"Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get you out of your country, and from your kindred, and from your father's house, unto a land that I will show you; And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing; And I will bless them that bless you, and curse him that curses you: and in you shall all the families of the earth be blessed." (Genesis 12:1-3)
How literally this promise has been fulfilled is scarcely comprehended. Taken in a purely physical sense, it has been fulfilled in a most marvelous manner. There is no other man known to history, to whom such a multitude of people can directly trace their ancestry.
We know that we are all sons of Adam; but here we have something more definitely marked. Here we have a man whose numerous descendants bears his impress, a man who has transmitted a family resemblance to more people than any other man that ever lived. For we must remember that not only the Jews, whose family resemblance is known all over the world, but also the hosts of Arabians, are directly descended from Abraham.
But this, wonderful as it is, does not begin to exhaust the promise made in the call. Indeed, it scarcely touches it; for it is in Isaac alone that the true seed of Abraham is called, (Genesis 21:12)--in Isaac, the child of promise, he who was born of the Spirit. (Galatians 4:28-29) So we read the words of the prophet: "Hearken to me, you that follow after righteousness, you that seek the Lord; look unto the rock whence you were hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence you were dug. Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you; for when he was but one I called him, and I blessed him, and made him many. For the Lord has comforted Zion; He has comforted all her waste places, and has made her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody." (Isaiah 51:1-3)
Thus we see that upon the call of Abraham, and the multiplying of him into a great nation, yes, a multitude of nations, depends the comfort of Zion. His seed are only those who follow after righteousness, and the nations that can truly trace their ancestry to him will be "the nations of them which are saved," (Revelation 21:24) who bring their glory and their honor to Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem.
Spiritual Blessings the Only Real Ones
Notice the promise in the call: "In you shall all the families of the earth be blessed." (Genesis 12:3)
Let no one limit this to temporal prosperity. It is true that food, and clothing, houses and lands, the power to get wealth, are, if rightly obtained and used, blessings from the Lord, "who gives us richly all things to enjoy." (1 Timothy 6:17)
Yet the wealth of this world is at the best uncertain, and merely temporal. "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" (Matthew 16:26)
To limit any promise of blessing from God to the things of this earth only, is to limit His goodness. "The eternal God" (Deuteronomy 33:27) deals always with eternal things; that which we get from Him for the needs of this life are incidental, and only with reference to the life to come.
But there is no possibility for doubt in the matter of the promise to Abraham. Words could not make it any plainer than it is put in the third chapter of Galatians. "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness. Know therefore that they which be of faith, the same are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the Gospel beforehand unto Abraham, saying, In you shall all the nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with the faithful Abraham." (Galatians 3:6-9,RV)
And again: "Now to Abraham were the promises spoken, and to his seed. He said not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to your seed, which is Christ." " (Galatians 3:16,RV)
If we read the story of Abraham, and do not read the Gospel of our salvation in it, we read it to no purpose. More of this, however, will appear in a subsequent lesson. The blessing promised to the nations of the earth, even to all the families, is the blessing that comes by the cross of Christ; for: "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." (Galatians 3:13-14)
Calling the Gentiles
It is strange that people read into the Old Testament history promises only to the Jews, and imagine that for some hundreds of years God cared for the salvation of only one people. Such things are read into the Bible, not in it.
Look at the facts. God called Abraham, or Abram, as he was then named. Who was he? He was a Gentile, the son of heathen parents, (Joshua 24:2) so that the very calling of him, without the specific promise, is a pledge of salvation to any other Gentile who will believe as Abraham did. And then the promise was, "In you shall all the families of the earth be blessed." (Genesis 12:3)
His call, as we have read from Galatians 3:3, had direct reference to the Gentiles, to all nations. To say or to think that for centuries the energies of God, so far as this earth is concerned, were almost wholly absorbed in caring for one people, "the fewest of all people," (Deuteronomy 7:7) or that, even if they did not absorb His energy, He was indifferent to all others, is most dishonoring both to His power and His goodness. How anybody who holds such a view can trust God for salvation, it is difficult to see. How can they believe that He now cares for all? How can they think that after hundreds of years of exclusiveness He has suddenly become broad-minded? He says that He does not change; (Malachi 3:6) how then can those who think that for ages He loved only the Jews, believe that "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)
How plain it is, that to hold such views of God's dealing in the past is to undermine faith in the Gospel.
Missionary Effort in Ancient Times
All the Old Testament history and prophecy shows that God was working through the chosen seed of Abraham to save the world. He was trying to induce them to fulfil their mission, namely, to carry the Gospel of the kingdom to the whole world.
When they would not do it, but instead of converting the heathen, became perverted by them, God made the truth known through the kings of the Gentiles. Read especially the second, third, fourth, and sixth chapters of Daniel. See how Jonah was sent against his will to the city of Nineveh. Read the direct appeals, warnings, and threatenings to the different nations by name, in the writings of the prophets. And, finally, read the words of God to Jeremiah: "Before I formed you in the belly, I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you, and I ordained you a prophet unto the nations." (Jeremiah 1:5)
The word "nations" is the same as Gentiles, or heathen. So hundreds years before the advent of Christ, the Gentiles had a prophet specially ordained for them, just as afterwards they had an apostle. He dealt as well by them before the crucifixion as afterwards; but the most of the people whom He called would not go.
Why did God choose Abraham? Because when God called, Abraham obeyed. He calls all, but those who will not hear the call cannot be used. Why did He work through Israel for so long? Because, headstrong as they were, they were the only people near enough to Him for Him to work through.
No Continuing City
Abraham's call was first to get out of his country. In that we see that the purpose of God for those whom He calls is not to give them a dwelling place on this earth in its present state. "By faith Abraham ... obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God." (Hebrews 11:8-10) "Here have we no continuing city." (Hebrews 13:14)
Everything reared by human hands is bound to perish. The proudest structure built by man crumbles into ruin. But, "whatsoever God does, it shall be for ever;" (Ecclesiastes 3:14) and the city which He builds shall stand throughout the ages of eternity. All who will be blessed with faithful Abraham must be content to sojourn as he did,-not rooted to any spot on this earth, but looking for "a better county, that is, a heavenly." (Hebrews 11:16)
Protection
"And the Canaanite was then in the land." (Genesis 12:6)
That was when Abraham dwelt in it, moving about from place to place as a stranger. What is the meaning of that item thrown in seemingly without any connection? Read the subsequent history of the Canaanites, and you will see. There were many kingdoms of them, and they were strong and cruelly fierce, all fighters. They had no love for the strangers that came among them. They had, as a class, no virtues, least of all hospitality. Read how the very sight of them by the spies whom Moses sent out, and the story of their warlike power frightened the whole nation of Israel. Yet Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob dwelt safely in the land, because they believed in the Lord. "He is the Lord our God: His judgments are in all the earth. He has remembered His covenant for ever, the word which He commanded to a thousand generations. Which covenant He made with Abraham, and His oath unto Isaac; And confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant; Saying, Unto you will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of yourinheritance: When they were but few men in number; yea, very few, and strangers in it. When they went from one nation to another, from one kingdom to another people; He suffered no man to do them wrong: yea, He reproved kings for their sakes; Saying, Touch not my anointed, and do my prophets no harm." (Psalm 105:7-15)
Abraham a Prophet
Yes; Abraham was a prophet,--a speaker for God,--one by whom God made His will known to the people. God said to one of the kings whom He reproved for Abraham's sake, "He is a prophet; and he shall pray for you, and you shall live." (Genesis 20:7)
Ah, it was not merely for Abraham's sake that God preserved him and multiplied him. God sent Abraham to Canaan as a missionary to the heathen, and He protected him that he might bear his testimony to them. And this is how he did it: "And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto your seed will I give this land; and there he built an altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him. And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he built an altar unto the Lord, and called on the name of the Lord." (Genesis 12:7-8)
Everywhere he went he created a place of worship. But that was not all; he "proclaimed the name of the Lord," or, as Young renders it, "He preached in the name of Jehovah." By a comparison of the Hebrew of this passage with that of Exodus 34:5, we find that the two passages are identical.
So we find that Abraham did not merely call on the name of the Lord for his own sake, but he made that name known to the heathen. It was by their rejection of the message which he took to them, that their iniquity became so full that God was obliged to cut them off.
Preaching the Resurrection
By the revelation of God to Abraham, we may know what he preached to the heathen in Canaan. God said to him, "To you and to your seed will I give this land;" (Genesis 12:7) yet Abraham himself never had any permanent dwelling place there, neither did Isaac or Jacob, nor, in fact, any of their descendants, not excepting King David. (1 Chronicles 29:15; Psalm 39:12) The whole nation was subsequently carried away, and they have no possession whatever in it to this day. God called Abraham to the land, but: "He gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on; yet He promised that He would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child." (Acts 7:5)
What is the trouble? Did God break His word? Not by any means. Knowing that God cannot lie, (Titus 1:2; Numbers 23:19) and reading this inspired statement as to the facts of the promise, we are shut up to the conclusion that the promise to Abraham was to be fulfilled through the resurrection. The land was to be his for an everlasting possession after the resurrection of the just.
Even so Abraham understood it, because God plainly told him that he was to die and be buried before the possession of the land was given. (Genesis 15:13-16) So Abraham died in faith, fully assured that the land was his, although he possessed not a foot of it.
It was by faith that Abraham sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country; and the faith that sustained him was the faith in the resurrection through Jesus Christ. (See Hebrews 11:17-19) It was this faith, therefore, which he made known to the heathen in the land, and that same faith and hope is ours to proclaim today to the people among whom we sojourn.--Present Truth, July 18, 1901--Genesis 12:1-9.