Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight, is study #12 of Genesis, chapter 15 and we are continuing to look at Genesis 15:6:

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

I would like to read a couple of New Testament verses that quote from this verse. It says in Romans 4:3:

For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.

Also, it says in Galatians 3:6:

Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.

This verse has been quoted and built upon in Romans, chapter 4 and Galatians 3, where the Bible lays out God’s salvation program and, yet, God consistently worded it just this way: “And he believed in JEHOVAH; and he counted it to him for righteousness.” But what the reader of this Scripture needs to better understand is what the word “it” is referring to. What did God count to Abraham for righteousness? Was it Abram’s belief? That might seem obvious, but we talked in our last study about the need to be careful and not to draw hasty conclusions. That is very dangerous when you are dealing with the Bible.

I mentioned verses like John 3:16 and Romans 10:9 as verses that may seem obvious, but they are not. We could give many examples, but I will give one other example. It says in 2Peter 3:9:

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

In Genesis 15, verse 6, we have a need to define a very simple word, the pronoun “it.” And in 2Peter 3, verse 9, we have words like “any” and “all” and they are also simple words and, yet, they must be defined. There are many professed Christians that think they understand because all one has to do is read it: The Lord is not willing that any person should perish, but that all people should come to repentance; and that goes along with their understanding of John 3:16: “For God so loved the world.” God loves everyone and He has a wonderful plan for their lives. It sounds very good. It sounds very wonderful, but, once again, that is false. It is untrue, which is a kind way of saying, “It is a lie.” Satan is the father of lies and this lie comes forth from the “evil one” and not from God, whenever we draw these erroneous conclusions.

Yes, God is willing that (some) people perish because it is according to His will that He has chosen a people for Himself. So, it is also according to His will not to save the majority of mankind. So, yes, it can be said that He is willing that they should perish. Remember what it said concerning the potter in Romans 9:21:

Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

God is the Potter and He possesses the power to do whatever He wills with the clay, who is mankind, according to His good pleasure. He can turn one vessel (an elect individual) unto honour and another vessel unto dishonour. He can continue to allow sinners to be rebellious and do nothing to change them and then He (eventually) destroys them. It goes on to say in Romans 9:22:

What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known…

What power? It is His power to do whatsoever He will with the “clay” or His creatures. The Creator may do as He pleases with His creatures. Again, it says in Romans 9:22:

What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:

It has been according to God’s plan and design since before the foundation of the world that God predestinated His people (the chosen or elect) to become saved and, by that action, He also determined all those that would not be saved. So, to say that God is not willing that anyone should perish, but that all should come to repentance and to apply that to all people is painting a picture of a weak and powerless God that is dependent upon man: “Oh, sinner, will you not please help God and choose Him and do as He would desire you to do?” But to teach that God cannot do anything until you first accept Him or choose Him is to teach that God is a God that is standing by, wringing His hands and waiting on man: “What will you do with salvation? I want you to accept me and be saved.” It is an idol god. That is not the God of the Bible, the Almighty, Everlasting and all-knowing God who spoke the universe into existence. He says in Psalm 110 that His people will be willing in the day of His power. God is not a God that is pleading with man to will to accept Him. That is completely foreign and alien to everything the Bible teaches – it is “another gospel” and it has nothing to do with the true Gospel. It is based on a simple, bud deadly, mistake when they assume that when it says that God is “not willing that any should perish,” the “any” is referring to every person. They make the same mistake with the word “all” and they naturally think it must refer to “all” people, but they fail to understand it properly. In addition to the fact that it was not given them to understand, it is also due to their superficial reading and studying of the Bible and not making sure their conclusions harmonize with everything else the Bible says. If they would take the time, it would be obvious from the references I gave in Romans 9 and Psalm 110 that God is the one that makes His people willing in the day of His power and it is not referring to all human beings, but to all the elect.

You might be tired of hearing that word “elect” of God, but I am not tired of it. It is music to the ears of someone counted among that number of the elect. We have been “chosen” by God and God is not willing that any of His elect should perish, but that all His elect should come to repentance. There you have the solution and harmony with all else the Bible teaches. They are “little” words, but they need the rest of the Bible to help us define them and understand them. Then we can know we have truth.

It is the same thing with our verse in Genesis 15:6:

And he believed in JEHOVAH…

The Bible permits that. Men may believe. Then it says, in Genesis 15:6:

…and he counted it to him for righteousness.

The conclusion that the pronoun “it” refers to Abram’s belief, which then produced righteousness or enabled him to obtain righteousness, is not permitted by the Bible; the Bible will not allow that conclusion. You must look for another conclusion and it is not that difficult. We search the Bible and we find the little words “any” and “all” in 2Peter3, verse 9 and, by the grace of God, we eventually find the proper conclusion that fits like a piece of a puzzle.

I am sure that we have all tried to put together a puzzle at one time. Some people like easy puzzles. They make easy puzzles for young children that may have 10 pieces or 20 pieces and they are big pieces. When you have these big pieces, they are easy to put in place. That is how it is designed for little children and they are able to put the puzzle pieces in the right places. But then they also have more difficult puzzles. There are 100-piece puzzles, 500-piece puzzles or even 5,000-piece puzzles. And the Bible would be as difficult a puzzle as anyone could ever attempt to put together. In fact, it is impossible for a finite man (which applies to all people) with tiny, finite minds to piece together a puzzle that was constructed by the infinitely brilliant mind of God. That is why men misunderstand the Bible. They get it wrong and they have done so all through history because they think it is an easy book. And that is how brilliant it is. It is so brilliant that some people read it and think they understand it upon the first reading. They think it is simple, as they come up with their faulty hermeneutic of a “plain, literal understanding.” No – you will not understand the Bible that way because it is the most difficult “puzzle” ever devised. It comes from the infinite mind of God.

You can work on one section of an overall puzzle and the Bible is like one mammoth puzzle, with every chapter like a section and every verse is a section of that section. That is how you put together a puzzle, is it not? You try to find pieces of an “eye” or an “ear” and you sort through a lot to find the pieces. To put the puzzle together properly, you must sort through all the pieces of that puzzle.

For the sake of having a sense of the number of pieces, let us just say the Bible is a one million-piece puzzle. You are working on a verse and you grab a handful of pieces. You have one hundred pieces and you put them down. What some people do is to try to use just those pieces to try to come up with a solution to that section of the verse.

This is what makes the Bible so difficult and many people do not want to take the time to look at the other pieces, but what if the proper piece is not there? Then you would have to look at the other (almost) million pieces to make sure you are not missing a piece. Some people may have the patience to do this with one or two verses or even a chapter or book, but, eventually, they get weary. Much study is a weariness of the flesh. They get weary because it is so hard and they move away from that difficult approach and toward a much easier approach, like a systematic theology that is all laid out for them. Or, they take the approach of a “plain, literal understanding,” their quick hermeneutic that they think helps with Bible study, except it does not. It prevents them from arriving at truth.

God has designed His Book in a completely complicated way and one Biblical hermeneutic is that every conclusion must harmonize with everything else in the Bible. If you fail to harmonize your conclusion, you do not have truth or, at least, you cannot be sure you have truth unless you have checked it out and thoroughly compared scripture with scripture. And it is not just looking at the words, but the doctrine or conclusion you reach must fit and this is not an easy thing.

So, here is the problem with Genesis 15, verse 6 and the idea that Abram’s belief it the “it” that was accounted to him for righteousness. The problem is that the Bible says that faith is a “work.” Let us go to 1Thessalonians 1:3:

Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love…

I read the part about “labour of love,” too, because someone recently said to me, “You see, that is work, too.” I responded, “Yes, it is.” That is why Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” Keeping commandments would be a “work” and it is a “labour of love.”

But, here, God says, “your work of faith,” and we should not dismiss this statement just because it is not addressing Abram’s faith. It is a direct statement that joins together “work” and “faith.” It is a “work of faith.”

There is another verse in 2Thessalonians 1:11:

Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power:

Again, it is “work of faith.” Faith is a work and it is a work for a very good reason. The Bible speaks of the works of the Law in Galatians 2:16:

Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law…

You see, a “work” is when God commands something in His Law and the entire Bible is the Law Book of God. Lord willing, we are going to look at how the Bible as a whole is the Law of God. They are called commandments, statutes or laws and, yet, many people think the “law” is the Law of Moses and they may even refine it further to only apply to the Ten Commandments. However, they fail to understand that everything spoken in the Bible is a commandment. Every Word of God is part of the Law of God, from Genesis all the way through Revelation. It is all the Law of God and, therefore, a “work” is an obedient response or an attempt to respond obediently to the commandment of God. Every command is a Law of God and, therefore, any attempt to respond to a commandment is a “work” of the Law.

It is a work of the Law, whether we are responding to the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” or “Thou shall not commit adultery,” or “Thou shalt not kill.” When we do not do these things, it is a “good work.” If we do not steal or kill or blaspheme or whatever God commands, these are good works, but, so, too, it is true of other commandments that are not specifically part of the Pentateuch or the Ten Commandments. There are commandments that we find throughout the Bible because the whole Bible is the Law Book of God and it is full of God’s commandments.

This becomes extra important when we read a commandment like we find in Romans or Acts where it says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” It is a commandment. It is part of the Law of God and obedience or attempted obedience to it is a “work” and that is why we cannot think that anyone can become saved through their belief. They are showing forth a “work” and it says in Philippians 3:9:

And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law…

It is considered part “of the commandments.” It is a response and an attempt to obey, but it will never produce righteousness because then it would “of the law” and Galatians 2, verse 6 says: “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law…”

So, if God commands, “Believe,” and I believe and then I say, “God commanded me to believe. I have not believed and, therefore I am saved,” that is wrong. I have attempted to get right with God through the act of keeping a Law, which is a “work.” The Bible says that anyone that places himself under the Law must proceed to keep the whole Law perfectly, which is everything the Bible says from beginning to end. You see, it is a major difficulty and a catastrophe when people misread what the Bible is saying and they go about establishing their own righteousness by the Law.

This is something that is complex. There are numerous verses, so I want to look at this further in our next study. We are going to look more closely at what the Law is and how that relates to “belief” or “faith” and how it is impossible for Abram to have become righteous through his own belief. That would have been an act of keeping the Law. It would be a “work.”