6.6. - God’s Choice by Grace (Romans 11:5)
Nearly five hundred years before the exodus, God promised Abraham that he would have a child by Sarah his wife in their very old age. When he was 99 years old, God changed Abram’s name that means exalted father, to Abraham, father of a multitude. Even before Abraham had a child by Sarah, God promised, “I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make nations of you, and kings will come forth from you” (Genesis 17:5-6). This promise is incomprehensible. How can such an old man with a barren wife become the father of so many? Yet God’s promise was as certain as if it had already happened. Therefore God said, “I have made you the father. . .” The promise of God was more real than the present facts of Abraham’s life in the time of space.
The best known and most pivotal encounter between God and Abraham was after this promised son was born. God called out to Abraham: “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains on which I will tell you” (22:2). What did God say? Did God command Abraham to immolate his son? How could He require Abraham to sacrifice his son, the very son God promised him, who Abraham loved? What kind of a promise is this, that demands back its gift after it had become even more precious with time? Abraham made no overt objections to God. He did not say a word. He obeyed God without any apparent hesitation. As Isaac proceeded with his father to Mount Moriah, he asked, “My father. . .where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” (vs. 7). Abraham answered, “God will see for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son” (vs. 8). God will see for Himself. What will He see that Abraham is trusting in?
Abraham and Isaac went alone to the mount of sacrifice. There, he prepared the altar and bound his son on it. As he raised the knife over Isaac to kill him, the angel of the Lord God called out,
Abraham, Abraham. . .do not stretch out your hand against the lad and do nothing to him, for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me. . . Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for the burnt offering in the place of his son. Abraham called the name of that place, The Lord Will Provide, as it is said to this day, ‘In the mount of the Lord it will be seen’” (vs.11-4).
This event in the Bible is believed by peoples of several religions to be the greatest expression and evidence of faith in God. Abraham trusted God even as He appeared to contradict His promise. Despite clear signs that God was betraying Abraham, he trusted His Father’s faithfulness.
Why would God test Abraham in a way that seems so barbaric? Doesn’t He already know everything about him? Why would He need to put Abraham through such a tormenting test if He knows all things? God’s tests compare in no way to our tests that judge whether we pass or fail and grade us to compare with one another. God tests His children to refine and keep refining until they become whole, blameless, and fully established in His life. God promised Abraham the great distinction of becoming the father of many nations. To fulfill so great a promise, God needed to make Abraham perfect and complete as father. To become so great a father, Abraham needed to know His God and Father’s perfect and complete faithfulness. All that Abraham has and all that he is are God’s gifts to him, gifts that can be received and fulfilled only while they remain in the hands of God the Giver, entrusted to God to unfold His gift as He wills. Isaac was God’s gift to Abraham and its value depended on what the Giver would do with it in the time of history. Abraham did not despise God’s command to sacrifice Isaac. He trusted that God would see, or as most Bibles translate, God would provide. God would make good His promise against all evidence to the contrary. In the end, God supplied another
sacrifice and enabled Abraham to see a ram that was caught in a nearby bush. Abraham saw his Provider as One who provides for Himself. Though he died more than a thousand years before God’s provision of His own Son, he knew his God would provide for Himself and not demand it from Abraham.
God promised Abraham would be a blessing to all the nations and this is what he has become. Through Abraham Isaac was born, and through Isaac, Jacob, and through Jacob, Judah. God had promised the Messiah would come from the seed of Judah, and it came to pass that Jesus was born from Judah’s tribe. After His death and resurrection, Jesus told His disciples that His salvation is for both Israel and the nations. They are to share His words of life to all peoples (e.g. Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:15; Acts 1:8). God’s promise to Abraham was fulfilled in Jesus. God provides the way for us to know Him by making us free to choose Him. God never meant to pit His will against ours. He never intended so ridiculous a battle with so inevitable an outcome. But in His sovereign will, God has given us His Son so that through Jesus, we are freed to give our will to God who plants it in the rich ground of His will that grows us in the grace of His love.
The world of nature displays endless varieties that exist as one order, one cosmos witnessing God’s singular glory. In His elect, God’s glory is revealed when His diverse people come together as one in His love (John 17:22-3), united by their trust in God’s provision of HIs Son through whom they are His children. One of the many mysteries of God’s will in His new covenant is His choice to unite remnants from both Jews and Gentiles, people from His covenant through Moses and those from all other peoples to enter the covenant through Jesus, as one. The uniting of these two groups in the Messiah uniquely shows something of the mystery of God’s will. He does not want to eradicate Gentiles and circumcise them to become Jews, nor does He want Jews to be uncircumcised and develop amnesia of their history with God to become Gentiles. The two are to become “one new man” (Ephesians 2:15). It is like Adam and Eve becoming one in marriage which does not mean they are not still two people but they have also become one in God. When those of us who identify as Christians grow more in the Spirit of His love, we learn how to live as one in Him at the same time that our distinct identities uniquely proclaim the many facets of His glory. May the church of Jesus Christ better know what is this mystery of God, that He broke down the wall between Jew and Gentile and brought them together in Jesus as one. May we better know what this means for the sake of God’s glory and of HIs elect and of the witnessing world