Father Abraham Had Many Sons

Looks-wise, I favor my mom, apparently. I don't know if I would have ever thought about the resemblance myself, but after years of going places with my mom and meeting complete strangers who announced out of the blue that "You two must be mother and daughter; you're identical," I've finally accepted the inevitable.

It's actually quite a compliment; my mom is a beautiful lady.

Imagination-wise, I've been told I'm just like my dad. Growing up, he'd tell my brother and me stories in the sleepy darkness when we went to bed. He invented whole series' of stories involving characters and events, and for years, when I was probably too old for "story time," I'd still ask my dad to come in and tell me a story as I was falling asleep. (Not long ago, I collected a sampling of the stories he'd taken the time to write and I published them in a book called Dear Kids, Love Dad, but he told far more stories than I could fit into any one book).

When I began to follow in his imaginative footsteps by writing lengthy novels, my mom would read my books and shake her head and say: "You're just like your father."

It was a compliment...

I think. ;)

One Super Bowl party from many, many years ago when I was about six or seven came to mind this morning as I was reading Romans 4. I trooped with a group of giggling girls out into the living room of my friend's house during the game's halftime show and we serenaded the adults with a hyper, not-so-tuneful rendition of Father Abraham. Had many sons. Many sons had Faaaaather Abraham. I am one of them. And so are you. So let's all praise the Lord, RIGHT ARM!

You're welcome (It's now firmly stuck in my head, too, for what it's worth).

Paul begins Romans 4 by continuing the conversation about justification by faith (see my post from yesterday: Writing to the Pink Margin). He brings the topic around to Abraham, the patriarch of the Jewish people. In Romans 4:3, Paul quotes a line from Genesis 15:6: "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."

Abraham, a faith-filled man, could not in himself complete the promises of God to him (to make his descendants as numerous as the stars (Genesis 15:5), and so, in this super wide gap between the fulfillment of those promises and the not-yet-fulfillment, Abraham places faith. "He believed God... and it was credited to him as righteousness." 

Okay, Paul goes uber-deep here, and even for someone who is used to deep study of the Scriptures, it's easy to get lost in the words, but here's the part of this chapter that stood out to me. I'll read it first: "Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, 'So shall your offspring be.' Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead -- since he was about a hundred years old -- and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised. This is why 'it was credited to him as righteousness. The words: 'it was credited to him' were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness -- for us who believe in Him Who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification" (Romans 4:18-25).

Abraham believed God... and God gave him unmerited reward (that's grace), and for the record, his heart's desire -- that he would have a son. The Lord came through and gave him not just one son, but sons (descendants) as numerous as the stars that Abraham could see in the sky.

And we are some of those descendants.

Okay, I've got Swiss-German ancestry through my mom's side and Scotch-Irish ancestry through my dad's side. There's very little chance that I've got Abraham in my bloodline (although I suppose there's a remote possibility; no one that I know of has ever traced my family tree back that far). :) But for all intents and purposes, I am not a Jew.

And so I've always read the Scriptures, especially places where it says: "...first for the Jew and then for the Gentile," as -- them first, then me. I've got no problem with that, but I just have never been a part of that Jewish inheritance, because that's not in my blood, and so I've always looked at the promise God gave Abraham from an outsider's point of view.

This morning, I was floored to read this text with new eyes: "The words: 'it was credited to him' were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness -- for us who believe in Him Who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead" (Romans 4:23-24).

Y'all... that's me! Paul's describing me! That's you, if you believe! We -- who have faith, who believe the promises of the Lord -- just like Abraham did -- are children of Abraham! The Lord recognizes us as children of Abraham, because we do what Abraham did. We share in that family trait: Faith against all hope. "Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed..."

Against all hope, we believe!

Here's the thing: It's super easy to talk ourselves out of faith. Waaay easier than it should be. It's been thousands of years since God created the world (yes, I'm a young-earth theorist; that's not the conversation I'm trying to have today), and "Hope deferred makes the heart sick" (Proverbs 13:12). But against all hope, we believe!

It's been over two-thousand years since the resurrection and the promised return of Jesus. The apostle Peter writes: "First of all, you must understand that in the last days, scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, 'Where is this 'coming' He promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.' ... But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:3-4, 8-9). Against all hope, we believe!!

Galatians 3:26-29 says: "You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."

That right there is Genesis 12:2-3 -- God's promise -- fulfilled. If you need reminding of that promise to Abraham, it says: "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse, and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

We, if we believe in the work that Jesus did on the cross, have been set apart! We are chosen! We are inheritors of the Lord's promise! This isn't just for Jews anymore, because the Lord opened the way for all -- to lay down whatever has weighed us down, and believe in Him. Through faith. By grace. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." 

We display Father Abraham's best trait -- Abraham believed, and it was credited to him as righteousness. We believe, and it is credited to us as righteousness. 

Our Heavenly Father rewards that faith with fulfillment of His promises. "For no matter how many promises God has made, they are 'Yes' in Christ! And so through Him, the 'Amen' is spoken by us to the glory of God" (2 Corinthians 1:20).

That's pretty awesome.