abraham

Abraham – A Blessing to All Humanity

jmsmittyweb

Genesis chapter 12 sets the stage for God’s plan to restore all humanity through a man, through his descendants, through a nation coming from that man, and through an eternal kingdom out of an Anointed One from that nation, the Messiah. It begins with the blessing given to Abram (Abraham) in Genesis 12:1-3.

The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

2 “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you;I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

Abram came from Semitic lineage, the 10th generation after Noah of the Great Flood and descended from Shem. His hometown was Ur, a Chaldean city of southern Mesopotamia, but his father and his clan moved to Haran in northern Mesopotamia. There in Haran God spoke to Abram, telling him to go to a strange land. He left his clan behind with the exception of his wife and servants, and Lot, his nephew.

We may ask, why did God choose Abram? He most assuredly was a righteous man, but were there not others of righteous stature? The Hebrew written code of law did not yet exist, although Abram was likely to have known of Chaldean or even Babylonian law codes. One way or other, Abram was influenced more by the tradition of Noah and Shem than that of the non-Semitic peoples of Babylon and the descendants of Ham. Abram already knew of God, and he knew something about right versus wrong. And then God made Himself known to him.

We may ask, why must Abram go to a new land? What significance did this targeted land have? It was already occupied by the descendants of Canaan along the Mediterranean coast and extended parallel to the Jordan River. Several people groups lived there, including the Amorite tribes common to the Fertile Crescent, a swath of property shaped like a sickle or crescent that stretched around the northern and western borders of today’s Arabian Desert. Canaan, as the land was called (alternately Palestine, after the Philistine people), included an area from just south of Damascus to the southern desert, just north of the Sinai peninsula. The Old Testament histories cited Israel’s presence in Canaan as running north to south from Dan to Beersheba, and east to west from the Jordan River to the coast. The land could also be regarded as extending east of the Jordan by the Israelite-occupied territories of Reuben, East Manasseh, and Gad.

Canaan was becoming a major corridor for trade and communication between the northern sections of the Near East, as well as the land of modern-day Turkey and Europe, and Egypt. If God wanted to establish an influential nation for exercising His divine plan for humanity, perhaps this was why He chose Canaan. If God were to choose neutral ground, could this have been a reason for selecting Canaan, at the crossroads of three continents? Today we cannot say that Christianity and Judaism are Western, Eastern, or African. We might also include the third Abrahamic religion from the descendants of his second wife Hagar’s son, Ishmael. No, these monotheistic faiths are not truly confined to one continental locale, but central to the major population expansions in world history. More specifically to God’s redemptive plan, we may affirm that Messiah, as Savior of mankind, relates to all nations. With his blood he “purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9).

A further answer to our question may perhaps be found in Genesis where God spoke to Abram again:

13 Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. 14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. 15 You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” -Genesis 15:13-16

The Lord was speaking to Abram in greater detail about the birth of the nation coming out of Abram, the nation whereby all the nations of the earth would be blesssed. Specifically, He was speaking of the Hebrew people’s captivity in Egypt, where they indeed would become enslaved, but rescued and brought out of that place under God’s “mighty hand and outstretched arm.” The conquest of Canaan would not happen according to the passage above, verse 16, until the sin of the Amorites had reached its full measure. What sins would justify the wrath of God and the conquest of the land? The seven tribes of Canaan eventually engaged in every form of wickedness imaginable: idolatry, human sacrifice to false gods, sorcery, bestiality, and every kind of sexual perversion imaginable, to name a few.

We could next ask, if there were seven nations of Canaan, why did the Lord specifically mention the Amorites? Abram settled in Canaan near the town of Hebron, south of Salem (Jerusalem), and near Mount Hebron, the highest peak in Canaan. His settlement for his extensive flocks, herds, and employees came about from a treaty with three Amorite brothers, and he dwelt near the oaks of one brother, Mamre the Amorite. Abram had not yet purchased property of his own in Canaan, so the treaty was helpful for both Abram and the Amorites. They in fact fought together against some marauding kings who had kidnapped his nephew, Lot, successfully rescuing Lot and family and returning them home. Although God had special regard for Abram, the man was human and had to avoid entangling himself in compromising situations, a circumstance that his nephew had not avoided. Of all the tribes and nations of Canaan, Abram probably knew the Amorites the best.

Abram became the patriarch by whom the whole world would be blessed, but the germination of such a Divine plan came about through the trials that tested his faith. He was tested as he agreed to leave his home and go to the unknown land of Canaan. By faith he fought against the kingly alliance that had captured Lot, his nephew, and prevailed. By faith he gave a tenth of the booty from that battle to King Melchizedech, the priest of Salem. By faith he believed God’s promise that he would have a son and a multitude of descendants and several nations from him, even though he and his wife were childless and advanced in years. See a summary of his life in Hebrews11:8-12. “Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6).

This next test of faith was the hardest of all: By faith Abraham (his new name) listened to God’s instructions to offer his beloved son, Isaac, as a sacrifice on the altar; and God rewarded him by staying his hand and providing a ram as the sacrifice instead.

The standard for righteousness, in fact, is faith in God: belief that He will honor His promises and provide for our needs. We may not be perfect, but God’s promise is forgiveness as we turn in faith to His Son, Jesus the Messiah.

If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. -1 John 1:9

Abraham Pleads for the Righteous – Genesis 18

jmsmittyweb

In Genesis chapter 18, God comes to earth to visit with His chosen prophet, Abraham. He appears in the form of a man, accompanied by two angels. Such a rare event is known as a Theophany, and some scholars view this moment as the appearance of the Son of God, Jesus. In the Genesis account, Abraham addressed Him as Lord – Adonai – and he addressed the angels using the same word. Yet the author, Moses, wrote of the person as Yahweh – the Lord – even though He appeared as a man.

The Theophany must have been prompted by a major impending event to warrant such an unusual encounter. Two things come to mind. The first is the revelation of God’s salvational plan for mankind through the offspring of Abraham. Now Abraham was 99 years old, and his wife, Sarah, was 90, well past childbearing age. The child of the promise would be their only son born to both of them, not the elder child born to a slave. Naturally, both Abraham (in Genesis 17:17) and Sarah (in Genesis 18:12) could not stifle a laugh at the announcement that she would bear a son to Abraham. But God had the last laugh, naming their future son Isaac, meaning He laughs. Through Isaac’s descendants came the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 1:1).

The second major impending event was judgment on Sodom, Gomorrah, and the pervasively wicked cities of the plain of Siddim to the east. The Lord rose from His meal with Abraham, and His angels departed in the direction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham stood alone before the Lord, and the Lord said that the outcry was very great against the sins of the cities of the plain. They looked eastward, down the mountain in the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, and the other cities of the plain. In the distance lay Sodom on the verdant, lush land of great wealth that had lured Lot, Abraham’s nephew, to stake his fortune and his life amidst so much depravity. The Lord then said to Abraham, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?” (Genesis 18:17) God was speaking of impending destruction. In essence, the Lord gave Abraham permission and the opportunity to discuss and question the Lord on this severely important matter that touched the lives of Lot and his family.

Abraham pleaded for the lives of the righteous. “Surely the Lord will not sweep away the righteous with the wicked.” Humbly he begged, would you spare the city if there were 50 righteous? Yes, the Lord, said, He would spare the city if there were fifty righteous. Now Abraham repeatedly asked the same question as he whittled the number down to forty-five, then forty, then thirty, then twenty, then ten righteous souls. When the Lord gave affirmation to spare Sodom at ten souls, He departed from Abraham. The promise did not stop the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain, for only Lot and his immediate family were righteous. Lot would indeed be rescued by the two angels (chapter 19), but then total destruction would come.

Abraham’s pleading, however, set a precedent for later prophets to plead with the Lord for the clemency of God on their people, who were far from perfect. In the Bible, Moses, Jeremiah, and Habakkuk also pleaded for sinful Israel and Judah. Habakkuk asked why the Lord would crush the people who were seemingly less sinful than their tormentors (Habakkuk 1:13). Judgment from God comes after warnings and a hearing, as in a court of law, and the Lord wants His righteous ones to plead for people. In the end, judgment will be meted out after due process and the fulness of time, by which the mercies of God have been exhausted, so that no one has an excuse. Looking at nature as the general revelation of the sovereign power of God the Creator, mankind has no excuse. As the Apostle Paul wrote,

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. -Romans 1:20

The Lord’s angels rained down fire and sulfur on the cities of the plain in a unique and unprecedented fashion. To this day the destruction is visible in the wasteland that remains, as explorers may yet see and touch the white sulfur rock, the purest brimstone in the world that may be torched into a bright blue flame by simply striking a match. The one small town that God spared, Zoar, where Lot fled for refuge, has no such sulfur residue, a testament to the targeted destruction narrated in Holy Scripture. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah reminds the world of the inevitable judgment of God against abject, unrepentant wickedness in the face of all the evidence that pleads His case against them. In His mercy, He is telling us, repent! Do not be like Sodom and Gomorrah. Do not defy the Living God and sin as though there were no coming judgment. In the fulness of time, all will give an accounting before the throne of God. Each of us is a heartbeat away from eternity, and your personal “fulness of time” may be here already.

God spoke of entering His rest, in which the Promised Land for the Israelites of old serves as a mataphor for heaven itself:

Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said,

“So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’” –Hebrews 4:3 (quoting Psalm 95:11)

And further from the same passage,

God again set a certain day, calling it “Today.” This he did when a long time later he spoke through David, as in the passage already quoted:

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” –Hebrews 4:7 (quoting Psalm 95:7-8)

Christians are privileged to enter God’s eternal rest, where there is no sorrow or pain, but not so for the wicked. Even in this painful world before we are carried into the joys of eternity, Christians may experience the riches of Jesus through our friendship with the Savior, but not so for the wicked. God is patient, but only to a point. Do not be deceived by the lure of this world. Here is God’s attitude:

9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. –2 Peter 3:9-10a

Approach this topic with a sense of urgency, especially if you waver in your faith walk or compromise you faith before the watching eyes of the Lord of Creation. Have you defied or mocked God or refused to believe? He looks down on the thoughts and deeds of humanity to see who obeys Him, and who willfully sins. He sees all we do. God will bring every deed into judgment, including every secret thing, whether it be good or evil (Jeremiah 20:23-24; Ecclesiastes 12:14). Therefore, repent to the Holy God and receive His salvation freely offered.

The good news for the waiting and repentant heart may be found in these gospel verses:

  • Genesis 3:15 (From the beginning, Christ was prepared to come and destroy the works of Satan.)
  • Isaiah chapter 53, along with Acts 8:26-34 (Christ would lay down His life for the transgressors.)
  • Daniel 7:13-14 and Matthew 17:9 (Christ the Son of Man is king of His eternal kingdom.)
  • John 3:16; 6:29; 11:25 (Christ is God’s gift to us, and the resurrection and the life for believers.)
  • Ephesians 2:8-10 (We are saved by God’s grace through our faith, not of works; but we are created in Christ to do His good works.)
  • 1 John 1:9 (Christians may sometimes err in their faith walk, but have the assurance of restoration through confession to the God of mercy.)
  • Romans 3:23; 5:8; 6:23; 10:9-10; 8:1; 12:1-2 (The “Roman Way” gives the simple steps to eternal salvation and our new life in Christ.)

These verses, and many more, lay out the gospel from ancient times through the life of Christ, and into the current age. May the Lord richly bless you.

The Testing of Abraham — Genesis 22

jmsmittyweb

The Lord God spoke to Abraham and said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go sacrifice him as a burnt offering in the land of Moriah.” The Lord emphasized how dear Isaac was to Abraham, and this is the first use of the word love in the Bible. Abraham’s heart must have sunk. He had waited until he was 100 years old before he could have a son with his 90-year-old wife, Sarah. Isaac was the child of the promise God had given him to make a great nation through his offspring. In fact, God had told him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned” (Genesis 21:22). What could possibly come of killing his own child, now a boy or young man?

But Abraham did not hesitate. He cut up the wood for the sacrifice and left Beersheba, his current home in the south of Canaan, early in the morning. He had loaded his supplies, mustered servants and taken Isaac with him. They traveled for three days to Moriah, the mountain of the Lord close to Jeruslaem. Mount Moriah would later become the temple mount in the days of King Solomon, and eventually, it is believed, the site of Islam’s Dome of the Rock. On the third day, as the mountain came into sight, he went ahead alone with Isaac, saying to his servants, “Wait here while I go with the boy to the mountain to worship, and we will return to you.” He used the impersonal term, the boy, as he spoke of his beloved Isaac, perhaps to distance himself from the gruesome task ahead of him. How could God, whose promises he believed, now renege on the promise, and make him sacrifice his only son of the promise? This was a precedent never ventured before: a commanded human sacrifice from God Almighty. It was unthinkable. Yet the order rang in his ears to sacrifice his son like an animal for atonement and devotion to the Creator. He did not have the written law code of Moses, dictated by God Himself, saying do not murder and do not offer human sacrifice to a god. No, the law code would not come until over four hundred years later. It is possible he knew of the law code of King Ur-Nammu, who might have been contemporary to Abraham. Otherwise, he was not schooled in law, at least not in the way of the still nonexistant Hebrew tradition. But Abraham knew something about God from conversations with Him, and he thought he knew God’s nature: holy, faithful, dependable, righteous, everlasting.

God had said to Abraham, “Leave your land and your people and go to a land that I will show you, and I will make you into a great nation.” Later God told him, “Go out and look up at the stars and count them, if indeed they can be counted. So will your offspring be.” And then the book of Genesis says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6). Then at age 99, Abraham saw the Lord in human form – the Theophany – and heard him say, “This time next year you and Sarah will have a son.” In spite of Abraham and Sarah’s laughter, it happened, and the Lord told him to name the boy Isaac, meaning He Laughs. Now he must kill the boy and burn the boy’s body like a carcass in worship of the Living God. Had God changed His mind? No, God must be up to something he did not understand. Would he raise Isaac from the dead? God is faithful and does not do evil. God must provide him a way, and he must not try to take a shortcut or circumvent the plan of the Lord, even in this. Somewhere on that journey a resolve came over Abraham that kept him in pursuit of the Lord’s orders. It had to be faith that only God knows and that God would work out to satisfaction.

After the three days of travel, and his thinking about God’s command, the thought would be like burying his son for those three days, or counting Isaac as good as dead. Isaac was oblivious to the plan now, as they drew close to Moriah. Abraham had placed the wood load on Isaac’s back as they traveled on foot this last distance alone, unaccompanied by servants or beasts. Abraham carried the knife and the fire, probably a lit torch.

“My father?”

“Here I am, my son,” said Abraham. He had kept things impersonal in referring to his son as “the boy,” but now the words could not be withheld. He was saying what we might say: At your service, my son.

“We have the wood, the knife, and the fire, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?” The whole burnt offering became codified in the book of Leviticus, far into the future, but the practice was known in Abraham’s time and before. The whole animal was consumed by the fire as a symbol of the worshipper’s total devotion, and as atonement for sin. The lamb could also be another creature such as a ram, the mature male sheep. Abraham knew this. With the thought of what he had been instructed to do, but knowing no other recourse, Abraham relied on his only hope – that God would show him what to do. “God Himself will provide the lamb,” he said to his son.

They built the altar now and arranged the wood for the fire. Then the unthinkable happened. Somehow Abraham succeeded in getting Isaac on the wood and binding him there. At some time during this last procedure, Isaac must have realized that he was the sacrifice. Did they discuss this? It is possible that Isaac as a youth was stronger than his father, but did they have a wrestling match? If Isaac consented willingly or was talked into stretching out on the altar, then he was foreshadowing the Christ, who willingly would go to His execution on the cross some two thousand years in the future. In fact, to Christians the whole incident presents a type, also known as a foreshadowing or prefiguring, for the passion of the Christ. These uncanny similarities to the Crucifixion of Jesus presented themselves:

  • Abraham, the father, prepared to sacrifice his only legally recognized son as atonement and devotion, just as God the Father allowed His only begotten Son to be sacrificed for the sins of the world. Jesus is called the Lamb of God (Isaiah 53:7; John 1:29,36; Acts 8:32; 1 Peter 1:19; Revelation 5:6,8,12,13). The details for the lamb motif begin in the book of Leviticus, which outlines sacrifice for sin and devotion to the Lord. The burnt offering and the guilt offering would include, depending on circumstances, a young bull, a female sheep, a ram, or a goat. The poor could sacrifice doves or fine flour. However, the lamb became an enduring symbol of such sacrifice throughout the Israelites’ sacrificial period, from the Exodus through the First Century A.D.
  • As mentioned, Abraham spent three days traveling to Moriah, where the sacrifice would occur, and in the process his resolve to obey God placed him in the position of thinking his son was as good as dead. Christ lay dead in the tomb for three days before His resurrection.
  • Isaac carried the wood for his own sacrifice; Jesus was compelled to carry His own cross.
  • As mentioned, if Isaac willingly cooperated with his father, he foreshadowed the very purpose for the Christ’s coming to earth (Mark 10:45).
  • In a sense there occurred a resurrection for both Isaac and Jesus. Hebrews 11:17-18 says that Abraham believed God could raise his son from the dead; he had faith that God could do anything necessary to fulfill His promise of blessing Abraham’s descendants through Isaac, even if it meant raising him from the dead.

Let us inspect some Bible passages that support the above prefiguring list.

He was oppressed and afflicted,

    yet he did not open his mouth;

he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,

    and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,

    so he did not open his mouth.

-Isaiah 53:7

The above verse is from Isaiah 53, known as the chapter of the Suffering Servant. Orthodox Jews do not recognize the Suffering Servant as the Messiah, but rather picture the Messiah as a conquering Lord of righteousness. Christians reconcile the two concepts – the humble Lamb of God and the Lion of the Tribe of Judah (also seen as the Son of Man) – as one and the same Person. Our point in the context of the sacrificial Lamb of God arises from God’s love, even to the point of sacrificing His only Son for the sins of the world. Isaiah 53:12 further clarifies the idea of the Messiah who is given all glory and power and honor because of His sacrifice.

Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,

    and he will divide the spoils with the strong,

because he poured out his life unto death,

    and was numbered with the transgressors.

For he bore the sin of many,

    and made intercession for the transgressors. -Isaiah 53:12

Consider the book of John, which refers to John the Baptizer as he recognized Jesus.

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” -John 1:29

This provides a direct reference to Jesus the Lamb of God, the sacrifice once for all humanity, as cited in Hebrews 7:27, as well as several other references in the book of Hebrews:

He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. -Hebrews 7:27b

We may refer to the words of Jesus Himself in the Gospel of Mark, where he referred to Himself as the Son of Man, a title equated with God Himself from Daniel 7:13-14:

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” -Mark 10:45

In the above sentence, regarded as the focal statement of the Gospel of Mark, we have the reconcilation of suffering with the power of God that rests on Jesus the Messiah, the Son of Man. Hence we understand the passage giving all power and glory and honor to the Son of Man in the prophetic passage from Daniel. He earned it!

13 “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.” -Daniel 7:13-14

A good summary of the earned glory of Jesus, Messiah and Son of Man, which reconciles His glory and His suffering, comes from the author of Hebrews:

…let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

–-Hebrews 12:1c,2

As Abraham reached for the knife, the voice of the angel came from heaven with urgency: “Abraham, Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he said, now realizing with hope of all hopes that God was intervening.

“Do not lay a hand on the boy…. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from Me your son, your only son.” Only then did Abraham see the ram that had caught its horns in a thicket, the sacrifice provided by God. Isaac was spared!

Debaters may say, does God not know everything? Psalm 147:5 says His understanding is infinite. Jeremiah 23:24 says no one can hide from Him. How then would God not know that Abraham would do anything for Him? He did not know with the knowledge of experience! The Rev. Tony Evans wrote that God wanted to feel Abraham’s devotion. Just as God enjoys our worship and feels our devotion, so it was with Abraham. However, another reason penetrates the mystery of the sacrifice; this enactment was a testing of Abraham, God’s prophet.

Now God does not tempt people, as asserted by James 1:13. However, from 1 Peter 1:7 we understand that we are given trials which should strengthen us in our faith. By such a principle Abraham was tested, at times failing, and at times more frequently, to his credit, passing the “test.” He passed one test in a great way by first believing God, and this was credited to him as righteousness. He failed a trial of patience, short-cutting God’s promise of an heir by taking the slave, Hagar, as a second wife in order to have a son. However, even our failures can teach us. In Abraham’s case, he learned that God is faithful to His promises, even when he, in his finite human understanding, did not see how God could carry out the promise!

Therefore, we have the Lord’s assurance of our growing strength as we face our trials in faith, “looking unto Christ, the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). May praise and glory be given to the God of infinite understanding, whose love for His created humanity endures forever. We ask our Eternal Father in the name of Jesus, Messiah, Son of Man, to strengthen us in His righteousness so that we endure to the end.