Genesis 12

Chapter 12

I am not prepared to say that some parts of Scripture are more inspired or more important than others.  But as a Bible teacher, I’ve learned to take people through Bible in fourteen weeks.  Of course I cannot reasonably sit down with someone and read every verse and be able to comment on each on in that period of time.  Rather, we make “bus stops” so to speak and highlight where the Bible takes a crucial turn in understanding how God is revealing Himself to man.  I believe chapter 12 marks one of those crucial points and continues all way to chapter 15.

In Chapter 12, “Abram” receives the promise that he will the father of a great nation (though many nations would proceed from Abraham descendants) and that all nations because of Abraham will be blessed. This of course was fulfilled in the coming of The Lord Jesus Christ.  We must take a moment to reflect on God’s choice of Abraham.  Why did God do this?  Up until this point Noah’s children all seem to have been mixed together with this tower of Babel business.  Despite God preserving the race of men through Noah, his descendants appear to be plunging back into the evil that brought judgement on them in the first place.

And now it appears this Abram is no one really special.  There is nothing about Abram or his family that should lead us to expect that he has God’s favor.  In all appearances, he is as ignorant about who God is as any other pagan.  What we know about Ur and it’s custom would lead us to believe that Abram and his family were formerly worshippers of the moon god.  It may be speculation, but the Scriptures themselves give no hint that Abram is chosen because something special about him.

What is special however is that God choses anyone at all.  God is making the first moves, He is putting together a plan.  Abram did not approach God and come up with the plan to birth the Messiah through a chosen nation.  This is God initiating for us all a plan of salvation, “that all nations would be blessed”.  This is the first great blessing since God man in Eden and it is attention-getting.   Just as God chose to initiate all of creation, God again is up to something and it is going to be good.

The timing of this promise comes at an unlikely time for any hope of having children at such an old age for Abram. Abram was 75 at the time of this promise, the promise of a son and a nation. The condition of Abram’s promise was his faith in God, the running theme of Genesis so far.  In the garden, things began to go awry when Eve held God’ goodness and transcendent nature into suspicion.   Her and Adam’s unfaithfulness lead to the estrangement and despair of all humanity.   When the world was at its worst and on the brink of destruction, the simple obedient faith of Noah preserved the human race.

Abram believed God and left his home to visit a strange country that will be future Israel.  Truly a remarkable faith in God at a time when so little revelation about Him is known.   But it was in this obedient action his faith is seen. For one to say “I believe” followed by no action is evidence of dead faith. Merely declaring faith in something without acting upon it is not faith at all(15:6). Because of his belief trust in God, God saw Abram as righteous.

It is fair to say that God declared Abraham “perfect” in the same way Jesus lived a sinless life.   We know through the continuance of revelation God was imputing Jesus’ righteous to Abram long before Jesus’ time had come. This is a mystery that the apostle Paul would later explain at length, but the account of Abraham’s life is surely one marred with sin and faltering faith and he needed saving. The amazing thing about God’s grace is that the condition of our faith is not required to be perfect in order to be accepted by God, but only that we have it. A grain of a “mustard seed” is sufficient, a beginning place with God, though small it grows through God’s continual care.

Chapter 12 records Abraham faltering in this faith, leaving his “promised land” for Egypt, a place often symbolized as the world’s declaration against God. The reason for his poor judgment is the fierceness of the famine in the region (12:10). A second mistake is Abraham’s deception against the Pharaoh in giving the half truth of his wife Sarai (12:13). The point is not the sin being recorded, but that Abraham is a sinner. God didn’t choose Abraham because he was sinless or better version of a human. Abraham’s faith is what pleased God.

It was said that all nations would be blessed because of Abram, but all we have seen so far is Abram managing to bring a curse upon Egypt.  As long as Abram continues to work out from his own understanding, he will never live in the victory God has given him.  But as he learns to trust God and ultimately with his son Isaac, Abraham will indeed be a father of nations, and the whole world through the giving of God’s Word and ultimately Jesus Christ will be blessed through the faith of Abraham.

And now even though our own merit deserves God’s condemnation, here we have the same opportunity in our lifetime to please God and find His acceptance.  If we believe God has Abram did and take our first steps towards believing in Jesus Christ the Son of God, we are Abraham’s children and heirs to the promises he received.