Called to Greatness

KEY VERSE: “I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing.” —Genesis 12:2

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: Genesis 11:31, 32; 12:1-9

THE name of Abraham is mentioned seventy-four times by the writers of the New Testament, and this was nearly two thousand years after Abraham’s time. It is difficult to deny the fact of greatness to one who was remembered and respected for so many centuries.

In these multiple references to Abraham made by our Lord and the apostles, it becomes clear wherein his greatness lay. God considered him great by reason of his outstanding faith. The promise stated in our text was a severe test to Abraham, as he realized that its fulfillment necessitated the birth of a son by a wife who was barren and approaching the latter years of life. He, too, was seventy-five years of age when the promise was first given.

Years slipped by, however, with no apparent change—ten, then twenty—finally reaching the point where both he and Sarah knew that without a miracle from God some alternative means would be needed to produce a seed. On two occasions they sought the Lord’s acceptance of a seed that had not come from Sarah, and in both instances the Lord spoke to Abraham and reiterated his requirement that it would be Sarah who would fulfill the cherished promise.

To a husband and wife of lesser faith, the impossibility of the situation might have caused the original words of God to have lessened in importance and credibility as time went on. But not so with these two. The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Romans, makes mention of the fact that his unflagging faith earned Abraham the title, “father of the faithful.” “As it is written I have made thee a father of many nations, before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were. Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was able also to perform.” (Rom. 4:17-21) And again the apostle tells us in another statement that Sarah shared this same faith with her husband, “because she judged him faithful who had promised.”—Heb. 11:11

What a wonderful testimony of faith! What a magnificent example the Lord has placed before those who are seeking to have apart in the larger scope of the promised seed as it is represented in the Christ. How incredible, yes impossible, it seems of personal fulfillment, except as the great power of God can assure its accomplishment to us, if our faith fails not!

The Apostle Paul says that Abraham’s faith was imputed to him for righteousness. But he adds that this fact was not written for his sake alone, “but for us also to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead.” (Rom. 5:22-24) Abraham’s faith and justification rested in the prospective birth of a typical seed. Ours, on the other hand, is founded not only upon a belief in the one who was born in antitype, but also “who was delivered [in death] for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification.”—vs. 25

Paul goes on to imply that the difference between Abraham’s justification and ours is that his faith did not save him from wrath [Adamic condemnation], while ours, based on the ransoming merit [blood] of Jesus effects a release from the sentence of death. “Much more then [than in the case of Abraham] being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.”—Rom. 5:9

The spiritual lesson in the story of Abraham is that God is pleased to honor faith, and that the experiences of life which he permits to come to the faithful are intended for their development in faith and in the graces of the Holy Spirit, and that these all are unitedly in preparation for God’s still greater work of the future.

Abraham and Sarah had faith that God could make possible that which was by nature impossible. So it must be with our faith, also, if we would be ‘Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.—Gal. 3:29

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