Latest / Reformed Thinking / “No, But Sarah”: Covenant Promise, Divine Election, and the Naming of Isaac (Genesis 17:15–22)

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“No, But Sarah”: Covenant Promise, Divine Election, and the Naming of Isaac (Genesis 17:15–22) · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome back to Reform Thinking. If you're looking for a way to
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get right to the core of God's redemptive work, I mean how he
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actually deals with our human strategies and why His promises
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are always so specific, then you are in the right place.
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We are doing a deep dive today, getting into one of the most
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theologically packed and I think personally revealing passages in
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the entire Old Testament. Our mission today is a close
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look at Genesis 17, and we're zeroing in on verses 15 through
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22. We've brought together a number
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of sources, historical, linguistic, systematic, to
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really get at this critical tension that's happening right
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there in Abraham's tent. And that tension is all about
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human effort versus divine election.
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It's about our pragmatic substitutes versus the absolute
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certainty of miraculous promise. This section of the story is
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really where the covenant crisis in Abraham's household just
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comes to a head. For 13 years there was this this
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question just sort of hanging in the air.
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A huge question. Right, and that question was, is
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God going to fulfill his covenant with Abraham through
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the logical, you know, the ready made product of human thinking,
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this strong teenage son, Ishmael.
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The son who's right there, who he can see every day, is.
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The fulfilment going to come through something totally
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different, a specific, miraculous and frankly
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impossible seeming promise. The son who would be named
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Isaac. This text is a real hinge point.
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It forces us to face something essential about faith.
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So the core question we're looking at for you, the
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listener, is this. How does God's divine election
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just completely overturn every logical, natural, and, you know,
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seemingly successful plan that we can come up with?
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And they are often very successful plans by our
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standards. They are, this passage demands
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that we decide is our identity and so our hope for the future.
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Is it defined by what we can do, by our successful methods?
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Or is it defined only by the unshakable certainty of God's
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Word? Let's let's unpack this.
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To really feel the weight of that decision Abraham has to
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make, we have to start with the context.
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And the context is defined by 13 years of well of complete
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silence. That time gap is so easy to just
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read right over. Yeah, it's so easy, but think
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about the atmosphere in Abraham's camp.
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So you remember Genesis 16 gives us the birth of Ishmael, Abraham
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and Sarai. They got impatient.
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They decided in a moment of, let's call it faithless
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expediency, to step in and help God out by using Hagar.
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Right, the surrogate plan. The surrogate plan and the
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result was tangible. It was a living, breathing,
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strong, successful boy, Ishmael. It worked.
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For a human perspective, the plan worked.
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It absolutely worked. And then nothing after that
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birth. The text records no define
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communication, no dream, no vision, no new word from God for
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more than a decade, 13 years. Just try to imagine that length
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of time. Living with the results of your
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decision and just. Total quiet.
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And that deafening silence is so important because it allowed a
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certain kind of comfort to settle in.
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During that long period, Abraham fell into what our sources call
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a comfortable theological assumption.
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In his mind, the crisis was over.
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It was solved. He had produced an air.
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He had watched Ishmael grow from a baby into a strong young man,
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and he had poured all this parental affection and energy
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into him. Sure of.
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Course he had. He was convinced that the
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covenant path, OK, maybe it was messy at the start, but it was
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now secure. The working assumption was that
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God would just, well, he would bless this successful, visible,
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fleshly effort. And that's the human element.
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That's so relatable, isn't it? When you've put 13 years of your
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life and your resources into something that looks like it's
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working and have all the momentum, it feels totally wrong
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to just scrap it. It feels like throwing away a
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massive sunk cost. It is a massive sunk cost and
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the problem we see developing in Abraham's life during those
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years is what you could call Plan B religion.
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Plan B religion. I like that.
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It's not a formal system, it's a posture.
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It's the belief that we can rely on what's visible, what's
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present, what's achievable, the results of our own clever
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strategies. And then we turn around and ask
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God to, you know, rubber stamp our actions as His true will.
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Sort of retroactively seeking approval for what we've already
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done. That's it.
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Ishmael was the ultimate product of a human workaround.
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He was the best possible result of their fleshly effort, and for
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more than 10 years, Abraham had made his peace with that
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compromise, just assuming that God, being gracious, would
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endorse the best option on the table.
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You see this everywhere today. Everywhere in the church, Plan B
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religion shows up when we start prioritizing growth metrics.
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You know, attendance numbers, cultural relevance, all the
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visible successes over the harder, often much slower work
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of deep spiritual change through the simple means of grace.
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So if Abraham is operating under this assumption that Ishmael is
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the heir apparent, how does God break into that settled world?
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Well, when the almighty God El Shaddai finally does break the
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silence in Genesis 17, he doesn't show up to validate
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Abraham's pragmatic choices. He comes to shatter them
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completely. So it's a confrontation.
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It is a direct confrontation. He appears specifically to
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dismantle the idol of fleshly effort and pragmatism that had
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been sitting comfortably in Abraham's tent for over a
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decade. The revelation we get in verses
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15 to 22 is a theological shock to the system of natural human
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reason. God announces the covenant will
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not flow through the vitality of Ishmael the strong teenage son,
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but through the dead and fertile womb of a 90 year old woman.
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The exact opposite of what seems logical.
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The complete opposite, and that contrast is what drives this
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whole text. The central idea is crystal
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clear. True faith, covenantal faith, it
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doesn't work by asking God to ratify our successful works of
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the flesh, right? True faith waits, often with a
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kind of trembling joy and shock, for the impossible fruit of the
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Spirit, which comes only by divine intervention, the silence
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of God. In those thirteen years, it
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wasn't God's consent to Abraham's plan.
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It was a necessary preparation period, allowing that idol of
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Ishmael to get solidified just so God could display His
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sovereign miraculous grace in tearing it down.
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I think the application there for anyone listening is it's
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incredibly challenging because we all have our Ishmaels.
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We all have those successful strategies or visible
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accomplishments. Maybe it's a business you built,
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a ministry structure, a system of personal discipline that we
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are proud of. And we're convinced that God
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must use these things to fulfill His promises in our lives.
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Exactly. We sort of project our own
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desire for efficiency onto God. We do.
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We think, look, I've done the heavy lifting.
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God now just come and bless the work of my hands.
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But this text is insisting that we identify those Ishmaels, the
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very best things we've produced with our own ingenuity, and ask
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ourselves if we're secretly begging God to accept them as
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the answer instead of just dropping our methods and waiting
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for His promised miracle. So the call to let go of our
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successes in a way. It's a call to understand that
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God's covenantal path often requires the failure, or at
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least the theological invalidation, of what we see as
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our human success. That's a powerful point about
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the weight of time. 13 years of investing in Ishmael made that
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human plan feel solid, reliable, almost sacred.
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To take that apart, it will require a truly sovereign act,
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and the narrative shifts focus completely in verses 15 and 16
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to do just that. The whole first part of Genesis
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17 was about establishing circumcision as the sign of the
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covenant in the flesh of the male.
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But then God uses this really forceful grammatical break to
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pivot directly to the woman. Yeah, to Sarah.
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To Sarah, our sources pointed out this fascinating linguistic
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detail. The Hebrew phrase As for Sarai,
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your wife, uses what's called a wah disjunctive.
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It's basically a purposeful jolt in the story, signaling that God
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is introducing a new, highly focused subject.
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It's almost like God is saying stop now.
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Listen very carefully about Sarai.
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It's the literary version of a drum roll before a huge
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announcement. And make sure Abraham can't just
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treat this as a side note. This is the main event now.
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It is. And why this big transition?
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It's to show that the covenant of grace isn't just an external
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physical thing. You know, the man circumcising
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his flesh, which Abraham could do.
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It's a divine creative act that has to include the previously
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barren and overlooked woman. God is grabbing Abraham's
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attention. He is.
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He's showing him that while circumcision is the sign of the
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covenant, the source of the covenant, life is going to be
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entirely miraculous, and it's tied directly to Sarah's
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destiny. And what comes next is just a
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sovereign redefinition of reality.
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God has just, you know, acknowledged Abraham's current
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situation. He speaks what is impossible
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into what must become certain, and that redefinition starts
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with her identity. It's her name.
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With her name we see the change. You shall not call her name
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Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.
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To get the weight of this we have to look at the Hebrew.
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Both names come from the roots SAR, which means Prince or
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ruler. OK, the original name Sarai
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probably had a suffix that meant my Princess.
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Our sources suggest this points to a restricted dominion.
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She was a Princess, but defined by her relationship to Abraham.
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She was his Princess. So her status is confined to
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Abraham's world honored, yes, but still defined by a human
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relationship. Exactly limited to the 10th, the
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domestic sphere. Her rule was personal within the
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household, but the new name Sarah drops that restrictive my
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and uses the feminine absolute form.
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She becomes simply Princess. Not my Princess, but the
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Princess. Universal.
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It signifies this massive shift in her status.
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She goes from a domestic role to a covenantal office.
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God elevates her to become a mother of nations.
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He gives her a title that has nothing to do with her
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biological reality at that moment.
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This act of naming, this defining of destiny separate
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from current reality, it lines up so powerfully with the
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Reformed understanding of God's decree in Providence.
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Our confessional documents talk about how God sovereignly
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assigns names, and in doing so He defines the essence and
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future of His elect, completely independent of their natural
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abilities or what their current life looks like.
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He's naming what isn't yet there and treating it as a certainty.
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He's authoring her destiny. He is, and it's fascinating
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because the naming itself is an act of creation.
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Abraham and Sarah tried to create an heir through
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biological effort with Ishmael. God's response is to recreate
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the parents first. He renames Abraham to Abraham
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and now Soraya to Sarah. It's a signal that fulfilling
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the promise doesn't require better human effort.
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It requires divine authorship of the people involved.
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That's right, And the text just hammers this idea of divine
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authorship or monarchism with the repeated use of the first
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person singular in verse 16. The promises are all on God's
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shoulders. He says I will bless her and I
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will give you a son, and then again I will bless her.
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The burden of performance is entirely on the Almighty.
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There's no command here for Sarah to try to conceive, no
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instruction for Abraham to do anything different.
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There's only the declaration that God will create life.
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And that language is such a deliberate, forceful closing of
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the Hagar and Ishmael chapter. It is by saying I will give you
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a son by her. God explicitly slams the door on
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that whole cultural pragmatism of surrogacy.
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The text forces Abraham and it forces us to look away from the
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strong, present teenage Ishmael and look toward the 90 year old
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biologically dead womb of his wife.
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The emphasis is on the specificity.
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Not just any sun will do. The covenant requires a specific
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son from a specific line through a specific miraculous act that
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involves Sarah. And theologically, this just
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confronts the air of naturalism in a huge way from a purely
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human biological viewpoint. Sarah's is a dead end, but God
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connects her new name to the royal promise that kings of
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people shall be of her. So it's looking way ahead.
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Way ahead to the Davidic monarchy and of course, to
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Christ himself. The promise isn't just for a
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baby, it's for a divinely authored royal line that starts
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with a woman who is naturally unable to have a child.
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Our identity isn't defined by our past failures or our
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biological limits, but by the new name God speaks over us and
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the decree He establishes. This whole section is a master
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class in God's creative monarchistic decree.
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And that Word of God spoken with such certainty and carrying the
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full weight of the Almighty, it immediately collides with the
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logic of the flesh. And that collision results in
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Abraham's iconic but very complex reaction, the laughter.
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The laughter. Verse 17 documents this classic
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theological tension. The text says Abraham's response
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was bifurcated. It was two things at once.
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Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed.
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We really can't understand this without looking at both parts.
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The action and the reaction. Right.
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First, the posture falling on his face.
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This is an act of submission. It's reverence.
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It is a physical act of worship. Before El Shaddai, Abraham is
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acknowledging the sheer sovereignty and holiness of the
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one speaking to him. That is the correct theological
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response to God. That submission is so important
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because it sets the context. He isn't just laughing it off,
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he's submitting to the authority of the one speaking.
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Precisely. But at the same he laughs.
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And this laughter is Yitzhak in Hebrew, which of course becomes
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the name of the promised son, Isaac.
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Now, how we interpret this laughter is critical.
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Because it could be seen as doubt it.
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Could, and our sources are very careful to distinguish this from
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the cynical, faithless mockery of Sarah that we see later in
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Genesis 18. The Apostle Paul actually gives
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us the interpretive key in Romans 4 where he says that
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Abraham, looking at his own body, and Sarah Baroness, did
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not waver an unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to
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God, being fully assured that what God had promised, he was
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also able to perform. So Paul reads it as an act of
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faith. He does.
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Therefore the consensus is that Abraham's laughter here isn't
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the laughter of cynical doubt. It's the startled, joyful shock
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of a finite mind trying to get its head around the sheer
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impossibility, the absurdity, of infinite grace.
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It's the laughter of holy amazement, a response that's
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almost involuntary because the promise is so good, so specific,
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and so far beyond any natural expectation.
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That distinction between the laughter of holy astonishment
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and the laughter of cynical doubt is key.
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But then you look at the very next few phrases where he's
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speaking his internal thoughts, and doesn't that suggest that
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maybe his amazement was mixed with some very real logical
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doubt? He submits, he lasts in shock.
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But then his internal monologue reveals this huge conflict
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between human reason and the divine promise.
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That's the critical tension this passage capture so perfectly.
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His internal dialogue immediately shifts to a rational
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calculation. He asks himself, will a child be
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born to a man 100 years old? And will Sarah, who is 90 years
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old, bear a child? He's doing the math.
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He's doing the math. He's assessing the biological
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data. He's looking at the medical
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reality of his 100 year old body and Sarah's 90 basically dead
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reproductive system. A biological fact the New
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Testament brings up again. And his reasoning is sound from
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a naturalistic standpoint. It's completely sound.
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If you take God out of the equation.
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The promise is absurd. It's impossible.
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And this internal struggle exposes a common sin of
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unbelief, measuring God by our human limitations.
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Abraham is being forced to decide right then and there
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whether his ultimate reality is defined by his geriatric
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condition and the observable facts, or by the authoritative,
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impossible Word of God, El Shaddai.
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And that moment of logical, natural pushback then comes out
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in his external plea in verse 18.
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This is his counter proposal. It is.
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Oh, that Ishmael might live before you.
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Yeah. This is the quintessential
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expression of the logic of the flesh after you've just been hit
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with a promise that's too big to believe.
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To live before God in this context means to enjoy
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covenantal favor and status. It means to be recognized as the
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legitimate heir through whom the promise will flow.
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So he's asking God to switch airs.
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He is, in effect, asking God to validate his own successful,
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functional, pragmatic solution. Ishmael is the bird in the hand.
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He's the tangible, visible success he has invested in and
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loved for 13 years. He's strong, He's available, and
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most of all, he is present. Abraham is asking God to
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downgrade his promise from a miraculous act to a simple
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ratification of human success. That plea just encapsulates the
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sin of pragmatism perfectly. It's the preference for the
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visible result over the supernatural process.
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It is, and the application for us today is so powerful.
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Just as Abraham preferred the visible, tangible results of the
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bondwoman's son, the efficient, established, growing option, the
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modern church so often gravitates toward the visible,
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measurable success of marketing, slick programming or
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sociological maneuvers. We create our own Ishmaels.
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We do. We create our own successful
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methods and strategies, and then we try to compel God to
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establish his covenant on them, rather than waiting for the
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slower, invisible, supernatural work that's accomplished only by
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the Word and the Spirit. We try to secure the divine
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promise through human strategy instead of waiting on divine
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appointment. It's that constant temptation to
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equate effectiveness with faithfulness.
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If something is working efficiently by our human
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standards, we just assume it must be God's appointed way.
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That's it. And if you look at the
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theological structure here, Ishmael was the product of
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Abraham's human strength and physical ability.
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He was a work of the flesh, born according to nature.
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Isaac, on the other hand, would be born exclusively through
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promise, contrary to nature, purely by God's creative action.
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So by clinging to Ishmael, Abraham is trying to secure a
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covenant where human effort gets to share in the glory.
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He's trying to create a partnership, but God's covenant
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is monarchistic. It relies only on his action, so
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that all the glory belongs to Him.
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And This is why the New Testament authors lean so
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heavily on this story. So heavily, as Paul argues in
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Galatians 4, this is about more than family dynamics.
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This is the core battle between two systems of salvation.
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Ishmael represents the covenant of works and slavery, the
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attempt to gain status through what you can produce.
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Sarah and Isaac represent the covenant of grace and freedom
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status received only through the promise of God.
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So Abraham wants God to accept his best efforts.
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But God requires Abraham to set his efforts aside completely and
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just receive a miracle. So in that moment, Abraham tries
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to negotiate, offering up his pragmatic substitute.
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God's response just comes down like a hammer establishing the
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covenant boundary. Oh, absolutely.
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God's answer to the plea, Oh, that Ishmael might live before
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you is so forceful and absolute. Verse 19 starts with no, but
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Sarah, your wife will bear you a son.
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That Hebrew particle use there a it's critical.
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It acts like a divine stop sign. It's an emphatic no that just
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rejects Abraham's attempt to negotiate or change the terms of
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the deal. It is not a gentle correction.
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It's an immediate, authoritative assertion.
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God is saying, I understand your logic, Abraham, but you are not
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the author of this covenant. My word stands.
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And that divine No is so key because it's safeguards the very
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nature of sola gratia grace alert alone.
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If God had accepted Ishmael as the main heir, the covenant
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would have been grounded at least partly in human capability
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or foresight or physical strength.
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Right. It would have been a joint
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venture. A joint venture.
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By insisting on Isaac, God makes sure the covenant serves as a
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perpetual witness to his ability to bring life from death.
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Election. The promise is based only on
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God's sovereign choice, not on Abraham's selection or his human
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effort. And then he immediately
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solidifies it. He does.
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He moves right to the naming of the child.
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You shall call his name Isaac, which means he laughs.
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The name does more than just identify the boy.
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It can is the absurdity that is now turning into covenant joy.
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So the name itself is a memorial.
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It is. It's a perpetual memorial.
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Every time someone says the name Isaac, it's supposed to call
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back this moment, the moment the old patriarch realized that
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salvation belongs completely to the Lord, not to human strength
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or planning. The name is a doctrine in
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itself. God fulfills His promise in ways
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that shock and delight us, showing His unmerited favor.
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And that name? Isaac.
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It functions as such a clear type for the ultimate son for
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Christ. Isaac is the unique, beloved
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elected son, the only heir born miraculously to bring joy to the
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world. The firm rejection of Ishmael as
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the covenant head preserves that typology of the true Son, who is
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later described as being born not of blood, nor of the will of
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the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
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Isaac's birth is the template. It's the template for the whole
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spiritual lineage. But the text also shows us the
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expansive nature of God's justice and goodness, even when
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he's rejecting something. This is where we see a really
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crucial systematic distinction between common grace and special
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grace. Yes, Abraham's prayer for
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Ishmael is not ignored. It isn't ignored, it's genuinely
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heard, but the way it's fulfilled is specific and
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limited. When God talks about Ishmael, he
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says, As for Ishmael, I have heard you.
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Behold, I will bless him and will make him fruitful, and will
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multiply him exceedingly, and this is a big promise.
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A very big promise. Ishmael gets temporal
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prosperity. He becomes the foundation of a
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great nation. He's the father to 12, Princess.
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This is the realm of common grace, God's universal goodness,
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providing political power, physical sustenance, cultural
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influence to all humanity, even those outside the specific
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redemptive line. And it's so important to just
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sit with that contrast for a second.
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God is good to Ishmael. He gives him success, growth,
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visibility. History confirms the reality of
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Ishmael's descendants being fruitful, but look at the
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difference in language. God says I will bless him.
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That's extensive, but it's temporal.
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But then the text immediately pivots with that sharp
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disjunction in verse 21. But my covenant I will establish
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with Isaac the Hebrew word Barrett, the covenant which
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contains in the messianic line reconciliation with God, eternal
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redemption. Yeah, that is exclusive.
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That contrast between I have blessed him for Ishmael and I
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will establish my covenant with Isaac is the theological
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backbone of this entire section. It gives us absolute redemptive
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clarity, affirms the principle that Paul will articulate later.
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Not all who are physically descended from Abraham are
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children of the promise. The promise of the saving
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covenant is defined not by genetics or natural success, but
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by God's specific election. And this specific definition of
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the redemptive channel, it just fundamentally refutes
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theological errors like universalism or pluralism.
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While God's goodness, his common grace to Ishmael is wide, his
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redemptive intimacy and salvific purpose, His special grace
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through Isaac are specific, singular, and directed entirely
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through his chosen channel. The fact that Ishmael gets a
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great blessing does not mean he receives the covenant
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inheritance. No, two different things.
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Two different things. And on top of that, God anchors
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this promise not just to a person, but to a specific
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historical calendar, He says, whom Sarah will bear to you at
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this season, next year. He defines the mode, the
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appointed time. That historical anchor is so
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vital it prevents any vague spiritualizing of the promise.
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God ties His word to a calendar so that Abraham's faith has to
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rest on a concrete, verifiable pledge, not just some general
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fuzzy optimism. If the promise was just
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eventually you'll have a son, it would be so much easier to fall
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back on Ishmael. But God demands that Abraham
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wait for a specific miracle at a specific date to establish the
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specific air. And this insistence on
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specificity really challenges is our modern idol of immediacy.
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We want the results now. God demands that we wait for his
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appointed time and that we wait for them through his appointed
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means. This verdict of rejection and
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election is, when it comes down to it, a profound pastoral
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comfort. It assures us that the security
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of the covenant doesn't rest on our fluctuating efforts are
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Ishmaels or on our moral resumes.
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God rejects our methods precisely to make sure that our
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inheritance rests entirely on His unchangeable choice and
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faithfulness. That's right, If it rested on
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Ishmael, the whole thing could be undone by human failure.
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But since it rests on Isaac, the impossible promise, it is
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secured by divine action alone. And this clarification, this
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divine decree, is given with a majestic finality that just
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demands an immediate response. It does.
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The narrative closes with when he finished talking with him,
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God went up from Abraham. The time for consultation, for
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debate, for negotiation. It's.
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Conversation is done. It's done.
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The silence returns. But it's not the empty,
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ambiguous silence of the last 13 years.
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It's now a silence that is pregnant with a specific,
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irrevocable promise. The fact that God went up from
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Abraham really underscores his sovereignty.
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He is the high and lofty one who comes down to speak grace and
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then ascends to govern history, leaving Abraham not with a
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lingering argument, but with an immediate duty.
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Circumcision. Circumcision, the decree stands.
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Abraham's proper response is submission and immediate action,
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which shows that the imperative of obedience is always grounded
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in the indicative of the Gospel. He circumcised Ishmael and the
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others in his households that very same day.
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And Isaac's very existence then becomes the enduring paradigm of
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grace for the rest of Scripture. His birth life from death.
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Like barrenness, it anticipates the much greater miracle of the
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new creation secured by Christ. Isaac is a covenant bearer whose
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entire life testifies that God brings strength from weakness
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and life from barrenness solely by promise.
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And this narrative is so far from being confined to the
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history of the patriarchs, it becomes the engine for
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foundational New Testament interpretation, showing us how
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redemption has always worked. That's so right.
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Paul uses the Isaac Ishmael example over and over again.
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He makes it the central pillar for defining who the true people
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of God actually are. Right in Romans 9.
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In Romans 9, Paul appeals directly to this distinction to
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show that covenant membership is determined by God's election,
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not by physical dissent or by adherence to the law.
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He explains that not all who are Israel according to the flesh
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are Israel according to the promise.
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The principle is clear. Only the children of promise,
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Isaac, not Ishmael, are counted as offspring in the redemptive
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sense. It's all about God's sovereign
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choice. It's entirely about God's
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sovereign choice according to the counsel of His will,
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irrespective of human works. If Abraham could have chosen
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Ishmael, we would have a different gospel.
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And then in Galatians 4, he pushes that typological
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connection even further, using Sarah and Hagar to contrast
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freedom and slavery. It's an analogy for the two ways
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people try to relate to God. It is Hagar and Ishmael
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represents slavery to the law, trying to gain righteousness and
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inheritance through works, through human strength.
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Paul says they are born according to the flesh.
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Sarah and Isaac represent freedom and grace being born
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through promise. And he applies that directly to
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the believers he's writing to. Directly, he says, believers
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today are identified with Isaac, those whose existence as God's
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people is owed entirely to God's divine miraculous initiative,
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not to their own effort or their pedigree.
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So when we try to secure our standing before God through our
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moral performance, our religious achievements, or our spiritual
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resume, our own Ishmaels, we're aligning ourselves with Hagar
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the slave woman. We are, but when we rely
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entirely on the promise of Christ, the true Son, we are
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aligning ourselves with Isaac, the child of the free woman.
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God rejected Abraham's methods precisely to secure our
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inheritance in his unchangeable choice.
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So if we pull all this together, what does this entire deep dive
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mean for us when we are faced with that daily pressure to
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perform, to plan, and to produce our own success?
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Well, I think the lesson is that distinction between our human
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pragmatism and God's divine specificity.
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God is generous to the Ishmaels of our lives.
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He grants blessing, fruitfulness, temporal success,
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showing his common grace. But his saving purpose, the
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Barrett, the eternal covenant, it moves only through his josen
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miraculous way, Isaac, and in the end, the true Son, Jesus
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Christ. We're called to trade that
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initial laughter of rational skepticism, the one that you
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know does the math and assesses the impossibility based on human
27:39
limits, for the laughter of holy astonishment and faith, resting
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entirely in a salvation that is the Father's gift.
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We stopped trying to produce the promised result ourselves and
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instead wait upon the appointed Son.
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It's a constant realignment, isn't it?
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We have to stop trusting in the successful, visible things we've
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built. Instead, anchor our hope in the
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specific impossible promise of God.
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And let's just go back to the finality of that decree.
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Just as God ascended after securing the promise of the seed
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line through Isaac and setting the historical date for the
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miracle, Christ ascended after securing the eternal covenant
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through his blood. We are now the waiting people of
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God, living between the promise given and the consummation
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that's still to come. And this leaves us with a
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challenging thought as we close Look at your own life, your
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strategies, your investments, the things you're proud of.
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What current Plan B? What visible pragmatic effort
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are you tempted to trust in and rely on, rather than waiting for
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the return of the true Son, the specific elected seed, Jesus
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Christ, and resting entirely in his accomplished work?