Putting the above together, we see that from a biblical perspective, righteousness is a person whose heart is habitually aligned to beneficence/self-giving love to God and to others…which the law and the prophets hang on these two principles (Deuteronomy 6:4-7, Matthew 22:37-40, Mark 12:29-31, Luke 10:26-28). This is in contrast with the unrighteous whose hearts are habitually aligned to maleficence – evil continuously. To define: ‘evil’ is simply understood as anything in opposition to God. The unrighteous stand condemned upon the never changing law of God. This accords ‘perfectly’ with what Paul outlines in Romans 8:2 where he identifies that either a person is living in accordance with the law of sin and death (unrepentant, disregarding the law/government of God, rejecting grace, bearing self-determined/defined fruit) or in accordance with the law of the Spirit of Life (repentant, living according to God’s law, accepting grace, bearing good fruit through the guidance/empowerment of the Holy Spirit).
If what is outlined above is truth, then the significance of the statement in 1 Samuel 16:7 regarding God looking on the heart becomes clearer. Man looks at outward behavior as the marker of righteousness – but God looks to the underpinning, habitual motivation of the heart: and finds it either beneficence or maleficence/self-seeking.
Once again, we can look at ‘in the beginning’ to reference-point what is being proposed. What was Adam and Eve’s heart motive prior to Genesis 3? Beneficence. And what was their relation to God? They trusted Him. What did their heart motive change to in Genesis 3? Self-seeking. What led them to resort to self-seeking? They mistrusted God.
So, what got broken within creation? Heart motive from beneficence to self-seeking in conjunction with mistrust in God. What is it that needs to be fixed/restored? Heart motive from self-seeking back to beneficence in conjunction with restoration of trust in God.
So, we can see that genuine trust in God and living in accordance with beneficence (i.e., a heart that desires to living in accordance with the principle of beneficence) are an inseparable co-occurring reality. Wherever you have one, you will have the other. If one is lacking, so is the other.
So, what happened with Abraham? He both trusted God and had a heart that was realigned back to being in harmony with beneficence. This is righteousness – rightness – what ‘ought to be’ because it was what was the original created condition of humanity at the outset. Praise God that this entire process, experience is because of and through Him completely.
Verses 7 – 21
Then He said to him, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it.” 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.” 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. 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. 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. And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. 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.”
Genesis 15 consists entirely of an extended encounter between the Lord and Abram, the man who will later be renamed Abraham. This concludes with the formal establishment of God’s covenant promise to Abram: to give him and his descendants the land of Canaan.
The chapter begins with the “word of the Lord” coming to Abram in a vision. This arrives with reassurance to Abram about God’s continued commitment to him: Don’t be afraid. I am your shield. Your reward will be great. Abram, though, takes the opportunity of this visitation from the Lord to ask some hard questions. He is curious about God’s repeated promises to him.
First, addressing the promise that God will make of him a great nation, Abram respectfully points out that his current heir is a servant, not a son. He has no children. And, at this point, Abram is well over seventy-five years old (Genesis 12:4). God’s response is to show Abram the stars. Using this as an analogy, God repeats His promise that Abram’s descendants will be so numerous as to be uncountable.
Abram believes God. This statement, from Genesis 15:6, is one of the key verses in all of the Bible. Abram’s belief in God is credited to him as righteousness. In the New Testament, both Paul and James quote this verse (Romans 4:3; Galatians 3:6; James 2:23), making it a cornerstone of the Christian teaching that God’s acceptance of us comes by His grace and through our faith.
Even though Abram has faith, he respectfully asks one more question of the Lord, in response to God’s repeated promise to give him the land of Canaan: “How am I to know?” God doesn’t reject Abram’s request for reassurance. Instead, He instructs Abram to gather five specific animals, to cut some in half, and to arrange them in a specific way. This begins a covenant ritual between God and Abram that is momentarily interrupted by birds of prey trying to eat the remains of Abram’s slaughtered animals.
Before God completes the ritual, He causes a deep sleep to fall on Abram and reveals to Abram a prophecy about the future of his descendants. They will live as captives for 400 years in another country, serving that nation (Egypt). When the time comes, they will be released with abundant possessions and return to execute God’s judgment on the Amorites and other inhabitants) of the land of Canaan. Abram learns that he will live to a good, old age, but that he will not live to see the troubling events of this prophecy.
Finally, God completes the covenant ritual in a dramatic fashion. Abram witnesses a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch pass through the pieces of the animals, a sight he would likely long remember as evidence of God’s covenant promises. God completes the covenant by describing both the southern and northern borders of the Promised Land, as well as identifying the peoples who would have previously occupied the various regions of the land when Abram’s descendants would receive it as their own.
Resource heavenly drawn from: SDA Bible Study and Discussion – Sabbath School Net
Commentary – By Kathlyn Mayer, Troy, NY
Abram is just like us. When we read the Bible promises we too wonder how we can know they will be fulfilled. In examining God’s response to Abram’s questions, we see God’s patience. God humbled Himself, reaching out to Abram on his level. When God asked for the specific animals, Abram understood what God was doing. God was following the cultural traditions of a contract between two entities of Abram’s day. He was making a blood pact. The flame of God passing between the animals was God’s promise He would come through for Abram. When Abram was sleeping, God revealed to him the future of his descendants. God told him it would take centuries before the promise would be realized. God chose to bring Abram into His circle of knowledge, as a friend.
The same God of Abram is our God today. Through Jesus’ death on the cross we have our own blood pact with God. His resurrection is our assurance that God is alive and has redeemed us. Through the scriptures God laid out the future of the human race. This culminates in the promise that He will come back to take us home to heaven.
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2 Timothy 2:15, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” AND 1 Thessalonians 5:21, “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.”