Faith

Genesis 15

What a vitally important chapter this is with it's revelation of God's promises to Abram of offspring and of land.

We start with the promise of land in verses 7-21.

Theses verses underly the key historic events of the Old Testament history. There is the prophecied promise of the Exodus from Egypt and the conquest of Canaan (v13-16, 18-21). This promise of the land of Canaan is assured by God cutting and making of a dreadful oath type covenant with Abram (v7-12, 17-21).

Now let's think about the promise of offspring in verses 1-6.

Theses six verses underly the core message of the whole Bible. Verse 6 could be seen as one of the key 'Gospel' verses of the whole of Scripture. It is quoted in Romans 4:3, Romans 4:22; Galatians 3:6 and James 2:23.

God promises the long childless Abram that he will have a son and many offspring and Abram just "believed the LORD". He took God at His Word and believed Him to be truthful. Faith does include living in obedience to God's law, or being righteous and in favor with God. But Abram's faith, even before it became a lived out obedience, was "counted ... to him as righteousness". The ESV Study Bible puts it like this: 'Before Abram has proved himself righteous by his deeds, he is counted (that is, regarded) as righteous because of his faith'. The Apostle Paul will eventually define this being credited with righteousness by faith alone as the Gospel doctrine of justification by faith (Roman 4:3-5; Galatians 3:8).