LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
The Privilege of Abraham
In Genesis chapter 15 we have the magnificent episode in which Abraham was declared righteous for believing God. Verse 6: "And he believed the Lord, and it was counted unto him for righteousness", is the beginning of justification by faith in the world. Many sons in faith Abraham has had since then, who have been as blessed as the father.
This is the imputed righteousness of God, not according to works, but according to faith. However, the fruits of that righteousness, that is, the fulfillment of the promise, were to come later. On the other hand, after this episode in Genesis 15, we have Abraham living in various troubles. The imputed justice is not yet the justice personified, incarnated and expressed in all its beauty. There is Abraham's setback with Hagar and its painful consequences; there is also the shameful fall before Abimelech. But Isaac was born, and with him the first part of the promise was fulfilled. However, we still do not have Abraham transformed by grace.
Only in chapter 22 do we find an event that shows us the mature fruit of righteousness, the complete transformation that it operates in the believing man. God asked Abraham to offer the son of promise on the altar of sacrifice. It was impossible for an ordinary man to perform that act. But Abraham was no longer an ordinary man.
God wanted to manifest in figure, in anticipation, what he himself would do some eighteen hundred years later, by offering his son Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. What man could God use to express such a great act of self-sacrifice? Undoubtedly, it had to be someone in whom God had been working for a long time. From that event in Genesis 15 to this one in Genesis 22, probably some forty years have passed in Abraham's life.
The righteousness that had first been imputed was now a glorious reality in the man Abraham, whose character had been entirely transformed. He was now righteous by attribution and righteous by conduct. To represent God in the offering of his own Son, he had to be righteous in every way, as God had said to him: "I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be thou perfect" (Gen. 17:1). What satisfaction God must have felt in finding a man whom he could use to express his own character. Isn't this our greatest goal and privilege?
It is true: God's character was hidden until the Son of God made it known (John 1:18). However, in many places in the Old Testament we find episodes that show us in advance the delicate feeling of His heart. Here we have the Father, obeying a tremendously superior law of love, for the salvation of men, offering His own Son, His only one, whom He loved as Himself, so that others might be rescued.
Abraham's privilege was to show long before, in himself, part of the wonderful character of God. And he did it well. So much so, that the words of God that followed the offering of Isaac are among the most heartfelt that God ever spoke to a man. From then on he was called "God's friend". How much of God's character can be expressed through believers today? How many can receive this beautiful appellation of "friend of God"?