“Genesis 12:1-3”

Saturday, November 16, 2019

“Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.’”

---End of Scripture verses---

This is actually the second time God called Abram to leave his family and country behind and journey to the Land of Promise. His original call was when he lived in Ur of the Chaldees (Genesis 11:31) in Mesopotamia. Steven tells us in Acts 7:2-4 the following: “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, and said to him, ‘Leave your country and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you.’ Then he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. From there, after his father died, God had him move to this country in which you are now living.” We mentioned James Burton Coffman’s comments yesterday on Abraham’s father, Terah, and his idolatry possibly being the reason why Abram remained in Haran after the Lord had told him to leave Ur and settle in the land of Canaan the first time.

He went on to observe: “God had commanded Abram to leave his native land, his kindred, and his father's house, etc., but, for some reason, Terah was not left in Ur, but accompanied Abram. This would appear to be the reason why, instead of going to Canaan as was their stated intention upon their departure from Ur, they went to Haran and settled there!... Inherent in the fact of the emigrants having settled down in Haran was the truth that, to this point, Abram had NOT fully obeyed the commandment of God; hence, the necessity for the second call which apparently came following the death of Terah. Abram no doubt found it extremely difficult to say ‘goodbye’ to his father's house. And there would seem to have been a special dispensation of mercy on God's part that he should have delayed the second call until after Terah died.”

Whatever the reason may have been for his stalling out in Haran, Abraham is displayed in the Holy Word as the paragon of obedient faith and praised for his unwavering trust in and dependency upon the Great God of heaven. The Lord said the very reason He chose and blessed Abraham in the first place was: “For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.” (Genesis 18:19) “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” (Hebrews 11:8-10) Abraham left his home and went out not knowing WHERE he was going, but he went out knowing perfectly well WHO he was serving. His was not a blind faith, but one that could see past the here and now and into the eternal beyond.

Verses 2-3 comprise what has been traditionally referred to by many as God's “Seven-fold Promise” to Abraham:

1) “I will make you a great nation…” (verse 2) This is a remarkable promise considering the fact that Abraham was 75 years old at the time of his calling and the giving of God's pledge. He had not a single child, and his wife, “Sarai was barren” (Genesis 11:30). Because of these mitigating circumstances, there was no way this promise could have even begun to be realized in Abraham's own lifetime. The earthly “father of the faithful” accepted and believed this promise purely because he fully trusted the One who had promised. “Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who gave birth to you in pain; when he was but one I called him, then I blessed him and multiplied him.” (Isaiah 51:2) “Therefore there was born even of one man, and him as good as dead at that, as many descendants as the stars of heaven in number, and innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.” (Hebrews 11:12)

2) “I will bless you...” (verse 2) The Lord promised Abraham divine provisions of good things in his life. We have already seen that the ability to procreate is a great blessing from God (Genesis 1:22; 9:1). “Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. (Psalm 127:3), and God blessed Abraham with a vast and extensive posterity. According to Vine's Expository Dictionary of Old Testament Words, “The Lord's 'blessings' rest on those who are faithful to Him: 'A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day...' (Deut. 11:27). His blessing brings righteousness (Ps. 24:5), life (Ps. 133:3), prosperity (2 Sam. 7:29), and salvation (Ps. 3:8). Righteousness – “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” (Romans 4:3) Prosperity – “Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver and in gold. (Genesis 13:2) A life of faithfulness does not guarantee a life of earthly riches, but in Abraham's case it was a part of the package. Life and Salvation – While God's greatest blessing of salvation is conditional, contingent upon faithfulness to God's commandments, it is still a gift that only God can grant. The Lord blessed Abraham with a permanent mansion in the beautiful city of God (Hebrews 11:16).

3) “And make your name great...” (verse 2) “In the ancient Near East, the name was not merely a convenient designation but an expression of the very essence of being. Hence, this promise means not only that Abraham will acquire fame but also that he will be highly esteemed as a man of superior character.” (Nahum Sarna) “You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, 'And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,' and he was called the friend of God.” (James 2:22-23) “As it was among the Jews his descendants, who boasted of having Abram for their father; and among the several nations of the world; his name is famous in profane history, and is in high esteem with the Mahometans to this day; and especially his name is great and famous, and the memory of him precious among all those who have obtained like precious faith with him, in every age and in every nation.” (John Gill's Exposition of the whole Bible)

4) “And so you shall be a blessing” (verse 2) Abraham is a blessing to anyone who emulates his faith. In this regard he is not a source of blessings but a prototype of those who receive blessings. “So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer. (Galatians 3:9)

5) “I will bless those who bless you...” (verse 3) The Lord took the way that people treated Abraham personally. God greatly blessed Abraham's nephew, Lot, with substantial prosperity because of his friendly and harmonious association with his righteous uncle. “Now Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. And the land could not sustain them while dwelling together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to remain together.” (Genesis 13:5-6) Aner, Eschol and Mamre, the Amorites, received great spoils of war from the king of Sodom because they helped Abraham defeat the four nations responsible for the abduction of Lot and his family in the war of the kings (Genesis 14:13, 24). When we live lives of faithfulness and righteousness like father Abraham, we become a blessing for our circle of influence.

6) “The one who curses you I will curse...” (verse 3) This is the flipside of the reciprocal blessing. God took it personally when someone antagonized or mistreated Abraham and He responded accordingly. We see this prominently in the case of Abimelech king of Gerar. “Now Abraham journeyed from there toward the land of the Negev, and settled between Kadesh and Shur; then he sojourned in Gerar. Abraham said of Sarah his wife, 'She is my sister.' So Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. But God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night, and said to him, 'Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is married.'” (Genesis 20:1-4) Sometimes it seems like those who mistreat us are actually rewarded for their injustice, but we will ultimately see God's enemies recompensed if we live faithfully as Abraham's spiritual seed. “For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.” (2 Thessalonians 1:6-8)

7) “And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” (verse 3) “A promise as big as this one can be fulfilled in only one thing, and that is by the coming of the Son of God to save all people from sin... God had promised the 'seed of woman' as the One who would accomplish this (Genesis 3:15); and, Now it becomes clear that it would be accomplished through Abraham's own family. Only in the idea of the Messiah does the depth of the thought (of this passage) adequately display itself...” (James Burton Coffman) “In this passage, the thought which was faintly foreshadowed in the prediction of (1) the conflict between man and the power of evil in Genesis 3:15, and of (2) the privilege of the family of Shem in Genesis 9:26, becomes more definite in (3) the selection of the patriarchal family as the channel of universal blessing.” (Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges). “And in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed; that is, in his seed, as in Genesis 22:18, and which is interpreted of Christ, Acts 3:25, meaning not every individual of all the families or nations of the earth; but that as many as believe in Christ, of all nations, are blessed in him; and that whoever of them are blessed, they are blessed and only blessed in him, and that they are blessed for his sake with all spiritual blessings; see Ephesians 1:3, such as redemption, justification, remission of sins, sanctification, adoption, and eternal life.” (Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible)

Please read Genesis 3:4-9 for tomorrow.

Have a great day!

- Louie Taylor

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