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?