REVIEW:
Week 1 - Creation (Genesis 1-2): God created purpose out of the void. He turned the void into his temple, all of Creation in which he dwells. He has no equal. He has no predecessor or successor. None oppose him. All of Creation exists for his good pleasure and glory. Man and Woman are priests in God’s temple. Humankind cooperates with God in care of Creation, the temple of God. God does not share his temple with any other authority.
Week 2 - The Fall of Humanity (Genesis 3-11): Sin entered the world. It made its way from personal sin to the sin of a community, became systemic sin, taking hold of society in general and finally perverting people's image of and relationship with God. Humans no longer recognize the authority of God, Creation as God’s temple, and humanity’s place as priests made in God’s image. Humans instead elevate their own authority, build their own temples, make gods in their own image, and coerce their created gods to fulfill their needs. This was the tower of Babel.
Week 3 – The Flood (Genesis 6-9): Humans have destroyed God’s Creation. Having been entirely perverted from God’s original purpose, it has returned to a state of void. God uses his servant Noah to build a gigantic boat on dry land, in which mankind and the animal kingdom are saved as God recreates his temple as he originally intended.
Week 4 - Covenant (Genesis 12-15): Before God solved the Eden problem (sin) he was determined to solve the Babel problem (a perverted view of his identity). In his covenant with Abram, Abram sacrificed his family, gods, land, and inheritance. In return God began to reveal himself in humanity through Abram’s life, and later through Abram’s descendants, and finally through Abraham’s descendants, Jesus. Abram was blessed, Abram was a blessing, and through Abram, God revealed himself.
In Genesis 16-20, we see Abram and Sarai take their first faltering steps toward understanding again who this Creator God is, and what it means for him to live as God intended, as priests in and to Creation, his world.
Abram is an ambassador, a light in the darkness showing the nature of God to a world who has forgotten who God is. As God’s chosen priest, how does God show himself in Abram’s life? What special relationship does he share with Abram, and how does this reveal his nature? How does Abram interact with the rest of humanity now that he has been promoted to this position in God’s covenant? What is required of Abram in his interactions with those still not of this special covenant?
Micah 6:8
He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
Act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly.
God patiently reveals himself to Abram, even allowing him to cooperate in his work on earth. As Abram comes to know God better, God also uses Abram’s actions and words, both good and bad, to further his plan to reveal himself to all nations of the world, and to bless them through his covenant people.
At Abram’s best, he speaks and acts according to this verse in Micah. At Abram’s worst, God steps in to do so on his behalf.
STORY 1 – ABRAHAM AND SODOM
Abraham prays for mercy and does not judge guilty Sodom.
Genesis 18:16-33
16 When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way. 17 Then the LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? 18 Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. 19 For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.”
20 Then the LORD said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous 21 that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”
22 The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the LORD. 23 Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”
26 The LORD said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”
27 Then Abraham spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, 28 what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city because of five people?”
“If I find forty-five there,” he said, “I will not destroy it.”
29 Once again he spoke to him, “What if only forty are found there?”
He said, “For the sake of forty, I will not do it.”
30 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?”
He answered, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”
31 Abraham said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?”
He said, “For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it.”
32 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?”
He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”
33 When the LORD had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.
The visitors to Abraham tell him that God intends to destroy Sodom because of his relationship with God. God’s covenant is a special relationship that he now has with Abraham. Like Adam and Eve in the garden, or like Noah and the ark, God is again sharing his plans and his work with mankind.
Abraham intercedes for Sodom. Abraham's attitude toward the Sodomites was to intercede for them, praying to God for mercy on their behalf, and his relationship with God allowed him the privilege.
God promised Abraham that he and his descendants would be a blessing to the world. Here we see an example of Abraham acting according to the covenant relationship God established. He dares to make requests of God. And God listens. Abraham interceded on behalf of Ishmael in the previous chapter. Here, he prays for mercy on behalf of the people of Sodom. These people are not part of God’s covenant, and God has made it clear that they do not deserve mercy. Still Abraham prays.
Abraham's intercession taught Abraham about the nature of God's justice.
Genesis 19 contains some of the most disgusting and horrific of all the stories in Genesis so far. It’s most significant story is that of God’s judgment and destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Like Noah, God seeks to save one family from destruction, the family of Lot, Abraham’s relatives. Unlike Noah, we see a dramatic and dark story of Lot desperately trying to save as many of the city as he is able. He barely escapes with only his two daughters with him.
Lot's family living in Sodom was six people. Only four left the city. Only three made it all the way out to safety.
In Genesis 18 and 19, both Abraham and Lot have opportunities to make an impact on their communities and neighbours. Abraham prays. Lot shows mercy. Lot pleads for justice. Lot tries to warn of God's coming judgment. In the end, even Lot's wife does not make it. Abraham and Lot acted as priests and prophets, and YHWH allowed them both to know what he was up to the whole time, which he explicitly states is because of his covenant with Abraham. Abraham's intercession gives opportunity to consider the impact of the righteous in a wicked land. How many does it take to make a difference? According to God, even ten in a city can influence the city for righteousness.
His priests are to act justly. His priests intercede for mercy. Only God is final judge.
STORY 2 – ABRAM, SARAH, AND ISHMAEL
Abraham prays for blessing for his beloved Ishmael.
Genesis 16:1-2, 4-10
1 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; 2 so she said to Abram, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her.”
4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.
When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. 5 Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me.”
7 The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. 8 And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”
“I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.
9 Then the angel of the LORD told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” 10 The angel added, “I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count.”
The union of Hagar and Abram for children was culturally acceptable and practiced commonly as a way of securing an heir.
Was Hagar's ill treatment of Hagar in order to make her miscarry? Whatever the reason, Sarah is hateful, Abraham is complicit, and Hagar is innocent.
God sees Hagar in her distress, and helps her. She is not forgotten. He also blesses Ishmael with many descendants.
God promises to see Hagar, and it is based on this promise that she can return. She does not need to fear that she will miscarry, because God promised her son will be born, and she will have many descendants.
Abram may have felt as though he was justified in his behaviour. Perhaps he did not feel he had even done anything wrong. However, in this story we see Abram now seeing his banished second wife return, with the blessing of the God of his covenant. He had months to consider what this meant as he watched the woman he sent away give him his first born son, who he would come to dearly love.
Even in Abram’s ill treatment of his own family, God revealed himself as merciful, patient, and just.
Over thirteen years later, after Abram has had Ishmael’s lifetime to place his hopes and dreams upon him, God visits him again to reveal his nature further.
Genesis 17
1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. 2 I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.”
3 Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, 4 “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. 5 No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. 6 I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. 7 I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. 8 The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.”
9 Then God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. 10 This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner—those who are not your offspring. 13 Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”
15 God also said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. 16 I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.”
17 Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” 18 And Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!”
19 Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. 20 And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. 21 But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.” 22 When he had finished speaking with Abraham, God went up from him.
Chapter 17 is a focal point in the life of Abraham, both thematically and in the literary structure of the text itself.
In this chapter Abraham and Sarah both receive a name change. One may read that from this point on God has changed their very characters. God also reveals the name of their promised son, and the specifics of his birth. So in a certain sense Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac all appear for the first time in this chapter.
Everything in Abraham’s life up until this chapter has led to the birth of Ishmael. If the story had ended in the last chapter, one may have assumed that the story ended with the birth of Ishmael as God’s promised son. It is in this chapter that God reveals for the first time that Ishmael is not the son of the promise, when he is already thirteen years old. Everything changes here.
In the Creation accounts of Genesis we saw a parallel structure occur in the first six days. The first eleven chapters of Genesis also have a parallel structure, with events happening in a cycle, matching previous events. Genesis 2:4, however, gives an example of a different kind of literary structure, called a chiasmus. The end of the verse mirrors the first half of the verse. The entire story of Abraham (Genesis 12-25) follows this special literary structure, the chiasmus. The first incident in Abraham’s life mirrors the last, the second mirrors the second last, and so on. According to this structure, Chapter 17 is near, or at, the centre of the mirrored episodes.
Any way you look at it, this chapter calls us to sit up and pay attention.
Abraham laughs at the idea of having children, and asks God to bless Ishmael instead.
Ishmael is thirteen years old. This is the first time we see God telling Abraham that Ishmael is not the son of the promise. That gave Abraham thirteen years of establishing a loving relationship with Ishmael, and placing upon him all his hopes and dreams for his legacy and birthright. A significant amount of time has passed between this chapter and the last chapter, when Hagar was sent away. Abraham loves his son, and it is not at all surprising that he should ask God to bless him.
Just as he will act as a mediating priest, interceding for Sodom in the next chapter, a people not of the covenant, here Abraham intercedes on behalf of Ishmael, also not of the covenant.
God blesses Ishmael. He does not say he will establish the same covenant with him, but he does bless him. This is another example of intercession by Abraham for those outside the covenant, and God’s willing response.
Abraham is a priest in God’s temple, and a blessing to ALL nations of the world.
STORY 3 – ABRAHAM, SARAH, AND ABIMELECH
Abraham judges a heathen king unrighteously. God leads him to pray for Abimelech’s healing.
Genesis 20:1-13, 17-18
3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream one night and said to him, “You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman.”
4 Now Abimelech had not gone near her, so he said, “Lord, will you destroy an innocent nation? 5 Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister,’ and didn’t she also say, ‘He is my brother’? I have done this with a clear conscience and clean hands.”
6 Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know you did this with a clear conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against me. That is why I did not let you touch her. 7 Now return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all yours will die.”
8 Early the next morning Abimelech summoned all his officials, and when he told them all that had happened, they were very much afraid. 9 Then Abimelech called Abraham in and said, “What have you done to us? How have I wronged you that you have brought such great guilt upon me and my kingdom? You have done things to me that should not be done.” 10 And Abimelech asked Abraham, “What was your reason for doing this?”
11 Abraham replied, “I said to myself, ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’ 12 Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not of my mother; and she became my wife. 13 And when God had me wander from my father’s household, I said to her, ‘This is how you can show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, “He is my brother.”’”
17 Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife and his slave girls so they could have children again, 18 for the LORD had closed up every womb in Abimelech’s household because of Abraham’s wife Sarah.
Abraham uses the same deception with Sarah as he did in chapter 12. Abimelech is a king, and takes Sarah like she was taken in Egypt. Though the text did not say that she did not have sex with the first king, this time she is spared by God's mercy.
Abimelech is also spared. God tells Abimelech that it is his mercy that has stopped him from sinning unintentionally. Abraham was deceptive. God stepped in and exposed Abraham by his sovereign grace.
Notice how similar Abimelech’s prayer is to Abraham’s prayer for Sodom in chapter 18. Abimelech pleads to God for justice based on his innocence. In response, God tells Abimelech to ask Abraham to pray for him. Even in Abraham’s worse moments, God still calls him his prophet.
A prophet has a role of mediator between man and God, and can pray on people's behalf.
Abraham has a very different attitude toward Abimelech and his nation than he did toward Sodom. For Sodom he pleaded that God would have mercy, though they were not a people of the covenant, and under God’s judgment. Here, Abraham excuses his lie because Abimelech and his people are outside of God’s covenant.
But God gives Abraham no excuse. Abraham’s lie is revealed, and it is this “heathen” nation (by Abraham’s judgment), that God chooses to rescue.
After Sarah is returned, Abraham intercedes again, just as he did for Sodom. At Sodom, he prayed by his own will for mercy for a nation under judgment. Here, at God’s command, he prays for mercy for an innocent nation.
In both cases, God reveals himself as the only one who can judge those outside the covenant. In both cases, Abraham is led by God to act justly, but forbidden to judge. In every case with those outside the covenant, Abraham is led by God to act as a humble intercessor, always on the side of mercy, blessing, and grace for all around him.
Micah 6:8
He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
Ishmael, Sodom, and Abimelech were all outside of God’s Covenant.
Ishmael was innocent, and dearly loved by Abraham.
Sodom was guilty, as Abraham pleaded for God to have mercy, Lot pleaded with Sodom to flee.
Abimelech the heathen king was innocent, and unjustly judged by Abraham.
In every case, God led Abraham to humbly pray for blessing, for mercy, and for healing for each.
It is a significant example of the nature of God’s intention for his covenant people that Abraham’s relationship with God is so often shown as that of a mediating intercessor between God and the world. This finds its final fulfillment in Jesus, the one and perfect mediator between God and mankind. As we follow Christ’s example, we continue as God’s people to live mercifully, humbly, and prayerfully among and for our neighbours. We pray for strangers, for those we love, and we leave judgment to God.
Abraham is a type of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the mediator between God and humanity. He takes the judgment of Sodom on himself, and God declares us not guilty.
He is the perfect intercessor to pray for us, because he paid the price for God’s mercy toward us.
Hebrews 8:6
But in fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises.
1 Timothy 2:1-5
1 I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— 2 for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3 This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all men—the testimony given in its proper time.
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
By faith, and in the power of Holy Spirit, we walk humbly as intercessors in the world. By demonstration and proclamation of the gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven, God reveals his nature through us to all nations of the world.
Let us pray for mercy for those of us and those not of us.
Let us speak and act for justice for those of us and those not of us.
Let us walk humbly.
God is the final judge.
(Next Week - Imagine there’s no Heaven (It’s easy if you try) – Genesis 21-25)
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