How merciful is our God that He would impute that righteousness on us as well by grace through the same faith as Father Abram.
There is rarely a text more iconic to Lutheran preaching on the Old Testament than Genesis 15:1-6. These verses speak to the very core of the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone on account of Christ alone. I suggest you also use copious cross references from the New Testament to pepper your preaching this week (Romans 4:3,5,9,22-23; Galatians 3:6; James 2:23). You can unite both testaments with a teaching on the righteousness we receive from God by faith in Christ.
First, we turn to the text itself. Abram receives the promise of God in our text that he is going to be made into the “father of many nations.” This seems to be a gloomy prospect to him because Abram has no children. It must have been hard for him to understand what was going on. Abram is an interesting test case for what Christianity is for all of us. Notice how he was not going to be the father of many nations in merely an ethnic way or in a way according to the Law. This is because the promise was given through faith and not through ethnicity. Also, Abram lived well before the giving of the Law on Sinai. It is clear in our text that he is the father of those who trust in God alone for everything.
Abram is, therefore, the father of all believers. He would be the father of two groups in the narrative. He is the father of the nation who was given the Law later, while also being the father of those who were not circumcised as well. Strange to think about it but it is true. He received this promise even before circumcision, which means this promise would also be for all the uncircumcised gentiles. This faith which is counted to him as righteousness is for everyone.
You would do well to spend some time homiletically unpacking the ideas of faith, belief, and righteousness in this sermon. For Abram, faith was a total dependence on God. Notice how faith itself is only as good as what or rather who you have faith in. His faith was not from himself, it was from the source. His faith and trust were solely in God. Notice also that the word “believe,” which is a result of faith, as a verb is useless apart from its object. In Abram’s case, believing is the opposite of works. It is a passive reliance and trust in the work of God alone.
Let us look at the evidence. Abram had nothing God needed. Abram and Sarai, his wife, were not capable of making the promise happen. All they brought to the table was loss and death. Only God would speak a promise through which He would bring life. This is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness.
That said, “righteousness” is a loaded word, but I think using David Zahl’s terminology for “righteousness,” from his work Seculosity, might help. In this book he equates righteousness with “enoughness.” Righteousness is striving after whatever makes us enough or gives us enough. For Abram, God would be “enough” because he did not have “enough” in himself to make something like this happen. So, when we are at the end of our sufficiency there is only the sufficiency and righteousness which can be had from God alone.
So, when we are at the end of our sufficiency there is only the sufficiency and righteousness which can be had from God alone.
This, of course, is only found in the promised Son, greater than Isaac, Jesus Christ. Here is where all faith would count its righteousness and sufficiency before God. It would be credited to us on the cross and empty tomb. Abram had a faith that would push past himself in every way. It would push past him all the way to the Messiah. How gracious of God to count those future promises and that future deliverance as righteousness for him right now, even though he could not see it. How merciful is our God that He would impute that righteousness on us as well by grace through the same faith as Father Abram. This unearned faith is a bold confidence and trust in the work of God. That is why we need not be afraid. God’s work is our shield as well. It protects us from all the vain things which would threaten to consume our thoughts and prayers.
When consider Abram sitting in the soft, blue night light of the stars in the sky, looking up to Heaven in prayer to God, I think of this statue called “Cristis degli abissi.”
What makes this image so powerful is that it is a representation of trust and prayer sunk below the depths of earth while looking to the heavens and the light for an answer. This is an image of what trusting in God alone looks like. This bronze statue was placed in the Mediterranean Sea on August 22, 1954. However, the fun part is that this is not, of course, a statue of Abram. It is a submerged bronze statue of Jesus by the artist Guido Galletti. This work of art is in the Mediterranean Sea off of San Fruttuoso which is located between Camogli and Portofino on the Italian Riviera. The image holds together the events of our text as a portrayal of the promise to Abram, and it unites it with its fulfillment in Jesus. It would be Jesus the greatest descendant of Abraham (Matthew 1) and Abram’s greater Son who would fulfill the hopes he had by faith. Abram is begging for a son in our text and God gives it, ultimately, in Jesus. You and I and all people receive that promise by faith in the waters of baptism where we are connected by grace through faith to the work of the promised Son in His death and Resurrection (Romans 6:3-5). Using this image to unite the promise to the fulfillment might give your hearers a new perspective on how they are connected to the promise and its fulfillment sacramentally.
Using a Central Image Structure could help you facilitate the development of that idea in your sermon.
“This sermon structure uses a single image throughout the sermon and fosters devotional contemplation of an image.
In the opening of the sermon, the preacher describes the image for the hearers. The preacher then uses that image as a source for continuing devotional contemplation throughout the sermon. The image serves as a lens through which one views the textual exposition, the theological confession, the evangelical proclamation, and the hearer interpretation of the sermon. Having a single image lends coherence to the sermon.
With a “single focus,” the image remains the same throughout the sermon. The preacher may approach that image from one perspective (for example, viewing the image from the perspective of the artist who created it) or the preacher may approach that image from a variety of perspectives (for example, viewing the same image from the perspective of different people who come into contact with it), but the image itself remains the same.
If approaching the image from one perspective, the sermon can reinforce a single theme in a variety of situations. For example, the first encounter with the image can establish a theme and then, as the preacher uses the image again in the sermon, it can locate that theme in relation to the text and then, later, in relation to the hearers.
If approaching the image from a variety of perspectives, the sermon can develop or unfold the theme. For example, the first encounter with the image could evoke an interpretation that will later be expanded or even corrected in the sermon. By changing how the image is seen, the hearers are able to track the basic development of a larger theme in the sermon. Each stage of development (like moving from a misconception to a clearer vision, moving from application in terms of one’s relationship to God to application in terms of one’s relationship to others, or moving from repentance to forgiveness and finally to restoration) is captured by preaching the image through a different perspective.”[2]
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[1] The original uploader of this image was Yoruno at Italian Wikipedia. Transferred from it.wikipedia to Commons. Original source: scubakix.blogspot.com, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2739259
[2] https://concordiatheology.org/sermon-structs/dynamic/imagistic-structures/central-image/
