Literally Abraham
For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” - Romans 4:3
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In Galatians 3:11, Paul states, “Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’” The writer to the Hebrews concurs when, in 11:6 he says, “[W]ithout faith it is impossible to please [God].”
Faith is the heart of it all, the thing without which we can neither spiritually live nor please God.
Particularly, it is the faith that Abraham possessed and demonstrated which we must adopt ourselves:
“…Abraham ‘believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness[.]’ Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’ So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.” - Galatians 3:6-9
So each of us, Jew and Gentile alike, are to emulate Abraham and share with him in the faith that he placed in God.
So what was that faith? How did it work, precisely?
A couple of short passages:
In hope [Abraham] believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” - Romans 4:18-22
By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. - Hebrews 11:17-19
What I hope is evident from these scriptures is not just that Abraham believed God, but how he did so.
He took God at His word. Literally, you might say.
When God told Abraham that he would have a son through which all the nations of the world would be blessed, he believed that he would have a son: an actual, real, literal son. He didn’t spiritualize the promise away or consider it to be a metaphorical representation of something else, despite the apparent physical impossibility of his and Sarah’s bodies to conceive.
And later, when the Lord told Abraham to offer up Isaac, that is precisely what he did. He literally, physically took Isaac up the mountain to literally, physically kill him as an offering. It is not until many centuries later that the Holy Spirit via the writer of Hebrews tells us that Abraham’s trust that God was able to raise Isaac from the dead is what strengthened him to offer Isaac in the first place. But offer Isaac he did.
So even in the face of complete non-comprehension and physical impossibility, Abraham took God at His word: at His literal, straight-forward, clear, plain word. He didn’t allow his lack of understanding to keep him from obeying God literally. He didn’t assume that God must’ve meant something different or that He was somehow speaking symbolically. Abraham believed what he was told to believe as he was told to believe it and obeyed in like fashion.
Too often we are convinced to come to the conclusion that the plain reading of scripture is somehow deficient or juvenile. That, for some reason, the spiritual nature of the prophecies and commands of God and our inability to either accept or comprehend them as they are written means that a metaphorical, allegorical understanding of the text is more enlightened, more spiritual, and more true.
Abraham demonstrates that quite the opposite is the case.
I have recently encountered online those from other eschatological persuasions who openly mock the idea that Christ will return “on the clouds,” or that the size of the New Jerusalem described in Revelation 21 could ever be literal because of its seeming physical impossibility.
These same people, however, seem to have no problem accepting the idea that Christ literally walked on water, brought Lazarus back to life after he was dead or, fascinatingly enough, ascended into the clouds in front of hundreds of witnesses.
So Christ can literally ascend into the clouds but the idea that He will return that way is a stupidity worthy of open mockery.
These are the kinds of contradictory and incoherent conclusions that traditions based on something other than scripture cause us to reach. Unfortunately, many of us are far more interested in defending a system or a tradition than we are in a consistent and faithful reading of the Word.
Abraham shows us a better way. And it is his faith - both in what he believed and how he believed it - that the Bible tells us is the model and exemplar for the rest of us. His faith epitomizes what ours ought to be like.
Don’t fall for the traditions of men, no matter how intellectual, deep or interesting they may seem. Don’t reject the plain teachings of scripture because they seem impossible or contrary to what you know of God. Place your trust in God and in His word, just as Abraham did, and acknowledge that His ways are not our ways (Is. 55:8) and that our own understanding is not a reliable basis for wisdom (Prov. 3:5-6).
Be like Abraham. Share in his faith. Believe what he believed in the way that he believed it.
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