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.
From that small … . . .
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 thoughts, our conduct, and our emotions. I want you to remember this, we are primarily dealing here with the burnt offering. Do you remember what the burnt offering symbolized? It symbolized a person offering themselves completely and totally to God.
I think that it is interesting that the meal offering is not stated here. Because remember, the meal offering is offered in relation to men. It might be assumed that the meal offering is included even though it is not mentioned here because when we get back to the book of Leviticus, we find that every time a burnt offering was offered, the meal offering is offered on top of it. So, the two great commandments are covered here—giving ourselves completely to God and also serving, loving mankind as we love ourselves. But in order to do that, a person has to be a whole burnt offering. That is what the type is here. The emphasis is offering the entire self to God.
Now this is a great key that God is giving you and me. This is how we come to understand God’s purpose! God very rarely ever directly answers our questions. Did you notice back there in the New Testament, when you read of Christ, when He was asked a question, He always kind of beat around the bush and made people think, or He made people go through some kind of experience to get the answer.
God works in the same pattern all the time. That is one way we can prove, there is evidence that Christ in the New Testament is the same as the Lord in the Old Testament. They think in the same parameters, they act in the same way. When God answers Abraham’s question, “How shall I know,” He made him go through a test, and from that test comes an example, a lesson to you and me that we understand the will of God by offering ourselves as a living sacrifice to Him.
God is telling you and me that if we present our bodies as a living sacrifice, truth will be made manifest to us. Now why? What is the process? Sacrificing for God’s purposes, for the fulfilling of His will, forces us to live by faith. Living by faith pleases God, and His reward is to reveal more of Himself to us. It is a simple process, but not easy to do.
Now, here is Abraham doing his sacrifice. In type he is offering himself to God, in worship. He is offering his life. The vultures, again in symbol, represent distractions. We can tie this into scriptures like Isaiah 46:11, Revelation 18:2, the vultures are shown to be demonic, either evil spirits or a demon-possessed person. Again, it is showing that while we are offering ourselves to God as a living sacrifice, there will be distractions from those principalities and powers. They come in and try and keep us from making the sacrifice that God intends we keep.
So sacrifice is a major key to understanding God’s will. The reason for that is because it forces a person to live by faith. Living by faith pleases God, and God’s reward or blessing is to reveal more of Himself.
While we are going through the trial, there are going to be distractions from the principalities and powers, represented by the vultures, and there are going to be periods of darkness alternating with periods of light. There will be times that we … . . .
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 the covenant of promise with Abraham, 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.
