God And Abraham
“Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward” (Gen.15:2).
In Genesis is the beginning of the record of God’s dealings with certain people whom He chose, to whom He made promises, and was prepared to help and reward. We see in the case of Abram how God’s grace was shown to a man who was prepared to have faith in what God offered. The promise quoted above summarizes the covenants previously given to Abraham, covenants of blessing and reward.
Abraham’s encounter with God was in many ways a pattern of the experience of all faithful men and women before God; the following summary sets out the main events:
- God gives Abraham a conditional promise (Get thee out…and I will…)
- Abraham believes the promise, and acts on it.
- God gives Abraham nothing, but encourages him with words (Fear not… I am thy shield…).
- Abraham believes God, Who justifies him.
- God enters into covenant with Abraham, and becomes his God.
- Isaac, the seed of promise, born.
- Abraham, severely tested, proves faithful and obedient. God justifies him.
- Abraham’s life continues to be directly guided by God (e.g. the taking of Rebekah for Isaac).
- Abraham dies in faith, not having received the promises.
We can see how God worked with Abraham. First, He spoke to him; then, when Abram had faithfully obeyed, He promised help and guidance; He then made a firm covenant whereby He became Abram’s God; then He continued to guide him so long as he proved obedient and acted in faith.
Before we look at the part played by angels in Abraham’s life, one thing needs to be made very plain. It is often glibly said that all God requires of men is faith. While in the very broadest sense this is true, we may perhaps understand faith a little better if we call it ‘faithful obedience’ really, there is no such thing as a true faith which cannot obey. And so if Abraham had been too timid to leave his secure home in Ur, he could have prayed earnestly and sincerely for God to forgive him and yet still to give him the blessings promised, saying that he knew what he ought to do, but was too weak to accomplish it – but God would not – perhaps could not have continued His purpose with Abraham. Why? Because the leaving of Ur and entering the Land was an essential part of that very purpose. God could only work with Abraham if Abraham walked God’s way. Those who find themselves unable to obey may seek God carefully with tears, but God will not give them the promises.
By obeying God’s commands the faithful man furthers the purpose of God, as Abraham did. And, since the obedient man is walking in God’s way,other things, such as the circumstances around him, are arranged by God to link with His purpose.
Now Abraham, like other faithful men, made mistakes, and God, his God, was still prepared to justify him by forgiving his failings. But in the main Abraham accepted the Word of God, and obeyed it because he had faith. Because he believed that God would guide him in his life, and ultimately rewards him, he found the courage to step out into an unknown and often hostile future, confident that God was always with him.
Abraham’s experience is much the same as ours. We, too, receive a Word from God – it comes to us through the record of the life of Abraham, through the record of Jesus’ sayings and doings, in fact, by reading the Scriptures. If we obey the instructions therein, we walk in God’s way, and He is then able to work with us. We, too, find our lives directly guided by God (though we often lapse), and we too may confidently await the exceeding great reward.
Perhaps we can now look at the work of angels in Abraham’s life in order to take his experience as the pattern for ours.
Abraham and the Angels
We are told in Genesis 12 that Yahweh appeared to Abram and gave him promises (v.7). The one called ‘Yahweh’ appeared to Abraham several times in a vision in Gen.15:1, as a man in 18:1, and in 22:11 is called ‘the angel of the LORD’ and spoke from heaven. In the Genesis record it is not always absolutely clear whether Yahweh Himself or an angel representing Him appeared to Abraham; but since it can be proved from later passages that God often spoke or acted through angels called ‘Yahweh’, it is reasonable to suppose that both the ‘man’ called Yahweh, and the one who spoke in 15:1 were angels.
There is some reason for believing that on both of these occasions the angel who addressed Abraham was not merely ‘an’ angel, but ‘the’ Angel who later appeared to Moses in the bush, saying
“I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob:”,
and that the Angel who promised Abraham that he would be his God was the same Angel who told Moses that he was the God of Israel’s fathers. For this Angel said to Moses,
“I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac and unto Jacob…”.
We learn later on how it was that the Angel could say, “I am Yahweh your God…” (Ex.20:2), and yet be an angel with a name of his own (Michael, Israel’s prince – Dan.10:21). God had ‘put His name’ in the Angel, so that the Angel spoke as God; and so God could say,
“Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way… Beware of him… for my name is in him. But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak…” (Ex.23:20 -22).
It was the voice of the Angel – but it was God, Yahweh Himself, Who spoke.
The Angel’s work with Abraham was typical of his later work with Isaac and Jacob, Moses, and the whole of Israel from the Exodus onward. It was a work of keeping them in the way. The Angel first spoke God’s word to Abraham; then he protected and guided him. He was, in Scriptural language, with Abraham – sometimes visible, but usually unseen by him; yet always there, working on his behalf.
The Angel with Jacob
The word ‘with’ which is so often used of God’s relationship with men in the Old Testament, summarises the work of the Angel of the Presence toward Israel. When God appeared to Isaac He said,
“Sojourn in the land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee” (Gen.26:3).
Again, God’s words call Isaac to obedient action; but if Isaac proved obedient, God promised to support, guide and help him always. This helping work was done by the same Angel who appeared to Abraham, in order to fulfil the promise made to Abraham which was made sure through Abraham’s faithful obedience:
“I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham….because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws” (v.3,5). Later, Isaac was told, “Fear not, for I am with thee” (Gen.26:24).
Now let us see how the same promise comes to Jacob. God appeared to him in a vision of angels ascending and descending a ladder, and said,
“I an Yahweh, God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac… And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again to this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of” (Gen.28:13,15).
Again, faithful obedience was quite essential to God’s promise of “I am with thee”, for the ‘way’ God had marked out for Jacob necessitated a journey into Syria for a particular wife, through whom the important seed were to be born, and a return to the promised land. God was prepared to be ‘with’ Jacob if he walked God’s way, if he faithfully followed God’s commandments.
Jacob’s failings are writ large in Scripture. Yet, every time God gave him an explicit command, Jacob obeyed exactly, sometimes (perhaps often) in great fear; but obey he did; and so God made him a link in His great purpose with the earth. Because he truly believed the promise that God would be with him if he obeyed, he sojourned into the unknown, often fearful, sometimes grief stricken, yet having that basic confidence that the Angel of God was walking alongside him. And so at the end of his life he could say,
“God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads.” (Gen.4-:15,16).
while to Joseph he said,
“Behold, I die: but God shall be with you, and bring you again into the land of your fathers.”
And Joseph was so confident of this promise that at his own deathbed he could say,
“I die: and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence.” (Gen.50:24,25)
The Angel with Israel
God did indeed visit Israel; and, as one would expect, The Angel of the Presence who appeared to Moses said,
“Certainly I will be with thee…” (Ex.3:12).
The Angel did indeed go with Israel, walking among them in the cloud and fire, filling the Most Holy Place in the centre of thier worship, sometimes going before to lead them, sometimes standing behind to protect them; advising them, reproving them, always leading them in the way God had planned for them and promised them, moving toward the promised land. This wonderful work of the Angel was such that Moses could not face the thought of trying to lead Israel without the Angel’s help.
“And he (Yahweh) said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And he (Moses) said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? is it not in that thou goest with us?” (Ex.33:14 -16).
At the end of his life Moses could safely leave Israel in the care of the Angel, knowing all would be well, so long as they obeyed God’s commands, and believed God went with them.
“Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them:for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee” (Deut.31:6).
The way in which Israel had been led, protected and taught in the wilderness by the Angel was constantly referred to in later times by the prophets when they, in turn, exhorted Israel to be obedient to God and una fraid of men. Isaiah speaks of the Angel as so close to Israel in the wilderness that he suffered with them, saved them and carried them as a father carries his child:
“In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old” (Is.63:10).
Time and again Isaiah repeats the old exhortation:
“Fear not, for I am with thee” (43:5) “Fear thou not, for I am with thee: be not dismayed, for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee…” (41:10).
Israel’s Comforter
The work of the Angel of the Presence might be summarised in the words of Exodus 15:
“Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation”
The Angel was a guide, a strengthener, a redeemer to Israel, to the end that they might come into the place promised them by God – His holy habitation. In the first place, this was to meet with Him on Sinai; but ultimately it was to come into the land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and to the Sanctuary in the place chosen for God to dwell among them (v.17).
While Israel obeyed God, and believed the Angel had power to help them, and walked in God’s way, He was prepared to redeem them from their follies, to save them from their enemies, to feed, to instruct, and to reveal Himself to them. Only when they turned their feet back to Egypt did God desert them; and those who failed through lack of faith died without hope.
In the Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament the word ‘guided’ in Ex.15:13 is ‘parekalesas’, a word translated most often as ‘comfort’ or ‘exhort’. The Greek word expresses perfectly the work of the Angel with Israel, that of walking with them, to help, protect, guide and instruct. It is connected with the noun ‘parakletos’ (translated ‘Comforter’ in John 14); and the link of ideas between the guiding of Israel in the wilderness and the work of the Comforter can immediately be seen. The ‘many mansions’ or abiding places of John 14:1 are the New Testament equivalent of the ‘holy habitation’ to which the Angel of the Presence guided Israel, Sinai, that is, where Israel experienced the foretaste of that ultimate inheritance, the ‘Sanctuary’ of v.17:
“Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O LORD, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established.”
The Angel of the Presence, Israel’s paraklete, having guided God’s people to His dwelling in Sinai, remained with them to bring them into their inheritance, where he promised to dwell with them for ever, if they walked in his way, and were not afraid.
I do not in this article propose to go into the question of the Comforter of John 14. For the Angel of the Presence guided Israel in God’s Name, but the Comforter was sent to guide New Testament Christians in the Name of the Lord Jesus. I propose therefore to deal with this question more fully in the next article, ‘The Presence of Christ’. In order, however, to break the ground in preparation for this article, I would like here to discuss the ideas contained in the Greek word ‘Parakletos’ and connected words.
It is fashionable today to reject the A.V. translation of ‘Parakletos’ as ‘Comforter’, and to base the translation the use of the word in Greek writings outside the New Testament – the usual translation being ‘Advocate’.
It seems to me that this approach is wrong. Surely the proper place to find the background to New Testament ideas is the Old Testament; and if we need to know how Old Testament ideas were expressed in the Greek language, we have the very useful Greek translation known as the Septuagint.
In translating the word ‘Paraklete’ as ‘Advocate’ ideas are put into the passage in John which do not seem to me to be correct. This word suggests a picture of God as a severe Judge, inspiring fear and dread, to whom men cannot approach unless some legal figure, the Advocate, is prepared to put their case.
If, however, we take the picture of the work of the Angel of the Presence as the type of the Comforter, a very different idea comes over. Here is the picture of the Lord God, Yahweh Himself, anxiously watching over His chosen people, in love and pity sending them a great Angel to guard, guide and instruct them, to walk with them, to suffer with them, if at times to punish and to grieve over them. Isaiah 63 makes it quite clear that in sending His Angel to Israel He exposed Himself and the Angel to suffer anguish of spirit through the rebellion of His nation.
In the Septuagint the word ‘parakaleo’ is often used in the sense of ‘comfort’, the kind of comfort given through exhortation and help. For example, see how the word is used of the action of Joseph, when speaking to his brethren in Egypt:
“Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them…” (Gen.50:21).
In the Septuagint this word ‘comfort’ is part of the verb ‘parakaleo’; it shows how the word was used in the Greek Old Testament.
My contention is, then, that when the early Christians read John’s gospel, they would see the idea of the Paraklete against the background of the use of the word parakaleo in the Greek Old Testament, and would think of the work of the Angel of the Presence, and expect a similar work to be done in their day. How this would be accomplished we leave for the next issue.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One