Christians are spiritual descendants of Abraham. His faith was counted as righteousness. Faith in Christ is counted as righteousness too; the vicarious righteousness of Christ given unto Christians through the cross and atoning sacrifice.
Abraham lived circa 2000 B.C. in Sumer. Rosenberg in his book ‘Abraham; The First Historical Biography’ described an Abraham whose father Terah was employed as an artisan making statues for the grand Sumerian Universal-life plays atop ziggurats representing the life activities of pagan gods. They were something like Hollywood movies in the day taken as reality T.V.
Abraham was apprenticed as a scribe to write the religious myth/scientific explanation of the day in cuneiform clay tablets. Apparently there are lots of fragments of such clay scrivenings remaining from the era. Terah (Terra) left Ur (Earth) with Avrm and Sarai traveling north in eventually.
Rosenberg’s Abraham is written somewhat poetically and intuitively with creative license. Yet Rosenberg is a good Jewish scholar. He also co-wrote with Bloomberg ‘The J Book’ examining the identity of the compiler of the first part of the Old Testament in the court of Solomon or his son Rehoboam. There probably were lots of existing written material and oral traditions then that were correlated at the order of the King of Israel following the construction of the Temple. When the worship of God was being firmly established in Zion-Jerusalem in a permanent location it would have been a rather natural process to unify a presentation of existing written and oral material in the Pentateuch.
In a way the story of Abraham and Sarah and their being progenitors of the people of God reminds me of Adam and Eve as progenitors of the human race. It is a human race that fell to the temptation of sin. With free will and the communication dialect with the serpent the dyad of Adam and Eve did not heed to the word of God well enough.
Adam and Eve lived in what was a non-thermodynamic Universe set aside from the created world outside the Garden of Eden. It seems as if they were cast out into a thermodynamic paradigm to be the means through which human life on Earth might be saved from the material, thermodynamic criterion. That is a cultural mandate to make a people of God-a spiritual being, from the numbers of evolved human beings in God’s creation, was made. Noah’s descendants debarked to found nations within what seems to be an already peopled world (though there were only 200 million humans on Earth in the year zero. The chosen people were to become a priesthood of believers bringing as many as was predetermined by God to a spiritual and holy condition through the will of God the father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Pre-tribulationists misinterpreting the book of the Revelation fail to comprehend God’s work with humanity to lift them up so far as is pre-determined to a spiritually right condition . Jesus overcame the world and the devil when he was crucified. The kingdom of God continues to increase its numbers. Jesus did not fail to defeat the devil the first time as the practical impact of pre-tribbers might think. The devil is not building up his worldly kingdom until just a few Christians-a remnant remain who must be evacuated by air-rapture like the last Americans fleeing Saigon in 1975. There is no rematch of Jesus vs The Devil required in a tribulation. When Jesus actually does return the second time it will be to a majority of Christians. Removing the devil’s hold outs will be a mopping up op. Pre-tribs and Muslims share the same general parameters for tribulation and end times; each are wrong in sharing the same misunderstanding of the Revelation.
Abraham was promised descendants as numerous as the stars…not a few escaping refugees from the kingdom of the devil.
One reads in Genesis of the line of post-flood descendants of Noah in Mesopotamia.
Genesis 10:32 “These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.”
Earth in this context if referenced phonetically may refer to Ur (th). The plain of Shinar where the Tower of Babel is built, probably with a pagan play of God statues on top, must have irritated God quite a bit. Cain and Abel and so much early history occurs in this area. Yet it might be the history relevant to the future chosen people and their ancestor-Abraham.
When the tower of Babel is built and eventually destroyed generations pass in Mesopotamia. Terah has three sons, Abraham, Nahor and Haran. They live in Ur or more accurately perhaps Sumer that preceded Ur at the same location. Haran died in Ur before Abraham journeys north. Terah as the family patriarch takes his family and that of Abraham as well as Haran’s son Lot to the land of Canaan to live in the town named Haran. It is in Haran that Terah dies and where Abraham encounters the call of God. ‘Ha’ means ‘the’ in Hebrew, malek means ‘king’. God had broken down the one-language & people culture of globalists at the Tower of Babel with their abominable practices and exfiltrated Abraham from the confusion of the plain of Shinar and its wretched, vainglorious polytheism over time.
Genesis 11…”24 And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah:25 And Nahor lived after he begat Terah an hundred and nineteen years, and begat sons and daughters. 26 And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran. 27 ¶ Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.
28 And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees. 29 And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah. 30 But Sarai was barren; she had no child. 31 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. 32 And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.
Chapter 12
1 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 shew thee: 2 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: 3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. 4 So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.
5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came. 6 ¶ And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. 7 And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him. 8 And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Beth-el, and pitched his tent, having Beth-el on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name of the LORD. 9 And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south.
10 ¶ And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land. 11 And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon: 12 Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive. 13 Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee. 14 ¶ And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair.
15 The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. 16 And he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels. 17 And the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram’s wife.”
This incident of a plague hitting pharaoh because of Pharaoh’s treatment of Sarai is something of a model of the plagues that hit Pharaoh’s Egypt when Moses seek the release of the captive Jews maybe a half millennium later.
The Jews or Israel as the people would be called after Jacob who changed his name per God’s decree are the bride of Christ, or God’s chosen people to be a Holy nation and priests to the world of the word of God.
Isaiah 41-“8 But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend.”
Due to their inability to comply with the terms of the Mosaic covenant well enough the priesthood of believers was expanded through the Lord Jesus Christ to include all followers of Christ. It is useful to keep in mind what Jesus said about being a spiritual descendant of Abraham (from Matthew 3) “9 And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.” This is a notice to those believing in a material, genetic dispensational salvation that it is hearts and minds following the Lord that brings one to be regarded by God as a child of Abraham.
Abraham had many wives. Not only Hagar with the issue of Ishmael (and Hagar probably married someone after being set adrift by Abraham hence Ishmael’s brothers), Abraham had several sons by women other than Sarah.
Genesis Chapter 15:
“1 After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. 2 And Abram said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? 3 And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir. 4 And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.
5 And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. 6 And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness. 7 And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.”
Hagar was an Egyptian maid of Sarah. God talked with her too. She also was informed that her ‘seed’ would be a multitude, yet perhaps not as great of order of magnitude as that of Abraham via Sarah. Abraham has those interesting life and times concerns interacting with God and society in Canaan and Egypt. Abraham’s life is a story in-itself.
To Hagar in Genesis chapter 15:”10 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude. 11 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the LORD hath heard thy affliction. 12 And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.”
In Romans 15:6-9 the Apostle Paul encapsulates the place of the Lord within the Abrahamic, line to increase the spiritual heirs of Abraham that are children of God. “6 That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7 Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God. 8 Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers: 9 And that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy; as it is written, For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name.”
It may be useful to note that the Davidic promise that an heir of King David would always be King of Israel-an eternal king, is fulfilled by the Lord Jesus. Some might argue that as Christians are one with the Lord through his saving grace that they too share in His Lordship, yet I think that is incorrect. Christians share in the Abrahamic promise that his seed would be as numerous as the stars in the sky (many), yet the eternal Kingship of the line of King David is fulfilled in just one individual-the Lord Jesus.
Genesis 15-“13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; 14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance. 15 And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. 16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.
17 And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces. 18 In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates”
So I suppose Abraham qualifies as a prophet since God informed him of the future captivity of his people in Egypt where they would multiply in number before being released and returning to the land of Abraham.
Abraham and Sarah’s names were changed by God from AVRM and Sarai to indicate their future fecundity.
Genesis Chapter 17
“1 And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. 2 And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. 3 And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying, 4 As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. 5 Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee. 6 And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. 7 And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.
8 And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God. 9 ¶ And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations. 10 This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised. 11 And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.
12 And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed. 13 He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. 14 And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.”
God gave Abraham particular terms for the covenant or contract between them. It had a material and spiritual component. Circumcision was a notable, irreversible procedure that gave the Jews a particular identity as children of Abraham that over time were given additional instructions to comply with. That helped develop the Jewish people as children of God over the millennia leading eventually to an increase or transcendence of the covenant with new terms to include those saved by the Lord Jesus.
Genesis Chapter 17 “And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. 16 And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.”
This is consistent with the ‘seed of the woman’ paradigm of the protoevangelium. Though Abraham’s seed is numerous through other lines than that of Sarah, it is through Sarah that the seed of the woman continues from Eve and on to the Davidic dynasty, Mary and the Lord who is the eternal Shepherd King. The Lord’s teleology resounds through history.
Garrison Gibson: books and blog 