This is the beginning of the covenant God made with Abraham and that Paul wrote of in Galatians 3. The entire chapter of Genesis 15 is of a special covenant containing promises that God made with Abraham to provide him with an heir and descendants from his own house, and inheritance of the land.
One of the interesting things, at least to me anyway, is to note God's foresight in all of this. Remember, this was before Abraham had any heir at all. We are talking about when he was somewhere shortly after the age of 75 and before Isaac was born. That is a long time before the children of Israel came out of Egypt. God's foresight included some form of discipline for Abraham's descendants that was going to last for 400 years—before the beginning of fulfillment of at least part of what God had in mind here.
You will notice a difference between the 430 years mentioned in Exodus 12 and the 430 years mentioned in Galatians 3, and the 400 years that is mentioned here. Now nobody—and I mean nobody—has been able to know exactly what event began the 400 years, because nobody has zeroed in on an event and it is not written in the Bible, as far as we know.
Researchers have come to the conclusion that the 400 years is simply intended to be an approximation of the 430 years. They back this up with the mention of the four generations in verse 16. Those generations appear to be Levi, Kohath, Amram, and Moses. Since those people lived a great deal longer than we do, the researchers say that God assigned roughly approximately 100 years to each generation. By this, Abraham, in faith, would understand that at some time in that fourth generation would come the beginning of the fulfillment of this prophecy that God made.
We need to understand so we get a bigger grasp on things here because this covenant is awesome. We need to understand that God is inaugurating a much, much larger plan, beginning with Abraham and then continuing through Isaac, who was a type of the Promised Seed, then Jacob and his twelve children (thirteen counting Dinah), Joseph and going down into Egypt, the famine that began while Joseph was there forcing Jacob to go down into Egypt where Israel grew into millions of people, and out of that millions of people God raised up Moses through whom would come the freeing of Israel from their captivity.
Brethren, that was just the first step of the fulfillment of the promises that are contained in this covenant God made with Abraham.
The events of Genesis 15 are a very significant starting point. The events of Exodus 12 and 13 carry those events to its first major, major fulfillment. I said "major, major," because when Isaac was born, that was the first step in the fulfillment of these promises.
The events of Genesis 12 and 13 are the next major step in the fulfillment of this covenant that God is making with Abraham in Genesis 15. What is happening here is that God is, with Abraham and this covenant, formally beginning His spiritual purpose. However, that will be preceded by forming Abraham's physical descendants into a physical nation which God will use for His purposes, and from whom God will draw the bulk of those who are going to be in the first resurrection. We can see it is beginning to step out and include us.
The real beginnings of the Old Testament Church were not at Sinai, but in the land of inheritance where Abraham pitched his tent. Eventually what Stephen gets around to is the New Testament Church, but on his way there he has to establish what he calls "the congregation in the wilderness." So where does the establishment of "the Church in the wilderness" begin? He goes back to Abraham, not to Mount Sinai. That is the foundation. The foundation of God's spiritual purpose is the covenant with Abraham, not what happened at Sinai or anytime after that. The real formal beginning (if we can put it that way) was that seemingly simple ceremony we see in Genesis 15.
Abraham wanted some assurance that he indeed would inherit the land and have descendants. What God then did was give him specific instructions (verse 9) regarding a sacrifice that Abraham was to prepare. He did this after daylight. How do we know it was after daylight? Because of the birds, and other things that are written. After Abraham cut up the sacrifices and so forth, he just sits there and watches, which is kind of interesting. He sits there and watches and chases birds away from the sacrifices that he had prepared earlier.
To mark the time, it is at sunset that this occurs. It was not until after this that God spoke the prophecy beginning in verse 13 and going through verse 16. And then, beginning in verse 17, after the sun went down, a startling event took place right before Abraham's eyes. What we just read was the preparation and observation of the very first Night To Be Much Observed.
The strange sacrifice described in Genesis 15:7-19, God is making what is called a "maledictory" oath. This is the second of the two immutable oaths of Hebrews 6.
A maledictory oath is a very effective and ancient method of affirming the absolute certainty of one's word. All of us are somewhat familiar with the word "benediction." Benediction means "good words." Malediction is benediction's opposite. It means "bad words" in which the oath-maker utters a dire prediction against himself, and in this case, forfeiting everything if he fails to keep his word.
This really becomes significant when you realize who it was who made this maledictory oath. It was Christ. The words that He uttered in doing this are not here, but He was saying, "I will give up salvation. I will give up being God if I do not keep My word. " That is quite an oath.
We will go through Genesis 15 a little bit further. During the daylight portion of the 14th, Abraham prepared the sacrifice, and then he watched and waited. All of the animals that Abraham divided in two he then laid out on the ground so that there was a path that went to sacrificial parts that were mirrors of one another. What was on one side was also on the other side. He just divided everything right down the middle.
You will find that the animals that he divided in two are exactly the same animals that appear in Leviticus 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. They are the same animals that represented Jesus Christ in the sacrifices of the book of Leviticus. Each one of those animals represented Jesus Christ in some particular and peculiar way. Of course, as we now understand, those sacrifices pictured Jesus' devotion to God and to fellowman that He was willing to go all the way—and He did with His life.
So now all these things are laid out, and Abraham had to sit there and watch it, and he had to beat off the birds. Guess what the birds represent. They represent demons. Birds of prey especially represent demons in the Bible. You can connect this to Psalm 22, which tells of Jesus hanging on the stake. We have some of His words. He talks about how demons attacked Him while He was on the stake, snarling their defiance and trying to get Him to give up and to turn on God in order to spare and save His life.
In verse 12, the time of day has now reached right near sunset. The 14th came to a close, and a great horror and darkness descended upon Abram. This corresponds to Mark 15:33. It also appears in Matthew 27. It coincides exactly with the darkness of Christ's crucifixion, but it is even more symbolic of Christ's mindset while He was hanging on the stake, and with the horrifying realization as the blackness of death began to encompass His mind, and He screamed out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
At this point of time (Genesis 15) we are getting to the end of the preparation for the Night To Be Much Observed in that the narrative is showing the 14th represents the sacrifice of Jesus Christ during Passover day. What God is doing here is combining, entwining, and blending the sacrifice of … . . .
In principle, what He did here, first of all, was remind him of the promise. Then the next step was to broaden Abraham’s scope, beyond the limits of flesh and blood. See, He made him look up into the heavens. He literally made him do that, in a sense, made him look away from the physical, looking away from flesh and blood, looking away from the earth and towards God’s throne, into an expanse that was so great.
Remember, Abram was probably an astronomer, a mathematician. He took Abraham right into his elements, and said in a sense, in a nice, kind way, “Look dummy, get your mind off the self, get on to heaven above, get your mind on the vast scope of the power of which you are dealing.” And Abraham believed. It means that he took God at His word and God immediately responded. He accounted it to Abraham for righteousness. It was the right thing to do and God acknowledged it.
But now, the rest of the chapter. Abraham believed God. God is always the same. Faith, that belief, must be tested. Of all things, He tested Abraham purely with worship of that God. That has a valuable lesson contained within it. Now we might just expand on this word worship. Worship in its broadest sense involves every act of life. We tend to think of worship in terms of coming to services on the Sabbath, and that certainly is included because at that time we very definitely have a fellowship with God. We are in His presence, and we lift up prayers to Him and He speaks to us through His Word. There is a communication there.
But in its broadest sense worship includes all of the acts of life: what we do at home, and what we do on the job, while we are shopping, and while we are driving an automobile. Everything in our fellowship with God is contained within the scope of our worship of Him. This has something to do with the lesson that is involved here. How is God going to picture something to you and me in which this lesson is contained? He did it through a very ingenious method, and that is by requiring Abram to do something that we could very easily relate to as being an act of worship.
Now everybody here understands that when an Israelite worshipped, he made a sacrifice. That was the individual Israelite’s supreme act of worship. Under normal circumstances it was to make a sacrifice.
Here comes the answer to his question: make a sacrifice. Abraham’s question at first glance appears like a contradiction to verse 6. On one hand he believed, and on the other hand he is asking for proof. No, he is not asking for proof, that is why God accounted it as righteousness. Abraham believed, he took God at His word, and he knew it was going to happen. What we have a little trouble with is this, “How shall I know?” What he is asking for is how or through what experience the promise will be fulfilled. He believed it was going to occur, but he wanted to know the means through which it was going to occur. Now you and I are wondering about that and asking that about God all the time. We ask, “I know you’re going to do this, but how are you going to do it.” That is exactly what Abraham did.
We too may believe. Abraham believed, you see, but God’s answer is sacrifice. Now what kind of an answer is that? What He is telling Abram is this: That understanding God’s will comes when we offer ourselves as a burnt offering. Do you remember the sermons I gave on the offerings of Leviticus? We went through the burnt offering, the meal offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, and the trespass offering.
All the aspects of the burnt offering (Leviticus 1), the sin offering (Leviticus 4), and the trespass offering (Leviticus 5), are contained here. In the animals that were offered, you remember the type because I went through them, we see service, sin bearing, and innocence. The bull, the sin bearing of the ram and goat, and the innocence of the turtle dove. These aspects cover our … . . .
We have perfect agreement here so far. The timeline is moving. It has gone past sundown. It is now into the dark part of the 14th.
That is, "Prepare a sacrifice."
Sunset is the beginning of the 14th, and time-wise we are moving into the daylight portion of the 14th - Passover day. As daylight hits, Abraham asks for evidence that God will follow through, and he receives the command to prepare a sacrifice, and this prophecy regarding his family is the reaction that he gets.
Verse 12 shows that this action of preparing a sacrifice is on the daylight part of the 14th, because when we get to verse 12, the sacrifice has been all prepared, and the sun was going down. That brings us up to the end of the 14th. Very interesting.
Many have wondered why Christ was sacrificed during the daylight portion of the 14th in the afternoon rather than at the beginning, and seemingly more in alignment with Passover. Was not the Passover lamb slain at the beginning of the 14th, after ben ha arbayim began? Yes, it was. So people think because He was sacrificed sometime during the afternoon of the 14th that there is something wrong there. No! We have the answer right here in Genesis 15 as to why He was sacrificed in the afternoon of the 14th rather than at the beginning of the 14th.
Now here is the answer: Even as the covenant of promise with Abraham (that we're reading of here in Genesis 14 and 15) was ratified by this sacrifice that we see Abraham making here, Christ's sacrifice provides the ratification of the New Covenant. Christ's sacrifice, by God's decree, had to align with the ratification of thecovenant ofpromisewithAbraham, not the Passover. It aligns time-wise exactly with Genesis 15.
Verse 12 specifically states "when the sun was going down." Therefore, this sacrifice in Genesis 15, like Christ's sacrifice, took place in the afternoon. In the very late afternoon, what happened at Christ's crucifixion? A great darkness occurred. Here in Genesis 15 a great darkness occurred to Abraham. In addition to that, a great horror fell upon him. Now what does that picture? There are two possibilities.
