Now, let us take a look at one more statement of the promise, this time we will skip over to Genesis 22. (We were here on Monday. Mike Ford spent a lot of time here. John retouched upon it.) This incident takes place just after God aborted the sacrifice of Isaac.
God here promises that the influence of Abraham will stretch far beyond their immediate geographic bounds, but will extend all the way to their enemies' gates.
As another example, we all understand that from Abraham have come numbers of kings, historically, and numbers of great nations, foremost of them being modern-day Ephraim and Manasseh. Again, we understand that modern-day Israelite nations possess (or have possessed) their enemies' geographic gates.
As a third point, we will focus on that predominate thread we saw in so many of God's promises to Abraham—lots of descendants (population). Did this promise preach the gospel of the Kingdom to Abraham? If so, how?
Again, there have been typical fulfillments of this promise. We certainly cannot deny that fact. I will not ask you to turn to I Kings 4:20, but I will just read it very quickly. There it tells us that, in the days of Solomon, "Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand by the sea..." It uses that same metaphor, that same type of terminology we found in the Genesis promises, that Israel will be populous today. And, Israel will be populous in the Millennium, a time when God "will multiply them... and they shall not diminish" I will refer you to Jeremiah 30:19. There God says, "I will multiply Israel and they shall not diminish." There are certainly national fulfillments (in type) of this promise.
But this promise of God to Abraham has its final fulfillment in the context of the Kingdom. I am going to string together a bunch of scriptures. I will not ask you to turn to them. I will just go through them rather quickly for lack of time. You know them very well. In II Peter 3:9, the Apostle Peter tells us that,
All. That is a lot of people. As well, I would refer you to I Timothy 2:4. The Apostle Paul tells us of God's commitment to save as many as possible.
Does Paul not tell us that "All Israel shall be saved?" (Romans 11:26). The Prophet Isaiah, as recorded in Isaiah 2, makes it clear that "all nations shall flow" to the nation of God. And as another example you might want to take a look sometime at Isaiah 9:7. Here Isaiah writes, "Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end." The Prophet does not simply assert here that the government of God will not end (of course that is true) but what he says is that it will never cease to grow. It will forever increase. It will forever get bigger. How many sons will Abraham have 50 billion of years from now? The very thought challenges the fringes of our imaginations.
The fifth point (and it is the final point), let us consider God's promise in the book of Genesis that "[I]n [Abraham's] seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed." We saw that in Genesis 22:18. This promise as well preaches the gospel to Abraham.
And at God's command, that is exactly what we have been doing today. We have been going back to Abraham. You can go right back to Abraham to see the principles of faith in God. He, we are told, "believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness." Can you not see, then, that all those who believe God are the real sons of Abraham? The scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the gentiles by faith, really proclaimed the gospel centuries ago in the words spoken to Abraham, "In [you] shall all nations be blessed." All men of faith share the blessing of Abraham who believed God.
I need to make a statement about that last sentence. What we understand that to mean is all men of the faith"—not just any faith—will share in the inheritance of God's Kingdom. Let us now drop down to verse 16. Paul here is absolutely explicit. He could not be any more explicit. The promise to … . . .
Modern translations will translate that first phrase, "This man [meaning Christ] was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge." Yes, men were involved in the conspiracy to kill Christ and men were guilty of what they did, but God had planned His death and He made sure that it was accomplished. So the words "spare not" in Romans 8:32 are interesting in light of the Abraham/Isaac episode in Genesis 22:16-17:
The King James and the New King James both say, "withheld." However the Septuagint says in those verses, "spared." God spared Isaac. And thus when Paul wrote this he paralleled the Septuagint to more forcefully enforce the instruction that he is giving here. It was in Abraham's mind to actually sacrifice Isaac; however, God intervened and spared Isaac.
This episode foreshadowed the sacrifice of His Son; however, when the reality occurred—that is the sacrifice of Christ—He didn't spare His own Son like He spared Isaac. He made sure it happened because He loves us. It was the only way to have our sins wiped out without killing us to pay for them, because there was only one Life that was worthwhile enough to do that. He did this despite the fact that Jesus was the only human being who ever lived that deserved to be spared. God taught Abraham, through this episode, of the Savior to come. That's why Abraham named that place "Jehovah-jireh" meaning "the Lord will provide," and God provided by not sparing Jesus.
What I am headed off on here, so that you can follow, is that you will see that the promises are gradually expanded. God knew exactly what He was doing. But we cannot grasp everything at once, can we? We cannot. And so God gives us a little bit here, a little bit there, and we can begin to see the promise growing into something that is so awesome that we cannot contain it!
There are two things here. We see that the number of Abraham's children is going to be what you might say virtually uncountable. But right then, there was only really Isaac. That was it. Ishmael did not count yet. But eventually even he will be included within it as well.
In addition to that, Abraham's descendants are promised the gate of their enemies. We would have to see the whole context here. The context really is all nations of the earth will be blessed because of Abraham's descendants. So the phrase "gate of their enemies" implies worldwide possession of multiple gates.
So you can see that the promise is expanding—Canaan, between the two rivers, and now we are getting implications of worldwide possession. It keeps getting more and more specific.
Although it is not something we in America would necessarily take note of, there was a significant Israelite anniversary this past week. It occurred on Wednesday. If you will remember (from Genesis 22:17), God promised Abraham that his descendants would possess the gate of their enemies. Mr. Armstrong always interpreted this to mean that the vital sea-gates around the world, particularly the sea-gates, such as the Panama Canal, Suez Canal, the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Horn, Hong Kong, and other places like that, would be held in Israelitish hands. Therefore the Israelite nations would control shipping and commerce, and the movement of people and goods all around the earth. And of course, in times of war they would be strategic military points.
Now the promises and blessings are sure.
This was a huge step in the plan of God. Abraham proved to God that he had been totally steadfast, and he becomes a great example of faith to us.
Now, things are really moving because now in Isaac's seed all the nations shall be blessed. Big, terrific step in God's plan has just been set upon.
He adds to the dust—we have sand, stars which are considered to be countless. We see here strength, power, greatness in number. And not only that, those who come from Abraham are going to sit in strategic locations like doors and gates, letting people in and out.
So the physical promise becomes unconditional here, because Abraham obeyed God, because Abraham put God first.
