TERAH is the watershed of the Old
Testament, even as his generation is the central one of the eleven in
Genesis. His most famous son, Abraham,
not only left his city and his home, but we nowhere read, “these are the
generations of Abraham”, the whole of his wonderful life being ranged under the
“generations of Terah”. Abraham beyond
all things else sets forth the principle of faith. He is the first one of whom the Old Testament
records that he believed in the Lord. The twelfth chapter of Genesis opens with the
words:--
“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 show thee.”
Stephen in his speech before the Council
said:--
“The God of glory appeared unto our father
Abraham, when he was yet in Mesopotamia, before
he dwelt in Haran, and said unto him, Get thee out of thy country” (Acts.vii.2,3).
The Lord not only called Abraham out from
Ur of the Chaldees, but from his kindred, yet the first movement after the word
were spoken to Abraham is that of Terah.
“And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the
son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the
Chaldees, to go into
the land of
Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and
dwelt there … and Terah died in Haran” (Gen.xi.31,32).
The call of God to Abraham involved
separation of a very drastic character, and we shall see that the Lord did not
lay upon him the whole burden at once; he
was to leave country and kindred, but not at first his father’s house; he obeyed the call so far as leaving his country
was concerned, and Hebrews xi. records the step of faith with divine
approval. Scripture does not say, “and
Abraham took Terah”; it is put the other
way, “and Terah took Abram his son”.
Terah’s name means a “traveller”, or a “wanderer”, and as a type he may
well represent that class who “go out”, not by faith, but by reason of
temperament; the call that quickened
Abram with a living faith acted upon the fleshly mind of Terah, and he too felt
attracted by the journey.
A glance at the map shows that Terah and
his family journeyed about 600 miles with Abram to get to Haran, but the map
also reveals another thing, the route never took them across the river
Euphrates. Even though 600 miles
separated them from Ur of the Chaldees they were not separated from all that
Chaldea meant to God. Haran was famous
not only as a frontier town of the Babylonian Empire, but for the worship of
the self-same god that made Ur of the Chaldess famous too. Terah was not a Hebrew, he never passed
over. It will be remembered that Pharaoh
was willing to let Israel go and worship the Lord “in the land”, but neither Terah nor Pharaoh had the “Hebrew” spirit. Before the record is given of Abram’s
departure from Haran, there is recorded the great promise made by the God of
glory, introducing into the page of Scripture the purpose of election, so far
as nations are concerned. The Scripture
are very exact, and we are never likely to believe them too implicitly; if we compare
Gen.xii.1 with Acts vii. 2-4, we shall find that Stephen makes an omission
of one term. He tells us that the God of
glory called Abraham from his country and kindred, but he does not say, “and
from thy father’s house”. Abraham’s
action, therefore, in allowing his father and relatives to accompany him as far
as Haran was quite within the command he had received. Upon the death of his father the added words,
“and from thy father’s house”, make up the full statement, and “so Abram
departed, AS the Lord had spoken unto him”.
Nature’s ties were no longer to hold him, a second separation must now
be made. How kindly the Lord leads
on! Still further and deeper trials of
faith await Abram, but he is not tried above that which he is able.
The Lord in Gen. xii. 1-3
makes the first of a series of eight covenants with Abraham. In this first covenant we have a promise,
every item of it, as we shall see, being personal to Abraham.
“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 the nations of the earth be blessed.”
This great covenant is divided into
related groups of promise, as follows:--
A | Get thee OUT, the Lord had said.
B |
Country, KINDRED, and HOUSE.
A land shown to Abraham.
A land shown to Abraham.
C |
a | The promise of the GREAT nation.
b | The promise to BLESS Abraham.
a |
The promise of the GREAT name.
b |
The promise that Abraham
shall be a BLESSING.
shall be a BLESSING.
(Conditional clause added).
B
| All FAMILIES of the earth blessed in Abraham.
A | So Abram DEPARTED, as the Lord had
spoken.
Here we have the germ of the whole of
God’s covenants with Abraham, viz., Israel and the Nations. Like Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, which stands on
the threshold of the times of the Gentiles, this covenant spans and embraces
the whole period and scope of the Abrahamic covenant, all other covenants and
promises, including even Paul’s witness to justification by faith in Romans and Galatians, being but expansions and details of this one grand
covenant. It behoves us therefore to
give careful attention to this marvellous record; it is bounded on either side (members
A A) by command and
obedience, “Get thee out”, “So Abram departed”.
Obedience to the word of God, “the Lord had said”, “as the Lord had
spoken”. Hebrews xi. 8 links Abraham’s obedience with faith, “By
FAITH Abraham, when he was called to go out unto a place which he should after
receive for an inheritance, OBEYED”; this
supplies the scriptural interpretation to the words of Paul in Romans, “By whom
we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience
of faith among all nations” (i. 5),
“… made known to all nations for obedience
of faith” (xvi. 26). To this the
apostle refers in xv. 18, “for the obedience of the nations”. Acts
vi. 7 shows that those of Israel who
believed were “obedient to the faith”. (We shall have to consider the relation of
faith with Abraham and his covenants when we read Genesis xv.).
We pass on to notice members
B B. Abraham’s obedience meant loss, yet Abraham’s
obedience made him the father of many nations, and all families in the earth
were to be blessed in him. How can we
speak of losing when we have such a God!
We lose trifles, bubbles, we gain realities for ever. The land promised to Abram was not to be a
portion of earth cut off from all else, for though sacred and called by
preeminence, The Holy Land, it was
chosen, and the people and events that fill out its history have as their
designed end the blessing of the nations, “all families of the earth”. So
in Gal. iii. 13, 14, “Christ hath redeemed us (Israel, verse 10) from
the curse of the Law, … that the blessing of Abraham might come on the
Gentiles”.
The central member C is taken up with the links that were
designed to bring about this desired end, first, the formation of a great
nation. A question that is of importance
here is that which touches the greatness of this elect nation, viz., wherein
was their greatness? In several places
the greatness of this nation is mentioned:--
“Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a
great and mighty nation” (Gen.xviii.18).
“I am the God, the God of thy father; fear not to go down into Egypt, for I will
there make of thee a great nation” (Gen. xlvi. 3).
“A Syrian ready to perish was my father,
and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there with a few, and became there a
nation, great, mighty and prosperous” (Deut. xxvi. 5).
The inhabitants of Canaan, however, are
said to be great, “for the Lord hath
driven out from before you great nations and strong” (Josh. xxiii. 9). Seven nations are enumerated in Deut. vii. 1
that were cast out of the land, “greater and mightier” than Israel. The question of Israel’s greatness therefore
does not consist of mere numerical greatness, indeed the same passage
continues, “the Lord did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because ye
were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people” (verse 7). Israel’s greatness as a nation consisted in
the unique position which they occupied as an instrument of blessing in the
hand of the Lord:--
“For what nation is there so great, who
hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call
upon Him for; and what nation is there
so great that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I
set before you this day” (Deut. iv. 7,
8).
Israel’s greatness is here shewn to be the
nearness of the Lord, and gift of His revealed will in the law. To be entrusted with the oracles of God was
the chief of their claims to pre-eminence (Rom. iii. 1, 2). Not only was Abraham to be the father of a
great nation, but he himself receives the promise, “I will make thy name
great”. The greatness of the “name” is
connected with the greatness of “inheritance” as Heb. i. 4, 5
shows. Abraham became “heir of the world”, father of
the great nation and of many nations; Abraham
was called “the friend of God”. The
record of Genesis xii. seems to have been purposely placed in
contrast with Genesis xi. There we have the whole earth of one speech,
and inhabited by one family, they dwelt in the plain of Shinar or Mesopotamia; Abraham is called to leave that very land,
and to separate himself from home and kindred.
“Let us make a name”, said the builders of the tower of Babel; “I will make thy name great”, said God to
Abraham. Judgment falls upon the people
in Genesis xi., and they are scattered abroad to form “the
families of the earth” who are to be blessed in Abraham, God, while leaving the
nations to walk in their own ways, had not forgotten them or given them up for
ever. His concentration upon Israel was
for the Gentiles ultimate blessing.
No promise in this wonderful covenant is
conditional to Abraham. Israel must be a
great nation, Abraham must be a blessing, all the families of the earth must be
blessed in him. God has said so, the
only conditional element in the whole passage is that of verse 3:--
“I will bless them that bless thee, and
curse him that maketh light of thee.”
They that pray for the peace of Jerusalem
shall prosper. National histories bear
record to the truth of these words.
Where is Babylon? where is Assyria? gone,
yet Persia that helped Israel in the rebuilding of the temple remains to this day. It may be that the national prosperity of
Britain is related to its attitude toward the people of Israel. The Jew, outcast and despised as he is, is a
sacred object by reason of the covenant with the fathers:--
“As concerning the gospel, they are
enemies for your sakes: but as touching
the election, they are beloved for the father’s sakes, for the gifts and
calling of God are without repentance . . . for God hath concluded them all in
unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all” (Romans xi. 28-32).
These opening verses in Genesis xii.
are of prime importance, for they are the foundation of the gospel of
the apostle Paul, the teaching of such epistles as Romans and Galatians, and
the ministry of the reconciliation.
No comments:
Post a Comment