Genesis 15:5 Commentary and Bible Study

Did this take place actually, or did it take place in the vision? ‘And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven.’ Many expositors have felt this means he put him right back into a vision, but it doesn't actually say that. It may be literal: he caused him to be outside the tent and to look up towards heaven literally. ‘And tell the stars, if thou be able to number them.’ There is the night sky spread across above him, and he looks into the inky blackness of the sky. Of course it would be impossible to count them,; they seem to be innumerable. ‘He said unto him, So shall thy seed be.’ Now this told Abram a lot. ‘How is it going to happen?’ asks Abram. ‘How is this promise going to be kept?’ The Lord's first answer is, ‘It is going to take many generations.’ Obviously, if the seed is going to be that numerous, this event, this whole episode will need to run over many centuries. The previous illustration – sand on the seashore – says the same thing. All the tiny lights in the heavens are beyond Abram's ability to count. They obviously communicate, ‘Abram, this is not going to happen overnight. This is a matter of generations. When your seed comes there has got to be time for the families to be multiplied. Abram who was deeply intelligent man is getting clear information in what God says to him. Looking to the stars does not just say they are innumerable; it says this is a long history that we are talking about. Before it was grains of sand, little inert things; now it is stars in the sky. From just a human perspective, it seems to be almost a living thing; there seems to be movement and action. Everything, yes, is stationary – forget about shooting stars for the moment – but everything twinkles and shimmers. There is life, or appears to be from a purely human point of view in the stars. The stars cannot represent just an ordinary people. Remember that the ancients thought in terms of pictures and illustrations. To have your seed illustrated as being so numerous by stars indicates that this is a special offspring. These are lights in the world; they are a worthwhile people. Well, of course, not all Abram’s seed would be worthwhile. That is to say, not all of his seed after the flesh. But his seed would include the chief seed of all, Christ, and all who are in him throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament, so you look at the night sky and you see this great swathe of apparently light bearing bodies. When Abram looks at that night sky, even in a vision, and sees all his descendants as lights, his chief thought is that among them is the one seed, through whom all the nations will be blessed, Christ. This is the seed the seed that Paul tells us about in Galatians 3:16. The whole purpose of Abram being promised a seed, the many children, was that Christ should be born to that nation. Through that nation and through Christ, all who would believe Old Testament, New Testament would have their salvation purchased. Seed is a collective noun. It speaks of all the issue. But as Paul points out, it speaks primarily and principally of Christ, through whom the other seed exists.