The Patriarchs - Absolutely Sovereign

This is the eighth post in a series that I am doing based on the lives of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), the accounts of which are found in the book of Genesis.  In spite of the title of this series, the record of the experiences of the men listed above are only incidental to me.  What I find far more interesting, relevant, and important is the revelation of the character and nature of God that we can see by observing these men's lives.  Each post will coincide with a lesson being taught in a classroom.  As such, they will not be in a traditional essay format.  Rather, it will be a slightly expanded version of the notes that I hand out in class. 

The Genesis Account

Gen. 15:9-21 – Within this passage is a curious little phrase.  Starting in verse 13 The Lord prophesies the future of Israel.  And in verse 16 He says “Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”

Gen. 16:11-12 – God commands Hagar to name her son Ishmael.  This is interesting because the word means “God hears”.  Such a name, clearly given at God’s direction, gives strong implication as to the ordination of this man’s life according to the will of God.  Then it is revealed that Ishmael would be in opposition to everyone.  This further clinches the idea that Ishmael’s confrontations were planned by God.

Gen. 32:24-32 – The name Israel means “he who strives with God” or “God strives”.  With this as the name chosen by God for the nation He was going to form, is it any surprise they turned out to be obstinate?  Furthermore, God obviously intended for things to work out the way they did for Israel, including their eventual rebellion.

Supporting Scriptures

Exo. 34:1, 4-9 – In God’s interaction with Moses He reveals an interesting facet of His character.  There is a duality seen between loving-kindness and forgiveness contrasted with anger, an encompassing patience mixed with an implacable finality of justice.  The end result is that the guilty will be punished and wrongs will be set right.  In God’s economy of righteousness the prosecution of justice will sometimes result in the crimes of the fathers being visited on the heads of the children.  Our selfish human nature tends to bristle at Biblical concepts such as this one.  We put our backs up and wail about the unfairness of God.  We seek to cast blame elsewhere.  And this penchant for shifting attention from ourselves ultimately lands squarely in the court of punishment for sin.  We cry foul over God’s condemnation of the entire human race for what we see as Adam’s wrong-doing while conveniently ignoring the fact that not a day has gone by in which a single one of us has not crawled into bed with sin.  Going back to the account in Exodus, two points rise to the surface.  One, as already mentioned, although a father may be guilty of a specific crime for which God demands restitution, it is undeniably accurate to state that any and all of his offspring are equally guilty, perhaps not of the same exact sin, but a litany of sins at least equal in scope to that of their father.  Two, the reality is that many times children repeat the mistakes of their parents.  Whether the issue is narcotic addiction, physical abuse, uncontrolled rage, or anything else, the pattern of human behavior is that if the issue was seen in the parents it will probably also be seen in the children.

Amos 4 – Piggybacking on the already revealed truth from Exodus is this sobering passage of condemnation uttered against the northern kingdom of Israel.  The Lord painstakingly details not one, not two, but five specific warnings given to the Jews in the form of material discomforts.  Yet they spurned their God consistently every single time. 

Hab. 2:3 – God assures Habakkuk that the prophetic depictions of future events about to be delivered are marked for a specific time.  God’s response to unrighteousness is not haphazard.  It is precisely proportioned, carefully considered, and perfectly applied in the exact time and manner that is best.

Questions For Meditation

What did God mean when He said “the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete”?

A pattern of divine response to evil is established in the pages of Scripture.  It is perhaps best and most expansively demonstrated through God’s dealings with the nation of Israel.  There are three significant components we can see.

First is that God is very patient.  In the Exodus passage listed above He is quite clear about His intention to show loving-kindness, compassion, grace, and truth to multitudes of people.  Likewise when we turn our attention to Amos chapter 4 we see a record laid out before us of God in His vast patience giving Israel opportunity after opportunity to repent.  Who of us, as human parents, would ask our children to obey five or more times in a row, without an authoritarian response to their wrongdoing?  It is true that God was punishing Israel via material discomfort while He “waited” for the ultimate turning from their sin that would never come.  But it is equally true that those temporary passing acts of discipline were not commensurate to the weight of their idolatry.  In other words, these temporary punishments did not fit the crime.  It would be like one of us, with a child guilty of murder, refraining from calling the police and in lieu of that simply taking away their phone privileges or video game time.  Then finally, after 4 more murders and 4 more small time punishments with no repentance, we finally turn our wayward child over to the authorities.  I do not mean to suggest that a parent who takes this course of action is sanctioned in it because they have a pattern in Scripture of God behaving the same way.  We are not God and His ways are not our ways nor are our minds anywhere close to His mind.  Thus our distorted application of righteousness cannot measure up to His perfect rendition of it.  The point rather is that we should be in awe of just how patient and longsuffering God truly is.

The second point of this divine pattern of response is a guarantee that there will come a day of reckoning when accounts will be settled and wrongs will be made right.  In both the Exodus and the Amos passages this element can be seen, in that at the end of the day God visited wrath and consequences upon the heads of the sinners involved that absolutely did fit the crimes they were guilty of.  God’s response to evil may seem, to us, to be slow in coming, but when it does come oh boy does it ever come with a vengeance.  There is no escaping the great and terrible day of the Lord when His flaming anger consumes sin just as a super-heated furnace vaporizes living tissue and inanimate minerals alike.

Thirdly and finally, the deliverance of this divine verdict is perfect in its timing because God is perfect in His planning.  There is no possible way we can ever hope to comprehend why or how the timetable of a penalty is selected by The Lord.  But we can be assured that when it does fall the hand of judgment is optimized flawlessly by One who sees the past, present, and future all at once.

With these points in mind we can turn back to the original question: what did God mean when He told Abraham that “in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”?  The evidence from Scripture strongly suggests that God was not ready yet for the Hebrews to come in and subjugate Palestine.  First of all, they were not numerous enough yet.  While it’s true that God could have supernaturally given Canaan to His people on the spot, it’s also true that His preference for action is to work through human surrogates via a process and over a period of time.  We considered elements of that truth in the very first essay of this series when we looked at the concept of the Mediatorial Kingdom.  Also, we know from the book of Joshua that His instructions to the people were to take possession of the land by annihilating the people groups living there.  But apparently, the evil the Amorites were guilty of had not yet reached its full measure of debauchery in which God finally says “enough!” as He did hundreds of years later with Israel.  And so the decree was given that these pagan peoples would be allowed to continue for a season in their unrighteousness while God grew the seed of Abraham into a mighty people as numerous as the sands on the shore or the stars in the heavens.

What does this imply about the relationship between the evil present in the world and God’s sovereignty?

The inescapable conclusion here is that God permits evil to exist and persist for a season.  In fact, I’ll go even further and say that He ordains it.  To ordain means to “order or decree something officially”.  Only someone in authority has the right and privilege to do this.  The definition of a ruler is “a person exercising government or dominion”.  If that doesn’t describe the Lord God then I don’t know what does.  The logical conclusion then is that God, as the ruler of all creation, orders and decrees all that transpires within His realm.  If we say that He does not then we ascribe the power of cause to an agent other than God.  In other words, we elevate the creature over the creator.  This is a heinous contradiction of the sovereignty of God.  We are stripping God of at least a portion of His authority.  And to do that in any way, shape, or form is a horrible offense worthy of death.  This is the point of Romans chapter one.

In contrast to this picture of stolen authority we have passages such as Isaiah 46:9-11 or Deuteronomy 32:39 which clearly paint an unblinking picture of a God who is completely in control without any question or serious contenders for His throne.

And lest you balk at this idea of God ordaining evil I would encourage you to turn to the first chapters of the book of Job.  In these pages we are given a front row seat into the inner workings of the heavenly realm.  We see Satan come before The Lord and challenge the notion that the creation will sing of His glory.  God deliberately gives the enemy of righteousness and truth a license to visit unspeakable evil and horror upon Job.  And although Job is never told why this was done, we as the reader have a bit more information to base a conclusion on.  The fact of the matter is that, like it or not, God did this to Job, through Satan, for no other reason than the advancement of His own glory.  We may in our self-centeredness not care for this.  But that doesn’t make it any less true.

How does this truth impact your life on a deeply personal level?

Put simply, realize and understand, bad stuff that happens to you was ordained by God.  Don’t make the mistake of robbing God of His prerogative by laying the over-arching responsibility for the orchestration of the events in your life to any other agent than God.  I’m not talking about personal responsibility here.  It’s certainly true that if someone steals from you they are culpable for the crime.  But it’s equally true that they only did it because God allowed them to, just as He allowed Satan to do what he did with Job.  I think far too often we tend to marginalize and ignore this second component of a perceived bad circumstance and in so doing we shift the focus away from God, even temporarily.  This is something we must not do!

The Patriarchs - Considerately Transparent

This is the seventh post in a series that I am doing based on the lives of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), the accounts of which are found in the book of Genesis.  In spite of the title of this series, the record of the experiences of the men listed above are only incidental to me.  What I find far more interesting, relevant, and important is the revelation of the character and nature of God that we can see by observing these men's lives.  Each post will coincide with a lesson being taught in a classroom.  As such, they will not be in a traditional essay format.  Rather, it will be a slightly expanded version of the notes that I hand out in class. 

The Genesis Account

Gen. 15:6-8 – Scripture says Abram believed God.  But then immediately he asks for proof of God’s promise.  Does this indicate a lack of faith on Abram’s part or was he somehow justified in his questions?

Gen. 17:4, 7, 9-14, 23-26 – A covenant is an agreement.  It often has legal connotations.  If this is the case, and if God is sovereign (meaning having supreme authority over all of creation), then why does He need to make covenants?  Furthermore, why did God choose such an intimate, painful, and sensitive ratification of His covenant with Abraham?

Gen. 18:16-33 – God permits Abraham an astonishing level of familiarity in asking for respite on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah.  But doesn’t Scripture teach that God does not change His mind?  Is He demonstrating a possibility of changing His mind here? 

Gen. 20:1-7 – God obviously already knew the truth of the situation.  Yet He confronted Abimelech over the possibility of sin with Sarah and against Abraham.  Only after Abimelech confessed his innocence did God relent.  Why the apparent charade?

Gen. 22:2 – God specifically used words designed to increase the emotional anguish Abraham must have been experiencing when He commanded the sacrifice of Isaac.  It actually seems a little cruel.  Why would He do this to His servant?

Gen. 28:18-22 – Jacob (at least in his own mind) made a bargain with God; essentially a conditional covenant.  Was this wrong to do or did God establish precedent for this with the way He chose to interact with the Patriarchs?  If God did not set up this pattern of behavior do His later dealings with Israel indicate the acceptableness of conditions?

Supporting Scriptures

Num. 23:19 – This passage is quite direct and clear in its description of God as One who does not lie or change His mind.  Note that some translations render this passage as “repent” and some as “change His mind”.  But both are synonymous because a changing of the mind is exactly what true repentance is.  Yet if this is true about God it tends to cause tension elsewhere in scripture, as mentioned above.

Mal. 3:1-6 – This is an amazing window into the character of God.  He first declares the truth of future prophetic events relating to the day of the Lord and the winnowing of the nations by Christ.  And then He specifies a partial list of the crimes of Israel and assures them that the only reason they are even still alive is due to the fact that He is a God who does not change.  The implication is that He keeps His promises to Abraham; otherwise the sons of Jacob would be consumed in the heat of God’s fiery wrath.

Questions For Meditation

As given in the scripture notes above, how do we answer all of these tensions in Scripture?  Does God change His mind?  Does He allow humans to negotiate with Him?  Are some facts hidden from Him until humans reveal the truth?  If none of those are true then why, in situation after situation, does God act like He doesn’t know what’s going on or that He is willing to alter course?

In answering this question, first of all we must establish our foundation.  God does not change.  Scripture is quite clear on this point, as established by Numbers 23:19 and Malachi 3:6 above.  With that as a given, then we must ask ourselves, in the situations recorded in Genesis, if God changing is not what is in view, then what is?

God does not desire mindless robots to worship Him and give Him glory.  Why?  Because He would receive less glory if it was forced or automatic.  Rather, He desires for thinking, rationale, competent, and serious minded people to make a decision that God is the greatest thing in existence and therefore is deserving of every shred of worship they can muster.

(1)   God wanted Abraham to feel the weight of His divine promises through visible and tangible evidence of what God was doing.  And so he permitted Abraham to ask for proof without invalidating the faith that had already been expressed.

(2)   The purpose of making a covenant with Abraham was so that Abraham would understand the significance and importance of the agreement.  And God chose circumcision as the sign of the covenant precisely because it was something Abraham and every other male in his household would not easily forget. 

(3)   God already knew what He was going to do with Sodom and Gomorrah.  Verse 17 of chapter 18 records God’s internal monologue in which He rhetorically asks Himself whether to keep the impending doom of the cities from Abraham.  This implies that in spite of the whole rest of the conversation, the coming destruction was a foregone conclusion.  But so that Abraham would more fully appreciate the character of the God he served, The Lord permitted him to bargain for the lives of the people in the city.  And this was not a charade. If in fact 10 righteous people would have been found in the city then God would most certainly have spared Sodom and Gomorrah. 

(4)   Likewise with Abimilech, God obviously already knew that it was Abraham’s fault rather than Abimilech’s that Sarah was in his harem.  But He wanted the king to feel the magnitude of the crime that would have been committed had God not stopped him.

(5)   God wasn’t twisting a proverbial knife in Abraham’s guts with His pointed statement about Isaac being his only son whom he loved.  He was ensuring that Abraham felt the full force of his devotion to God and what that devotion would cost him should God choose to request it.  Furthermore, Abraham appreciated God’s mercy and providence all the more through the reminder of how valuable his son was to him.

(6)   God wanted Jacob to take ownership of and be invested in the relationship with the God of his fathers.  And so the bargaining was permitted, and even held to, so that Jacob would become much more convinced of the seriousness and the benefit of following and worshiping God.

It is truly amazing just how applicable the Bible is.  The manner in which God chose to interact with the Patriarchs is identical to the way He interacts with us today.  He wants us to appreciate the complexities of His character so He forces us to search and struggle and strain to come to terms with them.  He wants us to be earnestly thankful for His providence in our lives so He permits difficulties to appear, resolving some and allowing others to propagate, for the purpose of proving to us that He is a faithful God who will care for us.  He wants us to overflow with gratitude when prayers are answered so He ordains that in some cases we will wait for prolonged periods, demonstrating our faithfulness in trusting Him and proving our reliance in praying to Him.  Then, when the long sought for answer to prayer finally comes our appreciation of the result is increased many times over.

We can see a perfect example of this by considering the early post-Apostolic history of the Christian church.  The first three and a half centuries of the church were dominated by theologian’s attempts to understand the nature of God as seen broadly in the Trinity and more specifically in the person of Christ, otherwise known as Christology.  The church fathers wrestled with these complicated realities.  They disagreed with each other.  They went off on tangents.  They veered away from Scripture and into human philosophy.  They went from one extreme to another.

As an example, a conservative estimate would place at least 20 theologians, both heretical and orthodox, as significantly involved in the debate over the Trinity and Christology.  This spans all the way from the writings of Ignatius confirming the truth of the Trinity without really explaining it in the early second century to the official end of the debate at the Council of Chalcedon in 451.  Best estimates put the average life span of these 20 men at approximately 67 years apiece.  Let’s use a cautious estimate of perhaps 20 years of their life spent thinking about, debating, discussing, researching, and praying about these issues.  And let’s further scale back the calculations by saying that during those 20 years of soul searching they only spent one hour per week on it and only half of the weeks in a single year, or 26.  With those numbers in place we arrive at a total of man hours spent that exceeds 10,000.  And that is only 20 men in the span of 350 years who have become relatively famous in church history for their literary works.  When you consider that these 20 men represent only a fraction of the total effort spent on interpreting Scripture the number obviously becomes practically incalculable.

What’s the point?  This history of the church that scoffers would point to as proof of the chaos and division within Christendom was instead specifically orchestrated by God in this manner so that in the due course of time the breadth of future believers would more fully appreciate the vast scope and incredible complexity of what it is to study the character and nature of God.  And that is exactly the pattern of divine behavior that we see in the lives of the Patriarchs.

Gregory of Nyssa, a bishop in the late 4^th century, put it beautifully when he wrote the following: “This is truly the vision of God: never to be satisfied in our desire to see Him.  But by looking at what we do see, we must always rekindle our desire to see more.  So there can be no limit interrupting our growth in ascending to God, because there is no limit to the Good [God], and our desire for the Good is not ended by being satisfied.”

What are you spending your life seeking after?  Are you like an ignorant child playing in the mud of the things of this world?  Or are you partaking of the glorious feast that is at the king’s table just a few feet away?  Christian, are you wasting your life on passing pleasures that will rot and fade away?  Or are you finding the greatest satisfaction in the universe by passionately seeking to always know better the God you claim to serve?

The Patriarchs - Infinitely Generous

This is the sixth post in a series that I am doing based on the lives of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), the accounts of which are found in the book of Genesis.  In spite of the title of this series, the record of the experiences of the men listed above are only incidental to me.  What I find far more interesting, relevant, and important is the revelation of the character and nature of God that we can see by observing these men's lives.  Each post will coincide with a lesson being taught in a classroom.  As such, they will not be in a traditional essay format.  Rather, it will be a slightly expanded version of the notes that I hand out in class. 

The Genesis Account

Gen. 12:1-3 – The Hebrew word translated in verse two as “bless” has multiple contextual definitions.  On the one hand, it can refer to a blessing directed toward God as an act of adoration.  On the other hand, it can refer to a blessing directed toward man as a benefit.  Clearly when we take part in the process of being blessed by God it is not the same as when He commands us to offer up blessings to Him.  Nevertheless, it is nothing short of astounding that God would condescend to make us any part, in any way, of the same process by which He receives the worship which is due Him.

Gen. 15:1-4 – Abraham pours his heart out to God and God responds directly and specifically to His servant’s requests.  Notice that God in this passage is responding both to what Abraham says (v. 2-3: fear of no offspring) as well as what he doesn’t say (v.1: fear of reprisals from the conflict in chapter 14).

Gen. 23:6 – Notice the tremendous respect given to Abraham by the Canaanites in this verse.  God has blessed him not only with possessions, offspring, and the promise of descendants but also with a good civic reputation.  Although this was probably mostly for the purpose of Abraham acquiring property in Canaan as a sort of down payment for the nation of Israel, there is undeniably an element of material blessing for Abraham in the fact that his neighbors respected him.

Supporting Scriptures

Matt. 7:7-11 – Jesus teaches what should be obvious here.  Humans are intrinsically evil.  Yet in spite of their propensity for selfishness and pride they are still capable of giving their children good things rather than bad.  In light of this, God (who is perfectly good) will likewise give His children exceedingly abundant and good gifts.  The fact that Christ even needed to teach this says volumes about the depravity of the human heart.  That is, people tend to white wash their own sinfulness and count themselves as good in their own minds.  This prevents them from seeing the obvious truth of God’s perfect holiness and righteousness.

John 15:7 – The phrasing in this verse is very important.  Jesus said that if we abide, that is, rest or wait or remain in Him, and if His words reciprocally take up residence in our hearts, then and only then will God do whatever we ask.  The principle is that there is a condition to be met before God will give us whatever we ask.  That condition is to consciously and intentionally place Him as the central and most important pillar of our lives.  If we do that then the things that we ask for will automatically be according to His will.  The Father’s will is that all glory and honor and power be given to His Son, through whom the Father will in turn be glorified.  Therefore what we will really end up asking for is that He be glorified in the giving of gifts to us and the granting of our requests.

Questions For Meditation

Does Scripture really teach that God will give us material blessings?  I believe that it does.  We have already looked extensively at the account of Abraham’s life.  God guaranteed him very real and tangible benefits resulting from the covenantal promises given in Genesis.  We have seen how this played out in Abraham’s life in a concrete manner through wealth, power, prestige, and offspring.  Furthermore, Romans 11:17 paints a picture of we Gentiles as being wild olives who have been grafted in among the branches of the rich olive tree of Israel.  Along with that imagery, Romans 9:6-8 declares that it is the children of the promise (meaning all those who have received salvation through Christ) who are children of God and inheritors of that which was given to Abraham.  Namely, as it relates to this question, the glory and the covenants and the promises spoken of in verse 4.

To make this concept of gift giving even more plain, consider the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 7:7-11.  We as human parents do not act with cruelty or harshness to our children when they ask for things.  To use Christ’s examples, we don’t give them a rock instead of bread or a snake instead of a fish.  And this is so in spite of the fact that we are rotten to the core apart from the righteousness of God granted to us through Christ.  If we, being of such a debased nature, can act with kindness toward our children then how much more will God act with exceeding abundance and generosity to His children?

If the above is true, then wouldn't it follow that we should expect our own lives to be showered with blessings?  Again I would answer yes to this question.  However, there is a rather large catch.  Consider once again the words of Jesus in John 15:7, given in the notes above.  If we as children of God are taking our ultimate satisfaction in Him alone then His greatest concern will become our own greatest concern.  Given that the chief end of God is to bring glory to Himself through all of creation, including us (1 Pet. 4:11; 1 Cor. 10:31), it would follow that we, following this pattern in accordance with God’s preference, would only desire whatever material benefits for ourselves that would ultimately serve that same purpose. 

This is what Jesus was getting at when He said “if My words abide in you…”  If the thoughts and intentions of the mind of God as revealed in scripture are the meat and potatoes of our spiritual diet then we may certainly ask for anything we wish because whatever we ask for will be in line with what will bring God the most glory.  There is an element here of cause and effect, similar to the “works-centric” faith that James talks about in chapter 2 of his epistle.  In that model authentic saving faith will automatically produce authentic good works.  Here in John chapter 15 authentic satisfaction in God will automatically produce authentically appropriate material requests.

Now then, if the answer to the first two questions are both yes, and if we tend to think that our lives are not quite as rosy as this would imply, what is the source of this perception? I believe the final piece of the puzzle of God's generosity can be found in considering the answer to this question.  I know for myself, there have been numerous times over the years where I have become disgruntled over that which I did not possess that I desired to obtain (e.g. vehicles, a house, a better job, computers, etc.).  Furthermore, I would sometimes look at what others had and long for those same perks to be realized in my own life.  And in these moments of envy and covetousness the thought may come to our minds that this picture of material blessing that is given in scripture is either completely inaccurate or at least imbalanced in favor of some people over others.  And that’s not even taking into account our Christian brothers and sisters around the world who have far less than we in America in terms of material comforts and blessings.  So what gives?  Is this teaching really accurate?  Does God actually give material blessings to His children or is this all a fabricated ephemeral pipe dream? 

Some would say that the blessings He gives us are wholly spiritual in nature and that this is the resolution to the mystery of why some have more than others.  There is definitely truth to this.  Job 5:17 and Psalm 1:1-3 both speak of the happiness or contentedness, rendered by most English translations as blessed in those passages, that comes when a person is disciplined by The Lord and who does not follow the depraved patterns of the world.  These passages are clearly indicating a sense of spiritual well-being and internal happiness rather than material comforts.  But I believe scripture also teaches that God will grant physical blessings to us as well, as I indicated in the previous questions.  However, once again there is a huge caveat to this.  It is God alone who determines what physical blessings are appropriate for each of us.

Returning to the book of Matthew, in chapter 20 Jesus tells a parable about some laborers in a vineyard.  The land-owner hires four groups of workers during the course of a single day.  He promises a specific wage to the first group for their efforts but seems to be non-specific as to the wage the other three groups will earn.  When evening comes the employer settles his debt with the laborers.  To the shock and dismay of the first group, who toiled all day long through the heat of the sun, every other group, including the last bunch who only worked for one hour, all received the same wage as they did.  They rise up in anger against the land-owner because of the unfairness of the situation.  But he professes his innocence of any wrong-doing, claiming that his money is his to do with as he pleases.  He asks them rhetorically whether they are simply being envious because he desired to be generous.

The point of this parable is that it is the land-owner, representing God, who determines who gets what and when.  It is purely His mercy that any of us gets anything.  And we have no right whatsoever to question His decisions or complain about them.  Furthermore, the tendency that we have to do so directly stems from our corrupt natures, represented in the parable as the first group’s envious eyes.  It is the fallen state of our being that causes us to perceive that which God chooses to give us as being less than we can be satisfied with or even deserve.  If we are truly finding our greatest satisfaction in Him alone then what we possess will become far less important.

The Patriarchs - Unconditionally Loving

This is the fifth post in a series that I am doing based on the lives of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), the accounts of which are found in the book of Genesis.  In spite of the title of this series, the record of the experiences of the men listed above are only incidental to me.  What I find far more interesting, relevant, and important is the revelation of the character and nature of God that we can see by observing these men's lives.  Each post will coincide with a lesson being taught in a classroom.  As such, they will not be in a traditional essay format.  Rather, it will be a slightly expanded version of the notes that I hand out in class. 

The Genesis Account

Gen. 17:1-2 – The implication of this passage, when considered by itself, is that God would only fulfill His promise to Abraham if he obeyed.

Gen. 22:15-18 – Again God’s language indicates a cause and effect relationship dependent upon the obedience of the man.

Gen. 26:1-5, 23-25 – God introduces Himself personally to Isaac by appearing just when Isaac is probably most fearful and considering leaving Canaan because of the famine there.  God reassures him by guaranteeing the same promise He had made to Abraham.  This possibility of Isaac leaving the Promised Land seems to be a recurring theme.  Not only does God ensure that it doesn’t happen here, but Abraham was clearly concerned about it when he gave his instructions to Eliezer in chapter 24.

Gen. 28:10-17 – God really gets down to brass tacks with Jacob; spelling out not only the geographic expansion of his offspring but additionally giving him personal guarantees about the specific future events of his life.

Supporting Scriptures

Isa. 51:1-2 – God pictures Abraham as an unshaped rock, cut from the earth, carved into shape, and set down as the foundation of the nation of Israel.  There is no way to construe this word picture any other way than one in which Abraham was subjected to this process wholly by an outside force; namely God.

Eph. 2:8-9; Rom. 4:2-5, 9-12 – There is an unrelenting insistence in Paul’s writings of the truth that salvation is completely dependent upon grace through the vehicle of faith.  He draws parallels with a worker who earns his wages and therefore should expect what he is due.  The point is that this is not at all what happens with salvation, when God justifies the ungodly.  In the case of Abraham it was his faith that vindicated him and which was credited to him as righteousness.  This all took place prior to the establishment of circumcision as the sign of the covenant as well as the sacrifice of Isaac at Mount Moriah.

2 Pet. 1:1; Phil. 1:29; Acts 3:16 – Lest anyone should agree with the previous point but then turn around and claim that faith itself comes from within, these passages completely trounce that notion.  We have received faith as a gift given to us.  It has been granted to us to both believe in and suffer for the sake of Christ.  Any faith in Him that we express has first come through Him and only then to us.  This doctrine is as clear as it can be.  Even the source of salvation, faith, is wholly dependent upon God’s granting of it through Christ.

Questions For Meditation

Was God’s covenant with Abraham conditional or unconditional? 

This question is one that perhaps many of us would quickly answer.  But it is fundamental to the gospel and Christianity itself.  For that reason it is imperative that we understand both the correct answer and what the scriptural basis is for that answer.  Let’s work our way through it.

In the book of Isaiah this most prolific of prophets communicates God’s perspective on Abraham in chapter 51, verses 1 and 2.  He describes Abraham, in relation to Israel, as “the rock from which you were hewn” and “the quarry from which you were dug”.  The Lord goes on to say “when he was but one I called him, then I blessed him and multiplied him.”  God provides us with a picture of Abraham as an inert piece of stone whom God, as the craftsman, digs out of the ground and shapes to His liking.  The imagery is unmistakably meant to convey the idea that it was God and not Abraham who was responsible for the work that was done in Abraham’s life.  And in previous weeks we considered how God told Abraham in no uncertain terms that this covenant he was entering into was a one sided covenant where the man was completely un-responsible for the terms and the fulfillment of it (Gen. 15).

Developing this idea further, if we move to the New Testament there is much the Apostle Paul has to say about Abraham and his qualifications to be considered righteous in the sight of God.  Romans 4:2 tells us that if it was Abraham’s works which justified him then he would have something to boast about.  But he cannot boast before God because he was not saved through any of his own works.  Paul develops the idea further by using an illustration of an employee.  Once the worker has worked then his wage becomes what he is due for his effort.  It ceases to be an act of grace on the part of the employer and transforms into a debt.  By contrast, a sinner who believes in God, specifically Christ, receives his justification not as his due but rather as a free gift from God.  It is precisely because of the fact that no work was done that the Bible says salvation flows purely from the abundance of God’s grace.  Furthermore, continuing with the example of Abraham, Paul makes it clear that it was not the sign of circumcision that made Abraham right before God.  He was not circumcised until chapter 17 of Genesis, yet the first evidence of his justification through faith is prior to that, in chapter 15.  Continuing this extrapolation, neither was it the sacrificial test of Isaac on Mount Moriah that qualified Abraham as righteous, since this also came after his initial response of faith.  None of these works resulted in justification for Abraham.  Rather, it was purely his faith.

The question that arises from all this is, where then does the faith come from?  Someone who holds to a doctrine of salvation in which man takes part (perhaps best known as a “free will” type of soteriology) would agree with the evidence given above that Abraham was justified by faith.  But they would insist that the faith that results in salvation comes from inside a person.  They would say it is true that works do not save, but faith is not a work.  It is a statement of belief that comes from within and should not be seen as a tangible and concrete action that would be classified as a “work”.  This skeptic might scoff at Ephesians 2:8-9, lauded by many as one of the lynchpins of the doctrine of Justification by Faith, and insist that it doesn’t contradict their view because the grace of God in providing salvation still doesn’t negate the responsibility of the sinner to believe.  They might say that the gift of God spoken of in that passage refers to grace not faith.  Without going into too much detail about the Greek language that I frankly don’t fully understand myself, I will say this.  Both “grace” and “faith” in the original manuscripts have a grammatical gender of feminine.  If Paul had been content to be ambiguous he would have made “this” (as in, this gift of God) also feminine so as to have potential application to either grace or faith.  Instead, he made “this” grammatically neutral or gender-less, thus eliminating any possibility of ambiguity.  The gift of God referred to in Ephesians 2:8b points back to the entire clause which precedes it in 2:8a; namely both grace and faith.

But even without a rudimentary understanding of Greek the issue is still quite easy to solve with the addition of other texts.  2 Peter 1:1 says that we have received faith as a gift that was given to us.  Philippians 1:29 says that our faith has been granted to us by God.  And Acts 3:16 says that any faith we express has come through Christ.  This doctrine is really quite clear in scripture.  In my opinion the only reason some people have to doubt the truth of justification through faith alone by grace alone is a theological bias they bring to the text.

This has been a long winded explanation but I believe it is crucial to understand the source of the Abrahamic Covenant and by extension all of redemptive history; namely, that Abraham was justified and ultimately all Christians were, are, and will be justified through his seed (Christ) purely and exclusively by the grace of God alone because of His incalculable love for us.  It is unacceptable to be unclear on this.  We cannot afford to merely rely on the words of a preacher or mom and dad and just accept that what we may have always been taught merely is.  We need to know why we believe what we believe, for two reasons.  The first is because of my second question.

If the covenant was unconditional then why does God make it sound like it was conditioned upon Abraham’s obedience at Mount Moriah? 

If we are fuzzy in our understanding of justification then a question like this one will have the potential to really throw us for a theological loop.  At face value Genesis 17:1-2 and 22:5-8 do seem to present a challenge to the notion that the Abrahamic Covenant was unconditional.  And if this founding covenant was in fact conditional then the entire foundation of justification through faith alone suddenly becomes alarmingly unstable.

If, on the other hand, we are firm in the scriptural basis for our understanding of justification, then we can approach these passages without fear and examine them with a clear head.  I’ve actually already laid the ground work for my answer to this question with previous lessons from this series.  But if you need a refresher, feel free to go back and read lesson 4: Perfectly Balanced.  As we discussed in that essay scripture is filled with passages that seem to contradict one another.  But the answer to why this is so is actually very simple.  God is perfectly unified in all of His attributes to such an extent that it is technically not even accurate to consider individual characteristics by themselves.  We merely do so in an effort to condense Him down to a level that we can begin to comprehend.  Because of this seamless blending, when He reveals who He is in the pages of scripture it is unavoidable that elements would emerge that appear contradictory to us because we cannot truly fathom what it means for God to be unified in His entire character.  For example, we cannot conceive of someone being simultaneously angry and loving at the same time.  Yet this is exactly who God is, demonstrated most visibly at the cross.  Furthermore, if we could somehow separate His character traits and examine them individually we would still come up short because even our knowledge of single attributes is distorted by sin.

All of this results in humans having great difficulty in understanding how God can be sovereign, meaning having full dominion over all things, and man can be held responsible for his actions at the same time even though those actions are ordained by God in the first place.  And as it applies to these passages in Genesis, it seems inconceivable to us that the Abrahamic Covenant can be unconditional yet at the same time God can hold Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob personally responsible for their conduct in the fulfillment of that covenant.  Yet I believe that is precisely what is going on here.  The fact that God tells Abraham that he must walk before Him and be blameless, and then that it was his willingness to sacrifice Isaac as the catalyst which prompted God to fulfill His promise does not necessitate that the promise was dependent on Abraham.  It is only our dim human capacity to understand God that prompts us to think so.  In fact, I believe it is precisely those human limitations which God is speaking to when He says what He does in the passages I mentioned.  We will touch on this topic more in a future essay.  But for now suffice it to say that God was actually doing Abraham a favor by explaining to him His divine expectations for His servants.  He was showing Abraham the part he had to play in all this and helping him to link the sequence of the events of his life into a logical pattern that would have made sense to him.

If you truly believe that God unconditionally loves you then what needs to change in your life?

In light of all this, why am I making such a big deal out of proving that the Abrahamic Covenant was unconditional?  Couldn’t I have just said that in one or two sentences and moved on?  Yes, I could have.  But I believe that humans, especially myself, are transient, fickle, and flighty.  We groan and moan about the need to expend effort in meeting an objective, yet devalue any accomplishment that does not require the effort which we profess such loathing for.  In the case of this discussion, and as I mentioned earlier, it is woefully insufficient for a Christian to just parrot the words of a preacher or teacher who tells them that justification is through faith alone and it started with Abraham and the covenant God made with him.  If we do not expend the effort necessary to think these weighty matters through as fully as possible then the natural tendency for our sin shattered minds will be to be careless when we should be deliberate and apathetic when we should be passionate.  We need to sense the weight and depth of God’s love for us as demonstrated by the tapestry of redemption that is woven throughout scripture.  We need to perceive His love as personal and intimate for each of us individually, not merely as a bunch of theological hocus pocus about people who have been dead for thousands of years.  We need to take hold of God’s love and receive it as our own because He has already made it ours.

So, what is my answer to that last question?  Well, my answer is my own.  I could tell you what I have resolved in response to my own efforts to think this topic through.  But the real question is “What is YOUR response to this?”  If you are a Christian will you shake off the spiritual apathy that is alarmingly prevalent in our affluent American churches and begin to fight like mad against indwelling sin and the forces of darkness that scripture says we are at war with?  If you are not a Christian will you take hold of God’s love that has been granted to you through the death of His son in spite of the fact that you have spit in God’s face all your life by valuing things that He has created more highly than the One who created them?  Either way God’s love is boundless but His patience is finite.  A day of reckoning is coming when accounts will be settled and mankind will stand before The Lord of heaven and earth to give an account for their conduct in life.  Is your ledger black and are your debts settled?