Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight, is study #10 of Genesis, chapter 15 and we are going to read Genesis 15:4-5:

And, behold, the word of JEHOVAH came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.

In our last study, we saw that God has had a salvation program in place before the foundation of the world in eternity past to save a people for Himself, the elect people of God. These people are a great multitude, according to Revelation, chapter 7. The Bible gives information that there may be a number as great as 200 million. There is a good possibility that is the actual number of all God has saved. You know, 200 million is an incredibly large number. If you do not think so, start counting and it will take you a long time to get to 200 million. It is not a number that we came up with, but it is a number in the Bible and the Bible came from God. We cannot number the stars and count the number of elect, but if God reveals it we can have that information. We have no problem with that.

We started where it spoke of “telling” the stars. We went to a few verses that used the word “tell,” which is the same word as “number” in Genesis 15, verse 5: “and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them.” God is saying, “Number the stars, if you are able to number them.”

Then we got in to a related discussion on the formation of the body of the elect in the Person of Christ. We went to Psalm 139 where we saw that Christ was “knitted together” and fearfully and wonderfully made in the lower parts of the earth, with all His members. Remember, it says in Galatians that He is the seed and we are counted for the seed in Him, so Christ went in to the lower parts of the earth (the grave) as He made payment for sin at the foundation of the world and all that He saved were in Him, as it were, coming together like a child in the womb.

We also went to Ecclesiastes 11:5:

As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.

By the way, the reference to works reminds us of what Jesus said in John 6:29: “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” Jesus came to perform that work of granting belief through salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ.

No one knows how the bones do grow in the womb. If we go to Psalm 22, it is a Messianic Psalm and we will find an interesting statement in Psalm 22 and I am going to begin in verse 12, just so we can see how clearly it identifies with the cross and the cross was a demonstration of what Christ did at the foundation of the world. It says in Psalm 22:12-18:

Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted amid my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.

The language is clear. We could find this language quoted in the Gospel accounts as Christ was going through His “passion” as He went to the cross. Some of these references happened on the cross, like where it says, “they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones,” and the word “tell” is the word for “number.” He numbered all his bones. We also know that God made a point to stress that no injury came to Christ’s bones, in John 19:30-36:

When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe. For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken.

God very carefully made sure that not a single bone of the Lord Jesus Christ would be broken. Why would God do this? What does it mean that Christ said, “I may number all my bones”? It is because His “bones” represent the elect and the breaking of a bone would point to the wrath of God. The two thieves had their bones broken, but Christ was the one that suffered and died, showing forth His atoning work at the foundation of the world, which had been performed on behalf of all those chosen to salvation. Christ was the Intercessor. He was the one that had been injured and killed. He was the one that suffered the wrath of God and experienced death and terrible injury for the sake of His people, so that His people would not experience injury or death. They are protected and kept from harm and, certainly, kept from the wrath of God because God’s wrath was poured out upon Christ as the Messiah. Therefore, not a bone was broken.

There is a passage in Ephesians, chapter 5 where God likens the marriage relationship to the spiritual relationship between Christ and the eternal church, the elect. It says in Ephesians 5:25:

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

Then it says in Ephesians 5:28-30:

So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

You see, these are the “members,” the various parts of His body. We are the body of Christ and we are identified with him in body and in flesh and bones. So, when not a bone of His was broken, we can be sure it was because God was illustrating the protection that salvation had wrought for us, the deliverance of the body or the bones of Christ. It is the deliverance of all those predestinated by God to salvation. We are the ones Christ could “number.” He numbered all His bones: “I may tell all my bones.”

Of course, we know that God knows the number of the elect. It is the Word of God, the Bible, and if He wants to reveal that and there is a good likelihood He did so, in the Book of Revelation.

Let us look at one more thing about “bones” before we move on. I know this is not the subject matter in Genesis 15 and we have gone a little off track, but it is interesting that Joseph gave commandment concerning his bones in Genesis, chapter 50. We are hoping to go, book by book, through the entire book of Genesis, but it says in Genesis 50:25:

And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence.

Of course, Joseph was embalmed and buried in Egypt and he died at the age of 110. He was 39 when Jacob entered into Egypt and it would be 430 years from that point in 1877BC until their departure in 1447BC, so it was 71 years that Israel had been in Egypt when Joseph died and it would be about another 350 or 360 years before they would be delivered and all Israel would come out of the land of Egypt. We also know that Joseph was a type of Christ, so when he took an oath of the children of Israel and told them that God would surely visit them and “carry up my bones,” this would be a spiritual picture of the bones of Christ, just like Christ’s bones when He was on the cross pointed to the body of Christ. So, too, Joseph’s bones would point to the body of the elect children of God and the carrying up of his bones would be an additional type and figure, just like in the exodus of Israel, when not one Jew was left in the land of Egypt pointed to the glorious completion of God’s salvation program. (God has many different ways of teaching the same principals.) So, Moses did bring up the bones of Joseph, as it says in Exodus 13:18-19:

But God led the people about, through the way of the wilderness of the Red sea: and the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt. And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him: for he had straitly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you.

The bones of Joseph went through the parted sea, a picture of salvation. And the bones of Joseph were carried throughout the 40-year wilderness sojourn. The elect people of God would experience a severe trial of testing after God saved all Israel (the elect) and we are presently in that time period. But then the bones were carried into the Promised Land. The last chapter of the Book of Joshua takes place after the conquest of the land of Canaan had been completed. In one way, it is a representation of the elect entering into the kingdom of God or heaven. It says in Joshua 24:32:

And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for an hundred pieces of silver: and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph.

The land that was purchased was itself a figure of the kingdom of God, the glorious new heaven and new earth. That is where they buried the bones of Joseph. In a way, it is very odd that they took him from a grave in Egypt, carried him through the Red Sea and throughout the wilderness sojourn and then across the river Jordan into the land of Canaan, only to bury him again. But it is significant where he was buried in a parcel of land that typified the kingdom of God. Joseph’s bones made that journey all the way to the land of Canaan and, so, too, will the “bones” of the Lord Jesus Christ, both the living bones and the dead bones. All the spiritual house of Israel that were in Him and counted for the seed will one day inherit the Promised Land of the new heaven and new earth. Therefore, the bones typify the elect of God.

Let us look at one last verse about the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37:7:

So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.

It says, “bone to his bone.” Remember that it said in Ephesians that we are His body and His bones. We are one in Christ, so when bones come together with His bone it is a picture of the body of Christ forming. Then it says in Ezekiel 37:11-13:

Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts. Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord JEHOVAH; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am JEHOVAH, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves,

Do you see how this fits with what happened to Joseph and his bones? They opened Joseph’s grave and they brought him into the land of Israel. Of course, it was a figure and he did not come back to life, but it is a figure that points to the last day when God will bring about the resurrection of the dead and the rapture of the living elect and He will bring us into the spiritual land of Israel, the Promised Land, which can only be the new heaven and new earth.

Let us go back to Genesis, chapter 15 and move on to the next verse. We probably will not get too far in this study because this is a very important topic, as it says in Genesis 15:6:

And he believed in JEHOVAH; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

Abram believed JEHOVAH and believed what God had told him about his seed being as the stars in heaven for multitude. It is obvious that it was Abram that believed in JEHOVAH – that is not in question. But it is the second part of the verse the masculine pronoun “he” refers to God, so God counted it to him (Abram) for righteousness. And there lies a problem and, by the way, when we speak of multitudes and scores of millions of people, it would not be exaggerating to say that there are millions of people that have misread this verse and gone down the wrong road in their spiritual understanding. As a result, they developed erroneous doctrines and false gospels based on an incorrect understanding of Genesis 15, verse 6, as well as the quotations of it in the New Testament. You see, God has done here what He often does in the Bible – He has set a trap. God has taken a statement like, “And he believed in JEHOVAH,” and He has joined it together with a statement that is entirely separate from the first part of the sentence. It is saying something altogether different and, yet, God joined the two ideas together in one verse and the assumption is made that the second part of the verse refers back to the first part of the verse. But, again, that would a wrong assumption.

It becomes a wrong conclusion because the theologians and pastors have misread this, but it is also because God sealed up a very integral aspect to this teaching until the time of the end and that is that He saves by the faith of Jesus Christ, not by the faith of man. That doctrine was not known during the church age. It was not understood until the time of the Great Tribulation and during the time of the Great Tribulation the Lord brought forth this truth to “purify” His Gospel program and purify the sending forth of that Gospel into the world outside the churches to save the great multitude. God kept that truth in reserve and down through history there was much confusion concerning faith and salvation. God wrote verse like Genesis 15, verse 6, which led to false assumptions and many people went off course and developed gospels that taught, “You must believe,” like the free will gospels. In Reformed theology, they mixed the two. There was an understanding and belief in election and, yet, they also taught an element of the need to “exercise your faith” and that is still going on today.

Lord willing, in our next Bible study we will look more closely at this verse and related verses and what is being taught.