The Priest of God, 
as God the Most High, Blessing Abraham

The priest of God, as God the Most High, blessed Abraham, saying, “Blessed be Abram of God the Most High, / Possessor of heaven and earth” (14:19). This was something apparently not motivated by God but motivated by Melchizedek, the king of Salem and the priest of God. Abraham was the victor who had defeated the enemies of God. Through Abraham God could be declared as the Possessor of heaven and earth. In other instances in the Bible, God could be called only the God of heaven (2 Chron. 36:23; Neh. 1:5; 2:4, 20) because of the lack of someone standing with God on earth to defeat God’s enemies and gain the victory for God. But when Melchizedek came to bless Abraham, he could refer to God as the Possessor of heaven and earth. This means that there was a victor, an overcomer, on earth who stood with God.

Speaking in a Vision to Abraham That He 
Was His Shield and His Exceedingly Great Reward

In Genesis 15 God spoke in a vision to Abraham that He was his shield and his exceedingly great reward (v. 1). The Lord was both Abraham’s protection and his reward. God rewarded Abraham because Abraham was victorious over all of God’s enemies.

God also told Abraham in Genesis 15 that only the one who would come from Abraham’s own body would be his heir (v. 4). In Genesis 16 Hagar became Abraham’s concubine through the motivation of Abraham’s wife Sarah. Sarah proposed this to Abraham, and Abraham agreed. But God denied and rejected the son produced through Hagar. God told Abraham that his heir must be from his own body and that his heirs would be as many as the stars in heaven (15:5).

Abraham believed in God, and God accounted it to him for righteousness (v. 6). Romans 4 develops this point strongly by saying that Abraham was a forefather of all the ones who are justified by God through believing into Jesus Christ. Abraham was a pattern, a model, a sign. Thus, the model of the Christian life is one who is first called by God and then justified by God. After being called, you must be justified by God. Being justified by God means that you are in harmony with God. In other words, between you and God there is nothing contradicting and there is a harmonious situation and condition. This means that you are righteous according to God’s righteousness. When you are justified, your righteousness matches God’s righteousness. Abraham entered into a situation that was absolutely in harmony with God.

In Genesis 15 God told Abraham that his descendants would be as the stars in heaven. Genesis also reveals that his earthly descendants would be as the sand on the seashore. We pointed out that the oppressing nations were like the waves out of the Mediterranean Sea coming upon Israel again and again to make Israel as the sand of the seashore. Actually, the first wave of water came from Egypt. God told Abraham in Genesis 15 that his seed would be sojourners in Egypt, serve the Egyptians, and be afflicted by them for four hundred years (v. 13). In their fourth generation they returned to Canaan. God also made a covenant with Abraham in the day that He spoke to him in Genesis 15 to give to his seed the land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates (v. 18).

Two things are very prominent in the life of Abraham. First, God made Abraham’s descendants as the stars in the heaven. These are the New Testament believers as his heavenly descendants. Second, He would make Abraham’s earthly descendants as the sand on the seashore. The remnant of Israel as the dust of the earth passes through wave after wave of tribulation. Eventually, in the millennium the remnant of Israel, who have passed through the scouring waters, will become as the sand on the Mediterranean seashore.