Counted Righteous
Genesis 15:1–6
Counted Righteous
Connection/Tension
All of us have and are experiencing some sort of inadequacy, rejection, or unfulfilled longing in this broken world. I used to have a high view of my ability to relationally connect with others, until I became a pastor and a husband and realized that I have a long way to go to be like Jesus. My shortcomings can create in me a sense of inadequacy. I’m not enough.
Many people in this room are working though struggles much greater still- infertility (like we will see in this story), reeling from a broken relationship or divorce, suffering from a chronic pain or illness, or past of abuse or victimization.
The gap between what we are and what we wish we were often creates a sense of anxiety and depression (or to use biblical language, it creates fear in our hearts). And yet, the most common command in the bible is, “fear not!”[1]
How are we supposed to do that? How are we supposed to navigate this life when we are so messed up and yet not let our deficiencies shape our emotional life and govern how we feel?
Abram’s going to face this same challenge this morning- and we are going to learn from him,
Context
At this point, Abram is passing test after test. He’s wrecking wicked kings and rescuing his family by faith in God. He’s refusing the spoil from the battle and instead offering tithes to the Lord. And at this point in our story, Abram’s relationship with God is going to take another step forward before God formalizes it with a covenant ceremony in our story next week. So, let’s jump into our passage:
Revelation
15 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.
The Three Offices
There’s so much going on in this verse it’s tough to get to it all. First, it says that “the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision.” This is the first time this phrase appears in the Bible, though it will appear hundreds of times in reference to prophets to whom the word of the Lord will come in visions.[2]
Moses has already depicted Abram as a priest, building alters to the Lord (12:7). In the last chapter, we saw Abram acting as a king, leading his army into battle (14:14). Now, we see him as a prophet, receiving communication from the divine realm. In Abram, all the offices of prophet, priest, and king are converging. These are the offices Christ will one day possess and that Adam possessed at the start. We are seeing a life that anticipates the even greater life of Jesus.
What point is the story making here? That through God’s work in this man’s life, he is piecing back together the image of God in Abram and all who trust God, like Abram.[3] By making Abram like Adam before the fall and like Christ, he is restoring the humanity that sin stole. As much else in this chapter will point to, God’s work is essentially reversing the curse, rolling back the ruin the serpent has brought and directly countering the effects of his influence. Abram is becoming a man who offers pleasing sacrifices to God, bravely confronts evil, and hears from God- all things God intended for human beings. We serve a God who puts broken people and broken worlds back together.
The Antidote to Fear
Now, notice the first thing God says to Abram in this vision, “fear not.” It kind of feels like it comes out of nowhere, doesn’t it? Why is this the first thing God said to Abram?”
The first words of this verse give us a clue, “after these things.” Apparently, it’s the events of the last chapter that prompt God to say, “do not fear.” If you remember, this is the first time Abram has changed the status quo in Canaan. Up until this point, he’s been just supporting cast in the background as the kings of the land ravaged one another. Yet, Abram finally got involved and toppled the biggest, badest warrior king of them all, Chedorlaomer. He completely upset the power structure in the land and turned everything on its head.
Now, for the first time, all eyes are on him. The ambitious warrior cultures around him probably now eyed him with suspicion and fear.[4] Maybe they thought he would make a grab at the iron throne and rule the region. Perhaps they would try to come and defeat him quickly before he could make a move, or so they supposed.
Yet, Abram has no interest in conquest and rule. And on top of this, Abram once again finds himself in a vulnerable position. He has no great army nor wealth to hire one- he just refused the spoils of the battle he won as a way of showing his faithfulness to God.
Though Abram had just won an astonishing victory, yet he finds himself in a familiar place- living in a foreign land with nothing but the promises of God to bank on. Now, he could be in greater danger than ever. Maybe he even feels the temptation to flee from the land again.
So, at this moment of anxiety, his God appears to him to fortify and strengthen him with a revelation of himself. My friends, in our moments of greatest fear and worry, we need nothing more than to see our God, and he faithfully reveals himself to those who seek him.
Now, in this vision, God gives Abram two reasons not to fear. The first, “I am your shield.” It’s as if God is saying, “Abram, in this hostile and violent land, your protection is not the size of your army, or your pocketbook, but I am your protection. I am the king who governs all things and am committed towards your good. Though you face many threats, you need not fear.”
Then God says, “your reward shall be very great.” What’s Abram’s great reward? Another way to translate that phrase could be, “I am your very great reward.” In other words, “Abram, you just forfeited the worldly spoils of the battle in faithfulness to me. Now, you are receiving something far better- me.”[5] There’s a lot of benefits that come with being a Christian, yet we must not forget the what we always seek, and all we need to be happy, is simply God himself.
Our God is teaching Abram and teaching us in this story that having right relationship with God is better than all worldly safety and all worldly wealth. We rob ourselves when we settle for less than God. Abram, though his household was small in numbers and without the spoils of war, was the richest man you could find. You and I are too if we possess him who matters most.
At this point, you would like to think Abram would respond, “Amen Lord, you’re all I need!” Yet, he, like so many of us, is weaker than that. He has multiple layers of fear he’s processing, and gives voice to one now,
2 But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.”
Despite God’s promise to be Abram’s protection and provision, he’s still feeling deep grief over his and his wife’s barrenness. If you remember, when we first met Abram and Sarai in chapter 11, the story described them as having “no child.” And even though God had directly promised them descendants and land, they wander through life in their old age childless for at least the next twenty-five years (12:4; 17:1).
Besides the personal pain of infertility, they also had to struggle with nagging doubts that God was not faithful to his word and plan to rescue the world like he said he would, through their serpent crushing offspring.
As time dragged on, it seemed like Abram and Sarai were closer to death and further from having children. Their own hope and the hope of the world was dwindling. Rather than Abram’s offspring rescuing the nations, the nations would possess what’s left of his earthly inheritance. Many of us (maybe all of us) are familiar with the pain of waiting on God to answer some desperate prayer.
In Abram and Sarai’s waiting, they were struggling with a sense of inadequacy and failure. In the ancient world, for someone besides their own offspring to gain their inheritance would have been a defeat. They were expecting a whole nation and kingly line to come from them, yet it was starting to look more and more like they none of that would come from them and they would lose everything they’ve worked for.
This is a story about the fear of failure and inadequacy. I truly believe this to be the case of most of us (at least it’s the case with me), that we walk around with a low grade sense of anxiety or even depression because we feel a sense of inadequacy and purposelessness. We can feel a sense of a lack of competence or being desirable or worthy as a person.
As we go through life, there are moments we experience failure and rejection and they come to shape our view of ourselves and our lives and can increasingly control our emotional state, as is the case with Abram here (“what will you give me?”). Now, let’s watch how God responds to Abram’s stated sense of personal inadequacy:
4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” 5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
God responds to Abram’s fears directly and compassionately.
God declares what will be and shows this his declarations more than all determines the future. Yet, to help Abram grasp his promise, he leads him outside to a nighttime sky to illustrate his promise.
He directs his attention to the panorama of the heavens. We’ve all experienced the breath-taking beauty of the stars. And here, God uses it as an object lesson to cement Abram’s first trust.
How would showing Abram the stars help him trust God’s word? In the story so far, the last time we saw stars in the story was in the beginning. On the fourth day, God created the stars, with his word (Gen 1:14 – 16).[6] He spoke, and he filled the heavens with greater and lesser lights. When we see starts, we should think, our God has boundless creative power.
So, the conclusion Abram should draw here is, if God’s word can fill the heavens with starts, he can also fill Canaan with my offspring. The stars are such a stunning display of God’s ability that Abram would struggle even to count them. All of a sudden, when Abram considers this great picture of God’s creative ability, his circumstances (like his old age) becomes smaller in his eyes, and his God becomes bigger. God will fulfill his word, he will triumph over the serpent and death through Abram’s descendants, and he will do it with the same power with which he illuminates the night sky.
There’s some very important lessons here:
1. God is going to heal Abram’s inadequacy, yet he doesn’t do it immediately. Abram has to trust God in the meantime, that his character is good and he’s going to follow through on his promise.
2. By pointing Abram’s attention to the starts, God is pointing Abram’s attention to himself. Up until this moment, Abram’s attention is on his own lack rather than God’s abundance. To fix his attention on the stars is to fix his attention on the one who made the stars. In other words, it’s not his personal circumstances that should govern his emotional life and understanding of himself, it’s the abundance of the God he worships.
In his situation of doubt, fear, and inadequacy, how does Abram respond to God’s pledge to make up for his inability and deficit?
6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
The Amazing thing God Did
Now we see the most amazing success of Abram’s life yet (though there have been many of them). He simply takes God at his word that despite everything he can see and how he understands the world, God is going to keep his word and provide everything. God is going to make him adequate.
And it’s his trust in God’s character and provision that causes God to respond in the most curious way: “and he counted it to him as righteousness.” So, what does this mean? “Counted” means God “thought of” or “considered” Abram in a new way, namely, as righteous. To be righteous means that one has fully lived in a right and just relationship with God and others. In other words, God is beginning to relate to Abram in a new way- as if he had never morally failed ever- all he had ever done is good.
That’s so strange- so perplexing. What is going on? Why is God relating to Abram in this way, especially when it’s not even true? There are several instances in the story where Abram failed.
To understand, it may be good to zoom out and see where the story has led so far. Genesis is largely a story of an abundant God who provides- that’s basically the point that making humans in a garden gets across.
And here is the counter-intuitive, crazy twist in the story: when human beings deserved God to provide for them the least, and the moment where they needed it the most, God comes through.
When humanity sinned, it both made us the least worthy of God’s provision and the most needful for it all at the same time. There’s a curse that descends on the world after the first human sins, it includes death, frustrating work, and difficulty childbearing. Yet, none of those things are the biggest problem facing humanity- rather, they point to the biggest problem- we are not righteous like God. Not being righteous like God means that we lose relationship with him and face judgement with him when we die.
Which means, our greatest need is to be righteous like God, even though we are not. And don’t you see that this is the very provision God is making for Abram in this moment, he considered him righteous. He provided righteousness for him.
And it must be this way- it has to be a righteousness God provides for Abram, because he couldn’t produce his own. His true problem was not that he couldn’t produce a child- that pointed to his biggest problem- he couldn’t produce a life that pleased God. And God knows that, and instead of striking him down when he trusts him, he provides. It’s what God has been doing the whole time since the beginning of the story:
We see the first picture of this kind of provision when God clothes Adam and Eve in animal skins- far better coverings than the flimsy leaves they stuck to themselves (3:20). We see another picture of it when Noah offers a sacrifice after the flood, and God accepts the pleasing aroma (8:20-21). Yet here, Moses gets most clear on what’s going on. Rather than showing us with pictures what God has done, he states it with direct description: “he reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Our God is crazy, unbelievably generous. We see this most clearly in this change of his mind toward Abram, seeing him not as the unrighteous man he is, but as the righteous man he needs to be.
Jesus
And yet, even after we’ve said all this, there’ still something so hard to comprehend. Normally for God to treat Abram is if he were righteous (when he’s not) would mean that God would have to become unrighteous. He’s calling something righteous when it’s not- we all hate than when we see it, don’t we. Is God like that?
And these pictures we just mentioned, the animal skins in the garden and Noah’s sacrifices, all look forward to the way God gives the gift of righteousness in a righteous way. He sends an ultimate sacrifice- his son- to take on himself the penalty of all our unrighteousness so that he can give us Jesus’s righteousness.
Which this just takes God’s generosity to a whole new level: he gives us what we need most, when we deserve it the least, AND at the greatest cost to himself. That’s what his heart is like, and this is the God that this story shows us! My goodness people, this story should leave us awestruck. The ultimate moment of provision for us is the moment where Jesus gives up himself. That’s what this language of “counted righteous” is getting at, it’s not a righteousness that we produce, but one that we receive from someone else that God counts as if it’s our own.
Our Response
This story shows us that the response God is after from us is trust. This exchange happened, Abram’s unrighteousness for God’s own righteousness, when Abram trusted God. He was trusting God with his inability to have a child, which pointed to his deeper and bigger problem, and God took his simple faith and made him right. We’re further along in the story than Abram, and things have become clearer at this point in history. Our biggest problem is not that we can’t have children, but that we can’t produce the righteousness God requires, and yet God’s gracious solution is the same. Trust him to be adequate in his place, and he will consider you adequate. He will accept you; he will receive you; he will welcome you.
This is such good news. So often, others see our flaws and our weaknesses and respond to us accordingly. And yet, our God is saying, I have paid the ultimate price so that I can see you as better than you are and treat you according to what you need rather than according to what you deserve.
And yet, though we are further along in the story than Abram, I think his situation is still instructive for us. He faced a real struggle in life- barrenness. It’s a struggle that some families in this room are facing right now. And all of us are facing some sort of inadequacy or struggle that, like Abram and Sarai, we are waiting on God to solve.
Abram’s response to his inadequacy started off as fear (he was an anxious and sad) and it ended up in faith (he had a joyful confidence in God). Your and my responses to our deficits and failures will also lead to one of those two results-
One response is that we will live with anxiety and sorrow because in our hearts we believe God cannot be trusted to make all things right.
The other response is that our pain in our bodies, our broken relationships, our mistakes in the past are meant to teach us about our greatest need- to have our relationship fixed with God. And since he made us right with him, he’s going to make all things right one day.
The gospel, that God rescues the undeserving who trust in him, can make anyone happy. Your struggles will either lead to you joyful dependence on God or to give into fear and anxiety, it’s one or the other. One beloved pastor who recently passed away put it this way:
“[The gospel] first says, ‘I am more sinful and flawed than I ever dared believe,’ but then quickly follows with, ‘I am more accepted and loved than I ever dared hope.’”
Being deeply aware of your need, yet even more deeply aware of God’s heart to provide is the - place God wants us all to be- and it’s a joyful place.
It’s the place the pain of infertility and waiting on God put Abram in this story, and it’s the place that our struggles and circumstances are meant to lead us.
Let’s Pray.
[1] Matt Chandler, Adam Griffin, and Jen Wilkin, Family Discipleship: Leading Your Home through Time, Moments, and Milestones (Crossway, 2020), 27.
[2] John D. Barry et al., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016), Ge 15:1.
[3] I first became aware of the connection between these offices and the image of God from Tim Mackey and his Bible Project podcast.
[4] John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries on Genesis, trans. Henry Beveridge (BakerBooks, 2009), 398.
[5] Biblical Studies Press, The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible (Biblical Studies Press, 2005).
[6] John H. Sailhamer, The Pentateuch as Narrative: A Biblical-Theological Commentary, ed. Gary Lee (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1992), 151.
