Abram justified by faith Genesis 15:1-21

A common thread that runs through the world’s religions is that entrance into nirvana or paradise is based upon your good deeds.  If you fulfill The Noble Eightfold Path, if you keep the Five Pillars, then you will be received as righteous in the life to come.  Biblical Christianity, flowing from Genesis 15:6, stands in stark contrast.  Abram is declared righteous before God through faith.[1]  Abram believed God’s promise that God would provide a descendant, a Savior, a Messiah, who would provide righteousness for him and many others.[2]

Countless theologians have stressed the centrality of this doctrine.  John Calvin declared, “Justification is the main hinge on which salvation turns.”[3]  Martin Luther wrote, “When the article of justification has fallen, everything has fallen .  . . . This is the chief article from which all other doctrines have flowed . . . . It alone begets, nourishes, builds, preserves, and defends the church of God; and without it the church of God cannot exist for one hour.”[4]

But how can God, the holy and righteous One, accept as righteous an idolater and covenant-breaker like Abram (or us for that matter)?  Genesis 15 contains the pageantry of an ancient covenant ceremony between a king and a vassal.  Animals were cut into two pieces.  The vassal walked between the pieces signifying, ‘If I don’t keep the covenant, may I be cut in two.’[5]  However, notice what happens in the text. 

The smoking fire pot and flaming torch represent God’s presence.  They’re akin to the pillar of fire or pillar of smoke that led Israel through the wilderness.  Abram doesn’t take the maledictory oath; God takes it!  God communicates through his actions that if Abram is unfaithful to the covenant, it is God who will take the punishment.  God’s covenant with Abram is fulfilled by Jesus.  At the cross, Jesus will be cut off from the living, cut off from the Father’s favor.[6] Sidney Greidanus explains, “There is a redemptive historical progression from God establishing his covenant with Abraham/Israel to be “their God” (17:7) to Jeremiah’s prophecy of God making “a new covenant with the house of Israel” to be “their God” (Jer. 31:31, 33) to its fulfillment in Jesus, who established the new covenant the night before he died, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20; cf. Matt 26:27-28).”[7]

[1] Cf. Romans 4:1-5, 18-25

[2] Cf. Galatians 3:7-9, 16

[3] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, e. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), p. 726

[4] Martin Luther, What Luther Says: An Anthology, compiled by Ewald M. Plass (St. Louis: Concordia, 1959), vol 2, pp. 702-204

[5] Cf. Jeremiahn 34:18

[6] Cf. Isaiah 53:8

[7] Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ from Genesis: Foundations for Expository Sermons (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 264