Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

The Lord’s Way with Believing Abraham as a Father.

Genesis 22-25:10.

Chapters 22-25:10. Inasmuch as the design of these remarks is to present only a summary of the teaching of Genesis viewed as a whole, so on such a chapter as the twenty-second, where one might be inclined to linger longer, an outline must still suffice, even though its filling up might render the same much more vivid. However, happily there is the less need for much enlargement here, inasmuch as most of us are familiar with the contents of the chapter, whether regarded as a narrative or as a type.

As for the former aspect the chapter is superscribed, God’s temptation of Abraham. God and Satan each tempt us. The difficulty is solved by the remembrance of the diversity of object in view of God from Satan. God never tempts us to evil, but to strengthen us in what we know of Him, and in order that we may know Him better. Our wilderness lessons, though they may have been most painful to us, have yet been withal exceedingly profitable. Who of us would like to have been without them? There is not a circumstance of every-day life that does not contribute to test our confidence in God. And if when the trial comes we continue steadfast, we avouch that we esteem His favour beyond everything. Thus do we daily win battles over our sin, and over our unbelief. Then at the end of the life-long struggle there is the crown of life which the Lord has promised to them who, when tried, are found to love Him (James 1:12). All of us have been broken down at times. Still some are more on their guard than others. Some are not so easily betrayed as others. That trial which proves too much for one walking negligently and not in the Spirit, or which might be overwhelming to the same at another time, might only strengthen his faith when abiding in Christ. Abraham had now grown much through God’s patient leading and discipline. Then at last came the great trial to display the reality and moral grandeur of God’s own work of grace (James 2:21, 22). Nor was he found unprepared for this. By the God that loved him the temptation was most lovingly timed, when he had become much versed in experience of the Lord’s tender mercy. Surely all of us could recall to mind periods in our wilderness experience when we have found Him a very present help in trouble. And though from all of us His children He demands the surrender of everything by faith at His call, yet to some a crucial test such as this sore one may not be presented. For why? They give way at once and readily to a much easier test. Thus life is developing our character which God, if we will let Him have His own way with us, is intent on forming. And the pleasure which the Lord takes in our efforts to please Him, as He evidently did in the case of Abraham here, should rouse us to the fixed determination to yield ourselves unto Him with full purpose of heart. This is to be done by taking up the Cross and following the Lord Jesus every day of our life.

God speaks to Abraham, calling him by his name, as his Friend and Lord. He, in peace and communion, promptly replies, “Behold, here am I.” It would seem as if throughout this long and sore trial the soul of Abraham was preserved in perfect peace. Thus in this chapter we have this brief and ready answer to the call, in verse 1, of God; in verse 7, of his son; and in verse 11, of the angel. In each place the reply is the same in Hebrew. A fiery trial like this would surely itself tend in God’s hands to produce tranquillity of heart. It would be felt to be a time of the special visitation of God.

In the divine command now given to Abraham are seven particulars, one after another leading towards a purposed climax, in order that the full force of the trial might be felt, and thus the faith, by obedience, be found genuine. Now the obedience rendered was unquestioning; uncomplaining; exactly according to the Word; it was prompt; it was deliberate; it involved the surrender, at God’s call, of all possessed; it was to slay his son, and it was to be done by himself. As for the son, as the truth of the Lord’s will dawns on his mind gradually, he appears to have bowed his head in hearty acquiescence to the will of God. At this time he must have been old enough to have opposed himself with resolution, had he been so minded. He was not less than twenty-four years of age. Trained, as God had declared that Abraham would train his family, in His fear, he is conscious that for true worship there must be a Lamb for a burnt-offering, which is far more than many of our religious wiseacres of this day are aware of. And when to his question, “Where is the lamb? “ he has received the suggestive reply, “My son, God will provide for Himself a lamb,” silence followed on either side, which appears to have remained unbroken by either till they reach the place. As if each knew more about the intended victim than they liked to tell the one to the other. And each had leisure for reflection and for drawing back, had either been so disposed. But each remained stedfast in heart. It is well to notice this, that we may learn, mutatis mutandis, to copy it. Doubtless, Abraham knew that God would, somehow or other, give him back his son. His language in verse 5 implies as much: “I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and we will come again to you” (so Hebrew). But in what manner this would come to pass he knew not; he left it to God.

So, when at last the crisis came, each continued firm. No hesitation was there in the one, and no resistance by the other. “He took the knife to slay his son.” Here I admire, not so much the unfaltering obedience of Abraham, nor yet the perfect concurrence of Isaac in that obedience to the divine will, as I wonder at the grace of God that could take up a wretched idolater, so as Abraham had been, and teach him His love, and train him to this entire self-abnegation and self-consecration unto God. A descendant of rebellious Adam, as each of these was by nature, had been so won over by sovereign grace, that to do or to suffer the will of God was preferred by them before everything. Now such obedience we ought to be prepared gladly to render. Yea, even from this example, bright as it surely is, we are commanded to “look off,” in order to contemplate One whose path was infinitely more arduous and painful still. And He it is who is our Exemplar. He has given to us of His Spirit; and as many as are led by the Spirit of God, so as He was led, they, and they only, are the sons of God. Fail in detail and in practice we may, and often do; yet our calling to association with Himself and to tread in His footsteps is unchanged.

But it remains for us to inquire, in the presence of a type of far higher things, as we all feel sure we have here, what is the great truth itself foreshadowed under all this? Was the offering up by Abraham of his son designed to be a picture, and a lesson to us as to what it cost Him who spared not His own Son, but freely gave Him for us all? Or, on the other hand, are we here taught that the sinner deserved death and must have met it, had not a ram—a substitute—been found instead? It appears to me there is no need for these two views to be regarded as antagonistic. Surely here, as in many other Scriptures, we behold a double type of Christ. For instance: we have elsewhere the burnt and sin offerings: the two goats; the two birds, or sparrows; —Moses with Aaron; David with Solomon; Elijah with Elisha, and divers others.

Now, as to the former aspect, Isaac is termed Abraham’s only-begotten, and is said to have been actually “offered up” (James 2:21). “In a figure,” too, Abraham received him from the dead; and, what is very remarkable, after that he must have been accounted by him as good as dead for three days—I mean, from the moment when he heard God’s command, till the time when he came down from the mount. The place, too, was “the land of Moriah,” wherein David at a subsequent period built an altar, and where Solomon reared the Temple, and in which Calvary itself was situated. Again, if we look at Isaac, we see depicted, in his carrying the wood on which, himself was to be slain, the voluntariness of the sacrifice of Christ. He delighted to do the will of God. That the world might know that He loved the Father, and as the Father gave Him commandment, so He went onward up to the cross. Was the wood laid on Isaac, and presently Isaac placed on the wood? Thus on the cross was sin laid on Christ, and He Himself was made sin for us who knew no sin. In fact, not a single feature of importance in the history is there, but it finds its counterpart in some precious feature of God’s and of Christ’s love. The shadow may, in many respects, be faint, compared with the great sacrifice itself. For instance, on the cross of Christ the divine eye had been riveted ere the world began. All through His human life, too, the cross at the end of His path must have weighed on Christ’s soul. When He read Isaiah 53, He would have no occasion to ask, as did the Ethiopian eunuch, “Of whom speaketh the prophet thus, of himself or of some other? “And of all that chapter, the verse that might appear to have most keenly touched Him was the clause, “He was numbered with the transgressors.” For this sentence He specially singled out for observation as the time of the cross drew nigh; whilst Abraham’s knowledge of what sacrifice was required of him extended, as we have seen, only over three days, and Isaac’s acquaintance therewith for probably a less period still.

On the other hand, the ram was caught, and Christ was held fast by the horns of His strength and love. It was not left to Abraham to find the ram, nor to the sinner to procure a substitute. Neither Abraham in the one case, nor we in the other, had any idea of such a mercy. Nay, more; unless we had been distinctly certified thereof by God, never should we have known that God had a Son, and that that Son could be, only could be and would be, the Victim. God found us Christ, and gave Him up expressly that He might die the Just for the unjust. Then the soul, acquiescing in God’s way of grace by the substitution of this Saviour for itself, sees death to be its own desert, and bows to the sentence, and at once obtains resurrection in Christ risen.

As Isaac descended from the mount, not one scratch, we may be sure, was to be found upon him. He stood, “in a figure,” in resurrection, even as we in Christ are beyond judgment, beyond the cross and the grave. We are in Christ, but Christ is not dead. Christ is risen, glorified. There, then, likewise, is our standing. The cross is not between the believer and his God, but between the believer and the world. The cross is behind him, and by it he is crucified to the world, and it to him. And now he belongs only to God and his Father, and to the Lord Jesus Christ his Saviour. Henceforth such a one is a saint, a separated man, a pilgrim and a stranger in this world. He is only here at all through having been first taken out of it by Christ his Lord, and then sent back as a risen man to “bear much fruit “(see Romans 7:4). For this cause this wonderful chapter closes with a list of children related to Abraham. And likewise, in the promise of God to him here, we now find conjoined the mention of the heavenly and of the earthly seeds. Previously, the Lord had first assured Abraham that his seed should be as the sand of the seashore (chapter 13 verse 16). Later on, the Lord had said that his seed should resemble the stars of heaven in multitude. But here the word is as to both of these families; to wit, of the earthly and of the heavenly. And, lastly, we are instructed in that notable parenthesis of Galatians 3:15 to 4:7, that the term “seed,” which itself may, of course, be either singular or plural, points mainly to Isaac coming down from the mount as the type of Christ in resurrection. He is the true Seed, the true Son, the only Head. Of Him “every family in heaven and earth is named “(Ephesians 3:15, Greek).

Chapter 23. “The God of glory gave to Abraham no inheritance” in Canaan; “no, not so much as to set his foot on; yet He promised that He would give if, to him for a possession.” Thus was he taught to trust and to wait. He was “a stranger in the land of promise” (verse 4). The Hittites claimed the soil on which he stood; yet was he “the friend of God.” No sign, then, is it of a lack of His friendship to have little or no portion here. Even if Abraham required a place for sepulture, he must purchase it. Of all places in Canaan, Hebron, where Sarah died, seems to have been the best known to the Israelites, previous to their entering on its possession in Joshua’s time. It is particularly singled out in Numbers 13:22, when the Spirit would show that the whole land belonged by gift to Israel ere that nation went down to Egypt. Hebron was built ready for them, “seven years,” a complete period, ere Zoan, in Egypt, was. Yet it was here, of all places, that Abraham had to buy land in which to bury his dead. Truly the ways of God are wonderful. We may here well be reminded of Another, who, when He came to His own property, His own people on it received Him not. They said, “This is the Heir,” and they killed Him. All that He had here was, as we say, a cross and a borrowed grave. And now His own are surely taught to hold “lands and houses,” at most, with a light grasp (Acts 4:34). Our place of blessing is in the heavenlies, where all spiritual blessings are by us to be enjoyed. On earth, having food and raiment, let us, as blessed with believing Abraham, be content. God will put all in their respective places round His Son in His good time. If His Son has been cast out and slain, and is Himself waiting for His prayer to be answered (John 17:24), and expecting till His foes are made His footstool, we cannot do better than wait and suffer with Him. Faith knows, on the warrant of God’s Word, that He is risen. The Holy Ghost has come down to testify of His glory in the highest heavens; but here below Satan reigns on sufferance, and by usurpation. The Lord accepts for a while His rejection, whilst a heavenly people are being drawn to Him yonder.

Meanwhile, Israel is a widow. She has had a hand, yea, and the chief hand, in the murder of her Husband. Never in Scripture is the Church of God compared to a widow. That one in Luke 18:5 cries for vengeance, which assuredly is not the Church’s prayer, but Israel’s, as in the Psalms. As yet, the Church has never been married to the Lord; she is only betrothed; and this present period is the interval between the betrothal and the marriage, during which love-messages are sent by the Bridegroom to the bride. The bearer of these to us is the Holy Ghost (John 16); and the Lord and we are each waiting for the nuptial day (John 17:24).

Israel as a nation is dead. It was consigned to the grave by the Lord when He pronounced upon it the sign of Jonas the prophet.¹⁴ God can breathe upon the slain, and cause them to live. The vision of a valley full of dry bones that the prophet beheld, though it may, perhaps, properly be used to illustrate the resurrection of the body, or the divine quickening of the unregenerate, was primarily given to set forth the revival of “the whole house of Israel” (Ezekiel 37:11); and still do these “children of thy people,” as Daniel was told, “sleep in the dust of the earth” (chapter 12 verse 2). But “thy dead men shall live.” The earth shall “cast out” these dead. They shall “awake and sing,” though now they “dwell in dust,” as Isaiah predicts (chapter 26 verse 19). Thus, as the Church, in the heavenlies, so Israel in the earthlies, obtains the promise only in resurrection. Hence it is that this sign of Jonas was uttered by the Lord Jesus on two several occasions. When first He spoke of this sign of death and resurrection, He next proceeded to speak of the kingdom of heaven and its mysteries, thereby signifying that His reign on earth, and concurrently Israel’s time of blessing, were, through, that nation’s unbelief, delayed. Now Israel can only become a witness for God, and a preacher to the world, as Jonas in resurrection was. (Matthew 12:40, with Matthew 13) Then, shortly after, the Lord repeated this same sign, when at once you hear of the Church, and of the Rock on which that Church is built (compare Matthew 16:4 with verse 18). Thus, whilst Israel, for not recognizing her Messiah, is temporarily set aside, the Church is called out and constituted during the Lord’s absence, to be the heavenly witness for God in the world. Even this very earth itself must pass through a sort of regeneration, or resurrection (Matthew 19:28). And thus, whether it be of the Lord Himself, or of His Church, or of Israel, or of the earth, God’s way is one, even by that one, that no eagle’s eye has seen, namely by death and resurrection.

But, in regard to all of this, each part in its own due season. Here in the type Israel dies—”For your iniquities is your mother put away” (Isaiah 1.) On Sarah personally is bestowed this honour, that she only, of all women in the Bible, has the number of her years recorded. But, typically, the Lord has deeper counsels of love to unfold, while Israel acknowledges Him not.

Chapter 24. Though Israel for a time remains in ignorance and in death as to her Messiah, yet Christ’s resurrection is the secure guarantee that all promised to that nation shall ultimately be fulfilled, and the nation revived and restored (Acts 13:32, 33). Meanwhile, that same resurrection is the occasion of the outflow of grace to the world at large (Acts 13:34, with Isaiah 55:1-3). But Israel having rejected Him on earth, and again in resurrection, the Lord has retired into deeper glory, and has sat down at the right hand of God. When the Jews murdered Stephen, and thereby consummated their rejection of Christ a second time, then He raises up Paul to unfold the doctrine of the Church. And in the Church there is neither Jew nor Gentile, but Christ is all and in all.

Now, whilst the Church for the heavenlies is being gathered out, the Lord has nothing to do with the earth as such, save in a providential manner. He remains hidden in the Father’s house. She is brought thither to Him by Another. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are equally God; but officially, as Christ has been pleased to act as the divine Servant of the Father, so the Holy Ghost is engaged in acting as the divine Servant of Christ. Hence, mark what emphasis is thrown again and again in the type here, that the son Isaac, as if risen from the dead since chapter 22 is to remain in the father’s house, whilst the servant comes forth to woo and to win a bride for him (chapter 24 verses 6-8). Noone type of Christ in any character can be a complete representation of the One so gloriously full. Hence, in the case of Jacob the servant, he goes forth and serves for a bride, and fairly earns her. For Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it (Hosea 12:12, with Ephesians 5:25). And the way of the Spirit of God in sketching the types of Christ is sometimes, as here, to put the higher aspect first; so similarly the account of the burnt-offering precedes that of the sin-offering in Leviticus.

So as we here see our calling is quite a heavenly one, as is evidenced by where Christ continues during that call of the Holy Ghost sent forth in person to tell of the hidden glories of the Son, and of the priceless value of His work and blood-shedding, as seen, and seen only, in the uncreated light of God’s immediate presence. It is impossible that anywhere else but there, for the full worth of His blood, and of His finished work, to be seen. And there He is at present; and down here the Holy Ghost is on purpose to tell us of these heavenly glories. See especially John 16:13-15; 2 Corinthians 3:18; and Ephesians 1:17. In the tabernacle of old, some vessels were of brass or copper, and others of gold. Those which were uncovered were of copper; at which sin was dealt with and judged according to the divine perfections. But those perfections are not fully revealed by the somewhat negative way of coping with our sin. Beyond all this, what God is in Himself, what are the riches of His grace, of His love as in making us His born sons and daughters, and in rendering us competent for the inheritance of the saints in light and much more to the same effect, on a like grand and infinite scale, all this was borne witness to by some of the furniture in the tabernacle being covered with pure gold. Now it was on and before the mercy-seat, made of pure gold, that the blood was sprinkled upon the day of atonement. Therefore, during this age, antitypical of that day, God is telling out the value of Christ’s blood, according to His own estimate thereof, by His supreme kindness to us who are the pretrusters in Christ, whilst that Christ is in there. On the mercy-seat of old, there was blood—symbol of death—only; but now, Christ, as the mercy-seat, is “placed forth” outside, for any sinner at once to approach (Romans 3:25); whilst, also, the living Christ, His Son, is seated upon the throne within. Being a man, he requires a throne, which the mercy-seat is never once called. Being the Son of the living God, as seen in there, the Church is in continuance of being built upon Him (Matthew 16.) Being our Life He is “hid” in there (Colossians 3.); and we, by the Holy Ghost, are being drawn to Him, whom we have never yet seen. Our affections are set, or should be, on things above, where He is. Moved by the wondrous story as to who He is and what is His love, and of the Father’s counsels concerning Him and in Him, about us, we have been spoiled for all here that once our hearts had been set upon. Those things have been set before us, of which once we never had an idea; they had never entered our hearts. But now we, through the Spirit, wait for the hope suited to such a righteousness as ours is!

Like Rebecca, we have believed the word that the servant of the risen Son has told us. It has sunk into our hearts; it has detached us in spirit from the empty scene all around us. We have set out on our pilgrimage. The Holy Ghost Himself is our companion throughout our journey. Thoughts, and vistas, and tastes of heaven He the Earnest gives to us whilst yet on the road. The fall certainty that we shall reach home at last, and see Him that has loved us, and be with Him and like Him for ever, animates us in our daily plodding along, which is not without its difficulties. Though nothing is more crooked or uneasy to ride upon than the camel, little leisure would Rebecca have to be annoyed thereat, through her companion’s solicitude, and her prospect at the end. God, in His Word, oft points us to the end. He contrasts, too, the “end of the wicked,” and the “end of the Lord,” which He accords to His own.

So when her journey neared its termination, we may note how on the alert Rebecca was. She felt that be who was advancing was Isaac, the risen one, the son of the father himself. Thus daily do we wait; aye, and watch for Him. And he did come forth to meet and to welcome her who had come out to meet him. She covered herself with a veil as he approached, and we shall be self-hidden and abased adoring in His presence. In the case of Isaac, he took the bride that the father had chosen for him. On the other side of the double type, to wit, Jacob, he got the wife of his heart’s choice. The two together fully and blessedly set forth how that the Father has given us as the Bride to His Son; and how that Bride is likewise she on whom His own heart had been set. We are the eternal choice of both the Father and the Son; “And all mine are thine, and thine are mine,” said Christ to that Father.

Lastly, we read that Isaac “loved “Rebecca, and was comforted after his mother’s death. Christ loved us ere the world began; He loves us now, He loves us to the end. He will love us home; and when at last at home with Him, He will still love us. Surely this finishing touch in the type is delightful! For a while He has lost Israel, but He will provoke that people to jealousy. But when these, His brethren after the flesh, do at length come and bow themselves down to Him, as they will do when as the antitypical Joseph He rules over the world, such will discover that during their rejection of Him, there is a Bride nearer to Him than; they, and she an Egyptian. But here I am anticipating what we shall look at presently.

Thus have I briefly touched upon this most instructive and thrilling type. It is one which I trust we have all often enjoyed and profited by. Hence if there had been time for me to enlarge more fully, there is the less need for this. Here we have a pilgrim’s progress, indeed, far more glowing with the light of heaven and with the glory of the risen Son than Bunyan dreamt of; and this account is traced with an inspired pen.

In the history there is little necessitating remark; to only one point do I advert. As the Holy Ghost has been pleased to act as the great servant of the Lord Jesus, so does He condescend to employ under-servants many. These, whether in wooing the hearts of sinners to Christ, or in urging the saints to come forth to meet the heavenly Bridegroom, would do well to copy from this Eliezer here. His whole work was carried on in prayer. There is more about prayer in this chapter than is to be found in the entire book. And when, in view of the responsible character of our work, we pour out our souls unto God, the Spirit Himself within us helps our infirmities. Let us never forget this.

This last section of the life of our patriarch concludes with a word as to his marriage with Keturah, of his offspring by her, and then of his own death. Now as Hagar and Ishmael, as we have seen from Romans and Galatians, represent Israel according to the flesh, so likewise here may be a glance at that Gentile world, which with the Jew is to be blessed presently on earth; for the blessing of the nations in due time depends on their connection with the Hebrew, and their subordination to Israel under its rightful King. Sebah and Dedan, two of Keturah’s descendants, are especially mentioned as opponents of Gog, in his disastrous march into Canaan against Israel (Ezekiel 38:13). And those nations or Gentiles siding with Christ’s earthly brethren during their great coming period of sorrow, are singled our for favour by Him in Matthew 25:40. Viewed in this light, it would appear that each of the women who pass before us in this section is a representative character; Sarah, as the mother of the true seed; and Hagar, Keturah, and Rebecca, Israel after the flesh, the Gentile and the Church of God. Here compare a parallel type in 1 Kings. After Solomon has built the temple, as Christ is now engaged in building the Church, there is, His own house,^{See Note 15} Israel, and next “the house of the forest of Lebanon,” the last of these, an earnest of the blessing of the nations in the millennium (1 Kings 7:1, 2; Revelation 21:24).

Lastly, we read that Abraham died in a good old age, and was “gathered to his people.” Not so bright an outlook for these saints of old, as is now the portion of every Christian (see 2 Corinthians 5:8, and Philippians 1:23). Luke 16 speaks of a pious Jew carried by angels into Abraham’s bosom. And this, too, was ere Christ’s own death and resurrection had wrought such mighty changes. But now John 21:7, and 2 Corinthians 12:1-4, set before us the former in symbol and the latter in plain statement, the prospect of a believer on his death-bed.

¹³ See the remarks at the beginning of chapter 15.

¹⁴ Jonas, like Israel, refused to witness for God; and, like to ourselves, he was disobedient, and sought to flee away from God. Then Christ, taking the sinner’s true place, not under mere water, but under the waves of God’s wrath, sinks into death. Then, coming forth as the Resurrection and the Life, first He gives life to us, and presently, as Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, quoted above, show, He will revive Israel after two prophetic days (Hosea 6:2).

¹⁵ With the number of years (thirteen) during which Solomon was building his own house, compare the number of bullocks offered for Israel at the feast of tabernacles (Numbers 29). And see a suggestion thereon in my Lectures on Revelation, volume 2 page 182.