02.02. God's Covenant with Abraham, or Why He Chose Israel
II GOD’S COVENANT WITH ABRAHAM, OR WHY HE CHOSE ISRAEL
I THE preceding chapter carried us forward to the story of the tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1-32, at which time it appeared as if the rebellion and iniquity of the race had driven the name and the truth of God out of the earth which He had made. But it was not so. It is written that "the gifts and calling of God are without repentance" (Romans 11:29), which, for our present purpose, means that His original promise of the redemption of the race had not been forgotten, and that His mind had not changed concerning it. But the period has now arrived for a change in the method of its execution. This does not mean that it is a new method, so far as God Himself is concerned. It is not a surprise to Him in the sense that He is obliged to adopt it because of a previous failure. "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world" (Acts 15:18). What He is now about to do had been not only foreknown but foreordained.
He is about to call into being a secondary Instrument for the redemption of the race. The primary one is the Seed of the woman, as we saw in our first study: the Personal Redeemer, the Son of God. But the secondary one is the nation of Israel, whose beginnings take their rise in the call and history of Abraham (Genesis 12:1-20, Genesis 13:1-18, Genesis 14:1-24, Genesis 15:1-21, Genesis 16:1-16, Genesis 17:1-27, Genesis 18:1-33, Genesis 19:1-38, Genesis 20:1-18, Genesis 21:1-34, Genesis 22:1-24, Genesis 23:1-20, Genesis 24:1-67, Genesis 25:1-34). And for what purpose did God desire Israel! She was to be a repository for His truth in the earth, and to her was committed the sacred oracles. She was to be a channel for the coming of the Personal Redeemer to the earth, and she gave the world its Saviour. And she was to be a national witness to God before the other peoples of the earth. His unity, His supremacy, His character were to be made known through her, that all the ends of the earth might fear Him, and that the nations might "be glad and sing for joy" (Psalms 67:4). This brings us to our second mountain peak, where "the Lord 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" (Genesis 12:1).
It was not of merit, but of grace, that this call came to Abraham. He dwelt in paganism, and was personally a sinner like all the rest of mankind. No partiality was shown to him above other men, in the sense that God loved him more than them. He was chosen for this place because God loved the whole race of men and desired to save them by this means. "A Syrian ready to perish was my father," the priests of Israel were taught to say, and although when first spoken this referred to Jacob, yet its application to his grandfather Abraham would have been equally true. The sequel will disclose this.
II
Look now at the threefold blessing on Abraham. There was, first, a blessing for himself: "I will bless thee, and make thy name great" (Genesis 12:2). Little is required to remind us of the fulfillment of this promise. Whether we follow Abraham in his temporary sojourns into Egypt and Philistia, or abide with him in the peaceful tents of Canaan, or accompany him to battle against the confederacy of Chedorlaomer, it was still the same. God was his Friend (Isaiah 41:8), and kings honoured him, and his silver and gold increased and his cattle and land multiplied. Nor was it only in things physical but also in things spiritual that this was true. Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness (Genesis 15:6); and so transcendent a blessing was this that it becomes the New Testament exemplar of Gospel grace. Christ was made a curse for us, says the Apostle Paul, "that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ" (Galatians 3:13-14). Abraham’s name is great.
There was, secondly, a blessing for his direct posterity--"I will make of thee a great nation" (Genesis 12:2); "I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth" (Genesis 13:16). Israel has not been great, numerically or territorially, as compared with other nations; but she has been great in God’s dealings with her, in the wonders wrought in her history, in the things she has accomplished and in the influence she has exerted, not only on the nations contiguous to her but on those of the whole earth. And, as we shall see, her history is not ended, but only temporarily suspended. When the present interregnum has expired, and Israel again takes up her mission in Palestine, the career outlined for her is more glorious than her past. She is to be the head of the nations and not the tail (Amos 9:11-15). Moreover, as our former study pointed out, believers on Jesus Christ are the spiritual seed of Abraham, "a multitude whom no man can number."
There was, in the third place, a blessing for the whole world--"Thou shalt be a blessing"; "In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed" (Genesis 12:2-3). This also has been literally fulfilled. All who came into right relationship with Abraham personally were blessed because of that relationship. All who came into right relationship with Israel, the nation that proceeded out of his loins, were blessed for the same reason. But very specially all who have come into right relationship with Jesus Christ, the spiritual seed of Abraham, have been so blessed, and literally they are of "all the families of the earth." However, this part of the promise also awaits complete fulfillment in the time to come; for some day "the earth shall be fullof the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea" (Isaiah 11:9).
III But there are two contributing agencies to the execution of this threefold blessing upon Abraham. The first was the gift of a land for him and his posterity to dwell in, and the second, the treatment which God purposed to accord to other individuals and nations as they treated Abraham and his descendants.
"The land that I will show thee" is the way in which God first alludes to it in Genesis 12:1. Later, when Abraham came into Canaan, the Lord appeared unto him, and said: "Unto thy seed will I give this land" (Genesis 12:7). Still later, after his return from Egypt and subsequent separation from Lot, the Lord appeared unto him once more and, repeating the promise, said, "All the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it and to thy seed forever. . . . Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it, for I will give it unto thee" (Genesis 13:15-17). Finally for our present purpose, God makes a solemn covenant with Abraham, describing and defining the boundaries of the land, "from the river of Egypt unto the great river Euphrates" (Genesis 15:18-20).
These boundaries, it may be said, are much more extensive than the territory Israel has ever yet occupied, indicating the greater future in store for her when she occupies the whole. Itis scarcely necessary to speak of its fruitfulness, caring for a large population in the past, and capable of caring for a larger one in the future when, by the special blessing of God, ••the plowman shall overtake the reaper, ’and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed" (Amos 9:13). Its location also is a strategic one. God, in Ezekiel, calls it the "middle of the earth," and the national and international struggles for the possession of its capital in the past bear out that description, to say nothing of the covetous eyes that are resting upon it to-day.
Some have found fault with God for wresting this land from its earlier possessors to bestow it upon Israel. But they have not considered His motive for doing so, nor its justifying cause. As to His motive, we are always to keep in view His purpose to redeem the race, and the use He would make of Israel to that end. He was not giving this land to Israel for her own sake, as we have seen, but for the world’s sake. On the other hand, the occupants of the land, known in general terms as the Canaanites, had utterly forfeited its possession. You are a landlord, let us say; and you have a tenant who, with means abundant for the purpose, persistently refuses to pay your rent. Moreover, he has repaid your unwonted consideration for him by abusing your property into the bargain. Patience has ceased to be a virtue, and in the sight of both God and man you are justified in his ejection by due process of law. Nay, you are an unwise administrator of a trust if you fail to exercise your obligation to do so.
God did no more than this; but He did this because, of the peoples of that land, it could be justly said that their cup of iniquity had been filled to overflowing for some time. Moreover, He will act in a similar way and on a larger scale when He again comes down to earth to deal in judgment with the sons of men.
IV But no feature of this prophecy has more practical concern for us at present than the dealings of God. with other individuals and nations as they dealt with Abraham and his descendants. "I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee" (Genesis 12:3). The reason is added--"and in thee all the families of the earth shall be blessed." In other words, that this blessing may follow, Abraham and his descendants must be preserved and protected as the divine instrument to that end.
Accordingly, when famine drives Abraham into Egypt and Pharaoh would take Sarah from him, "the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues," so that he was glad to send "him away, and his wife, and all that he had" (Genesis 12:14-20). God makes the enemies of Abraham’s son Isaac to be at peace with him. Laban cannot circumvent his grandson Jacob. Prison walls cannot prevent Joseph from being second in the kingdom of Egypt. On a larger scale of operations, Pharaoh and the whole kingdom of the Egyptians are plagued with terrific judgments, until Moses is given liberty to lead the Hebrews, as the descendants of Abraham are now called, out into the land of promise.
Read the early historical books of the Old Testament from Joshua to Kings, and observe that this principle in God’s dealings with the nations never varied. Sometimes He used the nations in chastisement of Israel; but when they "helped forward the affliction," that is, when purpose of aggrandizement led them to inflict greater and more prolonged suffering upon Israel than was meet, their time of punishment always came. "It shall come to pass that when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high loess" (Isaiah 10:12). Thus said the Lord of one of these nations, and thus has He acted towards all of them. The trouble in the whole Gentile world to-day is attributable to the treatment of Israel or the Jew. Jonah in the whale’s belly is a type of disobedient Israel swallowed by the Gentile nations, which can enjoy no comfort until she is emitted and restored again to her own land. And when God begins to bless her again, those nations will be blessed with her. "God shall bless us," says the psalmist, "and all the ends of the earth shall fear him" (Psalms 67:7).
QUESTIONS ON THE LESSON 1.Quote and apply Romans 11:29.
2. What new stage in the history of redemption is now reached?
3. Name the three purposes for which Israel is chosen.
4. Was this choice of debt or of grace?
5. Name the threefold blessing on Abraham.
6. Describe the fulfillment of the first blessing, 7. Describe that of the second blessing.
8. Describe that of the third blessing.
9. What two agencies were to contribute to the execution of the threefold blessing on Abraham?
10. In what Scriptures are the boundaries of the promised land defined?
11. Describe the territory thus granted to Israel.
12. How would you meet the objections as to the Divine method of its disposal on Israel?
13. Why does God "curse" those who "curse" Israel?
14. How did this “curse" operate in Israel’s history?