Latest / Reformed Thinking / Gifts and Inheritance: God’s Wide Blessing and the Covenant Line (Genesis 25:1–6)

Transcript

Gifts and Inheritance: God’s Wide Blessing and the Covenant Line (Genesis 25:1–6) · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome back to the show.
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  We are glad you are tuning into another session of reformed
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  thinking. It is a real privilege to be
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  here. We have a a very specific focus
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  for today. We're taking a stack of
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  commentaries, theological essays, all this historical
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  context, and we're zooming in on a tiny slice of the Bible that I
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  think most people just skim right over.
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  I think they're right. We're looking at the very end of
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  Abraham's life, specifically Genesis chapter 25 verses one
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  through 6. Yeah, and you're right that it's
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  a passage that's easy to miss. You're turning the page in your
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  Bible. You see this list of names that
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  are, let's be honest, hard to pronounce right.
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  And the I just naturally wants to jump ahead to the next story,
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  to Jacob and Esau. We tend to think the movie of
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  Abraham's life ends after the big climax.
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  You know, we think of the sacrifice of Isaac on Mount
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  Moriah, or maybe when Sarah dies and he buys the burial cave at
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  Machapella. The big dramatic moments.
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  Exactly. You think the screen fades to
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  black and the credits roll, but there's this this Postscript.
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  And looking at our research for today, it turns out this isn't
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  just a footnote, it's actually a theological bombshell.
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  It absolutely is. This is not just a footer or
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  some dusty list of names to wrap things up neatly.
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  It's what we might call a theological wayfinding marker.
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  A wayfinding marker. I like that.
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  Yeah, it answers the massive question that has been hanging
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  over the entire book of Genesis up to this point.
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  And that question is, who actually carries the promise?
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  Because Abraham has a lot of kids.
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  It's not just Isaac. That's something we often forget
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  in Sunday. Correct.
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  There's Ishmael. There are these six new sons
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  we're about to meet. And that's why this text matters
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  so much. It answers the question of who
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  among all these offspring is the one?
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  So as we dig into this today, we should probably establish our
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  framework right up front. Good idea.
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  We are approaching this as we always do in this deep dive from
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  a Reformed perspective. We're, you know, we're standing
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  on the shoulders of the Westminster Confession here.
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  So we're looking at this through the lens of God's sovereignty,
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  the reality of covenant succession, and and this crucial
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  distinction between what we call common grace and special grace.
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  That distinction is going to be the key that unlocks this whole
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  passage. I really believe that if you get
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  that wrong, you misread the whole end of Abraham's life.
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  All right, let's start right with the text.
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  Then Section 1. We open the Bible to Genesis 25
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  verse one, and immediately I had to say is a bit of a shock.
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  The text says Abraham took another wife whose name was
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  Katura. Now pause for a second.
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  We need to do the math here. Sarah died at 127.
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  Abraham was 10 years older than her, so he's 137 when she dies.
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  This happens sometime after that.
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  He's likely over 140 years old at this point.
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  Yeah, he's well advanced in years, to put it mildly.
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  Most people at 140, if they could even live that long, are
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  not thinking about getting married again.
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  Yeah, but Abraham doesn't just get married.
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  He starts a whole second family. It's like a sudden springtime in
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  the middle of winter. It's a surprising vitality, and
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  the Hebrew here is interesting. The verb used is yosef.
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  It literally means he added or he continued.
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  So not he replaced. No, not at all.
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  It suggests this isn't a replacement for Sarah in the
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  emotional or, more importantly, the covenantal sense.
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  Sarah is the mother of the promise, and she's gone.
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  But this is a continuation of Abraham's life, he added.
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  To take a wife. So he's not just sitting around,
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  you know, waiting to die. He's active.
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  He's engaged with life. Not at all, And this actually
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  brings up a major theological application that it refutes an
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  ancient error known as Gnosticism.
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  This is something the early church fought against tooth and
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  nail. OK, break that down for us.
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  Hear that word? Gnosticism thrown around in
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  theological circles? But what does it actually mean
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  in this context? Well, Gnosticism was, and
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  honestly still is in many forms, this idea that the physical
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  material world is bad or evil and only the spiritual world is
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  good. Right.
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  The body is a prison for the soul, that kind of thinking.
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  Exactly. So the logic went that if you
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  were truly holy or truly spiritual, you would detach
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  yourself from physical things. You'd abstain from marriage,
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  from rich food, from procreation, you know, you'd
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  retreat into to a monastery or a desert cave to escape the prison
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  of the body. Treating the body like it's a
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  shell you need to shed so the spear can fly free.
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  Spot on. But look at Abraham.
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  He is the friend of God. He's the fodder of the faithful.
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  He's the model of piety in the Old Testament.
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  And in his extreme old age, what does he do?
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  He doesn't retreat into a cave to meditate until he dies.
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  He embraces marriage. He embraces the intimacy of the
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  marital bed. He embraces procreation.
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  He affirms that the physical world God created is good.
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  So his faith made him more human, not less.
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  That's a really counterintuitive idea for religious people.
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  Sometimes we think holy means less human, less embodied.
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  That's a beautiful way to put it.
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  He is living life to the full, right up to the end.
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  Holiness embraces God's creation, it doesn't shun it.
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  And there's another layer here beyond just the anti gnostic
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  point. This vitality, this physical
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  ability to father six more sons at age 140 plus connects
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  directly back to God's faithfulness.
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  Do you remember Genesis 17 verse 5?
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  Remind us this is where God changed his name from Abram,
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  exalted father to Abraham. And the reason God gave was I
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  have made you the father of a multitude of nations.
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  A multitude, plural, not just one nation, Israel.
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  Precisely if Abraham only fathered Israel through Isaac,
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  or even just Israel and Ishmael, that promise is technically not
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  quite a multitude. But here in this little read
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  passage we see the literal biological fulfillment.
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  He becomes the father of Midian of Medan, of all these Arabian
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  tribes. It's amazing when you think
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  about it. The New Testament in Hebrews 11
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  says his body was as good as dead regarding procreation
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  before Isaac was born. Right, that was the whole point
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  of the. Miracle.
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  That was the miracle of Isaac. But now decades later, he's
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  having six more kids. It's like the engine was jump
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  started for Isaac and it just kept running.
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  It proves that God's Word is true to the very letter.
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  God reinvigorated Abraham's physical body to fulfill the
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  physical promise of being a father of many nations.
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  The miracle of rejuvenation didn't just stop at Isaac.
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  Now I have to ask about Coutura. We need to get technical for a
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  moment because this confuses people.
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  In verse one, she is explicitly called his wife.
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  But then you skip down to verse 6 and the text refers to
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  concubines, plural, and we assume that refers to Hagar and
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  coutura. Yeah.
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  Is that a contradiction? Is she a wife or is she a
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  concubine? That is a very common question,
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  and it's a good one to ask. It's not a contradiction, it's a
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  distinction in status. OK.
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  In the ancient world, and specifically in the biblical
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  narrative, these terms function to tell us about legal standing
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  and, crucially, inheritance rights.
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  She is called a wife or isha in Hebrew, because it's a lawful
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  union. This isn't a fling.
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  This isn't an illicit affair. It's socially recognized and
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  dignified. So she is legally married to
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  him. There's a ceremony, there's a
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  commitment. She's not just a servant.
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  Yes, but in terms of the covenant and in terms of the
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  inheritance structure of the family, she stands in a
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  secondary position. That is why Versace groups her
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  with Hagar under the general term concubines.
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  Oh, I see. It's telling the reader that
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  while she is a wife, do not confuse her status with Sarah's
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  status. Sarah is the covenant wife,
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  Sarah is the Queen Mother, so to speak.
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  Katura is a lawful wife, but she lacks that covenantal standing
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  regarding the promise. That makes a lot of sense.
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  It's defining the hierarchy of the household to prevent
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  confusion about the legacy. Correct.
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  It's a legal distinction. Not necessarily a commentary on
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  Abraham's affection, but definitely a commentary on the
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  family's covenant structure. So Coutura has these sons and we
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  get this listed. Verse 2, Zimran, Jakshan, Medan,
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  Midian, Ishbach, Shua. I'll be honest with you, and I
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  think I speak for many of our listeners.
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  When I'm reading through Genesis in a year or doing a Bible
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  reading plan, I usually just scan these names and keep
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  moving. We all have that tendency.
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  It feels like filler. It feels like the narrator is
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  just emptying his notebook. Here's the names I got to get in
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  here. Right, we think.
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  Here are some extra names Moses had.
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  Let's just toss them in. But in Scripture, genealogies
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  are never filler. They are what scholars call
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  historiographical anchors. Historiographical anchors.
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  That's a sophisticated phrase. Break that down for us.
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  What is Moses actually doing here?
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  It means Moses is doing serious work to locate Israel in the
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  real world. He's locating Abraham as the
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  literal fountainhead of the nations that Israel would later
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  encounter in their own history. So it's a map.
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  It's a kind of map when Moses is writing this in the wilderness,
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  or when the Israelites are reading this later in the land.
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  These are not just random sounds.
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  These are the names of their neighbors.
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  These are the tribes living in the wilderness, in the desert,
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  to the South and east of them so.
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  It's like a political map. It explains where everyone came
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  from. It's an ethnographic map.
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  It answers the question, where did those people across the
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  Jordan come from? And there's one name in that
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  list that should definitely ring a bell for anyone who knows
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  their Bible history. Midian.
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  Midian. That name echoes through the
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  rest of the Old Testament. It's a huge name.
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  Moses himself spends 40 years in Midian right before the Burning
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  Bush incident. He does remember he flees Egypt
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  after killing the Egyptian. Where does he go?
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  He goes to Midian. He sits by a well, which is a
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  very Abrahamic thing to do, by the way.
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  Yeah, that's a pattern. And he marries Zippora, and
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  Zippora is a Midianite. So Moses's own father-in-law
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  Jethro, the priest of Midian, is a descendant of Abraham through
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  Katura. That is a wild connection.
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  So when Moses is interacting with Jethro, getting advice on
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  how to judge the people, he's not just talking to some random
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  wise man, he's interacting with a distinct cousin.
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  They share the same great grandfather, Abraham.
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  And then later on, much later in the Book of Judges, you have
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  Gideon fighting the Midianites. Right, the guys with all the
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  camels who are oppressing Israel the day of Midian.
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  Yes, and the theological point here is massive.
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  It shows that Israel's interactions with their
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  neighbors are not just random encounters with strangers.
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  They are interacting with family, however distant.
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  It shows God's Providence over all nations, not just Israel.
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  God is building nations in the wilderness of Arabia just as
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  surely as He is building a nation in Heenan.
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  It really expands the scope. We get so focused on the line of
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  Isaac, and for good reason is that's the messianic line.
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  But God is doing stuff everywhere.
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  He's building dynasties in the desert.
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  He. Is.
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  But there's also a literary function to this list.
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  Why put it here? Why list Katura's sons right
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  before Abraham dies? Why not list them later or
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  somewhere else? It's a narrative technique that
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  some have called a table clearing.
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  Moses lists these secondary lines first.
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  He acknowledges them, shows God's blessing on them, lists
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  their names, and then he effectively clears the table so
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  that the narrative can focus exclusively on Isaac.
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  I see. It's like, here's what happened
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  with Couture, Here's where they went.
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  OK, that's done. Now let's talk about the main
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  event. That's it exactly.
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  It prevents confusion. If he sprinkled these names
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  throughout the story of Isaac, the reader might get confused
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  about who the main character is. By dealing with them here, he
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  sets the stage to say that the camera is now zooming in 100% on
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  the Son of Promise. That brings us perfectly to
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  section three of our discussion. The table is cleared, the camera
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  zooms in, and we get this pivotal statement in verse five.
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  I think this is the hinge of the whole text.
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  It is the theological hinge. Everything turns on this verse.
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  Verse 5 says Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac.
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  All that he had, the Hebrew there is very strong.
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  Natan he gave paired with Ekhol. All of it emphasizes totality,
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  complete and total. OK, but we have to be careful
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  here because we just said he had six other sons plus Ishmael, and
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  verse 6 says he gave gifts to the sons of the concubines.
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  So logically, how can he give all to Isaac if he gave
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  something to the others? If I give you everything in my
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  wallet, I can't then turn around and give $5 to someone else.
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  It's a contradiction. That is the crucial question,
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  and to answer it, we have to define what the inheritance
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  actually is. When the tech says he gave all
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  to Isaac, it's not primarily talking about his sock drawer or
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  every single camel or every shekel of silver.
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  It's not just the bank account. No, the All is the covenant.
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  It's the status of being the head of the covenant line.
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  It includes the title deed to the land of Canaan which God
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  promised. It includes the spiritual
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  authority over the household and most importantly, it includes
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  the messianic vocation. The messianic vocation.
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  Which is the calling to be the line through which the savior of
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  the world will come. So the ALL represents this
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  special grace relationship with God, the status of being God's
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  chosen instrument for salvation history.
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  Precisely. It represents the title deed to
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  the Kingdom of God. Isaac gets the promise, he gets
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  the birthright. He gets it all.
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  And the others get gifts. The Hebrew word is matenon.
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  Yes, and here is where we see that vital reform distinction
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  between common grace and special grace.
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  This is a core doctrine that helps us understand how God
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  rules the world. Let's unpack that because I
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  think common grace is a term people here but might not fully
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  grasp. What is it?
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  Common grace is God's cleanness to all his creatures, regardless
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  of their salvation status. It's the rain falling on the
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  just and the unjust. As Jesus said, it's life,
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  health, wealth, family, nationhood, intellect, artistic
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  ability, all the good things of creation.
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  So the sons of Katura were blessed.
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  They weren't cursed. Not at all.
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  They became Princess. They founded nations.
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  They had gold, they had livestock.
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  They had families. God was good to them.
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  He was kind to them. They.
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  Had a good life. If you looked at them from the
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  outside they looked successful. Probably more successful than
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  Isaac at times. They had a very good life.
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  That's common grace. God is generous to all his
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  creation. But they did not get the
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  inheritance. They did not get the special
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  grace which is the saving relationship with God, the
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  election, the specific promise of redemption.
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  Only Isaac receives the all. And this really illustrates the
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  doctrine of election. I mean, we look at the
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  Westminster Confession, chapter 3, which talks about God's
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  eternal decree. This passage is practically a
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  case study for it. It illustrates it vividly, and
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  specifically it illustrates unconditional election.
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  Think about it. Why Isaac?
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  Was Isaac a morally better person than Midian?
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  Do we have any evidence that Midian was a bad kid and Isaac
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  was a good kid? The Bible doesn't say that at
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  all. Yeah.
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  In fact, if you read ahead, Isaac has his own issues.
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  He lies about his wife just like his dad did.
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  He's kind of passive. He's not exactly a moral
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  superhero. He's weak in many ways.
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  He is not chosen for his moral superiority.
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  He's not chosen because God looked down the corridors of
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  time and saw he'd make better choices.
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  He is chosen because he is the child of promise.
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  It goes back to God's sovereign choice before they were even
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  born. There's an objection that always
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  comes up when we talk about this doctrine, and it's the fairness
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  objection. It feels unfair.
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  I can hear a listener thinking that's not fair.
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  Why does Isaac get the whole covenant and the others just get
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  some parting gifts? Why does God pick favorites?
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  That's the natural human reaction.
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  Our default setting is fairness. We want democracy, we want
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  egalitarianism. We want everyone to get a
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  participation trophy, but we have to realize grace is not a
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  right Grace, by definition, is undeserved.
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  If God were merely fair and if he gave everyone exactly what
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  they deserved based on their sin nature, we would be in a very
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  different situation. We.
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  Would all be in trouble. Serious trouble.
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  We would all be sent away. We would all be exiled from
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  God's presence. The fact that anyone receives
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  the covenant inheritance is a miracle of mercy.
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  It's not that God is unfair to Midian, it's that He is
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  sovereignly merciful to Isaac. He has the right to dispense His
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  special mercy to whom He wills, while still being kind and
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  generous to the others in a temporal way.
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  He owes salvation to no one. That's a hard truth, but it's
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  the biblical truth and it changes the question.
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  It's not why didn't they get it, it's why in the world did Isaac
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  get it? It provokes gratitude, not
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  entitlement. You think you deserve the
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  inheritance. You fundamentally don't
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  understand what the inheritance is.
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  So. We have this distinction.
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  Isaac gets the inheritance, which is special grace.
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  The others get gifts, common grace, and then we get to verse
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  6 and there's this phrase that really sticks out.
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  This is Abraham sent them away from his son Isaac.
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  Sent them away. To modern ears, that sounds
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  harsh. It sounds cold.
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  Imagine a father today doing that.
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  Here's a check. Here are the keys to a new
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  camel. Now get out.
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  I never want to see you again. It sounds like rejection.
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  It sounds unloving. It does sound harsh to our
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  modern sensibilities, which prize inclusion above almost
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  everything else, but we have to read this in its context.
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  This is not cruelty. It's what we might call
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  protective exclusion, or I think even better, covenant
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  stewardship. Covenant stewardship.
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  I like that phrase. Explain what Abraham is doing
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  there. Abraham is acting as a wise
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  patriarch. He's being a good steward of the
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  promise that God gave him. And the text says he did this
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  while he was still living. That is a key detail.
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  Right. He didn't wait until he died and
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  let the kids fight it out over the will in probate.
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  Court. Exactly.
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  He didn't leave a mess for Isaac to fix.
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  He knew human nature. He knew that if all these sons,
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  Katura's sons, Ishmael and Isaac all stayed in the same camp
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  after he died, there would be civil war.
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  There would be rival claims to the birthright.
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  Oh absolute, you'd hear. I'm the oldest son of the new
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  wife or no, I am the first born Ishmael or no, I am the son of
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  promise. It would have been total chaos.
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  It would have been a bloodbath in the Negev desert.
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  It would have been exactly that, bloodshed and chaos.
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  So to prevent that, Abraham creates a physical separation.
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  He ensures that Isaac's claim is undisputed.
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  By moving the others out. He is protecting the peace and
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  the purity of the covenant line. So it's actually an act of love
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  for Isaac, certainly to protect him, but maybe even for the
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  others, preventing them from entering a war they couldn't win
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  because God was with Isaac. Yes, it prevents fratricide, and
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  theologically this illustrates the doctrine of the antithesis.
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  The antithesis. That's a very Dutch Reformed
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  term. What do you mean by that?
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  It is. It refers to the necessary
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  separation between the Kingdom of God and the world, between
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  the Church and the world. Light cannot have fellowship
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  with darkness. The line of promise must be kept
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  distinct. It cannot be absorbed or diluted
• 18:17
  by the surrounding nations. If Isaac just marries A
• 18:20
  Midianite and his kids marry other people, and they all blend
• 18:23
  in, the distinctiveness of the Gospel line is lost within two
• 18:27
  generations. It brings boundaries into focus.
• 18:30
  We don't like boundaries today, but here boundaries are
• 18:32
  essential for spiritual survival.
• 18:34
  They are. Holiness requires separation.
• 18:36
  You can't be set apart if you are not well apart and look at
• 18:40
  the geography. This is fascination.
• 18:41
  Where does he send them? It says eastward to the east
• 18:44
  country. East.
• 18:45
  Now you know your genesis. What does East usually mean in
• 18:48
  the literary pattern of this? Book Let's trace it OK?
• 18:51
  When Adam and Eve are kicked out of Eden, the cherubim are placed
• 18:54
  on the east side of the garden and they go E.
• 18:57
  When Cain kills Abel, he wanders to the land of Nod, which is
• 19:01
  east of Eden. When Lot chooses the land for
• 19:03
  himself, he separates from Abram and he travels east towards
• 19:08
  Sodom. And the people who built the
• 19:10
  Tower of Babel, they migrated from the east.
• 19:12
  There's a persistent pattern in Genesis.
• 19:15
  Moving E symbolically means moving away from God's special
• 19:18
  presence, away from the sanctuary, away from Eden, away
• 19:22
  from the Promised Land. So geographically, they're
• 19:26
  moving away from Canaan, yes. Isaac remains at the center in
• 19:30
  Canaan, specifically by the well of Lehigh Roy, the well of the
• 19:33
  living one who sees me. The others move out to the
• 19:36
  periphery. It is a spatial picture of the
• 19:38
  spiritual reality. Isaac is in the tent of the
• 19:41
  covenant. The others are out in the world.
• 19:43
  That is such a vivid picture. You have the one son staying by
• 19:46
  the well which is the source of life, and the other sons walking
• 19:49
  away with their golden cattle towards the horizon.
• 19:52
  It is the story of the Bible in one image, the gathered church
• 19:55
  and the scattered nations. Let's pivot to Section 5, then.
• 19:58
  We've unpacked the text. We've seen the history, the
• 20:00
  geography, the theology. But what does this mean for us?
• 20:05
  For the listener driving to work right now, I think the first big
• 20:07
  application hits on how we view success.
• 20:10
  Absolutely. This text is a direct antidote
• 20:13
  to the prosperity gospel. The idea that if I'm rich, God
• 20:17
  loves me, If I'm healthy, I must have enough faith.
• 20:21
  That equation, where material wealth equals divine favor, is
• 20:24
  so deeply ingrained in US culturally.
• 20:26
  People look at their lives or the lives of others, and they
• 20:29
  say, look at that guy. He's got a booming business, a
• 20:32
  perfect family, a vacation home. Clearly, he has God's favor.
• 20:36
  But based on this text. Based on this text, that man
• 20:39
  might just be a son of Coutura. He has the gifts.
• 20:42
  He has an abundance of common grace, but that does not mean he
• 20:46
  has the inheritance. That's a scary thought, yeah.
• 20:49
  You could be loaded with gifts and empty of grace.
• 20:51
  It's a sobering thought. Just because someone has the
• 20:54
  wealth of Midian does not mean they have the guard of Isaac.
• 20:57
  You can have a full bank account and an empty soul.
• 20:59
  You can be sent away from the presence of God with your
• 21:02
  pockets full. So we should never confuse the
• 21:04
  gifts with the giver, or even the gifts with the relationship.
• 21:07
  Never. The gifts are temporary, they
• 21:09
  perish. The camels die, the gold is lost
• 21:12
  or spent. The inheritance is eternal.
• 21:14
  Eternal. Jesus warned us about this.
• 21:17
  What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose
• 21:20
  his soul? You can gain the whole E country
• 21:22
  and still lose. There's another application here
• 21:24
  that touches on what we were just saying about boundaries.
• 21:27
  We live in a culture that idolizes inclusion.
• 21:30
  Inclusive is the highest compliment you can pay someone.
• 21:33
  Exclusive is a dirty word. If you're exclusive, you're
• 21:36
  bigoted, you're mean, you're narrow minded.
• 21:38
  It is the supreme virtue of our age.
• 21:40
  But the Bible presents a different supreme virtue,
• 21:43
  holiness. And holiness literally means set
• 21:46
  apart. It implies exclusivity by its
• 21:49
  very definition. Abraham shows us that true love
• 21:51
  requires boundaries. He does to protect Isaac, who
• 21:54
  represents the church, the truth, the promise.
• 21:57
  He had to separate him from the influence of Midian.
• 22:00
  He could not risk the contamination of the covenant
• 22:02
  line. So how does that apply to, say,
• 22:04
  a parent or a pastor in the church?
• 22:07
  Oh, I think it's a huge word for parents.
• 22:10
  You have a responsibility, a stewardship, to send away
• 22:14
  worldly philosophies from your home.
• 22:16
  You cannot let the Midianites of secular culture, whether that's
• 22:20
  an entertainment or ethics or views on sexuality.
• 22:23
  You can't let them just camp out in your living room through the
• 22:27
  TV or the Internet. You can't just say, well we want
• 22:29
  to be open minded, we want to expose our kids to everything
• 22:31
  and let them decide. If you are so open minded that
• 22:34
  your brains fall out, as the old saying goes, if you let
• 22:38
  everything in, you are not protecting the Isaac of your
• 22:42
  child's faith. You have to be willing to be the
• 22:44
  bad guy sometimes. You have to be willing to say
• 22:46
  no. That does not belong here.
• 22:48
  We are sending that away not because we hate the world, but
• 22:50
  because we love the truth and we want to protect it.
• 22:52
  That is protective exclusion. Again, stewardship.
• 22:55
  It is. It is stewardship.
• 22:56
  If you love your garden, you have to pull the weeds.
• 22:59
  You don't say, well, let's be inclusive of the weeds.
• 23:01
  No, the weeds will choke out and kill the flowers.
• 23:04
  That's really challenging, but I also want to talk about the
• 23:07
  comfort in this text because for the believer, this doctrine of
• 23:11
  election and sovereignty isn't just about hard boundaries.
• 23:14
  It's also about assurance. It is the deepest comfort there
• 23:17
  is. Think about it.
• 23:18
  Does the covenant depend on Abraham being a perfect dad?
• 23:21
  No, we know he wasn't, No. We see he had a complicated,
• 23:25
  messy life. Does it depend on Isaac being a
• 23:28
  strong heroic figure? Not at all.
• 23:30
  No. So what does it depend on?
• 23:32
  God's promise. It depends on God's ordered
• 23:34
  promise, God said in Isaac, Your seed shall be called.
• 23:38
  And God moved heaven and earth, and opened a barren womb and
• 23:41
  vitalized an old man's body to make it happen.
• 23:45
  Our security rests in His decree, not our deeds.
• 23:48
  So my standing with God doesn't depend on my performance today
• 23:51
  or how I feel. It depends on his promise.
• 23:53
  And that means we don't need to envy the sons of the East.
• 23:55
  We don't need to look at the world and say, oh, I wish I had
• 23:58
  their gifts. I wish I had their fame, their
• 24:00
  success. We hold the title deed to the
• 24:03
  Kingdom. We have the better portion, the
• 24:05
  one that can't be taken away. That is good news.
• 24:07
  Now we can't do a deep dive without getting to Christ.
• 24:10
  We're reformed. We read the whole Bible is
• 24:12
  pointing to Jesus. We don't just stop at Isaac.
• 24:14
  How do we get from Genesis 25 to Jesus?
• 24:17
  Well, the line from Isaac leads straight to Christ.
• 24:20
  He is the ancestor. But more than that, look at the
• 24:23
  typology in verse 5 again. Abraham gave all that he had to
• 24:26
  Isaac. OK, now listen to John 3.35.
• 24:30
  The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.
• 24:33
  Wow, that parallels almost perfectly.
• 24:35
  It's an echo across the centuries.
• 24:38
  Isaac is a type, a shadow of Christ.
• 24:40
  He is the only begotten Son of the promise.
• 24:43
  He is the heir of all things. Abraham giving the entire
• 24:46
  inheritance to Isaac is a beautiful picture of God the
• 24:49
  Father giving the Kingdom to God the Son.
• 24:51
  Hebrews 1.2 says God appointed his son heir of all things.
• 24:54
  It's right there. That is beautiful.
• 24:56
  But here is the twist, and I love this part of it.
• 24:59
  Where do we fit in? Because looking at myself and
• 25:01
  probably most of our listeners, we're not Jewish.
• 25:04
  We're not direct biological descendants of Isaacs.
• 25:06
  Right by nature, biologically, we are the sons of Katura, we
• 25:10
  are the Gentiles, we are the nations who are far off.
• 25:12
  We belong to the East. We're the ones who should be
• 25:14
  sent away. We are the Midianites in this
• 25:16
  story. We are we are the outsiders.
• 25:18
  We have no claim on the inheritance by birth.
• 25:20
  We are aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel, as Paul
• 25:23
  says in Ephesians, strangers to the covenants of promise.
• 25:25
  But, but, and this is the glorious butt of the gospel
• 25:28
  through with the true Isaac Jesus Christ, we who are far off
• 25:32
  are brought near. Paul says in Romans 8.17 that by
• 25:36
  faith we become heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.
• 25:40
  Joint heirs. That means we get the all.
• 25:42
  We get the all because we are united to Jesus by faith.
• 25:45
  We don't just get the gifts of common grace.
• 25:48
  We share in his inheritance. We get the adoption.
• 25:51
  We get the Kingdom. The sons of the East are brought
• 25:54
  into the tent of meeting through the blood of Christ.
• 25:56
  That's the gospel right there in Genesis 25.
• 25:59
  We're Couture his kids who get Isaac's inheritance because
• 26:02
  we're united to Jesus. Amen.
• 26:04
  It turns the whole thing upside down.
• 26:06
  The separation is bridged in Christ.
• 26:09
  In him there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither Isaac nor Midian,
• 26:13
  but all are one. Man, that is good.
• 26:15
  So let's try and summarize this. We've covered a lot of ground
• 26:18
  today. We've seen God's vitality and
• 26:20
  keeping His promise to make Abraham a father of many
• 26:23
  nations. We've seen the clear distinction
• 26:25
  between common grace, the gifts given to many, and special
• 26:28
  grace, the inheritance given to the One.
• 26:31
  And we've seen the necessity of separation, that the line of
• 26:33
  promise must be protected from the world, a principle of
• 26:36
  holiness. And we've seen that in Christ.
• 26:38
  We who are outside now possess the true inheritance.
• 26:41
  It really is a theological bombshell hidden in a what looks
• 26:45
  like a boring genealogy. It is.
• 26:47
  I won't leave our listeners with a final visual.
• 26:49
  I think this sticks with you. Picture that scene in the
• 26:51
  desert. You have the sons of Kutura,
• 26:52
  MIDI and Shua. All of them.
• 26:54
  They were loaded up. Their camels are heavy with
• 26:56
  gold, silver, fine clothes. The gifts Abraham gave them.
• 27:00
  A caravan of wealth. A caravan of wealth and they're
• 27:03
  walking E they're walking into the sunrise maybe, but they're
• 27:06
  walking away from the Father, away from the covenant home.
• 27:09
  And then you have Isaac. Maybe he doesn't have as many
• 27:11
  camels in that moment. Maybe he looks a bit lonelier,
• 27:15
  but he's standing by the wall and he holds the promise.
• 27:19
  He holds the future. So here's the question we want
• 27:21
  you to chew on this week. Are you satisfied with the gifts
• 27:25
  of the East? Are you chasing the good job,
• 27:28
  the nice family, the comfortable life, the blessings that common
• 27:31
  grace offers to so many? Or do you possess the true
• 27:35
  inheritance? Because the gifts perish, you
• 27:37
  can't take the camels with you, but the inheritance is forever.
• 27:41
  Something to think about. Thank you so much for joining us
• 27:43
  on this deep dive into reform thinking.
• 27:45
  We hope this has been helpful. We will see you next time.