Redeemer Is Promised
In the earlier post (Redemption Calls For Abraham), we mentioned the events of Genesis 1-11 as an explanation for why humanity needed redemption. God pointed to that redemption immediately after the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden. How will this happen, you may be wondering?
Genesis 3:15 points to a perpetual war between the serpent’s offspring and the woman’s offspring. Ultimately, the woman’s offspring will defeat the serpent and his offspring but not without some scars along the way.
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. Genesis 3:15 (ESV)
The English word bruise does not capture the Hebrew meaning. It is much stronger language; the Hebrew dāḵā’ actually means to crush, shatter, or to be broken.
The second thing God did to point to the coming redemption was to clothe them with garments from a slain animal. We may think of this as foreshadowing the animal sacrifices in the Old Testament, which further pointed to the Messiah’s ultimate sacrifice.
And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
Genesis 3:21(ESV)
As we begin, the early chapters of Genesis provide a pretty clear picture of the evil to which mankind is capable of falling. Beginning with the creation story, we see the high calling and possibility for what man could have been. We are also given a hint of the Creator’s solution to our failures. A redeemer would come from the seed of the woman to crush man’s enemy and pay the price for man’s failure. So, it’s not surprising that subsequent generations longed for the birth of the promised child generation after generation, until the promise came to rest on the young woman Mary, the betrothed wife of Joseph.
The Magnificent Plan
How did the redemption story get put into place? Before Abraham (originally named Abram), God hinted at the plan described above. With Abraham, the plan began to take shape little by little. God telescoped his intentions through a series of continually expanding types and shadows. He orchestrated the vision and plan to mature organically through his chosen people.
Abraham lived with his family in Ur, a city in ancient Mesopotamia. Ur existed before the flood of Noah and was rebuilt after it. It was a magnificent city of commerce, manufacturing, farming, and shipping on the banks of the present-day Persian Gulf and at the mouth of the Euphrates River. Ur was also home to the great Ziggurat of Ur, which supported local religious worship of the moon and its associated deities. This is the city and culture in which Terah and his sons lived, worked, and had societal ties.
The Original Road Trip
The Genesis account is light on details, but we can speculate that the Tower of Babel story, plus the increasing wickedness in Ur, may have motivated Abraham’s or possibly his father Terah’s decision to leave this great city.
Something supernatural was also occurring. Stephen, in Acts chapter 7, speaking before the high council, tells us that the glory of God appeared to Abraham while still in Mesopotamia.
Our glorious God appeared to our ancestor Abraham in Mesopotamia before he settled in Haran. God told him, ‘Leave your native land and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you. So, Abraham left the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran until his father died. Then God brought him here to the land where you now live. Acts 7:2-4 (NLT)
But Genesis suggests that Terah initiated the move from Ur.
One day, Terah took his son Abram, his daughter-in-law Sarai (Abram’s wife), and his grandson Lot (Haran’s son) and moved away from Ur of the Chaldeans. He was headed for the land of Canaan, but they stopped at Haran and settled there. Genesis 11:31 (NLT)
It seems that God was leading both men to leave. Terah, perhaps uneasy with local conditions and God’s call on Abraham’s life, worked in concert, motivating them both to leave their homeland in response to God’s purpose.
Where Do We Rent a U-Haul?
How would they make this trip without knowing the destination? Consider what would have been required to move a large family with numerous possessions to an unknown land. They were unable to scope it out ahead of time as they didn’t know where God was leading them. They didn’t have GPS systems, smartphones, air travel, high-speed rail, or social media. How would Terah and Abram stay connected to the people back home? What if tragedy struck? What if someone became ill or the family dynamics became unbearable?
Well, the traveling caravan did run into issues. They failed to reach Canaan and stopped in Haran, a 600-mile journey from Ur. Apparently, Haran was accommodating, and the family decided to settle there. It was in Haran that Terah (the family patriarch) passed away.
Extinguishing the Light of God?
In hindsight, we can see that God was beginning to execute his plan of redemption, restoring that which was lost in the first eleven chapters of Genesis. But at the time, Abraham and Sarah (originally named Sarai) could not foresee the larger masterpiece being meticulously created.
Recall from the Gen. 3:15 passage above that it was the seed of the woman who was to crush the serpent’s head. This prophecy underscores the significance of the generational blessings that had been kept alive through Adam’s family, passed down to Noah, and now rested with Abraham and Sarah. There was just one problem: Sarah was barren.
But Sarai was unable to become pregnant and had no children. Gen 11:30 (NLT)
Can you feel the hopelessness? It was not just that she couldn’t get pregnant. No, it was much worse! The promised seed of the woman who was to crush the serpent’s head could never be born. Sarah could not have children, so the light of God was about to be extinguished from the earth! There could be no redeemer, no restoration; humanity would be lost forever! The promise to Eve back in the garden would fall to the ground. Sarah’s barrenness carried all that weight.
It’s doubtful that Abraham understood what was at stake, just as we often have difficulty seeing the big picture. If we had been walking in his sandals, our thoughts may have been something like, “Here I am in a strange land, my father has passed on, the burden for family and future rests on my shoulders. I now have responsibility for my nephew as well as the people taken into our household. Let’s not forget about the care and feeding of these large flocks. And did I fail to mention that my wife can’t get pregnant, and here we are separated from our homeland and friends we had back in Ur? I don’t think it would be a stretch to suggest that Abraham and Sarah might have struggled with a little discouragement at times.
What questions would we be asking in similar circumstances? “What about job security, health insurance, and what if enemies attack? What if we’re just not up to the task of carrying all this responsibility? God, why did you call me to this land anyway? Please help me see and understand what you are doing!”
Lord, I trust you with my future!
In spite of the great difficulty Abraham and Sarah faced, let’s look at the incredible promise YHVH had made.
“Leave your country, your relatives, and your father’s family and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All families on earth will be blessed through you.” Genesis 12:1-2 (ESV)
Isn’t this always the struggle: how do we reconcile our current life with the promise God has given us?
Earlier, God had made a promise to Adam and Eve after the fall. Then through Noah he made a covenant with the earth, not destroying it again with water. So there are general promises to both his people and his land.
With Abraham and Sarah, he focused his promise and his covenant to a single couple-to restore both a people and a land. We might even think of Abraham and Sarah as the second Adam and Eve. The covenant with Abraham was God beginning to rebuild a family and their homeland after his original design (restoring the Edenic vision).
Doing a careful reading of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, we find a very interesting verse in Galatians chapter 3.
“Now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.” Gal. 3:29 (NLT)
Could this really be true? God will bless us, and we will be a blessing to others. He will bless those who bless us and curse those who treat us with contempt, and all families on earth will be blessed through us. Can we really apply this to our lives, to be blessed by God and to be a blessing to others? Can we trust that God will defend us against our enemies, know that our failures are history, and be optimistically looking toward the future, knowing this is firmly established? This really is God’s intention for our lives. Can we believe this promise as Abraham did and stand firm despite adverse circumstances which come our way? Remember, he is the father of all who believe.
Read the promise again in Genesis 12:1-3 and notice it’s all forward thinking.
There are several points to keep in mind as we consider our relationship to Abraham.
- Abraham did not deserve this blessing and promise from Almighty God. It was a demonstration of his unmerited favor.
- Throughout the scriptures, the Lord refers to himself as the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, demonstrating that the covenant is firmly established generationally, for all time. There is a biblical principle of establishing everything by multiple witnesses (Deut. 19:15, 1 Cor. 13:1). Abraham, his son, and his grandson are the three witnesses to this firmly established covenant.
- And you Gentiles, who were branches from a wild olive tree, have been grafted in. So now you also receive the blessing God has promised Abraham and his children, sharing in the rich nourishment from the root of God’s special olive tree. Rom 11:17 (NLT)
Conclusion
When we take time to engage with Abraham’s story and the Apostle Paul’s commentary on his life, we quickly realize that God had a redemptive plan from the beginning. For Abraham, producing a family to bring forth the promised child looked bleak, for Sarah was barren. But Almighty God was not without options. Abraham had no power in himself to bring forth a child; he was 100 years old, and Sarah was 90, way past childbearing age.
When I consider that I am grafted into Abraham’s family tree, and that God, who revealed himself to Abraham, is the same Father revealing himself to me. My faith is grounded in something solid and ancient, giving me hope for the future as I look for the fulfillment of the grand story.
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