BULLETIN ARTICLE
31 March 2019
ABRAM BELIEVED
Genesis 15 points to one of the great doctrines of the Bible – “Justification by Faith”. “Abram believed the LORD and he credited it to him as righteousness” (Gen 15:6). This is also the very first time in the Bible where “Justification by Faith” is introduced.
When Abram was seventy-five years old, the LORD promised to make him into a great nation and to bless all peoples through him. As he grew older along with his wife Sarai, they were still childless and Abram might have wondered if he misunderstood the LORD’s promise. He might have resigned himself to his childless state and adopted his trusted servant Eliezer as his heir as was the custom of that day. So, when the LORD promised Abram a great reward, he must have wondered why, when his greatest desire was to have a child through whom God’s promise would be fulfilled. Sarai was way past child bearing age even at sixty-five in Ur of the Chaldeans and she must have been at least a decade older by now. When Abram poured out his doubt and desire to the LORD, the word of the LORD came to him. Abram’s heir would be his biological son. Abram’s descendants would be as numerous as the stars. “He (the LORD) took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be”” (Gen 15:5).
It is impossible to count the stars as it is impossible for a man and a woman to bear a child at that old age. It would take a miracle. But Abram chose to believe the LORD’s promise although he had no way of understanding what that promise meant. He was fully persuaded that the LORD had the power to do what he had promised. When Abram believed in the LORD’s promise, the LORD by grace credited Abram with the righteousness that would come from the fulfilment of his promise. That would ultimately be in God’s son Jesus Christ. God would credit Abram with Jesus’ righteousness as Abram believed the LORD’s promise.
That is the good news of the Gospel of Jesus where God credits Jesus’ righteousness to us when we accept Jesus as our Saviour and our Lord. Justification by grace through faith is God’s act of declaring a sinner forgiven and credited with Jesus’s righteousness through his faith in God’s promise of salvation. God declares that we have right standing with him because he sees Jesus in us. It is no wonder that many Bible scholars declare Gen 15:6 –“Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” – as the most important verse of the Bible. The Apostle Paul declared to the early churches that: “Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” (Gal 3:8,9).
