Latest / Reformed Thinking / A Grave in the Garden of Promise (Genesis 23:1-16)

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A Grave in the Garden of Promise (Genesis 23:1-16) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
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  Today, we're going to do something that might feel a
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  little strange at first. We're going to stop the clock on
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  all the big flashy miracles. We're not looking at the Red Sea
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  parting or, you know, fire coming down from the sky.
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  We're going to zoom in, I mean microscopically close on a real
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  estate transaction. It sounds a little dry when you
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  put it that way. It does.
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  It really does. It sounds like we're about to
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  read a deed at the county clerk's office.
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  But that's the trick. We are opening up Genesis
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  chapter 23, and on the surface, yes, it is a negotiation over a
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  plot of dirt and a dark cave. But underneath that?
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  Underneath that, this is one of the most high stakes,
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  emotionally charged moments in the entire Old Testament.
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  It's a chapter that really sits in the shadow of death.
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  It's dusty, it's heavy, and it is incredibly human.
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  So to set the stage for everyone listening, we need to visualize
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  the man at the center of this. We aren't seeing the young,
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  fiery Abraham who just March out of Ur of the Chaldeans.
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  We aren't even seeing the warrior Abraham, who chased down
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  kings to rescue lots. We are looking at a man who is
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  137 years old. He's a giant of the faith, but
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  right now he is crushed. Just broken.
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  He's covered in the dust of the road and he is standing at the
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  feet of his wife, Sarah, who has just died.
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  That's the scene Genesis 23 opens with the death of Sarah,
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  and immediately there's a massive tension hanging over the
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  text. Attention.
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  How so? The sources we pulled together
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  for this deep dive call it the Crisis of the Empty Hand.
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  The crisis, the empty hand. I like that phrase, but let's
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  unpack it because on one hand, we have the promise with a
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  capital P God told Abraham 60 years ago, I am going to give
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  you all this land, you and your offspring.
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  He's been walking around Canaan for decades with that promise
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  just ringing in his ears, right? Decades of walking, setting up
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  altars, digging wells, calling on the name of the Lord.
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  He has the divine title deed in a spiritual sense.
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  But here's the crisis. Sarah is dead at the age of 127.
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  She dies in Kiriakpa, which we know is Hebron.
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  So she is physically in the promised land.
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  She's in the right geography. But the problem is legal
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  ownership. You hit the nail on the head.
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  Abraham owns absolutely nothing. Not a single square inch.
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  Nothing. God said.
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  This is all yours. But if you went to the local
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  Hittite courthouse in Hebron, at that moment, Abraham is
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  homeless. He's a squatter.
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  Yeah, a nomad. And now he has a body to bury,
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  the body of his beloved wife, and he has literally nowhere to
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  put her. That is a collision.
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  You have the promise of God crashing right into the hard
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  reality of death and displacement.
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  And that's really our mission for this deep dive.
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  We want to see how Abraham handles that collision, how he.
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  Lives in that gap. How does a believer act when
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  they have the title deed in heaven, so to speak, but they do
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  not have the possession on earth?
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  And we are looking at this through the lens of Reformed
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  theology, specifically this concept of the already in the
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  not yet. How do we live in that gap?
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  Because Abraham is living right in the middle of the not yet.
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  So let's start with the text itself.
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  Genesis 23 verses one and two. It opens with this very specific
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  biographical note. Sarah lived 127 years.
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  These were the years of the life of Sarah.
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  Now, in our modern world, that reads like the opening line of
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  an obituary. Standard procedure.
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  It sounds standard, but in the context of the ancient world in
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  the biblical Canon, it's radical.
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  Radical. How so?
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  Sarah is the only woman in the entire biblical Canon, the whole
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  Bible, Old and New Testament, whose age of death is explicitly
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  recorded like this. Wait, really?
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  I never realized that. We know how old Methuselah was.
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  We know how old Abraham was Moses, but no other women.
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  She stands alone in that regard. Not Eve, not Rachel, not Mary,
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  just Sarah. Wow.
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  It is the Holy Spirit's way of altering her specific status.
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  She isn't just Abraham's wife or a side character in his story.
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  No, she's more than that. She is the matriarch of the
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  Covenant. She is a Co participant in the
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  Promise. Precisely.
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  She is the woman whose body was the miraculous vessel for the
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  seed of promise. Isaac, right?
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  The impossible child. Her physical body was the
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  instrument God used to launch the redemption of the world.
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  So recording her years, bookending her life with this
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  dignity is a way of saying her life mattered immensely to the
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  plan of redemption. And then it says she died in
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  Curiatharba, in the land of Canaan.
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  We touched on this, but I want to drill down on the geography.
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  Why is that specific location, Hebron, essentially so pivotal
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  to the crisis? Because geography is theology in
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  Genesis. It just is.
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  If Sarah had died back in UR or in Haran or even in Egypt, it
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  would just be a tragedy, a personal loss.
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  But dying in Canaan? But dying in Canaan without
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  owning land highlights the strangeness of their faith.
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  Think about the options Abraham has well.
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  The cultural norm would be to take her home right back to the
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  ancestral tomb. Correct.
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  In the ancient Near East you are gathered to your father's.
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  It's the standard practice. So if Abraham takes her body
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  back to earth to bury her in his father terrorist tomb, what's he
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  saying he's. Effectively declaring the
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  promise of Canaan void. He is saying we gave up, we
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  tried this promised land thing, it didn't work out, so we're
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  going back to where we came from.
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  Going back is an admission of defeat.
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  It is on faith. Yes, but look at option 2.
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  If he simply buries her in a local Canaanite grave, just
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  finds a nice spot in the woods, or borrows a tomb from a
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  neighbor, he risks something else.
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  What's the risk there? He risks blending in
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  assimilation. If you bury your dead in the
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  communal graves of the Hittites, you're signaling that you're
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  becoming a Hittite. You're disappearing.
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  You are. Disappearing into the Pagan
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  culture, your identity is being absorbed.
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  So he's stuck. He can't go back because that
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  denies the promise. He can't just blend in because
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  that dilutes the holy seed. He is in the right place, but he
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  has no legal right to be there. And that pressure cooker is
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  where we find him in verse 2. Abraham went in to mourn for
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  Sarah and to weep for her. I want to pause on that emotion
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  because if the text doesn't just say he was sad, it says he went
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  in to mourn and weep. The Hebrew word there is live
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  caught and the sources point out this is not a polite single tear
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  rolling down the cheek. No, this is a wailing.
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  It is a visceral, loud public outpouring of agony.
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  This is gut wrenching grief. It's interesting you highlight
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  that because I feel like there is a misconception that often
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  creeps into the church. No, for sure.
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  You hear it in funeral parlors. Sometimes people think that if
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  you have enough faith, you shouldn't cry or you shouldn't
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  cry too much. Right, she's in a better place
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  to celebrate. Yeah, the stiff upper lip
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  Christianity, or this sort of Stoic idea that emotions are a
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  weakness. Or even the prosperity gospel
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  triumphalism that refuses to acknowledge pain because it
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  looks like a negative confession.
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  Abraham just destroys those errors.
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  Look at him. He's the father of the faithful.
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  He trusted God more than any of us do.
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  He was willing to sacrifice Isaac.
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  He's the model of faith. And yet here he is, absolutely
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  wrecked. So the tears are not a lack of
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  faith. Not at all.
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  The tears are actually a form of biblical realism.
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  See, death is an intrusion. It's an enemy.
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  First Corinthians 15 calls it the Last enemy.
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  It's not natural. It's not the way things were
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  supposed to be in the garden. So when Abraham weeps, he is
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  validating the reality that the world is broken.
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  He's protesting it in a way. That's a really helpful
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  distinction. Faith doesn't mean emotional
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  numbness. It means you grieve with hope,
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  but you still grieve. You have to feel the cut.
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  If you don't feel the cut, you don't understand the curse.
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  And if you don't understand the curse, you cannot appreciate the
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  cure. That's a relief, honestly.
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  It's OK to be shattered by loss. It's biblical.
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  But then there is this shift, verse three.
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  I love how the text puts it and Abraham rose up from before his
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  dead. That's the pivot point of the
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  chapter. There is a time to weep and
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  there is a time to act. The grief doesn't paralyze him
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  forever. He moves from the paralysis of
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  grief to the duty of the living. He realizes I have a problem to
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  solve. I have a body and I need a
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  grave. So he goes to the city gate, and
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  this is where the drama really starts.
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  He's talking to the sons of Hath the Hittites who run the town,
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  and he makes his confession in verse four.
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  He says I am a sojourner and stranger among you.
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  We have to feel the weight of that statement.
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  In Hebrew, it's de Rufishov. It is a legal classification.
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  OK, what do those words mean, Juror?
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  A juror is a resident alien. It's someone who lives there but
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  has no legal rights, no ancestral standing.
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  Think of a refugee or someone on a temporary visa.
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  You're there, but you don't belong.
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  And a touchev. A Touchev is a settler, someone
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  just passing through a squatter. He's basically saying I'm a
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  legally unprotected person just camping out here.
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  It's almost a paradox, isn't it? How so?
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  Because God told him you are the Father of nations.
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  You own this land from the river to the sea.
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  But here he is introducing himself as a nobody.
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  Hi, I'm Abraham. I'm a stranger here.
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  That is the identity paradox of the believer.
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  By divine decree, he's the landlord.
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  He owns the whole thing. But by human reckoning.
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  But by human reckoning, by the city records of Hebron, he's
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  homeless. This reminds me of that passage
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  in Hebrews 11. Yes, the New Testament
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  commentary on this exact moment. It says the patriarchs
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  acknowledge that they were strangers and exiles on the
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  earth. So this isn't just a negotiating
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  tactic, this is his actual identity.
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  Abraham publicly identifying himself as an outsider.
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  He's not trying to fake it. He's not walking in saying, do
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  you not know who I am? I am God's chosen 1.
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  He is humble. He's saying I don't belong to
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  your city, my citizenship is elsewhere.
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  But because he is an outsider, he has to ask for permission.
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  He can't just take land. Right.
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  He can't just go out and dig a grave.
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  No. So he asked for a possession of
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  a burying place, and the sources highlight that word possession a
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  choosa. A choosa that sounds heavy.
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  It is. He doesn't just want a loan.
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  He doesn't want to rent a tomb. He wants an A choosa, a
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  permanent legal holding. A title deed.
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  He wants a title deed. He is looking for a foothold in
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  the land that God promised him. And this leads us into the
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  negotiation, which I found absolutely fascinating.
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  It's brilliant because on the surface the Hittites seem
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  incredibly nice. They say, hear us, my Lord, you
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  are a Prince of God among us. Bury your dead in the trace of
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  our sepulchers. It sounds lovely, doesn't it?
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  You're a Prince of God and see Elohim.
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  They respect him, they do. Remember, Abraham is wealthy.
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  He has a private army. He defeated the four kings back
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  in Genesis 14. They want to be on his good
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  side. But this offer Bury your dead in
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  our choice tombs is actually a massive trap.
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  A trap? How is generosity a trap?
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  Think about what it implies. If Abraham put Sarah in a
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  communal hidite grave, he's accepting a spot as a guest, OK?
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  He has no legal right to it. It is permission, not ownership,
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  and permission can be revoked. Right, the next generation of
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  Hittites could say we don't like you anymore, take your bones and
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  leave. Correct, but even more dangerous
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  is the assimilation aspect we talked about.
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  If your ancestors are buried in our grave, then you are
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  essentially part of our clan. Your distinctiveness as the
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  covenant people begins to dissolve.
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  You just blend into the Hittite population.
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  Ah, I see, it is the melting pot strategy.
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  If he accepts their grave, he accepts their identity.
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  Abraham realizes that accepting a free grave is the first step
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  to lose his distinctiveness. He refuses to blend the holy
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  seed with the Pagan world. So he counters them.
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  He counters them. He identifies a specific spot.
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  He says no, I want The Cave of Machpella.
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  And he says he wants to pay full price.
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  Kisef mail full silver. He is very specific.
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  He wants to pay full market value.
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  No discounts, no favors. He wants an incontrovertible
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  receipt. He doesn't want a favor.
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  He wants a contract. And then we meet the antagonist
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  of the story, or at least the shrewd businessmen, Efron the
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  Hittite. Yeah, Efron steps up.
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  And this is where it gets really interesting, because Efron steps
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  up and says, No, my Lord, hear me, I give you the field and I
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  give you The Cave that is in it, he says.
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  I give it three times. It sounds like he's being even
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  more generous than the others. Abraham asked for The Cave and
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  Efron says take the whole field. It's a gift.
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  But this is where we have to understand the ancient Near
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  East. This is not generosity.
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  This is a classic negotiation tactic and potentially something
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  much stickier legally. The sources mentioned the Hidai
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  Law Code here section 46. Yes, this is a brilliant piece
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  of historical context that sheds light on what Efron is actually
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  doing. Under Hedite law, there were
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  feudal obligations attached to land ownership.
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  They called it Ilku. Ilku, what does that involve?
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  It's a service requirement to the king.
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  It could be military service, providing labor for building
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  projects or paying heavy taxes. It was a burden attached to the
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  land itself. OK, so land comes with strings
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  attached. Big strings.
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  Right now, the law stated that if you buy only a part of a
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  property, like just The Cave at the end of the field, the
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  original owner still holds the Ilku obligation.
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  So Efron would still have to pay the tax taxes.
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  The seller still has to pay the taxes and do the service because
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  they still own the main field. But you buy the whole field.
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  The feudal service duty transfers to the buyer.
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  Wow, so Efron is trying to dump his tax burden on Abraham?
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  It is very likely Abraham asked for just The Cave.
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  Efron says no, no, take the field too.
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  By forcing Abraham to take the whole field, he is maneuvering
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  Abraham into the Hittite feudal system.
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  He's making him a citizen in a way.
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  He is effectively trying to make Abraham a vassal of the city
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  here. Take the field and the taxes and
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  the military duty that comes with it.
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  That is sneaky, so I'll give it to you.
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  Really means I'm going to leverage social pressure to make
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  you take this liability off my hands.
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  Yes, and notice a gift in that culture creates a massive social
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  debt. If I give you a field, you owe
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  me forever. You are in my pocket.
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  And Abraham sees right through it.
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  He's wise. He ignores the gift rhetoric
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  completely. He ignores the futile
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  implication. He just focuses on the money.
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  He wants to keep it strictly business.
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  He cuts through the noise. He does, and then Efron drops
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  the mask. In verse 15, he casually says a
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  piece of land worth 400 shekels of silver.
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  What is that between you and me? What is that between friends?
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  Just a small matter of 400 shekels.
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  Now, to a modern ear, 400 shekels doesn't mean much.
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  Is that a lot? Is that a little?
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  It is an astronomical sum. Put it in perspective for us.
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  OK, let's look at some comparisons.
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  Later in the Bible, the prophet Jeremiah buys a field.
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  Do you know how much he pays? I remember it being low. 17
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  shekels. 17 versus 400. Right.
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  Or look at King David. When David buys the threshing
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  floor of Arana, which becomes the site of the Temple prime
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  real estate in Jerusalem, he pays 50 shekels.
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  So Efron is asking for eight times what David paid for the
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  Temple Mount. Even allowing for inflation or
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  different land sizes, this is price gouging.
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  It's an extortionate price. He's taking advantage of him.
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  He is exploiting A grieving widower who is desperate to bury
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  his wife. He knows Abraham has nowhere
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  else to go. It is predatory, it's kicking a
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  man when he's down. So the natural question is, does
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  Abraham haggle? Does he say that's outrageous?
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  I'll give you 200. No, and this is the integrity of
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  the man. Verse 16 says Abraham wait out
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  for Efron the silver current money with the merchant.
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  He pays it immediately. He pays it immediately.
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  He doesn't fight, he doesn't argue.
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  Why not? If he's being ripped off, why
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  not push back? He's a smart guy.
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  Because Abraham values the validity of the claim more than
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  the value of the coin. Think about it, if he haggles,
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  Efron could come back later and say I did you a favor, I gave
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  you a discount that leaves a string attached.
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  It leaves a social debt. He'd owe him one.
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  Exactly. By paying the full, inflated,
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  ridiculous price, Abraham shuts the mouth of every future
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  accuser. No one can ever say he stole
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  that land or that he owes the Hittites anything.
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  At the clean break. He bought it fair and square.
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  At their price, the deal is unimpeachable.
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  He secures the land with total integrity.
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  The sources call this the third use of the law, using the moral
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  law to guide the believers conduct.
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  Yes, he's acting in a way that the world has no leverage over
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  him. He is paying current money so
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  that his witness is spotless. He's not trying to cheat the
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  system even when the system is trying to cheat him.
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  And then we get this very legal sounding section in verses 17
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  and 18. It lists the trees, the borders,
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  the field. It reads like a modern contract.
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  It does the field of Ephron in Machpelah, which was to the east
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  of Mamre. The field with The Cave that was
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  in it and all the trees that were in the field.
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  Why the detail about the trees? It's a contract in the ancient
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  world. You listed the trees to prevent
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  the seller from coming back and shopping them down for lumber
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  after the sale. It's ensuring the asset is not
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  stripped. It's like checking the mineral
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  rights today. A very similar idea, but there's
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  a beautiful phrase in the Hebrew there that you might miss in
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  English. It says the land stood up
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  Viacom. The land stood up.
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  Most translations say was made over or deeded, but the literal
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  Hebrew is stood up. It's a personification.
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  Like the land is coming alive. Yes, until this moment, that
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  land was lying dormant under Pagan rule.
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  It was just dirt. Now it rises up to take its
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  stand with the covenant people. It moves from being just
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  geography to being a part of God's redemptive history.
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  That is powerful. It's like the land itself knows
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  its new master. So Abraham has paid a fortune.
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  He has his deed. He has The Cave.
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  He's done it. But we have to ask the big
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  theological question here. Why a cave?
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  Right. Why spend a fortune on a hole in
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  the ground? He could have done a burial at
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  sea or cremation. Why was burial so non
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  negotiable? This brings us to the core of
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  biblical anthropology. Abraham rejects the Pagan view.
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  He rejects what we would later call Gnosticism, the idea that
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  the body is just a prison or a shell that you discard.
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  The meat suit idea that the real you is just a spirit and the
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  body is trash. Abraham says no.
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  The Westminster Confession talks about this in chapter 32.
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  It says the bodies of men return to dust but are destined for
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  redemption. The body matters.
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  Abraham believes that Sarah's body matters.
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  It's not waste, it's holy. The source used the image of
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  sowing. Yes, burial is an act of
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  agriculture. You plant a seed.
• 18:39
  Abraham is planting Sarah's body in the soil of the Promised
• 18:42
  Land. And he expects a harvest.
• 18:43
  He expects a harvest. It's a radical act of faith in
• 18:46
  the physical resurrection. He is saying she is not gone
• 18:49
  forever. She is waiting.
• 18:50
  So by burying her in Canaan, he is making a statement about the
• 18:53
  future. He is establishing a beachhead.
• 18:57
  Think about it. The only piece of the promised
• 18:59
  land that Adraham ever actually owned was a cemetery.
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  That is the irony. All that promise I will give you
• 19:07
  this land. And all he got was a grave.
• 19:09
  But to the eye of faith, that grave is a down payment.
• 19:13
  It is earnest money. The deposit.
• 19:15
  It's a deposit on the whole inheritance.
• 19:18
  He is planting a flag in enemy territory and saying we are not
• 19:21
  leaving. Even in death, we are staying
• 19:23
  here. It is a claim on the future.
• 19:25
  We will be back. Yes, and this sets a pattern for
• 19:28
  the whole rest of the Bible. We call it the canonical
• 19:30
  trajectory. Right, because it's not just
• 19:32
  Sarah who else ends up in that cave.
• 19:34
  Everyone. Abraham dies, he goes into
• 19:36
  Machapella. Isaac dies, he goes in.
• 19:38
  Rebecca, Jacob, Leah, they all end up in that one cave.
• 19:43
  It becomes the family crypt, the one piece of home they have.
• 19:45
  And think about the Israelites. Hundreds of years later.
• 19:48
  They are slaves in Egypt. They are making bricks without
• 19:51
  straw. But they know something.
• 19:52
  What do they do? They know that back in Canaan,
• 19:55
  in a cave in Hebron, their fathers and mothers are waiting.
• 19:58
  It's a silent witness. It's a homing beacon.
• 20:01
  It's telling them Egypt is not your home.
• 20:04
  Your bones belong in the promise.
• 20:06
  And Joseph, remember Joseph at the end of Genesis, He makes
• 20:10
  them swear an oath. Do not leave my bones in Egypt.
• 20:13
  Carry my bones up from here. Yeah.
• 20:15
  Why? Because he knew the resurrection
• 20:18
  wasn't happening in Egypt. It was happening in the land.
• 20:20
  He refused to be separated from the promise.
• 20:22
  He wanted to be where the action was going to be when God acted.
• 20:25
  So this cave is the anchor. It holds the whole story
• 20:27
  together into the Exodus. But there's a contrast we need
• 20:31
  to make. We're Christians, so we look at
• 20:33
  this through the lens of Christ. Yes.
• 20:35
  How does Machpelah compare to the tomb of Jesus?
• 20:39
  This is the great contrast. Abraham paid a high price, 400
• 20:43
  shekels, to secure a place to keep his dead in the grave.
• 20:47
  His goal was containment. He wanted to make sure they
• 20:49
  stayed there undisturbed, safe, safe keeping for the bodies.
• 20:52
  Oh Christ. Christ paid the infinite price.
• 20:55
  He didn't pay with silver or gold.
• 20:58
  He paid with his own blood. And his goal was different.
• 21:01
  And he didn't pay to keep his dead in the grave.
• 21:04
  He paid to bring his dead out of the grave.
• 21:07
  Eggs mean chills. Sarah's still there.
• 21:09
  If you go to Hebron today, to The Cave of the Patriarchs, her
• 21:12
  dust is still in Machpelah. She is awaiting the trumpet.
• 21:16
  But Jesus tomb. It is empty.
• 21:18
  He is not there. And because his tomb is empty,
• 21:21
  Machpelah is not a monument to defeat.
• 21:24
  It is a sleeping chamber. It is a bedroom.
• 21:26
  They are just resting until the king wakes them up.
• 21:29
  So the empty tomb of Jesus validates the faith of Abraham
• 21:33
  in the occupied tomb of Sarah. That's it.
• 21:35
  That is the whole story. That changes everything about
• 21:37
  how we view death. It's not the end, it's a pause.
• 21:40
  So let's pivot to application. We've unpacked the history, the
• 21:44
  Hedite law, the theology. What does this mean for the
• 21:48
  listener, the learner driving to work right now?
• 21:50
  I think there are three or four massive takeaways.
• 21:52
  The first takes us back to that negotiation business ethics.
• 21:56
  Yeah, the current money with the merchant.
• 21:58
  We live in a world of pragmatism.
• 22:00
  Get the best deal, cut corners if you have to.
• 22:03
  It's just business. Abraham challenges us to conduct
• 22:07
  business with total transparency.
• 22:09
  It's interesting, I have seen people try to use their faith to
• 22:12
  get a discount. All the time.
• 22:14
  Hey brother, can you knock a little off the price for a
• 22:16
  fellow believer or expecting a deal because they go to the same
• 22:20
  church and. Abraham would say absolutely
• 22:21
  not. Do not use your religious status
• 22:23
  to seek leverage. Pay the full price so that the
• 22:26
  world has nothing to say against you.
• 22:28
  It's about your witness. If you claim to belong to the
• 22:30
  Kingdom of God, but you cheat your neighbor or delay payment
• 22:34
  your witnesses. That is conviction right there.
• 22:37
  Yeah, our financial dealings are part of our testimony.
• 22:40
  What about this idea of the forever home?
• 22:42
  We live in a culture obsessed with real estate.
• 22:45
  Oh absolutely. This is the idol of security.
• 22:47
  We want the perfect house, the forever home, the white picket
• 22:50
  fence. We drive our stakes so deep into
• 22:52
  this world. But Abraham.
• 22:54
  Abraham was a Prince. He was richer than most of us
• 22:57
  will ever be, but he lived in a tent.
• 22:59
  He refused to build a house in Canaan.
• 23:01
  The only permanent real estate he wanted was for the
• 23:04
  resurrection. He held earthly possessions
• 23:06
  loosely. He understood he was a stranger.
• 23:09
  We need to ask ourselves, are we living for our property value or
• 23:13
  are we investing in the Kingdom? Are we too comfortable here?
• 23:16
  It's the difference between a tourist and a resident.
• 23:18
  You're supposed to be tourists here.
• 23:20
  Yes, ambassadors, we're here, We work here, we care for the city,
• 23:24
  but we do not belong to it. We should not be surprised when
• 23:27
  we feel out of place, We are out of place.
• 23:29
  Another practical point the sources raised was prudence
• 23:32
  preparing for death. Yes, this is a sensitive one.
• 23:36
  Sometimes super spiritual people think, oh, God will provide.
• 23:40
  I don't need a will. I don't need a burial plot.
• 23:42
  I'll just trust Jesus and. They leave a mess for their
• 23:44
  kids. They leave a financial and
• 23:46
  emotional disaster. Abraham did not wait until the
• 23:49
  last second to scramble. He acted decisively.
• 23:51
  He secured the plot. He made sure everything was
• 23:54
  legal and binding. So making a will is actually an
• 23:57
  act of faith. It is an act of love for your
• 23:59
  family. Leaving your affairs and chaos
• 24:02
  is a burden on those you leave behind.
• 24:04
  Abraham treated death with dignity and order.
• 24:07
  That's a sign of maturity. It's stewardship.
• 24:10
  And finally, hope and grief. We started with weeping and we
• 24:13
  end with hope. We grieve, but not as those
• 24:16
  without hope. That is the key distinction.
• 24:19
  Paul says that in Thessalonians we don't pretend it doesn't
• 24:23
  hurt. Abraham wept loudly.
• 24:25
  But we view the grave differently.
• 24:27
  We view it differently. It is not a prison with no exit.
• 24:30
  It is a bed of hope. We rest in God's promise.
• 24:32
  It really is a complete reorientation of how we see the
• 24:35
  end of life. Yeah, Abraham buying that cave
• 24:38
  was the first legal foothold of the Kingdom of God on earth.
• 24:41
  Yeah, it started with a grave. It started with a grave and it
• 24:44
  ends with an empty tomb. That's the arc of redemption.
• 24:47
  So here's the final thought for you to chew on to the
• 24:50
  unbeliever. The grave is a prison.
• 24:53
  It is the final period at the end of the sentence.
• 24:55
  There's no way out. But to the believer, because of
• 24:58
  what Christ has done and what Abraham foresaw, the deed is
• 25:01
  signed in blood and the Savior holds the keys.
• 25:04
  The question is, are you investing in castles in this
• 25:07
  world that you have to leave behind, or are you staking your
• 25:11
  claim in the resurrection? Thanks for listening to Reformed
• 25:14
  Thinking. We'll see you in the next deep
• 25:16
  dive.