14's action and drama; the lessons given and learned all shape what's now to come. Because, judging from the opening line, Abram must have been afraid. But what could he have to fear?
He could, of course, fear reprisal. Having chased Elam and Sumer and barbarian hordes out of Canaan, he can fairly assume that he's just made the world's mightiest men his personal enemy – and they seem the grudge-holding type. Even if it should take a few years, surely “many legions will be allied with them, and they will come against me and kill me,” Abram might fear.1 Or, he could be fearful now that he's tasted battle because, for the first time, he's seen violent human death firsthand. He wasn't piloting drones out there; in the dark of the night and beyond, he was up close and personal. He probably had spears miss him by inches. He maybe walked home with someone's blood on his hands. At an age of “finding himself at the very gates of death,” as one bishop put it, his thoughts have turned to his short and fragile future as he wrestles with his own mortality.2
Third, Abram has made the call to relinquish all profit from the battle, and maybe some of his servants expected more for their investment than he let them take. On top of that, Abram must have nearly a thousand mouths to feed, and the resources he gained in Egypt won't last forever. Abram's burdened by responsibility and pressed by scarcity, maybe. And what's he gotten for it all? Did lost Lot even say thank you before he traipsed back to Sodom? Maybe Abram marched to battle with dreams of a warm reconciliation. But if Abram was counting on that, the door just got slammed shut from the other side, leaving Abram now to stew in “the irrevocability of Lot's separation.”3 Now he definitively knows his family network is himself and Sarai, full stop. And as if that weren't enough, this chapter begins with Abram's night interrupted by a close encounter of the divine kind. We can imagine that's a precious blessing, and it is; but throughout the Bible, such encounters with the servants of heaven, let alone its Master, tend to be... unsettling, to say the least. Could it be his encounter he's afraid of?4
For “after these words, the Word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision” (Genesis 15:1). Among the events of earthly reality, the Divine Word crashes like a meteorite from the sky.5 This is the first reference in the Bible to a 'vision,' and also the first use of the phrase 'the Word of the Lord came to' somebody (e.g., Jonah 1:1). After a chapter full of kings and priests, it's only fitting that now Abram be cast as a prophet (cf. Genesis 20:7). So what we're about to read has all the importance of Jeremiah or Isaiah or Zechariah's back-and-forths with God.
“Fear not, Abram!” come the personal words. God's here to help, not to harm. Whatever it is that's been on Abram's mind, this message seems intended to soothe Abram's heart. “I am your shield,” God pledges (Genesis 15:1). That links back to the last chapter, where Melchizedek preached a “God Most High who has delivered your foes into your hand” (Genesis 14:20), since his word for 'delivered' is literally 'shielded.'6 If Abram really is worried about Chedorlaomer and cronies staging a comeback, he needn't so fret himself. The same God who kept Abram safe amid swords and spears will shield him from them again and again. As the psalmists will borrow his hope, “the LORD is my strength and my shield” (Psalm 28:7), “my shield... who subdues peoples under me” (Psalm 144:2). “Our soul waits for the LORD; he is our help and our shield” (Psalm 33:20).
But God goes on with three more words for a total of nine, and so he adds, “Your reward shall be very great” (Genesis 15:1). This is a reward “for all the love with which he had wholeheartedly served the Lord” through these last chapters.7 There, we kept hearing about 'the possessions,' 'the goods,' a word deliberately misspelled in Hebrew all chapter long so it's the word for 'reward' backwards.8 This word 'reward' is elsewhere usually translated 'wages,' like what you'd earn by a day's labor for hire (1 Kings 5:6) – and it could include what a soldier would get for participating in military service.9 Abram gave up his share of plunder for the sake of witness, but God will compensate Abram with vastly more. Some early readers took this materially, as a blessing that “your wealth and your property will increase enormously.”10 But is that really what Abram wants?
See, we the readers aren't actually sure what's bothering Abram, what's on his heart and mind. So with clever Abram, God will show himself clever (cf. Psalm 18:25-26). He assures Abram about this and that as bait, to lure Abram into probing what's actually in his heart. And boy, does it ever work! Abram opens up, in the first time we've heard him talk to God – not to mention this is the Bible's first two-way dialogue between God and man since Cain.11 He starts out well: “O Sovereign LORD!” Very respectful, very reverential. Then he asks a question which calls into question the meaning or even value of everything God's just said – but we'll get back to that. Because he's got to explain where he's coming from.
Your Bible might read, “I continue childless,” or even “I die childless” (Genesis 15:2). We don't know how long Abram's been married to Sarai, who happens to be barren. But we know that Abram has heard God hint and tease about making a great nation of him, about being kind and generous to Abram's non-existent seed, and so on. And now that's been maybe as much as a decade ago. Their fulfillment has been so long delayed that to Abram it might as well be too late.12 More literally, Abram says here, “I go stripped,” like “a fallen soldier stripped of all valuables and even of clothing,” like some of the dead men Abram left behind on the battlefield.13 The Hebrew word here even sounds like its sister-word for 'curse,' which feels like it's taken the place of the blessing. Because Abram's eyes have been opened, and he knows that he is naked without family.
Spurred perhaps by his confrontation with his mortality, this is outwardly the very first time Abram “expresses an interest in having children.”14 But now that the need has been brought into the open, it's all Abram can think about. What use in silver or sheep, what good in cattle or Canaan, if he lives and dies childless and has nobody to follow him? He might as well be a pauper, in his world. The result of his thinking is a lament “bordering on utter despair.”15 What exactly Abram says in that lament is... well, the gentle way one commentary puts it is that “the subtleties of the text escape us.”16 That's the nuanced academic way of pointing out that the Hebrew text here is barely one step up from gibberish. Literally, we read that “the son of mesheq my house, Dammaseq Eliezer” (Genesis 15:2). Readers and translators have tried for over two thousand years now to tidy this up and make sense of it, whether by making 'Mesheq' the name of Eliezer's dad, or an archaic name for Damascus, or suggesting it means Eliezer is a wine-server or butler or household manager for Abram.17 But some experts wonder if it isn't on purpose – maybe Abram's so emotional he's stumbling over his words, not making sense.18
What is clear is that there's somebody named Eliezer, apparently connected with the area of Damascus in Syria. We just heard about Damascus, because it's where Abram's battle ended (Genesis 14:15). And it's weird that a man named Eliezer shows up here. Hebrew doesn't have separate letters and numbers, so every word has a number value. The ancient rabbis loved exploiting that in a quest to uncover word substitutions that unlocked secret messages in the Bible, but here they had a good point in observing that the name 'Eliezer' adds up to the number 318 – which, you might remember, was how many trained men Abram poured out in the last chapter (Genesis 14:14).19 Eliezer is the very embodiment of Abram's trained servants; perhaps, like one ancient reader thought, he emerged as the champion of the Battle of Damascus.20 Eliezer represents the human forces on whom Abram's victory relied. Yet 'Eliezer' means 'God is my help' – has Abram internalized that message yet?
Having babbled something or other about this Eliezer, Abram comes to a stop. There's a stretch of silence – maybe a minute, maybe a month. But eventually, Abram collects himself and tries to make more sense in articulating his point. “Behold, to me you have given no seed!” (Genesis 15:3). Over and over, God had talked about magnifying Abram's seed (Genesis 12:7; 13:16), but now Abram has watched for years as his household staff were given seed. All 318 soldiers, like Eliezer, were “born in his house,” after all (Genesis 14:14). These servants had no promise, yet God blessed them with abundant seed, such as Eliezer, the last three letters of whose name are even an anagram for 'seed.'21 But Abram, who has a specific promise about seed, has to watch over and over again as others receive his own promised blessing, while he persists under an apparent curse.
So Abram concludes in resignation: “And behold, a son of my house will be my heir” (Genesis 15:3). Aging in the ancient world was no fun; there were no retirement homes or funeral homes, so family was everything. It wasn't unusual for older childless men to make a legal contract to adopt another man as a son, in a kind of trade of property for security: the adopted son would look after his elder, live with him, commit to giving him a nice funeral and fulfilling the obligations necessary for a decent afterlife; in return, the adopted son would be entitled to inherit from the elder when the elder died.22 So Abram has on the verge of choosing to adopt his household servant Eliezer, a son not yet of Abram but already of Abram's house, to become Abram's legal heir.
Back, then, to Abram's question: “O Sovereign LORD, what will you give me?” (Genesis 15:2). God mentioned a great reward, but that only pushed Abram's buttons. He has dearer priorities now than matter or space. There was a king around this time, who wrote a letter to his god, grateful for having “acquired an everlasting name,” but questioning the god, “Why did you take a son from me?” I don't know if the king had a son who died, or if the king was childless like Abram, but the king went on: “Former kings requested large territory from you, but I myself request from you only health and heir.”23 Abram's asking if he can even have half that. What does God really mean by 'reward'? For as a later psalmist will say, “the fruit of the womb is a reward” (Psalm 127:3).24
So now Abram has spoken twice – “and behold, the Word of the LORD came to him” yet again, to contradict what Abram's gotten wrong, to cut him off at the pass: “It's not so that your heir shall be this one!” Abram may think he's got to resort to this type of adoption, but that work wouldn't work. God has other plans in store. It's not Eliezer's rightful place to inherit all Abram's legacy for himself and his sons after him. “For rather, one who comes out of your innards, he will be your heir” (Genesis 15:4). Clarity at last! Abram's life and mission and destiny will be carried on biologically, not merely legally.25 Abram will yet hold a newborn child who shares half his DNA, will look into his own two eyes in another's face. And that son, emerging from Abram's matter, gaining life in the world through Abram's instrumental causality, is the one Abram must wait for. That child, that son, will sustain Abram in old age, will be the heir to his property and legacy.
At this point, of course, “the promise was beyond nature and surpassed human reasoning.”26 Even to have one biological child to be an heir, which is all Abram's been hoping for, seems unlikely for his age and condition; as Paul puts it ever so delicately, “his own body was as good as dead” (Romans 4:19). Thanks for being sensitive, Paul. Because the promise has become that much more outlandish, God needs to do a little show-and-tell. So just like he brought Abram from a far-off city (Genesis 15:7), now “he brought him outside” his tent into the night (Genesis 15:5). Abram needs an experience, Abram needs a change, Abram needs a fresh point of view.
And the point of a new point of view is to view it, isn't it? So just like Abram took two turns to talk, now God stakes a second stab at saying something: “Look!” he says, “Look!” Before the battle, the LORD bade Abram lift his eyes and perceive what was around him; now, he bids Abram gaze, study, consider, contemplate, not the land, but the sky: “Look, please, at the heavens!” (Genesis 15:5). And, look, when we're in crisis like Abram, when we can't see the way forward, when we can't figure out how things add up, isn't this so often the solution we're needing? It's one thing to take in the facts on the ground, and to broaden our horizons; it's another to raise our contemplation beyond the horizons of earth.27 Like Paul says: “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth” (Colossians 3:5).
But what does God want Abram to please see in the sky above? The stars that shine in the night. And God isn't just encouraging Abram to see the stars. God is giving Abram an active challenge: “Number the stars, if you are able to number them” (Genesis 15:5). And then God becomes silent, pausing to yield space for Abram to tackle this challenge if he dares.28 Now, in a modern age of light pollution, you might step out your front door at midnight and have no trouble counting the few stars that aren't hidden from you. But Abram lived before electric lights, and while the people of Babylon named thirty-six major stars, they could see that there were obviously a lot that didn't make that list.29 It's estimated that from where he was standing, Abram could have seen as many as 2500 stars with the naked eye on a sufficiently clear night. Even as a patient man, would he really be able to count them accurately without accidentally double counting? Do Abram's math skills hold out? The beauty of the challenge here is that, even from what he can see, Abram shouldn't have to try too hard before he realizes that the only way to win is not to play – to confess inability as his starting point, to admit that the only proper response is that “there is no possible response.”30 And, of course, even ancient readers of Genesis realized that “some stars are hidden from even the keenest eyes.”31 With our telescopes and satellites, we've catalogued about 1.7 billion stars so far – good luck, Abram! – but our Milky Way alone is estimated to have about a hundred billion stars in total – and ours is one galaxy among untold numbers.
So what's the point of this challenge, then? Well, two things to keep in mind. First, what did Melchizedek call God? “God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth” (Genesis 14:19). We take that for granted, but Abram had a pagan background. We can't assume that, when the LORD first called him, Abram had any sense that this god he was hearing from was the God of creation. But now he confesses a Lord who created the skies over Abram's head. So when Abram tries to tally those dots of light both faint and bright, he knows that “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1).
Second, you and I probably think of stars in modern scientific terms, as balls of burning plasma which generate energy through nuclear fusion, thus emitting both heat and light into space. Abram was a clever man, but he lived nearly four thousand years ago. To many of the Sumerians he grew up among, stars were as alive as me and you. They treated the stars as visible manifestations of the gods, both the well-known ones and the 'junior watchers,' and even prayed to these “gods of night.”32 That's why they were so convinced that the movements of the stars could communicate the intentions of the gods to astrologers skilled to understand. But it means that when Abram is counting stars, he might wonder if he's counting the children the LORD created for himself.
And now comes God's third and final remark for this encounter: “So shall your seed be” (Genesis 15:5). God is claiming to Abram that, if Abram sees God's starry seed as plentiful beyond his ability to measure, so God can give the same prolific seed to Abram. If the stars number in their thousands and millions and billions, so shall the seed of Abram – and that despite the fact that the current forecast, based on experience, is zero. Yet when all is said and done, God's telling Abram that if Abram rises up on the last day and goes to his family reunion, he'll be as mathematically taxed as if he were cataloguing the stars overhead. He'll as soon exhaust the galaxy as his genealogy. That's God's claim here, and it's a mighty big claim, beyond what Abram can ever verify in his days.
Now comes the vital moment. How will Abram respond? Simply this: “He believed in the LORD” (Genesis 15:6). That's the narrator's pithy two-word remark here in the wake of this exchange. Abram believed – and this is the first time the word 'believe,' or 'faith,' shows up in the Bible. Of course, it's been observed that “the action of faith preceded the vocabulary of faith.”33 When God first called Abram in chapter 12 to leave behind the familiar and the familial in exchange for the foreign, the New Testament leaves no doubt that “Abram obeyed... by faith” (Hebrews 11:8). And when he deferred to Lot in partitioning the land, he surely acted from faith; when he waged war to save someone he loved, don't you think he had faith that God would see him through? Or when he cited his reliance on God in his witness to the king of Sodom, wasn't that surely an act of faith? Through these all, Abram conducted himself in accordance with faith.34
And atop it all, confronted by God's mighty big claim, Abram “saw the Lord's promise and discarded every human consideration.”35 If this LORD is the same God Most High who was Creator of heaven and earth, which means that he populated this vast family of stars across the wide sky, then doesn't it stand to reason, by way of analogy, that a God like that could create an equally vast family for Abram?36 It would be positively irrational to acknowledge God as the Creator of countless stars and then conclude that he can't create seed for Abram, for “God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham” (Luke 3:8)! Ultimately, clever Abram is just too reasonable not to have faith. Hence, “Abram believed with great promptness of spirit.”37
So what is Abram's faith? It's Abram's response to natural and verbal revelation, God's self-presentation to the intellect through specific claims of truth.38 That's at least part of faith: “giving assent to the promises of God and concluding that they are true.”39 He believes the mighty big claim, he believes this good news meant just for him; you almost hear his “grateful sigh of relief” as he absorbs the thought that, just when he was most worried, God will come through bigger than he ever dared dream. Astoundingly, Abram “believed in a matter that was so difficult that few would have believed.”40
But in believing that, Abram doesn't just assent to a proposition. Abram assents to lots of things. He believes that two and two make four. He believes that sheep don't do as well when you feed them gold as when you feed them grass. He believes that God is the creator of the stars over his head. Now he believes that his seed will one day be similarly difficult to count, and that this will be the work of God. All those are propositions. But Abram is doing more than just adding more propositions to his list. Abram is engaged in a relationship. Abram is accepting these propositions, not because he independently verifies each of them, but because of who proposes them. Abram latches on to what God's revealed precisely because God has revealed it; he receives and grasps “the witness given by First Truth.”41 He doesn't just believe statements; he trusts the Speaker, he trusts God. He chooses to accept God as an authority on what's possible and what's actual – indeed, as a greater authority than his own experience-conditioned expectations. He trusts God more than he trusts himself. And so – as St. Paul put it – “no unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God” given here (Romans 4:20).
And therefore, he entrusts himself to God. He depends on God. Abram leans on God and places his hopes and dreams in God's hands. That's more than merely trusting as an authority. I can believe what somebody says to be true and yet not trust them as a rule, since a broken clock is right twice a day. And I can even trust somebody on a given subject, like a scientist, and yet not want them dictating policy in general, because wisdom is greater than knowledge. But Abram entrusts himself to God, accepting that God is not just right but good. No wonder one of history's greatest theologians called faith “the first beginning of the heart's purifying.”42
Ultimately, in the Old Testament, any time someone 'believes in' somebody, especially God, the focus is on the believer's behavior: it's a matter of “personal investment and a decision to abide by” the one in whom faith has been placed.43 So Abram not only assents to the truth of the claim, he not only trusts the speaker of the claim, he not only entrusts himself to God, but he makes a choice to invest in God. He commits to involve himself more deeply with God, to engage more closely with the Lord. In the midst of Abram's crisis of childlessness, Abram now approaches rather than retreats, because he's judged that God's word is true, he's judged that God is trustworthy, he's entrusted his cares to God, and he's opting to “conduct himself accordingly” moving forward.44 He makes it his aim to act out of his faith, to make it the governing principle of how he handles himself.
And that makes Abram a man of faith. His string of prior acts of faith have shaped faith in him as an enduring habit, a “disposition of faith” buried among “the secrets of the heart.”45 Exercising that habit now in the face of every natural temptation to doubt, Abram has assented to the word of the Lord, admitting it as true and reliable, although he wasn't strictly compelled to believe it but rather was persuaded by well-grounded hope.46 Abram believes now in God as the Creator of heaven and earth, and so as the Father of the countless stars dancing in their courses above. Abram believes that a God who can father stars beyond counting can make him a father of seed beyond counting. In accepting that promise, Abram has trusted God as a friend. He's entrusted his destiny to God all over again, both in having left Ur and Harran and now in looking to the LORD to supply his seed, trusting that this will be a great reward that pulls the ground out from beneath his fear. As a result, Abram is making a personal commitment “simply to live by trust in God's promising word” and to act faithfully in keeping with his faith. Abram thus forswears now any plan that has as its basis the assumption that God won't do for Abram everything which God has spoken and shown. So Abram cancels contemplation of the adoption of Eliezer, because faith precludes such hedging. Abram also redoubles his intention to continue exercising this habit of faith wherever he finds the chance. His is a faith “not neutral and bare, but... ready to work by love.”47 As St. Jerome added, Abram here “found favor with God by loving him, not fearing him.”48
And so Abram was “found faithful in trial” (1 Maccabees 2:52), “passing a critical test” concerning the faith he already had.49 In overcoming this crisis by throwing himself onto God's truth and God's goodness, Abram's faith has transcended itself, achieved a new maturity and purity, so that “in this occurrence, his entire faith was gathered together” into one single act of faith.50 And in that act, Nehemiah says, God “found his heart faithful before” him (Nehemiah 9:8). God has drawn out “the tested genuineness of [Abram's] faith” (1 Peter 1:7), through a trial that turned his formerly implicit faith into explicit faith.51
And God approves of the result: “he counted it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6). God reckoned Abram believing him as righteousness, God thought of it as righteousness, God computed it as righteousness, God credited Abram's faith in the plus column on the balance sheet. In Israel, it mattered a lot what was credited to you. If somebody sacrificed wrongly, “bloodguilt shall be credited to that man,” a big red blot on the ledger (Leviticus 17:4); no wonder David said, “Blessed is the man to whom the LORD credits no iniquity” (Psalm 32:2). And if you mishandled the meat from a sacrifice, “he who offers it shall not be accepted, neither shall it be credited to him” (Leviticus 7:18) – which implies that, when sacrifices were carried out correctly, then they were credited to you, entered in your account as a good thing. And it might be that the priests had the job of issuing the authoritative declaration that such-and-such a gift had been credited before the LORD.52
But this is the first time in the Bible we've heard that noun 'righteousness,' although we were twice told that Noah was “a righteous one” (Genesis 6:9; 7:1) and the word 'righteous' is literally part of Melchizedek's name.53 So Abram, having been prepared by his mentoring from the king of righteousness, exercises a faith of such quality that God takes it all it, weighs it up, and credits it as equivalent to righteousness, as a worthy habit and attitude and action. This latest crowning act of faith, in particular, God accepts as “a meritorious deed.”54 How much more, then, will God look favorably on the whole of it, and impute righteousness to it? God accepts Abram's faith as a holy offering, a sacrifice rendered worthily on the altar of Abram's heart. God enters Abram's faith on the balance sheets of Abram's life and calculates a surplus of virtue from it, a righteousness that occludes and erases Abram's pagan past. God smiles on Abram's faith as a jubilee of the soul, and makes it now “the deciding factor in his relationship with Abram.”55 So Abram was “considered just... because of his faith.”56
Hence, Abram can rest his faithful heart in peace behind the LORD his Shield, and Abram can fix his faithful heart on the hope that the very great reward of which the LORD has spoken will be rich in all the right blessings (Genesis 15:1). Like his ancestor Noah, Abram here “became an heir of the righteousness according to faith” (Hebrews 11:7), for in faith “he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised” (Romans 4:20-21). And following the priest Melchizedek, Abram found a way to assimilate his blessing and to imitate his sanctity, and so to reach “the righteousness of faith” (Romans 4:13).
And that's all the more amazing when we consider the indirect object of his faith: his seed. Earlier, God had spoken of Abram's seed in terms of the dust of the land – and we know it came true, because Israel was defined by the prophets as “the seed of Abraham” (Isaiah 41:8). But when he was invited to gaze on the stars, he glimpsed beyond the matters of the earth. There above, he saw “a posterity exalted in heavenly bliss.”57 Accordingly, the New Testament shows us that, beyond just the biological seed he was promised, “it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham” (Galatians 3:7). And “if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed” (Galatians 3:29). So when the LORD encouraged Abram to please look to the skies, and challenged him to count the uncountable? One of those many stars was shining there to stand for you.
That is, if you're in Christ. Because, in the final picture, “it does not say, 'And to seeds,' referring to many, but, referring to one, 'And to your Seed,' who is Christ” (Galatians 3:16). Think about that. In Genesis 15, what does Abram believe when he believes in the Lord? He believes that God will supply the Seed of Abraham, a gift that will take a miracle from the God “who gives life to the dead,” hence why Abram “in hope believed against hope” (Romans 4:17-18). This Seed will outshine the starry skies and will receive in full all Abram leaves so as to make good on Abram's mission to spread blessing through the earth. Abram “believed with a faith that deserves praise that through a single son he would become the father of the world.”58 What is that but an advance faith in “the Christ who was to be manifested?”59 By a faith in a God of resurrections, Abram “prefiguratively believed that Christ through the incarnation would become his heir,”60 “appointed the heir of all things” (Hebrews 1:2). No wonder St. Paul celebrates Abram's story as the righteousness of faith!
“What does the Scripture say? 'Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness'” (Romans 4:3). St. Paul teaches us that “the words 'it was counted to him' were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord” (Romans 4:23-24). “There can never be any other way to be saved except through Christ alone,”61 and “because he makes the sinner righteous, the faith of one who believes in him may be counted as righteousness.”62
St. Paul points out that “to the one who works, his reward isn't counted as a gift but as his due; yet to the one who doesn't work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Romans 4:4-5). By chapter 15, Abram “had done many things well,” and yet through it all, Abram hadn't been laboring for his reward, as though it were to be the due wages he'd be strictly owed. God was never obligated to compensate Abram for what he'd left, for what he'd risked, for what he'd given away.63 Instead, God saw Abram living by this meritorious faith out of gratitude for freedom from the ungodliness of Ur and Harran. Therefore, when Abram assented to the truth and trusted the promise and committed to God, that faith can be counted as righteousness, because it humbly submits to God's freedom to judge a fitting but free gift.64
And in just the same way, God has intervened in the ungodliness we had in Adam, original sin as compounded by “the futile ways inherited from our forefathers” (1 Peter 1:18). We must accept we can't put God in our debt, can't make ourselves righteous by our finest natural virtues. But we don't have to spend our nights counting the stars; we can confess our inability and repose in the Maker. We can assent to and accept the truths of the gospel, submitting to the righteousness of God's judgment and taking his side against our sin.65 We can accept the promises of a God “who can also lavish upon us what is beyond the limits of nature.”66 We can receive the infusion of a supernatural habit of faith from God, and then begin to act out of it. We can trust God for a growing grace that changes us from the inside out, and make a personal commitment to live on its basis. And that faith will be “the foundation and root of all justification.”67 For “without faith it is impossible to please [God], for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). And so “from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward” (Colossians 3:24), “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you who by God's power are being guarded through faith” (1 Peter 1:4-5). We will be what Abram saw, for in the end, “the faithful are assimilated to heaven, made comparable to the angels, equal to the stars.”68 So praise God “who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light” (Colossians 1:12)! Amen.
1 Targum Neofiti Genesis 15:1, in Aramaic Bible 1A:94.
2 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 36.14, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:335.
3 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 304.
4 Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-17 (Eerdmans, 1990), 418.
5 David W. Cotter, Genesis (Liturgical Press, 2003), 98.
6 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 112; John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 245.
7 Bede, On Genesis 15:1, in Translated Texts for Historians 48:272.
8 Joshua G. Mathews, Melchizedek's Alternative Priestly Order: A Compositional Analysis of Genesis 14:18-20 and Its Echoes Throughout the Tanak (Eisenbrauns, 2013), 62.
9 Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan, 2001), 240.
10 1QapGen 22.31-32, in Daniel A. Machiela, The Dead Sea Genesis Apocryphon: A New Text and Translation (Brill, 2009), 83.
11 James McKeown, Genesis (Eerdmans, 2008), 88.
12 Alex Varughese and Christina Bohn, Genesis 12-50: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (Beacon Hill Press, 2019), 65; Jonathan Grossman, Abraham: The Story of a Journey (Maggid Books, 2023), 76.
13 James Chukwuma Okoye, Genesis 12-50: A Narrative-Theological Commentary (Cascade Books, 2020), 72.
14 Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Free Press, 2003), 276.
15 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 113.
16 Bill T. Arnold, Genesis (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 154.
17 Jubilees 14:2, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:84; Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 382-383; Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-17 (Eerdmans, 1990), 420-422; and many more.
18 Tremper Longman III, Genesis (Zondervan Academic, 2016), 201.
19 Joshua G. Mathews, Melchizedek's Alternative Priestly Order: A Compositional Analysis of Genesis 14:18-20 and Its Echoes Throughout the Tanak (Eisenbrauns, 2013), 66-67.
20 Targum Neofiti Genesis 15:2, in Aramaic Bible 1A:95.
21 Joshua G. Mathews, Melchizedek's Alternative Priestly Order: A Compositional Analysis of Genesis 14:18-20 and Its Echoes Throughout the Tanak (Eisenbrauns, 2013), 68.
22 Elizabeth C. Stone and David I. Owen, Adoption in Old Babylonian Nippur and the Archive of Mannum-mešu-liṣṣar (Eisenbrauns, 1991), 5.
23 Yasmaḫ-Addu of Mari, letter to the god Nergal, in Jack M. Sasson, From the Mari Archive: An Anthology of Old Babylonian Letters (Eisenbrauns, 2015), 238.
24 Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-17 (Eerdmans, 1990), 419.
25 Bill T. Arnold, Genesis (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 151.
26 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 36.12, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:335.
27 Jonathan Grossman, Abraham: The Story of a Journey (Maggid Books, 2023), 77-78.
28 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 162.
29 Wilfrid G. Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths (Eisenbrauns, 2013), 180.
30 Zvi Grumet, Genesis: From Creation to Covenant (Maggid Books, 2017), 163.
31 Augustine of Hippo, The City of God 16.23, in The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/7:212.
32 Ulla Koch-Westenholz, Mesopotamian Astrology: An Introduction to Babylonian and Assyrian Celestial Divination (Museum Tusculanum Press, 1995), 39-40; Wilfrid G. Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths (Eisenbrauns, 2013), 175.
33 Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-17 (Eerdmans, 1990), 423.
34 Origen of Alexandria, Commentary on Romans 4.1.9, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 103:241.
35 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 36.14, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:335.
36 W. Randall Garr, “Abraham's Election in Faith,” in Gary A. Anderson and Joel S. Kaminsky, eds., The Call of Abraham: Essays on the Election of Israel in Honor of Jon D. Levenson (University of Notre Dame Press, 2013), 38.
37 Ambrose of Milan, On Abraham 1.3 §21, in Ancient Christian Commentary on the Scriptures: Old Testament 2:32.
38 Bill T. Arnold, Genesis (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 156-157.
39 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 15:6, in Luther's Works 3:19.
40 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 12.1.1, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:152.
41 Thomas Aquinas, Disputed Questions on the Virtues, On Hope, a.1, respondeo, in E.M. Atkins and Thomas Williams, Aquinas: Disputed Questions on the Virtues (Cambridge University Press, 2005), 221.
42 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II, q.7, a.2, in The Works of St. Thomas Aquinas 17:73.
43 W. Randall Garr, “Abraham's Election in Faith,” in Gary A. Anderson and Joel S. Kaminsky, eds., The Call of Abraham: Essays on the Election of Israel in Honor of Jon D. Levenson (University of Notre Dame Press, 2013), 31-35.
44 W. Randall Garr, “Abraham's Election in Faith,” in Gary A. Anderson and Joel S. Kaminsky, eds., The Call of Abraham: Essays on the Election of Israel in Honor of Jon D. Levenson (University of Notre Dame Press, 2013), 39.
45 Origen of Alexandria, Commentary on Romans 4.1.5, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 103:238.
46 Ambrosiaster, Commentary on Romans 4:4, in Writings from the Greco-Roman World 41:76.
47 Bede, On Genesis 15:6, in Translated Texts for Historians 48:274.
48 Jerome of Stridon, Commentary on Galatians 3:6, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 121:126.
49 Scott W. Hahn, Romans (Baker Academic, 2007), 58 n.4.
50 Origen of Alexandria, Commentary on Romans 4.10-11, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 103:241-242.
51 Bill T. Arnold, Genesis (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 155-156; John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 247.
52 Terence E. Fretheim, Abraham: Trials of Family and Faith (Fortress Press, 2024; reprinted from University of South Carolina Press, 2007), 36; Alex Varughese and Christina Bohn, Genesis 12-50: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (Beacon Hill Press, 2019), 68.
53 Joshua G. Mathews, Melchizedek's Alternative Priestly Order: A Compositional Analysis of Genesis 14:18-20 and Its Echoes Throughout the Tanak (Eisenbrauns, 2013), 71.
54 Targum Onqelos Genesis 15:6, in Aramaic Bible 6:70.
55 Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-17 (Eerdmans, 1990), 427.
56 Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 92.3, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 6:294.
57 Augustine of Hippo, The City of God 16.23, in The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/7:212.
58 Prosper of Aquitaine, The Call of All Nations 2.14, in Ancient Christian Writers 14:113.
59 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 15:6, in Luther's Works 3:26.
60 Ambrose of Milan, On Abraham 1.3 §21, in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Old Testament 2:32.
61 Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch 3.1.1, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 137:131.
62 Augustine of Hippo, The Punishment and Forgiveness of Sins 1.14 §18, in The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/23:43.
63 N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Fortress Press, 2013), 1004.
64 James B. Prothro, A Pauline Theology of Justification: Forgiveness, Friendship, and Life in Christ (Cascade Books, 2023), 44-47.
65 James B. Prothro, A Pauline Theology of Justification: Forgiveness, Friendship, and Life in Christ (Cascade Books, 2023), 94-95.
66 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 36.13, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:335.
67 Council of Trent, session 6.8, in Norman Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (Georgetown University Press, 1990), 674.
68 Ambrose of Milan, On Abraham 1.3 §21, in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Old Testament 2:32.
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