On the 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 river, the River Euphrates — the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.” (Gen 15,18-21)

When Abram heard God and accepted Him as his own, he perceived His all-surpassing power. The neighborhood, however, did not worship this God, and so it remained more or less his personal matter. He therefore practiced his religion within the circle of his family and "farm." Gradually, however, he became more and more aware that this God was not different from others in name only, but that he surpassed all others in power. This knowledge continued to grow and reached a climax when God made the first covenant with him and told him that he would remain the God of his offspring forever, and that all this would only fully begin in 400 years! God will give Abram's descendants the territory from the Nile to the Euphrates, because of the iniquity of its inhabitants. Abram knew most of these nations and was a minority among them - he could not imagine where they would go from there? (So it must have sounded a bit of science-fiction for him.)

The Euphrates formed a natural boundary, literaly or imaginary, for the inhabitants of that time; they perceived the world as "here" or "there" beyond the River. Yet the vast majority of them had never been to Zaeuphrates - they knew the area only from stories when caravans, filled with goods from the Far East, arrived from there. Abram, however, had lived beyond the River before, so he had specific knowledge of the extent of the promised territory and what it might look like, inhabited by foreign tribes.

Compared to before, something fundamental has now changed: this God is no longer his private God, an internal affair of his tribe, but speaks to him as the ruler of the world and of time. As the one who can decide about the nations, about their being and non-being, about the times in history when this or that can take place here on earth. Let us note that the Scripture does not teach that everything that happens on earth is directly controlled by God, only that everything is permitted. Man plays a decisive role in world events - many of them would have played out in other ways if the actors had acted differently (Gen. 15:16). Moreover, Scripture reveals that the enemy of God actively enters into history - but all that would be a topic of another account...

As a memento, however, we must remember that Israel never occupied the entire territory God entrusted to them here. It is roughly the size of Poland, and today's Israel, for example, does not occupy even a tenth of it. Even at the time of its greatest glory it reached perhaps half that size. We know from Scripture why - because of their failure. However, we must learn from this that our journey is not written down to the last dot somewhere on the parchment of destiny - whether we cover the fullness of it or only a part is largely up to us.

And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. (Gen 15,14)

God clearly does not approve of everything that is done in the world, nor of everything that is done by the mighty of this world who are to "bear the sword of righteousness" (Rom. 13:4). But it is not always so, and often they have borne rather the scourge of bondage and violence. No wonder that God "holds a trial" against many of them, which may be crowned even with their power falling. This process will be set in motion especially when, like the Israelites later, they begin to send prayers to God for help.

God tells Abram that in 400 years God will lead a war with Egypt and that the Israelites will leave it with great wealth. Abram knew Egypt and its wealth (in today's language, its "standard of living") very well. At this point, he could hardly have imagined that his God would one day stand against this greatest power of antiquity. He must have wondered how such a conflict would play out? Well, the Israelites saw it as the miracles of their God, while the Egyptians saw unusual phenomena and natural disasters (which at the time equaled economic disasters).

Abram's descendants would one day take a great fortune out of Egypt. In its narratives, the Bible puts a surprising emphasis on this, going so far as to speak of the "plundering of Egypt." It is meant to be proof that although his people are almost always in the minority in world events, they will not be subdued forever, and if that happens, it is only by permission from above and for a given time. 

From the conclusion of this covenant, God started to reveal himself to Abram as the ruler of the whole world.

And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions... But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. (Gen 15,14.16)

So God will let his blessed nation go through centuries of slavery. But beware: the 400 years were not a punishment like the later 40 years in the wilderness. It was God's appointed path for the Israelites - not an easy one, but they were right in Egypt. It is unpopular today to suggest that God's journey with us may also include a period of humiliation. But how grateful we are after we go through it, and what riches are revealed to us through it! Of course, we experience also evil in our lives that is not from the hand of God, but from the enemy, and this must be confronted. Nevertheless, not everything that we personally experience as unpleasant is from the evil one. There are situations that God allows us to go through that are meant to change, transform us. For the Israelites, the next 400 years were a preparation - sheltered by the power of Egypt, they multiplied, whereas in Canaan, where the situation was precarious and tribal wars raged, this would have been very difficult. As long as they were just a handful, they could be wiped out. Egypt thus meant oppression for them, but paradoxically, as the greatest power in the world at the time, it also meant protection, until a given time. Slavery was to prepare them to value freedom and to be able to live in it permanently. (Which they unfortunately didn't quite succeed in achieving).

God specifically mentions "the completion of the iniquity of the Amorites" as the second reason. God is also fair to His people in how He deals with them before the world. The arrival of the Israelites in the new land and the expulsion of the original inhabitants of Canaan marked God's judgment on the local peoples. God did not let them be driven out until a certain measure of their iniquity was reached. God always upholds justice - but this implies the fact which is not always pleasant for us that we cannot get anything from God by favouritism! Altogether, six times the New Testament reminds us that God does not "show favoritism" (e.g. Acts 10,34) , i.e. everyone has equal right of access to him. Why is this emphasized so many times when the New Testament was written for believers? Because it has always raised questions as to why some receive more from God and others less. The reason of it, however, is in the attitude and surrender of this or that person, not favoritism from God. If the church were to behave dishonestly in its walk in the world, say in the magistrate's office or maybe using bribes, it would be a great stain on its witness. God is always perfectly just, even against Himself: even salvation did not come by God turning a blind eye on us and letting us somewhat slip into heaven. His own Son had to be condemned to death, and with Him our own sin.

Spiritual riches cannot be obtained through shortcuts, so we could avoid what is difficult. For on the path of the pursuit of God it is double true: if it costs nothing, it is also worth nothing.

Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years." (Gen 15,13)

How excited would we be if God told us that the fulfillment of the greatest promises He is currently making to us would only be experienced by our descendants sometime after the year 2400? Or if we saw only today on someone's great-great-grandchildren the fulfillment of what God promised him in the period of the Thirty Years' War? And what if those 400 years would be filled with humiliation for them? But after all, that's exactly how God communicated it to old Abram and confirmed it with the covenant (and Abram still had to drive away the darkness and the predators from it all)!

I doubt that this would arouse any enthusiasm in us, for it is very difficult for a modern man to look beyond the horizon of his own life. We take life as a kind of personal project that is supposed to be successful and fulfilled (already within this life) in whatever sphere. We regard the individual, not the whole, as the most important part of the world. We consider that we have the right to a good life, or at least the prerequisites for a good life, and to adequate care in the old age (which is to be provided by the state and its politicians).

God told Abram that He would make his descendants go through a long phase in which they would be slaves in a foreign land for several generations. It is hard for us to accept that God's way with a man may not always lead upward. After all, Abram was free, extremely wealthy - and God is going to put his descendants, his promised and loved descendants, through poverty and slavery? Yes, because from the perspective from above that we so often miss, these generations, by what they experience, will prepare the ground for those who come after them, and only they will experience the fullness of the promise. It had to happen: because of the transformation of the heart and for the sake of justice, as we shall later see.

Neither Abram's descendants nor we as individuals receive everything from God all at once. Yes, salvation is free because it does not depend on us, but is a gift of grace. But the precious and eternal things of God are only born with time in the life of a person who follows Christ, like precious stones, gold and silver from the transfiguration, transmuted by fire - that is the eternal riches of 1Co 3:12-13.

Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years." (Gen 15,12-13)

Abram experienced "terrors and great darkness" right before God. No wonder he was momentarily overwhelmed by his encounter with God and his inner struggle of faith, for what accompanied his covenant with God was beyond all his previous experience.

And yet: was it really only human weakness, as I said last time? A manifestation of our humanity, to which heavenly things lie so far away that they are difficult to grasp?

Abram has just experienced darkness - and at that moment God begins to speak again, revealing to him the truth about the coming period of darkness in a foreign land. Abram's experience was thus prophetic, perhaps not the first, but certainly not the last in his life. God can speak to a person on the basis of what he or she is experiencing and then give a transcending interpretation to that experience. Abram's gloom, terror, and darkness symbolize the future Egyptian bondage of his descendants. In our lives, God may speak to us through dreams, life situations, with words we have heard, with those which were meant for us or even unintentionally caught. Sometimes we realize at that moment that we have heard them many times and yet were deaf to what they were meant to convey.

Some of our experiences thus take on a new dimension and interpretation and become a message for us. For the servants of God, the prophets - heralds of the word, they have, moreover, an overlap even to others. The prophets therefore experienced things that conveyed a message for those around them or for generations to come, as we now see with Abram.

Can anyone wonder that their lives used to be so dramatic?

 

Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, down the middle, and placed each piece opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. 11 And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. (Gen 15,10-12)

During that long conversation with God (or maybe during a long time before Him, because it wasn't all talking), fear and darkness fell upon Abram. It was as if he had sunk to some depth in which he had lost sight of the light he had so clearly perceived from God. What had happened - what was this "fear and great darkness"?

It was not the power of darkness that gripped his heart in depression, for here was God so near. Nor was it Abram's consciousness of sin that drew him away from God. It was the depth of human weakness, the moment of exhaustion when, after the inner struggle and experience of an encounter with God that transcends all that is familiar, a man finds oneself at the edge of strength and his ability to absorb has been exhausted. It is no wonder that people in the Bible who have experienced a visitation from above have often fainted, lost their speech, trembled, and needed to hear: "Fear not..." This doesn't mean that the encounter with the heavenly always has to be so dramatic; it's a question of the degree of power of that visitation. In any case, this fact is not entirely easy to accept for those who believe that the experience of God's presence is entirely wonderful. One day it will be so without exception, but now we are still "in the flesh."

Abram has driven away the birds which here invade his covenant and represent the invisible enemy. He did not expect at all that in the very centre of God's activity and will there would be a struggle in which he must play his part. Nevertheless, when it came, he arose and immediately got down to work. Exhausting work, let us add...

This experience of Abram's also illustrates how close the heights of heaven are to the deep valleys in the life of pursuing God. And let us reiterate that beside the spiritual heights lie not the valleys of sin (as if the followers of the Lamb would have to fall into them), but the valleys of weakness, that "clay" of our bodies in which the heavenly treasure is stored (2 Co 4:7).

And he said, “Lord God, how shall I know that I will inherit it?” 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.” (Gen 15,8-9)

Abram demanded some evidence from God because, having believed the birth of a descendant shortly before, he had apparently exhausted his capacity and simply could not believe the next promise, the promise of the land. My God, how do I know? What's the right answer? "Nowise." Of course, there's no way to know, you just have to take hold of the invisible in faith. God has a different perspective as he sees from eternity. It is obvious to Him that what He promises He will fulfill, but a man doubts. Faith is also always a test of time for a man. Now I do not yet see, yet I believe.

Fortunately, however, God is also lenient to our weaknesses. To Abram, who first proved that he wants to believe but cannot, at least for now, He offers the assurance of a covenant.

At the time of Abram, there existed no states as we have today, the local governments consisted of the men of the tribe that controlled a certain territory. Back then, tribes made agreements - treaties, swore oaths by their gods, and invoked curses on each other if they were to break them. It was logical. There was no superior authority to which the aggrieved party could appeal, non-compliance would probably have resulted in war, and so the tribes bound themselves with promises whose fulfilment should be ensured, first and foremost, with their moral credibility (this was to be underpinned by reference to ancestral traditions: "we will respect each other's borders, as our fathers have done from all time ago..."). Very important factor was a respect before a higher power - the deity.

Sometimes we speak of God as the God of covenants, but as in many other things, it is because this is the way He comes to meet the understanding of a man, i.e. God appears to us in this way, He is hereby the God of covenants for us. It is well to bear in mind that, for instance, this first covenant with Abram would not have come into existence at all if it had not been for Abram's unbelief. God lends a hand to a man in his difficulty to grasp the invisible, and becomes one party of the covenant to confirm that what he promises is utterly valid.

He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.” But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?” (Gen 15,7-8)

Abram ascended to his spiritual height - he believed God, and because of this He ascribed to him a positive quality of righteousness. He ascended to it by an inner struggle; it was no frivolous "bene, bene" nodding to whatever was presented to him. He had to beat his way through the bushes of incredulous thoughts that what God promises is not possible at all; but in the presence of God he finally overcome.

Once a man is on high, the ground is prepared for his spiritual victory to continue and extend towards next one. Therefore, God solemnly reminds Abram of His original promise that he would receive possession of the land in which he dwells in addition to his offspring.

But alas, faith is not an automatic thing... Abram, having just demonstrated it, is falling down again. He does dwell in the land and manages to keep his identity and religion, but still, this land is occupied by the Canaanites and receiving it seems like a fanciful idea from another world. He clearly does not want to contradict God, but neither can he agree - he demands proof. "And how shall I know that I shall receive it?"

Once we reach spiritual heights, there are others nearby ready for us, but the struggle it took to climb up is still too fresh, the victory not anchored in us enough to keep us from falling back a moment later. Peter, a moment after his best confession at Caesarea, utters the greatest folly and is rebuked; the disciples first experience the power of God as manifested through them, but soon want to call down the fire of vengeance on their adversaries. The heights and the depths are remarkably near on the spiritual path. To ascend upwards was to work against our old nature, and therefore the retrograde forces are still here for a time and by their inertia want to draw us back. Here it is necessary not to give up, to persevere, and thus to build a solid foundation for our edifice. This is where the "patience of the saints" is needed.

 

And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness. (Gen 15,6)

I wrote that faith is a struggle for the image of God in the heart of man.

Faith is a struggle because believing stands against what I don't believe in or do not want to believe. Just as Abram believed God against an obvious reality: he could no longer have a son. Unbelief is more natural to humans; we don't have to make great efforts to disbelieve. Skepticism and doubt are even commandments of modern science. Yes, at the level of scientific knowledge it must be so, as far as the material world we can touch and then analyze with reason is concerned. But in things unseen, about which our senses give us no information, we are dependent on internal constructions, (unscientific) intuition - and faith. We verify their correctness from our experience, i.e. indirectly or retrospectively, unless we experience Abrahamic-like encounters. Then we have something that can hardly be explained to those who doubt - but thank God that His Spirit is at work even in the 21st century...

Faith is a struggle for the image of God, because by the fall of man that image has been marred and corrupted, and therefore no man sees God rightly until the veil of deception is removed from his eyes.

Faith is a struggle for the image of God in the heart of man, not just in his head. Faith is not mere conviction. Biblical faith is not just believing something, but trusting someone; it is not just about ideas, but it establishes a new relationship with a person. It becomes a way of justification also because this relationship implies transformation. It is impossible to have trust in God embedded in the heart and go on living as without it.

 

And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness. (Gen 15,6)

Mostly, we take our understanding of the concept of faith from our current life or from those around us. Most of the time we understand it as a denial of some negative reality, an effort to see it differently (or not to see it at all, a kind of trying to live on a blue cloud). If we are to talk about trust in God, most of us will understand it as hoping that some bad situation will turn out well or at least not so bad.

However, this is to some extent confusing faith with hope. Hope has to do with future expectations, and we can fill in what we would like to happen and ask God for it. Nevertheless, faith, specifically the Abrahamic faith, is something else - it is tied to a specific promise of God. For Abram, the whole journey to the coveted offspring was a struggle to believe God's promise, even when everything looked exactly the opposite, and in fact, increasingly worse. Yes, he certainly wanted the good ending - he had hope - but there was even something more. For in the beginning he had received a clear promise, but then - for twenty five long years - he experienced an inner struggle to know if his God was trustworthy, if he could deliver what he had promised. In that struggle, Abram sometimes won, but often lost.

People who easily believe anything are considered fools by those around them, and rightly so. But Abrahamic faith is not naiveté or foolishness. During his conversation with God, Abram experienced a great struggle before he dared to believe, but at one point he finally did. God responded immediately. While we would all like to escape to that dreamy blue cloud of hope at times, Abram provides evidence to us that biblical faith is a rather unnatural thing for humans (and vice versa, unbelief is much natural for us (!)). Life experience teaches us something other than to believe, and as an old merchant, Abram knew this well. In life, after all, you get what you snatch, and no one gives you anything for free. Better not trust anyone too much, rely on yourself, it is just a naive notion that someone could mean it too well for you.

To trust God, therefore, we must lift ourselves up (and often rather "be lifted up" - how great is God's grace!) because, as Abram testifies, the faith to which God responds is in fact a struggle for the image of God in the heart of man.