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\u201cGo from your country and your kindred and your father\u2019s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed\u201d (Genesis 12:1-3).<\/p>\n
THIS TEXT RECORDS GOD\u2019S FAMOUS CALL FOR ABRAHAM TO LEAVE HIS HOME IN UR. It also summarizes the remarkable promises that God made to Abraham concerning the future of his family.<\/p>\n
First, God was going to lead Abraham to a land<\/em> that would be given (over four hundred years later) to the family of Jacob, one of Abraham\u2019s grandsons. Next, God said He would make Abraham\u2019s descendants so numerous that they would constitute a great nation.<\/em> And finally, God said the whole world would be blessed \u201cin you,\u201d i.e., \u201cin your seed\u201d<\/em> (Genesis 22:18 NKJV). Since \u201cseed\u201d here is singular rather than plural, this refers to the Messiah, the Savior who descended from Abraham, as Paul points out in Galatians 3:16.<\/p>\n Of these three, only the Seed<\/em> promise was universal and ultimate in its scope. The land<\/em> that God gave to Abraham\u2019s descendants has fulfilled its purpose in the history of salvation, and so has the physical nation<\/em> of Israel. The Messiah having come and God\u2019s plan now being complete, the preliminaries have been laid aside (Galatians 3:24-26). Consequently, the people of God are those from every tribe and tongue who have been justified by faith, the same kind of trust that Abraham was known for. Of course, not even Abraham could have been justified by his faith without the sacrifice of Christ, so Christ\u2019s sacrifice works backward in time just as it works forward (Hebrews 9:15; 11:1-40). Every person who inhabits heaven will have gotten there on the same basis as Abraham: the obedience of faith, based on the sacrifice of Christ.<\/em> Abraham, then, is the prime example of how salvation works; he is the forefather of all who trust in God\u2019s promises enough to actually walk<\/em> by faith. And when the whole host of Abraham\u2019s spiritual family gets together in heaven, what a reunion that\u2019s going to be!<\/p>\n \u201cThe physical aspects of God\u2019s promise to Abraham were but a means to the far more important and eternal end of salvation from sins for all mankind. \u2018There is neither Jew nor Greek . . . you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ\u2019s, then you are Abraham\u2019s seed, and heirs according to the promise\u2019 (Galatians 3:26-29)\u201d (Robert F. Turner).<\/p>\n Gary Henry \u2013 WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com<\/p>\n