ABRAHAM AND THE NATURE OF FAITH
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The simplest questions are often the hardest to answer, but they also might be the most important. For example, “What is faith?” The life of Abraham answers this question. After about ten years of sojourning in the Promised Land, Abraham had lost faith in what God had promised him – that if he would leave his family and go to a land that God would show him, He would give him many descendants (Genesis 12:1-3, 7).
However, after ten years of waiting for the promise, Abraham despaired and had resigned himself to the disappointing likelihood that his servant Eliezer would be his heir. However, the Word of the Lord came to him again through a vision:
∑ And behold, the word of the LORD came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” (Genesis 15:4)
The Lord then led Abraham outside to look at the sky and told him that his offspring would be as numerous as the stars, and Abraham believed the Word of the Lord:
∑ And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:6)
This doesn’t mean that Abraham’s faith was now filled with a glowing and unquenchable feeling of confidence. It certainly wasn’t. Even though Abraham believed, he asked God to reassure him regarding this Word:
∑ But he said, “O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” (Genesis 15:8)
God granted Abraham his request by pledging Himself to His Word through a formal covenant. What then is faith? It is not exactly peace of mind and emotion, although this might be the result of faith. There is no indication in this account that Abraham’s faith was accompanied by a glowing, warm, and fuzzy experience. Instead, God’s covenantal pledge to Abraham was associated with a “dreadful and great darkness” which came down upon him (Genesis 15:12). Besides, the presence of God was accompanied by symbols of His wrath as He made this pledge to Abraham. (Why was it that such a great promise was associated with dread? I think that this was indicating that, in order to fulfill His pledge, the Son would have to die for the sins of the world – 2 Corinthians 1:20. Thus, God was giving Abraham a foretaste of the Gospel.)
Let me further illustrate this principle. My wife had once coaxed me to go on the rollercoaster with her. Although I believed that I would survive this ordeal, it felt as if I was going to die. This means that even when we go through times of great emotional upset, it doesn’t mean that we are not trusting in the Lord. Instead, it points to the fact that our flesh is often unwilling to comply with our renewed heart (Romans 7:24-25; Galatians 5:17). These two parts are at war. It is, therefore, important to realize that when we sin, it doesn’t mean that as a new creation in Christ, we are sinning, but rather, it is the sin that remains in us:
∑ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. (Romans 7:20)
What then is faith? It is fundamentally a willingness and a commitment to take God at His Word, even when it hurts and doesn’t make any sense to us. It is a matter of trusting in the Word rather than in ourselves. Abraham trusted when God tested him with His Word. He asked Abraham to offer his son Isaac, the child of the promise, as a burnt offering. Abraham must have been tormented by this trial, but he trusted in the Word of God:
∑ 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… (Hebrews 11:17-19)
After perhaps 40 years of his sojourning in the Promised Land, God had proven Himself trustworthy. His Word hadn’t failed, and Abraham was convinced that His Word wouldn’t fail this time, even if he had to put his son to death.
We too often get discouraged with the lack of feelings of certitude that we think should accompany our faith. Instead, if we regard faith for what it is, a willingness and a commitment to take God at His Word, we will not despair by looking inward to the level of our faith instead of at the Word of God. Instead, the question that confronts us is this: “Are we willing to obey even when it is not convenient and doesn’t feel good?”
However, this too is not easy. It wasn’t for Abraham. A few years later, Abraham again despaired of the Word of the Lord. Instead, he placed his trust in his own ill-advised devices and impregnated their servant girl, Hagar, in order to produce his heir. Although this didn’t thwart the plan of God, it did produce a ton of heartache.
Generally, trusting in the Word of the Lord must be accompanied by despairing of self-trust and our unbiblical devices to accomplish our goals. After all, who is willing to wait on God and His promises if we can obtain the desired results on our own! Faith in God’s Word may never be perfect. However, our trust in Him has to be greater than our trust in anything else, and usually we have to learn this trust the hard way, as Paul had explained:
∑ For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. (2 Corinthians 1:8-10)
Learning to trust in God means learning to distrust in ourselves. Abraham had to learn that his best bet was with the Word of God. Yahweh appeared to him when he was about 100 years old and still childless and promised him that in the next year Sarah his wife would give birth to the promised heir, Isaac (Genesis 18). By this time, all of his own maneuvers had failed him. He was more than ready to trust in the Word of God:
∑ 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. (Romans 4:19-21)
How did Abraham grow strong in his faith? Through the many lessons that God had taught him over the trying years of his sojourn! During this time, he learned to give the “Glory to God,” acknowledging that God will do what He has promised. As Abraham learned that he couldn’t trust in himself, his cup was emptied enough to begin to trust in God.
However, Paul’s statement is perplexing. He claimed that Abraham did not waiver in his faith. However, right after Yahweh promised that He would give them a son through his wife Sarah, Abraham traveled to Gerar, where he, once again, passed off Sarah as his sister and not his wife. Consequently, the king took her for his harem, but God intervened by tormenting the king and his nation with such a horrible disease that they could not have sex. In a dream, He then warned the king to return Sarah lest he die. After he did this, the king asked Abraham to explain his unfaithfulness. Abraham explained:
∑ “And when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘This is the kindness you must do me: at every place to which we come, say of me, “He is my brother.”’” (Genesis 20:13)
Consequently, it seems that Abraham did waiver in his faith. How do we explain this paradox? Let me make a suggestion. Abraham now knew better. He had to trust in the Word of God, but he had succumbed out of fear and not disbelief.
If this distinction doesn’t seem palatable, take a look at a few examples from the “Hall of Fame of Faith” – Hebrews 11:11, 27, 29. In each instance, from our perspective, it appears that these individuals had been without faith. However, our God is very gracious and sees faith where we don’t see it. Let me cite one of these verses to illustrate this truth:
∑ By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned. (Hebrews 11:29)
If this seems strange, it is for good reason. The original account shows us that Israel rebelled against God as the Egyptian chariots were approaching:
∑ [Israel] said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” (Exodus 14:11-12)
Nevertheless, in the midst of their rebellion, God graciously saw faith in Israel. Likewise, it might seem that we too waiver in our faith, but our Savior might be seeing something very different. Over the years, our Lord grew the faith of Abraham to the point that he was willing to sacrifice his son. Don’t worry that you are weak in faith. Take heart! Our Lord will restore us.
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