Genesis 18

PART THIRTY-SIX RECAPITULATION: SURVEY OF THE PATRIARCHAL AGE

From A Class-Book of Old Testament History, pp. 73-76

by G. F. Maclear, D.D. Published by Macmillan, London, 1881, now long out of print.

With the death of Joseph the Patriachal Age of Israel’s history may be said to close. The Family had now thrown out many branches and was now on the point of emerging into the Nation. At this juncture, then, it may be well to look back, and review some of the chief features of the Patriarchal Life.

1. And the first of these that claims attention is its Nomadic character. Unlike the founders of Egypt, of Babylon, of Nineveh, the Patriarchs were not the builders of cities and towns, but pilgrims and sojourners, dwellers in tents (Hebrews 11:9). But they were very different from rude hordes, like the Amalekites and other sons of the desert, abhorring any higher mode of life. Abraham was no stranger to the highest form of civilization that his age afforded. He was acquainted with Ur, with Nineveh, with Damascus, with Egypt; he had left his home in one of the chief cities of Mesopotamia, not from choice, but in consequence of a direct personal call from God. Moreover, so far from regarding his present mode of life as an ultimate end, he and Isaac and Jacob were ever looking forward to a time when it would close, when their descendants should be settled in the Land of Promise, and become a great nation, when the portable tent should give way to the city that had foundations (Hebrews 11:10; Hebrews 11:13-16; comp. Genesis 24:7; Genesis 28:4; Genesis 49:4; Genesis 50:24). Hence, from time to time, as opportunity offered, we see the wandering life freely and willingly laid aside. Lot settled in Sodom (Genesis 13:10-12); Abraham in Egypt went direct to Pharaoh’s court (Genesis 12:14); at Hebron he settled and became a prince of God in the midst of the Hittites (Genesis 23:6); Isaac not only lived near the Philistines, but occupied a house opposite the palace (Genesis 26:8), and practised agriculture (Genesis 26:12); and Joseph’s dream of the sheaves points out that this was also continued in the time of Jacob (Genesis 37:7).

2. The Family was the center of the Patriarchal commonwealth. Its head was the source of authority and jurisdiction; he possessed the power of life and death (Genesis 38:24); he united in himself the functions of chief and priest; he offered the burnt-offering; he had his armed retainers (Genesis 14:14; Genesis 48:22; Genesis 34:25; Genesis 33:1); his intercourse with his wives (for polygamy was not forbidden) was free and unrestrained; the wife’s consent was asked before wedlock (Genesis 24:57-58); love hallowed the relations of Abraham with Sarah, of Isaac with Rebekah, of Jacob with Leah and Rachel; woman, indeed, did not occupy the position since conceded to her, but her position was far from degraded, and the sanctity of the marriage-bond was defended by severe laws, which made death the punishment for adultery (Genesis 38:24). Slavery, it is true, existed, but in the tents of Abraham the slave was ever treated with consideration, and not excluded from, but made a partaker of religious privileges (Genesis 17:13). The fidelity and attachment of Eliezer the steward of Abraham’s house, the mourning for Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse (Genesis 35:8), are pleasing proofs of the peace that reigned in the Patriarchal household.

3. Civilization. The life of the Patriarchs was chiefly that of the shepherd, and their wealth consisted in their flocks and their herds. But besides practising agriculture they were not unacquainted with money and the precious metals. Abraham paid for the field of Machpelah with coin (Genesis 23:9-20), and the sons of Jacob took money with them into Egypt (Genesis 42:25; Genesis 42:35); while the gold ring and armlets presented to Rebekah by Eliezer (Genesis 24:22), the bracelet and signet ring of Judah (Genesis 38:18), the ear-rings of Rachel (Genesis 35:4), the many-coloured coat of Joseph, indicate an acquaintance with the luxuries of life.

4. Religion. While other nations were rapidly learning to deify the powers of nature, the Patriarchs believed not only in a God above and beyond nature, but in a God Personal, Omnipotent, and Holy. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was. no mere abstraction, no mere law. He could and did reveal Himself by angelic appearances, by visions, by dreams; He could console, strengthen, encourage; He could punish, rebuke, and on repentance forgive. Abraham, the Friend of God (James 2:23), intercedes with Him in behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:23-33); Isaac is warned by Him against going down into Egypt (Genesis 26:2); Jacob is consoled by Him at Bethel when setting out into the land of exile (Genesis 28:13-15), and wrestles with Him by the fords of Jabbok till the break of day (Genesis 32:24); Joseph believes in His invisible but ever-present help in prison and in a strange land, and ascribes to Him all his wisdom in the interpretation of dreams (Genesis 41:16). The Divine Promise of a great future Abraham believed under circumstances of greatest trial, and his faith was counted to him for righteousness (Romans 4:3). Moreover, the God of the Patriarchs was not a mere national or household God. His sphere of operation was not restricted to the Patriarchs and their families; He is the God of all the earth (Genesis 24:3), the God of Righteousness and Holiness. He punishes the people of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24-25); He plagues Pharaoh’s house (Genesis 12:17); He is the God of the priest-king Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18), and of the Philistine Abimelech (Genesis 20:3); He protects not only Isaac the child of promise, but the outcast Ishmael the child of the bond-woman (Genesis 21:13); He is with Joseph in prison, but He sends dreams to Pharaoh, and through Joseph He saves Egypt from famine (Genesis 50:20).

5. The Religious Worship of the Patriarchs was in keeping with the simplicity of their creed. The head of the family was also the priest of the family. Whenever Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, reached any new spot in their pilgrimage, they invariably erected an altar, generally of stone and on a high situation (Genesis 22:9; Genesis 26:25; Genesis 35:7); there they called on the name of Jehovah, there they presented their burnt sacrifice, there they offered up their prayers. Their history also proves the existence of offering covenant-sacrifices, and celebrating covenant-feasts (Genesis 15:9-18); the making and paying of vows (Gen. 28:23); the erection of memorial pillars, and the consecration of them by pouring upon them oil and wine (Genesis 28:18); the rite of circumcision (Genesis 17:10-14); and the paying of tithes (Genesis 14:20).

6. The Character of the Patriarchs is never represented as perfect; their faults are freely exposed; theirs is no ideal history. If we compare the four most eminent amongst them, we seem to trace in (i) Abraham, the faith that can remove mountains in its power and in its fulness, revealing itself in unfaltering trust and unquestioning obedience under the most trying circumstances conceivable; in (ii) Isaac, the faith that can possess itself in patience, and discharge the ordinary duties of life in quietness and waiting; in (iii) Jacob, the violent contest of faith with the flesh, the higher with the lower nature, till by hard discipline the latter is purified, and the Sup-planter becomes the Prince, the Prevailer with God; in (iv) Joseph, the fidelity and perseverance of faith, revealed not only in the patient endurance of the most grievous trials, but in energetic action, and at length crowned with victory. He unites in himself the noble trust and resolution of Abraham, with the quiet perseverance of Isaac, and the careful prudence of Jacob. He is moreover an eminent historic type of Christ, in (1) his persecution and sale by his brethren, (2) his resisting temptation, (3) his humiliation and exaltation, and (4) his dispensing to a famine-stricken people the bread of life, and (5) in the fulness of his forgiving love.

ADDENDA [Volume 3] LANGE: ON THE ANGEL OF JEHOVAH

(CDHCG, 389-390, verbatim)

Between Abram’s connection with Hagar and the next manifestation of Jehovah there are full thirteen years. But then his faith is strengthened again, and Jehovah appears to him (Genesis 17:1). The most prominent and important theophany in the life of Abram is the appearance of the three men (ch. 17). But this appearance wears its prevailing angelic form, because it is a collective appearance for Abram and Lot, and at the same time refers to the judgement upon Sodom. Hence the two angels are related to their central point as the sun-images to the sun itself, and this central point for Abram is Jehovah himself in his manifestation, but not a commissioned Angel of the Lord. Thus also this Angel visits Sarah (Genesis 21:1; compare Genesis 18:10). But the Angel appears in the history of Hagar a second time (Genesis 21:17), and this time as the Angel of God (Maleach Elohim), not as the Maleach Jehovah, for the question is not now about a return to Abram’s house, but about the independent settlement with Ishmael in the wilderness. The person who tempts Abram (Genesis 22:1) is ElohimGod as he manifests himself to the nations and their general ideas or notions, and the revelation is effected purely through the word. Now, also, in the most critical moment for Abram, the Angel of the Lord comes forward, calling down to him from heaven since there was need of a prompt message of relief. In the rest of the narrative this Angel of the Lord identifies himself throughout with Jehovah (Genesis 22:12; Genesis 22:16). To Isaac also Jehovah appears (Genesis 26:2), and the second time in the night (Genesis 26:24). He appears to Jacob in the night in a dream (Genesis 28:12-13). Thus also he appears to him as the Angel of God in a dream (Genesis 31:11), but throughout identified with Jehovah (Genesis 31:13). Jehovah commands him to return home through the word (31:3). Laban receives the word of God in a dream (Genesis 31:24). The greatest event of revelation in the life of Jacob is the grand theophany, in the night, through the vision, but the man who wrestles with him calls himself God and man (men) at the same time. According to the theory of a created angel, Jacob is not a wrestler with God (Israel), but merely a wrestler with the Angel. It is a more purely external circumstance which God uses to warn Jacob through the word to remove from Shechem (Genesis 35:1). In the second-’ peculiar manifestation of God to Jacob after his return from Mesopotamia (Genesis 35:9), we have a clear and distinct reflection of the first (Genesis 32:24). In the night-visions of Joseph, which already appear in the life of Isaac, and occur more frequently with Jacob, the form of revelation during the patriarchal period comes less distinctly into view. But then it enters again, and with new energy, in the life of Moses. The Angel of Jehovah (Exodus 3:2) is connected with the earlier revelation, and here also is identified with Jehovah and Elohim (Exodus 3:4). But he assumes a more definite form and title, as the Angel of his face, since with the Mosaic system the rejection of any deifying of the creature comes into greater prominence, and since it is impossible that the face of God should be esteemed a creature.

The reasons which are urged for the old ecclesiastical view of the Angel of the Lord, are recapitulated by Kurtz in the following order: 1. The Maleach Jehovah identifies himself with Jehovah. 2. Those to whom he appears recognize, name, and worship him as the true God. 3. He receives sacrifice and worship without any protest. 4. The biblical writers constantly speak of him as Jehovah. We add the reasons. 1. The theory of our opponents opens a wide door in the Old Testament for the deifying of the creature, which the Old Testament everywhere condemned; and the Romish worship of angels finds in it a complete justification. 2. The Socinians also gain an important argument for their rejection of the Trinity, if, instead of self-revelation of God, and of the self-distinction included in it in the Old Testament, there is merely a pure revelation through angels. As the fully developed doctrine of the Trinity cannot be found in the Old Testament, so no one can remove from the Old Testament the beginnings of that doctrine, the self-distinction of God, without removing the very substructure on which the New Testament doctrine of the Trinity rests, and without obscuring the Old Testament theology in its very centre and glory. 3. It would break the band of the organic unity between the Old and New Testaments if it could be proved that the central point in the Old Testament revelation is a creature-angel, and that the New Testament revelation passes at one bound from this form to that of the God-man. The theory of the creature-angel in its continuation through a colossal adoration of angels, points downwards to the Rabbinic and Mohammedan doctrine of angels which has established itself in opposition to the New Testament Christology, and is bound together with that exaggerated doctrine of angels in more recent times, which ever corresponds with a veiled and obscure Christology. On the other hand, it removes from the New Testament Christology its Old Testament foundation and preparation which consists in this, that the interchange between God and men is in full operation, and must therefore prefigure itself in the images of the future God-man. 4. The doctrine of angels itself loses its very heart, its justification and interpretation, if we take away from it the symbolic angel-form, which rules it, as its royal centre, i.e. that angelic form which, as a real manifestation of God, as a typical manifestation of Christ, as a manifestation of angels, has the nature and force of a symbol. But with the obliteration of the symbolic element, all the remaining symbolic and angelic images, the cherubim and seraphim, will disappear, and with the key of biblical psychology in its representation of the development of the life of the soul, to an organ of revelation, we shall lose the key to the exposition of the Old Testament itself. 5. Augustin was consistent when, with his interpretation of the Angel of Jehovah as a creature-angel, he decidedly rejects the interpretation which regards the sons of God (ch. 6)as angel-beings; for the assumption of angels who, as such, venture to identify themselves with Jehovah, and notwithstanding they are in peril, abandon themselves to lustful pleasures and a magical transformation of their nature, combines two groundless and intolerable phantoms. We hold, therefore, that Old Testament theology, in its very heart and centre, is in serious danger from these two great prejudices, as the New Testament from the two great prejudices of a mere mechanical structure of the Gospels, and of the unapostolic and yet more than apostolic brothers of the Lord. (See the defence of the old ecclesiastical view in the Commentary by Keil, also with a reference to Kahnis, de Angelo Domini diatribe, 1858. The assertion of the opposite view held by Delitzsch in his Commentary, meets here its refutation).

6. The aspect of all theophanies as visions. It is a general supposition, that divine revelation is partly through visions, or through inward miraculous sights and sounds. We must, however, bring out distinctly the fundamental position, that every theophany is at the same time vision, and every vision a theophany; but that in the one case the objective theophany and in the other the subjective vision, is the prevailing feature. The subjective vision appears in the most definite form in dream-visions, of which Adam’s sleep, and Abram’s night-horror (chs. 2 and 15.), are the first striking portents. It develops itself with great power in the lives of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and is of still greater importance in the lives of Samuel and Solomon, as also in the night-visions of Zechariah. We find them in the New Testament in the life of Joseph of Nazareth and in the history of Paul. It needs no proof to show that the manifestations of God or angels in dreams, are not outward manifestations to the natural senses. In the elements of the subjective dream-vision, veils itself, however, the existing divine manifestation. But what the dream introduces in the night-life, the seeing in imagesthat the ecstasy does in the day or ordinary waking life (see Lange: Apostolic Age). The ecstasy, as the removing of the mind into the condition of unconsciousness, or of a different consciousness, is the potential basis of the vision, the vision is the activity or effect of the ecstasy. But since the visions have historical permanence and results, it is evident that they are the intuitions of actual objective manifestations of God. Mere hallucinations of the mind lead into the house of error, spiritual visions build the historical house of God. But in this aspect we may distinguish peculiar dream-visions, night-visions of a higher form and power, momentary day-visions, apocalyptic groups or circles of visions, linked together in prophetic contemplation, and that habitual clear-sightedness as to visions which is the condition of inspiration. But that theophanies which are ever at the same time Angelophanies and Christophanies, and indeed as theophanies of the voice of God, or of the voice from heaven, of the simple appearance of angels, of their more enlarged and complete manifestations of the developed heavenly scenethat these are always conditioned through a disposition of fitness for visions, is clear from numerous passages in the Old and New Testaments (2 Kings 6:17, Daniel 10:7; John 12:28-29; John 20:10-12; Acts 9:8; Acts 12:7-12; Acts 22:9-14).

---

THE ABRAHAMIC PROMISE

(by H. Christopher, The Remedial System, pp. 146-150)

The promise that God would bless the whole world through him [Abraham] had reference to Christ, the son of Abraham, through whom God would fulfill his promise of blessing the whole world through the offspring of Abraham. Whilst it was the first and chief promise made to Abraham, it was the last in fulfillment. Nearly two thousand years intervened. It was ratified and covenanted by the blood of Christ, and looked to the possession of the heavenly Canaan, and to a circumcision that cut off the heart from all that is worldly and sensual, and to a seal that became the pledge of the purchased possession, and its settlement in the heavenly Canaan, by the resurrection from the dead, when the spiritual people of God cross the Jordan of death, and take possession of the land of promise, for which even Abraham looked, when he sought a city whose maker and builder is God. This promise and its blessings have no connection with the others made to Abraham. They differ as widely as flesh and spirit, and as earth and heaven. They connect or coalesce no where. The first were but preparatory and necessary to the last. When the last appeared, the first had served their chief, if not all their, purpose. The first had chief reference to man’s body, while the last has chief reference to man’s spirit. And as the spirit of man is superimposed, as it were, upon the body, and is capable of a separate and independent existence, so was the last promise superimposed upon the first, and is capable of existing, and does exist, independently of it. Hence, the promises and the covenants by which they were ratified, connect with each other only as the flesh connects with the spirit. Between them lies an impassable gulf. There is no possible passage from the first to the last. The Jew has no rights and privileges under Christ by virtue of his being the son of Abraham according to the flesh; for the promise was; In Isaac shall thy seed be called, and he was the child of promise and of faith. The Christian is the child of promise and of faith, and hence is reckoned through Isaac as a special creation of God, and is, therefore, himself a new creation. The last creation supersedes all former ones, and by this supersession abrogates them. The adoption of the children of Abraham as the special and peculiar people of God, set aside the adoption by creation, and during the time of their adoption, the natural adoption was set aside, and the rest of mankind ignored, and treated as an uncovenanted people. So when the Christian adoption came in, the Jewish was set aside, and all the rest of mankind, not embraced in the new adoption, were ignored and treated as uncovenanted. Hence, under Christianity there is neither Jew nor Greek; neither circumcision nor uncircumcision; but all the families, nations, and races of mankind are one in Christ, in perfect fulfillment of the promise: In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

All this is necessarily true. The Remedial System is developed by differentiations which mark the boundaries of the development. The patriarch had no privileges, special and peculiar, after the calling of Abraham. By that call God isolated a part from the whole, and made this part his special care. By the new creation through Christ another isolation was made, which placed Jew and Greek on the same plane before God, and abrogated all special and peculiar rights or privileges claimed by the Jews. This is necessarily true from another consideration. The claim of the Jew rested on an explicit covenant. That covenant recognized him as the chosen of God, through a means wholly different from that by which he had recognized the patriarch, and does now recognize the Christian. This consideration or means was his birth. He was the son of Abraham according to the flesh, and entitled, consequently, only to the rights and privileges guaranteed by the covenant ordained to grant and secure these. He could claim only under the stipulated grants of his covenant. Under other and different covenants, and made with other people, he could, of course, have no claim or right whatever. His circumcision effected all it was designed to effect, and meant more than the Jew was willing to accept. It cut him off from all the rest of the world, and also from all other covenants of God, but according to the flesh. His circumcision bound him down to the provisions and obligations of that covenant, and confined him within its prescribed limits. What claim, therefore can a Jew have to the grants and blessings of a covenant that has no special reference to him whatever, and that was not made with him as a Jew? The European had as well claim equal rights with the American under the constitution of the United States. The Jew was the chosen of God only according to the flesh, and entitled only to blessings of his covenant. He is not the chosen of God according to the spirit, or the seed of Isaac according to the promise, and hence he can have no right with those who are.

There are four things necessary to make a nation the peculiar and chosen people of God, and all these obtained in the case of the descendants of Abraham according to the flesh. These things are, 1. A creation. This we have in the birth of Isaac. His conception was a miracle, and hence a creation. 2. A seal. This we have in circumcision. 3. A purchase. This we have in the deliverance of this people from Egypt. And 4. A covenant. And this we have in the covenant made before Mt. Sinai. All these are peculiar and consistent, and perfectly harmonious with all that God has promised, or has done for, the Jews. They were all equally necessary, and they follow each other as necessary results one of the other. The seal came to ratify the creation, the purchase, in demonstration of the fulfillment of the promise, and the covenant, in order that the people might also pledge themselves by covenant. By this the people became cemented and organized into a nation. As such they needed laws and institutions for their government and welfare as a people; and as the people of God, religious institutions for the various purposes which God had in view with that people. It will be observed that this covenant made with Abraham’s descendants arose under that which covenanted them as the peculiar people of God, and was, consequently, entirely Jewish. The covenant of Mt. Sinai was made with that people, and the institutions subsequently given, were given to that people, and to no other. The Jewish institution, in all its entirety, was as verily circumcised as were the people for whose benefit it was ordained. It was as completely isolated from all other religions and peoples, as were that people. Hence, it had no connection with any other, nor relation, except that of opposition. The covenant stipulated and embraced no more than did the promise under which it was made. It was a ratification, or acceptance on their part, of the stipulations of the promise. It was the covenant by which God renewed his promise to be their God, and by it the people accepted the offer, and covenanted to be the people of God. This covenant bound both parties to their pledgeGod to be their God, and them to be his obedient people. It did not, and could not stipulate and grant more than did the promise; hence, all these were temporal in their nature. This completed all that God had to provide for that people. Henceforth there was naught for either party to do, but to carry out the provisions of the covenant which formulated the promise. But this covenant was not only temporary as respects the rights, privileges, and blessings which it secured to that people; but it was also temporary in its duration. The people broke that covenant: and a covenant broken on one side, is broken on both. It was faulty in that it only contemplated and provided for man’s temporal wants. Indeed, this was the fault of the whole Jewish fabric, from the inception to the close. This was foreseen; and not only foreseen, but the whole structure was but a means to an end; a measure to give time for the preparation and institution of a better. The promise of God under which the whole Jewish structure arose, was not the first and chief promise that God made to Abraham, nor his chief purpose in calling him. This chief and greatest promise was that through him he would bless the whole human family. This promise the apostle interprets as having reference to Christ, and consequently, it was sooner or later, to take precedence of all others. It could not be annulled by any subsequent promise, unless that promise annulled, at the same time, all former ones. But this the subsequent promises did not do, as is affirmed by the people. The promise which had reference to Christ, preceded the ratification of that concerning the land several years, and antedated the covenant of circumcision twenty-four years. The covenant at Mt. Sinai followed the latter four hundred and six thereafter. So that nothing which transpired under the later promises could annul the first. The first and chief promise which contemplated spiritual blessings and a spiritual offspring through Isaac, was not ratified, fulfilled, or covenanted, for nearly two thousand years. All that has grown out of this promise has no connection with what arose under the others. It differs from them in every respect. It differed from them in the beginning. It came into the world through a different line. There were two lines of descendants in Isaac, as two promises were fulfilled in his descendants. The one line was the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, and the other the seed according to the spirit, the latter of which is reckoned the true line under the covenant of the first promise. This excludes the children according to the flesh from all rights and privileges pertaining to the children according to the spirit. As respects, therefore, their nature, rights, and privileges, the Jewish and Christian institutions differ radically and entirely; to that degree as to exclude the one wholly from the other. The creation, the circumcision or seal, the purchase, and the covenant, that made the descendants of Abraham according to the flesh the people of God, have no place nor value under the Christian institution. The latter has its own creation, seal, purchase, and covenant, all of which are spiritual and eternal, and these give the Christian no rights or privileges under the former. Hence, as respects institutions differing so completely and widely, there can be no community of rights and privileges; nor can the one flow out of the other so as to establish any genetic connection between them. As the spiritual and the eternal necessarily supersede the fleshly and temporal, so does the Jewish institution, in whole and in part, give way to the Christian. Under the latter arises a people of God as distinct from the former as spirit is from flesh. The Christian is a new creation, and all that pertains to his creation is new. Before it the Jew and Gentile stand on the same ground. Both must become the subjects of this new creation before they can be regarded as belonging to the people of God. All the claim which the Jew once preferred, goes for naught under the operation of the new creation. A new birth is just as essential for the Jew as for the Gentile. Hence, the Jew’s creation, seal, purchase, and covenant are all naught when he stands before the Christian’S. His birth of the flesh avails nothing, and neither does his circumcision, Nothing is now acceptable to God but the new creation in Christ. These things being true, all that is Jewish has passed away. The Jews are no longer the people of God. Their whole religious service has perished; and what purpose God has now with that people remains to be seen. That he has no further purpose with them in regard to the fulfillment of his promise of blessing the world through them by Christ, is evident from the fact that Christianity has superseded Judaism, and that the whole religious service of that people perished with the total destruction of their temple. Christ is the end of the law, and of all that pertained to it. It was but a pedagogue to lead the Jews to Christ; so that when he came all that was Jewish was set aside, and the pedagogue was dismissed. All now become the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, in whom there is neither Jew nor Greek; neither bond nor free; neither male nor female; but all are one in Christ Jesus. And all who are Christ’s by virtue of the new creation, the spiritual seal, the eternal purchase, and the everlasting covenant, are the seed of Abraham, and heirs according to the promise: In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. (N. B. After hunting several years for a copy of Christopher’s book, I found it in the Dallas Christian College LibraryC. C.)

---

THE EXCELLENCE OF FAITH

(Read Romans 5:1-11).

In the study of First Principles the term which first engages our attention is faith. We shall find that it occupies a prominent place in connection not only with conversion, but also with every phase of Christian activity and growth.

Faith is one of the most far-reaching words in the vocabulary of inspiration. Without faith none of the blessings of the spiritual realm would be available to man. Contrariwise, on the ground of faith, such blessings as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived (1 Corinthians 2:9), are within his power to appropriate and enjoy.

Faith is an oft-recurring word in the New Testament. Jesus had much to say about it, and the word is used repeatedly in the Epistles. Paul states expressly that we are justified by faith (Romans 5 :).

The excellence of faith is indicated in scripture by the following representations:

1. Faith is superior to things and circumstances of this material world.

When given full sway in the human heart it rises above the circumstances of life and controls them. The power of faith is described in such scriptures as Matthew 17:20, Mark 9:23; Mark 11:23, Luke 17:6. Christians of this materialistic age, in bondage as they are to the tyranny of things, are inclined to look on these sayings of the Master with more or less skepticism. The tragedy is that we have never really learned to walk by faith. We cannot testify that these sayings are true for the simple reason that we have never learned to stand on God’s promises. True, we claim to do so, and we sing Standing on the Promises, but always with mental reservations. It is only through the exercise of implicit faith that we can throw off the fetters of anxiety and fear which enslave us to this present evil world. We are willing to obey the Lord in confession and baptism, but we certainly fall far short of His teaching in regard to such everyday matters as fear, worry, forgiveness, humility, and the like. (See Matthew 5:3-12; Matthew 5:21-26; Matthew 5:38-42; Matthew 6:25-33; Matthew 7:1-5; Matthew 7:7-12, etc. Cf. 1 John 4:18) He might well say to us as to His disciples of old, O ye of little faith!

2. Faith is the ground of our justification.

Being therefore justified by faithnot by faith alone, or mere intellectual assent (the theologians have added the word alone)we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Not by faith alone, because faith apart from works (i.e., works of faith) is dead (James 2:26). The faith that is unto the saving of the soul (Hebrews 10:39) expresses itself in works of obedience, sacrifice and service (Romans 12:1-2). To walk by faith is to live by the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-25). God so loved us that He gave His only begotten Son as a propitiation for our sins (John 3:16), but we must appropriate this matchless Gift by faith. By true faith in Him we have access into this grace wherein we stand (Romans 5:2). For by grace ye have been saved through faith, and that (i.e., that salvation) not of yourselves, it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8).

3. Faith is the motivating principle of all Christian worship and service.

True worship is (1) communion of the human spirit with the Divine Spirit, (2) on the terms of the truth as revealed in scripture (John 4:24). This can be realized only through faith. Repentance is faith choosing; the confession is faith speaking; baptism is faith obeying; the Lord’s Supper is faith remembering; liberality is faith acknowledging God’s ownership; prayer is faith communing; meditation is faith pondering; and. the whole Christian life is faith serving. Therefore we are justified by faith. From the day of conversion to that of the putting, on of immortality, the actuating principle in the life of every true Christian is faith.

4. Implicit faith, along with obedience, is a necessary, condition to the answer of prayer (John 14:12-15; John 15:5-10, etc.).

(1) Acts 12:1-17. We read here that many of the early disciples were gathered together in the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, praying for Peter’s deliverance from prison. Yet they were amazed when their prayer was answered and Peter stood in their midst. Most of our praying is of this kind; it has little conviction back of it. (Matthew 21:22).

(2) The prayer of faith, i.e., the petition offered in harmony with the teaching of God’s word, will not go unanswered.

Unanswered yet? The prayer your lips have pleaded

In agony of heart these many years?

Does faith begin to fail? is hope departing?

And thing you all in vain those falling tears?

Say not the Father hath not heard your prayer,

You shall have your desire, sometime, somewhere.

Unanswered yet? Tho-’ when you first presented

This one petition at the Father’s throne,

It seemed you could not wait the time of asking

So urgent was your heart to make it known.

Tho-’ years have passed since then, do not despair;

The Lord will answer you, sometime, somewhere.

Unanswered yet? Nay, do not say -ungranted-';

Perhaps your part is not yet wholly done;

The work began when first your prayer was uttered,

And God will finish what He has begun;

If you will keep the incense burning there,

His glory you shall see, sometime, somewhere.

Unanswered yet? Faith cannot be unanswered;

Her feet are firmly planted on the Rock;

Amid the wildest storms she stands undaunted,

Nor quails before the loudest thunder-shock.

She knows Omnipotence has heard her prayer, And cries, -It shall be done, sometime, somewhere!-’ And cries, -It shall be done, sometime, somewhere!-'

5. The blessings and rewards of the gospel are all received and realized through faith.

Among these are: (1) salvation from the guilt of sin (Mark 16:16, Acts 2:38; Acts 10:43; Acts 16:31; Acts 26:18); (2) spiritual life (John 20:31; John 6:40, John 3:16; John 3:36; 1 John 5:12); (3) spiritual light (John 1:9; John 8:12; John 12:36); (4) heavenly adoption (Galatians 3:26); (5) the indwelling Spirit (John 7:39, Ephesians 1:13, Galatians 3:14); (6) justification (Romans 5:1, Galatians 2:16): (7) true righteousness (Romans 1:16-17; Romans 10:6; Romans 3:22); (8) true worship (John 4:24, Ephesians 3:12); (9) providential oversight (1 Peter 1:5); (10) eternal rest (Hebrews 4:3). In fact the inheritance of all the promises of God is to be realized through faith (Hebrews 6:12).

Conclusion: No wonder then that faith is represented to be the foundation which supports the entire pyramid of Christian virtues that true disciples build, one stone upon the other, and upon which they climb heavenward (2 Peter 1:5-7). True Christians walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Faith, hope and love, according to Paul, constitute the abiding trinity of spiritual virtues (1 Corinthians 13:13). Of these three, love is greatest; because, in the home over there, faith will have given way to spiritual knowledge, and hope to fruition, leaving only love to consummate the blissful intercourse of the redeemed with their heavenly Father (Revelation 21:1-5).

THE NATURE OF FAITH

(Read Hebrews, ch. 11, esp. Hebrews 11:1.)

The eleventh chapter of Hebrews has been called Israel’s Roll of Honor. It is the great faith chapter of the Bible. It is an inspired discourse on the subject of faith. The discourse begins properly with the last three verses of ch. 10, in which the writer speaks of a faith that is unto the saving of the soul. The subject-matter which follows, in ch. 11, is an analysis of that kind of faith, what it is, whence it is obtained, and how it operates unto salvation, as exemplified in the lives of many illustrious believers of olden times. The writer proves to be an excellent sermonizer, as we might expect in view of his having been inspired by the Spirit of God. He states his text in v. 1, and then proceeds to develop it with appropriate illustrations drawn from Old Testament history. His concluding exhortation follows, in ch. 12, Genesis 12:1-2. We shall attempt here to evaluate the teaching of this great chapter on the nature (i.e., the original and essential characteristics) of faith.

Let me repeat that the kind of faith under consideration here is the faith that works unto the saving of the soul. By some this has been called saving faith. Not that faith of itself will save any one, because it will not; but that the right kind of faith will motivate the believer to such intelligent and sincere cooperation with God, on God’s terms and according to His plan, that He may consistently save the one who so believes. It is God who pardons and saves, but always through Jesus Christ (John 14:6).

What is faith? Considering the excellence of faith, it is exceedingly important that we know what faith is. I am profoundly thankful that the Holy Spirit has not left us in darkness regarding this essential matter. Nor has he left it to our finite minds to formulate a definition. We are not compelled to go either to philosophy or to theology for a definition of faithwe have it in clear, unmistakable terms, in the Christian Scriptures.

What, then, are the essential characteristics of faith? This question is fully answered in the words of our text, as follows:

1. Faith is assurance. Assurance is defined as confidence inspired or expressed, that which produces certainty. It connotes positiveness, certainty, even boldness.

2. Faith is assurance of things hoped for. That is, faith is the foundation of hope.

(1) Authorized Version: the substance of things hoped for. The word substance means in our language the stuff, material, or matter of which anything is composed. It is used here, however, in its derivative sense. It is derived from the Latin prefix, sub (under) and the Latin participle stans (standing). Substance, then is that which stands under. Faith is that which stands under hope. Cf. Living Oracles: faith is the confidence of things hoped for. Moffatt: faith means we are confident of what we hope for. Weymouth: faith is a well-grounded assurance of that for which we hope. Goodspeed: faith means the assurance of what we hope for.

(2) Faith is the foundation of hope. This is true in every department of human activity. It is true in the business world. I visited a friend on one occasion to solicit a contribution from him for a worthy cause. Having heard my case, his reply was: I believe in your proposition, and I am sorry that I am not in a position to help just at this time. But I will do something later. I have invested a considerable sum of money in an oil well in Texas, and I am expecting returns from this investment within a few months. If you will come back about a year from this date, I will give you a substantial donation. I thanked him, and departed. About a year later I called at his office a second time, and as soon as I entered he looked at me and exclaimed: I know what you have come for, but I can-’t do anything for you. What is the trouble? I asked, didn-’t the oil well turn out satisfactorily? And in extreme disgust he said: I wish I had the money back that I sank in that hole in the ground. The first time I called he was extremely hopeful, because he believed in the enterprise in which he had invested; the second time I found him with hopes blasted, because he had lost all faith in it. Where there is no faith, there is no hope.

(3) This is also true in the social realm. In the course of time a young couple will fall in love, marry, and establish a home. The success of their undertaking will depend largely on their faith in each other. On this foundation of faith they will erect a structure of dreams and plans and hopes. But let the confidence of one in the other be destroyed and this structure will fall to the ground. Both marriage and home are erected on a foundation of faith.

(4) So, in the realm of spirit, as elsewhere, hope rests upon faith. Every act of worship and service we perform is motivated by faith. Faith underlies the pyramid of Christian virtues (2 Peter 1:5-7). And all our aspirations and hopes respecting the home over there, the inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away (1 Peter 1:4) rest on faith. In everything faith is the foundation of hope.

(5) Illustrations from the chapter (Hebrews 11). (a) Abel’s hope that his offering would be acceptable to God rested on faith, Hebrews 11:4. (1 John 3:12) (b) Enoch’s walk with God was a walk of faith, Hebrews 11:5. (c) Faith was the foundation of Noah’s hope of deliverance from impending judgment, Hebrews 11:7. (d) Abraham’s hope of attaining the far country which he was to receive for an inheritance was founded on faith, Hebrews 11:8. Also, his hope of receiving Isaac back from the dead was inspired by faith, from whence he did also in a figure receive him back, Hebrews 11:17-19. (e) Sarah’s expectation of a son, the child of promise, rested on faith, Hebrews 11:11. (f) Joseph’s hope that the children of Israel would ultimately take possession of the land of promise rested upon his faith, Hebrews 11:22. (g) The aspirations, hopes and plans of Moses for his people, and his matchless efforts in their behalf, were all inspired by his faith, Hebrews 11:24-29. In every example cited, faith is presented as the foundation of hope.

3. Faith is a conviction … A conviction is defined as a strong belief, something firmly believed. The faith which operates unto the saving of the soul is something more than a passive intellectual assent. It is a conviction. It must be a conviction, one that takes hold of the soul and determines the course of one’s life. In the light of this definition, it is obvious that faith is precisely the thing that is lacking in the modern church.

4. Faith is a conviction of things not seen, i.e., a conviction with respect to things not seen.

(1) Authorized Version: the evidence of things not seen. Moffatt: Faith means. we are convicted of what we do not see. Weymouth: a conviction of the reality of things which we do not see. Goodspeed: our conviction about things we cannot see.

(2) Note that faith is a conviction with respect to things not seen. I have never seen Paris, but I have a conviction that there is a city by that name and that it is the capital of France. My conviction is the result of satisfactory evidence. Things which are seen are matters of observation and knowledge, but things that are not seen belong to the realm of faith. God who is a Spirit (John 4:24) cannot be seen, and is therefore to be apprehended only by faith. Angels, spirit, resurrection, immortality, heaven, etc., all these realities of the unseen world are matters of faith. Faith pertains not to the things that are illusive and transitory, but to the things which are abiding. For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18).

(3) We have never seen God, but we believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that seek after Him (Hebrews 11:6). We were not present to see the worlds created, but our conviction is that they were framed by the word of God (Hebrews 11:3). We have never seen Christ, our Elder Brother, but we believe in Him as the One who is abundantly able to save us from sin and mortality. We have never had a glimpse of heaven, but we believe that the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in us, He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to our mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwelleth in us (Romans 8:11). Therefore we are exhorted to live by faith, to walk by faith and to die in the faith.

(4) Illustrations from the chapter (Hebrews 11). (a) Abel brought his offering to the altar with the conviction that the God whom he had never seen, but in whom he believed, would accept it, Hebrews 11:4. (b) In Noah’s heart there was an overwhelming conviction that judgment would come upon the antediluvian world because of its wickedness. Although summer and winter, and seedtime and harvest, continued to come and go as usual for one hundred and twenty years, he never faltered. Through all the trying experiences of this period of grace he retained his conviction. Because that during all these intervening years there was no evidence in nature of the impending catastrophe, it was a conviction with respect to things not seen, Hebrews 11:7. (c) Abraham left home and kindred and friends, and started on a strange journey to a land both unknown to him and unseen by him. He had no idea how far he would have to travel in order to reach it. All that moved him was a conviction with respect to the far country and a conviction that God would give it to him for an inheritance. Hebrews 11:8-12. (d) These fathers of Israel, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, all died in the faith, having never received the literal fulfilment of the promises. So far as we know they all died without possessing a single acre of the land of promise save the few square feet they had purchased for a burial ground. It seems that as they continued in their pilgrimage their faith became clearer, and they began to look beyond the literal to the spiritual fulfilment of the promise, in the city which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God, Hebrews 11:13-16. (e) Joseph’s conviction with respect to the exodus of his people from Egypt pertained to an event far in the future, an event not seen, Hebrews 11:22. (f) Moses, the man who saw an undying flame, chose to share ill treatment with the people of God, above the temporary enjoyment of the pleasures of sin, because he endured as seeing him who is invisible (Hebrews 11:23-29). In all these cases, faith was a conviction with respect to things not seen.

(5) As in the various cases cited from Old Testament history, so it is with respect to faith in the present dispensation and under the new covenant: (a) our faith must be something more than mere assent; (b) it must be genuine conviction in order to work unto the saving of the soul; (c) it must be conviction with respect to things not seen, viz., God, the Son of God, the Spirit of God, the future life, heaven, etc.; (d) this faith undergirds all our spiritual blessings, aspirations and hopes (1 Corinthians 2:6-10).

Conclusion: 1. This inspired definition of faith is perfect and complete. Nothing can be taken from it without weakening its import. Nothing can be added to it that would give it greater force.

2. Christian faith takes in all those convictions with respect to God, the Son of God, the Word of God, the Spirit of God, immortality, heaven, and the like; all of which are eternal realities above and beyond the realm of time and space. Like Moses, we endure as seeing him who is invisible, looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). Like Abraham, we realize that we are pilgrims and strangers upon this earth, that our present dwelling places are but the tabernacles of a night-time; and, like him, we anticipate a more glorious fulfilment of the promises than would be possible in this world of places and things (1 Corinthians 2:9-10). Our ultimate goal is that heavenly country towards which he made his pilgrimage. In the words of Emily Dickinson:

I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea, Yet know I how the heather looks, And what a wave must be. I never spoke with God, Nor visited in heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot As if the chart were given.

---

THE SOURCE OF FAITH

(Read Romans 10:1-17).

Having ascertained the essential nature of faith (1) the assurance of things hoped for, and (2) a conviction with respect to things not seen, we shall now turn our attention to the source of faith. Whence is the faith obtained that is unto the saving of the soul? We may find the answer to this important question by turning again to the cases cited in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews:

1. Abel, Hebrews 11:4. Whence did Abel obtain his conviction that the offering of a sacrifice of blood would be pleasing to God and would bring him God’s blessing? Evidently from the word of God. It seems obvious that God laid down the law of sacrifice as soon as man fell, in order to establish the principle that apart from shedding of blood there is no remission (Hebrews 9:22). Abel, in bringing an offering in which blood was shed, obeyed the law; Cain, in bringing the fruit of the ground, disobeyed it (1 John 3:12). This explains why Abel’s offering was accepted and Cain’s rejected.

That this institution was of divine origin is evident from several considerations: I. We learn from Hebrews 11:4, that Abel offered his sacrifice in faith. But in Romans 10:17, we are told that -faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.-’ And hence it follows that Abel could not have offered in faith without a command from God. II. It could not have been a human invention, because Reason can perceive no connection between the means and the end. It is evidently a positive and not a moral or natural institution. III. Its universality is another proof of its divine origin. Mr. Faber says that -throughout the whole world there is a notion prevalent that the gods can be appeased only by bloody sacrifices. There is no heathen people,-’ he adds, -that can specify a time when they were without sacrifice. All have had it from a time which is not reached by their genuine records. Tradition alone can be brought forward to account for its origin.-’ IV. The distinction between clean and unclean beasts even in the time of Noah (Genesis 7:2) proves also the divine origin of sacrifice. This is a distinction which is altogether positive, and which has no foundation in either reason or philosophy (Milligan, SR, 67).

2. Enoch, Hebrews 11:5.Enoch’s walk of faith was evidently inspired and directed by the word of God (Genesis 5:24).

3. Noah, Hebrews 11:7. How did Noah obtain his conviction that an overwhelming deluge would come upon the antediluvian world? How did he obtain the conviction that in the building of the ark a means of deliverance would be provided him and his family? Evidently from the word of God. God told him the flood would come in due time. God told him to build the ark and how to build it. God gave him the plans for it. God promised him deliverance through the instrumentality of the ark. And Noah believed God. His conviction was inspired not by any manifestation in nature, but solely by the word of God. See Genesis 6:13-22; Genesis 7:1-5; Genesis 8:15-17.

4. Abraham, Hebrews 11:8-19. Whence did Abraham obtain his conviction regarding the land to which he journeyed? Whence did he obtain his belief that this land would be given him for an inheritance? From the word of God. See Genesis 12:1-4; Genesis 13:14-18, etc. It was God who told him about the far country and promised it to him for an inheritance. Whence did Abraham and Sarah obtain their conviction regarding the birth of the child of promise? From the word of God (Genesis 17:15-21). Whence did Abraham obtain his conviction that God would not allow Isaac to suffer an untimely end (Hebrews 11:19)? From the word of God. Had not Isaac been miraculously conceived and born? Were not the details of the Abrahamic promise to be worked out through him? (Genesis 12:3; Genesis 13:16; Genesis 17:19, Hebrews 11:18). Cf. Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6, James 2:23.

5. Joseph, Hebrews 11:22. Whence did Joseph obtain his conviction that his people would leave Egypt and repossess Canaan? Evidently from God’s promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Genesis 12:1-4; Genesis 13:14-18; Genesis 17:15-21; Genesis 26:2-5; Genesis 28:12-17).

6. Moses, Hebrews 11:22-29. From whom did Moses receive his commission to lead his people out of bondage? From whom did he receive the Law ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator (Galatians 3:19)? From God Himself. See Exodus 3:1 to Exodus 4:17, Exodus 20:1-26, Deuteronomy 5:1-33, etc. Who was his constant Guide and Protector through all those terrible marches in the wilderness? Who rained manna from heaven upon the starving people? Who guided them by means of a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night? Moses constantly endured, as seeing him who is invisible.

7. Joshua, Hebrews 11:29. Whence did Joshua obtain his confidence that the walls of Jericho would fall? From Jehovah’s word. He went to God for a war program, in his extremity, and God supplied it (Joshua 6:1-20).

8. Rahab, Hebrews 11:30. Whence did Rahab obtain her belief that she should give aid and succor to the men of Joshua’s army? Evidently from her knowledge of God’s promises and judgments (John 2:9-21; John 6:22-25, James 2:25).

9. The creation, Hebrews 11:3. Whence do we obtain our belief that our physical universe was the materialization of God’s word? Our conviction that what is seen hath not been made out of things which appear (i.e., that this universe was not fashioned out of pre-existing materials, as the evolutionists and materialists contend)? From the word of God. (See Psalms 33:6; Psalms 33:9; Psalms 148:5, etc. Note that the expression, God said, is found ten consecutive times in Genesis 1. Cf. also John 1:1-3, Hebrews 1:1-3, 2 Peter 3:5-8, etc.).

10. Other great heroes and heroines of faith, Hebrews 11:32-39. All received their inspiration to deeds of heroism from the attractions and impulsions of God’s word. So, then, belief cometh of hearing the divine word, as our text says. Believers in all ages endure as seeing Him who is invisible.

Conclusion: So much for the examples from Old Testament history. But what about the faith that operates unto the salvation of the soul, in the present dispensation, under the new covenant?

1. From what source do we obtain our belief that God is, and that He is a rewarder of them that seek after Him (Hebrews 11:6)? From the testimony about Him as revealed and recorded in Scripture. From the complete and perfect revelation of Him afforded us in the person and work of Jesus Christ, whom to know aright is eternal life. John 15:9-11, 1 Corinthians 2:6-16, Hebrews 1:1-3, 1 Peter 1:3-12, etc.

2. From what source do we obtain our conviction that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God? From the testimony presented in the Scriptures, particularly that of the gospel records. This is our only source of accurate information about Him, See John 17:20, John 20:30-31, Acts 15:7, Acts 17:11-12, etc. Why should me reject the testimony of these competent eye-witnesses, these men who walked and talked and supped with Him, and listen to the quibblings of half-baked professors removed from Him by a span of twenty centuries?

3. Whence do we obtain our convictions respecting the future life and its rewards and retributions? From the testimony of Scripture? From the great and exceeding precious promises of God.

4. Romans 10:17. Hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Faith does not come by feeling, nor by a direct operation of the Spirit, nor in answer to prayer, but faith does come by hearing the word of God (Romans 10:6-8, 1 Thessalonians 2:13).

---

THE PILGRIMAGE OF FAITH

(Hebrews 11:1-19, esp. Hebrews 11:13)

One of the most illustrious characters of ancient times to whom our attention is called by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, is Abraham, the father of the Hebrew people.

Abraham’s life and walk were so eminently motivated by faith, that his name has gone down in sacred history as the Father of the Faithful, and as the Friend of God (Romans 4:17, Galatians 3:29, Isaiah 41:8, 2 Chronicles 20:7, James 2:23).

1. Note, in the first place, that Abraham’s whole life was a pilgrimage of faith.

(1) It was by faith that he first went out from his native home, Ur of the Chaldees. As faith comes from hearing the word of God (Romans 10:17), so he went out in response to God’s command (cf. Genesis 12:1-3). He did not go out in consequence of any urge within himself, but solely in obedience to God. By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out unto a place which he was to receive for an inheritance (Hebrews 11:8).

(2)* By faith he made his initial pilgrimage from Ur of Chaldea to the land of promise.* As faith is a conviction with respect to things not seen (Hebrews 11:1), he therefore went out not knowing whither he went (Hebrews 11:8). Commenting on this verse, Milligan says: Here we have given the fact that Abraham received a call from God; that by his call he was required to leave his home and kindred in Ur of Chaldea, and go out into a strange land; that this land, though promised to his posterity, was wholly unknown to him at the time; and that he nevertheless obeyed God, and went out of his own country, not knowing whither he went (Milligan, NTCH, in loco.)

(3) By faith he became a sojourner in the land of promise, as in a land not his own, etc. It would seem from this that Abraham never regarded Canaan as his home. He knew of course, by faith, that when the Canaanites should have filled up the cup of their iniquity to the full, in the fourth generation, the land would be given to his posterity for an everlasting possession, as indeed it was in the time of Joshua (Genesis 15:12-21). But until that time neither he nor his seed, he realized, had any rights or privileges there beyond what might have been accorded other strangers under like circumstances. (Cf. Acts 7:5). Hence Abraham died without owning a foot of the land other than the cave of Machpelah, which he purchased from Ephron the Hittite for a burying-ground (Genesis 23:3-20); and hence, also, neither he, nor Isaac, nor Jacob, ever established a permanent residence in the country. They were satisfied to live in movable tents, feeling assured that according to the promise, they were to fall heir to a better inheritance than any that is to be found on this earth.

(4) By faith he looked beyond the literal to the spiritual fulfilment of the promise. For he looked for the city which hath the foundations, etc. (Hebrews 11:9-10). From this and other like passages we are constrained to think that God had given the patriarchs information with regard to the heavenly country, far beyond what is now recorded in Genesis or any other part of the Old Testament. What we find there at present was written for our instruction, as well as for the benefit of the ancients (Romans 15:4). But much may have been said to them which would in no way benefit us; and which was, therefore, excluded from the Canon by Moses, Ezra and other inspired writers. The origin of sacrifice, for instance, is nowhere expressly mentioned in the Old Testament; nor is there anything said in it respecting the origin of the Patriarchal priesthood. Information, clear, full, and explicit, on all such matters, was of course needed by the ancients; but for us the more general instructions of the Bible are quite sufficient. And so, also, we think it was with respect to the heavenly country. The Patriarchs seem to have received revelations concerning it which have never been transmitted to us; for it is obvious that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, lived in constant expectation of entering it at the close of their earthly pilgrimage. They were satisfied to live here as strangers and pilgrims, knowing that they had in heaven a city having permanent foundations whose Architect and Framer is God. This city is manifestly the heavenly Jerusalem (Galatians 4:28, Hebrews 12:22; Hebrews 13:14), which for the present is located in heaven, but which will hereafter descend to the earth after the latter shall have been renovated by fire (Revelation 21). Then will be fulfilled in its full and proper sense the promise made to Abraham, that he and his seed should be the heirs of the world (Romans 4:13) (Milligan, ibid.).

In the land of fadeless day,

Lies -the city four-square-';

It shall never pass away,

And there is -no night there.-'

God shall -wipe away all tears,-'

There’s no death, no pain nor fears,

And they count not time by years,

For there is -no night there.-'

(5) By faith he anticipated the birth of the child of promise (Hebrews 11:11-12, Galatians 4:23, Genesis 17:15-21; Genesis 18:9-15; Genesis 21:1-7). The miraculous conception and birth of Isaac, typical in respect to its supernaturalness of that of Jesus, were direct fulfilments of the promise of Jehovah which Abraham believed. In this respect Abraham’s faith was even greater than Sarah’S, who, on being told, at ninety years of age and long after she had passed the age of child-bearing, that she should give birth to a son, received the announcement at first with considerable incredulity (Genesis 18:9-15).

(6) By faith he offered up Isaac on Mount Moriah, accounting that God is able to raise up, even from the dead; from whence he did also in a figure receive him back (Hebrews 11:17-19). Abraham’s faith was such that he knew that the promise of God (Genesis 17:21; Genesis 21:12) could not and would not fail, and as he could not anticipate that God would interfere, as He did, so as to prevent the immolation of his son, there was really left for him no alternative other than simply to conclude that God would restore Isaac to life. This conviction seems to be implied in the remark which he made to his servants, -Abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again.-’ The word rendered come again (we will return) is in the plural number, and seems to indicate a belief on the part of Abraham, that God would immediately raise Isaac up again from the dead (Milligan, ibid.) The account of this, the severest trial and consequently the supreme manifestation of Abraham’s faith, is related in Genesis 22:1-14).

(7) Having walked in faith, he likewise died in faith, not having received the promises but having seen them and greeted them from afar, etc. What were the promises? (a) That Abraham should have a, numerous offspring (Genesis 13:16; Genesis 15:3-5; Genesis 17:2-4; Genesis 22:16); (b) that God would be a God to him and to his seed after him (Genesis 17:1-8); (c) that He would give to him and his seed an everlasting inheritance (Genesis 12:7; Genesis 13:15; Genesis 15:18-21; Genesis 17:8); (d) that through him and his seed, all the nations of the earth should be blessed (Genesis 2:3; Genesis 22:18). With respect to these four details, Abraham looked beyond their literal to their spiritual fulfilment. To each of these God attached a double significance.. They each consisted, so to speak, of two elements, one of which had reference to the carnal side of the covenant, and the other to the spiritual side; one to the type, and the other to the antitype. Thus Abraham was made the honored father of two families: to each of which an inheritance was promised, and through each of which the world was to be blessed (Milligan, ibid.). Abraham, it would seem, understood all this, understood by faith that the spiritual side of the promise would be realized through his seed, the Messiah, and consequently rejoiced to see his day, and he saw it, and was glad (John 8:56). (Cf. Galatians 4:21-31; Galatians 3:6-13, etc.) Hence, he died in faith, knowing that the promise in its various details would be worked out according to God’s eternal purpose and plan. Hence, too, by his constant life and walk of faith, he admitted that he did not seek a home on this earth, that here he considered himself merely a stranger and sojourner, that he did not expect to enter into possession of his true home until he should have reached the end of his pilgrimage and been received into a better country than this, i.e., heaven itself. Wherefore God approved and rewarded the faith of Abraham, and of Isaac and Jacob as well, by preparing for their inhabitation, and for all the redeemed of all ages, a city whose foundations had, even in their day, been laid prospectively in the blood of Jesus Christ (cf. Hebrews 12:22-24).

2. Note, in the second place, that Abraham’s pilgrimage of faith was designed to be typical of the believer’s journey.

(1) A voyage to a distant landsuch is the life of every Christian believer.

Our life is like the hurrying on the eve Before we start on some long journey bound, When fit preparing to the last we leave, Then run to every room the dwelling round, And sigh that nothing needed can be found; Yet go we must, and soon as day shall break; We snatch an hour’s repose; when loud the sound For our departure calls; we rise and take A quick and sad farewell, and go ere well awake.

(2) Here we walk by faith, and not by sight, if we are true Christians. Though in the world, we are not of the world. The worldly spirit deals with things present, but the spirit of faith anticipates the more glorious things to come. The worldly spirit is neither far-reaching nor far-sighted. Its range is bounded by the horizon of time and sense. It has no wings with which to soar into realms invisible. It is of the earth, earthly. Whence comes the manna? why gushes the water from the rock? whither guides the pillar of cloud and fire?these are questions it never asks. It knows not how to soar, how to anticipate and trust and wait, how to endure as seeing Him who is invisible, how to repose under the shadow of His wings, unmindful of the dangers of the wilderness and unalarmed by foes. But the heavenly-minded man walks by faiththat faith which is the substance of things hoped for, and a conviction with respect to things not seen. And, among all the great verities which possess his soul there is none greater, none nobler, none surer, than his conviction with respect to the saints-’ everlasting home. All the circumstances of his present journey, all the remembrances, all his reasonings, all his aspirations, point to a Better Land. By faith he sings:

There is a land of pure delight,

Where saints immortal reign,

Infinite day excludes the night,

And pleasures banish pain.

There everlasting spring abides

And never-withering flowers;

Death, like a narrow sea, divides

This heavenly land from ours.

(3) We realize that as far as this present life is concerned we are but strangers and sojourners on the earth. We dwell in tents, as did Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; in the tabernacles of a night-time. We are here today, and gone tomorrow. There is nothing that we possess here that we can really call our own. All that we shall have in the end is a few square feet of earth in which our mortal remains will be laid away to mingle with the dust. This is not sentimentaityit is plain fact. We can-’t take anything material with us into the next world, for the simple reason that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. No matter how diligently we may toil and strive to accumulate houses and lands and worldly goods, of what value will these things be when we reach the end of the road? We are pilgrims, nothing more, walking by faith in the direction of the heavenly country which we expect to reach beyond the swelling of the Jordan, the country that will truly be, Home, Sweet Home. The true Christian philosophy is expressed by Phoebe Carey in these lines:

One sweetly solemn thought

Comes to me o-’er and o-’er:

I am nearer my home today

Than I have ever been before.

Nearer my Father’s house

Where the many mansions be;

Nearer the great white throne,

Nearer the crystal sea.

Nearer the bound of life,

Where we lay our burdens down;

Nearer leaving the cross,

Nearer gaining the crown.

(4) Observation teaches us that much in this life is inequality and injustice. As far as this world alone is concerned, honesty is not always the best policy, Judas fares about as well as John, and Nero quaffs more of the wine of living than Paul. The voice of experience speaks to us that if this life is all, it is scarcely worth the living. In the words of Robert Browning:

Truly there needs be another life to come! If this be all And another life await us not for one, I say, -Tis a poor cheat, a stupid bungle, A wretched failure, I for one protest Against, and I hurl it back with scorn.

(5) Life as we live it here is largely illusion. (See F. W. Robertson, Sermons, The Illusiveness of Life). Our senses deceive us. They deceive us with respect to distance, shape, and color. That which, afar off, seems to be oval, turns out to be circular when modified by the perspective of distance; that which appears to be a speck, becomes a vast body, on nearer approach. Stand in the middle of a railroad track, and look in either direction, and the rails appear to converge; but they do not actually do so. Look at what we call the horizon and it seems that the earth and sky meet, but they do not actually, meet. The beautiful berry turns out to be bitter and poisonous; that which apparently moves is in reality at rest; that which seems to be stationary is in perpetual motion; the earth moves, but the sun, which appears to be moving, stands still. All experience here is but a correction of life’s illusionsa modification or reversal of the judgment of the senses. Our natural anticipations deceive us. Every human life starts out bright with hopes that will never be realized. These hopes may be different in nature: finer spirits may look on life as an arena for good deeds, while the more selfish regard it as a place only for personal enjoyment; but the results are usually the same. Regardless of the nature of these hopes, the majority will fail of fruition. It would seem almost a satire on life to compare the youth in the outset of his career, flushed and sanguine, with the aspect of the same man when he is nearly done, worn, sobered, covered with the dust of life, confessing that its days have been few and evil. Where is the land flowing with milk and honey? Not on this earth. With our affections it is even worse. Man’s affections are but tabernacles of Canaan, the tents of a nighttime, never the same, always changing. Where are the charms of character, the perfection and purity and truthfulness which seemed so resplendent in our friend? Association has rendered them sordid. They were only our conceptions and they proved false; hence we outgrow friendships. Life as we live it here is an unenjoyable Canaan with nothing real or substantial about it. Our expectations, resting on divine revelation, deceive us. For example, the attitude of the church with respect to the second coming of Christ. The apostles expected Him to return while they were yet here, and the early churches were vitalized by this hope of seeing the great and notable day of the Lord. John, in penning the last words of the New Testament, expressed this hope, Come, Lord Jesus. The church, throughout the centuries of the Christian era, has revived and revitalized this hope many times; in fact it has never died away. And even today, if it should turn out that we who are alive shall remain unto the coming of the Lord, we would consider ourselves fortunate indeed. However, He has not come. He will comebut not as yet. The promise, This Jesus shall so come in like manner as ye beheld him going into heaven, remains unfulfilled. What is the meaning of all this illusiveness of earthly life? Faith replies that it is not delusion, but illusion; that the non-fulfilment of the promises literally, is a pledge of their spiritual fulfilment later; that God, by their very non-realization, lures us onward and upward to nobler things. Suppose, for instance, that the spiritual side of the Abrahamic promise had been revealed to ancient Israel at first; suppose they had been informed at the outset that God’s rest is inward, that the land of promise is to be found only in the Jerusalem which is above; not material, but immaterial; not visible, but invisible. That rude, gross people, yearning after the flesh-pots of Egypt, willing to go back into slavery so only they might have enough to eat and drinkwould they have quitted Egypt on such terms? Would they have taken one step on that pilgrimage which was to find its meaning in the discipline of the ages? Nothey had to be lured on by something visible, something tangible. So we are lured on through life as upon a journey. Could man see the route before hima flat, straight road, unbroken by tree or eminence, with the sun’s heat burning down upon it, stretching out in dreamy monotonyhe could scarcely find either the inclination or the energy with which to begin his journey. It is the very uncertainty of that which is not seen, that which lies just around the bend, that keeps expectation alive. The view we think we may get from yonder summit, the landscape that may be glimpsed as the road winds around yonder knoll, hopes like these beguile the weary traveler on. So our heavenly Father leads us on, educating us day by day, and hour by hour, to walk in faith, ever holding up the seen as an incentive to the unseen. So He deals with us, luring us on by means of life’s unsatisfactory and illusive rewards, ever schooling us in the art of waiting, of enduring as seeing Him who is invisible. Canaan first; then the hope of a Redeemer; and finally the Better Land. It was in this manner that the ancient saints interpreted this mystery of the illusiveness of life. They did not regard life as a dream, nor as a bubble, nor as a delusion. Though they no doubt felt as keenly as any moralist could feel; the brokenness of its promises, yet by faith they pressed on, confessing that they were pilgrims and strangers here, that they had no continuing city, never mournfully moralizing about it, but admitting it cheerfully and even rejoicing that it was so. They felt that all was right; they knew that the promise had a deeper than material significance; so they looked for the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. They even died in faith, not having received the promises, not expecting to receive them here, but hereafter. Now observe the glorious result that comes from the indestructible power of believing and continuing on, in spite of apparent failure. The primitive Christians, for instance, believed in their day that the millennium was at hand. They had heard the apostolic warning, brief and clear, to watch. Now suppose, instead of this, they had been able to look into the future and see all the dreary pages of church history unfolded, with its heresies, its apostasy and divisions; suppose they could have known that even after two thousand years the world would scarcely know the alphabet of the Christian religion; knowing all these things, what would have become of their gigantic and heroic efforts, their sacrifices, their persecutions and their martyrdoms? With such knowledge of the future, do you suppose there ever would have been what we consider the heroism, the sacrifice, the passionate zeal of primitive Christianity? It is in this way that God leads His children on, on to realization and achievement through the illusiveness of the past; as a father educates his child, holding up the seen, all the while nurturing the thought of the unseen. Thus we shall continue to the endto that day when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our God and His Christ. Thus the non-fulfilment of God’s promises becomes to the man of faith an earnest of their deeper and nobler fulfilment.

(6) Finally, as in Abraham’s case, heaven is the goal of our pilgrimage. We expect to find illusion here, and we expect to find reality hereafter. We know that things here are seen and temporal, and we know, too, that the things we shall enjoy hereafter, the things that are now unseen, will be eternal. Interpreted, then, in the light of faith, life’s illusions are not disappointing; in fact nothing is disappointment if spiritually discerned. Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called our God; for he hath prepared for us a city (Hebrews 11:16).

There’s a land that is fairer than day,

And by faith we can see it afar,

For the Father waits over the way,

To prepare us a dwelling-place there.

Just recently Dr. F. B. Meyer, one of England’s greatest preachers, entered into rest. Writing to a friend just three days before his death, this is what he said: Dear Friend: I have just been told, to my surprise, that my days on earth are numbered. It may be that before you receive this letter, I shall have passed within the Palace of the King. Do not trouble to write. I will meet you in the morning. Yours, with much love, F. B. Meyer. I will meet you in the morningwithin the palace of the King. This is Christian faith. This is conviction. Death isn-’t the end, it is the beginning, the beginning of greater growth, greater progress, greater service, and greater joy. As Louise Chandler Moulton has written:

At the end of Love, at the end of Life, At the end of Hope, at the end of Strife, At the end of all that we cling to so The sun is settingmust we go?

At dawn of Love, at Dawn of Life, At dawn of Peace that follows Strife, At dawn of all we long for so The sun is rising*let us go!

Conclusion:* Wherefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city. This is the promise! And God keeps His promises!

How beautiful to be with God,

When earth is fading like a dream,

And from this mist-encircled shore

To launch upon the unknown stream!

No doubt, no fear, no anxious care,

But, comforted by staff and rod,

In the faith-brightened hour of death,

How beautiful to be with God.

Beyond the partings and the pains,

Beyond the sighing and the tears,

Oh, beautiful to be with God

Through all the endless, blessed years

To see His face, to hear His voice,

To know Him better day by day,

And love Him as the flowers love light,

And serve Him as immortals may.

My sinner friend, will you not turn now, and start upon your pilgrimage of faith?

Genesis 18:1-33

PART THIRTY-ONE THE STORY OF ABRAHAM: THE PATRIARCH AS INTERCESSOR

Genesis 18:1-33

1. Abraham as the Gracious Host (Genesis 18:1-8)

1 And Jehovah appeared unto him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; 2 and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood over against him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself to the earth, 3 and said, My lord, if now I have found favor in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant: 4 let now a little water be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: 5 and I will fetch a morsel of bread, and strengthen ye your heart; after that ye shall pass on: -forasmuch as ye are come to your servant. And they said, So do, as thou hast said. 6 And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes. 7 And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetched a calf tender and good, and gave it unto the servant; and he hasted to dress it- 8 And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat.

(1) Abraham and His Mysterious Visitors.

Under the oaks (terebinths) at Mamre, not far from what later became the city of Hebron, the place where the patriarch had formerly pitched his tent (Genesis 13:18), we now see him sitting in the opening of his tent (a fold of which was fastened to a post near by to admit any breeze that might be stirring) in the heat of the day, that is, at noontide. (Cf. 1 Samuel 11:11, the cool of the day; Genesis 3:8, here the Hebrew reads the wind of the day: these terms refer to the eventide). Among Orientals the noon hour is the time of rest (S. of Son 1:7) and of dinner (Genesis 43:16; Genesis 43:25). In this instance Abraham had probably dined and was resting after the dinner, as indicated by the fact that when the visitors arrived special preparations were begun for their, entertainment. Who were these mysterious visitors? When first perceived by the patriarch he took them to be men, but on closer scrutiny (when he saw them, that is, not with physical but with mental vision) he recognized them as divine beings, as evidenced by the fact that he bowed himself to the earth, and said, my Lord, etc. This expression indicates the complete prostration of the body by first falling on the knees and then inclining the head forward until it touches the ground. This was a mode of salutation practised by Orientals toward superiors generally. Certainly the language in which Abraham immediately addressed one of the three men leads to the conclusion that he had already recognized one of them as Yahwe Himself or as the Angel of Yahwe. Obviously the divine character of the three was fully disclosed by the fact of their supernatural knowledge of Sarah’s thoughts (Genesis 18:12-15). Lange (CDHCG 433): Abraham instantly recognizes among the three the one whom he addresses as the Lord in a religious sense, who afterward appears as Jehovah, and was clearly distinguished from the accompanying angels, ch. Genesis 19:1. In its definitive form this -Yahwistic-’ narrative recounts an apparition of Yahweh (Genesis 18:1; Genesis 18:3; Genesis 18:13; Genesis 18:17-22) accompanied by two -men-’ who, according to Genesis 19:1, are angels.. In these three, to whom Abraham addressed a single act of homage, many of the Fathers saw a foreshadowing of the doctrine of the Trinity, a doctrine that was revealed only in the N.T. (JB, 33). It is difficult, from the language of the text here, to think of this as an apparition: there were real persons, not just ghosts or phantoms. We believe Skinner is correct in describing the incident as a theophany. Speiser (ABG, 129): At this stage (Genesis 18:3) Abraham is as yet unaware of the true identity of his visitors, so that he would not address any of them as God; and he cannot mean all three, because the rest of the verse contains three unambiguous singulars.. Later on, in Genesis 18:27; Genesis 18:32-33, the divine appellation is in order, because by then it is clear that Abraham’s guests are out of the ordinary. The present pointing was probably influenced by the explicit mention of Yahweh in Genesis 18:1. But this is the author’s aside to the reader who is thus prepared at the outset for the surprise that is in store for Abraham. (The pointing here, says this writer, is that which is applied to YHWH in the received text). For a contrary view (to be expected, of course, from the general critical approach of the entire work), see IBG, 617: The statement that he bowed himself to the earth does not mean that he recognized his visitors as divine beings. The act was an expression of the self-depreciating courtesy of the Orient (cf. Genesis 23:7, 1 Samuel 24:8, 2 Samuel 14:4; 2 Samuel 14:22; 1 Kings 1:31). Murphy (MG, 315): These men in some way represented God: for the Lord on this occasion appeared unto Abraham (Genesis 18:1). The number is in this respect notable. Abraham addresses himself first to one person (Genesis 18:3), then to more than one (Genesis 18:4-5). It is stated that -they said, So do (Genesis 18:5), they did eat (Genesis 18:8), they said unto him, Where is Sarah, thy wife?-’ (Genesis 18:9). Then the singular number is resumed in the phrase and he said (Genesis 18:10), and at length, -The Lord said unto Abraham-’ (Genesis 18:13), and then, -and he said-’ (Genesis 18:15). Then we are told -the men rose up, and Abraham went with them-’ (Genesis 18:16). Then we have -The Lord said-’ twice (Genesis 18:17; Genesis 18:20). And lastly, it is said (Genesis 18:22) -the men turned their faces and went toward Sodom, and Abraham was yet standing before the Lord.-’ From this it appears that of the three men, one, at all events, was the Lord, who, when the other two went toward Sodom, remained with Abraham while he made his intercession for Sodom, and afterward he also went his way. The other two will come before us again in the next chapter. Meanwhile we have here the first explicit instance of the Lord appearing as man to man, and holding familiar intercourse with him. The person to whom Abraham addressed himself, and who was at least the chief speaker, was the Son of God and Judge of the world: cf. Genesis 18:25 with John 5:22 (SIBG, p. 241). Was the Lord in this instance a pre-incarnate manifestation of the Eternal Logos? Was this another epiphany of the Angel of Jehovah, the Logos whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting (Micah 5:2). Surely, this interpretation is in greater accord with Bible teaching as a whole than any of the other views suggested!

(2) Abraham the Host. We have here a realistic picture of the ancient ritual of hospitality. The scene is one, we are told, which may be seen in any Bedouin camp even at the present day. The hospitality of the Easterner, and even that of the Arab has often been remarked by travelers: the virtue of hospitality is one of the great redeeming virtues in the character of the Bedouins. Whitelaw (PCG, 241): -Whenever our path led us near an encampment, as was frequently the case, we always found some active sheikh or venerable patriarch sitting -in his tent door,-’ and as soon as we were within hail we heard the earnest words of welcome and invitation which the Old Testament Scriptures had rendered long ago familiar to us: -Stay, my lord, stay. Pass not on till thou hast eaten bread, and rested under thy servant’s tent. Alight and remain until thy servants kill a kid and prepare a feast-’ (quoted from Porter’s Great Cities of Bashan, p. 326). Since this was the hottest and drowsiest time of the day, it is indeed likely that Abraham at first glance recognized the strangers only as three men approaching his tent, and received them with all the courtesies of a generous, high-minded, and self-respecting chieftain. Skinner (PCG, 299): The description -presents a perfect picture of the manner in which a modern Bedawee sheikh receives travelers arriving at his encampment, He immediately orders his wife or women to make bread, slaughters a sheep or some other animal, and dresses it in haste; and, bringing milk and any other provisions that he may have at hand, with the bread and meat that he has dressed, sets them before his guest: if they are persons of high rank he also stands by them while they eat-’ (quoted from E. W. Lane, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, 5th ed. 1860). It will be noted that after the preliminary greetings the first act of the ritual of hospitality was the serving of the visitors with water for washing their feet. As people in those countries went barefoot, or with sandals, because of the heat, washing the feet after traveling was a common and needful practice (cf. Genesis 19:2; Genesis 24:32; Judges 19:21, 2 Samuel 11:8; 1 Timothy 5:10, Luke 7:44). Note Genesis 18:4, rest yourselves under the tree, that is, recline by resting on the elbow. Genesis 18:8Abraham stood by them as their servant, to give them what they needed (Nehemiah 12:44, Galatians 5:13, Luke 14:8). Here, therefore, as often in Genesis, one recognizes that the framework of a story belongs to a far-off time. Yet there are values in it which do not disappear. There is the opening picture of the hospitality of Abraham. From the door of his tent he sees three figures coming toward him through the heat of the dayfigures whom he has no reason to believe are other than ordinary men who have chanced to come his way. Instantly he goes out to meet them and to offer them his utmost hospitality; and the men, thus welcomed, bring to Abraham a reward of which he had not dreamed. It was not the last time that a generous spirit has found that he has -entertained angels unawares-’ (Hebrews 13:2). When anyone receives another human being with warmhearted kindness he may be nearer than he knows to a divine experience. Although it is a long way from Genesis to the Gospels, in the story of Abraham there is at least a foregleam of the promise of Christ, Matthew 25:40 (IBG, 617). In the words of Lowell, The Vision of Sir Launfal:

The gift without the giver is bare; Who gives himself with his alms feeds three Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me.

(Cf. Exodus 23:9, Leviticus 24:22; Deuteronomy 10:18; Deuteronomy 27:19; Matthew 22:1-10; Matthew 25:34; Luke 14:12, Romans 12:13; Romans 16:1; 1 Timothy 3:2; 1 Timothy 5:10: Hebrews 13:2, 1 Peter 4:9). Leupold (EG, 539): The eating of the three heavenly guests-and they ate-‘is marvelous indeed. We must declare this eating to have been real but rather by way of accommodation than of necessity. Augustine’s word still stands as a classic explanation: -That He ate, was rather of power than of necessity. The earth absorbs water by drinking it in. Different is the mode of absorption by the glowing day of the sun. The one is because of need; the other by virtue of power.-’ The eating on the part of the glorified Christ after the resurrection serves as an explanatory parallel to this incident. The friendliest and most intimate contacts among the sons of men are oft made over a friendly meal. (Cf. Luke 24:36-43, Acts 10:41). At first, Abraham sees his guests as mere human beings, and welcomes them warmly; their superhuman character is only gradually revealed (Genesis 18:2; Genesis 18:9; Genesis 18:13-14) (JB, 33).

2. Sarah’s Laughter (Genesis 18:9-15).

Oriental courtesy no doubt in those early days forbade to all, except the most intimate friends, inquiry about a wife. The fact that these visitors did inquire about Sarah indicates their special authority to do so. It is now disclosed that their visit is concerned vitally with an experience that is relatively soon, let us say, to befall her. Moreover, Sarah’s faith needs to be raised to the proper degree to do justice to the experience. Behold, in the tent is the patriarch’s reply to his visitor’s pointed question, Where is Sarah thy wife? The behold here amounts to little more than there inside the tent.

9 And they said unto him, Where is Sarah thy wife? And he said, Behold, in the tent. 10 And he said, I will certainly return unto thee when the season cometh round: and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard in the tent door, which was behind him. 11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, and well stricken in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. 12 And Sarah laughed within herself, saying After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also? And Jehovah said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, who am old? Is anything too hard for Jehovah? At the set time I will return unto thee, when the season cometh round, and Sarah shall have a son. 15 Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not; for she was afraid. And he said, Nay; but thou didst laugh.

Without circumlocution the visitor, the One outstanding among the three, assumes control of the conversation and delivers the promise He has come to give, Sarah shall have a son. When the season cometh round, that is, at the time determined, we may well suppose, naturally: according to the time of that which is born or nine months after conception. Of course, we do not know how much time had elapsed since the earlier announcement to Abraham (Genesis 17:16-19, Genesis 21:2). Sarah, standing behind the tent door, was hearing, that is, she was listening: no doubt with the well-known female curiosity. So Sarah laughed to herself: not a laugh of derision: it evidently bore no trace of scoffing. Rather it was the laugh of incredulousness, and hence to a degree a form of unbelief. To the carnal thinking of Sarah, sexual delight could not be expected naturally at the age to which Abraham and she had both attained: it should be noted that she did not put the matter very delicately (Genesis 18:12). There is nothing equivocal where Sarah is concerned. She is depicted as down-to-earth to a fault, with her curiosity, her impulsiveness, and her feeble attempt at deception (Speiser, ABG, 131). A remarkable evidence of divine insight follows: the Speaker knows that Sarah has laughed within herself, although He has neither seen nor heard her. Whitelaw (PCG, 242): Genesis 18:13And the Lord said unto Abraham, *Wherefore did Sarah laugh?*a question which must have convinced Abraham of the Speaker’s omniscience. Not only had He heard the silent, inaudible, inward cachinnation of Sarah’s spirit, but he knew the tenor of her thoughts and the purport of her dubitations. Sarah herself is startled by this unexpected exposure of her secret thoughts into actual fear of these visitors, especially of the Principal Guest who has taken over the course of the conversation to reiterate the promise of the covenant-heir. Fear threw her into confusion and engendered the deception to which she resorted (Genesis 18:15). The laughter is not from Sarah’s lack of faith: Sarah does not yet know who her Guest is; in Genesis 18:15, she guesses and is frightened (J, 35). As to the identity of this Heavenly Visitor, Genesis 18:14 alone might have left the question unresolved, but Genesis 18:13 had identified the Speaker beforehand. With a directness similar to that which he employed in dealing with the first culprits in the garden, not contending in a multiplicity of words, but solemnly announcing that what she said was false. The silence of Sarah was an evidence of her conviction; her subsequent conception was a proof of her repentance and forgiveness (PCG, 242). Sarah, like Abraham, passed through periods of doubt and disbelief. It was the laughter of doubt which caused God to pose the question, Is anything too hard for the Lord? (Genesis 18:13). God who changes not continues faithful despite the sin of unbelief in His people. In Genesis 17:15 the same Sarai, meaning contentious-’ or -princely,-’ was changed to Sarah which means -princess-’ (HSB, 30). The J B Version makes these verses most meaningful: So Sarah laughed to herself, thinking, -Now that I am past the age of child-bearing, and my husband is an old man, is pleasure to come my way again?-’ But Yahweh asked Abraham, -Why did Sarah laugh and say, am I really going to have a child now that I am old? Is anything too wonderful for Yahweh? At the same time next year I shall visit you again and Sarah will have a son.-’ -I did not laugh,-’ Sarah said, lying because she was afraid. But he replied, -Oh yes, you did laugh.-’

The second half of the chapter begins at this point (Genesis 18:16). It tells us what transpired at Mamre after Abraham’s guests had been escorted along the road for a short distance. It is not until Genesis 19:1 that the two men are specifically identified as angels. Noting the distinction clearly made in Genesis 18:16-17 and Genesis 18:22, between the two and the third (the Principal Speaker) who is specifically designated Jehovah, it seems obvious that this personage was Jehovah Himself, or more likely, the Angel of Jehovah, i.e., the pre-incarnate Logos who appears so frequently in the Old Testament.

3. Abraham the Intercessor (Genesis 18:16-33).

16 And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom: and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way. 17 And Jehovah said, Shall I hide from Abraham that which I do; 18 seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19 For I have known him, to the end that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of Jehovah, to do righteousness and justice; to the end that Jehovah may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him. 20 And Jehovah said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; 21 I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know. 22 And the men turned from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before Jehovah. 23 And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou consume the righteous with the wicked?* 24 Peradventure there are fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou consume and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? 25 That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked, that so the righteous should be as the wicked; that be far from thee: shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? 26 And Jehovah said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sake. 27 And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord who am but dust and ashes: 23 peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous; wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five? And he said, I will not destroy it, if I find there forty and five. 29 And he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there. And he said, I will not do it for the forty’s sake. 30 And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I will not do it, if I find thirty there. 31 And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord: peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And he said I will not destroy it for the twenty’s sake. 32 And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for the ten’s sake. 33 And Jehovah went his way, as soon as he had left off communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned unto his place.*

(1) The Announcement of Impending Doom to be visited on Sodom and Gomorrah. Genesis 18:16The two men as distinguished from Yahweh who stays with Abraham. In Genesis 19:1 we shall be told that they were angels. Genesis 18:17-21: By God’s inquiring into things, is meant either his bringing the persons concerned to a proper sense of their condition and conduct (Genesis 3:9; Genesis 4:9-10; Genesis 16:8; 1 Kings 19:9; 1 Kings 19:13; John 4:4; John 4:9); or it marks the wisdom, patience, and equity of his procedure (Genesis 11:5; Genesis 11:7; Exodus 3:8; Exodus 33:5; Micah 1:3) (SIBG, 241). The Three have left Abraham’s tent and turned their steps eastward toward Sodom. Abraham accompanies them, and on the way one of them, in whom he recognizes no other than the Angel of the Covenant, informs him of the real purport of this visit to the cities where Lot had taken up his abode. The sin of these cities is very great, they tell him, and their cup of iniquity is now full; their inhabitants have wearied themselves with wickedness, their licentiousness and iniquity call to Heaven for a visible demonstration of Absolute Justice, and divine judgment is now even at the door. (Cf. Genesis 15:16).

(2) The Perennial Problem of Absolute Justice. Thus informed of the impending judgment, the Friend of God draws near, and with amazing boldness properly blended with the deepest humility, pleads with the Almighty for the guilty cities. Peradventure there might be found therein at least fifty, or forty-five, or forty, or thirty, or twenty, or even ten righteous souls, would the Lord of all the earth spare them for ten’s sake? Thereupon he is assured that if only ten righteous souls can be found the cities will be spared. While he is thus pleading with God, the two other angels have entered Sodom and are being hospitably entertained by Lot. (Cf. Isaiah 1:9, 1 Kings 19:18, Romans 11:4, Jeremiah 18:5-10). Sanders (HH, 35, 36): The importance of the message which came to Abraham concerning his son is measured by the various ways in which a promise of his future greatness had been made (Genesis 13:14-17; Genesis 15:5; Genesis 17:6-8) and by the Divine purpose which was to be fulfilled through him (Genesis 18:19). But how characteristic of the knightly chieftain that all thought of his own future was supplanted by anxiety to save the few in Sodom who were not hopelessly depraved. Genesis 18:22-23Abraham’s standing before and drawing near to the Lord, imports his bold and familiar intercession with him (1 Samuel 14:36, Psalms 73:28; Hebrews 7:19; Hebrews 10:22; James 4:8). We have here what Cornfeld calls a charming tradition which illustrates how Abraham, on intimate terms with the Lord, dared to intercede with him, in the famous dialogue over the problem of the wicked people of Sodom and its few, hypothetical righteous men (AtD, 67).In the same context is the incident of Sarah’s laughter [Genesis 18:11-15], says Cornfeld, adding: Sarah, who was eavesdropping on the conversation (between Yahweh and Abraham) is reported to have laughed heartily to herself, knowing that she had reached the age when this was physically impossible. Certainly this intimacy of men with gods and the reaction of God to Sarah’s and Abraham’s laughter [cf. Genesis 17:17], would be unthinkable among later generations who had a different attitude towards divine manifestations. But comparative evidence from Canaanite literature tends to justify and explain the meaning of this ancient story in its true context.. God was not conceived as impersonal in, patriarchal times, and if we are to understand properly the biblical texts, we must develop a feeling for a social phenomenon of the times, the closeness of men to gods, and of the Hebrews to God. In our society a man who claims to have divine visitors is regarded as queer. That is why it is not easy for every modern reader, who is not familiar with the ancient background and literatures, to understand that aspect of Hebrew society. For the ancient Hebrews, the human and divine intermingled freely. The early direct relationship between men and gods is common to all the epics: Ugarit, Mesopotamian, Greek and proto-patriarchal. The simple personal contact between men and God was gradually eliminated (AtD, pp. 66-67).

Genesis 18:25Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right) The perennial problem: Must the good suffer along with, and because of, the wicked? Is God to be understood as Absolute Justice? What is the relation of Divine Love to Divine Justice? Is Mercy compatible with Absolute Justice? How does the principle of Equity come into this problem? (Equity is defined, NWCD, s.v., as any body of legal doctrines and rules similarly developed to enlarge, supplement, or override a system of law which has become too narrow and rigid in its scope.) Cf. Genesis 18:23Wilt thou consume the righteous with the wicked? Skinner (ICCG, 305): This question strikes the keynote of the sectiona protest against the thought of an indiscriminate judgment.. In OT, righteousness and clemency are closely allied: there is more injustice in the death of a few innocent persons than in the sparing of a guilty multitude. The problem is, to what limits is the application of this principle subject?. Unrighteousness in the Supreme Ruler of the world would make piety impossible. Whitelaw (PCG, 249): Assuming it as settled that the fair Pentapolis is to be destroyed, Abraham practically asks, with a strange mixture of humility and boldness, if Jehovah has considered that this will involve a sad commingling in one gigantic overthrow of both the righteous and the wicked. The patriarch appeals not to Jehovah’s covenant grace, but to his absolute judicial equity (ibid., 250). Again, Abraham regarding it as impossible that the entire population of Sodom was involved in common ruin, kept modifying the conditions of his appeal, believing that the city might be spared, even if only a few should be proved to be righteous. It was inconceivable to him that Jehovah would do anything to tarnish His divine righteousness, such as destroying even ten righteous persons in order to punish the entire population; that is, overwhelming the innocent in order to bring retribution on the guilty. But Abraham did not know how universal the corruption of Sodom really was. The stark naked truth that stands out as the dark background of this sordid story, the reality that vitiated all pleas for clemency, was the fact that Sodom had become a vessel fit only for destruction. (It should be understood that Sodom in this story is the name that describes the complete moral corruption of all the Cities of the Plain.) It turns out later that Lot (but only by implication, two of his daughters) was the only person considered relatively worthy of Divine clemency, and that partially in response to the plea of Abraham, God’s Friend. What a tremendous lesson here for men of all generations!

(SIBG, 241-242): Whenever the righteous are cut off with the wicked in public calamities, it manifests them to have been partakers with them in their sins (Amos 3:2; Revelation 18:4), and yet it is in everlasting mercy to their souls (Isaiah 57:1, Philippians 1:23). The conviction of collective responsibility was so strong in ancient Israel that the question does not here arise whether the just may be spared individually. God will, in fact, save Lot and his family, Genesis 19:15-16; but the principle of individual responsibility is not deduced until Deuteronomy 24:16, Jeremiah 31:29-30, Ezekiel 14:12 ff., Ezek. ch. 18. Abraham, therefore, supposing that all are to share a common destiny, asks that a few just men, may win pardon for the many wicked. Yahweh’s answers approve the part the saints have to play in saving the world. But Abraham’s bid for mercy does not venture below the number ten. Acccording to Jeremiah 5:1 and Ezekiel 22:30, God would pardon Jerusalem even if only one just man could be found there. Finally, in Isaiah 53 it is the suffering of the one servant that is to save the whole race, but this prophecy was destined to remain unintelligible until it was fulfilled in Christ (JB, 35). (This comment, however, is based on the critical view that Deuteronomyrather, the Deuteronomic Codewas a kind of pious fraud foisted on the people to restore the power of the priesthood, as late as the reign of Josiah (2 Ki. ch. 22). We do not accept this view; rather, we find every reason to hold that the entire Torah was the handiwork of Moses and that Deuteronomy was what it purports to be, namely, addresses delivered to Israel by Moses just before his death. Hence, in Exo., ch. 20, we have the doctrine of the consequences of sin, and in Ezek., ch. 18 we have the doctrine of the guilt of sin. We see no reason for assuming that the doctrine of individual justice was such a late development. There is not now, there never was, in Biblical religion, any notion of salvation by proxy. C.C.). In Romans 3:6 ff., it is made clear that it would be injustice to condemn the innocent, however few in comparison with the many sinners.)

Genesis 18:21Leupold (EG, 547): -I am going down-’ in this case involves a mere descent from the higher spot where

spoken, to the low-lying cities. In reality only the two angels (Genesis 19:1) go directly to the city. The statements of the verse in no wise imply that God’s omniscience is curtailed and that so He is under necessity of securing information as men might. God chooses this mode of procedure to make apparent the fact that He, as Just Judge of all the earth, does nothing without first being in full possession of all facts. The subsequent experience of the angels in Sodom displays the moral state of Sodom far more effectually than could many an explanation besides. God practically claims that the facts of the case have come up before Him already. But He does nothing until facts warrant interference. Again (ibid., p. 248): The boldness of faith betrayed by this [Abraham’S] intercession may well astound us. It surely is not based on the assumption that God might deal unjustly.. But Abraham recognized that there was a possibility of the perishing of righteous men in this impending catastrophe, even his own relatives also. Much as he hopes that Lot and his family might be rescued, he is not so narrow or selfish as to think only of these. One might almost say that with a heart kindled by the love that God imparts to faith, Abraham ventures to plead the case of God’s love over against God’s righteousness. We may never know how these attributes of God are reconciled to one another, except in so far as they blend in Christ. But the boldness of this act of faith is acceptable with God inasmuch as it is really born out of God’s heart. This attribute is the -importunity-’ Christ refers to in the parable of Luk 11:8. On Genesis 18:25 (ibid. p. 550): Most amazing is the free address of faith at this point. Yet, though it strikes a responsive chord in every heart, hardly anyone would be capable of venturing to address God thus. Behind it lies absolute confidence in God’s fairness. Besides, that grand and correct conception of God that was characteristic of the patriarchs appears very definitely here. God is far from being a tribal God; he is -the Judge of all the earth.-’ The critics have failed to evaluate this fact properly.

It has been rightly said that the three most important questions for man to ponder are these: What am I? Whence came I? and, Whither am I bound?that is to say, the problems respectively of the nature, origin, and destiny of the person. In Genesis 18:25 we face the problem of the correlation between merit and destiny. Speiser (ABG, 135): In Yahweh’s soliloquy (Genesis 18:17-19), and the colloquy with Abraham which follows. what the author sets down is not so much received tradition as personal contemplation. The result is a philosophical aside, in which both Yahweh and the patriarch approach the issues of the moment as problems in an enduring scheme of things. Specifically, the theme is the relation between the individual and society. For Yahweh, the individual who matters is Abraham. Having chosen Abraham as the means for implementing His will, and as the spearhead in the quest for a worthy way of life (-the way ofYahweh,-’ Genesis 18:19), should he not now take Abraham into his full confidence? The patriarch, on the other hand, in his resolute and insistent appeal on behalf of Sodom, seeks to establish for the meritorious individual the privilege of saving an otherwise worthless community. Concerning the correlation between merit and destiny, this author goes on to say: The basic issue is only one aspect of the theme of the Suffering Just, which Mesopotamian literature wrestled with as early as the Old Babylonian age (cf. AOS 38, 195 5,68 ff.); the OT has treated it most eloquently in the Book of Job. The answer given here, Speiser goes on to say, is an emphatic affirmation of the saving grace of the just. And even though the deserving minority proves to be in this instance too small to affect the fate of the sinful majority, the innocenthere Lot and his daughtersare ultimately spared. (AOSAmerican Oriental Society, Monograph Series)

(HSB, 30): God is love (1 John 4:8), but because He loves holiness and truth, He is also just (Psalms 89:14; Psalms 145:17). His judgments are (1) according to truth (Revelation 19:2); (2) universal and certain (Romans 2:6); (3) impersonal and impartial (Romans 2:11); (4) concerned with motive as well as outward conduct (Romans 2:16; Luke 12:2-3). Three major judgments are mentioned in Scripture: (1) the judgment of believers-’ sins, which is past, having been inflicted on the Christ at Calvary (John 5:24, Romans 8:1); (2) the believers-’ judgment for rewards (2 Corinthians 5:10, Romans 14:10, 1 Corinthians 3:10-15); (3) the judgment of unbelievers (Revelation 20:11-15). (Cf. motivation as Biblically presented, according to which the fully completed intention is made equivalent to the overt act (Matthew 5:28; 1 John 3:15; 1 John 4:20). Again, Does not Scripture teach that our Lord willingly accepted His role in redemption, which included, of course, the death on the Cross, for the joy that was set before him (Hebrews 12:2), that is, for the sheer joy of redeeming lost souls?) (For a full discussion of the problem of Gen 18:25, see infra, The Covering of Grace.)

What does Abraham’s Dialogue with Yahweh teach us about prayer? Note the following pertinent comment (HSB, 31): Six times Abraham beseeches God to spare Sodom. Each time God grants his petition. This incident should encourage believers to intercede effectively and to expect responses to prayer. It is a solemn commentary on the awful condition of Sodom that there were not even ten righteous people to be found within its gates. To this we might add the obvious and significant fact that in all of his petitions Abraham never importuned God to save the people of Sodom in their sins. Yet this is precisely what is expected by all humanists, moralists, cultists, and nominal church members, who, if they think of God at all, look upon Him as a kind of glorified bellhop whose sole business is to attend to their desires. There is not the slightest indication in Scripture that any man is saved outside the Covering of Grace, the Atonement planned by the Father, provided by the Son, and ready to be applied by the Holy Spirit to all obedient believers (Romans 3:21-27, Ephesians 2:8).

4. The Problem of the Heavenly Visitors.

Jamieson’s treatment of this problem is thoroughgoing, as follows (CECG, 159): With reference to the three persons who figure so prominently in the details of this narrative, two opposite views have been advanced. Some have held that these were the three Persons in the Trinity who manifested themselves in a visible incarnate form. But this is a hypothesis which not only implies a development of doctrinal mysteries beyond what was made in the patriarchal age, but it is at variance with Scripture (John 1:18, Colossians 1:15). Others maintain that they were all three created angels, who came on the business, and spoke in the name, of their Divine Master, founding this opinion on the fact, as Kurtz expresses it, that their mission was not merely to promise, but to punish as well as to deliver. Others maintain that it was the Lord who appeared, speaking through the medium of his messengers. But this view is open to many and strong objections:1. Because the superiority of the one whom Abraham addressed is acknowledged through the whole interview, whilst his two attendants, as his inferiors, observe a respectful silence. 2. Because he speaks and undertakes to act as a Divine person, whilst the other two claim only to be messengers (Genesis 19:13). 3. Because Scripture does not give any instance of an address being presented to God as represented by a created angel. 4. Because, not to mention the name Adonai, which is used six times, that of Jehovah is applied eight times to him in this passage. 5. Because he ascribes to himself the right and power of independent judgment in the case of Sodom. 6. Because, on the hypothesis that they were all three created angels, it is impossible to account for the third not taking part in the judicial work at Sodom; whereas the cause of his absence, if he was the angel of the Covenant, is perfectly explicable. 7. And only this view affords a satisfactory explanation of the circumstance that throughout this chapter the three are called men, while in the next chapter, the two are designated angelsviz., to prevent a confounding the Lord with the angels who attended Him. The condescending familiarity of the visit accords with the simplicity of the early patriarchal age, and with the initial education of Abraham in religious knowledge. It is probable that in some of the past revelations with which Abraham was favored, a visible appearance had been vouchsafed: and that he who must have been incapable of rising to the conception of a spiritual Being would become familiar with the idea of an all-powerful mysterious man, who both in Chaldea and Canaan had repeatedly manifested himself, promising, guiding, protecting, and blessing him as a constant and faithful Friend. Accordingly, this last manifestation, on the occasion of which, he became a guest of Abraham was not an isolated event in the patriarch’s experience, but one of a series, in which the Divine Mediator appeared, spoke, and acted, in condescending accommodation to the simple and childlike feelings of Abraham, and as a preluding of the incarnation, when -God manifest in the flesh-’ would -tabernacle with man.-’. The idea of this narrative being a myth, invented by some Jewish writer for the gratification of national pride is utterly groundless; for, once admit the peculiar relation in which Abraham stood to God, and this visit is in perfect accordance with his position. As little ground is there for putting this narrative in the same category as the heathen fable of Philemon and Baucis, for, though many of the details in that mythological fable are similar to those of the Scripture narrative, it wants the covenant relationsthe grand peculiarity of the patriarchal storywhich no poetic imagination could have invented. In a word, the Third Personage in this narrative of Abraham’s Intercession was surely the Angel of Jehovah who appears so frequently through the old Dispensations, and who appeared as God’s Only Begotten in the manger of Bethlehem (cf. Micah 5:2, John 17:5).

Speiser’s comment about the Biblical process becomes pertinent here (ABG, Intro., 52): The question has often been posed whether the course of recent history would have changed much if on August 15, 1769, Letizia Bonaparte had given birth to a girl instead of a boy. The answer is obvious when limited to decades. But would it still be true a hundred years later, or a hundred and fifty? The chances are that it would not, and that the deviation from the original course which the advent of Napoleon brought about would have been righted in due time. Now let us ask the same kind of question about the biblical process and its presumed originator. The answer can be ventured with much greater confidence because the measuring span is twenty times as long. That distant event altered history irrevocably. In the case of Napoleon, the detour rejoined the main road. But in the case of Abraham, the detour became itself the main road.

5. The Problem of Intercessory Prayer (in relation to that of Absolute Justice) is a most difficult one. (1) In Abraham’s case, it was presented from the most profound humility: I. who am but dust and ashes, Genesis 18:27. Murphy (MG, 317): This may refer to the custom of burning the dead, as then coexistent with that of burying them. Abraham intimates by a homely figure, the comparative insignificance of the petitioner. He is dust at first, and ashes at last. (Cf. Genesis 2:7; Genesis 3:9; Psalms 103:13-16; Ecclesiastes 12:7; James 4:14, etc.). The patriarch’s prayer here surely indicates genuine humility arising from realization of his insignificance and weakness in the presence of his Creator. Yet, there is realism in it, for if man is no more than body, life has very little meaning for anyone, and without the Breath of Life infused into him by God Himself, he truly is dust and ashes, and in the long run, only that. Dr. John Baillie, in his impressive book, And the Life Everlasting, calls attention to the notion so widespread in our world today, not just that there is no such thing in prospect as life eternal, but that such a destiny is not even desirable. He points up the fact that this view, to the Christian is fundamentally contrary to human being as such; that it is derogatory to human dignity to fail to want for our fellows all that Divine Love has done and can do for them. I insist, he writes, that to love my brother for God’s sake is the same thing as to love him for his own deepest sake, because the deepest thing in him is not his either by inherent right or by conquest, but only by the gift of God. It is only in the possibility which is open to it of personal intercourse with God that the value of the individual human personality can be held to resideeven as it is upon this possibility alone that its claim to immortality rests. Again: To the Christian spirit the ultimate fact is not death but life, not the Cross but the Resurrection and the Crown. It is what it is only because it is persuaded that the sting of death has been drawn and the grave robbed of its victory; so that death has no more dominion over us. It is frankly recognized that in its own self-enclosed and untransfigured nature, as it must present itself to those who do not share any such persuasion, death must be a ghastly and terrible thing; and indeed it is thus that death always has presented itself to sincere and profound unbelief. To see one’s beloved stamped into the sod for his body to rot and the worms to eat him. and then be of good cheer! No, there can be no good cheer unless it be true that that to which this dreadful thing has happened is not really one’s beloved himself but only his earthly tabernacle; unless it be true that -the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever-’ (1 John 2:17). Whereas, therefore, it would be nothing but shallowness of spirit for one who had no hope beyond the grave to cease to be obsessed by the fact of death (whether by facing it cheerfully or by refusing to make it the object of his too constant thought), such a result in the soul of a Christian must be the mark of a great depth and maturity.. I have quoted Spinoza’s saying, spoken in defiance of Plato, that -the free man thinks of nothing less than of death; his wisdom is a meditation not upon death but upon life.-’ Let me now say that of the man who stands fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made him free this may well be truetruer than Plato’s -studying nothing but dying and being dead-’; since he can now cry with St. Paul, -For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.-’ (Romans 8:2). (See Baillie, op cit., 341-342). (2) Lange (CDHCG, 441): In regard to the thought of Abraham’s intercession, we would make the following remarks: (a) His intercession takes more and more the form of a question. (b) He does not pray that the godless should be freed from punishment, but for the sparing of the righteous, and the turning away of the destructive judgment from all, in case there should be found a sufficient salt of the righteous among them. (c) His prayer includes the thought that God would not destroy any single righteous one with the wicked, although the number of the righteous should be too small to preserve the whole. Gosman adds, ibid., The righteous, of course, are not destroyed, although they are often involved in the punishment of the wicked. (3) Jamieson (CECG, 158): The continued and increased urgency of Abraham’s pleading with God, which almost rises into shamelessness (Luke 11:5-8), assumes an entirely different character, from the consideration that he is not a suppliant for any benefit to himself, nor even to his nephew Lot, but an intercessor for the people of Sodom generally. -His importunity was prompted by the love which springs from the consciousness that one’s own preservation and rescue are due to compassionate grace alone; love, too, which cannot conceive of the guilt of others as too great for salvation to be possible. The sympathetic love, springing from the faith which was counted for righteousness, impelled him to the intercession which Luther thus describes:He prayed six times, and with so much ardour and depth of emotion that, in gradually lessening the numbers, in order to ensure the preservation of the wretched cities, he seems to speak almost foolishly. This seemingly commercial kind of entreaty is the essence of true prayer, which bridges over the infinite distance of the creature from the Creator, appeals with importunity to the heart of God, and ceases not until its point is gained-’ (Keil and Delitzsch).

6. Pagan Imitations of this story. Lange (CDHCG, 433): Delitzsch thinks that Abraham recognized the unity of the God of revelation, in the appearance of the three men.. He adds: -One should compare the limitations of this original history among the heathen. Jupiter, Mercury, and Neptune, visit an old man, by name Hyricus, in the Boeotian city Tanagra; he prepares them a feast, and, though childless hitherto, receives a son in answer to his prayer (Ovid’s Fasti, V, 494, etc.). And then, further, the heathen accompaniment to ch. 19: -Jupiter and Mercury are journeying as men; only Philemon and Baucis, an aged, childless wedded pair, receive them, and these, therefore, the gods rescue, bearing them away with themselves, while they turn the inhospitable region lying around the hospitable hut into a pool of water, and the hut itself into a temple (Ovid’s Metam. 8, 611 ff.).-’ But the essential distinction between our ideal facts and these myths, lies in this, that while the first lie in the center of history as causal facts or forces, having the most sacred and real historical results, these latter lie simply on the border ground of mythology. To this Gosman adds: How completely and thoroughly these words dispose of the whole mythical supposition in this as in other cases!

7. The Quality of Mercy

In Genesis the wickedness of Sodom (the city which obviously exercised hegemony of a kind over all the Cities of the Plain (frequently designated a Pentapolis) is set forth so realistically that its very name has become proverbiala very Sodomand its various kinds of lust are given a single name, sodomy. Yet here we find Abraham interceding for these people: the righteous man, the Friend of God, is pleading for mercy for the wicked. One is reminded of Portia’s eloquent encomium on mercy in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice:

The quality of mercy is not strained, It droppeth as a gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice bless-’d: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. -Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown. His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; But mercy is above this sceptred sway, It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God’S When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, Though justice be thy plea, consider this, That in the course of justice, none of us Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy: And that same prayer doth teach us all to render Deeds of mercy.

Let us consider in this connection, the following pertinent suggestions (from IBG, 622, 623): 1. Who is most likely to come to the help of evil men? Can those who are evil trust their own kind for support? Of course not. Men who are thoroughly bad are as merciless to others of their kind as a wolf pack is merciless to the wounded wolf.. It is the consistent badness in the bad and the inconsistent badness in the hypocritically good which make them cruel, and the generosity of those whom the respectable may class as bad men is due to the great warm fact that there is so much actual goodness in them. So also the highest generosity and compassion are in those who are neither all bad, nor half bad, nor half good, but who, like Abraham, come as near to thoroughgoing goodness as human nature can. The most merciful men all through the Bible are the best menJoseph, Moses, David, Stephen, Barnabas. Supremely so was Jesus, who in his perfect righteousness could be the friend of publicans and sinners. There is no more corrupting sin that censoriousness and self-righteousness. Let church members examine their own hearts. The truth which applies to individuals applies to nations also.. It is easy for the proud and for those who aredrunk with power to consider the enemy as men of Sodom, deserving of nothing but destruction. They like to arrogate to themselves a supposed right to the favor of God and to act as though fanatical revenge had the merit of religion. If Abraham had been like them he would have gloated over Sodom. Being the man he wasan example sorely neededhe was moved with pity.

2. A second truth stands out in this story: the sacred worth of individuals, and the evil of involving the innocent minority in a judgment visited on the mass. The deepest depravity and moral perversion of war lies here; and war with modern weapons makes this evil more monstrous than ever. It is a tragic fact that even good people can grow callous to these things. Atrocities which first shocked the conscience may come to be accepted with only lukewarm questioning or none at all. But a world in torment will begin to have a better hope only when there shall be many men like Abraham. Should even ten men be caught in a general destruction and given no chance to escape? To Abraham it seemed to be intolerable that this should be allowed to happen. So much for the instincts which made Abraham the type of a great soul. But observe the further and more important fact: Abraham believed that what was highest in his own heart was his right clue to the nature of God. That which to his own conscience seemed lifted above all doubt must be divine in its authority. That is the meaning of the vivid story of Abraham in the dialogue with God and of his question which he was sure could have only one answer. 3 The final suggestion of the story of Sodom is a truly somber one. Not even five righteous persons were left in Sodom to justify its being spared destruction. Here is an eternal picture of the corrosive possibilities of a bad environment. Those who accustom themselves to the ways of an evil society may themselves at last be evil, What is happening now to people who make no effective protest against the wrongs they live with every day?

Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Even the old pagans, in particular Socrates and Plato, repudiated the poetic tales of the immoralities of the gods, and insisted that all such tales should be censored so that immature children would not be led astray by them. Plato said expressly (Republic, II, 379ff.), Few are the goods of human life, and many are the evils, and the good is to be attributed to God alone; of the evils the causes are to be sought elsewhere, and not in him; again, God is perfectly simple both in word and deed; he changes not; he deceives not, either by sign or word, by dream or waking vision; and again, the gods are not magicians who transform themselves, neither do they deceive mankind in any way. This apparent antinomy between God’s goodness and His omnipotence is resolved only by the Christian doctrine of the Atonement. See infra, The Covering of Grace. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were definitely repudiating the polytheistic deities of the pagan religions.

FOR MEDITATION AND SERMONIZING

The Covering of Grace

Genesis 18:25Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?

Many are the passages of Scripture which state positively that the only remedy for sin is the blood of Christ. (Cf. 1 John 1:7; 1 John 2:2; Acts 20:28; Ephesians 1:7; Romans 3:25; Matthew 26:28; John 1:29; 1 Peter 1:18-19; Hebrews 9:22; Hebrews 9:14; Revelation 1:5, etc.). This blood-theme first appeared when animals were slain to provide a coveringnote this word carefullyfor our first parents when they discovered their nakedness, Genesis 3:21. It appeared again in Abel’s propitiatory sacrifice, Genesis 4:4it was an offering of blood (cf. Hebrews 11:4). It appeared in the sprinkling of the blood on the people, on the book of the covenant, on the tabernacle and the vessels of the ministry when the Old Covenant was ratified at Sinai (Hebrews 9:17-22). It appeared on the door-post of every Jewish habitation in Egypt on the memorable night when God passed over that stricken land (Exodus 12:22). It appeared in all the ceremonial cleansings of the Old Covenant. It appeared in the Cup sanctified by the lips of our Lord at the Last Supper (Matthew 26:28). It appeared in the fullness of its efficacy when Christ bled and died on the Cross, thus ratifying the New Covenant and at the same time abrogating the Old (Hebrews 9:11 ff., Colossians 3:13-15). From that day to this it has appeared in many parts of the world in the Memorial Feast appointed for God’s saints to keep, the communion of the blood and of the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:16). That Christ died is a fact of history: that He died for our sins is a fact of revelation (1 Corinthians 15:3).

These fundamental truths have been proclaimed by all who are worthy of the name Christian, in all ages of the Christian era. Yet they are being challenged in our day by the atheists, agnostics, positivists, demythologizers, and analytical critics, and indeed all the nitpicking self-styled intellectuals. The doctrine has been assailed in all agesby bitter opponents of the Faithas vulgar, barbaric, a fantasy of man’s wishful thinking, and the like. The only efficacy of our Lord’s ministry, we are told, if any at all, is that of the power of His example. His death thus becomes only a martyrdom, and the doctrine of the Atonement is thrown profanely out of the window. This is all very soothing, of course, to the I-love-me spirit that is so prominent in the human makeup. This is an age in which intellectual pomposity is going its merry way. Let me say here that if there is anything in this world that I despise most of all, except sin, it is this spirit which all too often turns a good thinker into a pompous ass. This worship of erudition is precisely the thingthe desire to be as wise as God, Genesis 3:6, the determination to play Godthat swept man into the maelstrom of sin and suffering in the first place, and the foremost factor in keeping him in that environment today.

I. In discussing the significance of the Blood of Christ, we are dealing, of course, with the Biblical doctrine of the Atonement.

1. This word atonement occurs only once, in the Authorized Version. In various other renderings the Greek word used here, katallage, is given as meaning reconciliation (Romans 5:11). The Hebrew kaphar, translated atonement, is found many times in the Old Testament; rendered literally, it means covering. It seems rather unfortunate that this meaning was not brought over into the Greek and English of the New Testament. For certainly, from whatever point of view one approaches the subject, one finds Biblical teaching to be crystal clear, namely, that our Lord in shedding His blood, and so offering His lifefor the life of the flesh is in the blood (Leviticus 17:11)was providing for all mankind God’s Covering of Grace, (John 1:29). On the divine side, everything that God has done and will do for sinful man is inherent in the word grace (unmerited favor). The Atonement, therefore, is God’s Covering of Grace. By coming by faith, that is, in God’s own way, as that way is revealed in the New Testament, the sinner puts himself under the blood, under this divine Covering of Grace. Thus divine grace and human faith meet together and the result is, in a legal sense, remission or justification, and in a personal sense, forgiveness and reconciliation. The simple fact is that man is alienated from God, not as a consequence of the sin of Adam, nor of the sins of his fathers, but as the consequence of his own sins (lawlessness, 1 John 3:4; Romans 3:23; Colossians 1:21; Ephesians 1:2). He has mortgaged himself to sin, sold himself under sin (Romans 7:14; Romans 6:6 Galatians 4:3). In this state it was necessary for his original Owner to buy him back, redeem him, lest he be lost forever. God Himself, the original Owner of the Totality of Being (Psalms 24:1; Psalms 89:11; 1 Corinthians 10:26), loved man too much to allow him to perish forever, and therefore made provision to buy him back. He gave His Only Begotten (John 3:16), the Son gave His life by shedding His blood. He paid the ransom price; He provided the Covering of Grace whereby the majesty of the moral law was sustained, and at the same time everything was done that could be done to woo the sinner back into covenant relationship with Him. (Matthew 20:28; 1 Timothy 2:6). Those who ridicule the Blood simply close their eyes to the lawlessness which has always pervaded man’s realm of being. To deny or to ignore the facts of sin and suffering, of love and redemption, is sheer stupidity.

II: In what sense does the Blood of Christ cleanse us from sin?

One school answers that Christ’s blood was shed as an example to impress upon man the magnitude of God’s love for him; that it was not designed in any way to affect the attitude of God toward man, but to affect only the attitude of man toward God. But to make this the sole objective of Christ’s death is to make sheer nonsense the many Scriptures that speak of His dying the just for the unjust, as a propitiation for our sins, as a ransom for us all, etc. (1 Peter 3:18; 1 John 2:2; Ephesians 1:7; Matthew 20:28; 1 Timothy 2:6, etc.)

Another school of theologians would have us believe that Christ died in the room and stead of the sinner, i.e., that He paid the penalty demanded by the moral law, paid it in full, and so freed man completely from the curse of sin. If this is true, obviously, the sinner owes no debt, no obligation: he goes scot free. This is completely refuted by the Apostle’s words in Romans 3:23-26,all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, in his blood. that he might himself be just and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus. This language is plain, and there is no point in making a riddle of it. It means simply that God was under the necessity of imposing the penalty of sin unless something could be done to sustain the majesty of the broken law. Because of His ineffable love for His creature, all this God did for him, lest he perish forever.

III. How is the Blood necessary to save us from sin?

Reflect, if you will, on the Mystery of Blood. What is blood? What is the Mystery of the Flowing Blood? The Mystery of the Flowing Blood is the Mystery of Life itself. How fitting the wonderful metaphor, the river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God, and of the Lamb, in the midst of the street of the Holy City (Revelation 22:1). The life any human being enjoys flowed into him from his parents, their life flowed into them from their parents, and so on back and back to the first life which God breathed into the lifeless body to make of the man a living soul (Genesis 2:7). What a mysterythis red river of life, the Mystery of the Flowing Blood, the Mystery of Life itself!

Man has been from the beginning a creature under law. To deny this fact is absurd. One who violates the laws of the physical world suffers the penalty here and now. One who jumps out of a twenty-story building, thus defying the law of gravity, breaks his neck. One who picks up a live coal, burns his fingers. One who indulges physical appetites unduly will sow disease in his body. Whatever a man sows, that shall he reap, sooner or later. Because law is not law without its penalty and without its enforcement. Why do we assume, then, that we can flout the moral laws of God and get away with it? As it has often been said, man actually does not break the moral law; on the contrary, that law, if violated, breaks him. God who is holy can do anything He wills to do that is consistent with His character as God. But for Absolute Holiness to accept a man in his sins would be a contradiction in itself: it would be putting a premium on sin; it would be accepting sin and all the anarchy that proceeds from sin. Therefore the problem before the Divine Government can be stated in rather simple terms: it was that of sustaining the majesty of the violated law while at the same time manifesting divine mercy and compassion toward the sinnera demonstration of love designed to woo the sinner back into fellowship with God.

God is holy. God hates sin. God cannot condone sin, and be God. God had to deal with sin. He could not be God were He to fail to deal with it. Calvary was the demonstration not only of the -indescribable love of God for man, but also of the awfulness of sin. Never forget itour sins nailed the Son of God to the Cross. How, then, did God resolve the apparent antinomy between His goodness and His omnipotence? This problem was raised in ancient times by Epicurus, if I remember correctly. IfGod is all good why does He permit evil to prevail in His world. Since, however, it is apparent that evil does prevail in the world in which He has put us, obviously it prevails because God is not sufficiently powerful to eradicate it. This is the age-old problem of the balance between the goodness of God and the power of God.

We reply to this dilemma by affirming that God Himself has resolved the antinomy. He Himself provided the Covering of Gracethe Gift of His Only Begottenessential to the sustaining of the majesty of His law and will violated by human sin, and by the same Gift has extended general amnesty to sinful man on the terms of the Gospel. The Blood is the remedy for sin, the Gospel is the method of application, and eternal life is the reward, the ultimate Highest Good. In a word: Divine Justice required the Atonement, and Divine Love provided it. God freely gave His Son, whofor the joy that was set before him, the sheer joy of redeeming lost souls, Hebrews 12:2endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. As stated so clearly by W. Robertson-Smith (The Religion of the Semites, p. 62) To reconcile the forgiving goodness of God with His absolute justice is one of the highest problems of spiritual religion, which in Christianity is solved by the doctrine of the Atonement. The design of the Atonement must be regarded as twofold, namely, to vindicate God’s justice and so sustain the majesty of the moral law, and at the same time to woo man back into a state of reconciliation by a demonstration of His ineffable love and compassion sufficient to overcomein every honest and good heartthe rebellion engendered by sin. To omit either of these objectives is to distort the doctrine of the Atonement. (Cf. 2 Corinthians 5:18-20, Luke 8:15, Romans 3:26, 1 Corinthians 6:2, Romans 2:4-16, Revelation 20:11-15, Revelation 22:1-5, Rev. 10:15, etc.).

IV. Where does the penitent believer meet the efficacy of the Blood of Christ?

Denominationalized preachers proclaim glibly that we are cleansed by the blood of Christ (which, to be sure, is true), but they never tell the inquiring penitent how and where to meet the efficacy of that blood; that is, they never tell him in Scripture terms. In fact the great majority seem to have no conception of what the New Testament teaches about this important matter, even though the teaching is clear. We must accept and confess Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God. We must repent of our sins; then we meet the cleansing blood of Jesus when, as penitent believers, we actually enter into the covenant which has been sealed with His blood (2 Corinthians 1:21-22; Acts 16:31; Acts 2:38; Matthew 16:16; Romans 10:9-10; 2 Corinthians 7:10; Luke 13:3; Galatians 3:27). The blood of Christ flowed when He died. Therefore, in order to come under the efficacy of His blood, we must die with Him. We must commit ourselves to His Cross that of self-crucifixion (Galatians 2:20; Galatians 6:14). Where does this transaction take place? It takes place when we are inducted into Christ. When and where are we inducted into Christ? When, as penitent believers, we are baptized into Christ. When the Roman soldiers came to the Cross, one of them plunged a spear into His side to make sure that He was dead, and out of the wound flowed blood and water. The only place divinely appointed in which we meet the efficacy of the blood of. Christ is the grave of water. (Galatians 3:27; John 3:5; Acts 22:16; Titus 3:5; Ephesians 5:26). The efficacy is in the fact that Divine grace has made this appointment and human faith meets it, making it possible for the pardon to take place where it must take place, namely, in the mind of God. These facts are all made too clear for us to be in doubt, in the sixth chapter of Romans.

Shame on those who would speak of Christian baptism as a mere outward act, mere external performance, mere form, etc. There are no mere forms, no nonessentials, in Christianity. It is an insult to our Lord to accuse Him of establishing mere forms or nonessentials. We need to learn that in baptism we die, not just symbolically, but literally to the guilt of past sin. And we do well to make the words of the grand old hymn our favorite baptismal litany,

O happy day! happy day! When Jesus washed my sins away.

Beloved, if we are saved at all, we are saved by the efficacy of the blood of Christ. There is no other way-no other remedy for the sin of the world. (Acts 22:16; John 1:29). And, according to plain Scripture teaching, the only place where the believer appropriates the efficacy of Christ’s Blood is in the baptismal grave (Galatians 3:27, Romans 6:3-11, Titus 3:5, Matthew 3:13-16; Acts 2:38-41; Acts 8:12; Acts 8:38; Acts 10:47; Acts 16:31-33; Acts 22:16).

REVIEW QUESTIONS ON PART THIRTY-ONE

Explain the Oriental ritual of hospitality as exemplified by Abraham in Genesis 18.

How explain Sarah’s laughter on hearing the announcement that she would bear a son? What kind of reaction did this indicate on her part?

Why did she subsequently resort to deception when faced with the facts?

What reasons have we for holding that of the three heavenly Visitants to Abraham’s tent two were angels? Cf. Hebrews 1:14.

What reason do we have for believing that the third Visitant was God Himself in the person of the Logos?

Review the Old Testament teaching concerning the Angel of Jehovah. Correlate Micah 5:2.

What announcement did these heavenly Visitants make concerning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah?

Explain what is meant by the perennial problem of Absolute Justice.

How is this problem stated, in the form of a question, in Genesis 18:23, and again in the same way in Genesis 18:25?

How account for the boldness of Abraham’s intercession? Would you say that it lacked humility?

How does Cornfeld explain the apparent familiarity of Abraham’s approaches to God?

How refute the claim that these cultures had not yet attained the ideal of individual responsibility, but were concerned only with collective righteousness and responsibility?

Did Abraham’s intercession include any effort to benefit himself?

Did he ask God to save the people of Sodom in their sins? Could God have done this and really been the living and true God?

Why is the notion completely untenable that the narrative in chapter 18 is in any sense a myth?

Comment on the patriarch’s declaration in Genesis 18:27 that he was but dust and ashes. In what sense only can this be said to be realistic?

Show how the notion widespread in our day that a future life is not even desirable is a violation of the noblest characteristic of man and a complete repudiation of the law of love? Summarize Baillie’s treatment of this view.

Restate Lange’s treatment of pagan imitations of the story of Abraham and his heavenly Visitants.

In what way does this narrative point up the nobility of the quality of mercy?

In what way does it emphasize the sacredness of the individual?

Why is the final suggestion of the story of Sodom designated a truly somber one?

What according to Scripture is the only remedy for sin?

In what facts is this remedy foreshadowed in the Old Testament?

What forms do present-day denials of this fundamental truth take?

With what great doctrine of Christianity are we dealing when we discuss the Scriptures having to do with the Blood of Christ?

What is meant by the Covering of Grace? How is it related to our redemption?

In what sense does the Blood of Christ cleanse us from sin?

How is the Blood of Christ necessary to save man from sin?

What is meant by the antinomy of God’s justice and His goodness?

How is this resolved by the Christian doctrine of the Atonement?

What is the twofold design of the Atonement?

Explain how the justice and love of God are both involved in the efficacy of the Blood of Christ.

Where does the penitent believer meet the efficacy of the Blood of Christ? Explain fully.

Where in the process of conversion does pardon take place?

Is there any such thing taught in Scripture as baptismal regeneration? Explain.

Explain what is meant by the Mystery of the Flowing Blood.

Is it conceivable that our Lord as Head of the Church would ordain non-essential institutions?

In the light of our present study review the question of Gen 18:23, Wilt thou consume the righteous with the wicked?

In the light of the present study review the question of Gen 18:25, Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?

What did Abraham do at the conclusion of his dialogue with God?