NOTES for Gen 15:1-15
What a strange theophany at first glance: terror and darkness! What was Abraham to think after experiencing such a revelation? How was he to imagine his God? Meanwhile God repeats all the promises previously given to Abraham, making them even more concrete. So what is happening? Why did Abraham's first meeting with God described in detail turn out to be so strange?
If darkness and terror were the meaning of the revelation Abraham received, we would have every reason to ask bewildered questions. A God who wants to frighten is clearly not the God of love. But does He want that? Or did it happen of itself? What, in fact, was Abraham able and meant to see and experience when he met God face to face? What can a human being see and experience in such a case at all?
As for seeing, of course, he will hardly see anything at all: after all, we are speaking of the One, the Creator of heaven and earth, whom a human being cannot see by definition. And then before the eyes of the one who sees there will, in all cases, be impenetrable darkness, as always happens when we stand before something completely beyond our perception. It is not surprising that, meeting God face to face, Abraham saw only a "great darkness," as the Hebrew text says; more precisely, he saw nothing. Nor is it surprising that before this darkness Abraham experiences terror: it is the terror of a finite human being before the infinite God, who has not yet done anything to lessen His majesty for man's sake.
As we can see, at the first face-to-face meeting God appeared before Abraham as He is. And Abraham responded accordingly. But this was only the beginning. The beginning of the story of God's movement toward man, which in due time would be completed by the final step that would be the Incarnation of God. To the point of complete inseparability.