Faithful Abraham

There are two biblical examples that God gives us pertaining to imputed righteousness.

Rom 4:22-24 Abraham receives righteousness because he “believed God.” It’s important to understand what Abraham believed God for, because that simple statement really doesn’t mean much within itself. What we mean is that anyone can believe God, just like anyone can pray to God, or speak openly about God, there is really no power in our relationship to God alone. With every scripture that we use in professing our faith, we need to be sure that within that profession we also possess Christ. It is through Christ that we receive God’s Power, Authority, Righteousness, and virtually every blessing that comes from above. We can’t even approach God without Christ.

The first place that the word “righteousness” appears in the Bible is in Gen 15:6: “And he (Abraham) believed in the LORD; and he (God) counted it to him (Abraham) for righteousness.” If we read the whole story, we find that Abraham was told by God that his seed that was to come through Isaac would bring forth children that were as many as the sand of the sea and the stars in the sky.

Jesus wasn’t even born at the time that this promise was given to Abraham, and yet Jesus is present! Jesus makes reference to this event when we told the Pharisees, “Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw and was glad” (Jn 8:56). Abraham was looking for the promised Messiah that was to come and redeem mankind. What God was promising Abraham as not only that He would bless him with Isaac, but that through the lineage of this promised seed, God would bring forth the Jesus Christ, the world’s Redeemer.

If we trace back through the genealogy of Christ in both gospel accounts, guess whom we will find listed in both records? None other than faithful Abraham! In Mt 1:1, Abraham is referred to as “the Son of David,” why? David was a King, and Jesus is the Messiah and it was known by the Jews that the Messiah would be a King like David was. Now let’s look to Lk 3:34, in the middle of this plethora of names is mentioned faithful Abraham. It was through this lineage by which Jesus is made a “Priest,” this is significant because He is referred to as our High Priest in the book of Hebrews. The reader may be wondering why the boring details about the lineage of Christ. The answer is simple; without Christ Abraham would have no promise at all! God could have promised Abraham a child that would come by faith, but if God had left the promise at that without bringing Christ through the loins of Isaac, we would have no portal to a place of “reigning and ruling with 4Christ” in the millennium (The Kingship of Christ Mt 1:1), and no High Priest to make the atoning offering and Final Sacrifice on our behalf (Lk 3:34).

When we sing songs in church and jump around to words like “the blessing of Abraham,” it should be by this knowledge that we can now use to more fully understand that this “blessing of Abraham” is about more than the widely promoted gospel of greed. Christ came to do more than just give us a house, car, and fame! In fact, those things should fall to the bottom of a huge list of better promises offered to us through this Beautiful Sacrifice.

So when we read, “Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness,” we now know that Abraham didn’t receive the promises of God because his faith was perfect, or great, or because of his perfect works. Abraham was just as messed up as one of us! His faith wasn’t perfect in his focus on God’s promise; remember that he had Ishmael before Isaac came along. So the promise didn’t become real based upon his perfect object of faith. Remember also that “faithful Abraham” also was a liar. He lied and said that his wife was really his sister, because he was really worried that some strange man was going to want his old, feeble, barren wife! The promised didn’t come based upon his doing of perfect works before God. How then did this promise come to Abraham?

Abraham is known as the “altar builder” of the Old Testament. Are we saying that God blessed Abraham because he built altars and made sacrifices? The reader should note that if Abraham as building altars before the Lord, there was something that he was going to be putting on that altar to offer to God for his sins. Abraham’s “faith” that is spoken of, was his faith in the sacrifice he was offering to God. This “sacrifice” typified the world’s Redeemer that would be the final sacrifice for all of humanity. Therefore, every time that Abraham built an altar and sacrifice to his God, he was outwardly showing God that his faith was in the lamb that “God will provide,” (Gen 22:8).

We are the “seed” that we as many as the “sands of the sea and stars of the sky.” God promised us a Redeemer, just like He promised Him to Abraham. It is by faith in the sacrifice of Jesus that anyone is able to receive the “blessings of Abraham.”