Tag Archives: Abraham

It’s All About Him

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IT’S ALL ABOUT HIM

“Brothers and sisters, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case. The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say, “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ. What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on the promise, but God in His grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.” Galatians 3:15-18.

Without going into detail, the Bible clearly teaches that Abraham had four different kinds of “seed”.

1. It stand to reason that all Abraham’s natural-born children were his “seed”, That would include the all descendants of Ishmael and Isaac, even those who were not part of God’s selective history, that is, those who were set aside and not a part of the Jewish nation.

2. God chose Jacob, Abraham’s grandson, to be the father of Abraham’s special, natural seed – the children of Israel. These were the covenant people of God.

3. In Galatians 3:16, Paul narrowed Abraham’s seed down to one person, Jesus Christ, as Abraham’s unique seed because it was only through Him that all the promises God made to Abraham, would be fulfilled.

4. In Galatians 3:29, Paul identified believers as the spiritual seed of Abraham. Since God’s promises are received by faith, and the children of Israel failed to believe God and receive His gifts by grace, He opened the door to the Gentiles to be included in the family of Abraham if they received Jesus by faith. That made them the spiritual children of Abraham.

(www.audiowebman.org/bbc/books/NC/abrahams_seed/chpt_02.htm)

Do you understand, then, why Paul identified Jesus as the unique “seed” of Abraham? The covenant God established at Mount Sinai with the special natural seed of Abraham did not nullify, add to or subtract from His covenant with Abraham (Genesis 15). It was an interim covenant given to His people to show them how to live as His special people, and to teach them how impossible it was to obey Him without the Holy Spirit.

It was God’s intention to give the Holy Spirit back to those who trust in Him because, without the Spirit, people are still dead and unable to hear or communicate with God. The Holy Spirit would be only given when the barrier of sin between God and man had been removed. Only Jesus could remove that barrier by paying sin’s debt on behalf of sinners. Ultimately then, God’s promise to Abraham would be fulfilled through one man, Jesus, the “seed” of Abraham. In Him, all those who believe in Him are His seed by faith. Jesus Himself spoke of being a seed.

“Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But, if it dies, it produces many seeds.” John 12:24.

But Jesus was not just any old seed. He was the seed of Abraham, the offspring of God’s covenant people, the one whom God promised would come to crush the head of Satan.

“I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring (seed), and hers; He will crush your head, and you will strike His heel.” Genesis 3:15.

Jesus was both the seed of the woman (human) and the seed of Abraham (Jewish); he was born of a woman and born into the Jewish nation. He came at a specific time and into a specific culture which had been prepared through God’s covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai to understand the ramifications of sin so that they could understand and appreciate the enormity of God’s grace.

That they failed by rejecting their Messiah was no fault of God’s, but it did open the door for God’s grace in Christ to be given to the whole world. God intended for His people to be the revelation of Himself to the world. It did not happen through His chosen people as a whole, but through a small group, called the Apostles, who went in obedience to His command, and took the message to the world.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Going For The Throat

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GOING FOR THE THROAT

“So again I ask, does God give His Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham.

“Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’ So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.” Galatians 3:5-9.

Paul had to go for the throat of the pernicious teaching of the Judaizers before it took hold of the Gentile believers and strangled the life out of them before the church was one generation old. What better source could he appeal to than the Biblical record of Abraham, who was the father of the Jewish nation?

Since Abraham preceded Moses and the Law (and the Torah tells the story of Abraham and God in detail), surely Abraham must be the one who models the relationship with God that we are to follow. The children of Israel were no example because they not only failed to follow God’s way of doing life, but they also twisted it to suit their own ends. They turned God’s provision for the forgiveness of sins, the sacrificial system (which was a picture of what Christ had already done on the cross from before the beginning of time), into an excuse for sinning.

What was the gospel according to Abraham? God put him into right standing with Himself because Abraham believed His promise. He took God at His word and, except for a few deviations along the way, acted on it instead of trying to gain favour with God in his own way. God had given him some hefty promises:

“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. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” Genesis 12:2, 3.

Now I don’t know how much Abraham understood or appreciated God’s promises then; after all, they were so far in the future that he would not see their fulfilment in his lifetime. And then there was the matter of a son. None of this would happen if he did not have a son. God hadn’t said anything about a child yet, but it stands to reason that he could never become a great nation without him and Sarah starting the ball rolling.

The “son” promise came later. Years passed. He and Sarah were settled in the land of Canaan. God had told them to get up and go, and they got up and went, but they were only sojourners in the land, not landowners. How could a single couple take over a whole country? In any case, they didn’t even have a family, let alone a nation!

Then, one night, God spoke again – another promise and this time one that addressed his unspoken dream, “You will have a son,” God assured him. “Do you want to know how many ‘sons’? Look up at the stars. Can you count them? No? Then you won’t be able to count your descendants either.”

Abraham gazed up into the night sky. Myriads of stars twinkled down on him. He was looking into the future and a picture began to take shape – people, millions of people, just like God said, but they weren’t only his blood descendants. They were people from every nation gathered into one big family, a family of people who had faith in God.

“Do you know what, God?” he whispered, “I think you can do it. I know you can do it!” There and then, Abraham was catapulted into a new relationship with God. “You are my man! We are now partners in my big plan. It will take thousands of years to accomplish, Abraham, but it will all begin with you because you trust me.”

So where does circumcision and keeping the law fit into God’s scheme of things? It doesn’t. It was designed for another purpose and it was only a temporary arrangement. Paul will go on in his vehement defence of the gospel, to explain what the law was intended to do. But for now he gave his readers a glimpse of what trusting God was about – entering into a partnership with Him so that He can fulfil His big plan for the whole world through those who believe in Him.

What is His big plan? To shower supernatural favour on the whole world, Jew and Gentile, through Abraham because Abraham chose to believe His promise. Can you see why Paul had to strangle this false teaching before it took hold of the church? God cannot carry out His plan if people insist on trying to gain the favour He has already freely given us through Jesus.

He wants to get on with blessing all the nations of the world through the church, not to put up with our puny effort to keep the rules, which doesn’t get us anywhere, anyway.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

The Picture On The Box

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THE PICTURE ON THE BOX

“Against hope, Abraham in hope believed, and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead – since he was about a hundred years old – and that Sarah’s womb was also dead.

“Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had the power to do what He had promised. That is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” Romans 4:18-22.

Faith, hope, love – three words that are often linked together in the Bible. Paul has already defined faith – “calling into being things that are not.” Love is not clearly defined in Scripture, but could be something like this – “meeting the needs of others at our own expense.” But hope?

According to Paul, faith and hope are closely linked together. It is because of our hope that we believe what God has promised. Biblical “hope” is very different from worldly hope which expresses both desire and uncertainty; desire because it is what we want to happen, but uncertainty because we have no solid ground for hoping that it will happen.

Biblical hope, on the other hand is based on what God has promised – sort of like the picture on the box. If you enjoy doing jigsaw puzzles, you’ll understand what I mean. You buy the puzzle because you like the picture. Then you find a suitable place to build it, spread out the pieces and begin to put them together. From time to time you study the picture to make sure that you are following it correctly because you want the end result will look exactly like the picture on the box.

That is the idea of hope. God has made a promise; you keep that promise in mind as you begin to pray, trust God and thank Him for the fulfilment of His Word. Hope is the picture in your imagination of what God has said He will do. Then you watch as God begins to put the pieces together to build the “puzzle”. At first it doesn’t look anything like the completed picture, but faith keeps seeing the picture and trusting God for the outcome.

Hope does not focus on the impossibility of present circumstances. Abraham was fully aware of his and Sarah’s age and the unassailable reality that it was impossible, humanly speaking, for them to have a child. Fact is fact! Sarah was long past menopause, No amount of wishing or willing could change that! Even though people lived much longer in their day, they were both past the age of childbearing. That was it!

Abraham could have given up hope on that fact alone. Instead he set his mind on what God had said rather than what was. That is hope.

From a hymn of Charles Wesley (1707-1789) came these words:

“Faith, mighty faith the promise sees,                                                                                                And looks to that alone;                                                                                                                      Laughs at impossibilities,                                                                                                                    And cries, “It shall be done.”

Hope sees, not circumstances but the ability and reliability of the one who has promised. If a human being had made the same promise to Abraham as God had made, he would have laughed at him. Of course that person had no power to follow through on his promise. But God? The crux of the matter?

“…being fully persuaded that God had the power to do what He had promised.”

Why was Abraham “fully persuaded”? Because his faith had grown through believing and obeying God in the process of time. How does faith grow? By following the Lord one step at a time and watching Him work in response to our obedience. Faith grows when it is anchored to our hope as we keep the picture of the puzzle firmly in our imagination.

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

It’s All Grace!

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IT’S ALL GRACE!

“It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless, because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law, there is no transgression.” Romans 4:13-15.

Paul was dealing with two mutually exclusive principles: law and works versus faith and righteousness. Works brings wrath because it is impossible for fallen humans to obey the law perfectly; faith brings righteousness because it comes through God’s promise and is a gift of God apart from the law. The one cancels out the other. Since Abraham received God’s gift of righteousness before the law was given, he could not have been declared righteousness through his obedience to the law.

And he concludes with a declaration of victory – if faith that brings righteousness cancels out the law, then there is no longer any wrath because it is the law that brings wrath. No one can break a law that isn’t there! It’s all God!

“Therefore the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring – not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written: “I have made you the father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God in whom he believed – the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.” Romans 4:16, 17.

It is faith that levels the ground for both Jew and Gentile. Since possession of the law, though it is holy in itself, becomes the reason for condemnation, Jews have no advantage over Gentiles. What should have been a blessing for them only brought them under God’s judgment because it brought their sinfulness into sharp focus.

Since the forefather they so revered was accepted by God because he trusted in His promise, and not on an effort on his part to satisfy God’s holy demands, all those who follow his example are his spiritual offspring – and equally acceptable to God, be they Jew of Gentile.

What was the promise that Abraham believed?

“And Abram said, ‘You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.’ Then the word of the Lord came to him: ‘This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.’ He took him outside and said, ‘Look up at the sky and count the stars – if indeed you can count them.’ Then He said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’

“Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness.” Genesis 15:3-6.

It was Abraham’s confidence in the trustworthiness of God’s promise that activated God’s power to make it happen. That’s how God works. Apart from natural circumstances, possible or impossible, He had a plan in place, but it could only become effective in the earthly realm when Abraham spoke the amen to God’s promise.

“For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through Him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.” 2 Corinthians 1:20.

What is God’s promise to us that we must activate by faith, upon which all His other promises are based? “For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile – the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on Him, for, ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'” Romans 10:13.

It’s as simple as that. Paul has stripped away all the small print inserted by uncomprehending humans. It’s all God and all grace, and we can add nothing to what He has done. It’s up to us to accept it and become heirs of all the blessings He has promised.

Hallelujah!

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Faith Is The Key

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FAITH IS THE KEY

“What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather discovered in this matter? If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about – but not before God. What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. However, to the one who does not work, but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.” Romans 4:1-5.

Having laid out his case for the guilt of the whole world, and the impossibility of satisfying God’s righteous and holy standards by trying to keep the law, Paul moved on to build his case for God’s way of declaring people “not guilty” and making them acceptable to Him.

He could not sweep sin under the carpet. In the beginning He made it clear to Adam that the penalty for disobedience would be death. He was obliged to honour His own word. When the first pair disobeyed Him, they were alienated from Him and brought the judgment of death upon themselves, the human race and the cosmos itself. There was nothing they could do to undo what they had done.

There was only one way to satisfy God’s justice and, at the same time, justify the guilty – if a human being, who had no sin of his own, would take on himself the penalty for sin on behalf of the sinful human race, then God could forgive sin and reinstate the sinner. God came in person, became a human being, subject to the same law that condemned all other humans, and passed the test. He was killed as a lawbreaker but rose from the dead to prove both His innocence and His fulfilment of God’s requirement.

But how does what Jesus did become ours? Paul used accounting terms to explain how it happens. Each of us has an account with God. In the debit column is the record of our debt of sin. It begins with a nature that is bent on rebellion. Then to our sin nature is added the mounting debt of sin that we do day by day through thoughts, motives, attitudes and actions. All our efforts to add to our credit balance to try to cancel out our debt are futile because everything we do is tainted by sin.

“All of us have become as one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf and like the wind our sins sweep us away.” Isaiah 64:6.

But Jesus’ death paid our debt in full. Not only that but He also cancelled the very law that accuses us.

“He forgave all our sins, having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us, nailing it to the cross…” Colossians 2:13b, 14.

“But,” you argue, “How can God remove the standard by which He judges us? Does that mean that it does not matter what we do? Is there no longer any law by which God measures our behaviour?” God’s standards do not change. But He satisfied His own demands through the perfect life of His Son. He cancelled every debt in our debit column, writing across our debt “PAID IN FULL” and wrote in our credit column the name of Jesus which includes His perfect obedience.

There is one more step needed to complete the transaction. It has to be personally received or else it remains ineffective. The basis of Adam’s sin (and confirmed by ours) was the rejection of God’s authority and a declaration of independence. To receive God’s gift of forgiveness is only part of the deal. The other part is to submit once again to His authority and return to His way of doing life.

God appointed His Son, Jesus, to be the ruler of His kingdom. He said to the rebel kings who tried to throw off His rule, “I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain.” Psalm 2:6.

Because of His perfect obedience, even to death, “God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:10, 11.

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.