“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).
Even a cursory reading of the life story of Abraham in Genesis will impress the reader with his one outstanding characteristic—faith. We are not told why God chose him to be the father of the Israelites, we have no knowledge of his family life before he left Ur of the Chaldees. Our first introduction to him is an immediate statement of the greater part of God’s promises to him, provided he left his country, his relatives, and his father’s house; in other words, provided he showed his faith!
Genesis 12:1 — “Now the Lord had said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee.”
Genesis 12:2 — “And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing.”
Genesis 12:3 — “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (note: not just the Jewish people!)
After Abraham had followed the Lord’s command to go into the land of Canaan, God spoke again to him in promise, elaborating just a little more to include “the seed:”
Genesis 12:7 — “Unto thy seed will I give this land.”
And once again, following Abraham’s sojourn down into Egypt, and his parting with Lot, God expanded His promises still further to him:
Genesis 13:14 — “And the Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward and westward.”
Genesis 13:15 — “For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it and to thy seed forever.”
Genesis 13:16 — “And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth; so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.”
Genesis 13:17 — “Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and the breadth of it, for I will give it unto thee.”
Here we see that God adds the promise that this land will be an eternal possession (“forever”), and that Abraham’s seed will be too numerous to number. This is a further hint, following Genesis 12:3 before mentioned, that these promises will include more than just the Jewish nation.
See also:
Genesis 15:5 — “And he (God) brought him (Abraham) forth abroad, and said, “Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them; and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.”
Following these continual, and as yet unfulfilled repetitions of the promise to himself and his seed, and still having no son by whom this “seed” could be propagated, Abram finally boldly asked: “Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” (the promised land, Genesis 15:8). The balance of this chapter is devoted to the exceedingly meaningful vision given to him by God in answer to his question. It is not our purpose to devote space to this most interesting vision. Sufficient is it to say, in brief summary, that through it God showed Abraham that not during his present natural life would these promises be fulfilled; but that instead, the way to the inheritance was only through death and resurrection, together with the promised Seed, Christ (see Genesis 3:7-9 and Galatians 3:16).
Now, with a fuller understanding of the promises concerning “the seed,” Abraham still had to continue on for many years in faith, without a son of his own. Finally, we are told, God appeared to him once again and repeated the entire promise to him, changing his name from Abram to Abraham (meaning: Father of a great multitude), and set the time when the long-looked-for son would be born:
Genesis 17:4-8 — “As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”
Genesis 17:19 — “And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac, and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.”
Genesis 18:18 — “Seeing that Abram shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him.”
All these promises to Abraham were summarized again and again by God to his son Isaac:
Genesis 26:4 — “And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and I will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed.”
They were repeated again to Isaac’s son Jacob:
Genesis 28:13,14 — “And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac, and the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed. And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south; and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”
We may now summarize the promises given to Abraham and his seed:
The Promises:
- I will make of thee a great nation. This was fulfilled by the Jewish nation, the only race to maintain its identity on earth for nearly 4000 years.
- Unto thee and thy seed will I give this land for an everlasting possession. This is unfulfilled as yet. The Israelites did occupy the land of Canaan for a period of time, but were afterwards made captive and dispersed, and continued to be a nation without a country until the establishment of the State of Israel in Palestine in 1948.
- Thy seed will multiply as the stars of heaven, or as the dust of the earth, or would become exceedingly fruitful.
This obviously refers not only to the Jewish people, but to the “children of promise,” to those who are Christ’s, and therefore Abraham’s seed.
- All nations (families) of the earth shall be blessed in thee.
How? Through Christ, Abraham’s seed!
Note: The reader will have realized that there is a triple meaning in the foregoing quotations, to the phrase “thy seed.” In (2) above mentioned, “thy seed” refers only to the Jewish nation who will inherit the land of Canaan, Palestine; whereas “his seed” as used in the following quotation from Romans obviously applies to all those who accept Christ in faith:
Romans 4:13 — “For the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham, or his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.”
Again, “his seed” can mean only Christ, depending on the sense in which it is used, namely:
Galatians 3:16 — “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many, but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.”
The fulfillment of the Promises:
In the beginning of this article, we made the rather abrupt statement that Abraham saw that the “way to the inheritance was only through death and resurrection.” We should like to establish this point more strongly before concluding the article.
God’s first step in the fulfillment of the promises, was the miraculous birth to Sarah of a son, Isaac, long after the normal time of child-bearing. The promises were to Abraham and his seed, and without this son he would have had no seed, or descendants (remember that Christ Himself, the promised Seed, was a direct lineal descendant of Abraham through Isaac).
Romans 9:7-9 — “Neither because they are the seed of Abraham (speaking of the Jews) are they all children; but, in Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted for the seed, For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sarah shall have a son.
Isaac was the child of promise. He was the seed through which the promised Seed would come; he was symbolical of Abraham’s faith in God, because without this son, this seed, the promises would have been unfulfilled. See also:
Genesis 17:21 — “But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year” (that is, God would carry out His covenant of promises to Abraham through his seed, of which Isaac was the first).
Genesis 21:1,2 — “For the Lord visited Sarah as he had said (as He had promised!) and the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken. For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him.” (God was faithful in His promise — the long, long awaited son had come!)
And now, hardly is the promised son born, than God demands his sacrifice, his death on the altar! (Read the 23rd chapter of Genesis.) Only at the precise moment when Abraham’s knife was about to take the life of his only son, the firstborn of the promised seed, did God intervene to stop him. If you have only the slightest glimmer of understanding of what Isaac meant to his father (in the light of the promises as outlined above), aside from his natural love as a father, you will realize what a supreme test of his faith this was. The Scripture says: “And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham” (Genesis 22:1). What a lesson in faith to us today who are so weak in faith, so quick to doubt, so slow to trust Him! After years of continued trial and temptation, of continued proven faith in God and His promises, Abraham was required by His Creator to submit to yet another test of his faith, to see if he was worthy of eternal life.
And how did Abraham have sufficient faith to go through with the ordeal? . . . Let us repeat . . . it was his complete faith in resurrection, his knowledge that the way to the inheritance was through death and resurrection that enabled him to carry out God’s final and supreme test of faith.
Hebrews 11:17-19 — “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called. Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead.”
Mark this! — “Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead.”
We might note that there is a further meaning to Abraham’s offering of Isaac. Not only was it a test of his faith, but Abraham was shown, by the type of Isaac’s offering, that Christ would die; and since he was also told that in Christ (his Seed) all nations would be blessed, he would clearly see the necessity of Christ’s resurrection.
If we follow through with our study of Abraham in Genesis, we find this is the last mention of the promises to him.
Genesis 25:5,8 — “He gave all that he had unto Isaac. . . and died in a good old age . . . and was gathered to his people.”
Not one of the promises that we have listed did he see fulfilled! Did God break His word to him? Did he lead a long life of faith in vain ? Of course not! He died in the full and certain knowledge that the promised Seed would come, that he would be resurrected and reign eternally in the land that was promised to him as an everlasting possession.
John 8:56 (Christ speaking — “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad.”
Note: For those who would read other meanings into the above quotations, may we point out that in the King James version a direct reference from this verse is to Genesis 22:18 — “And in thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed,” “thy reed” being Christ. And again, another direct reference from this verse in the Gospel of John is to the two verses we have already quoted from Galatians: “And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached the gospel unto Abraham saying, In thee shall all nations of the earth be blessed” (Galatians 3:8), and again in Galatians 3:16: “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.”
For further references that Abraham died in hope, not having received the promises, see:
Acts 7:5 — “And he gave him (Abraham) none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on; yet he promised that he would give it to him as an everlasting possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child” (this before the birth of Isaac).
Hebrews 11:8,9 — “By faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith, he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac, and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promises.”
Hebrews 11:13 — “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seem them afar off.”
Conclusion:
We have found:
- The Gospel concerns the Kingdom of God.
- The promises “made unto the fathers,” that is, unto Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, are exactly the same as the promises (or the hope) given unto the “children of faith,” the Gentiles.
- We become children of Abraham through faith in his seed, Christ, and therefore receive the same promises.
- The gospel was preached unto Abraham and is contained in the phrase “in thee shall all nations of the earth be blessed.”
- The promise, as applied to those not under the law (those in Christ through faith), was of an everlasting possession on this earth.
- Abraham understood that “all nations would be blessed in him” through his seed, Christ, who would, through death and resurrection, come to establish His everlasting inheritance on this earth.
Therefore:
The Gospel of the Kingdom of God embraces the good news that this kingdom will be set up by Christ at the time of His second coming, for an everlasting inheritance for the faithful, for those who believe.
Galatians 1:8 — “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.”
Galatians 1:9 — “As we have said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.”
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One