Gen 12-21
Abraham
Manuscript
Today is our third sermon in our Genesis overview series. Today we look at Genesis 12-21 and the life of Abraham. We have a lot to cover in just one sermon, so like the other sermons in the series, we don’t cover every detail, we just the pick up some of the main points, especially those ones that become main themes throughout the Bible.
For the life of Abraham is very important. As we shall see, it is used much by the New Testament writers to describe such things as faith, the promise of Jesus Christ not just for Jews, but for Gentiles too, and as an example of how to live as Christians. Abraham is very important.
But first, some context. Remember where we were up to? In Genesis 1-2 we looked at the creation of the world. We looked at how it was perfect. It was paradise. We had perfect relationship with God and with each other, and death was not on the agenda. We were immortal, until Adam and Eve believed the devil instead of God. They believed there would be no negative consequences from disobeying God, and they took the fruit God has expressly forbidden, and as result they lost their fellowship with God. The ground and the earth were cursed and they lost immortality. And as their descendents we inherit these things from them. Corrupted relationships. A cursed earth. And death.
And then in chapters 4-11 we looked at the cycle of man’s failure and God’s grace. We saw Cain and Abel offer sacrifices to God. They knew what was required, but Cain didn’t offer the right sacrifice, and in jealousy killed his brother. From then on we saw the human race spiral morally out of control so that by Genesis 6:5-6: The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of this heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So because of our evil, that the human race was lost to evil, God had to destroy the evil human race with a flood. Except for Noah, who found favour with God. And God rescued Noah and his family by putting them in a ship to ride out the flood. But after the flood subsided and the human race started again from scratch from Noah, we soon spiralled morally out of control again, and at Babel people were filled with pride, attempting to build a tower up to God. So God had to intervene again, giving the human race many languages to prevent them from doing too much evil. And then in chapter 11 we have a genealogical list of the descendents of Noah, and toward the end we are introduced to Abram, who would later be renamed Abraham.
Abram was born in a city called Ur, which is on the Euphrates River, in what is now Iraq. Abram’s father took him and his family to a place called Haran, which is near the modern city of Şanlıurfa in Turkey. And Abraham is in Harran as we open up Genesis 12, with God speaking to Abram and giving him a command. Let’s read what God tells Abram to do:
Gen 12 Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
And Abram obeyed and went. And when Abram got to the land God told him to go to, which was called Canaan at that time and would later become Israel, God said something else to Abram in verse 7:
Gen12 7 Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.”
On the face of it just looks like God is telling Abram to get up and move, and Abram does, but these few verses are so much more than just moving house. These few verses are some of the most quoted verses in other parts of the Bible, particularly the New Testament. And on these verses we see God’s redemptive plan - but more of that later. First we’ll do a brief summary of some of the major things in Abram’s life, but not everything as we don’t have time. And then we’ll have a look at what the New Testament says about Abram’s life, and the massive implications it has for us today.
So in chapter 12, God tells Abram to move countries, and Abram does, which was no small feat in those days. Abram obeys. And God tells Abram that he would give this land he went to to his offspring, and that his offspring would be a great nation. There was only one problem with this promise, and that is that at this point in time, Abram didn’t have any kids. How could his descendents become a great nation and inherit the land, if Abram didn’t have any kids? He and his wife Sarah kept trying to have children, but to no avail. And in many ways, most of the story of Abram centres around this. God’s promise to Abram regarding his descendents, and God keep reiterating this promise, and as time marches on, Abram still doesn’t have any kids.
But other things happened in Abram’s life as well, so let’s do a quick survey of some of these things. Later in chapter 12, Abram goes down to Egypt, because of famine in Canaan. And then in chapter 13, he returns. And then in Genesis 13:14, God speaks to Abram again. He tells him to look around, and tells Abram that God will give to Abram’s offspring all the land he can see. Only one problem. Still Abram and his wife Sarah still don’t have any offspring. Still no kids.
Then in chapter 15 something extraordinary happens. God makes a covenant with Abram. In verse 1, God tells Abram that his reward will be very great. And Abram finally says something to God which seems to be quite obvious by now. In verse 2 we read:
Gen 15:2 But Abram said, “O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.”
And God replies in verse 4:
Gen 15:4 And behold, the word of the LORD came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.”
Then God took Abraham outside and showed him the night sky with all its stars and told him to count them, and told Abram that his offspring would be like that. And then in verse 6 we read:
Gen 15:6 And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
That’s just a few words, but do you get the full impact of that? What had mankind’s problem been since Eden? Since that tree in Eden? Sin! Cain. The people swept away in the flood. The people of Babel. Sin, all sinners. Even Abram was a sinner. What is the opposite of sin? It is righteousness. Something no person since Adam had, including Abram. And now we read that Abram believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. That is, that faith in God can be counted as righteousness, and the New Testament talks about that too, and we shall talk more about that soon.
And then in verse 18, God says yet again, that He gives the land to Abram’s offspring. So in chapter 15 we have a high point: Abraham’s great faith being credited to him as righteousness. And God’s wonderful promise to him. Things look bright.
And then we hit chapter 16, where Abram blows it. Sarah his wife has realised she’s not able to have children of her own, so she tells Abram to sleep with her servant Hagar and to have children with her. We’ve already read back in Genesis 1 – one man, one woman. But Abram listens to his wife, and sleeps with Hagar, who falls pregnant. and gives a son to Abram who is called Ishmael. And even though it was Sarah who told Abram to have a child with Hagar, Sarah becomes jealous with Hagar, and we see tension between the two from then on in. You can’t change God’s laws and not have consequences!
Then from that we come to another high point in chapter 17. God makes another covenant with Abram and changes his name to Abraham, which means – father of a multitude. In verse 7 God says:
Gen 17:7 “And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.
And then after many other events which we don’t have time for today, in chapter 21, Sarah finally has a son – Isaac, the son of promise. And next week we will look more at Isaac and his adventures.
So what do we learn from life of Abraham? Well we learn a lot. We see in Abraham the beginnings of the Jewish nation. We learn as we read through the Old Testament, that through Abraham’s son Isaac, that Abraham does indeed become the father of a great nation - the nation of Israel. And even today there are millions of people who claim direct genetic descent from Abraham - the Jewish people. And while Abraham was just a wanderer, a nomad in the land of Canaan, we learn later in the Old Testament that his descendents the Israelites, actually came to own the land. And even today that piece of real estate is named, “Israel” after Abraham’s grandson, Israel.
But what is even more significant for us as Christians, is that Abraham was not just the father of the Jewish nation, but he is the father of all those who are in Jesus Christ. 2000 years after Abraham lived, Jesus Christ was born a Jew, a son of Abraham. And it was through Jesus, a descendent of Abraham, that redemption was achieved for mankind. That the curse of sin was broken, that death was defeated. You see, Abraham’s calling in chapter 12, when God told him to leave Haran, and that He would bless him, and all the nations would be blessed through him - this was not just about the physical nation of Israel, but about something much bigger, much grander.
When in Genesis 12:7, and in a number of other places in Genesis, God promises to give Abraham’s offspring the land, he wasn’t talking just of Israel, or even primarily of Israel, but of Christ! How do we know this? Because of the New Testament. Abraham and the promises to him are a major theme in the New Testament, and especially in the book of Galatians. Please turn with to the book of Galatians at the other end of the Bible.
Galatians 3 is in many ways an exposition of the life of Abraham, and of the chapters of Genesis that we have been looking at. In Galatians, Paul explains the promises given to Abraham find their fulfilment in Christ, and in us, Christians - the ones who believe in Christ.
First, Paul uses Abraham to show that we are saved by faith, not by works. Remember we looked at Gen 15:6 And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness. Paul then says in Galatians:
Galatians 35 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— 6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?
Paul is saying that being counted righteous by faith is not something knew. Abraham believed God, and it was counted by him as righteous. Then next thing Paul needed to address was the Jewish attitude at that time. You see the Jews thought they were God’s people, just by virtue of being physically descended from Abraham. They thought they were okay with God because of their physical descent from Abraham. And because the Gentiles – that is, non Jews - were not descended from Abraham, the Gentiles were inferior, not God’s people. But Galatians 3:7-9 says:
Gal 37 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
In these three verses Paul teaches us a lot from the life of Abraham. Firstly, the true sons of Abraham are the sons by faith. That is, a Jew who doesn’t believe, is not a true son of Abraham, whereas a Gentile who does believe, is a true son of Abraham. Many of the Jews of Paul’s time questioned whether Gentiles could be God’s people, but Paul says it was always God’s plan to justify the Gentiles. He says that the Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and he quoted Genesis 12:3 “ …in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” The justification of Gentiles, that is – non Jews - was not an afterthought, but was part of God’s plan right from the beginning! The purpose of calling Abraham, and starting the Jewish nation, was for the purposes of justifying not just Jewish people who believed, but people from any nation who believed – who had faith!
This passage in Galatians even tells us that the Gospel was even preached beforehand to Abraham in that statement – “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” How did that preach the Gospel beforehand? We know the Gospel is centred around Jesus Christ, and what He did for us on the cross. It was Jesus Christ, the Son of God, dying for our sins, and taking our punishment on Himself, that dealt with our sin problem. That dealt with our death problem, so that those who through faith believe in Him might have their sins forgiven, and conquer death and receive immortality and live forever. How did Abraham have the Gospel preached to Him before Jesus was born? Well it was through the promises given to Abraham, that all the families of earth – all the nations - would be blessed through him, and that blessing of salvation would come through Abraham’s descendent - Jesus Christ.
But Paul now gets even more specific. As we have seen, a number of times in Genesis, God promises an inheritance of land to Abraham’s offspring. The first time is in Gen 12:7
Gen12 7 Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.
God gives a promise to Abraham’s offspring 5 more times in Genesis!
for example
Gen 17:7 “And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.
Now it’s interesting to note that the word “offspring” in the Hebrew is singular. Some of your Bible translations have “descendents” with an “s” on the end, but in the Hebrew, the word is singular. Offspring, or seed, not offsprings or seeds. And Paul picks this up in:
Galatians 3 16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ.
Paul, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, picks up that 2000 years before, in the promise to Abraham, that the promise of land, of covenant, was not made to offsprings – that is many people, but to offspring – that is, to one offspring. And that one is Christ. Yes, true, the Jewish nation were Abraham’s descendents. They did inherit the land, they did become God’s covenant people. But in a sense, they were only the forerunner. The fulfilment of the promise, as Paul says, noting the singular use of “offspring,” is in just one descendent, that being Christ.
Then towards the end of Galatians 3, Paul says,
Galatians 326 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
These are wonderful verses! They tell us that anyone - Jew and Gentile - from any ethnic group; slave and free – from any socio-economic group; male and female - any who are in Christ, that is – who have faith, that is, who believe in Christ, and believe Christ and what He says, rather than the ideas of this world. These people are one in Jesus Christ. And they are Abraham’s offspring through Christ, and heirs of the promise that God gave to Abraham.
So that’s Galatians 3 and Abraham, and other parts of the New Testament also talk about Abraham.
Friends, what have we talked about today? We’ve mentioned that after the creation of the world, which was initially paradise, that this was lost through our sin. We’ve mentioned that the descendents of Adam and Eve continued in sin. We’ve mentioned that despite the judgement of the flood, which killed most people but spared Noah and his family – a remnant - that even Noah’s descendents descended again into sin. We’ve noticed that sin was part of the human condition. And now we see for the first time in Genesis 12, the start of God’s plan to redeem the human race from sin. To deal with sin, once and for all. God called Abraham. God called him to leave his homeland. Abraham obeyed, which is a model for us in obeying God. And God gave him a promise, that all nations would be blessed through him. Not just one nation, but all nations. God gave Abraham a promise, that his offspring would inherit the land, that God would make an everlasting covenant with his offspring.
And then we’ve looked at how Paul pointed out, that this offspring is in the singular – offspring, not offsprings. That is, that while a nation, the Jewish nation, was descended from Abraham, the ultimate fulfilment was in just one offspring, one descendent, who was Christ. Which is why in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1
it traces Jesus’ lineage back to Abraham.
And then Paul tells us that we too, who believe, who have faith like Abraham did, if we believe in Christ, we too share in Christ. We become Abraham’s offspring, regardless of our ethnic background and our physical lineage. By faith we are Abraham’s offspring, and share in the promises made to Abraham. The promise of salvation, the promise of land, the promise of an eternal covenant.
And I guess you might be asking - how do we share in the promise of land? It’s easy to see how the Israelites shared in the promise of land - they received the physical land of Israel as promised. But what about us, the spiritual children of Abraham? What land do we receive? Well as the writer of Hebrews makes clear, we will receive the same land that Abraham was ultimately seeking.
Hebrews 118 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
And then it continues in verse 13
Hebrews 1113 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
Oh, yes Abraham’s physical descendents, the Jews, about 400 years after Abraham, inherited the promised land, Canaan, what we now know as Israel. And while there was blessing in that land, it was still a land subject to the curse. People still sinned, quarrelled, fought each other. And people still got sick, and died. You see, that land was just the forerunner of the land we are yet to inherit. A it says in Hebrews, Abraham and the other heroes of the faith desired the better country, the heavenly city. The city which has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. Paradise restored.
You see in Genesis 3, we lost paradise. But in Genesis 12 we see the plan put into action to restore paradise. Friends, we have a paradise waiting for us. A heavenly city, where as it says in
Revelation 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
God will dwell with us. Perfect relationship with God. No more tears, no more mourning, no more crying, no more pain. Relationships with each other restored. And death will be no more. Paradise restored.
But to share in that promised paradise, you need to be a child of Abraham. And to be a child of Abraham, you need to be in Christ, which you do by faith, believing in Him
and believing Him, instead of the devil, as you live your life.
If you aren’t in Christ, and want to be, come and see me after the service.
And if you consider that you are in Christ, are you like Abraham, who as it says in Hebrews 11, saw himself as a stranger and exile on this earth? Friends – have you set up home on this earth? Is this life what your heart, you time, your priorities, your resources, are set on? Is it this life, here and now, is this the life that you live for? Or do you, like Abraham, see yourself as a stranger and exile here on this earth, and your true desire is for a better country, the heavenly city, Paradise regained.
