Latest / Reformed Thinking / When the Patriarch Dies, the Promise Lives: Covenant Continuity (Genesis 25:7–11)

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When the Patriarch Dies, the Promise Lives: Covenant Continuity (Genesis 25:7–11) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to another session of Reformed Thinking.
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  I'm your host, and today we are looking at a text that, well, on
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  the surface, it almost seems like the closing credits of a
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  movie. That's a great way to describe
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  it. You know that part where the
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  screen fades to black, the hero is gone, and everyone just
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  starts walking out of the theater?
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  That is essentially what seems to be happening in Genesis
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  chapter 25. It really does feel that way.
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  We've spent chapters and chapters with Abraham.
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  I mean, he's the Titan, the faith, he's the friend of God.
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  And now, in these few verses, 7 through 11, the camera just pans
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  away. He dies, he's buried, and the
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  story moves. On, that's it.
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  On to the next generation. And because of that, I think
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  most of us, when we're reading through Genesis, we just skim
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  the section. We think, OK, he died.
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  Sad day. Let's get to Jacob and Esau.
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  Right, let's get to the drama with the twins.
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  But. We have a stack of commentaries
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  here, and from a reformed perspective they all seem to
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  suggest that skipping this section is a massive mistake.
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  The claim here is that this isn't just an obituary.
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  Oh, it's so much more. It is a theological event of the
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  1st order. So not just a historical
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  footnote. Not at all.
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  In fact, I would argue that you cannot really get a handle on
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  the rest of the book of Genesis, or frankly, the rest of the
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  Bible's teaching on hope, without understanding what
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  happens at this funeral. Now that is a big claim.
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  I stand by it because this text, these few verses, they answer
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  the question that haunts every single human being, believer or
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  not. What happens when the breeding
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  stops? Exactly.
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  And more specifically for the person of faith, it answers this
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  question. What happens to the promises of
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  God when the human vessel carrying those promises turns to
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  dust? That's a good question.
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  So our mission today is to look at the death of Abraham.
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  We're going to analyze what some have called the anatomy of a
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  believer's death, which sounds a bit medical.
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  A bit clinical, yeah. But I think we mean the
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  spiritual anatomy. We are going to look at this
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  very mysterious phrase gathered to his people, which sounds nice
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  but is actually quite technical. Very technical.
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  We're going to stand at the graveside with two very
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  different sons, which is a scene packed with tension.
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  And finally, we are going to see how the blessing of God survives
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  the funeral. And my hope is that by the end
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  of this deep dive, you, the listener, will stop viewing
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  death as just a medical failure or a tragic accident.
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  The Bible treats the death of a St. as a satisfaction, A
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  completion, a. Completion.
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  I like that. So let's start with the timing.
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  Genesis 25 verse 7 says these are the days of the years of
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  Abraham's life, 175 years. 175. Now my first thought when I see
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  that number is, wow, people lived a long time back then.
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  But is there more to it than just, you know, good genes and a
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  healthy diet? Well, there's always more to it.
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  When Scripture bothers to record a specific number, you have to
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  rewind the tape. Go all the way back to Genesis
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  15 verse 15. OK, this was decades earlier.
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  God made that incredible covenant with Abraham, the one
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  with the smoking fire pot. Do you remember what he said to
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  Abraham about how his life would end?
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  I have it right here, God said. You shall go to your Father's in
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  peace. You shall be buried in a good
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  old age. A good old age God made an
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  appointment with Abraham. He set the coordinates for the
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  finish line. So when we read 175 Years in
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  Chapter 25, we are seeing the other half of that book.
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  End. It's the fulfillment of that
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  specific promise. We are seeing that God is
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  punctilious. Punctilious.
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  That's a good word. It means he pays strict
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  attention to detail. God keeps his appointments to
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  the letter. And I think this is so crucial
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  for us because we live in a culture that is obsessed with
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  the idea of an untimely death. Oh, absolutely.
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  We always feel like death is stealing something from us, or
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  that it came too soon. It's always an interruption.
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  It's always a tragedy in that sense.
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  Even at 175, you can make the argument that Abraham could have
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  done more right? He never saw his grandchildren,
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  Jacob and Esau grow into a nation.
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  He never saw the kings that were promised to come from his line.
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  He saw the beginning, but not the middle or the end.
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  Exactly. But the text doesn't frame it as
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  a life cut short, it frames it as a life measured.
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  This is a direct challenge to our modern anxiety about death.
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  We act as if we can cheat death if we just eat enough kale or
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  find the right bio hack. We act as if death is some kind
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  of cosmic accident that we can avoid if we're just clever
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  enough or rich enough. You see that with some of the
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  billionaires in Silicon Valley right now.
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  They are literally pouring fortunes into trying to reverse
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  aging. For them, death is a technical
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  problem to be solved. Right.
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  It's a bug in the system, but the Bible views death as an
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  appointment to be kept. Now, that doesn't mean death is
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  an enemy. The New Testament is clear it's
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  the last enemy. But for the believer, the timing
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  of that final battle is determined by a sovereign God.
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  Not by chance, not by a random blood clot or a stray cancer
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  cell. Abraham didn't die because his
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  heart gave out. His heart gave out because God
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  said it is time to come home. The divine summons.
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  The divine summons. And that brings us to verse 8,
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  which describes the actual moment Abraham breathed his last
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  and died in a good old age. That phrase breezed his last
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  translates the Hebrew word gava. I noticed the commentators made
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  a really big deal about this specific verb.
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  Why? What's so special about it?
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  The verb gava is distinct. It's not the word you typically
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  see used for the violent deaths of the wicked, for example.
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  It literally means to expire or to breathe out.
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  Yeah, but the connotation is 1 of yielding.
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  Yielding like surrendering in a fight.
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  Yes, but not in defeat. It's more like surrendering and
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  trust. Yeah, think about how a lot of
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  people die, or at least how we fear we will die.
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  Fighting it. Kicking, screaming, gasping for
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  one more breath, absolutely terrified of what comes next.
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  The poet Dylan Thomas, right? Do not go gentle into that good
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  night. That's the one.
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  Rage. Rage Against the dying of the
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  light. I mean, that is the secular
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  anthem of death. Rage Against it.
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  Fight it. Claw on to this life until your
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  fingernails break. Because this is all there is.
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  But Abraham doesn't rage. Abraham does not rage.
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  He gava, he yields, he exhales his life.
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  So it's not that life is being ripped away from him, he's
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  handing it back. Precisely.
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  It's a voluntary release because he knows who the owner of His
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  Spirit is. It reminds me of Christ on the
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  cross, you know, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.
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  It's an act of statement. It's an act of voluntary
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  release. It's as a cessation of struggle.
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  That right there is the anatomy of a believers death.
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  Then we get this next description, that he was old and
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  full of years. The Hebrew word here is sava,
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  and my notes say this means something like satisfied or
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  sated. That's exactly.
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  Think of Thanksgiving dinner. You've eaten the Turkey, the
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  stuffing, the potatoes, the pie. You lean back in your chair.
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  You physically cannot take another bite.
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  You are sava. You are sated.
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  You are full. OK, I get the food analogy.
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  That makes sense. But applying that to life feels
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  a lot harder. I mean, how can Abraham be
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  satisfied? That's the question.
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  He was a nomad. He lived in tents his entire
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  life. He owned one single field.
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  He was promised to land from the river of Egypt to the great
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  river, the River Euphrates, and he barely saw a fraction of.
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  It he saw a postage stamp of it. To me, that doesn't sound like a
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  full meal, that sounds like an appetizer.
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  And that is the tension, isn't it?
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  If you judge Abraham's satisfaction by material
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  possession or by a completed checklist of life goals, then he
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  died hungry. She died incomplete, but the
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  text insists he died full. So what was he full of if not
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  land or accomplishments? He was full of Providence, he
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  was satisfied with God, and this is the fundamental difference
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  between the believer and the worldling, as the Puritans used
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  to call them. The worldling, the person who
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  lives for this world. Right.
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  Think of the parable of the rich fool in Luke's wealth.
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  He builds bigger barns. He has more grain, more goods
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  that he knows what to do with. He says to himself, Soul, you
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  have ample goods laid up for many years.
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  Relax, eat, drink, be merry. He thinks he's satisfied.
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  He thinks he's full. He thinks so, but in reality
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  he's starving. The idol of more is a beast that
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  is never fed. If you love money, you never
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  have enough money. If you love life for the sake of
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  life, you never have enough time.
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  There's always one more year, one more dollar, one more
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  experience. A bucket list, right?
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  The bucket list. The bucket list is a symptom of
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  a soul that isn't full. We run around trying to see the
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  pyramids and jump out of planes because we are terrified that if
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  we miss out on these things, we have missed out on life itself.
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  But. Abraham's perspective is
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  different. Abraham is saying, I have walked
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  with God, I have heard his voice, I have seen his
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  faithfulness even in the waiting.
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  It is enough. His portion was the Lord, not
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  the gifts of the Lord. It is enough.
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  That is a hard place for any of us to get to.
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  I think many of us, even as Christians, we struggle with
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  that. We feel like if we die at 40 or
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  50 or even 70, we've been cheated out of something.
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  That's because our eyes are fixed on the gift rather than
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  the giver. If your joy is truly found in
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  the giver, then you can leave the party whenever the host says
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  it's time to go. You don't have to stay until
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  they turn the lights on to feel like you got your money's worth.
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  That's a good word. Now, after he takes that final
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  breath and is satisfied, the text uses a very, very strange
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  phrase. It says he was gathered to his
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  people. Wei Zepesa Bellama.
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  It's a phrase that appears a few times in Genesis for the
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  Patriarchs. And I have to be honest, I
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  always just assumed this was a poetic way of saying he was
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  buried. You know he died and was put in
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  the family plot. Case closed.
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  That is the common assumption. It's what makes sense on the
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  surface, but if you look closely at the text itself, that
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  interpretation completely falls apart.
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  Why? What's the problem?
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  There are two major problems. First, just look at the sequence
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  of events. Verse 8 says he was gathered to
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  his people. Then verse 9 says Isaac and
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  Ishmael buried him. So the gathering happens before
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  the burial? They're two separate events.
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  Correct. The gathering is the immediate
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  event upon death. The burial is the ritual that
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  follows sometime later, but the second reason is even stronger,
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  and it has to do with geography. Geography.
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  Simple geography, if gathered to his people means buried with his
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  ancestors, where would Abraham have to be buried?
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  Well, his father Tara died in Haran and his more distant
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  ancestors were from ER of the Chaldeans.
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  So that's modern day Iraq or Turkey, hundreds and hundreds of
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  miles away. Exactly.
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  And where is Abraham actually buried?
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  In The Cave of Machpella in Canaan.
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  And who else is in that cave at this point?
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  Just his wife, Sarah, no one else.
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  Exactly. His people, his ancestral line,
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  they are not there. If this phrase meant burial, it
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  would be a factual error. He was not gathered to his
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  ancestors graves. Therefore, the phrase must be
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  describing something else entirely.
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  So if it's not a physical gathering of bones, then it has
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  to be a spiritual gathering of souls.
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  This is one of the clearest those subtle proofs of the
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  immortality of the soul in the Pentateuch.
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  It implies that when Abraham breathed his last, his
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  consciousness didn't just blink out of existence.
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  He didn't just dissolve into the ether.
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  He was transported. He went to a specific group of
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  people who are waiting for him. This brings up a topic that I
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  know confuses a lot of people. There's this idea called soul
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  sleep. I think the technical term is
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  psychopanicism. Yes, psychopanicism is a bit of
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  a mouthful. For sure.
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  The idea is that when you die, you're just unconscious.
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  You're in a coma, basically. You don't know anything, you
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  don't feel anything until Jesus comes back at the final
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  resurrection and wakes you up. Right.
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  And proponents of that that view often quote verses like The Dead
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  Know Nothing from the book of Ecclesiastes.
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  So does this text in Genesis refute that idea?
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  It absolutely refutes it, and we need to be clear here.
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  Soul sleep is considered a serious theological error in
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  Reformed thinking and really in historic Christianity as a
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  whole. When the Bible talks about death
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  as sleep, it is using a metaphor for the body.
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  The body in the grave looks like it's sleeping.
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  But the soul is awake. The soul is very much awake.
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  The soul is gathered. You see, gathered implies
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  activity. It implies a reception.
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  You're gathered by someone, to someone.
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  Abraham is entering a community. The reunion.
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  A reunion. And you can't have a reunion if
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  you're in a coma. The phrase gathered to his
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  people would be utterly meaningless if he was just an
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  unconscious soul in a box waiting for an alarm clock to go
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  off thousands of years later. So what about those verses in
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  Ecclesiastes then? The dead know nothing.
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  How do we square that? You have to read Ecclesiastes
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  according to its genre. The teacher is writing from the
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  perspective of Under the Sun, from the earthly viewpoint to us
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  looking at a corpse. They know nothing.
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  They don't engage in our business, they don't participate
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  in our politics. They are gone from this world.
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  But that's not the whole story. That's not the whole story.
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  Texts like Genesis 25 and later, Jesus's own words to the thief
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  on the cross. Truly, I say to you, today you
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  will be with me in paradise. Tell us that the soul is very
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  much conscious, very much alive and in the presence of the Lord.
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  The Westminster Confession has a section on this, doesn't it?
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  I think it's chapter 32. It does.
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  It states very clearly that the souls of the righteous being
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  then made perfect in holiness, are received into the highest
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  heavens where they behold the face of God in light and glory.
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  It's an immediate transition. No waiting period.
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  You used the image earlier of death being like stepping into a
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  crowded room. I really like that.
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  It's a beautiful and biblical image gathered to his people
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  implies that death for the believer is not stepping out
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  into a cold, dark, silent void. It is stepping into a banquet
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  hall that is already full of life.
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  So who is he gathered to? Who are his people?
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  Well, it's a specific group, his people.
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  This isn't universalism. He isn't gathered to the wicked
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  generation of Noah's day or the builders of Babel.
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  He is gathered to the righteous line.
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  He's joining Seth and Enoch and Noah and his father Sham.
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  He is joining the great Communion of Saints.
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  That completely changes the character of death, doesn't it?
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  I think for many the great fear of death is the fear of
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  isolation, of being. Utterly alone.
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  That is the primary fear. The darkness, the silence, the
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  separation. But the Bible says for the
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  believer, death is a homecoming. You are going to meet the family
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  you've been reading about your whole life and ultimately you're
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  being gathered to the Lord of the family.
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  So his soul is gathered into this great assembly, but we're
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  still left with a body on earth. And that leads us to verse 9.
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  Isaac and Ishmael, his sons, buried him in The Cave
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  Machpelah. This is a scene that I think we
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  need to pause on and really consider.
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  Don't rush past the names Isaac and Ishmael.
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  It's awkward. Isn't it standing there
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  together? Getting there together, it is
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  incredibly heavy. I mean, think about the history
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  here. Ishmael was the first born, but
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  he was the son of the servant Hagar.
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  He and his mother were sent away, banished because of the
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  conflict with Isaac and Sarah. He grew up as a Wildman in the
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  wilderness, the text says. Isaac grew up as the pampered
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  son of the Promise. They probably haven't seen each
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  other in decades, and now, the first time they meet again,
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  they're standing over the open grave of the man who was father
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  to them both. What do you think is happening
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  there between them? Is it a reconciliation of some
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  kind? I think we have to be careful
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  not to read too much into the silence of the text, but it
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  certainly shows us something about what theologians call
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  common grace. OK, define that for us.
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  Common grace is the grace God gives to all people, whether
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  they are saved or not. It's the grace that restrains
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  evil in the world and allows for society to function.
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  It includes things like family affection, a sense of honor, and
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  basic human decency. So Ishmael, even though he's not
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  the heir of the covenant. Right.
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  Ishmael is not the chosen seed in the theological sense.
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  He's outside the line of promise, but he still has a
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  conscience. He still has natural affection.
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  He still honors his father enough to show up for his
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  funeral. He shows up.
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  He. Shows up and you know that in
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  itself is a rebuke sometimes to Christians today who can't even
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  get along for a family funeral. Ishmael puts aside what must
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  have been decades of bitterness, of feeling rejected, and he
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  stands shoulder to shoulder with Isaac to perform this final
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  duty. So it shows that a kind of civil
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  civility is possible between the church represented by Isaac and
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  the world represented by Ishmael.
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  But there is a deep tragedy in this picture too, isn't there?
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  What's the tragedy? The tragedy is this proximity is
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  not possession. What do you mean by that?
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  Ishmael is standing right there. He is inches away from Isaac,
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  the air. He is inches away from the body
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  of Abraham, the friend of God. He is weeping.
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  He is physically helping to bury the patriarch, but he does not
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  have the promise. He goes back to the wilderness
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  afterwards. He goes back to the wilderness.
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  Isaac stays by the well of the living God.
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  They share a father, but they do not share a future.
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  That is incredibly sobering. It means you can be very close
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  to the things of God. You can be in the church
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  building every week. You can have Christian parents.
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  You can sing the hymns and weep at the right moments and still
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  be an outsider. You can carry the casket and not
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  carry the faith. That is the great warning of
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  Ishmael. Being near the covenant is not
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  the same as being in the covenant.
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  Now let's talk about The Cave itself.
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  The text gets very specific about real estate again.
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  It says the field of Efron, the son of Zohar, the Hittite east
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  of Mamray, the field that Abraham purchased from the
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  Hittites. Why does the Holy Spirit care
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  about the deed? Why repeat these details?
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  Because land matters and legal title matters, we have to
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  remember the context here. Abraham lived in Kenan for 100
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  years, but he was a stranger and a sojourner.
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  He lived in tents. He didn't own a single square
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  inch of the land God had promised him.
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  Except for this one cave. Except for this one cave.
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  And he insisted on buying it legally.
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  If you go back to chapter 23, when Sarah died, the Hittites
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  actually offered to give him the best grave for free.
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  They said you are a mighty Prince among us.
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  Bury your dead and the choicest of our tombs.
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  And most of us would say great thanks, free is good.
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  Why didn't he take it? In the Agent Near East, a gift
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  like that often came with strings attached or it didn't
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  convey permanent, indisputable ownership.
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  It was more like a long term loan, Abraham said.
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  No, I want to pay the full price.
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  I want the deed. I want the silver weighed out in
• 18:07
  front of witnesses he wanted. Everyone to know this is mine.
• 18:10
  It's not a loan, it's not a gift, it is my property,
• 18:13
  correct? Because this cave was his flag
• 18:15
  planted in the soil. By burying his wife there, and
• 18:19
  now by being buried there himself, Abraham is making a
• 18:22
  powerful political and even more an eschatological statement.
• 18:25
  Eschatological meaning it has to do with end times or future
• 18:28
  hope. Yes, he is essentially saying I
• 18:31
  may be dead, my body may be decaying in this ground, but I
• 18:35
  am not leaving this land. God promised this very dirt to
• 18:38
  my descendants, and God promised that I myself would possess it.
• 18:42
  So I am planting my body here like a seed and I am waiting for
• 18:45
  the harvest. So he's betting the farm, or I
• 18:48
  guess, betting The Cave on the resurrection of the dead.
• 18:50
  He is. It's an act of radical faith.
• 18:53
  If you didn't believe in the resurrection, he should have
• 18:55
  asked to be taken back to UR, back to civilization, back to
• 18:59
  his old home and his ancestors. But he turns his back on his
• 19:03
  past and is buried facing his future.
• 19:06
  He is waiting in Canaan for the consolation of Israel.
• 19:09
  This brings up a practical question that the sources
• 19:12
  discuss. It's the issue of burial versus
• 19:14
  cremation. Now, I know this can be a very
• 19:16
  sensitive topic, and we're not saying here that cremation is
• 19:18
  some kind of unforgivable sin. No.
• 19:20
  Absolutely. But historically, the church has
• 19:22
  had a very strong preference for burial.
• 19:24
  Why is that? Where does that come from?
• 19:26
  It goes back to this very idea of the body.
• 19:29
  In the ancient world, and especially in Greek philosophy,
• 19:31
  which came later, you had a view called Gnosticism.
• 19:34
  Gnosticism taught that the physical world is bad.
• 19:37
  It's gross. It's a prison, it's evil.
• 19:41
  The spirit is good. So the goal of salvation is to
• 19:43
  escape the body. So if you believe that, then
• 19:46
  burning the body is a good thing.
• 19:48
  You're just getting rid of the trash, the prison cell, right?
• 19:50
  If the body is a prison, burn it down so the soul can fly free.
• 19:54
  But Christianity is fundamentally anti gnostic.
• 19:58
  We believe God created the body and called it very good.
• 20:01
  We believe the Word became flesh, and most critically, we
• 20:04
  believe in the resurrection of the body.
• 20:06
  Paul uses that farming metaphor in First Corinthians 15, doesn't
• 20:09
  he? He does.
• 20:10
  What is sown is perishable. What is raised is imperishable.
• 20:14
  You sow a seed in the ground. You don't burn a seed, you put
• 20:17
  it in the ground because you expected to come back up in a
• 20:19
  new and glorious form. So burial is a mimetic act.
• 20:23
  It's acting out our hope. It mimics planting.
• 20:26
  It is a sermon in dirt. When we bury a believer, we are
• 20:29
  saying with our actions we are putting this body in the
• 20:33
  safekeeping of the earth, and we are waiting for the spring of
• 20:35
  the resurrection. Now, can God resurrect a body
• 20:39
  from ashes or from the bottom of the ocean?
• 20:41
  Of course, he's God. But burial is the way the church
• 20:45
  has historically acted out its hope.
• 20:47
  It's exactly what Abraham was doing.
• 20:49
  He was saying I am planting myself in Canaan because I
• 20:52
  expect a harvest in Canaan. That is a beautiful way to think
• 20:55
  about it. It's not just disposal, it's
• 20:57
  gardening. It's gardening in the sure and
• 20:59
  certain hope of the resurrection.
• 21:01
  OK, let's move to verse 11. This is the hinge of the whole
• 21:03
  passage. After the death of Abraham, God
• 21:06
  blessed his son Isaac. The subject changes.
• 21:10
  Did you catch that? It's so simple, but it's
• 21:12
  everything. Abraham is the subject of the
• 21:13
  1st 10 verses. It's all about him.
• 21:16
  Abraham's life. Abraham breathed his last, his
• 21:19
  sons buried him. Now God is the subject.
• 21:23
  And that is the comfort of the text.
• 21:26
  Abraham is dead, the great man is gone, the friend of God is
• 21:29
  silent. If the covenant depended on
• 21:32
  Abraham, on his personality, his great faith, his obedience, then
• 21:36
  the covenant is in serious trouble.
• 21:38
  It would die with him. It would be buried in that cave.
• 21:41
  But the covenant does not depend on the human vessel, it depends
• 21:44
  on the God who fills the vessel. The text pivots.
• 21:48
  God bless Isaac. This teaches us the doctrine of
• 21:51
  the immutability of the decree. Immutability meaning
• 21:54
  unchangeable. God's plan doesn't stumble when
• 21:56
  his servants fall. God simply transfers the
• 21:59
  blessing. He is the sustainer.
• 22:02
  I think this is so critical for the church today.
• 22:03
  We get so attached to our Abraham's, don't we?
• 22:06
  We really do. We have our celebrity pastors,
• 22:08
  our great authors and speakers, the leaders we think are holding
• 22:11
  everything together. And when they die or retire or
• 22:14
  even fall into sin, we panic. We think, what will happen to
• 22:17
  the work? Who can replace?
• 22:18
  Them and the answer for Genesis 25 is the work goes on, the
• 22:22
  workers are buried, but the work continues.
• 22:26
  God simply moves his hand to the next instrument in his
• 22:28
  orchestra. But let's look at who that
• 22:30
  instrument is. It's Isaac.
• 22:32
  Yes, specifically Isaac. Why Isaac?
• 22:35
  Why not Ishmael? Why not the sons of Katura that
• 22:38
  Abraham had in his old age who are listed right after this?
• 22:42
  Now we're getting to the heart of Reformed theology with This
• 22:45
  brings us to the doctrine of election.
• 22:47
  It is uncomfortable for our modern democratic sensibilities,
• 22:51
  but it is written all over this text.
• 22:54
  The blessing is exclusionary. It narrows.
• 22:57
  Abraham had many biological sons, but only one was the son
• 23:01
  of the Promise. The Apostle Paul in Romans 9
• 23:03
  makes a huge deal about this specific moment.
• 23:05
  He does. He says through Isaac shall your
• 23:08
  offspring be reckoned. Paul uses this to prove the
• 23:11
  grace is not genetic. You don't get the blessing just
• 23:13
  because you have Abraham's DNA. Ishmael had Abraham's DNA.
• 23:16
  Perfectly good DNA. The sons of Katura had his DNA,
• 23:20
  but they were sent away with gifts.
• 23:22
  Isaac was chosen. He received the inheritance.
• 23:24
  And was Isaac chosen because he was a better guy?
• 23:27
  I mean, when we read the rest of Isaac's story, he's kind of
• 23:30
  passive. He lies about his wife just like
• 23:32
  his dad did. He plays favourites with his own
• 23:34
  kids, which causes all kinds of problems.
• 23:36
  He's not exactly a moral giant compared to the others.
• 23:38
  And that's the whole point. Election is unconditional.
• 23:41
  It wasn't based on Isaac's resume or his moral superiority.
• 23:46
  It was based on God's free and sovereign purpose.
• 23:49
  God chose the weaker, more passive sun to show that
• 23:53
  salvation is of the Lord from beginning to end.
• 23:56
  There is one last detail in verse 11 that I found really
• 23:59
  poetic. It says Isaac settled at Beer
• 24:02
  La. Hi, Roy.
• 24:02
  Yes, now you have to be a real Bible nerd to catch the
• 24:06
  significance of this. Do you remember where we've seen
• 24:08
  that name before? That was Hagar's story, wasn't
• 24:10
  it? Back in chapter 16, she ran away
• 24:12
  from Sarah. She was in the desert dying of
• 24:14
  Durst, and an Angel of the Lord found her.
• 24:16
  God saw her in her affliction. She's the one who called the
• 24:19
  place Beer La Hi Roy and. You remember what it means.
• 24:21
  The well of the living one who sees me.
• 24:23
  So Isaac, the heir of the promise, makes his home at the
• 24:26
  well of the living, One who sees me.
• 24:28
  Wow. Think about the typology here.
• 24:31
  Typology is when an Old Testament person or event
• 24:33
  foreshadows Christ. Isaac is the beloved son who was
• 24:37
  offered up on the mountain. Mount Moriah a sacrifice?
• 24:41
  And he was received back figuratively from the dead.
• 24:45
  So you have this resurrected son.
• 24:46
  And where does the resurrected Son now dwell?
• 24:48
  By the well of living water in the place where God sees.
• 24:52
  It's a stunning picture of Christ.
• 24:54
  Jesus is the greater Isaac. He truly died and rose again,
• 24:58
  and now he dwells forever in the presence of the living God who
• 25:00
  sees, and he is the living water for his people.
• 25:04
  Isaac's settling there suggests that he is living in the
• 25:07
  continuous, gracious gaze of God.
• 25:09
  It also contrasts him with his father, Abraham.
• 25:11
  Abraham was a Pilgrim. He was always moving, tent up,
• 25:14
  tent down, wandering. But Isaac settles.
• 25:17
  Isaac dwells. He enters into a kind of rest
• 25:19
  and establishment in the land that Abraham never fully had.
• 25:22
  It's a small but definite progression in the history of
• 25:25
  redemption. So we've really unpacked this
• 25:27
  text. We've seen the peaceful death,
• 25:29
  the gathered soul, the political burial and the sovereign
• 25:31
  succession. But we need to land the plane.
• 25:34
  What does all this mean for us today, sitting in traffic in the
• 25:37
  21st century? Well, the sources point to
• 25:39
  several key applications, but I want to start with the most
• 25:42
  obvious one, the one that confronts our culture head on.
• 25:45
  We need to confront our idolatry of youth.
• 25:48
  The anti aging culture we talked about earlier.
• 25:50
  We spend billions and billions of dollars trying to hide the
• 25:53
  fact that we are aging. We dye our hair.
• 25:56
  We get plastic surgery. We wear clothes designed for
• 25:59
  teenagers. We view old age as a defeat.
• 26:02
  It's treated like a disease that needs to be cured.
• 26:04
  But Genesis 25 and Proverbs after it presents the hoary
• 26:08
  head, the Gray hair, as a crown of glory if it is found in the
• 26:13
  way of righteousness. Abraham died full of years.
• 26:16
  He didn't die trying to be 25. When he was 175, he embraced his
• 26:20
  age. So the application for the older
• 26:22
  listener is don't check out, don't disappear.
• 26:25
  That's it exactly. Don't retreat into trivial
• 26:26
  leisure. I see so many Christian retirees
• 26:29
  who, God bless some, spend their final decades just playing golf
• 26:32
  and watching cable news. They are wasting their fullness.
• 26:35
  Your job as a senior St. is to model for the rest of us how to
• 26:39
  die well. We need people to show us how to
• 26:41
  yield, how to gava. We desperately do.
• 26:43
  We need to see people who are so satisfied in God that when the
• 26:47
  doctor gives the bad news, they don't fall apart like those who
• 26:50
  have no hope that testimony lived out in a hospital bed is
• 26:55
  worth more than 1000 sermons from a pulpit.
• 26:57
  A second application seems to be about planning.
• 27:00
  Abraham planned his burial. He bought The Cave years in
• 27:03
  advance. He gave instructions.
• 27:05
  He treated his own funeral as a theological statement.
• 27:10
  And I would challenge every listener right now.
• 27:13
  Have you thought about your funeral?
• 27:14
  That's a bit of a grim question for a Tuesday morning.
• 27:17
  Commute it is, but it's a necessary one.
• 27:19
  Most funerals today are completely man centered.
• 27:22
  Their eulogies about what a great person the deceased was.
• 27:25
  He was a great fisherman, she made the best lasagna.
• 27:27
  He loved his sports team. That's all fine, but is that the
• 27:30
  final word you want spoken over your body?
• 27:32
  It shouldn't be. A Christian funeral should be a
• 27:34
  gospel sermon centered on the resurrection.
• 27:38
  You should plan it. Choose the hymns, the great
• 27:41
  resurrection hymns. Choose the scriptures.
• 27:43
  Write it down. Make sure that when people stand
• 27:46
  over your grave, they aren't just looking at your past
• 27:48
  accomplishments. They are forced to look at
• 27:50
  Christ's victory over death. Use your death to point to the
• 27:54
  empty tomb. That leads right into the
• 27:57
  antidote to fear. I know there are people
• 27:59
  listening right now who are terrified of dying.
• 28:01
  It is the great unknown. It's the final enemy.
• 28:05
  And for the Christian, the unknown has been removed.
• 28:08
  The map is in your hands. You are not stepping in to a
• 28:11
  void, you are being gathered. Back to the family reunion.
• 28:14
  If you are united to Christ by faith, you are not going into
• 28:17
  the dark. You are going to your people.
• 28:19
  You were going to the spirits of just men made perfect.
• 28:22
  You were going to the General Assembly of the first born
• 28:24
  enrolled in heaven. You are going home.
• 28:26
  But there is a serious warning in there too.
• 28:28
  The warning of Ishmael Make sure you are actually in the family.
• 28:33
  Don't just hang around the church.
• 28:35
  Don't just assume that because your parents were Christians or
• 28:38
  you were baptized as a baby that you will be gathered to their
• 28:41
  people. You must be personally united to
• 28:44
  Christ yourself. You need the wedding garment,
• 28:47
  not just an invitation to stand outside the venue.
• 28:49
  And finally, there's a corporate confidence for the church in all
• 28:52
  this. The Church survives its heroes.
• 28:55
  That is the rock we stand on. Pastors die.
• 28:59
  Theologians die. Great movements fade.
• 29:01
  Martin Luther is dead. John Calvin is dead.
• 29:04
  Jonathan Edwards is dead, but the God of Abraham, Isaac and
• 29:08
  Jacob is the God of the living. He will bless the next
• 29:11
  generation. That's a freeing thought.
• 29:13
  It means it's not all up to us. It never was.
• 29:16
  We can let go of the baton, confident that God is managing
• 29:18
  the race. We have covered a lot of ground
• 29:20
  today, from the anatomy of the final breath to the legal
• 29:23
  details of a cave in Hebron. It is a remarkably dense and
• 29:26
  encouraging text. Before we sign off, is there one
• 29:29
  final thought you want to leave with us?
• 29:31
  Something to stick in our minds as we go about our week.
• 29:33
  I want to go back to that cave, The Cave of Mcpiela.
• 29:37
  It is still there today in the city of Hebron, in the West
• 29:40
  Bank. You can go and see the massive
• 29:42
  stone structure here of the great built over it.
• 29:44
  And inside that cave, deep in the earth, is the dust of
• 29:48
  Abraham. He is still waiting there.
• 29:50
  He is his bones are still there. 175 years of life and then
• 29:53
  thousands of years of waiting in hope.
• 29:55
  But here's another tomb. Outside the walls of Jerusalem.
• 29:59
  A tomb hewn out of rock. And if you go to that tomb
• 30:02
  today, you can check every corner, you can sweep the floor.
• 30:05
  You will not find any dust of a body.
• 30:07
  It is empty. A tomb of the greater Isaac.
• 30:09
  Jesus our Lord went down into the earth, just like Abraham.
• 30:12
  He breathed his last. He yielded his spirit, but he
• 30:16
  did not stay. He rose.
• 30:19
  And because that tomb is empty, we know for an absolute fact
• 30:22
  that The Cave of Machpelah will one day be empty too.
• 30:25
  That is the hope. That is everything.
• 30:27
  We don't ultimately look to Abraham for life.
• 30:29
  We respect him, we learn from him, but our hope is in the one
• 30:32
  who conquered death because he lives.
• 30:35
  The God of Abraham is indeed the God of the living.
• 30:38
  Amen to that. Thank you for guiding us through
• 30:40
  this deep dive, it was incredibly helpful.
• 30:42
  He was a privilege. And thank you to our listener
• 30:44
  for joining us. We hope this is giving you a new
• 30:46
  lens to look at life, death, and the incredible enduring promises
• 30:50
  of God. Join us next time on Reformed
• 30:53
  Thinking.