Salvation is about stories, how each person came to faith. That is particularly true for Abram (or as we more commonly know him: Abraham). This is the 4000 year-old story of Abram and his wife Sarai and their desire to have a child. And that story includes a verse that I call the most surprising verse in the Bible. We will reveal that verse a little later.
The story begins with God making promises to Abram. He promised him land, blessing, and many descendants. How many descendants? How many grains of sand are on a beach? How many stars are in the night sky? God compared the number of Abram’s descendants to the number of stars or grains of sand. In other words, the number of his descendants would be huge, too many to count. Childless Abram would become the father of an entire nation; in fact, he would become Abraham, which means the “father of nations”. That was God’s promise.
There was just one hitch: in order to become the father of many descendants a man must have at least one! There is no other way. And Abram and Sarai understood the biological facts of life: for couples at ages 75 and 65, especially childless couples, the chances of getting pregnant were about zero. Abram and Sarai were no longer expecting to be expecting. They had given up.
Now let’s move the story ahead twenty- four more years. Abram is now 99 and Sarai is 89 when God renewed the promise of a child. God changed their names to Abraham and Sarah, but these new names didn’t change the biological facts. At their ages, any chance of childbirth was long gone. But God again promised they would have a son, just one year later. Sarah laughed when she heard it.
But the amazing part of this story was that Abraham didn’t laugh. He believed God. God had said He would do it, and nothing is too hard for God, right? He trusted God to do for him what he could not do for himself. And he was right to believe. God kept His promise. At age 100 and 90 Abraham and Sarah had a baby boy, Isaac, God’s promised child. There you have it—the secret of Abraham’s life. It isn’t any more complicated than this: he trusted that God would do what He promised, even if it seemed impossible. The simplicity of this has often been a stumbling block. Many people would rather have a religion that is difficult, complex, and requiring extreme effort on their part. To say that the secret of our relationship with God is simply to trust Him to keep His promises, to trust Him to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves—that seems too easy, too unchallenging. Or perhaps the decision to stop worrying and start trusting may be the biggest challenge of all!
In the middle of this story is the verse that I call the most surprising verse in the Bible: “He [Abram] believed the Lord and He counted it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6) There is the surprise: a different way to become righteous! Abram did not become righteous by trying harder to be good, he became righteous by trusting God. This verse is a model of how every believer can become righteous! It is not by trying, it is by trusting!
Don’t get me wrong. The Bible teaches that we should be good. The prophet Micah defined doing good as treating others with justice and mercy, and walking humbly with God (Micah 6:8). But our do-it-yourself righteousness will never be good enough to satisfy God. We cannot save ourselves. Like Abraham, we all need God to credit us with righteousness which he does when we trust him.
A second surprising part of this verse is the particular promise which Abram trusted God to fulfill. It was not a promise of eternal life or forgiveness of sins or anything spiritual; it was a promise of having a child. It was practical, not spiritual. It is like us trusting God to provide a job, or food, or healing—something practical. Abram believed that God would keep his promise to give Sarai and him a son, and God saw his faith and gave them a son and also credited Abram as righteous!
In other words, trusting God for our practical, daily needs is the faith needed for God to give us righteousness! Faith, trusting God to keep his promises, whether practical or spiritual, results in receiving his gift of righteousness. And righteousness is the key to our salvation. So faith is the key to salvation.
Centuries later the Apostle Paul will describe it this way: “For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—not from works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) What is faith? Faith is us believing that God can and will keep His promises.
Greg Giles is a published author, who, along with his wife Jean, has embraced the call to serve and teach around the globe. Their life together has included missionary work in Liberia, Bangladesh, teaching in China, and raising a family in Bemidji, Minnesota. Between global travels and local commitments, including serving as superintendent of Corn Bible Academy and their current part-time roles at Corn Heritage Village, the Gileses have found “home” in many places; yet, they now happily reside in retirement in Cordell. Please visit his website at reflections-on-wisdom.com.