Scripture does not eulogise men for their character or their deeds. The pattern of perfection has been set before them and they are expected to conform to it. Therefore the facts of their behaviour are impartially stated and the reader is left to estimate their personal worth as they play their part in the divine purpose of human redemption. But when a man’s name is famed through forty centuries as the Father of the Faithful and the Friend of God, it speaks of exceptional qualities of character and performance.
Abraham believed God and his faith was accounted to him for righteousness; and this was recorded of him, not for his sake alone, but for ours also upon whom, in a double sense, “the ends of the ages” have come. Faith of Abraham’s sort speaks of endurance, and covers more than acting on assurances given and rendering obedience to a command; there has also to be a changed way of life and a permanent state of mind in complete harmony with the expressed will of God; it is something that has to be sustained through every trial. It is therefore necessary to perceive special qualities in the belief and obedienc of Abraham.
Neither explanations nor motives are supplied, but written into the record are certain facts the implications of which it is hard to deny. When he went out from Ur, it is apparent from the subsequent records, it was not upon impulse. He was not an adventurer seeking a fortune and a name. These things truly were promised him, but in addition there were lasting fame and unlimited blessing, both for himself and for all the human race, and a personal participation in them which should have no ending. He virtually was destined to mark a fresh beginning for the race of man.
Terah, the father of Abraham, is classed by Joshua as among the idolaters of Ur, but for some reason he headed the migrating party. He may have been influenced by his son. But of Abraham it is recorded definitely that he believed God, and, since one does not believe in the promises of an unknown God, it is reasonable to infer that Abraham belonged to the small, exclusive society which is to be found in every age who constitute the remnant according to election of grace, who retain a faith in the Most High God. The ruler of Ur was an absolute monarch, a tyrant in the true sense, and if for any reason this small element of unbelievers in his gods should conflict with him there would be political pressure from the throne, the hatred of an outraged family, and persecution from a scornful society to make their position untenable, unless they were prepared to compromise their faith and amend their ways. There is nothing unfamiliar in this; it has happened so often in Christendom, even in recent times.
An interesting reflection on Abraham’s motives is to be found in Hebrews chapter I. Archaeology informs us of the state of luxury and culture which his father’s house would have enjoyed in the affluent society of Ur, but the Epistle tells us, by way of contrast, that in Canaan he became a tent-dweller, a stranger and pilgrim in the earth; and moreover that if he had been mindful of the country from which he came he might have had opportunity to return, instead of which he looked for a better country, a heavenly one, a city whose builder and maker is God. The strong suggestion between the lines is that the motivating force behind his migration was the promise of the Seed for the salvation of men, first given in Eden. The hope of the Seed was already a tradition among men, but they had perverted it to idolatrous beliefs.
The record of Abraham’s fidelity leads us straight to that supreme act of faith by the Lord Jesus Christ in enduring the cross and despising the shame. Jesus said to his people, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day . . . and was glad”. He also said, “Greater love bath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”.
These acts of faith need to be seen in association and in true perspective, and then they become the foundation of the hope that has animated men of God all through the ages.
Yet for all that, Abraham’s stalwart refusal to compromise his faith in God was soon forgotten by his natural posterity to whom the promise was transmitted. And in like fashion Christ’s great sacrifice has been lost upon the Christian church. Very early, pagan ideas brought into the church by the flood of gentile believers swamped out the apostolic conception of the Hope of Israel, and the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches made the declension irremediable.
This always is the natural trend to be guarded against. Yet it also is true that there always remains the remnant which refuses to compromise faith for the sake of an immediate advantage. And so the “act of faith” has an enduring quality through the grace of God, who brings men into a new way of life even in the midst of their old surroundings.
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