Abraham, Prince of a Promise

Genesis 12:

6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.

7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.”

Abram is no longer a Sheik of Ur. He is no longer a Sheik of the land between the rivers or of Haran. Abram is now a Prince only of promise. Yet the promise is from the Lord. Repeatedly, Abram worships the Lord. Consistently, Abram follows the command of the Lord by faith.

7b So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

8 From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east.

And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.

9 And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.

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I ask you now, who are you following? Abram is no longer following his father. He is no longer following his family ways. Who are you following by faith? The Lord? Or perhaps some idol or false god in your life?

Though Abraham lived thousands of years ago, One Is before him, after him, and among us.

John 8:

56 “.. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”

57 So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”

58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

God IS! The Lord after Abraham identified Himself to Moses and the Hebrew descendants of Abraham as “I AM.” Jesus, the Lord makes this same true claim!

Hebrews 6:

The Certainty of God’s Promise

¹³ For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, ¹⁴ saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” ¹⁵ And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise.

¹⁶ For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. ¹⁷ So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, ¹⁸ so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.

¹⁹ We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, ²⁰ where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

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A letter to the church reminds us of the promise of Abraham. Hebrews mentions Melchizedek, to whose story we will return in our next journey in Genesis. Jesus also points the focus of the Jews back to the faith of Abraham, in witness to His own identity. For Jesus clearly states, ‘Before Abraham was, I am.”

We cannot read of a life like Abraham or Jesus and imagine that it does not impact us personally, even today. The Jews looked to Abraham as example of God’s chosen forefather. Yet in Christ we look to God Incarnate, who was before Abraham, who is even now and who will be forever. We are not finished with our look back at Abraham or our look forward at Jesus.

To be continued…

NEXT: A tribute to Melchizedek