SOME OF THE WAYS OF GOD WITH ABRAHAM
[p. 325] SOME OF THE WAYS OF GOD WITH ABRAHAM
Genesis 17; Romans 4: 16; Romans 9: 7
There are three points that I desire to bring before you: first, that God reveals Himself to Abram by the name Almighty; secondly, He sees fit to confer upon Abram a new name; thirdly, God gives to Abraham a covenant of circumcision. Every one of these points is a great principle which characterises the whole ways of God. The more we see divine principles characterising God’s ways, the more we become acquainted with those ways themselves, seeing how the same principle comes out; it may be in different details and with varied applications, but the principle is the same. We see the ways of God extended over thousands of years, but His ways did not come in until sin came in, they were consequent upon sin. I desire to look at the application of these points at that time and also at their application to us.
God’s revelation of Himself by His name is part of the divine ways. He gives to Abram a name, and He gives him a covenant; the name God gave to Abram depended on the way in which He revealed Himself, in the same way that the covenant depended on the name God gave to him. It may be different in detail, but it is true in principle to the believer at the present time.
When God began to take up Abram, telling him to leave his father’s house and his country, he was slack in fully obeying the call; but at seventy-five he came into Canaan, and now he was ninety-nine. God had gone on with him for twenty-four years, but He had not yet revealed Himself to him by name. God’s revelation of Himself in a name shows relationship; Abram had owned God by obeying His call; he had [p. 326] had to say to God, and God had had a great deal to say to him; but before God revealed His name Abram had to be clear of Egyptian connections, and when he was clear of them God revealed Himself to him by His name. That name became the foundation of his relationship with God, and Romans 4: 16 states he “is father of us all”.
To review for a little the name Almighty. There are three names under which God has made Himself known: first, as the Almighty to Abram; to Moses as Jehovah; and now, sending forth His Son, He is of necessity revealed as Father. The basis of Israel’s relationship was the name Jehovah, just as the basis of ours is Father. In successive revelations of the name of God we never lose the value of the preceding ones. In the revelation of the name Jehovah, they had all the worth of the name Almighty. In regard to us the basis of our relationship is the name of Father, but we have the gain of the previous names, Jehovah and Almighty.
From the close of 2 Corinthians 6 we can discern this: “Lord” in the New Testament is generally a rendering of Jehovah. “The Lord Almighty” brings in as well the special name and foundation of our relationship, but we get the benefit of every previous name.
Let us look at the significance of the name. I think the force of the name Almighty indicates the introduction of resurrection. God could do nothing for ruined man except by acting on the other side of death. “God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were”. He brings you out to life. Men will never be quickened to judgment; they are quickened to life. He quickeneth the dead. The signification of Almighty, I doubt not, is the power of God to quicken to life. A man who dies in this world forfeits the life God gave to him, and when he is gone, all is gone. There is no hope for [p. 327] man but in God, who quickens men out of death into life. That is the real force of Almighty, and Abram in this manner became the starting-point of promise.
To pass on to the name Jehovah: it shows the eternal faithfulness of God when dealing, not with a man like Abram, but with a people who turned away from Him like a deceitful bow. To them what was to be revealed was the eternal faithfulness of God to His promises. There was no future for the earth outside of the promises, and the accomplishment of these promises depended on the eternal faithfulness of God. “The gifts and calling of God are without repentance”.
Now a word in regard to the name of Father. What I understand by it is, that God gives a revelation of Himself in self-sacrificing love. It is only by the fact of God’s coming out in that way that the names Almighty and Jehovah could have effect, because God had to take up the liabilities of man. There might have been a lapse of hundreds of years between the revelation of each name, but there is no lapse of time with God, and, after all, it is one God who is Almighty, who is eternally faithful to His promises, and it is He who reveals Himself to us in the Son.
In God’s dealings with Abram we can see the propriety of God making Himself known as the Almighty with power of resurrection; Hebrews 11: 17-19. The testing, the trial of Abraham’s faith, is a point of great importance and interest. If ever God gives a man light, that man is bound to be tested whether he has received the light. Now God had given Abraham light, and God was about to test him to see how far that light was effective with Abraham. He was called to offer up Isaac, “accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead”. That proved on the part of Abraham that the name by which God had revealed Himself to him was effective. He answers the test, he really had the good of the name whereby [p. 328] God had revealed Himself to him. That was the end of God’s ways with Abraham. We hear no more of God’s dealings besides; God had achieved His purpose, the end of the Lord was accomplished with regard to him. He had proved the power of God Almighty. In John 8: 56 we find, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad”. What a place Abraham will have in the accomplishment of God’s ways; he will have his part in the future as the father of the family of promise.
Now when God gives a man a name, it is a matter of the utmost importance to that man. It was effective in the case of Abraham, the name God gave to him was a secret between himself and God. What I understand by God’s giving a name is that which God intends to set forth in that man. What God intended to set forth in Abraham was that he was to be the father of many nations.
There is an important point in connection with Romans 9. The accomplishment was put off until the true seed should be manifested. In the gospel the children of God are brought to light, and the place of the children of God is that we are counted as Christ’s and then as Abraham’s seed and heirs according to promise. It is important to see what God had in the name He thought good to put upon Abram. Abraham will have a place manifestly as the father of all them that believe, and all the children of God are children of Abraham; this is quite clear from the passage in Romans 9, it is the import of the name God gave to Abram. The mistake of the Jews was to arrogate to themselves the place of children of God and children of Abraham, and the Lord in John 8: 38 absolutely refuses this claim, a fact that confirms what we get in Romans.
In looking at the third point, circumcision and the covenant, there are no children of God except as viewed in the quickening power of God — the children [p. 329] of God are born of God. The name, “father of many nations”, which God saw fit to give Abram, in reality depended on the name Almighty by which He had revealed Himself to Abram. What is involved in circumcision is the complete setting aside of flesh in man, and man after the flesh could have no part whatever in the purpose of God. If God revealed His ways to Abram there must be a complete setting aside of man in the flesh. The flesh may have place in the wilderness, where it will be tested, but it is allowed no place at all in the purpose of God. “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot [should not] do the things that ye would”. This is descriptive of a believer in the wilderness, but not of a believer in the land.
I do not think the lusting of the Spirit against the flesh is the same as circumcision (the Christian having a new life in Christ has efficaciously put off the old man). By grace I take my stand upon the ground of God’s purpose; then the flesh must be allowed no place (Colossians 2: 11), putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. No doubt there is delay through our imperfect apprehension of the truth before our mind is in accord with the death of Christ. We are crucified with Him, and we have fellowship in His death.
All this indicates the mind of the saint being by the Spirit in accord with the death of Christ: it must be so when we take our stand on the ground of divine purpose. Abram had to be circumcised, and this ended in separation from all the rest of the earth. Circumcision morally meant separation to God, and undoubtedly this was realised in Abraham. So far I have only spoken of things in connection with Abram, the revelation of God Himself, His name made known, the name He gave to Abram, that is, Abraham, the covenant of God with him.
[p. 330] To dwell on the application to ourselves, the foundation in our case is the same, hence we come into the place of children. God has been revealed in the Son. If the Son has come from God, it is very evident that God has been revealed. “I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it”. It was God coming out in self-sacrificing love, making known the Father’s name. The blessed consequence is the line of children; the beginning of it was Christ upon earth, followed by a company of children who are loved as Christ was loved. At the same time we have the benefit of each foregoing name.
In regard to Israel, the hope of Israel is in the church, and the church in that sense knows the value of the name Jehovah, but the basis of our relationship is in the name of Father. We come under His love and also under His chastening and discipline; as children of God we come under both. If a parent withheld discipline from his children it would be a proof that he did not love his children. He cannot always smile upon his children — they have to come under discipline. A parent would be lacking in affectionate care who did not exercise discipline, because children seek to follow their will, hence the necessity of discipline. As children of God we enjoy His perfect love as in John 17: “That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them”. Love is perfect toward you.
Every one of us comes under discipline, too, from time to time; the admonition is that you must not despise it or faint under it, but that you are to be exercised by it. The value to us of the revelation of the name of Father is that we come under the name of children, but also we have the discipline. The purpose of God’s discipline is that we should be partakers of His holiness — that is the real preparation for priestly service. We find it stated in Hebrews 12: 10, “He for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness”. In this parents are deficient; they exercise [p. 331] discipline in anger, but God never exercises discipline thus, and always for our profit. Discipline prepares us for service in the sanctuary.
Another point in connection with the effect of coming under discipline is, it establishes you in confidence in divine love. Confidence can and does spring only from divine love. You have confidence in God just in proportion as you know the love of God; nothing begets confidence like love. Beloved friends, if you get the confidence of love and become partakers of God’s holiness, then you are on a good footing and you will serve God as priests according to His mind, and God must have infinite pleasure in it.
The name which God has been pleased to put on us is not “father of many nations”, the same name could not be set forth in two several individuals or companies, but we get the name of Christ — “ye are all one in Christ Jesus”. This is the name which God has put on us — all one in Christ, though we may be a vast number of units, and we ought to be one in spiritual affection down here; John 17: 21-23. We are not regarded by God as so many units in the light of divine purpose, we are all baptised into one body, “As many as have been baptised unto Christ, have put on Christ”. This corresponds to what we read in Genesis. We are all one in Christ in the light of God’s purpose, and Christ is the name God has put upon us.
The church is God’s testimony down here: the name of Christ is put upon it; it is not only the testimony of the word, but also of fact in the unity of the saints in their spiritual affection. It was all the testimony that the Father sent the Son; and as Abraham’s name in its full meaning will come to light, so, too, the name God put on us all will come to light. The fact is, the unity which has been sadly marred in the church will certainly come out in the heavenly city, which will witness to the world on the [p. 332] part of God that He loved the church as He loved Christ; and in the place where the church has been but an unfaithful witness, there will it be displayed that the Father sent the Son; thus we arrive at the importance of the name under which God has been pleased to reveal Himself.
Many may credit the word that God could quicken the dead or eternally keep His promises, but you only learn the love of God in the death of Christ — that was the commendation of God’s love. God took up our liabilities in self-sacrificing love; and “as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons [children] of God”, John 1: 12. “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us”, 1 John 3: 1. The point is the thought of the place of the church in the way God has revealed Himself as Father in self-sacrificing love; we are brought into that love, and yet discipline is in consistency with that love.
Abraham was called the “father of many nations”, and the outcome of that was that he had to repudiate all that was after the flesh. He made a feast for his son Isaac: he has to reject the son who was after the flesh, Ishmael, and he had to make much of the child of promise. Now compare Philippians 2: 12-16. We are left in the world that morally we may be here as a perpetuation of the name of Christ, and if we carried out this scripture in lowly grace, we should be a kind of continuation of Christ Himself. That is what saints were at the beginning, as you see in the book of Acts; they were shining morally as lights in the midst of darkness. The children of God were the only people who had light. It is a good thing to bear in mind that the mind of God in regard to the saints has been realised and unity has been shown. The saints in Acts 2 and 4 were a continuation of Christ; they really justified the name that God has put upon them, it was true then with regard to the saints. You [p. 333] enter on the ground of purpose in the acceptance of and conformity to that name, not as being saved sinners, that is grace; but when you speak of the name, then you speak according to purpose, and you look at the saints as the elect of God.
Now we are not only admitted to the benefits of Christ’s death, but we also have fellowship in His death. The flesh must have no place; the flesh, that is myself, is buried, buried with Him in baptism. So the tastes and propensities of the flesh, everything has got to go the moment you enter on the ground of purpose. You do not allow anything to obscure the name which God has been pleased to put upon us.
We have the benefit of His name, we have a name which God has been pleased to put upon us; hence we are bidden to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, holding forth the word of life!