Tag Archives: Abraham

Patriarchal Faith

April 11, 2015Bible StudyAbraham, death, raise, reasoned, testedLuella Campbell

PATRIARCHAL FAITH

By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, ‘It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.’ Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death. By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future. By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons, and worshipped as he leaned on the top of his staff. By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instruction concerning the burial of his bones (Heb. 11: 17-22).

As little as the patriarchs knew of God, they were men of faith. Oops! What did I say? They probably knew God far more intimately than many of us do. Who was this God whom they worshipped? He introduced Himself to Abraham as el, the one who, to the Hebrew person, was not some unique being who was holy, eternal and unknowable except through revelation, although these facts are true. God was, to them, the one who had power and authority. When He spoke, they obeyed and when He promised, He acted.

Later on, He added another dimension to Abraham’s understanding of Him – El Shaddai – the Mighty One who nourishes. He is the one who has strength and authority and who provides for those who trust Him. These were the simple, everyday experiences of the early fathers because they trusted God and did what He told them to do, even to the near-killing of Abraham’s only son-of-his-old-age who brought him joy and laughter.

God said, ‘Go, sacrifice Isaac,’ so Abraham went without hesitating or questioning. How about that for trust! He no Bible to check up on God. He had no history of a people who knew and followed El. He was a pioneer who had left home and kindred to go where this God had told him to go and he went. In his going, he discovered that his God was able to exactly as He had promised. Wasn’t Isaac proof of that? Whoever heard of a ninety-year-old woman having a child, and that after she had gone through menopause?

So confident he was in God that he was willing to put Isaac’s life on the line, as much as he loved him, for the sake of obeying God, and leave the outcome to Him. The writer commented that Abraham even credited God with the power to raise Isaac back to life after he had plunged in the knife and taken his life. Why did he believe that? He knew Him. His past was spread out in front of him like a panorama of everything he had experienced, and God was in it from the moment he first heard His voice.

Abraham lived up to God’s expectation.

Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about what He has promised Him (Gen. 18: 18-19).

Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, Abraham’s descendants, all eventually followed the way of Yahweh because Abraham obeyed God and taught his offspring to do the same. Although the Bible does not mention his influence on his grandchildren, he was still alive long after they were born. He lived to the ripe old age of one hundred and seventy five years.

Abraham’s son, Isaac and grandson, Jacob received the same promise that God gave to Abraham (Gen 26: 3-5; Gen 28: 13-15). Joseph, although he died in Egypt, was so sure of the fulfilment of God’s promise that he left instructions for his bones to be take back to Canaan when the people eventually left Egypt to take possession of the land of Canaan (Gen 50: 24-25; Ex 13: 19).

These were momentous days. Think of what this meant to these families. Abraham was uprooted from a stable life in Ur to spend the rest of his life as a nomad, with no land of his own, living in tents and moving from place to place, always at the mercy and goodwill of the local inhabitants.

Isaac and Jacob never knew what it was like to live in a house and have land of their own. Jacob twice had to relocate hundreds of miles from where he was born, ending up in a land where the ruler eventually turned hostile and enslaved his descendants.

Joseph was sold into slavery by jealous brothers, ripped from his beloved father’s side and carried off to a heathen land where he served for thirteen years before God promoted him to a position of power and authority. Even there, in spite of the honour he had received, he was still alone, without family and heritage until his brothers came and he was reunited with them.

What a story! And yet, God was in it and behind it all, working out His will to bless and provide for His people. How did they know that? He had promised and they trusted Him and did what He instructed. What about us? Would we have done what they did at the command of someone they could not see? That’s real faith!

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Temporary Dwellings

April 10, 2015Bible StudyAbraham, built, Noah, warned, wentLuella Campbell

TEMPORARY DWELLINGS

By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.

By faith, Abraham when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the Promised Land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to a city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. (Heb. 11: 7-10).

Two more great heroes of faith! What did they do? Different things, obviously. There is no formula to faith and obedience.

Noah was instructed to build a boat. What? A boat in the middle of nowhere! Why? Because it’s going to rain, Noah! Rain? What is rain, God? Never mind. Just build the ark and you’ll find out soon enough.

So Noah and his three boys got busy and began to build the boat. They had no power tools. It was a long and tedious task. They had to cut and fashion each piece and put them together as instructed, to the exact design and dimensions given them by God. How did God give them the details? Did He put pictures in Noah’s mind? Did He write down the description and measurements on tablets of clay just like He wrote the Ten Commandments on stone? We have no idea how He did it.

How long did it take Noah and company to build the ark? The Bible gives no answer – long enough for people to repent, but they didn’t.

The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. Instead He is patient, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).

Noah was described as a “preacher of righteousness.” He did not keep quiet while he worked. He obviously told the curious onlookers what he was doing. They scoffed at him until the rain fell, but it was too late. The ark was sealed, shut by God and they perished in the flood. Who was right and who was wrong? The ark became his home for a whole year – unstable in the wind and waves, but safe because God was there, protecting them because Noah believed God.

Abraham, another of God’s heroes! His circumstances were different from Noah’s. He didn’t need an ark. He needed a tent. God told him to get out of town. Ur was a place of idolatry – the aftermath of Nimrod’s rebellion and the false religion he set up at Babel. If he stayed there he would perish in his idolatry and unbelief. Where, God? Never mind, Abraham. No directions; no explanations; just go!

So Abraham packed up and went. Which way, God? Just keep going, Abraham. So Abraham followed the river. He needed water for his household and livestock. Miles and miles of desert, wind and sand, living in tents. Day after day he had to pack up and move on, uproot his home, fasten everything securely on camels, only to do it all over again tomorrow. How much time did it take to do all that? How much travelling time did he have each day? But had kept going.

How much further, God? Just keep moving, Abraham. I’ll tell you when you have arrived. What faith to keep going! What patience to persevere! Why did he do it? Why didn’t he turn around and go home after the first few weeks? Because he believed God! Imperfect, faltering faith, but somewhere up ahead he knew that God had a permanent place for him. How did he know? Because God said so.

And God was pleased with Noah and Abraham, because they believed Him. Imagine that! They were counted as righteous before God because they believed what He said and did what He told them to do. There was no Jesus to save them, yet, but they were accounted righteous anyway, acceptable before God because they trusted Him.

Isn’t that what God requires of us? To trust Him with our eternal destiny because His word tells us that Jesus died in our place? To trust Him with our day to day lives because He is with us and will never leave or forsake us? To trust Him when He tells us what to do because He is in charge? He isn’t looking for great exploits. He’s looking for simple trust that issues in prompt ad implicit obedience – that’s all!

We are also in our temporary dwelling, but God has a permanent place for us, in His eternal home – if we believe and obey.

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Greater Than Levi

March 10, 2015Bible StudyAbraham, great, plunder, priests, tenthLuella Campbell

GREATER THAN LEVI

Just think how great he was: Even the patriarch, Abraham gave him a tenth of the plunder! Now the law requires the descendants of Levi who become priests, to collect a tenth from the people – that is, from their fellow Israelites – even though they also are descended from Abraham. This man, however, did not trace his descent from Levi, yet he collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. And without doubt the lesser is blessed by the greater (Heb. 7: 4-7).

Undoubtedly, the priesthood of Melchizedek is a higher office than the priesthood of Levi. Here’s the argument:

Levitical priests received tithes from the Israelites because they were the ordained priests of Israel, yet Abraham, who was the grandfather of Levi, gave a tenth of the spoils of war to Melchizedek. Instead of receiving tithes, Levi, in Abraham, was paying a tithe. That would make Melchizedek’s high priesthood of a higher order than Levi’s.

If Jesus’s high priesthood was in the order of Melchizedek and not Levi, of necessity that would make Him a superior high priest to Levi. That, coupled with the fact that He was no longer subject to death because He conquered death and rose from the dead, would make Him a high priest forever. He need never be replaced because He will never die again.

And, on top of that, He went through everything that human beings go through as part of this fallen world. He is able to support those who come to Him because He is always at the Father’s right hand, in the place of authority and power, to intervene on our behalf. He is, in every way, the high priest we need.

Those believers who were tempted to return to Judaism to avoid persecution ought, by now to have realised that to go back to their old religion would not only be a backward step but also cause them to forfeit all the benefits of being in union with Jesus. They would have to return to all their unfulfilled desires with no hope of ever experiencing the fulfilment of everything their religion promised. If they rejected Jesus as their promised Messiah, there would never be another to fulfil all the prophecies that pointed to Him.

In the one case, the tenth was collected by people who die, but in the other case, by Him who is declared to be living. One might even say that Levi, who collects the tenth, paid the tenth through Abraham, because when Melchizedek met Abraham, Levi was still in the body of his ancestor (Heb. 7: 8-10).

The writer rounded off his argument that Melchizedek’s high priesthood was superior to Levi’s by pointing out that Levi did not receive but paid a tithe to Melchizedek when he was still in the body of Abraham. Therefore, Melchizedek was greater than Levi.

But why this lengthy discussion? The high priest played a significant role in the lives of Jewish people. Their approach to and acceptance by God was centred in the high priest. Without his ministry and intervention, they had no hope of contact with God because he was the mediator – the go between. The Levitical priests offered sacrifices on their behalf so that they could have the assurance that their sins were forgiven and that they were acceptable to God. Without the Levitical priesthood and the high priest, they were cut off from God.

To have a high priest who would never need to be replaced because of death, and to have one who offered, not animal blood as a temporary measure to be repeated over and over again, but His own blood to remove sin once and for all, was far superior to what the Levitical priests could do. On top of that Jesus was both God and man. He represented man to God and God to man. He was the perfect high priest in every way, sinless and deathless.

We Gentiles, who did not live under the system of the Old Covenant, might find it difficult to appreciate what this meant to Jewish people. Why is there such a longing to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem? Is it not so that they can re-establish the sacrificial system? Temple and sacrifices go together. Because they have, in the main, rejected Jesus as their Messiah, they need the animal sacrifices for the forgiveness of sin. And yet, because they have rejected God’s Lamb, there is no forgiveness for them since the sacrificial system has been fulfilled and replaced by Jesus.

To reject Jesus is to reject the only way to the Father. He is the way and there is no other way.

A Faithful And Merciful High Priest

February 19, 2015Bible StudyAbraham, atonement, fully human, high priestLuella Campbell

A FAITHFUL AND MERCIFUL HIGH PRIEST

For surely it is not angels He helps, but Abraham’s descendants. For this reason He had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that He might make atonement for the sins of the people, Because He Himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted. (Heb. 2: 16-18)

Those who deny the humanity of Jesus destroy everything He came to do as both high priest and sacrifice. Take for example the Roman Catholic doctrine of the immaculate conception of Mary. If Mary was conceived without sin, and Jesus was so-called born of a sinless mother, then He could not have been made like us, fully human in every way.

To be fully human is to carry the potential to sin, as Adam did. But He was without sin, not because He was born of a sinless mother, but because He suffered and overcame temptation so that He could be our faithful and merciful high priest.

Jesus was not conceived through a human father but through the Holy Spirit. He had the nature of God and was fully God, but He was born of a human mother, which gave Him the nature of man. She carried Him in her womb for nine months, and gave birth to Him as does every human mother. He was suckled at her breast and nourished with human food. He had to learn from infancy to be a human being as does every other child.

In the course of His growing up, He had to learn the power of temptation and suffering in order to qualify as our faithful and merciful high priest. How much more intense it must have been for Him, as the son of Mary and the Son of God, to withstand the subtleties of Satan’s deception from a tiny child onwards! He could not give in to the temptation to follow the example of His peers and react as they did in the rough and tumble of life not even for a moment in His thoughts, attitudes and actions.

He did not just suffer (experience) temptation; He suffered when He was tempted. That made temptation far more intense to Him than for us because He had to resist to the end. Our temptation ends when we give in. His temptations never ended because He did not give in.

Listen to the testimony of His Father after thirty to years of growing up from infancy to manhood in a normal human family, through the ‘terrible’ twos’, the teens and early adulthood, with awakening hormones coursing through His veins, and sinful people all around Him and pressing in on Him:

As soon as Jesus was baptised, He went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on Him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased.’ (Matt. 3: 16, 17)

Jesus had no one to mentor Him, not even an earthly father and mother who were without sin. He was wholly dependent on His fellowship with His heavenly Father, of which He was aware from His earliest years, and the union He had with Him, to take Him through His growing-up years without faltering.

His own conscience bore witness to His perfect record. In the heat of debate with His ever-present opponents, the religious leaders, He challenged them:

Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? (John 8: 46)

Much to their frustration, no one could! No sin, Jesus? Not even a stray thought? Not an under-your-breath threat or insult? Never an attitude of hostility – never? Always, always, nothing but perfect love? Yes! With a perfectly pure conscience He could challenge them and be met with . . . silence! This must have angered them even more, because their own consciences screamed at them and refused to be silenced.

No need then, ever, to replace Jesus as our high priest. He does the job to perfection because He is one of us; He succeeded when every other high priest failed, and died; He qualified as both a sinless human and a perfect sacrifice. He fulfils the office of high priest perfectly and forever. He didn’t just offer blood to atone for our sin; He offered His own blood, once and for all. No other sacrifice and no other high priest is needed.

And, what’s more, because He is also God, He helps us – with the power of His own Holy Spirit, to overcome just like He did. He understands the inner strength of the temptations we face because He’s been there. He knows how to ‘succour’ (King James Version) those who are tempted. The Free Dictionary defines ‘succour’ as ‘giving help or assistance, especially in times of difficulty.’

That’s it! That’s what He is able to do because He was made just like us. . .

Born Free!

October 28, 2014Bible StudyAbraham, free woman, slave woman, two sonsLuella Campbell

BORN FREE!

“Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise. These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. The one covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves. This is Hagar.” Galatians 4:21-24.

Who was Hagar? She was the Egyptian slave of Abraham’s wife, Sarah. Paul used the rather obscure argument about the mothers of Abraham’s two sons to explain why believers in Jesus are not slaves but sons.

God promised Abraham a son through whom He would make him into a great nation and bless the world through him. In order for Abraham and Sarah to know that their son would be a miracle child, God caused Sarah to be barren until the time came for her to conceive Isaac. Because of their impatience, Sarah urged Abraham to “help” God by resorting to the common custom of a husband producing a child through a slave woman. The baby born would become the child of the barren wife.

But this was not what God planned. Instead of Sarah adopting Ishmael, the child became a source of irritation between her and her slave. Ishmael was the son born of the flesh in more ways than one. He was the result of human scheming; he was the natural outcome of human intercourse; he was not conceived in response to a divine promise; rather, he was Abraham’s way of trying to force God’s hand; and his descendants have been enemies of the children of God down the centuries.

Isaac, on the other hand, would never have been born outside of divine intervention. Everything was against Sarah having a child. She was both old and barren. Only God could reawaken her dead systems and make them function again, and function efficiently to enable her to conceive, carry a baby to term and go through the rigors of childbirth unscathed and without the intervention of 21st century medical skills. Isaac was a God-child from beginning to end.

A good illustration, Paul! Anyone who thinks he can to satisfy God’s perfection by trying to be perfect, is on his own. But the problem is that he is up against his own perverse nature. Every time he is confronted with God’s requirements, his rebellious sin-nature rises up and resists. That’s what the law does. We are not neutral; we are hostile to God, enemies, hating the light because it exposes who we really are. Before we even attempt the impossible, we are gonged out. What does that make us? Slaves! Enslaved by our own nature and enslaved to sin.

On the other hand, Sarah’s baby came easily. When God said it would happen, it happened, on time and in His time. He made the promise and He kept His promise. Isaac was not a “borrowed” son but her son. Isaac belonged to Abraham and Sarah because God gave him to them. They did not deserve him; God did not give him to them as a reward for anything. God gave him to them because He had a plan and Isaac was part of His plan. Isaac was the beginning of God’s human family, Israel.

Salvation is like that. God gave it to us through Jesus. God has a plan. He wants a family of sons and daughters who are just like Him. Giving them rules to keep did not work but it was part of His plan. It showed His people how stubborn and rebellious their hearts were and that they could only become His true children by grace and through God changing their hearts. Before He could send Jesus, they had to learn what sin was and that their only hope was through the sacrifice of a perfect Lamb. Jesus became God’s perfect son and His perfect Lamb.

We cannot have the law and faith in Jesus. The real problem is that people, even God’s people, find it difficult to believe that we actually have to do nothing except trust in Jesus to be acceptable to God. Like Abraham and Sarah, we think we have to do something to “help” Him so that He will be pleased with us. Until we get rid of that false notion and throw ourselves completely on His mercy, we will never enjoy the freedom of being God’s beloved sons and daughters, unconditionally loved and fully accepted as members of His family.

Acknowledgement

Ebenezer Family Church

HE IS RISEN!