Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country, your family, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless them who bless you and curse him who curses you, and in you all families of the earth will be blessed.”
Genesis 12:1–3
This is the covenant made with Abram. It is God calling Abram to leave all that he knows. He is to go to the place that God shows to him. This covenant, or to understand better contract, comes with all sorts of stipulations. We could bullet point them.
- Made a great nation
- Receive blessing
- Have a well-known reputation
- For you to be a blessing
Of course, Abraham believed God and went as he was asked. This is plainly evident in the next verse, “So Abram departed.” He had no proof of anything other than what God told Him would happen. God said “Go.” And Abram left with no discernible delay.
Looking toward the New Testament and the great Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11, we read the retrospect.
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out into a place which he would later receive as an inheritance. He went out not knowing where he was going.
Hebrews 11:8
By faith Abram obeyed. His faith was not part of the contract. His obedience was not part of the contract. God’s promises were His alone to keep. And Abram believed God would indeed keep them.
Abram took Sarai his wife, Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had accumulated, and the people that they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan. They came to the land of Canaan.
Genesis 12:5
He took all of what he had and set out to the place God wanted him to go.
The Land Promised
The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So he built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
Genesis 12:7
In addition to the promises detailed at first, God will give to Abram the land to which he was sent.
Now, I know in today’s political climate there is much controversy over this land. Some say it doesn’t belong to Israel, but to Palestinians. But does it really?
Drawing up the Contract
After this the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying,
Genesis 15:1–6
“Do not fear, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”
But Abram said, “Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I am childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” Abram said, “Since You have not given me any children, my heir is a servant born in my house.”
Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir, but a son that is from your own body will be your heir.” He brought him outside and said, “Look up toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So will your descendants be.”
Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness.
I think with this text, we can get a sense of the business acumen of Abram. His negotiating skills are proficient. It might give us a hint as to what his family and business were like in Ur.
That aside, God promised a blessing, many descendants… meaning Abram would have heirs. The negotiations continue:
He also said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess it.”
Genesis 15:7–8
But Abram said, “Lord God, how may I know that I will possess it?”
The terms are given. And they’re pretty one-sided… I would say… Exclusively one-sided.
Establishing the Contract
So He said to him, “Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”
Genesis 15:9–11
Then Abram brought all of these to Him and cut them in two and laid each piece opposite the other, but he did not cut the birds in half. When the birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
As it was in those ancient days, this is how a contract was made. The Hebrew word for covenant is karath, which means to cut. Animals were cut in half and lain upon the sides of a small ravine. The blood from the animals would drain into the ravine, and the parties to the contract would walk through the collected blood to signify the effectiveness of the contract. The terms for breech… Let this blood be on the one who breeches to contract.
So what did Abram do?
As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram, and terror and a great darkness fell on him.
Genesis 15:12
Well, he did nothing. He went to sleep. The word terror doesn’t describe a feeling Abram had. It is used to describe the darkness of the deep sleep. There is no way Abram could have awakened to be privy to what would happen. It’s a subtle, yet important emphasis that applies today.
Then He said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will live as strangers in a land that is not theirs, and they will be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years. But I will judge the nation that they serve, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. As for you, you will go to your fathers in peace and you will be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation, your descendants will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
Genesis 15:13–16
It’s fascinating to consider that Abram was oblivious to this bit of prophecy. It is recorded for his posterity.
Now, this is important to understand.
When the sun went down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot with a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great Euphrates River—the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”
Genesis 15:17–21
It was God alone Who walked amidst the blood of covenant. He alone made the land contract. The terms to honor it are all agreed to by God alone. Abram is asleep.
The Ramifications
If Abram did nothing to ratify the contract. He can do nothing to nullify or void the contract.
This is an important thing to understand. God alone promised the land to Abram. God alone promised an inheritance to Abram. God alone promised blessings to Abram. God alone promised a great name to Abram. God also promised Abram would be a blessing to the world.
We know Abram’s name was changed to Abraham. We know Abraham had an heir of his own bloodline with Sarah. (She was included in that blessing.) We know the blessing to the world came from Abraham… Jesus.
But, Abraham’s descendants took possession of some of the land promised.
God Keeps His Promises
Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, look, the house of Israel says, “The vision that he sees is for many days to come, and he prophesies of the times that are far off.”
Ezekiel 12:26–28
Therefore say to them, Thus says the Lord God: There shall none of My words be prolonged anymore, but the word which I have spoken shall be done, says the Lord God.
God will do what He says He will do. But it happens in His timing, not ours nor when we expect it. We got a glimpse into that in the word spoken by God to Abram while he slept deeply.
Abram wasn’t privy to the struggles of the future. He believed God, and that God would do as He said, working it all out.
It’s this simple fact that God keeps His promises that led Paul to say this:
I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ.
Philippians 1:6
You Know the Way
“Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God. Believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, you may be also. You know where I am going, and you know the way.”
John 14:1–4
As Jesus spoke to His disciples, He promised them He would return. He promised them a place. He gives a blessing that you share it with others.
Partakers of the Root
But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among them and became a partaker with them of the root and richness of the olive tree,
Romans 11:17
The Bible teaches us in Romans 11 that we believers are grafted into the Root, Jesus. It says we believers take part in all the promises given to Abram. The same things promised to Abraham are ours and serve as a template or pattern to what God gives the believer.
That’s why you can believe what Jesus says. Our God keeps His Word!
Do You Hear?
Look at how the promises made to Abraham are the template for the promises given to believers by the Risen Savior Jesus.
“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give permission to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.
Revelation 2:7
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.
Revelation 2:11
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knows except he who receives it.
Revelation 2:17
“To him who overcomes and keeps My works to the end, I will give authority over the nations—
Revelation 2:26–29
He ‘shall rule them with a rod of iron; like the vessels of a potter they shall be broken in pieces’— even as I myself have received authority from My Father. And I will give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments. I will not blot his name out of the Book of Life, but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
Revelation 3:5–6
He who overcomes will I make a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My own new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
Revelation 3:12–13
“To him who overcomes will I grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
Revelation 3:21–22
Abram had an ear to listen. He heard and did as God asked. He believed. His faith led to obedience to what God asked. Yet it wasn’t his obedience that was counted for righteousness. It was his faith.
I will say that if you are saved, God will never not keep His promises to you. Even if you think in some moment of weakness or rebellion… You might walk away… But really?
In Him you also, after hearing the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and after believing in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.
Ephesians 1:13–14
It’s that indwelling Spirit that is His promise to us. He cannot be taken away.
If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.
2 Timothy 2:13
Like Israel gets the land, and it is theirs by promise He is going to fulfill, your salvation is yours, by the promise He is going to fulfill.