Promises of the Patriarchs: Israel's "Afterward"

Introduction:

Solomon said that the end of a thing is better than the beginning (Ecclesiastes 7:8). In some ways, I agree, especially when I can look back across the schoolyear and see the growth of my students and how richly the Lord has blessed. But who doesn't love a fresh start? There is a rhythm to the beginning of a new schoolyear that is so ingrained in me that I almost don't know how I could relate to any job other than teaching. But when we think of beginnings, we usually think of something new, not something old. But there is a newness to the book of Genesis that never gets old for me. I absolutely love studying this book, and this blog series began for me out of a new insight the Lord gave me early this year when I was doing a new study of journeys in Genesis. I was taking voluminous notes and circling patterns all over the place, and then I came to Hagar.

Hagar's pain and her promises jumped off the page for me in a way I had not seen, and I have been reading Genesis most of my life in varying translations and annotating each one. I started putting myself in her shoes--which is a stretch indeed, but I have always had a heart for the underdog and the down-and-out. I tried to crawl inside her head and imagine what she must have been thinking and feeling. My first post in this series, "The Well in the Wilderness," came from this deep personal study, and my goal was to read just the simple Scriptures (not that they are simple) over and over until I not only found the center of meaning but the connections of cause and effect from person to person. I didn't want to rehash what Bible commentators have said, not that they are not all good, but I wanted the Lord to speak to my heart right out of His Word, as He always does when we give Him a chance.

My own personal journey in studying the characters connected with Abraham has been one I could not describe to anyone. In fact, my neighbor asked me recently, in a rather acidic tone, why I did that--studied my Bible. "I don't know anyone else who does that," she said, dryly. I took about fifteen minutes to answer her question, and, amazingly, she was speechless the entire time. My first remark was, "Well, the world would be a better place if people did study their Bibles." Then I said, "Studying the Bible combines my two loves--God's Word and literature--and I find that studying the Bible is the most rewarding thing I can possibly do." My next answer was one stolen from one of my favorite college professors when someone asked him why he learned nine languages: "Because they are there." When I gave her this answer about studying the Bible, she chuckled. Then, to my amazement, she said after my very long reply, "I've been thinking we need to study the Bible together." This is my neighbor for whom I have prayed since I moved here.

I realize that my blog posts got quite long for some of you, and this may have turned you away from reading them. I know that people are very busy, myself included, and if you only knew how hard it was to trim my studies down to the length I did, you might laugh out loud. But I decided that, even if I had an audience only of One, I would keep doing this because I knew I needed to. There is something about the family of Abraham that is more relevant than watching all that news some of us watch every day that isn't going to do us any good at all. And by "something," I am, of course, speaking of the inspired power of the infallible Word of God, although nothing I have written could ever do it justice. It is my prayer that, in this final post of my Genesis Studies series, I could share with you some of my own takeaways from this wonderful book.

Takeaways:

First, I believe that the study of Israel is an obligation of every Christian because God's Word tells me that He is not finished with Israel and that I as a Gentile was only "grafted in" (Romans 11:17-24). I don't have anything politically correct to say about Israel. All my remarks would be considered politically "incorrect" even by many Christians. But I believe with all my heart that the Israelites are still God's chosen people and that the Church has by no means replaced Israel. I believe that the feet of Jesus will split open the Mount of Olives when He returns and that "a nation will be saved in a day" (Isaiah 66:8). My love for Israel is so deep that that is the one comfort I had this past summer when I became the victim of a scam related to two Jewish men who supposedly "repaired" my chimney. I lost a lot of money on this, which puzzled me greatly, since I pray about anything I do. But I was able to give a brand-new, beautiful little ESV New Testament to one of the men, who gave indication of intending to read it. He is an orthodox, practicing Jew. If I see him in heaven one day, I won't be thinking about my chimney.

Second, I believe that the story of Israel as told in Genesis presents most of the major prototypes of the rest of the Bible. And when I think of this, I think of one of my mother's favorite words and concepts: "afterward." She used to look at me in that tender amusement of hers and twinkle, "There is an afterward for the child of God." Hebrews tells us this: "Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it" (Hebrews 12:11). There it is: "nevertheless, afterward." Could there be a better sequel to the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11, as the writer to the Hebrews follows up with exhorting us to remember our "great cloud of witnesses" as we "lay aside every weight" and submit to the chastening of the Lord? Every single one of the characters in Abraham's family tasted the Lord's chastening, even Joseph. And from him perhaps best of all, we have the prototype of suffering for righteousness' sake.

I love how the Genesis narratives are not male-dominant but leave us with three very different pictures of women. Hagar leaves us with the prototype of the wanderer whom the Lord sought after. How much easier is it for us to believe that the Lord is married to the backslider when the first appearance of the Angel of the Lord in Scripture is to a woman who is running away? Hagar's story isn't one of backsliding because she quite likely was not even saved until this encounter, but the Lord gave her promises that hold true to this day. What woman alone in danger would not love to hear the Lord say to her, "The Lord has heard your affliction" (Genesis 16:11)? Or what barren woman who has utterly given up on bearing children would not love to hear the Lord's words to Sarah, "Is anything too hard for the LORD?" (Genesis 18:14). Whether the Lord gives her a household of her own children or a classroom full of other people's children, He will not deny her mother-instincts. Sarah is a prototype of hope past hope. Sarah makes it into Hebrews 11, "By faith Sarah . . . judged Him faithful who had promised" (Hebrews 11:11). I am so thankful for Sarah, sometimes feisty woman that she was!

Then there is Rebekah, who not only had the perfect romance recorded in the longest chapter in the book of Genesis (and one of the longest chapters in the whole Bible) but the only monogamous marriage among the patriarchs. From Rebekah we have not only the prototype of the marriage made in heaven but of the mother who knows the Lord has promised her offspring a great destiny. If every mother held on to her promises from the Lord the way Rebekah did, even with self-effacing risk, this world would be unrecognizable from what we know it to be today. When Rebekah received the blessing from her own family as she left Haran, she carried with her the promise of God upon Abraham's descendants: "And may your descendants possess the gates of those who hate them" (Genesis 24:60). This is a promise of the coming and conquering Messiah, who will indeed overrule those who hate Him.

When we think of Lot, the mood changes drastically. I wouldn't want to be known as the prototype of compromise or as the one who experienced perhaps the original "slippery slope" as he inched his ways towards Sodom. How on earth Peter could call Lot "righteous" three times in the space of one sentence (II Peter 2:7-8) has always boggled my mind, but he links Lot with the Lord knowing "how to deliver the godly out of temptations" (II Peter 2:9), which He certainly will, if your employment calls you to endure an environment you find morally corrupt. But when I think of Lot, I think more of what Peter said in his first letter, "For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God: and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? Now, 'If the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?' [Peter is paraphrasing Proverbs 11:31]" (I Peter 4:17-18). Lot's life ended dismally, and that is exactly where compromise leads.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--the patriarchs--leave us with so many prototypes, symbols, and promises, that we could study them for an entire year and not wear out their stories. All three make it into Hebrews' Hall of Faith. Abraham sets the journey motif as he looks "for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (Hebrews 11:10). This is an especially rich image when we remember that Abraham left a center of civilization in the same general region as the Tower of Babel. Known for its Ziggurat, Ur was a city of idolatry whose builder certainly was not God. Yet Abraham becomes the father of the faithful because he follows the Lord "not knowing where he was going" (Hebrews 11:8). With God as your compass, you can never be lost, and Abraham glimpsed the Promised Land of Canaan and bought the cave of Machpelah--the only property he owned on earth--where his bones are to this day awaiting the resurrection.

Abraham's many promises not only point to future redemption through the promised Seed but bring the Lord present and near right now. James calls Abraham the "friend of God" (James 2:23) for his faith. But it was not always so. Sometimes Abraham acted out of doubt and fear, and yet the Lord said to him, "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward" (Genesis 15:1). After Abraham acted without divine counsel and took Hagar as his wife, over twelve years of silence lapse in the Genesis narrative before the Lord meets Abraham one day with this stern but glorious greeting: "I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless" (Genesis 17:1). No lecture, but no excuses, either, flow back and forth in this divine encounter. Abraham falls on his face and worships. The Lord brings at last the promised son, and from Abraham we receive the ages-old prototype of substitutionary atonement, for surely the Lamb was slain for us from before the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8).

From Abraham we receive, also, the prototype of the resurrection after the cross of painful surrender. Have we offered our Isaac to the Lord with full assurance that only in His Hands can the apple of our eye be safely kept? Isaac offers for us the prototype of the obedient Son who foreshadows our Savior, who willingly offered His life to fulfill His Father's will. Isaac also shows us that it is always too soon to give up, for God's promises are always fulfilled one day, and we must never settle for second best. Isaac is more than a symbol; he is a peaceable man whose love for his bride bubbles up many years afterward, and, even though in his old age, Isaac seems less than faith-filled as he almost gives Esau God's blessing promised to Jacob, he rallies and corrects, giving Jacob his full blessing. From Isaac perhaps we can learn that no one ever "retires" from watchful obedience to the Lord. Satan prowls after the elderly who are often too weak to resist him.

Jacob--I love Jacob. I'm not sure why except that I deeply admire his tenacity and his vision. I don't admire all of his methods, and I abhor deception of any kind, but Jacob has a depth we don't find in many characters, and he seldom gets his due. What a price he paid for deceiving his father and also for showing favoritism to Joseph. Yet after whom is the nation promised to Abraham named? After Jacob, who becomes Israel at the epic wrestling match at Peniel. When was the last time we wrestled with God and prevailed? Too easily do we give up, rush a sentence prayer like swallowing a spiritual vitamin that we expect to stave off the hunger of our souls all day. All night Jacob wrestled. And God commended him for it. His wrestling match in itself hints at the "afterward" the nation of Israel will experience as the "called out" of God, which we see in the book of Exodus, when the nation does indeed prevail. Jacob made it into Hebrews' Hall of Faith, not for his wrestling, but for his blessing of Joseph's sons when he was dying. Why did this take faith? Because he was in Egypt, not the Promised Land, and "he worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff" (Hebrews 11:21).

What does this mean? I'm not sure, but I picture this man about to die who stands on the strength of his staff--maybe the same staff which he carried alone when he left Beersheba seventy years earlier--giving every last ounce of his strength to honor his God as "he worshiped." This would be the same Jacob whose strength the Lord broke at Peniel only to give him far greater blessing to prevail above all the sorrows and tragedies of life. This man, who spent twenty-two years in some state of grieving and depression, sees at the end of his life that this is just the beginning. His blessing to Joseph gives us some of the most profound words in the entire Bible, as Jacob exhorts, "The blessings of your father have excelled the blessings of my ancestors, up to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills. They shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him who was separate from his brothers" (Genesis 49:26). This, indeed, sounds like an "afterward" to me.

And we end with Joseph because Genesis does so. And for what does Joseph end up in Hebrews' Hall of Faith? Not for holding onto his promises all those years that he kept his virtue and his character intact, but because "when he was dying, [he] made mention of the departure of the children of Israel, and gave instruction concerning his bones" (Hebrews 11:22). And what are Joseph's last words--this man who is our prototype of the Suffering Savior? "I am dying; but God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land to the land of which He swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob" (Genesis 50:24). And then Genesis tells us this final word by way of emphasis, "Then Joseph took an oath from the children of Israel, saying, 'God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here'" (Genesis 50:25). As if Joseph receives a resurrection as a prototype of our Lord Jesus Christ, he will not remain forever in a foreign land. He is bound for the Promised Land.

And so, dear friend, are you. There is indeed an "afterward" for the child of God. And so the ending is better than the beginning, but the beginning is mighty, mighty good. Yes, I love Genesis.