Genesis 15:6

"And he believed in Jehovah; and he reckoned it to him for righteousness."

One may only be astounded at the amount of nonsense written about this verse, which is hailed as the plan of salvation for the sinners of all ages, some even claiming that Abram was "saved by faith only," and trying to find here a corroboration of the great Lutheran heresy. There is no truth whatever in such views. Morris even discovered (?) here "a new covenant,"[11] and Unger hailed the passage as "the pattern of a sinner's justification"![12]

(1) It is absolutely impossible properly to observe this place as the record of a new covenant. Genesis 12:1f contains the embryo of all that is given here. Therefore, this chapter has a recapitulation and further explanation of the covenant God had already made with Abram, a covenant upon which Abram acted, which he received in good faith, and in which actions he had already demonstrated his faith by OBEDIENCE, the prime factor without which salvation for anybody, past, present, or future, is totally impossible. Payne strictly understood this and commented that: "It is the tranquil and obedient acceptance of God's plan (of history and of salvation) which places man in the right relationship with God."[13]

(2) Luther raised the question of whether or not Abram had been justified already before this time, and upon the flimsiest of reasons decided that here Abram for the first time appears justified. The truth must be that for a long while prior to this reaffirmation of the covenant already in existence, Abram's OBEDIENT faith had been "reckoned unto him for righteousness." This chapter began with the revelation that God was already indeed the shield and "exceeding great reward" of Abram. Therefore, Abram's status before the recapitulation of the covenant here, was definitely NOT that of an alien sinner. As Whiteside, a scholar of great discernment, exclaimed:

"One of the strangest things in all the field of Bible exegesis is the contention so generally made that this language refers to the justification of Abraham as an alien sinner. It seems to be taken for granted that up to the time spoken of in this verse, Abraham was an unforgiven, condemned sinner ... The facts are all against such a supposition."[14]

The notion that Abram had not been justified previously leaves unexplained and, in fact, inexplicable, why God should have providentially intervened in Egypt to rescue him from the situation where his wife was in the harem of Pharaoh, or why God would have aided Abram in the violent little war in which he rescued Lot. No, justification of Abram could not have begun in this chapter. There was a degree in which it already was done, although his final justification in God's sight did not even occur here but came when he offered Isaac (James 2:21).

(3) Paul's statements concerning this event in such passages as Romans 4:3,5, etc., have no reference whatever to Abram's receiving justification WITHOUT OBEDIENCE, but to the fact that his justification was not, in any sense, founded upon circumcision and the Law of Moses. No one in any dispensation was ever justified apart from obedience. Abram's justification was totally apart from the Law of Moses, which came over 400 years afterwards; but it was not apart from obedience.