Theology From 30,000 Feet : Lesson 3

Revelation to the Patriarchs

The first eleven chapters of Genesis is the prologue to the story of Scripture. All the main issues that the story of the Bible will address are mentioned or illustrated in some form in this first stage of revelation. The world that God made has fallen into sin and rebellion. At Babel God came down to pronounce a judgement on the plans of sinful humanity. The people are confused and scattered. The focus then shifts significantly. All the attention of the Biblical narrative will be on the line of Shem, one of Noah’s sons. From that line comes a man named Abram. God chooses to work exclusively with this man and his offspring. The rest of the book of Genesis will tell the story of Abraham’s family lineage. Genesis 1-11 is the prologue. The Patriarchs are the first act in the drama. “The great theme of these chapters will be the promised seed or posterity, and, to a lesser extent, the promised land, to which the little group clings tenaciously and in the final chapters looks back in the certainty of return” (Derek Kidner).

In Babel we see the culmination of human sin and rebellion against God, which results in judgement. In Abraham and his family, we will see the beginning of God’s plan of redemption. Abraham is God’s answer to all the problems in Genesis 1-11. We have already seen something like a new beginning with Noah and his family after the flood. God saved Noah and his family on the Ark. They lived to see a new world after the Flood receded, and God made a covenant that He would never again destroy the earth like that. There was a fresh start for the world after the flood and the earth would again be populated by human beings. However, God had not yet dealt with the problem of sin and the rise of the tower of Babel illustrated that fact. It was only after the judgement at Babel that God began to work His plan of redemption. In Genesis chapters 1 through 11 we see what sin had done to the world. Now we will see what God will do about sin. Everything about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is an answer to the problem of sin. If the theme of the first section of Genesis was sin and its effects, the theme of this next period of Biblical revelation is the introduction of the plan of redemption. “The events at this stage were closely interwoven with the carrying out of the plan of redemption. They led to the election and separate training of one race and one people” (Geerhardus Vos).

There is no way to overstate the importance of the Patriarchs and what God revealed to them. In Abraham, Isaac and Jacob we see the beginning of a nation that was created and chosen by God Himself. There has never been another nation like Israel. It is through this nation that came from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that God would bring redemption to the world and fulfill His promise in Eden to destroy the Devil’s work through a human agent (Gen. 3.15). The plan of redemption has some rather humble and strange beginnings. But God was in control of the story. Redemption is a Divine initiative and will not at all rely on human strength or wisdom. In fact, one of the great themes in the lives of the Patriarchs is that God’s plan will continue to advance and be successful even when presented with instance after instance of human frailty. What we discover by learning about the Patriarchs that redemption comes by Divine grace and not human initiative. Grace is Divine initiative and that is the only reason the people of Israel even existed. Israel is a work of God’s grace.

God called Abram out of a pagan civilization and made a tremendous promise to him. This promise was then repeated to Isaac, who was himself part of the fulfillment of that promise. Jacob was then chosen to be the heir of the promise of God. The Divine promise that these men received directly from God is the heart of this entire epoch of Divine revelation. God will be known by the promise He made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Because the Bible is a historical revelation of God to real people, we will begin by considering some of the background of the ancient world in which Abraham lived. Then we will give an overview of the lives of the Patriarchs and the major events in which God was working with them. Then we can look at the revelation that came to them and through them that is recorded in Scripture for us so that we can understand how God was bringing redemption. The revelations given during the Patriarchal period reverberate through the rest of the Bible, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. Even though these men lived at the very dawn of recorded history, we will find that we have much in common with them, especially since their God is also our God.

The Ancient World

Modern scholarship has questioned the historicity of the Patriarchal narratives. But the accounts do not read like mythology. This is the history of a People. This is the history of God’s plan of redemption. If the Patriarchs were not real people, then redemption is not real. Abraham was born in a part of the ancient world we know as the Fertile Crescent. This included lands that followed a path along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and then down through Israel along the Mediterranean Sea to Egypt. (This ancient land includes parts of modern Iran, Iraq, and Syria.) The crescent shaped section of land is also known as the Cradle of Civilization. Abraham was from an ancient city called Ur, which was one of the cities of Sumer. Sumer was the first great civilization in history and is usually credited with creating the first written language. The great Ziggurat of Ur was probably modeled after the tower of Babel itself, and its ruins can still be seen today. The city of Ur was devoted to the worship of the moon and there is every reason to think that before he came to know the true God, Abram himself probably worshiped the moon god or some of the other nature-deities that the pagans of Mesopotamia dedicated their civilization to.

The ancient Sumerians passed away, but other powers soon took control of that important region including such famous kingdoms as Assyria, Babylon, Media-Persia, and the Hittites. Because of modern archaeology we now know much more about these ancient civilizations that are mentioned in Scripture. One of the most famous of these ancient empires produced the first written law code known as the Code of Hammurabi after the ruler of the ancient Babylonians who wrote it down on clay tablets. The ancient Babylonians also produced written stories about the creation of the world by the gods and a great flood that once destroyed the world. These were not the Neanderthal men of modern scientific theory, hiding in a cave trying to make a spark for his fire. These ancient kingdoms built mighty cities with high walls and temples to their patron deities. They developed economic systems, practiced agriculture, procured wealth in silver and gold, and fielded armies. These ancient civilizations had developed everything that was needed for an organized and ordered society, and are still necessary today, complete with political systems and religious places of worship. The architecture was different, and the technology was perhaps crude, but the cities of Mesopotamia had all the basic elements of the great cities of the world today.

There was a constant fear, however, of natural disasters and warfare with other city-states. The religion of the ancient world was designed to keep the cycles of the natural world running smoothly so that crops could be harvested, and babies would be born. The city-states worshiped a patron deity who protected them and gave them victory in combat. Idolatry was at the heart of these ancient civilizations. The city of Ur when Abram was from could be compared to a New York, a London, or a Tokyo with all of the wealth, power, technology, and pagan idolatry that the cities of earth are known to have and have always been known to have since the very beginning of recorded history.

Abram was born at the dawn of history and civilization, but his life would be very different from what characterized the great cities of the Fertile Crescent. Abraham had a calling and a purpose that was very different from the meaningless cycles of nature-worship. But God first called Abram to leave civilization behind, along with all its security. The call of God was radical and demanding. God wanted Abram to be separate from that pagan culture because there would be a lengthy period of Divine instruction and God wanted the chosen family to be removed from the influences of that world. Abraham and the people who came from him would have to be radically different from other peoples and nations. At that time this required a physical and geographical separation. Abraham and his family would be strangers, wanderers, and misfits on earth. In Israel a new kind of nation would rise. Abraham and his people were not to be like Sumer, Babylon, or any of the other nations they would later encounter in Canaan. The separateness and the uniqueness of Israel is one of the central themes of the Old Testament. It began with Abram being called out of Ur to go live in the comparatively uncivilized backwater known as Canaan.

It should not surprise us that God would work that way with Abram and his family. God was going to work redemption without the help of human ingenuity. God is not against civilization, or man creatively using creation, but human civilization is not going to contribute anything to the plan of redemption. Civilization also needs to be redeemed and can therefore contribute nothing to redemption. Mankind tends to rely on civilization to provide something like redemption. Civilization can become an idol and a replacement for reliance on God. Abram must be different. He must learn to rely on God alone and so he must leave Ur. Babel is man on his own, setting his own agenda and goals. Abraham is the opposite of that lifestyle. Oddly enough, God promises to give Abraham what the people at Babel were seeking for themselves apart from God.

When the plan of redemption becomes full-grown, God will send His people into all the world as His witnesses. The cities of the world would become places for evangelism where people would be turned from idols to the living God. But at the very root or beginning of redemption, God had to get Abram out of Ur. There could be no doubt that Abram belonged to God and not to Ur and its patron moon-god. God was going to become the dominant Mover in Abram’s life and there could be no rivals or distractions. The only explanation for the lives of Abraham and his family would be God. Israel would become a people completely devoted to their God in every area of life. This training would begin in the lives of the Patriarchs.

The Lives of the Patriarchs

The Patriarchs are not in the Bible because they are paragons of virtue. We always seem to make the mistake of moralizing characters in the Bible, as if the Bible is a kind of moral handbook. But the Bible is the story of redemption, not a guide to morality. The characters in the Bible are part of God’s redemption story. However, we do see that walking with God has an impact on the character of people. This is especially apparent in the lives of the Patriarchs. They are not accepted because they are moral, but as they walk with God their character is changed and their faith grows. Grace is not given because of inherent character traits, but grace does produce certain character traits in those God is redeeming. Those who are called by God are shaped into the kind of people who can carry the Promise of God forward in the world.

Most people who read the stories of the Patriarchs are struck by many strange customs that the Bible does not explain. Archaeology has uncovered that many of the unusual customs in the stories was not at all unusual in that time. For example, Abraham’s fear that the Egyptian Pharaoh would take Sarah from him was founded in a real custom that was practiced when all-powerful monarchs wanted to add to their harems. It is now known the custom of circumcision was practiced by many of the ancient peoples. However, God changed the meaning of it when giving the command to Abraham. Many of the strange cultural practices mentioned in the text are somehow either changed, overturned, or set in contrast to the promises of God. For example, it was common for the eldest son to be the heir. But God Himself overturns this practice with Jacob and Esau. It was common for a barren wife to give her husband a servant girl in order to produce a child. But for Sarah to demand that Abraham then get rid of Hagar and her son, Ishmael, when against the social laws of that time. But God approves of Sarah’s wishes and there are some important theological reasons for it. All these examples show us that God’s promise tends to nullify or overturn the cultural norms. Redemption is going to be accomplished on God’s terms and in a way that glorifies His grace.               

The most important revelation given to Abraham is the promise of God (Genesis 12.1-3). It is important to notice that the blessing that would come through Abraham is for the whole world, even though at that time God was dealing specifically with Abraham and his posterity. There are two parts of this promise that create problems in the narrative. The first problem is that of descendants. Abraham and Sarah have passed the natural time of childbearing, yet they are promised many descendants. How will God fulfill this promise? Throughout the story of the patriarchs there seem to be constant obstacles that threaten to derail the promise of God. For Abraham, years go by and there is no child. The other part of the promise that is problematic is the possession of the land of Canaan. This promise is also delayed and will never be fulfilled in the lifetimes of Abraham or Isaac and Jacob. They must all live by faith in the promise of God while living like nomadic immigrants in the land. Abraham must buy a piece of land to bury his dead wife. This was the only plot of ground that any of the Patriarchs owned in Canaan.

In Abraham’s life the issue of having a child is the major concern in the narrative. Abraham assumes that his heir will be his head servant, which was another custom that was common in that time. But God assured Abraham that he would have a child. To confirm this, God performs a covenant ceremony for Abraham (Gen. 15.7-21). The cutting of animals into two parts was symbolically what would happen to the party that fails to keep the covenant that was made. God Himself passes between the pieces and makes what amounts to a unilateral covenant with Abraham. There was nothing for Abraham to do. God was binding Himself to keep the stipulations of the covenant. Abraham had already believed the word of the Lord (Gen. 15.6). He was declared righteous because of his faith in God’s promise. The covenant did not require him to do anything other than trust the Lord. The cutting of the animals was a confirmation of the covenant and that God would surely do what He had said He would do for Abraham. The covenant was not about what Abraham would do for God, but what God would do for Abraham and for the rest of the world through him. The covenant of circumcision was likewise another confirmation of the covenant and of Abraham’s status before God. Circumcision represented the cutting away of the old life and being cleansed from uncleanness. People who are in relationship with God are accepted through faith. But being in covenant with God necessitates being cleansed. “Human nature is unclean and disqualified in its very source” (Geerhardus Vos).

The greatest characteristic of Abraham’s life is his faith. Faith is trusting in God Himself. Abraham believed that God was trustworthy. Everyone who is justified by faith has a faith like Father Abraham. But we should not think that faith in God was easy. And Abraham found it difficult to understand how God would fulfill His promise. At one point, Sarah and Abraham decided that God needed some help from them. So, Hagar enters the picture. Ishmael is born and Abraham wants God to use Ishmael to fulfill the promise. But Ishmael is the child of the flesh and the promise is going to be fulfilled by the power of God, not by human ability. So, Ishmael is rejected. The promise will be fulfilled through a child born to Sarah in her old age when she is past the natural age of giving birth. It is not surprising that two senior citizens laughed when they learned that they would have a child! And so, the child is named Laughter. Only God could have brought life from a barren womb because nothing is impossible with God (Gen. 18.14).

But then God tells Abraham to take Isaac and sacrifice him as a burnt offering. This is the high point of Abraham’s faith. Abraham is determined to obey God and reasons that even if he killed his son, God would still somehow be able to fulfill His promise. God provides a ram in the thicket so that Abraham does not have to offer his son. And so, the concept of God accepting a substitutionary sacrifice is introduced into the Biblical narrative. Not only will God accept a substitute, God Himself will provide the lamb for the sacrifice.

After Abraham’s death the promise is repeated to Isaac (Gen. 26.1-5). Isaac’s life seems to be overshadowed by both his father Abraham and by Jacob his son. Many of the same things that happened in Abraham’s life is repeated by Isaac. For example, Isaac is fearful that the local ruler Abimelech will steal his wife. So, he lies about Rebekah just as Abraham had lied about Sarah. Isaac seems to be determined to imitate his father Abraham. But one difference with Isaac is the determination by God that Isaac must not leave the land of Canaan. God promises to take care of Isaac in the Land and Isaac obeys God. God blesses Isaac with a 100-fold harvest. And everywhere Isaac digs he finds water! Isaac seems to be the most passive of the three Patriarchs, but this is because his main character quality is submission. He cooperates with Abraham on Mt. Moriah. His father chooses his wife for him and Isaac accepts his father’s decision and loves Rebekah. When Jacob is obviously the one God has chosen, even though Isaac favored Esau, Isaac recognizes God’s choice of Jacob and Isaac accepts God’s sovereign choice.

If Isaac is the most passive Patriarch, Jacob is the most dynamic and the most complex character in the narrative. Jacob becomes the one through whom God demonstrates the principle of election. According to the cultural norm, the birthright and the Divine blessing should have done to Esau. But even before they were born, God chose Jacob. This could not have been because of Jacob’s moral superiority. However, Jacob proves to be the one who really wanted the blessing of God and would go to nearly any extreme to get it. Esau despised his birthright. Jacob is willing to deceive his elderly father to get the blessing. The theft of the blessing by Jacob seems strange to modern people. Why could Isaac not simply recognize the error and bless Esau instead? The blessing seems to be viewed like shooting an arrow from a bow. When the arrow is shot it hits what it hits. The arrow hit Jacob and Isaac just accepts this as the sovereign will of God.

Jacob must leave the land of Canaan and there is a long series of episodes in his life that serve to discipline him and form his character. As Jacob is leaving the land of Canaan, he sees a vision of a ladder reaching to heaven. The Promise of God is repeated to Jacob (Gen. 28.10-15). The angels going up the ladder carry Jacob’s desires and prayers to God. The angels coming down the ladder bring God’s blessing and care down to Jacob (Geerhardus Vos). An important thing to notice is that God will go with Jacob to bless him even though he is leaving the land of Canaan. God’s presence is not limited to Canaan but can go anywhere because God is the true God and is not limited by geography.

Jacob has nothing when he arrives at his uncle Laban’s house. Laban manipulates and tricks Jacob just as Jacob had done to his brother and father. But even while Jacob is serving Laban, God blesses him, and Jacob grows wealthy at Laban’s expense. Jacob finally leaves Laban and returns to Canaan with God’s blessing, but Jacob fears meeting his brother Esau. The night before that meeting, Jacob wrestles with a man. As Jacob has always demonstrated, he is willing to fight for the blessing of God. Jacob’s struggle pays off. His name is changed to Israel as a result. A name represented the character of the person. Jacob’s character has been changed through a series of hardships. Jacob has the blessing of God, but also a limp because of his suffering and discipline at the hands of God. Jacob represents personal transformation. Jacob does not begin as a virtuous person. But God’s grace overcomes sin and transforms human nature. “Grace is the source of noble character” (Geerhardus Vos). A person who is in covenant with God will not remain the same.

Jacob’s 12 sons are the beginnings of the tribes of Israel. One of those sons, the firstborn of the favored wife Rachael, is sold into slavery by his jealous brothers. But by putting Joseph in Egypt, God is planning to save the chosen family from a famine and to also set the stage for the next stage of redemptive history. The chosen family goes down into Egypt with the understanding that they will return to the land of Canaan eventually. Both Jacob and Joseph give instructions to be buried in Canaan because of their faith in the promise of God. Egypt will serve as the nursery of Israel where a family will become a nation.

The Uniqueness of Israel 

Even secular historians must admit the uniqueness of Israel. Today we can study the history of the Canaanites, the Babylonians, Assyrians, or Hittites. But these nations are just the curiosities of antiquity, like exhibits in a museum. Not so with the people of Israel. No other group of people have had such an impact on the history of the world. Their religion is unlike any other to arise out of the ancient world. The only reasonable explanation for this fact is supernatural revelation (Geerhardus Vos). God is the only logical explanation for Israel. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the true God. When we come to know the true God, we come to know Him through the people of Israel and what God revealed to them. The period of the Patriarchs shows us the uniqueness of God’s chosen people. There has never been another group of people to whom God made Himself known so personally. Patriarchal history is the beginning of redemptive history. God is the main actor in the narrative. Through what God revealed to the Patriarchs we come to know the true God and we come to understand what God is doing in the world. If redemption in the Bible is like a growing tree, then the revelation of God to the Patriarchs is the root of that tree.

Israel had a unique election. The procedure of redemption involved election. We cannot deny that God chose Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. To be sure, their specific election was for the purpose of a universal blessing. But we cannot help but see that God made choices about whom He would work with a through to bring about His plan of redemption. And God has the right to so choose. Objecting to God’s choice is objecting to God as God. This is how God chose to redeem the world. How can those who are being redeemed have any objection as to the method of their redemption? Modern man glories in his ability to choose and to formulate his own meaning and destiny. This was exactly the sin of Babel and is still with us today. It is God’s choice that redeems. Election serves to point out that the source of redemption is God’s initiative, not ours. The Patriarchs were not elected because of moral superiority. They were elected according to grace. The doctrine of election expounds the doctrine of grace. Human initiative is always sinful and opposed to the will of God. It was human initiative that ruined everything. It is God’s initiative that redeems everything. This explains how God’s purpose of redemption can continue to move forward even when the human actors fail. The promise and purpose of God simply does not depend on human achievement.

Israel was given unique promises. The repetition of Divine promise and blessing is central to the whole Patriarchal narrative. After God’s initial calling of Abram, the Divine promise is repeated several times to each Patriarch (See Gen. 13.14-17; 14.4-5; 15.7-21; 17.1-8, 15-16; 22.15-18; 26.1-5; 26.24; 28.10-15; 35.9-12). The promise is that God will bless. Today this is a word that has probably lost much of its theological force. We use the word “bless” or “blessing” much too casually. By it we usually mean that something good will come our way. But in Scripture the Divine blessing is much stronger than just a general kind of well-being. In the Patriarchal narrative, the Divine blessing is nothing less that God’s determination to reverse the effects of sin and the inevitable judgement that comes because of sin. The opposite of blessing is a curse, which is the awful wrath of God. The blessing that God promised through Abraham is the blessing of redemption and being restored to a right relationship with God. There is much more to this blessing that enjoying life here and now. This blessing extends into the gift of eternal life and a place with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the eternal Kingdom of God which will culminate in the New Creation at the end of time. People who would reduce the blessing of God promise to Abraham to a prosperity message of health and wealth in this present life do not understand even the first thing about the Biblical revelation.

Finally, Israel had a unique faith. That fact that Abraham believed God and righteousness was credited to him based on that faith, is surely one of the most revolutionary revelations in the Bible. Everyone who trusts God like Abraham can be called a child of Abraham, even Gentiles who believe. In fact, the only kind of faith that justifies is Abraham’s kind of faith. Abraham’s faith was in God and His ability to fulfill His promises no matter what the obstacle. The primary name of God revealed in the Patriarchal narrative is El-Shaddai, or the all-powerful God. This is because the power of God can overpower even nature and compel it to serve God’s designs (Geerhardus Vos). Abraham put his trust in the power of God, even when all rational human explanations were void. Faith means personal trust in a personal God. Faith does not rest in what we can prove to be so but is resting in the fact that God has declared it to be so. This meant that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob could continue to trust in God Himself, even when they did not yet have or even see the things that God had promised them. God’s word was enough for them. His character was solid, dependable, and unchanging. God could be relied upon to come through for them. This trust also enabled them to do some radical and amazing things, because they knew God was behind every factor and had already planned for every contingency in their lives. Even as they went down in the land of Egypt to sojourn there, they knew that God was still with them and would bring them back to the land he had promised to give them.