ABRAHAM, PROMISES OF GOD, AND PATIENCE

ABRAHAM, PROMISES OF GOD, AND PATIENCE

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One atheist explained why he had abandoned the Christian faith. He had prayed and prayed that God would undo his same-sex attraction. However, after years of waiting, he decided to wait no longer and jumped-ship. This same story is repeated thousands of times and for many different frustrated prayer-requests.

The patriarch Abraham was also ready to abandon hope in the promises of God. Sarah, his wife, had been barren. God promised Abraham a son, but he would first have to leave his family for an alien land. However, after 11 years of waiting, Abraham still hadn’t received the promised child. Therefore, he appointed his servant as his heir. However, God appeared to Abraham in a vision, beckoned him to look at the stars in the sky, and promised him that his offspring would be as numerous, and Abraham believed Him:

∑       And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness. And he said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” But he said, “O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying…(Genesis 15:6-18)

It was hard for Abraham to believe God after waiting for 11 years for the promised son and heir. He therefore asked God for confirmation, and so God ordered him to get together the necessary ingredients to make a covenant, a guarantee. Abraham, therefore, constructed a path outlined by the carcasses of animal parts between which the pledger would walk, proclaiming, “Let the bloody fate of these animals come upon me if I fail to fulfill the promise of the covenant” (see Jeremiah 34).

God then passed through the middle of these carcasses, making His pledge. Interestingly, what should have been a great and joyous occasion for Abraham became “dreadful.” Besides, God manifested Himself with the symbols of His wrath – “a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch.”

Why wrath? Because God’s promise would have to ultimately be fulfilled through His wrath and judgment falling upon His Son who would be judged for our sins. This is just one of the many Old Testament portraits of Christ and His Cross. This is why Jesus claimed, “Abraham saw my day and was glad” (John 8:56).

Abraham needed patience. He would have to wait for an addition 14 years for the birth of His promised son Isaac. During this time, He again despaired and decided to impregnate a servant woman, Hagar, so that he could have an heir, Ishmael. However, Abraham’s failure of faith only achieved disorder and tension within his family.

Nevertheless, God remained true to His promise to Abraham. After waiting 25 years, Abraham finally received the promised son.

We too must wait. Just because we do not receive what we have asked for within our timeframe, we should not despair. Instead, we too need patience in order to receive the promises of God:

∑       For you have need of endurance [“patience”], so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. (Hebrews 10:36)

INTERPRETIVE PROBLEMS FOR THE “CHRISTIAN” EVOLUTIONIST

“Christian” evolutionists (CE), led by the Biologos Foundation, deny that Genesis is about historical facts. One just wrote:

∑       Creationists…are proponents of the strictest form of biblical inerrancy and literalism. And in this mode they are actually advancing a mirror-image of scientism, in which God’s revelation, both in Scripture and in creation, is meant to convey a list of facts.

However, to deny the historical facts of Genesis is to encounter insurmountable interpretive problems. How then do we interpret the genealogies of Genesis if they are not historical, or the New Testament references to the creation account as historical? Can we understand these accounts when torn loose from their historical context? Let’s take a look at the account of the creation of Eve, which the Apostle Paul had certified as an historical event (1 Corinthians 11:7-8):

∑       So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:21-24 ESV)

This had followed God’s proclamation that “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18) and then led Adam to examine the animal kingdom. Of course, Adam could not find a suitable match among them. He might have also observed that they each had their partners, something that God would remedy through the creation of a woman who would be closer to him – one flesh – than the animals were with their sexual partners. God often provides after awaking our longing, showing us our need.

Paul had also argued for role distinction based upon the historicity of this account:

∑       For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. (1 Timothy 2:13-14, referring to Genesis 2 and 3)

Had these things not historically taken place, Paul’s reasoning would have been flawed at the core.

However, the CE comes equipped with a different interpretive context. Since Adam had evolved from a long line of pre-humans, he should already have been surrounded by numerous choices. What then does the CE make of the fact that Adam had been alone, and God had declared that it wasn’t good for him to be alone. Perhaps the CE might take this to mean that Adam’s female companions were just not moral, intelligent, or even educated enough for Adam?

Why then would God have Adam name and examine the animal kingdom for a helpmate, while he was surrounded by a range of eligible human/hominoid females to choose from, even perhaps his own sisters? And why would Adam be delighted when presented with Eve, unless she was the only female human available? Why would he say, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh?” Why hadn’t Adam been satisfied with the other female humans? Perhaps, he was a narcissist who was only delighted with a female made out of him.

What spiritual message does this impart? That narcissism is what God blesses? That we should consider cloning our future mates?

This, of course, is all ridiculous, but it should expose the CE fallacy. When the CE undermines the historical context in favor of the imposed context of evolution, it is impossible to arrive at the intended theological meaning.

After all, can we fault Cain for killing his brother Abel? Wasn’t it just a matter of the survival-of-the-fittest, in conformity with God’s grand plan of creation? When the CE rejects the historicity of Genesis, he also rejects the Word and wisdom of God. He is left in confusion, without the assurances of Scripture. Consequently, the CE imbibes the “truths” of his professional culture.