We continue to look at Abraham's vision of the stars of heaven representing the people that his life of faith in God would influence. At an earlier time, the Lord had him look at the dust of the earth as a comparison:
I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted (Genesis 13:16).
The dust of the earth could be a picture of the natural seed of Abraham, the Jewish people, and the vision of the stars of the sky could represent the heavenly seed, those born again of the Holy Spirit, the Church of the Living God. In this sense, we see an earthly and a heavenly seed.
5And He took him outside and said, “Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” 6Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:5-6 Emphasis mine).
Something happened within Abram's heart when he saw the grand vision of the sky's stars. God told him that his offspring would be like the stars in number. Notice Abram's response to the vision: “Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness” (v. 6). This faith in God was expressed before circumcision and more than four hundred years before the Law and the Ten Commandments. The Lord saw a deep trust and inner rest in his inner being, his heart. On account of his faith, the Lord imparted to Abram the gift of righteousness credited to his spiritual bank account. W.H. Griffith Thomas, in his commentary on Genesis, writes:
"The original Hebrew for ‘believed’ comes from a root whence we derive our ‘Amen,’ and we might paraphrase it by saying that ‘Abraham said Amen to the Lord.’ ‘Amen’ in Scripture never means a petition (‘May it be so’) but is always a strong assertion of faith (‘It shall be so,’ or ‘It is so’)." [1]
God still operates in the same way. When we hear the good news of the finished work of Christ in paying our debt of sin upon the cross, and we believe in our heart that God raised Christ from the dead, the gift of righteousness is credited to our spiritual bank account (Romans 10:9-10), as it was to Abraham. No longer do we try to please God with our works, but we rest our souls on the finished work of Christ at the cross. The gospel (the good news) is that Jesus has wholly restored the relationship between God and man through His substitutionary work in dying for us and as us on the cross. If you will place your life into God's hands, just as Abram did, and believe/trust the Lord Jesus, you too will have your spiritual bank account credited with the righteousness of God. God gives us faith to reach out to Him and receive the gift of eternal life in Christ. God gave the gift of righteousness to Abram upon his trust and belief in God's Word, just as He does to all who believe the gospel. Keith Thomas.
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Taken from the complete study found in the series on Abraham. Go to All Studies, scroll down to The Faith of Abraham, and click on Study 2. Abraham, Man with a Vision
[1] W.H. Griffith Thomas, Genesis (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1946) p. 138.