Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Title Deed of Faith: Investing in the Resurrection (Genesis 23:17-20)

Transcript

The Title Deed of Faith: Investing in the Resurrection (Genesis 23:17-20) · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
• 0:01
  I'm glad you could join us today.
• 0:02
  We are. We're doing something that, on
• 0:05
  the surface, looks like a genuinely terrible idea for an
• 0:09
  audio format. We are going to read a legal
• 0:12
  contract. It does sound a little dry,
• 0:14
  doesn't it? A recipe for a good nap.
• 0:16
  It really does. I was looking at the schedule
• 0:18
  for this deep dive and I saw Genesis chapter 23 and I
• 0:23
  thought, OK, Genesis, you know, I know Genesis.
• 0:26
  We have the creation, the flood, the call of Abraham.
• 0:29
  We have the Binding of Isaac. I mean, high drama.
• 0:32
  And then you hit this chapter specifically verses 17 through
• 0:36
  20, and it feels like the brakes just lock up on the narrative.
• 0:39
  It's so dry. It's so technical.
• 0:41
  It's literally a property deed. It is.
• 0:43
  It's an inventory. A field, a cave, some trees.
• 0:47
  You know the boundaries. It reads just like something
• 0:48
  you'd pull out of a dusty file at the county clerk's office.
• 0:51
  Right. And I have to be honest, usually
• 0:52
  when I hit a section like that in my Bible reading, I have a
• 0:55
  very, very spiritual technique that I use.
• 0:59
  I just scan it with my eyes while my brain thinks about what
• 1:02
  I'm going to have for lunch. Yeah, I'm assuming that's the
• 1:04
  standard approach for most people.
• 1:06
  I think it is for almost everyone.
• 1:08
  We tend to think the real Bible, the important stuff, is in the
• 1:11
  stories or the direct commands. The paperwork that lists it all
• 1:15
  just feels like filler. Yeah, like stuff the editor
• 1:18
  should have cut out to save on parchment.
• 1:19
  But I'm here to suggest that we're wrong, that you're wrong,
• 1:23
  and that this list of trees and rocks is actually, well, it's
• 1:27
  incredibly exciting. Exciting is a strong word.
• 1:29
  I'd go further. I would say that this text, this
• 1:33
  dry, dusty contract, is one of the most powerful arguments for
• 1:38
  the resurrection of the dead in the entire Old Testament.
• 1:41
  OK, hold on. You're going to have to connect
• 1:42
  those dots. For me, that feels like a
• 1:43
  massive stretch. You're telling me a real estate
• 1:46
  transaction from 4000 years ago is teaching us about the
• 1:49
  resurrection? I am.
• 1:50
  I'm skeptical. I'm looking at the text right
• 1:52
  now and I see a lot of haggling about silver, but I don't see
• 1:56
  any theology. That's the beauty of it.
• 1:58
  The theology isn't in what people are saying about God.
• 2:01
  It's in the actions they're taking.
• 2:03
  It's in how they're using their money and what they're doing
• 2:05
  with their dead. OK, we have to peel back the
• 2:08
  layers. We have to ask, why is this text
• 2:10
  even here? I mean, think about it.
• 2:13
  Moses is writing Genesis. He has limited space right?
• 2:16
  And a massive amount of history to cover.
• 2:18
  So why does he decide to burn valuable space listing every
• 2:22
  single tree in some random field?
• 2:24
  That is a fair question. He leaves out huge chunks of
• 2:28
  people's lives, but he gives us the landscaping details here.
• 2:31
  So OK, let's figure out why set the stage for us.
• 2:34
  Where are we in the story of Abraham?
• 2:36
  We are near the end of his life and we are in a moment of
• 2:38
  crisis. Genesis 23 opens with a death.
• 2:42
  Sarah, the wife of Abraham, has died.
• 2:44
  And this is huge. I mean Sarah isn't just a wife,
• 2:47
  she is the Co recipient of the entire promise.
• 2:50
  She absolutely is. She's the mother of Isaac, the
• 2:52
  promised seed. She's the one who, you know,
• 2:55
  laughed at the Angel and then bore the miracle child in her
• 2:58
  old age. She has been with Abraham
• 3:00
  through absolutely everything, from Herb, the Chaldees to
• 3:02
  Egypt, the wars, the famine. And now, at 127 years old, she
• 3:07
  dies. And where are they when this
• 3:09
  happens? They're in a place called
• 3:11
  Curiath Arba, which we know is Hebron.
• 3:13
  It's in the land of Canaan. OK, so they are physically in
• 3:16
  the promised land. God promised this land to
• 3:19
  Abraham way back in Genesis 12. So problem solved, right?
• 3:23
  Yeah, she died at home. Well, that's the tension, isn't
• 3:26
  it? And this is the thing we often
• 3:28
  miss because we know how the story ends.
• 3:30
  We have to try to put ourselves in Abraham's sandals for a
• 3:33
  minute. God said, I will give you this
• 3:36
  land. So Abraham has been walking up
• 3:38
  and down this land for 60 years at this point.
• 3:40
  He's built altars to God. He's prayed, He's dug wells.
• 3:44
  But if you were to go to the courthouse in Canaan at that
• 3:46
  moment and ask how much property does this man Abraham legally
• 3:51
  own, what would the answer be? 0. 0 Not one square foot.
• 3:55
  He's a squatter A. Squatter that feels a bit
• 3:58
  disrespectful to the Patriarch. But it's the legal reality of
• 4:01
  his situation. The text itself calls him a
• 4:04
  sojourner and a resident alien. He's a nomad.
• 4:08
  He lives in tents. He moves his sheep from one open
• 4:10
  pasture to the next. But he has no legal title to any
• 4:13
  of it. He is, in effect, a guest who
• 4:16
  has overstayed his welcome by about 6 decades.
• 4:19
  Wow, that puts a very different spin on the grief he's feeling.
• 4:24
  Because if your wife dies while you were effectively homeless or
• 4:28
  at least landless, yeah, that has to shake your faith to its
• 4:31
  core. It's a crisis of faith.
• 4:33
  Just think about it. The promise from God had two
• 4:36
  parts, land and seed, right? The mother of the seed is now
• 4:39
  dead and land, well, it belongs to other people.
• 4:43
  From a human perspective, it looks like the promise has
• 4:45
  completely failed. It looks like God made a promise
• 4:47
  and it just didn't come through. Right.
• 4:49
  I mean, if I promised you a mansion and 50 years later you
• 4:51
  were still sleeping in a tent on my front lawn, you would start
• 4:54
  to have some questions. I would have some very serious
• 4:56
  questions. Yeah.
• 4:57
  So Abraham is standing there weeping over Sarah's body.
• 5:00
  And in the midst of that grief, he has a very practical, very
• 5:03
  urgent problem. He has a body.
• 5:06
  And in that hot climate, you can't wait around.
• 5:09
  He needs a place to bury her, but because he doesn't own any
• 5:12
  land, he can't just dig a hole. Why not?
• 5:14
  I mean, just go out in the desert somewhere.
• 5:15
  You. Could, but that's what you do
• 5:17
  with an animal or an outcast or a criminal.
• 5:20
  If you want a dignified burial, a family tomb, you need property
• 5:24
  rights. Otherwise, the actual owner of
• 5:27
  the land comes along a month later and plows right over the
• 5:30
  grave. So he has to buy a plot of land.
• 5:32
  He needs a foothold, and this is where we see that God's way of
• 5:35
  fulfilling His promises is often very different from our
• 5:38
  expectations. We might expect God to send down
• 5:41
  fire from heaven, wipe out all the Hittites, and just hand
• 5:44
  Abraham the keys to the city. That's the movie version for
• 5:47
  sure. That's the action movie version.
• 5:48
  But here, the very first piece of the Promised land isn't one
• 5:52
  with a sword. It's bought with a wallet.
• 5:54
  And it's not a palace or a vineyard.
• 5:56
  It's a hole in the ground. So Abraham goes to the locals?
• 5:59
  Yeah, the Hittites. The sons of Heth, as the text
• 6:02
  calls them, and this interaction, which takes up
• 6:06
  verses 3 through 16. It's a master class in ancient
• 6:09
  Near Eastern negotiation. It's this very elaborate, very
• 6:12
  polite cultural dance. I love this part because it
• 6:15
  feels so fake. Yeah, you know, Abraham says I'm
• 6:20
  a stranger among you. Sell me a burial site and the
• 6:23
  Hittites say, Oh no, my Lord, you are a Prince of God among
• 6:27
  us. Take any of our tunes, the best
• 6:29
  one. Nobody will stop you it.
• 6:31
  Sounds so generous, doesn't it? Please pick whatever you want,
• 6:34
  it's on the House. Is it a real offer?
• 6:36
  Are they being genuine? Almost certainly not.
• 6:38
  It's what we'd call performative politeness.
• 6:40
  It's like when you and a friend fight over the check at dinner,
• 6:42
  only with much higher stakes. If Abraham had actually said OK,
• 6:46
  thanks, I'll take that one, and buried Sarah there, he would
• 6:49
  have put himself in a terrible position.
• 6:50
  Why? I mean, free is free.
• 6:52
  Because in that culture, a gift creates a debt.
• 6:56
  It creates a relationship of patronage.
• 6:58
  If I give you the land to bury your wife, then I am the
• 7:01
  benefactor. You are the recipient.
• 7:03
  I am up here, you are down there.
• 7:05
  And even more to the point, a gift of use is not a transfer of
• 7:09
  ownership. So they're offering him the
• 7:11
  right to use the tomb, not the actual deed to the tomb.
• 7:15
  That's most likely what's happening.
• 7:17
  Or even if they did give it to him, a gift can be revoked.
• 7:20
  Or my son can come to your son in 20 years and say, hey,
• 7:24
  remember how my dad was so nice to your dad?
• 7:26
  Well, we need a favor. It's leverage.
• 7:28
  It is massive leverage, and Abraham knows this.
• 7:31
  He cannot build the future of the nation of Israel on a
• 7:34
  handshake deal or a favor from a Pagan neighbor.
• 7:36
  He needs clear, legal, undeniable ownership.
• 7:40
  So he pushes back. He gets very specific.
• 7:43
  He asks for The Cave of Machpelah, which belongs to a
• 7:46
  specific man, Efron. And listen to the word he uses.
• 7:49
  He asks for it as a possession. The Hebrew word is suze.
• 7:52
  Luza OK, you keep dropping Hebrew on me.
• 7:54
  What makes that word special? Does it just mean to buy?
• 7:57
  No, you you buy a loaf of bread, you possess an estate.
• 8:00
  Isouza implies permanence. It implies inheritance.
• 8:03
  It's a word for something you pass down through your family.
• 8:06
  It means he wants to stop being a sojourner when it comes to
• 8:09
  this one plot of land and become the Lord of it.
• 8:12
  He wants to plant a flag. He wants a deed.
• 8:14
  He wants it in writing. And Efron, the owner, he hears
• 8:17
  this. And Efron is a very shrewd
• 8:19
  businessman. He sees Abraham as desperate.
• 8:23
  His wife is dead, he's emotional, he's in a hurry, and
• 8:26
  he's known to be wealthy. This is like a shark smelling
• 8:30
  blood in the water. So Efron makes his counter offer
• 8:33
  and this leads us right into the section with the trees, which I
• 8:36
  am still waiting for you to explain to me.
• 8:38
  Abraham asks. Just for The Cave.
• 8:41
  That's right, Abraham's request is very modest.
• 8:44
  Let me buy The Cave at the end of your field.
• 8:46
  He doesn't want the whole farm. He just wants the rock to put
• 8:48
  the body in. And what does Efron say?
• 8:50
  Efron says very loudly in front of everyone gathered at the city
• 8:53
  gate. No, my Lord, hear me.
• 8:55
  I give you the field and I give you The Cave that is in it.
• 8:57
  Wait a second, Abraham asked for The Cave.
• 9:00
  Efron is trying to force him to take the whole field.
• 9:03
  Yes, and notice he uses that word give again.
• 9:06
  I give it to you. But then very subtly, he drops
• 9:10
  the price tag. A piece of land worth 400
• 9:14
  shekels of silver. What is that between you and me?
• 9:17
  That's a classic sales tactic. Oh, it's free, but you know,
• 9:20
  just for insurance purposes. If you were to pay for it, it
• 9:23
  would be 400 shekels. It is, but the key here is the
• 9:27
  switch from just The Cave to the field and The Cave.
• 9:31
  Why does Efron insist on selling the whole field and why does the
• 9:34
  text later make a point of specifying and all the trees?
• 9:38
  I guess Efron just wanted to offload a bigger piece of
• 9:40
  property. Maybe he was tired of farming
• 9:41
  it. It's much, much more calculated
• 9:43
  than that. And this is where where
• 9:45
  archaeology really saves the day for us.
• 9:47
  We have actually found the Hittite law code.
• 9:49
  We have their actual law books from that time.
• 9:51
  We do inscribed on clay tablets and there are two specific laws,
• 9:56
  paragraphs 46 and 47, the deal with land tenure and feudal
• 9:59
  service. The technical term is ilku.
• 10:02
  Ilku sounds like something you get from bad milk.
• 10:05
  It's a headache, is what it is. Ilku was a kind of futile
• 10:08
  obligation. It meant you owe the king taxes
• 10:11
  or military service, or maybe labor on public works projects.
• 10:14
  OK, now here's the rule. The Ilku duty is attached to the
• 10:18
  land itself. If you sell the entire property,
• 10:21
  the whole field, the duty transfers to the new owner.
• 10:25
  But, and this is the key, if you sell only part of the property,
• 10:29
  like say just a cave at the edge of a field, the Ilku duty stays
• 10:34
  with the original owner. Hang on, let me get this
• 10:37
  straight. So if Abraham buys just The
• 10:39
  Cave. Efron, the seller, still has to
• 10:41
  pay the taxes and do the military service connected to
• 10:44
  that entire plot of land. Which Efron definitely does not
• 10:47
  want to do. Of course not, but it actually
• 10:49
  gets worse for Abraham. If Efron retains the Ilku, then
• 10:52
  legally speaking, Efron is still the Lord of that land in the
• 10:55
  eyes of the Hittite King. Abraham would be buying a cave,
• 10:58
  but he would effectively become a tenant on Efron's estate.
• 11:01
  He'd be inserting himself into the Hittite feudal structure as
• 11:04
  a subordinate. He'd become a vassal.
• 11:06
  Yes, he would owe a kind of allegiance to Efron, and Abraham
• 11:11
  serves no king but Yahweh. He cannot allow himself to
• 11:14
  become entangled in Pagan feudal obligations.
• 11:17
  So when Efron insists no take the whole field, what he's
• 11:20
  really saying is I am not keeping the tax burden for this.
• 11:23
  You take the whole thing or we have no deal.
• 11:26
  Correct. But for Abraham, this is
• 11:28
  actually a good thing, even though it's going to cost him
• 11:30
  more money by buying the field and the trees.
• 11:33
  The trees represent the productive capacity of the land,
• 11:36
  the agriculture. He is taking over the Ilku.
• 11:39
  He is buying what we would call the freehold.
• 11:42
  He's buying his independence. He is completely severing all
• 11:44
  legal and social ties to Efron. Once he buys the field and the
• 11:48
  trees, Efron has no more claim. The Hittite King has no claim on
• 11:53
  Abraham. As a vassal of Efron, Abraham
• 11:55
  becomes a sovereign owner of that plot of ground.
• 11:57
  That completely explains the language in the text.
• 12:00
  Verse 17, the field of Efron, the field with The Cave and all
• 12:04
  the trees that were in the field throughout his whole area was
• 12:07
  made over to Abraham. It's not just poetic, it's legal
• 12:11
  precision. It is a lawyer closing every
• 12:13
  single loophole. Moses lists the trees so that
• 12:17
  400 years later no descendant of the Hittites can come back and
• 12:21
  say, hey, you Israelites own The Cave, but those olive trees are
• 12:25
  mine, so you owe me half your harvest.
• 12:28
  And by the way, your oldest son needs to report for military
• 12:30
  duty. Precisely.
• 12:31
  It prevents all future disputes. It creates this hermetically
• 12:35
  sealed unit of land that belongs to the Kingdom of God, right in
• 12:39
  the middle of Pagan Canaan. That's.
• 12:41
  Fascinating. It's not just scenery, it's
• 12:42
  sovereignty. Sovereignty is exactly the right
• 12:44
  word, and there's a beautiful Hebrew verb that's used in verse
• 12:47
  17 and again in verse 20 to describe this transfer.
• 12:50
  The ESV translates it as was made over, but the Hebrew word
• 12:54
  is wayakum. It literally means and it stood
• 12:57
  up or it arose. The land.
• 13:00
  Stood up, yes. So the field stood up to Abraham
• 13:04
  as a possession. It's a form of personification.
• 13:07
  It's almost as if the land itself, which has been groaning
• 13:10
  under the weight of Pagan idolatry, recognizes it's true
• 13:14
  covenanted owner like. It's saluting him.
• 13:16
  Like it's coming to attention. We talk about the Promised land,
• 13:19
  right? Well, the land has been waiting
• 13:21
  for the children of the Promise. And here, for the very first
• 13:24
  time, a piece of it stands up and welcomes Abraham.
• 13:28
  It passes from common use into holy use.
• 13:31
  That's a chilling image, in a good way.
• 13:34
  The dirt itself knows what's happening.
• 13:36
  The dirt knows. Paul says in Romans chapter 8
• 13:39
  that the whole creation groans, waiting for the sons of God to
• 13:42
  be revealed here. 1 Little field stops groaning and stands up.
• 13:47
  So the deal is structured, the trees are included, the
• 13:50
  independence is secured. But a deal isn't really a deal
• 13:53
  unless people see it happen. We need to talk about the
• 13:56
  setting the city gate. This is so important.
• 13:59
  In our world. If you buy a house, you go into
• 14:01
  a quiet office with a title agent and maybe a lawyer, and
• 14:04
  you sign a huge stack of papers. It's a private affair in the
• 14:07
  ancient Near East. If you want something to be
• 14:09
  permanent and legally binding, you do it in the loudest,
• 14:12
  busiest, most public place possible.
• 14:15
  The city gate wasn't just a door in the wall.
• 14:17
  It was the courthouse, it was the City Council chamber, it was
• 14:19
  the market, it was the town square and the local news feed
• 14:22
  all rolled into one. Everything of consequence
• 14:25
  happened at the gate. So when the text says it was
• 14:28
  done in the presence of the sons of Hath before all who went in
• 14:31
  at the gate, it means the whole town was watching this go down.
• 14:34
  The whole voting populace, all the witnesses.
• 14:37
  Abraham wants this to be a matter of undeniable public
• 14:40
  record. He doesn't want a secret deal
• 14:42
  that can be argued about later. He wants thousands of eyes on
• 14:46
  this transaction. Why is he so, so careful about
• 14:49
  the title? Because he's a stranger in the
• 14:51
  land and because he actually believes God's promise, he knows
• 14:54
  his descendants are going to be there for a very long time.
• 14:57
  He needs a title deed that will stand up in court for
• 14:59
  generations to come. If he just shook hands with
• 15:02
  Efron in a tent, Efron's grandson could come along and
• 15:05
  kick Isaac off the land. But a public transaction
• 15:08
  witnessed by the entire City Council?
• 15:11
  That is ironclad. And he pays for it. 400 shekels
• 15:15
  of silver. We touched on this but give us
• 15:17
  some context. Is 400 shekels a lot?
• 15:19
  Like is this a fair price or did he get ripped?
• 15:21
  Off it was highway robbery. Really.
• 15:23
  Yeah, most historians and commentators agree that 400
• 15:27
  shekels was an absolutely exorbitant price.
• 15:29
  Just for comparison, later in the Bible, King Omri buys an
• 15:33
  entire mountain to build the capital city of Samaria for 6000
• 15:36
  shekels. Jeremiah buys a family field for
• 15:39
  17 shekels. Wow. 400 shekels for one field
• 15:42
  and a cave. Efron saw Abraham coming from a
• 15:45
  mile away. He gouged him.
• 15:47
  He absolutely gouged him. He knew Abraham was in a
• 15:50
  position of weakness. He was grieving.
• 15:52
  He needed a burial spot immediately, and he named a
• 15:55
  ridiculous price. What is 400 shekels between
• 15:58
  friends? So why didn't Abraham haggle?
• 16:00
  I mean, that's the culture, right?
• 16:01
  Efron says 400, you offer 100 and you meet somewhere around
• 16:04
  200. Abraham doesn't hesitate for a
• 16:06
  second. Verse 16 says Abraham, wait out
• 16:09
  for Efron. The silver boom done and it
• 16:12
  specifies current money with the merchant.
• 16:15
  That means it was high quality silver standard weight, no funny
• 16:19
  business, no clipped coins. Why pay the full price?
• 16:22
  Why pay the gouged price? Because he wants 0 ambiguity.
• 16:27
  If he haggles and gets a lower price, Efron could say later I
• 16:31
  did him a favor. I gave him a discount and that
• 16:33
  creates that sense of obligation.
• 16:35
  Again, Abraham wants to be able to say, for all time I bought
• 16:39
  this, I paid the full asking price, I owe you nothing.
• 16:42
  It's about his integrity. It is, and it's, you know, it's
• 16:45
  a quiet rebuke to us. Sometimes I think there can be a
• 16:48
  tendency in some Christian circles to look for the
• 16:50
  Christian discount. Oh absolutely, I'm a brother in
• 16:53
  the Lord. Can you knock 10% off for me?
• 16:55
  Or even the prosperity gospel idea that if you have enough
• 16:57
  faith, you'll get things for free or supernaturally cheap.
• 17:00
  Abraham rejects that completely. He is willing to lose a lot of
• 17:04
  money to secure a testimony that is beyond reproach.
• 17:07
  He provides, as Paul would later say, things honest in the sight
• 17:10
  of all men. He's recognizing that his
• 17:13
  witness to these Pagan neighbors is far more valuable than his
• 17:16
  bank balance. Precisely.
• 17:17
  The sons of Heath are watching every move.
• 17:20
  They see a man who keeps his word, who pays his debts without
• 17:25
  arguing, and who honors his dead with dignity.
• 17:28
  That speaks volumes far louder than any sermon.
• 17:31
  Could OK, so we've covered the legal stuff, the financial
• 17:34
  stuff. The deed is basically signed.
• 17:37
  The silver is weighed. Abraham owns the trees.
• 17:40
  Now we get to the part that you promised at the beginning would
• 17:43
  would blow my mind the theology. The So what of it all?
• 17:47
  The So what? Because at the end of the day,
• 17:49
  Abraham has just spent a fortune to buy a cemetery.
• 17:52
  Yes, he has. And that seems, well, it seems
• 17:55
  morbid. It seems like a defeat.
• 17:57
  God promised him a land flowing with milk and honey, a land of
• 17:59
  life, and the very first piece he gets is a land of death.
• 18:02
  It is the ultimate paradox. But this is where the reformed
• 18:05
  view of Scripture, and especially our understanding of
• 18:07
  the covenant, opens this whole thing up.
• 18:09
  This is not a defeat. This is an earnest.
• 18:11
  Earnest. You mean like earnest money when
• 18:12
  you buy a house? Exactly like that.
• 18:14
  A down payment. When you buy a house, you put
• 18:18
  down a certain amount of money to say I am serious about this,
• 18:21
  I'm going to complete this transaction.
• 18:23
  This grave is the down payment on the entire land of Canaan.
• 18:27
  It's the first legal foothold. It's the already and the not yet
• 18:30
  in physical form. We talk about that concept in
• 18:32
  theology a lot. Abraham now possesses the land
• 18:36
  legally, that's the already. But he doesn't rule it or fill
• 18:39
  it yet. That's the not yet.
• 18:41
  But by buying this plot, he is staking a legal and spiritual
• 18:45
  claim. He's saying this whole land
• 18:47
  belongs to my family. We're just starting here.
• 18:49
  But why start with a grave? Why not buy a well or a house?
• 18:54
  A house is for the living. A grave feels like it's for the
• 18:56
  past. But for the believer, a grave is
• 18:59
  not for the past, a grave is for the future.
• 19:01
  OK, you've got to unpack that for me.
• 19:03
  If Abraham thought the death was the end, that it was all over
• 19:05
  for Sarah, he would have just buried her wherever it was
• 19:07
  convenient. Or, more likely, he would have
• 19:10
  taken her body back to Mesopotamia, back to her
• 19:12
  father's house in her on. That was the custom.
• 19:15
  You go home to die. Repatriate.
• 19:17
  Right. But Abraham refuses to send her
• 19:20
  back. He insists on burying her in
• 19:22
  Canaan. Why?
• 19:24
  Because he is making a profound declaration.
• 19:27
  He's saying that her home is not where she came from.
• 19:30
  Her home is the land of the promise.
• 19:33
  He is binding her physical body to the future of God's people.
• 19:36
  It's a statement that God's promise survives death.
• 19:40
  Yes, that is it. That's the whole point.
• 19:43
  If God's promise was only good for this life, then Sarah's
• 19:46
  death cancels the contract. Game over.
• 19:49
  But Abraham acts as if the contract is still very much
• 19:51
  valid. He's saying God is not limited
• 19:53
  by our lifespans. This connects directly to the
• 19:55
  Westminster Confession, doesn't it?
• 19:57
  It absolutely does. The confession has this
• 19:59
  beautiful section, chapter 32, about what happens when we die.
• 20:02
  It says that the souls of the righteous go immediately to be
• 20:05
  with God in heaven, but their bodies, being still united to
• 20:07
  Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection.
• 20:10
  United to Christ, even the bones, even the dust.
• 20:13
  Even the dust. Now Abraham doesn't know the
• 20:15
  name Jesus yet, but he knows that his God is the God of the
• 20:17
  living not the dead and by purchasing this land for a body
• 20:20
  he's acting as an anti gnostic. Anti gnostic.
• 20:23
  We throw that term around a lot. Gnosticism.
• 20:26
  Can you explain it for the person driving to work right
• 20:29
  now? Sure, Gnosticism is a very old
• 20:31
  heresy, but it's very much alive today.
• 20:33
  It's the basic idea that the physical world, bodies, dirt,
• 20:37
  trees, matter, is bad. Or at least it's a temporary
• 20:40
  prism and spiritual world is good.
• 20:42
  The goal of Gnosticism is to escape the body and the physical
• 20:46
  world, to become a pure spirit floating on a cloud somewhere.
• 20:50
  The old hymn I'll fly away. Oh, glory.
• 20:53
  In the bad sense of that, yes. If Gnosticism is true, then who
• 20:56
  cares about a grave? You burn the body, you toss the
• 20:59
  ashes in a river, it's just an empty shell, like a crab shell.
• 21:02
  You're done with it. But Abraham spends a fortune on
• 21:05
  a specific rock and a specific set of trees.
• 21:08
  Because matter matters. The body matters.
• 21:10
  He isn't trying to escape the physical world, he is investing
• 21:13
  in it. He's acting on the belief that
• 21:15
  Sarah will need that spot again. He believes she's coming back.
• 21:18
  He believes in the resurrection of the body.
• 21:20
  He is planting her like a seed. You don't carefully plant a seed
• 21:23
  just to get rid of it. You plant a seed because you
• 21:26
  expect a harvest. That is a powerful thought.
• 21:28
  He buys the land because he expects her to stand up on that
• 21:31
  very land again someday. Exactly.
• 21:33
  And this act sets a trajectory for the entire rest of the
• 21:36
  Bible. This cave machela, it becomes
• 21:40
  the anchor for the patriarchs. Abraham is eventually buried
• 21:43
  there. Isaac and Rebecca are buried
• 21:45
  there. Jacob dies hundreds of miles
• 21:47
  away in Egypt. But on his deathbed, what does
• 21:50
  he make his sons swear? Don't leave me in Egypt, carry
• 21:53
  me back to The Cave. Carry my bones back and Joseph
• 21:57
  does the exact same. Thing Joseph's case is even more
• 22:00
  dramatic. It is he dies and he tells the
• 22:03
  Israelites, God will surely visit you and bring you out of
• 22:06
  this land. And he makes them take an oath
• 22:08
  to carry his bones with them when they leave.
• 22:10
  I mean, Can you imagine carrying a box of your ancestors bones
• 22:13
  around the desert for 40 years? It sounds gruesome to us, but it
• 22:17
  was an act of extreme forward-looking hope.
• 22:20
  Joseph was saying with his very bones.
• 22:22
  I refuse to let my final resting place be in the land of my
• 22:25
  exile. I want to be present for the
• 22:27
  victory. I might be dead for now, but I'm
• 22:29
  not missing the final party. That's it.
• 22:32
  That grave acted as a compass for Israel whenever they were
• 22:35
  suffering in slavery, whenever they were lost in the
• 22:37
  wilderness, They knew Our fathers are waiting for us in
• 22:40
  that cave. It pulled their hearts and their
• 22:42
  hopes toward the Promised Land. So let's bring this all into the
• 22:45
  New Testament. We're Reformed Christians.
• 22:47
  We always read the Old Testament with the light of the New.
• 22:50
  How does Abraham's dark cave point us to Jesus?
• 22:53
  Well, it points us from possession to inheritance.
• 22:58
  Abraham paid a high-priced silver to secure a place for the
• 23:02
  dead to wait. Jesus paid the ultimate price,
• 23:05
  His own blood, to secure eternal life for the dead.
• 23:08
  The sources mentioned a parallel between the public nature of the
• 23:11
  purchase and the crucifixion. Yes, Abraham didn't do this deal
• 23:15
  in a corner. He went to the gate.
• 23:17
  It was a matter of public record.
• 23:18
  Paul says in Acts that the crucifixion was not done in a
• 23:21
  corner either. It was a public historical
• 23:24
  event. It's verified it happened.
• 23:26
  And the tomb itself. Machpelah is a tomb that is, as
• 23:29
  far as we know, still there today.
• 23:31
  It's full of bones. It is a monument to faith, but
• 23:34
  it is a monument to death waiting for life.
• 23:36
  Jesus's tomb is fundamentally different.
• 23:38
  They empty. It's empty.
• 23:40
  Abraham's deed says God will keep his promise through death.
• 23:45
  Jesus's empty tomb says God has conquered death.
• 23:48
  And we have an earnest too, just like Abraham did.
• 23:51
  We do. Ephesians chapter 1 says the
• 23:53
  Holy Spirit is the earnest the down payment of our inheritance.
• 23:57
  Just as that field was the physical proof that Canaan
• 24:00
  belonged to Abraham's family, the Spirit living in your heart
• 24:04
  right now is the proof that the new creation belongs to you.
• 24:08
  That bridges the gap perfectly. We have deed just like Abraham,
• 24:13
  It's just signed in a different kind of ink.
• 24:14
  Signed in blood and sealed by the Holy Spirit.
• 24:17
  So we've walked through the history, the law, the money and
• 24:20
  the theology, but now comes the part where we have to land the
• 24:23
  plane. Most of our listeners are now
• 24:25
  buying caves in Hebron today. How does Genesis 23 actually
• 24:28
  apply to me? I think it hits US in three or
• 24:30
  four very practical, maybe even uncomfortable areas.
• 24:33
  The 1st is what we alluded to earlier, business ethics.
• 24:36
  The city gate principle. Right.
• 24:38
  We live in a world that loves to cut corners.
• 24:40
  We love the deal. But if you're a Christian, your
• 24:44
  business life, your gate life is a stage.
• 24:47
  People are watching you. The world basically assumes
• 24:50
  everyone has a rice or that everyone is trying to cheat them
• 24:53
  in some small way. And when a Christian acts with
• 24:56
  scrupulous honesty, when you pay the full invoice on time, when
• 25:01
  you don't hide the defect in the car you're selling, when you
• 25:04
  don't fudge the numbers on your taxes, it shocks people.
• 25:07
  It testifies to a completely different value system.
• 25:11
  Abraham was willing to be poorer and silver to be richer in his
• 25:14
  witness. That's a hard question to ask
• 25:16
  ourselves. Am I willing to lose money in
• 25:18
  order to protect the reputation of Jesus?
• 25:20
  It's the only question that really matters in our business
• 25:22
  dealings. The second application is a bit
• 25:24
  heavier, but we have to go there.
• 25:26
  We have to talk about how we think about death.
• 25:28
  We're a culture that denies death.
• 25:30
  We hide it away. We sanitize it.
• 25:32
  We do. But Abraham faced it head on,
• 25:35
  and practically speaking, he made sure the transaction he was
• 25:38
  organized. He put things in order.
• 25:40
  You mean like wills and estate planning?
• 25:43
  I do. I know it sounds unspiritual to
• 25:45
  some, but it's actually a profound act of love for your
• 25:48
  family. Leaving your family in chaos
• 25:51
  with no will, no plan, forcing them to fight over assets while
• 25:55
  they're grieving, That is not a godly legacy.
• 25:59
  Abraham made sure the deed was clear so that Isaac wouldn't
• 26:02
  have to fight Efron's kids later.
• 26:04
  So get your house in order. Get your house in order and
• 26:06
  while you're at it, plan your funeral.
• 26:09
  That sounds dark. It's not dark.
• 26:11
  It's strategic. A Christian funeral is one of
• 26:13
  the last and greatest witnesses we have.
• 26:15
  It shouldn't just be a celebration of life where we
• 26:17
  pretend death didn't happen and just show a slideshow of
• 26:20
  vacation photos. It should be a protest.
• 26:22
  A protest against death. Yes, and a proclamation of the
• 26:26
  resurrection. We bury the body, we don't just
• 26:28
  dispose of it, because in that act we are preaching A sermon
• 26:31
  without words. We are saying this person is
• 26:34
  planted here in hope. That really changes the vibe of
• 26:37
  a cemetery. It's not a garbage dump for
• 26:38
  bodies, it's a garden. The word cemetery actually comes
• 26:42
  from a Greek word meaning sleeping place.
• 26:44
  It's a dormitory. We are simply putting them to
• 26:46
  bed until the morning of the resurrection.
• 26:48
  And that leads right into the final point, grieving.
• 26:51
  The text says very clearly that Abraham wept for Sarah.
• 26:54
  He did, and this is so important for some of our reformed
• 26:57
  listeners who can sometimes get a little too stoic.
• 26:59
  There can be this idea that if you have good theology, you
• 27:02
  shouldn't cry. You should just say it is well
• 27:04
  with my soul and carry on. Right.
• 27:06
  Don't be sad, they're in a better place.
• 27:07
  That is true, but death is still an enemy.
• 27:10
  It's an intruder. It's unnatural.
• 27:13
  It tears apart what God has joined together.
• 27:15
  It is OK to weep. Jesus wept at the grave of
• 27:18
  Lazarus. Abraham wept for Sarah.
• 27:21
  But we grieve differently. We grieve, as Paul says, but not
• 27:24
  as those who have no hope. Our tears are just as salty as
• 27:27
  everyone else's, but they aren't tears of ultimate despair.
• 27:31
  We look at the grave and we see a waiting room, not a Cliff
• 27:34
  edge. And that brings us right back to
• 27:35
  that long term view. Abraham bought the field for the
• 27:39
  future. He took liquid assets, his
• 27:42
  silver, and he exchanged them for a permanent heritage.
• 27:46
  He invested in the promise. And that's the challenge for us,
• 27:49
  isn't it? Are we investing our time, our
• 27:52
  money, our hearts in things that are just for today, or are we
• 27:55
  investing in the Kingdom that is coming?
• 27:57
  Are we buying the field or are we just, you know, renting the
• 28:00
  tent? Exactly.
• 28:01
  This has been a really surprising deep dive.
• 28:03
  I have to admit. I will never look at a list of
• 28:05
  trees in the Bible the same way again.
• 28:07
  That's the goal. There are no boring parts of
• 28:10
  Scripture. There are just parts we haven't
• 28:11
  dug deep enough into yet. I want to leave our listeners
• 28:14
  with one final thought to chew on.
• 28:15
  This week we saw Abraham standing in that field, holding
• 28:19
  a legal deed, looking at a grave, but seeing a city whose
• 28:23
  builder and maker is God. He bought a grave to prove he
• 28:27
  believed in the future. It was the ultimate wager of
• 28:29
  faith. So here is the question for you.
• 28:31
  What actions are you taking today with your money, your
• 28:35
  planning, your relationships, your family?
• 28:37
  That would make absolutely no sense unless the resurrection is
• 28:40
  true. Think about that.
• 28:42
  If the resurrection isn't true, Abraham was a fool who
• 28:45
  drastically overpaid for a useless cave.
• 28:48
  But if it is true, he was the wisest investor whoever lived.
• 28:52
  Thank you for joining us on Reformed Thinking.
• 28:53
  We'll see you next time. Grace and peace.