Adventistische Schriften über: "How should Genesis 15:17 be understood, particularly God's encounter with Abraham, where God appears as a torch?"

In Genesis 15 God made a covenant with Abraham and employed a ceremony that was customary among people to confirm solemn agreements. The smoking furnace and the burning torch (or lamp), which passed through the divided pieces of the sacrifice and consumed them, served as visible symbols of divine presence and as a guarantee of God's covenant. At the same time this depiction prophetically pointed to the later distress and bondage of Abraham's descendants in the “furnace of affliction” in Egypt, as well as to God's saving judgment.

Symbols of divine presence at the covenant with Abraham

»As a pledge of this covenant of God with humanity, a smoking furnace and a burning lamp—symbols of divine presence—passed through the divided sacrifices and consumed them completely. And again Abraham heard a voice that granted his descendants the land of Canaan, "from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates".«

1 - Ellen Gould White, Patriarchs and Prophets (PP 137.2)

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The prophetic significance of the furnace and burning torch

»Four hundred years earlier God had shown Abraham the future oppression of His people through the image of a smoking furnace and a burning lamp. He had declared that He would bring punitive judgments upon their oppressors and would lead the captives out with abundant goods. In Egypt Israel had long languished in the furnace of affliction.«

2 - Ellen Gould White, Patriarchs and Prophets (PP 267.2)

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