And behold, the word of Jehovah [came] to him, saying, This shall not be thine heir, but he that will come forth out of thy body shall be thine heir.
Abram had answered God's promise of a great reward by pointing to his empty house and to Eliezer, his servant and heir. Here God rules the servant out and names a son not yet born as the heir — a son from a body already past hope.
Abram's question was not ingratitude. He had worked out that an inheritance needs a child to receive it.
See how exactly Abram lays hold of the great principle later brought out by the Spirit in Romans 8: "If children, then heirs." Abram felt that sonship and heirship were bound together. Without the first, the second could not exist. That is the meaning of his question: "Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?" Abram judges rightly that to have "no seed" was to have no inheritance. The word is not, if stewards or servants, then heirs, but "if children, then heirs."
Abram asked for a son. God's answer names a son and an inheritance together.
In reply the word of the LORD came to Abraham and, as always with God, His gifts exceed our requests. Abraham had asked for a son, and in reply God promises him not only a son but also an inheritance for the seed. Sonship and inheritance are the two great themes of God's reply. Our future hope is tied to our standing as sons. If we are sons, then we must be heirs. God does not have sons without providing an inheritance for them.
Abram's faith could not rise to the greatness of what God had offered him.
Thank God, if you cannot rise, God can come down; and so He does here to Abram. Calmly He comes down to the low level of Abram's faith, and goes on to give him what it can grasp.
The weakness in the question draws no rebuke, and the answer carries no conditions.
God does not reprove his lack of faith. Instead He encourages his faith by telling him that Eliezer would not be his heir, "but one who will come forth from your own body shall be your heir" (v. 4). God's promise was absolute, though it took longer to fulfil than Abram expected.
The ESV says "your very own son." The older wording the writers use, "out of your own body," points to the one place where nature had nothing left to give.
Sonship is the proper basis of everything. It is the result of God's sovereign purpose and working, as we read in James: "Of His own will He brought us forth." Finally, it rests on God's eternal principle of resurrection. How else could it be? Abraham's body was "dead"; so in his case, as in every other, sonship must be by the power of resurrection. Nature is dead, and can neither father nor conceive anything for God. The inheritance lay stretched out before Abraham's eyes in all its vast size. But where was the heir? Abraham's body and Sarah's womb both answered "death." Yet the LORD is the God of resurrection. A "dead body" was the very thing for Him to act upon.
Verse 4 settled who would hold everything. The rest of Abraham's household received something else.
Isaac was "heir" according to God's original promise (Gen. 15:4). Others might have gifts and do well; but nothing would satisfy Sarah but the heirship for her son. It is the same now. Men are content with an outward knowledge of Christ and the many gifts they get by it. But they stand completely apart from the true heirs of God. Those born of God can be satisfied with nothing less than what He is pleased to give.
- Question — Abram saw that without a child there could be no inheritance. The rule is not "if servants, then heirs," but "if children, then heirs."
- Answer — God rules Eliezer out and names a son of Abram's own. He adds an inheritance beyond what Abram asked for.
- Grace — God does not scold the weak faith behind the question. He comes down to the level Abram can grasp and gives an absolute promise.
- Power — The heir had to come from a body already dead, so that the son could only be the work of the God of resurrection.
- Result — Others in Abraham's house received gifts; the inheritance went to the son alone. Those born of God are content with nothing less than all He gives.
And he led him out, and said, Look now toward the heavens, and number the stars, if thou be able to number them. And he said to him, So shall thy seed be!
Abram is old and childless, and he has no heir. God takes him outside into the night and ties the promise of a family to something Abram cannot count.
Going outdoors pictures a change in how Abram measures his own case.
Another thing to notice is that when Abram measured himself by himself, he was childless and had no heir. But as soon as he viewed himself in the vastness of God's thoughts, all the comparisons drawn from things around him fell infinitely short of the Lord's intentions... A most important fact springs out of this look toward heaven, for the Spirit says, "He believed the LORD, and He counted it to him as righteousness."
God asks nothing of Abram here except attention.
God brings Abraham out from his own circumstances, and all he must do is look, listen, and believe. He is to look away from Sarah, himself, the earth, and everything of nature, and the LORD says, "Look toward heaven." And as he looks at the stars, he is to listen to what God says, "So shall your offspring be."
God sets Abram a task he cannot finish.
Could he count the stars? God did not tell Abram at the time that he could see only a very small fraction of all the stars in the heavens. He simply told him that his descendants would be as the stars.
Earlier God had compared Abram's family to the dust of the earth. Writers see the new image turning his hope in a new direction.
The contrast was great between thinking of his future descendants "as the dust of the earth" and now hearing them likened to "the stars of the heavens" (compare Genesis 15:5 with 13:15-17)... From then on God measured the future seed by the glory of His own dwelling place in heaven, not by Abraham's path as he walked by the sight of his eyes on earth. Abraham needed daylight to travel from place to place. But God spoke to him again in the dark of the night, when nothing hindered the display of heavenly glory in the countless stars, which witnessed to God's mighty power and wisdom.
Commentators differ on how far to press this. One writer sorts the promises into three, and the note printed with that article disagrees:
The Lord had said before, "All the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever." This concerns Israel. Then He said besides, "I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth." This applies to the nations at large. Now He says, "Look toward heaven, and number the stars." Here we have a heavenly family, and by this the promise is completed.
Editor's note: Though this interpretation is not new, is it warranted by Scripture? Do not Genesis 22:17, Deuteronomy 1:10 and Deuteronomy 10:22 show that "the stars of heaven" applies to the earthly people just as much as "the sand of the sea" does?
Verse 5 is the promise that verse 6 answers. What makes Abram's response remarkable is what he did not ask for.
Abram simply took God at His word. He believed it, he rested on it. He asked for no sign about the birth of the heir. He did not ask when he would set eyes on him, though he did ask for a sign that he would inherit the land. About the birth of the heir, the bare word of God was enough for him, and God reckoned his faith to him for righteousness. From that day on he was a justified man in God's eyes, justified by faith.
One writer turns the same call on the reader:
God brings Abraham out and points him to the starry sky... And what, dear friend, does your soul need? And where are you told to look for all the blessings you need? Toward heaven. Is it, Look within? No — toward heaven... Oh, dear one, "LOOK NOW." God never says, "Look tomorrow."
- Outside. Measuring himself by himself, Abram found nothing. God moved him out to see himself in the vastness of God's thoughts.
- Upward. God asks three things: look, listen, and believe — away from Sarah, himself, and everything of nature.
- Uncountable. The stars Abram could see were a small fraction of the real number, and his family was to be as the stars.
- Heavenward. Dust of the earth gave way to stars of heaven. Commentators differ on whether the stars mean a heavenly people or the earthly nation.
- Counted. The bare word of God was enough for Abram. He asked for no sign about the heir, and from that night God counted him righteous.
And he believed Jehovah; and he reckoned it to him [as] righteousness.
The scene is a starry night: God has just told childless Abram to count the stars and has promised him offspring as numerous as those stars. What follows is one short sentence the New Testament quotes again and again — about how God makes a person right with Him.
The faith recorded here was a response to something said, not something seen. One writer marks the exact moment:
It is not when the Lord appeared, but when the word of the Lord came to Abram, that he believed, and it was counted to him for righteousness. It is better, as Paul interprets it, to translate here "believed the Lord." The Hebrew adds the word "in," but with this verb it hardly carries that force.
And the word he received was, by every human measure, impossible.
You remember the story — one of the most beautiful in the Bible, to make plain how a sinner is justified… Abraham believed the Lord's word, though he was then an old man, and his wife an old woman. In the eyes of man this promise was impossible. But Abraham believed God, and God counted, or reckoned, this faith to him as righteousness… Abraham did not look at how impossible the promise was. He looked at the almighty power of the One who made it… Remember that this happened 430 years before the law was given. Abraham had never heard of the law when God reckoned him righteous. It was all by grace. It was all by faith.
Others had believed God before Abram. But here Scripture says something for the first time.
He believes in the power of resurrection in God, and in His faithfulness to perform His promise, and it is counted to him for righteousness. This is the first time Scripture teaches this great and all-important truth, or even uses the word for it. I have no doubt this is intentional, though we know there were believers before. But now, in the great root of the tree of promise, God would bring out this basic truth. Here God laid the very ground of man's blessing.
Older translations read "counted to him for righteousness," where the ESV has "as righteousness." One writer weighs what that accounting word means:
"Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness." That is, God reckoned Abraham righteous, or held him to be righteous, because of his faith. The little word "for" can mislead. It may suggest that faith is a substitute for righteousness, something that can be turned into righteousness. "Reckoned to him as righteousness" more nearly gives the sense.
The God Abram trusted gives life where there is none. That shuts out every human contribution.
God counted righteousness to Abraham here because he believed in the Lord as the One who gives life to the dead. This is the character in which He reveals Himself in a world where death reigns. When a soul believes in Him as such, God counts that soul righteous in His sight. This must shut man out as far as his co-operation goes, for what can he do in a scene of death? Can he raise the dead? Can he open the gates of the grave?
Working and believing are paid in opposite ways:
If a man works, the reward is not viewed as a gift. It is the wages due to him. But if, instead of working, he believes on Him who justifies the ungodly — what a magnificent proof and conclusion that his faith is reckoned for righteousness! This is free grace, and the very opposite of a debt according to law.
Abraham's faith here and his offering of Isaac are two separate moments, years apart:
Now this is mentioned in Abraham's history many years before he "offered up" Isaac. The former is in Genesis 15:6, the latter in Genesis 22. How thoroughly distinct, then, is justification before God from justification before men.
The record was never meant to stay in Abram's biography.
If any case could be regarded as special, it is surely Abraham's. Yet of him we read that the words "it was counted to him" were "not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in Him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord" (Romans 4:23-24).
- Word — Faith came when God spoke, not when God appeared; Abram rested on a promise he could not fulfil.
- Counted — God did not find righteousness in Abram; He reckoned him righteous because he believed.
- Life — The God Abram trusted raises the dead, so no human effort can add anything.
- Grace — Wages are owed to a worker; righteousness is credited to the one who believes — and this came 430 years before the law.
- Us — The verse was written for every later believer, so the same reckoning stands today.