2023_02_13 Insight Post- Kim Feld

  -   February 13, 2023

This week’s reading-  Genesis 15, Galatians 3, Genesis 17, James 2

This week’s reading has some of the most profound and essential passages in scripture. Genesis 15 provides a beautiful picture of the relationship between Abram and God. Let’s look at what God has to say to Abram in the first part of chapter 15:

After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision:

“Do not be afraid, Abram.
    I am your shield,
    your very great reward.” Genesis 15:1 NIV

We read last week in chapter 14 about Abram’s victory in battle and the appearance of Melchizedek. God’s promise to Abram is met with an understandable question. What about my heir? In Abram’s time, it was common for someone without an heir to designate this role to one of his trusted servants. God then tells Abram that Eliezer will not be his heir; he will have a son. Abram was 75 years old in chapter 12 when God tells him to move and says, “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing” (Genesis 12:2). Fast forward to chapter 21. We read that Abraham (his name is changed in chapter 17) was 100 years old when Isaac was born.

Genesis 15:6 says, “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” He believed God but asked for reassurance that all that God had said would happen. Then God does something stunning and makes a covenant with Abram.

In those times, covenants were made and sealed between two people by splitting an animal in half and both parties walking between them. This practice is also recorded in Jeremiah 34:18. The notes in the NIV Quest Study Bible (2011, p. 21) say that this solemn oath implies that whoever broke the contract would suffer a similar fate. One of the remarkable features of this covenant is that only God entered it.

In Abram’s vision, he saw a “smoking firepot with a blazing torch” (Genesis 15:17) move between the animal halves. Abram was not asked to pass through them. This display signified God walking between the pieces, sealing His oath to fulfill the covenant (NIV Quest Study Bible, 2011, p. 21). And all these years later, we are still impacted by this incredible act. Let’s look at Galatians 3:

⁷ The real children of Abraham, then, are those who put their faith in God.

⁸ What’s more, the Scriptures looked forward to this time when God would make the Gentiles right in his sight because of their faith. God proclaimed this good news to Abraham long ago when he said, “All nations will be blessed through you.” ⁹ So all who put their faith in Christ share the same blessing Abraham received because of his faith (Galatians 3:7-9, NLT).

²⁶ For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. ²⁷ And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. ²⁸ There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you (Galatians 3:26-29, NLT).

Through Christ, we are heirs of the promise.