Three Views. Three Interpretations.
Making Humanity Primary and YHWH Secondary
The story of Genesis 15 is not a humanistic story. It is the account of YHWH acting alone in the darkness while Abraham lay unconscious. YHWH prepared the covenant ceremony. YHWH caused the deep sleep, the tardemah, to fall on Abraham. The great darkness, chashekah gedolah, fell on him. And YHWH passed between the pieces of the covenant animals alone. As a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch. Bearing both sides. For the one who was unconscious inside the condition and could not reach outside it.
The story has no human hinge. The covenant was sealed entirely by YHWH’s act for the one who was performing nothing, believing nothing, submitting to nothing, observing nothing. Abraham was asleep. The covenant was sealed in the dark by the one who swore by himself because there was no one greater to swear by.
Three of the world’s major religious traditions trace their origin to Abraham. All three built their institutional frameworks on a human element they drew from the Abraham narrative. All three made that human element the hinge of their system. All three placed humanity at the center of a covenant that Genesis 15 shows YHWH completing alone. The story was YHWH to YHWH. The institutional response in every case was humanistic.
The story of Genesis 15 has no human hinge. YHWH acted alone. Abraham was unconscious. Three traditions took that story and placed a human performance at its center. The story was not humanistic. Their responses were.
The Foundation — What Genesis 15 Actually Shows
Genesis 15:12, vayehi hashemesh lavo vetardemah naflah al Avram. And it came to pass when the sun was going down that a deep sleep, tardemah, fell upon Avram. And a great darkness, chashekah gedolah, fell upon him.
Genesis 15:17, vayehi hashemesh ba’ah va’alatah hayah. And it came to pass when the sun had gone down and it was dark, and behold a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch that passed between these pieces.
YHWH passed through alone. The ancient covenant-making ceremony required both parties to pass between the divided animals, each declaring may what happened to these animals happen to me if I break this covenant. In Genesis 15 only one party passed through. Abraham was unconscious. YHWH bore both sides. The covenant was unconditional by design, sealed for the one who was asleep inside the condition and could not have contributed a condition even if he had tried.
Genesis 15:6, vayaamem baYHWH vayachshevehah lo tsedakah. And he trusted in YHWH and he reckoned it to him as righteousness. The grammatical subject of the reckoning carries forward from the previous clause as Abraham. Abraham reckoned, credited, YHWH with righteousness. He declared YHWH faithful. He declared YHWH righteous. Because YHWH was able to do what he had promised in an impossible situation. The righteousness declared in Genesis 15:6 is YHWH’s. Not Abraham’s.
Ramban, Nachmanides, the 13th century Jewish commentator, read it exactly this way. How should Abraham not believe in the good tidings? No great faith is involved in accepting a beneficial promise. Abraham was recognizing and crediting the faithfulness of YHWH. That is what the Hebrew text says.
The righteousness of Genesis 15 is YHWH’s. Abraham credited YHWH with it. Three traditions took that declaration and made the human element, Abraham’s ceremony, Abraham’s faith, Abraham’s submission, the hinge of their covenant system. YHWH became secondary. The human performance became primary.
The Three Humanistic Responses
Judaism
The hinge: Covenant ceremony and observance
The story: The covenant of Genesis 15 was sealed by YHWH alone. The covenant observances, circumcision, the offerings, the Torah commands, were given as the covenant way of life for the people YHWH had already chosen. They were the response to the covenant, not the ground of it.
The humanistic response: The institutional expression of Judaism built the covenant observances into the ground of covenant standing. The fence laws added by the scribal tradition after Ezra, approximately 458 BCE, multiplied the observances into an institutional management system. The Aramaic square script replaced the Paleo-Hebrew pictures that had always declared YHWH’s identity directly. The gematria numerical system filled the space the pictures vacated. The Birkat HaMinim, instituted approximately 90 CE, formalized the exclusion of those who did not maintain correct institutional covenant observance. The hinge became human ceremony. Perform the ceremony correctly within the authorized institutional expression or stand outside the covenant. YHWH’s unconditional covenant of Genesis 15 became conditional on human ceremonial performance.
Deuteronomy 9:4-5, Moshe explicitly warned against this: not for your righteousness has YHWH brought you in to possess this land. The warning was in the Torah. The institution built the system it was warned against.
Christianity
The hinge: Personal faith as covenant ground
The story: The covenant of Genesis 15 was sealed while Abraham was unconscious. His trust, his reckoning of YHWH as righteous and faithful, was the recognition of what YHWH had already done. The trust followed the covenant act. It did not produce it.
The humanistic response: The institutional expression of Christianity built personal faith into the ground of covenant standing. Paul’s letter to the Romans was a direct corrective to this reading, Romans 3:10, none righteous, no not one, including Abraham, followed by Romans 4 dismantling the personal faith framework from within the Torah. Paul’s corrective argument succeeded as an argument. Its reception failed. The communities that received his letters read them through the framework he was correcting. The Council of Nicaea in 325 CE formalized the doctrinal requirements. The Reformation of the 16th century, rather than removing the humanism, relocated it, from institutional sacramental performance to personal faith performance. Believe correctly. Confess correctly. Maintain correct standing within the correct institutional expression. Forty-six thousand denominations each managing the covenant access that Genesis 15 shows YHWH sealing unconditionally while Abraham slept.
Romans 4:20-21, Paul describes Abraham as not wavering in unbelief but fully persuaded. The Genesis narrative shows Abraham laughing (Genesis 17:17), Sarah laughing (Genesis 18:12), and the Hagar arrangement of Genesis 16, human effort to accomplish what YHWH had promised. Paul’s description is not historical reporting. It is rhetorical strategy, naming what the Roman community believed about Abraham and then showing that even within that idealized portrait the ground is God’s ability, not Abraham’s performance.
Islam
The hinge: Submission as covenant ground
The story: The covenant of Genesis 15 was sealed by YHWH’s sovereign act. The posture of the creature before the creator, genuine recognition of YHWH’s sovereignty, is present throughout the Abraham narrative and throughout the covenant text. It is a real element of the story.
The humanistic response: The institutional expression of Islam built submission, islam in Arabic means submission, into the ground of covenant standing. The five pillars of Islamic practice are the required human performances through which submission is expressed and maintained. The name of the religion itself declares the hinge. Submit correctly. Practice the five pillars correctly. Maintain correct submission within the authorized institutional expression of the covenant. The Quran’s engagement with the Abraham narrative emphasizes his submission, his willingness to offer his son, his turning from idolatry, his response to divine command. These are real elements of the Abraham story. The institutional response made submission the hinge. YHWH’s sovereign act in Genesis 15 became secondary to the human act of submission that the religion requires.
Surah 2:124, And when Abraham was tried by his Lord with commands and he fulfilled them. YHWH’s initiative. Abraham’s fulfillment. The institutional tradition built its framework on the fulfillment rather than on the initiative.
What All Three Share
Three traditions. Three humanistic hinges. One shared failure.
All three took a story in which YHWH acted alone, passing between the pieces in the darkness while Abraham lay unconscious, and placed a human performance at the center of what YHWH had made unconditional. The ceremony. The faith. The submission. Each a real element of the Abraham narrative. Each made into the ground of covenant standing. Each making humanity primary and YHWH secondary in a covenant that Genesis 15 shows YHWH completing without the participation of the human party.
The covenant of Genesis 15 has no human hinge. YHWH swore by himself because there was no one greater to swear by. The covenant of peace that Isaiah 54:10 declares will not be removed was sealed in the darkness by the one who held both sides simultaneously. Not conditional on ceremony. Not conditional on correct belief. Not conditional on submission. Sealed. For all who slept. For all flesh. From Adam. Forever.
The three traditions each found a human element in the Abraham story and built a world on it. The world they built required institutional management because a conditional covenant requires management. The institution that declares the covenant unconditional abolishes its own authority. So the ceremony was required. The faith was required. The submission was required. And three of the world’s largest religious institutions have been managing covenant access ever since, to a covenant that was sealed unconditionally in the darkness two thousand years before the first of them existed.
All three took a nonhumanistic story and gave it a humanistic response. The story was YHWH to YHWH. The darkness. The unconscious Abraham. The one passing through alone. Three traditions. Three human hinges. One covenant that had no human hinge from the beginning.
Paul’s Corrective and Its Fate
Paul’s letter to the Romans addressed the humanistic reading directly. Romans 3:10, there is none righteous, no not one. The declaration includes Abraham. If none are righteous then what Genesis 15:6 is declaring about righteousness cannot be the attribution of personal merit to Abraham based on his trust.
Romans 5:18-19, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. As by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. The symmetry is complete. The same scope. All who were made sinners through Adam. All who are made righteous through Christ. Paul does not qualify the scope. He states it as complete and symmetrical.
Romans 11:32, for God has consigned all to disobedience that he might have mercy on all. The conclusion of Paul’s argument across eleven chapters. YHWH’s act. Not the many’s. Mercy on all. Not on those who perform correctly.
Paul’s corrective argument succeeded. His reception failed. The tradition that built itself on his letters read them through the humanistic framework he was dismantling. The personal faith requirement system that Romans 4 was correcting became the foundation of Western Christianity. The argument was present in the text. The text was read through the lens it was arguing against.
The story of Genesis 15 is YHWH to YHWH. Three traditions took that story and gave it a humanistic response. The ceremony. The faith. The submission. Real elements of the Abraham story. Made into the human hinge of systems that Genesis 15 leaves no room for. The covenant was sealed in the dark. By YHWH. Alone. For all who slept. That has not changed.
Judaism — the covenant of YHWH made conditional on human ceremony.
Christianity — the covenant of YHWH made conditional on personal faith performance.
Islam — the covenant of YHWH made conditional on human submission.
Three nonhumanistic stories.
Three humanistic responses.
The covenant was sealed in the darkness.
By YHWH. Alone.
For all who slept.
That has not changed.
The Gospel Revolution • Mike Williams Ministries
William Ethan Massengill • Michael Lilborn Williams • Daniel Thomas Rouse
Published by Audrey Williams