A Word of Faith (Genesis 15:1-20)

On June 10, 2023May 16, 2023 By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision:

“Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield,
your very great reward.”

But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”

Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”

But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”

So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”

Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut them in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.

As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates—the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, (New International Version)

*Abrahamic Covenant II, by Wayne Forte, 2007*

A Word about Abram and Sarai

We meet Abram and Sarai (later to be known as Abraham and Sarah) as a non-descript couple from a place called Ur of the Chaldees, a few chapters earlier in the opening biblical book of Genesis. It’s noted that Sarai is barren, or childless. (Genesis 11:30)

The Lord decided to choose a people for God’s own name, a singular people to become a kingdom of priest and a holy nation. The idea was that God would bless all the other nations through this one nation.

So, in what becomes something of a divine pattern, God chooses a most unlikely couple (old and childless) to become father and mother of this new nation to bless all other nations on earth. The Lord called them from their country of origin to leave and go to a new place. (Genesis 12:1-3)

Lo and behold, Abram and Sarai did just that. They left all they ever knew and journeyed to the new land, believing the promise of God, even though it didn’t make much sense. And there, they waited for a child, who would become the first of their many descendants, the child of promise.

And they waited. Time passed. They made a few sojourns into Egypt and back. But still no child. More time went by. Abram and Sarai were old when they came to the new land. Now, they’re really old! And still, no child. Then, finally, the Lord broke the silence.

The Word of the Lord

God’s initial words after all this time were, “Don’t be afraid.” We discover that anytime we hear that phrase spoken by the Lord, something good is about to happen. In fact, it’s great news.

But Abram seems discouraged, even with a fresh heart-to-heart with God. He and Sarai are still without a child. Instead of joy over God’s speech, Abram laments the ache of childlessness. Even though, by this time, Abram was wealthy, prosperous, and of good reputation, he feels the sting of a promise yet unfulfilled. God has still not granted him progeny for blessing the world.

A Word of Lament

Lament is, at its core, a complaint – an expression of grief in losing something or someone, or as in Abram’s case, of never having that something or someone to begin with.

It’s actually important for us to essentially make our problems into God’s problems. To tell God about our deepest hurts and unmet hopes is to implicate God in those hurts and hopes. It is to involve God in our disappointment.

In lament, we cry out to God in the belief that the Lord can and will respond to our painful cries and our deep desires. We believe God has the power and ability to respond. To complain to God is to have faith that God is faithful to divine promises—in spite of any nonsensical present circumstances.

Concerning matters about which God has made a promise, to complain is to remind the Lord of those unmet promises. In his lament, Abram was implying that God had not kept the promise, and had not yet proven faithful.

A Word of Response

Far from feeling perturbed that Abram laments instead of rejoices, God, in fact, responds by doubling-down on the original promise. Not only will there be a child, but that child’s descendants will be too many to even begin counting.

The Lord invited Abram to move his head from looking down at the bare ground to looking up at the magnificent stars. And in gazing upon the heavens, listening to the God whom he serves, Abram believed the Lord. And it was this faith which was credited to him as righteousness.

God is okay with being implicated in our problems. In fact, God welcomes it. Our deep grief, and our prayerful complaints, are a way of speaking which reminds God that God has promised to be faithful to divine promises. God doesn’t at all mind being held accountable to promises made.

Then, the Lord further responds by making a tangible expression of the intangible promise by means of a special sacrifice. God instructed Abram to involve some animal sacrifices and arrange them a certain way. When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between the arranged pieces of the sacrifice.

A Covenant Word

On that day, through a ritual observance, God made a covenant with Abram.

To make a covenant in the ancient world, animals were cut in half, and then the persons making the covenantal commitment walked down the middle between the animals.

In Abram’s ritual, however, it was the Lord—in the form of a smoking pot and a flaming torch—who passed down the middle and thus was the one making the promise.

The symbolism of the covenant ritual is this: The one making the promise passes between dead animals as a ritual promise that, if they should be unfaithful to the terms of the covenant, they are to be cut in half just as the sacrificed animal.

In other words, when the Lord passed between the cleaved goat, sheep, ram and birds, God was pledging complete commitment to Abram.

A New Covenant Word

In Christianity, the gospel is a free promise by God that requires the death of God. The promise of God to Abram, Christians believe, ultimately led to the very death of the Son of God, Jesus.

In order to be faithful to the divine promise, to Abraham and Sarah and their descendants, and to David, God took on human flesh, walked between the pieces, and died so that we might have life.

Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not. (Romans 4:16-17, NIV)

Amen.

Access to God (Exodus 24:1-11)

On April 26, 2023April 3, 2023 By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

*Moses on Mount Sinai, by* *Jean-Leon Gerome, Moses on Mount Sinai, 1895*

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of Israel’s elders, and worship from a distance. Only Moses may come near to the Lord. The others shouldn’t come near, while the people shouldn’t come up with him at all.”

Moses came and told the people all the Lord’s words and all the case laws. All the people answered in unison, “Everything that the Lord has said we will do.” Moses then wrote down all the Lord’s words. He got up early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain. He set up twelve sacred stone pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. He appointed certain young Israelite men to offer entirely burned offerings and slaughter oxen as well-being sacrifices to the Lord. Moses took half of the blood and put it in large bowls. The other half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the covenant scroll and read it out loud for the people to hear. They responded, “Everything that the Lord has said we will do, and we will obey.”

Moses then took the blood and threw it over the people. Moses said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord now makes with you on the basis of all these words.”

Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel went up, and they saw Israel’s God. Under God’s feet there was what looked like a floor of lapis-lazuli tiles, dazzlingly pure like the sky. God didn’t harm the Israelite leaders, though they looked at God, and they ate and drank. (Common English Bible)

*Mount Sinai, by Shlomo Katz (1937-1992)*

We all know the experience of taking something for granted. Over time, we might fail to appreciate what we truly have and the privilege we enjoy – particularly when it comes to the spiritual life.

In Christianity, believers are invited to come boldly before God in order to receive grace and help in a time of need, because we have been granted access by means of Christ’s blood. (Hebrews 4:16)

What we may, however, lose sight of is that the ability to do this was achieved at a great cost.

For anyone to approach God, there are some things which need to be in place. Getting near to the Lord, without provision for it to happen, is like looking directly into the sun on a cloudless day and expecting to observe it. Some major filtering needs to occur if we’re going to gaze at the sun.

In today’s Old Testament lesson, God makes it possible for the ancient Israelites to come near and enjoy a special relationship with the divine by establishing a covenant. The Lord put everything in place which was needed for an ongoing divine/human connection.

There was a ratification ceremony of this covenant relationship, involving blood, pledges to obey the moral and ethical Law, and a singular devotion and commitment to God alone. It was all topped-off with a meal, eating and drinking in the presence of Yahweh their God. Every ritual was highly symbolic of establishing a tight link between God and God’s covenant people.

Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord?
    Who may stand in his holy place?
The one who has clean hands and a pure heart,
    who does not trust in an idol
    or swear by a false god. (Psalm 24:3-4, NIV)

The trouble is that we cannot make ourselves pure in order to approach a perfectly pure and holy Being. God comes to humanity in waves – over the years, centuries, and millennia – so that we might become ever more close and intimate, as in the original relationship in the Garden.

All of the Law, the sacrifices, and the experiences at the mountain, pointed forward to a much greater fulfillment of the divine/human relationship.

“The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
    “when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
    and with the people of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant
    I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
    to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
    though I was a husband to them,”
declares the Lord.
“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
    after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
    and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
    and they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor,
    or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
    from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
    and will remember their sins no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34, NIV)

This new covenant finds its focus, according to the New Testament, in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Now, the ultimate access and approachability is accomplished by means of the suffering, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

*Mount Calvary, by William H. Johnson, 1944*

Christ did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!

For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant….

When Moses had proclaimed every command of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep.” In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world.

But he has appeared once, for all, at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:12-15, 19-28, NIV)

Believers in Jesus remember this covenant each time they gather at the Table, partaking of bread and cup, imbibing deeply of the grace given us.

We have no hoops to jump through; there are no gymnastics we need to perform in order to approach God. The way has been opened. The curtain has been torn. Access to God is available.

I arise early each morning, but it’s not to offer a blood sacrifice. Rather, I have the wonderful privilege of drawing near to God, and offering a sacrifice of praise. Doing this daily routine helps me to remember, and not take for granted, the incredible privilege I have of entering the Lord’s presence.

Gracious and merciful God, forgive me in any way that I have taken you for granted. I thank you for salvation and the spiritual blessings of your presence and power in my life. Help me to always be aware and grateful for Jesus Christ, who with you and the Holy Spirit are one God, now and forever. Amen.

The Blessing (Genesis 17:15-22)

On December 19, 2022November 22, 2022 By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment

God said to Abraham, “Don’t call your wife by the name Sarai anymore. Instead, her name is Sarah [Princess]. I will bless her, and I will also give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she will become a mother of nations, and kings will come from her.” Immediately, Abraham bowed with his face touching the ground. He laughed as he thought to himself, “Can a son be born to a hundred-year-old man? Can Sarah, a ninety-year-old woman, have a child?” Then Abraham said to God, “Why not let Ishmael be my heir?”

God replied, “No! Your wife Sarah will give you a son, and you will name him Isaac [He Laughs]. I will make an everlasting promise to him and his descendants. I have heard your request about Ishmael. Yes, I will bless him, make him fertile, and increase the number of his descendants. He will be the father of 12 princes, and I will make him a great nation. But I will make my promise to Isaac. Sarah will give birth to him at this time next year.” When God finished speaking with Abraham, he left him. (God’s Word Translation)

Life can only be lived with faith. We all believe in something, in someone. It’s just a matter of what or whom we place our faith in. Whomever we direct our faith, that is where we give our allegiance and obedience.

As for Abraham and his wife Sarah, they had their faith in the God who called them from Ur of the Chaldees. They demonstrated their belief by doing exactly what the Lord said to do – they went West to the land God would show them. (Genesis 12:1-5)

Abraham and Sarah listened to God and acted accordingly.

I don’t want to cross over into TMI territory (Too Much Information) yet I want us to consider what had to take place when the Lord tells the old couple they will have a baby next year. Here’s where the faith and action comes in: It is highly unlikely that a 100-year-old man and a 90-year-old woman were sexually active. But the Lord essentially told them to get going on conceiving a child. So, they did!

I can’t speak for Abraham and Sarah, but I know as a grandfather that I am really glad I don’t have to raise kids anymore. It makes me exhausted just thinking about it, at my age, so I’ve got to believe it crossed their minds, too. Maybe that’s why Abraham sort of pleaded with God to let Ishmael be the son of promise; the reality of being responsible for a newborn was maybe the last thing on old Abe’s mind.

But faith they had, as the New Testament attests:

Even when Sarah was too old to have children, she had faith that God would do what he had promised, and she had a son. Her husband Abraham was almost dead, but he became the ancestor of many people. In fact, there are as many of them as there are stars in the sky or grains of sand along the seashore. (Hebrews 11:11-12, CEV)

Genuine belief results in decisive action. At Abraham and Sarah’s age, sex may likely have seemed a safety hazard. Yet, they were submissive to God’s plan that divine promises would come through Isaac – who was indeed born the next year, just as the Lord said.

All this is consistent with the names “Abraham” and “Sarah.” Names were (and still are in most of the world) important identifiers of personal character – particularly toward what sort of person one would become.

God made a name change for the old couple. “Abram,” meaning “exalted father,” was changed to “Abraham,” “father of many nations.” “Sarai” was altered to “Sarah,” yet both names have the same meaning: “Princess.” (Genesis 17:3-8, 15-16)

The change of names was meant to communicate the promise of divine blessing from God for the future. All the world will be blessed through the covenant made with Abraham. Sarah’s alteration of name, though only in form and not substance, brought to the fore that Sarah, too, had a special purpose along with her husband in blessing the world.

Today, this blessing is still unfolding. Throughout all history, since the time of Abraham and Sarah over four millennia ago (c.2100 B.C.E.), the divine ripples of God’s covenant with them have moved across the earth.

Their progeny, through Isaac, the son of the promise, the Jewish people, continue to exist as arguably the most resilient group on the planet. We, especially Christians and Muslims, owe a great debt to the Jews for persevering in faith for such a long stretch of time. They have much to teach us, if we have ears to hear and hearts receptive.

Since the time of Christ, the blessing has extended well beyond the physical descendants of Abraham and Sarah:

Is this blessedness only for the circumcised [Jews] or also for the uncircumcised [Gentiles]? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received circumcision as a sign, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.

So then, Abraham is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he is then also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also follow in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised….

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead.

Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. (Romans 4:9-12, 16-25, NIV)

May you know the depth and breadth of your faith, that it stretches far beyond this time and place. And may the blessing of God almighty – Father, Son, and Spirit – be upon you and remain with you, now and forever. Amen.

The Time Is Ripe (Galatians 4:1-7)

On December 16, 2022November 18, 2022 By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world.

But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir. (New International Version)

The three greatest persons in biblical history – Abraham, Moses, and Jesus – are connected. God entered into a covenant with Abraham and promised to bless everyone on the earth through his progeny. God gave Moses the Law as a sort of school teacher and guide, alongside Abraham’s covenant. God fulfilled the covenant promise in Jesus. Thus, everyone who is led and tutored toward Christ, inherits all of God’s promises.

Under the Law

The Apostle Paul, speaking to a group of new believers who were confused about the relation between the Law and Christ, helped them understand with a metaphor. It’s like a boy who is the heir to a great estate. Someday, it will all be his. But now, he’s too young to possess it. So, during his childhood, he’s subject to trustees who oversee the estate, and teachers who instruct him in how to actually use the wealth once he actually inherits it.

While the boy is in the middle of the guidance, he’s not in control of much, just like the servants on the estate. The child will remain in this state until his time comes, until the date in which his father says he can take possession of the inheritance.

Before Christ, people were under the Law. They were heirs to God’s great kingdom promises. Yet, they needed the Law to guide and instruct them until it was time for them to receive the inheritance. Much like a present day kid in school, they see themselves in a sort of bondage, even though it’s a necessary part of their lives.

It’s bondage in the sense that the Law, the schoolmaster, has no power or ability to give the inheritance nor to save them from their current condition. In other words, the Law is good, yet lacks the potency to actually deliver one from sin, death, and hell.

What’s more, the elemental spirits of the age, namely Satan and his wicked spirits, wormed their way into the process of guidance and twisted the Law for their own advantage, to keep people in bondage. Just as the guardian of the boy may mistreat him in ways his father never intended, so the devil has exploited the Law in order to have it be a tyrannical presence over people.

Whereas God intended the Law to reveal humanity’s sin and drive them to a Savior, evil uses the Law to shame people and drive them to despair. The Law was meant for good, to be a gracious leading of people to the Messiah; yet Satan co-opted the Law to bring condemnation to folks and keep them under his insidious thumb.

In Christ

But when the time was ripe, God sent the Son so that people would be done with their guardians and inherit divine promises. To use yet another metaphor, when the scaffolding on a building has served it’s intended purpose in construction, it’s taken down; it’s no longer needed. It would be weird if the shiny new building were erected, and the owner decided to keep the scaffolding beside the structure.

The Law of Moses had done its work of preparing people for Christ. So, God sent Jesus, the Son, to redeem humanity, to transform slaves into sons and daughters. The Lord adopted us and granted us full rights as children of the King.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us—because it is written, Everyone who is hung on a tree is cursed.
Galatians 3:13, CEB

Jesus is uniquely qualified to be such a Redeemer of humanity. He is God’s Son, born of a human mother. Therefore, as both divine and human – the God Man – Jesus is the person for whom all the covenant promises of God have their fulfillment.

In the past God spoke to our ancestors many times and in many ways through the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us through his Son. He is the one through whom God created the universe, the one whom God has chosen to possess all things at the end. He reflects the brightness of God’s glory and is the exact likeness of God’s own being, sustaining the universe with his powerful word. After achieving forgiveness for the sins of all human beings, he sat down in heaven at the right side of God, the Supreme Power. (Hebrews 1:1-3, GNT)

In Christian trinitarian theology, God is Three in One, the Holy Trinity. God sent the Son into the world, of which believers celebrate the incarnation of Christ each year at Christmas. God sent the Spirit into our hearts; and from that place we cry “Abba! Father!” The Spirit testifies with our own spirit that we are truly adopted children of God. (Romans 8:15-16)

The Spirit is like the seal on a document, proving that our inheritance papers are all in order. And, much more than that, the Spirit also does this sealing work with affection. Christianity is not merely a legal transaction; it’s an experience of grace and love in which we enter into a new life, free from bondage, and alive to all the possibilities that humanity was originally meant for.

Both our status and our sensibilities are changed. It happens because of God’s good grace and purpose, fulfilled in Christ and impressed on us by the Spirit.

Conclusion

The French philosopher and writer, Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), once said that there is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each person which needs to be filled:

“There was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace. This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.” Blaise Pascal, Pensées

If we want to find happiness, satisfaction, and goodwill, then the empty void within us creatures and within the systems and the cultures we create, needs to be filled with our Creator.

The Christian season of Advent is an appropriate time to reconnect with the infinite and the immutable. The time is ripe to be filled not only with love and goodness, but with the very source of Love itself.

May it be so, to the glory of God.

Rev. Tim Ehrhardt

Tag: god’s covenant