In thee shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.
For readers and believers of the whole Bible, these are momentous times. Headlines about Israel lead the news, and not for reasons which make any reasonable person glad. The right or wrong of Israel’s actions and the actions of others which have brought them to this place are not the subject of this article, except I will say I do not condemn Israel whatever their misdeeds may be because they are in the hands of God, as children in the hands of their Father. And I am not about to question his competence or his handling of their discipline, should that be required. But any time we see Israel at the heart of world affairs (though in truth it is always Israel at the heart whether we recognize it or not) it is a critical moment for our world.
A renewed focus on Israel has entered the Church in recent years. I have not found an affinity to much of this in the angle it has taken, seeming to lead us towards being ‘experts in the law’ (1 Timothy 1:5-7) or to prioritize the knowledge of Jewish culture which even the apostle Paul, ‘an Hebrew of the Hebrews’, said he ‘counted loss for Christ’ (Philippians 3:2-8). But against the backdrop of Church history, in which Jews have been persecuted by the Church and by others, for example in the barbaric ‘crusades’ of old, a sympathy with Israel and with Jews is welcome whether or not this has been accompanied by a helpful exposition of scripture in Christian teaching. And in truth, the importance of Israel to the Church and to those of us who are not Jewish cannot be overstated.
Therefore, because Israel is topping the headlines at present, and because Church teachings on Israel and on Jewish perspectives which I have heard have not identified the critical importance of Israel to non-Jewish Christians like me, I will put forward in this article some of what I have found myself in scripture, which has shown me the connection I have to Israel as a believer in Christ.
‘Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.’ (Isaiah 1: 1-2.)
In essence, God has made a covenant with one man: Abraham. And Abraham is identified as the first Hebrew, the father of the Jews. (He is also the father of the Arabs through his son Ishmael, and spiritually according to the New Testament the father of those who have faith in God and in our Lord Jesus Christ.)
It is through the covenant of God with Abraham that salvation has come to all who believe in Jesus Christ. To make sense of that statement, we need to backtrack a long way.
‘Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: 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: 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. So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.’ (Genesis 12:1-4)
The city out of which God called Abraham – then called Abram – was Haran. It appears many cities at that time qualified as kingdoms and some were centres of regional empires. I am not sure exactly the status of Haran, but I understand it was located to the east of what would become the land of Israel, who had not yet then been born.
Without pretending to understand the immense challenge of Abraham’s pilgrimage and the subsequent affairs of his life, some of which are recorded in the Bible and mentioned in this article, it is worth considering the world in which Abraham left his then homeland – although he had moved already from the city of Ur to Haran, in response to the call of God to his father, Terah – and the great dangers which would accompany such moves. This was not a world of the ‘rule of law’ which is celebrated to varying degrees in our world today. It was not a world in which immigrants had rights, is my impression. Hospitality was at the discretion of the citizens of whatever land one might travel to. If local custom extended any protections, it would have been first and foremost to native inhabitants.
In Abraham’s world, family was everything, and the people to which one’s family belonged were important. Abraham had himself, his wife Sarah (then Sarai) and his nephew Lot. Also he had the promise of God to bless him according to his obedience; a God unknown to his people or to the world around him so far as he knew, a God perhaps still largely unknown to himself. Awaiting Abraham, his wife and nephew were the bandits, despotic regimes, local armies and often unfriendly locals of an unknown world.
‘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.’ (Hebrews 11:8)
After many years of journeying and many trials, Abraham had accumulated a company of people, livestock, and possessions. It appears he owned no land as such, and remained a nomad. God had blessed him as he said he would. But critically, Abraham had no child as yet. This was his hope, and the essential part of the blessing for which he had left the land of his nativity to follow God. After all, the blessing was to make him ‘a great nation’, and for that he needed descendants.
One day, ‘the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. And Abram said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir. And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him 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. And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.
And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it. And he said, Lord GOD, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon. And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not. And when the fowls came down upon the carcases, Abram drove them away. And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him. And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not their’s, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces. In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.’ (Genesis 15:1-21)
So, God entered into a covenant with Abraham. As I understand it, a covenant of this type is a commitment to uphold the life and good of one’s partner in the covenant, up to and if necessary including the laying down of one’s life for the other’s benefit. The killing of the beasts and birds and the passing between them signifies a pledge to be honoured unto death.
God knew from the outset the terrible price he would have to pay to honour his covenant with Abraham. Because as with us all, Abraham was dying, as would his children after him. And like us, a life ending in death was all Abraham had seen in this world. But the Bible teaches us that in the beginning, with Adam and Eve before they sinned, it was not so. Death came only when they sinned.
Abraham did not have the benefit of the Bible that we have. But God knew Abraham’s need, and that he alone could meet that need, and save Abraham and his children from death. This would require Jesus to become a man, and to lay down his own life at the cross, bearing the sin of the whole world in order that his chosen people – Abraham and his ‘seed’ – would be saved. No wonder the second participant in the covenant ceremony carried ‘a smoking furnace’ as his lamp through the pieces of the sacrifice. This to me is the furnace of Jesus’ suffering, and the one who carried it, none other than our Lord Jesus himself.
But to be valid, a covenant must be honoured on both sides. God needed a covenant partner who would fulfil his side of the pledge. Who, like him, would be willing to lay down his life. Or his son’s life, as God our Father has done for us.
To begin to glimpse some of the enormity of what Abraham did in honouring his side of the covenant, which concerns his actions relating to his son Isaac, it is helpful to think on the surpassing greatness of joy the miraculous birth of Isaac brought to Abraham and his wife Sarah. Because indeed, Abraham did not remain childless, but was blessed with children as the Lord had promised: first Ishmael, through Abraham’s own efforts to fulfil the promise of God by a relationship with Hagar, Sarah’s maid, then Isaac, born to Abraham and his wife Sarah.
‘And the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, 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. And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac being eight days old, as God had commanded him. And Abraham was an hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born unto him. And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me.’ (Genesis 21:1-6)
Abraham’s great longing in life was to have a son, and his greatest love was for the God of his life who had promised him one. The birth of Isaac was equal to the greatest joy and fulfilment a man can know in this life. But it came at the cost of Ishmael, his firstborn. For Hagar and her son Ishmael did not take kindly to the advent of this favoured son, Isaac, and Sarah demanded they be banished. And for a solo mother in such a time and place, this was akin to a death sentence.
There is no doubt that Abraham had been happy to consider Ishmael a suitable heir of his own household and of the promise of God, and all his hopes were pinned on him. He was Abraham’s firstborn after all, and it seems that in that age and culture that made him the primary heir. But before the conflict between Hagar and Sarah and their respective sons – before Isaac’s birth even – God had told Abraham he had other plans.
‘And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee! 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. And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year.’ (Genesis 17:18-21)
So, with terrible wrenching of his soul, but not without hope in God, Hagar and Ishmael were banished from Abraham’s family and company. Isaac was now Abraham’s only hope; his only consolation in his grief over Isaac.
‘And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.
And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.
And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen.
And the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.’ (Genesis 22:1-18)
And in that last line of the promise of God to Abraham, as in his earlier promise to Abraham when he called him out from Haran, that ‘in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed’ – there is the salvation of you and I, those of us who are not of Abraham’s seed, which is Israel, the son of Isaac. For it is not possible for all nations to be blessed, as God promised, if they are not saved.
‘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; from whence also he received him in a figure.’ (Hebrews 11:17-19)
In laying the foundation for our salvation, in making this unthinkable sacrifice on our behalf (though he did not then know we would be numbered among his seed) it is important not only that Abraham was willing to honour his side of the covenant with God, but also why he honoured it. Because apparently it was not unheard of for fathers to offer their children as sacrifices to various, obscene and false gods in those times. And there is nothing good to be said about such heinous acts of cruelty.
Abraham was ready to offer Isaac not as a craven act of obeisance to a cruel and despotic god, but as the ultimate act of faith in a loving God. Because he believed, as the writer of Hebrews explains in the scripture above, that Isaac would not in fact die, but live, and inherit the blessing, which he did.
And so it is that Jesus our Saviour came to honour a covenant made with Abraham that required not only Jesus’ own complete, personal and terrible sacrifice of himself, but also that one of the race of Adam should be found who was faithful to honour our side of the covenant too. Abraham the father of Israel was, and is, that man. And in being the only man with whom God chose to make the covenant, which was later extended even to our own selves, according to the promise made to Abraham that in his seed should all the nations of the earth be blessed, I wonder myself if there was even any other man who ever lived who could have done what Abraham did, in the way and in the circumstances in which he did it. He is, indeed, a hero of our faith second only to our Lord himself.
But as to how the covenant unfolded after the life of Abraham, his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob, who became Israel, and how the nation of Israel, though mostly unbelieving came to inherit the blessing and salvation promised; and how even ourselves, ‘being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world’, came to be counted the very children of God through faith in Jesus Christ – that shall have to wait for another Sunday News. Because it is great, and rich, and will take some words. I hope you may continue with me on this celebration of the wonderful plan and message of our God, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, as soon as I am able to bring it to the table.
Meanwhile, be blessed in the abundant mercy and unfathomable wisdom and love of our God, and the salvation of Jesus Christ.
Prayers for Israel, the children of our father Abraham by faith, and upon all those who call upon our Lord.
Amen.
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