Copyright © 1998 by Jason Michael Sr.

Ok... here's a quick review of what the last couple of biblical stories have symbolically 'said' so far---

With the story of Cain and Abel, it's as if God said to humanity, "All of you have rejected My authority and boundaries, and now carry the spiritual "leaven" of sin and division within you."

Then... God uses the story of Noah to say, "Here, you can see that even if I take the best of humanity and give them a fresh start, sin will just crop up again... That's because the real problem is the inward spirit of rebellion within mankind, and this cannot be removed by a simply 'outward' means of 'separation' (like the flood).

God is using the underlying symbolism in these stories in a step by step fashion, to illustrate basic principles regarding both mankind's problem and His rescue plan. And next, God is about to reassure us that He does in fact have a rescue plan in mind...

Returning to our story, we find that Noah's descendants have multiplied and various generations come and go, until eventually a man named Abram comes onto the scene. In the following passage, God is telling Abram to pack up his things and get ready for a road trip ---

Genesis 12:1-3 "Now the Lord had said to Abram: 'Get out of your country, from your kindred and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. (v.2) I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. (v.3) I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed".

There are several elements in the above passage that are worth noticing... The first is that ---

God wants to take Abram somewhere. 17

God wants to take Abram to a land identified as "Canaan". 18
 God even promises to give this land to Abram's descendants, as you can see here ---

Genesis 12:7 "Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, 'to your descendants I will give this land...' "

A little later, in Genesis chapter 17, God reiterates this promise, along with giving Abram a new name ---

Genesis 17:5-8 "No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations. (v.6) I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. (v.7) And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. (v.8) Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God."

You will note that the 'promised land' (of Canaan) has a special significance...
It is to become Israel's "everlasting possession" .

This is quite important.
As you will see, the 'promised land' of Canaan actually represents both ---

the physical 'land' promised to the Jewish people, and...
 the spiritual 'land' of 'restored relationship' with God.


Basically, God is using the promised land of Canaan to say, "I want to free you from the 'world of sin'....I want to bring you into a new land... To a place where you once again recognize Me as your God... To a land that is meant to be your everlasting possession, where we will be together forever."

We will be seeing much more on this subject shortly.
For now though, we will move on to the next important aspect of Genesis 12:1-3,
which has to do with God's promise to ---

"make a great nation" of Abraham's descendants. 19

God's promise that his descendants would eventually become "a great nation" seems to have been received with skepticism by Abraham... This seems understandable given the fact that his wife is described as having long been"barren". 20 Abraham and his wife have had no success in their attempts to have children and are now old. Notice Abraham's reaction here when God tells him he is going to have a son ---

Genesis 17:17 "...Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, 'Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?'"

Obviously, Abraham had some serious doubts about God's plan to give him a son at this late date. His wife Sarah apparently had her doubts too. According to Genesis 18:12, she too "laughed within herself" at the thought. But with God, anything is possible and sure enough, eventually ---

Genesis 21:2-3 "...Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. (v.3) And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him... whom Sarah bore to him... Isaac".

So... why do you think God waited until Abraham and Sarah were this old before letting them have a son?
God certainly could have blessed them with kids sixty or seventy years earlier.
So why the late 'delivery'? J

God did it this way in order to make a statement... By waiting until it was obvious that there was no way that Abraham and Sarah were going to have a child on their own, God was essentially saying, "Now everyone will know that this child is purely a result of My intervention".

But why is it important that people know that?

The answer has to do with the fact that this child (Isaac)
represents those to whom God has promised to reestablish an "everlasting" relationship.

But before "everlasting" relationship with God can be achieved, 'death' must somehow be overcome....
Remember now... 'death' stands between man and God as a result of sin.
Remember too, that 'death' (or 'separation from God') is a barrier that mankind is helpless to cross...
Point being that if mankind's relationship with God is ever to be restored, only God can do it.

Thus we come to the real point of Isaac's 'miraculous birth' ---

Because this child represents those to whom the overcoming of the barrier has been promised
(as evidenced by the promise of "everlasting" relationship in the 'promised land'),
God is simply underscoring the fact that He is the one making this happen!

In other words, the 'miraculous' birth of Isaac is intended to be something of a wake-up call... It's as if God said, "OK... I've told you from the start that if our relationship is ever to be restored, only I can do it. And now, I'm telling you with this rather 'miraculous birth' that our relationship is going to be restored, and I am the One doing it. Since this is clearly something that only I could do, you should think carefully about its meaning."

Put another way, God is pointing to Isaac's miraculous origin as if to say,
"YES! ... This is coming from Me and it is intended to be a 'sign' to you..."
In other words, "Pay attention here!"

In any case, we see that eventually ---

Genesis 21:8 "... the child grew and was weaned..."

After all those years of waiting and hoping in vain for a child, Abraham and Sarah have finally been blessed with one. But now we come to a real puzzle... It would appear that Isaac's life is going to be relatively short, because God now speaks to Abraham and tells him to ---

Genesis 22:2 "...Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you".

Genesis 22:3 "So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he split the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him".

Imagine how Abraham must have felt... There must have been nothing else in the world that Abraham loved like his son Isaac. Abraham had waited and hoped for a son for a hundred years! And now, just when Abraham has finally gotten the son that he has desired for so long, God asks him to give Isaac back.

You certainly have to admire Abraham's commitment to God... No matter how confused or angry he may have been by God's demand, he trusted God enough to accept His will. I don't think any of us can really imagine what Abraham must have felt as he set about preparing for this grisly task. Certainly, he must have wondered how a loving God could require him to do such a thing. But whatever Abraham felt in his heart, he chose to obey God, and eventually ---

Genesis 22:10 "...Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son".

Genesis 22:11-12 "But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, 'Abraham, Abraham!... (v.12) ...Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.'"

Wow! That was a close call!
But why would God have chosen to put Abraham and Isaac through an ordeal like this?

The real point of this ordeal becomes clear when we consider the symbolic meaning of this event...

Faced with killing his long-awaited son, everything within Abraham probably screamed, "BE INDEPENDENT! DON'T DO IT!" But Abraham's commitment to God took precedence, and he proved that his respect for God was greater than his desire to have his own way. The end result of Abraham's commitment being that if God had not stopped him, Isaac would surely have died that day. It was only God's intervention that restored Isaac's life.

Therefore, in a symbolic sense, we could say that ---

   Isaac experienced a kind of 'death' and 'resurrection'. 21

And again, since Isaac represents those who are to eventually be granted "everlasting possession" of the promised land, this symbolism seems especially significant..

It's as if God is saying to Abraham, "The nation that will descend from Isaac and be granted everlasting possession of Canaan, is going to be a nation which experiences 'death and resurrection' ".

And as you will see, this will indeed prove to be the case...
Just as the experience of Isaac on Mt. Moriah predicts ---
a 'death' & 'resurrection' will be indeed be necessary before gaining
"everlasting possession"
of the promised land.

Although all of this may seem a bit confusing at the moment, it should become much more clear shortly.
If nothing else, it should at least be apparent that God has a special relationship in mind for Isaac's descendants.

But what about all the other people in the world?
Could God choose just one group and forget about everyone else?

No... God hasn't forgotten the rest of the world at all, and this brings us to our last point, where God states that through Abraham ---

" ... all the families of the earth shall be blessed" 22

As the above passage implies, God is concerned about all of mankind, and not just a few people or a particular nation. God has simply chosen to convey His 'blessing' to the rest of the world through Abraham and his descendants. The way in which all the earth "shall be blessed" will become evident a little later.

 

As you can see, God is continuing to use the symbolism of these stories to offer encouragement,
by reminding us of His commitment and showing us more details regarding His rescue plan.

 

Before we move on, here is a quick review of the major points seen thus far ---

 From Isaac's descendants will come a "great nation" , which will inherit the 'promised land' of Canaan.
The 'promised land' of Canaan represents the promise of 'everlasting relationship' with God.
The 'miraculous birth' of Isaac is extremely significant... Isaac's 'miraculous birth' is intended to show that "everlasting possession" of the promised land will be solely the result of Gods intervention.
Isaac's symbolic 'death and resurrection' on Mt. Moriah suggests that his descendants will also have to experience a 'death and resurrection', before they can take everlasting possession of the 'promised land'.
Eventually, all the nations of the world will receive a "blessing" through Abraham's descendants.

 

Now... there is one more highly significant event in Abraham's life that we need to consider...
In Genesis, chapter 15, God tells Abraham about the future ---

Genesis 15:13 "...Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years".

When we look at the above verse, there are several words that offer some insight into its overall meaning. As the words "will serve them" and "afflict them" suggest, it sounds like Abraham's descendants are going to experience being 'slaves'.

But what would be the point in this?

Well... remember earlier when we saw that
the bible referred to mankind as having become "slaves" 23 of sin?

Now, God is telling Abraham that his descendants are going to get the same kind of 'real-life' example that Adam and Eve got back in the garden... Just as God gave them a real-life demonstration of what 'death' (or 'separation') was (with the 'death' of that first animal), soon Abraham's descendants are going to get a real-life example of what 'slavery' is like, and what it will take to be set free from it.

In other words, God is again going to use earthly events in order to demonstrate spiritual principles...

He does this because He knows that all of these events will be written down and that they will eventually end up as the bible which we have today. God wants the symbolism of all these events to be understood. God wants us to have a record that is clear and logical, so people will be able to look back on it and know the bible contains the truth. And in order to make things clear, and to enable mankind to follow His plan, God is communicating the steps a little at a time, through the symbolism of the biblical stories.

 

Having said that, let's take a quick look all the way back,
and review what the overall sequence of stories has 'said' so far ---

Way back 'in the garden', God basically 'said' three things ---

Next, with the story of Cain and Abel, He 'said' ---

Then with the story of Noah and Ham, He 'said' ---

And in the story of Abraham, God 'said' ---

This sequence certainly seems pretty clear and logical so far, doesn't it?

And thus we come to the latest revelation, in which God says ---