Latest / Reformed Thinking / From Crisis to Certainty: God’s Oath-Sealed Covenant Promise (Genesis 22:15–19)

Transcript

From Crisis to Certainty: God’s Oath-Sealed Covenant Promise (Genesis 22:15–19) · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to Reformed thinking. I'm so glad you're here with us.
• 0:03
  The whole premise of what we do here is pretty straightforward.
• 0:07
  We take a whole stack of heavy theological sources, you know,
• 0:12
  commentaries, sermons, systematic theologies, and we
• 0:15
  really try to extract the golden Nuggets for you.
• 0:17
  We want to take high theology and just make it accessible.
• 0:20
  Good to be here. And today we've got a very
• 0:22
  specific mission. We're looking at a text that a
• 0:24
  lot of theologians would say is maybe the peak of Old Testament
• 0:27
  faith, but we're going to look at a section of it that I think
• 0:30
  often gets glossed over. Yeah, you're right.
• 0:32
  Today is a bit unique. We're turning our attention to
• 0:35
  Genesis chapter 22, specifically verses 15 through 19.
• 0:39
  Now, for anyone who's grown up in church or you know, knows the
• 0:42
  Bible even a little, Genesis 22 is the Binding of Isaac.
• 0:45
  It's that that terrifying, dramatic moment where God asks
• 0:49
  Abraham to sacrifice his own son.
• 0:51
  It's the supreme test, isn't it? And usually when people tell
• 0:54
  this story, they focus everything on the knife, you
• 0:56
  know, Abraham raises the blade. The Angel shots stop.
• 0:59
  Abraham sees a ram caught in the thicket.
• 1:01
  He sacrifices the ram and that's the end of the scene.
• 1:05
  Everyone just breathes a huge sigh of relief.
• 1:08
  But the sources we're digging into today, I'll point out
• 1:10
  something really critical. They argue that the narrative
• 1:14
  pivot, the real theological climax, doesn't happen when the
• 1:18
  ram is sacrificed. It happens after.
• 1:21
  That's completely correct. Most people, they just stop
• 1:23
  reading. At verse 14, the ram is offered
• 1:26
  and we just assume the crisis is totally over.
• 1:28
  But the text continues. The silence of heaven is broken
• 1:31
  a second time, and our goal today is to really understand
• 1:34
  why. Why does God speak again?
• 1:37
  Why wasn't the RAM enough? And we're going to see that God
• 1:41
  moves the covenant from a promise that was simply offered
• 1:44
  to a promise that is formally ratified by an oath.
• 1:46
  It's the difference between saying I will do something and,
• 1:49
  I don't know, signing a contract in blood.
• 1:51
  It is even more substantial than that, actually.
• 1:53
  This is about moving from a crisis of event, you know,
• 1:56
  saving Isaac's physical life to settling a crisis of conscience.
• 2:00
  And that is all about assurance. OK, so let's set the scene.
• 2:03
  Abraham is on Mount Moriah. He has just been through an
• 2:06
  absolute emotional ringer. I can't even imagine.
• 2:09
  He was ready to kill his heir, the son of promise.
• 2:12
  The Angel stopped him. The ram has now been sacrificed.
• 2:15
  The smoke is rising. Abraham is probably trembling,
• 2:18
  you know, full of adrenaline. And then verse 15 says the Angel
• 2:22
  of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven.
• 2:25
  And that phrase a second time is so vital.
• 2:29
  The first call was urgent. It was Abraham.
• 2:32
  Abraham, stop. Right, it was an intervention.
• 2:34
  It was an intervention. The second call is totally
• 2:36
  different. It's an interpretation God is
• 2:39
  about to explain to Abraham and to us what just happened and
• 2:43
  what it means for, well, for the future of the world.
• 2:45
  So let's start with who is speaking.
• 2:46
  The text says the Angel of the Lord.
• 2:49
  In, you know, pop culture, an Angel is a figure with wings and
• 2:52
  a harp, or maybe a messenger like Gabriel.
• 2:55
  But our sources are really specific that we should not view
• 2:57
  this as just some created being sent to deliver a telegram.
• 3:00
  Now this carries so much more weight in Reformed theology and
• 3:04
  really in historical Christian orthodoxy.
• 3:06
  We look at the identity of the Angel of the Lord very, very
• 3:08
  carefully and notice what he says in the very next verse.
• 3:12
  He says by myself, I have sworn. An Angel can't do.
• 3:15
  That an Angel can't swear by himself.
• 3:17
  A created Angel swears by God, Gabriel or Michael would say.
• 3:21
  The Lord says. But this Angel speaks in the
• 3:24
  first person, singular as God. So he's identifying himself as
• 3:28
  Yahweh. He is.
• 3:30
  He's using the divine name and this brings us to the concept of
• 3:33
  a Christophany. This is a pre Incarnate
• 3:35
  appearance of the second person of the Trinity.
• 3:38
  This is the Son of God before he took on human flesh in
• 3:41
  Bethlehem, appearing to the Patriarch.
• 3:44
  Wow, that connects the dots in a pretty stunning way.
• 3:46
  I mean, that means the one speaking on Mount Moriah
• 3:48
  approving the sacrifice and stopping the knife is the very
• 3:51
  same one who would later climb Mount Calvary.
• 3:53
  It's a massive connection. The one who would eventually be
• 3:56
  the Lamb of God is the one providing the ram for Abraham.
• 4:00
  He stands over Moriah to approve the shadow of the sacrifice that
• 4:03
  he himself will one day execute in substance.
• 4:06
  When we hear this voice, we are hearing the voice of the
• 4:10
  mediator. And the text specifies that this
• 4:12
  voice comes from heaven. Is that just a location marker
• 4:16
  or is there more to it than that?
• 4:18
  Well, it's, it's never just a location marker in Scripture, is
• 4:21
  it? Think about Abraham's reality at
• 4:22
  that exact moment. His horizontal reality is
• 4:26
  terrifying. It's wood fire, a sharp knife, a
• 4:29
  bloodied altar. It's the dust of the earth.
• 4:30
  I mean, it is the place of death and testing.
• 4:33
  It's a very gritty, earthly scene.
• 4:35
  Precisely. But the voice comes vertically.
• 4:37
  It comes from heaven. It indicates to Abraham and to
• 4:40
  the reader that this covenant is not governed by the terror of
• 4:43
  circumstances on earth. It is governed by the throne of
• 4:45
  God in heaven. OK, so the vertical reality
• 4:48
  overrides the horizontal. Reality it does.
• 4:50
  Abraham might be standing in what is effectively A
• 4:52
  slaughterhouse, but he is listening to the throne room.
• 4:55
  That is a solid take away for anyone listening who feels just
• 4:58
  overwhelmed by their horizontal circumstances.
• 5:02
  The verdict on your life comes from above, not from around you.
• 5:05
  That's. Right, and that verdict, it
• 5:07
  comes in the form of this oath. Verse 16 says by myself, I have
• 5:12
  sworn, declares the Lord. OK so let's unpack this by
• 5:16
  myself. I have sworn the Hebrew word
• 5:17
  there is Nishbati. Why is the author of Genesis
• 5:20
  making such a huge point of this?
• 5:22
  I mean, God has made promises to Abraham before right?
• 5:24
  Genesis 12? Genesis 1517.
• 5:27
  Why the upgrade to an oath now? This is actually the first time
• 5:30
  in the entire patriarchal history that God God swears an
• 5:33
  oath by himself. And in the ancient world, there
• 5:35
  was a very clear distinction between a simple promise and an
• 5:38
  oath. A promise is an intention.
• 5:41
  An oath is a legal formalization.
• 5:44
  It guarantees the promise. It binds the speaker to the
• 5:46
  fulfillment of that promise, usually with consequences if
• 5:49
  they fail. So it's like the difference
• 5:50
  between me telling you I'll pay you back and me actually signing
• 5:54
  a mortgage document with a bank. Correct.
• 5:56
  But here's the problem. Usually when you swear an oath,
• 5:59
  you swear by something greater than yourself.
• 6:00
  To guarantee it, you swear by God, or by the King, or by the.
• 6:03
  Temple, I swear to God, we still say.
• 6:05
  That we do. But God has no one greater than
• 6:08
  Himself. He can't look up to a higher
• 6:10
  authority to guarantee His word. So, as the book of Hebrews
• 6:13
  chapter 6 tells us, He swears by himself.
• 6:16
  He grounds the assurance of the promise in His own immutable
• 6:20
  being. He is basically saying, as
• 6:22
  surely as I am God, as surely as I exist and cannot lie, this
• 6:26
  will happen. He puts his own existence on the
• 6:28
  line. He.
• 6:29
  Does and we have to ask why? Why add this oath now?
• 6:32
  I mean, Abraham already trusts him, Isaac is already safe.
• 6:36
  Why the extra layer of security? Well, one of our sources
• 6:38
  mentioned that this resolves the crisis of conscience.
• 6:41
  Yes, the crisis of the event was resolved when the ram died.
• 6:44
  Isaac is physically safe, but think about Abraham.
• 6:47
  He has just looked into the abyss.
• 6:50
  He has realized that God's commands can seem to totally
• 6:52
  contradict God's promises. He has seen how fragile
• 6:56
  everything looks from a human perspective.
• 6:58
  He held the knife over his only hope for the future.
• 7:01
  That leaves a mark on a man. It leaves a question.
• 7:04
  Is this promise actually safe? Right.
• 7:07
  If God can ask for Isaac's life, what's to stop him from asking
• 7:11
  for something else? We're changing the whole plan.
• 7:14
  That is the fear. So God accommodates Abraham's
• 7:17
  human weakness. The oath is there to settle his
• 7:20
  conscience. It is God saying, I know you've
• 7:23
  seen how fragile things look from your side, so I am going to
• 7:26
  show you him absolutely solid. They are from my side.
• 7:29
  I really appreciate that thought.
• 7:30
  It's God condescending to our level to make us feel safe.
• 7:33
  And notice the phrase declares the Lord in Hebrew.
• 7:36
  That's naam, YHWH. Now that's a prophetic formula.
• 7:40
  You see it all the time in Jeremiah or Ezekiel, the Oracle
• 7:42
  of the Lord. But it is extremely rare in the
• 7:46
  Torah, the first five book of the Bible.
• 7:48
  It's usage here, it signals that this is a supreme judicial
• 7:50
  verdict. The court of heaven is banging
• 7:52
  the gavel. It's finished.
• 7:53
  It's settled. OK, then right after this
• 7:56
  incredible assurance, we hit what feels like a stumbling
• 7:58
  block. At least it sounds like a
• 8:00
  stumbling block to my modern ears.
• 8:02
  God says because you have done this and have not withheld your
• 8:05
  son, your only son, I will surely bless you.
• 8:07
  Ah. Yes, the because.
• 8:10
  It sounds so transactional. It sounds like God is saying,
• 8:12
  OK, Abraham, you did a good job, you passed the test, you earned
• 8:16
  this, here's your reward. And that sounds a lot like merit
• 8:19
  theology. You know, like he earned the
• 8:21
  covenant. This is a major theological
• 8:23
  trap, and we have to handle it very carefully.
• 8:26
  There is a view often associated with Roman Catholic theology
• 8:30
  that reads this as Abraham earning God's favor through his
• 8:34
  work of obedience. Which would go completely
• 8:36
  against the concept of grace. Completely.
• 8:38
  We have to remember the context. When did the covenant start?
• 8:41
  Genesis 12. God called Abraham out of
• 8:43
  paganism by sheer unadulterated grace.
• 8:47
  Genesis 15 says Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as
• 8:50
  righteousness. That was years before Mount
• 8:53
  Moriah. Abraham was already justified.
• 8:54
  He was already in the covenant. So if he didn't earn it, what
• 8:57
  does the because mean? It indicates vindication, not
• 9:00
  merit. It's the evidence of faith.
• 9:03
  Think about a fruit tree. The apples on the tree don't
• 9:06
  make the tree a lies. The SAP does that.
• 9:08
  But the apples prove the tree is alive.
• 9:11
  Abraham's obedience on that mountain was the undeniable
• 9:14
  proof, the public vindication, that his faith was real.
• 9:17
  OK, so God is saying, because your faith has now been proven
• 9:20
  to be the kind of faith that doesn't even withhold your son,
• 9:23
  I am now ratifying this promise with an oath.
• 9:26
  That is it. James chapter 2 makes this exact
• 9:28
  point. It says Abraham was justified by
• 9:31
  works when he offered Isaac. Now that doesn't mean he was
• 9:34
  saved by works. It means his faith was shown to
• 9:36
  be completed, or you know, demonstrated by his works.
• 9:40
  Reformed theology teaches that we are saved by faith alone.
• 9:44
  But the faith that saves is never alone.
• 9:46
  It always produces obedience. That's a really helpful
• 9:48
  distinction. It's not the root of salvation,
• 9:50
  it is the fruit. Right.
• 9:52
  And there's another error we need to refute here, which is
• 9:54
  open theism. This is the idea that God didn't
• 9:58
  actually know what Abraham would do, that God was up there, you
• 10:02
  know, biting his nails, thinking.
• 10:03
  I really hope he passes the test and then when Abraham does it,
• 10:06
  God says, ah OK now I know. But the text does say, Now I
• 10:10
  know that you fear God. It does, but we have to
• 10:12
  interpret Scripture with Scripture.
• 10:14
  We know from the rest of the Bible that God is omniscient.
• 10:17
  He knows the end from the beginning.
• 10:19
  The Westminster Confession reminds us that God ordains
• 10:22
  whatsoever comes to pass. God didn't learn something new
• 10:26
  about Abraham's psychology that he didn't know before eternity
• 10:29
  began. So now I know is more for
• 10:31
  Abraham's benefit and ours. It is God demonstrating
• 10:34
  Abraham's character to history, to the angels, and to Abraham
• 10:38
  himself. It's a declarative knowledge.
• 10:40
  It means now it is made known. God isn't a student learning new
• 10:44
  facts. He is the author writing the
• 10:46
  story. I really like how one of our
• 10:47
  sources connected this because to Christ.
• 10:50
  They called it the greater because.
• 10:51
  Oh yes, this is beautiful. Abraham was spared the final
• 10:55
  stroke. He raised the knife, but he
• 10:57
  didn't have to plunge it. But God the Father, he was not
• 11:00
  spared. Romans 8 tells us he did not
• 11:03
  withhold his own son, but gave him up for us all.
• 11:06
  So the certainty of our salvation doesn't rest on our
• 11:08
  obedience. Not at all.
• 11:09
  The ultimate because is the obedience of Christ.
• 11:13
  Because Christ was obedient to the point of death, even death
• 11:16
  on a cross. God has highly exalted him.
• 11:19
  Our blessing is secured because Jesus passed the test on his
• 11:23
  mountain Calvary, that Abraham only acted out in a shadow on
• 11:26
  Moriah. That takes all the pressure off.
• 11:28
  It's not because I had a good quiet time today, God blesses
• 11:30
  me. It's because Christ died.
• 11:32
  God blesses me. That is the gospel, and that
• 11:34
  leads us right to the substance of the promise itself.
• 11:37
  Yeah, in verse 17 God starts listing what this oath actually
• 11:40
  guarantees, and there is some really interesting grammar
• 11:43
  happening. Here I noticed that in blessing
• 11:45
  I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your
• 11:47
  offspring. It sounds, well, repetitive in
• 11:50
  English. In Hebrew, this is a
• 11:51
  construction called the infinitive absolute.
• 11:54
  What you do is you take the verb and you put the infinitive form
• 11:56
  of that same verb right before it.
• 11:58
  So you get barek, abareka, harba arba.
• 12:01
  Blessing, I will bless. It's a grammatical intensifier.
• 12:05
  It's a way of adding massive emphasis.
• 12:07
  God is piling verb upon verb to exhaust any possibility of
• 12:11
  doubt. It represents A settled resolve,
• 12:14
  an unstoppable force. He is not just saying I will
• 12:17
  bless you, He is saying I will most certainly, utterly,
• 12:21
  completely bless you. It's like God is shouting it
• 12:24
  from heaven. He is, he is stressing the
• 12:26
  absolute certainty of it. And then he uses these two
• 12:28
  images to describe the offspring stars of the heaven and sand on
• 12:32
  the seashore. We usually just think those are
• 12:34
  synonyms for a whole lot. They are, but in Reformed
• 12:37
  theology, and particularly for those who hold to a nuance
• 12:39
  regarding Israel and the Church, we often see a distinction here.
• 12:43
  OK, break that down for us. The stars of the heaven can be
• 12:46
  seen as pointing to the spiritual seed.
• 12:48
  That's the church believers from all ages who look up whose
• 12:51
  citizenship is in heaven. As Paul says in Philippians, we
• 12:55
  are the children of Abraham by faith.
• 12:58
  And the sand. The sand on the seashore points
• 13:00
  to the physical seed, ethnic Israel, the earthly Kingdom, the
• 13:04
  people who are attached to the land.
• 13:05
  And why is that distinction necessary?
• 13:08
  It guards against what we call replacement theology, the idea
• 13:11
  that the church has totally replaced Israel and that God is
• 13:13
  done with the Jewish people. This text suggests God keeps
• 13:17
  covenant with both the earth and the sky.
• 13:19
  He has a plan for the physical descendants of Abraham, and he
• 13:23
  has a plan for the spiritual descendants.
• 13:24
  So it's a comprehensive promise that covers both realms.
• 13:27
  And it implies what some call the collective singular.
• 13:30
  The word for seed zero is singular in Hebrew.
• 13:33
  It implies A multitude, a huge number, but it also implies A
• 13:36
  unified line. It's not just a chaotic bunch of
• 13:38
  people, it's a people united in a single covenant.
• 13:41
  Then we get to this very masculine military image.
• 13:46
  Your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies.
• 13:49
  This is a standout part of the text, and to understand this you
• 13:52
  really have to understand ancient city architecture.
• 13:55
  Right, the gate wasn't just a door was.
• 13:58
  It No, not at all. In the ancient Near East, the
• 14:00
  gate, the char, was the absolute center of civic life.
• 14:05
  It was where the judges sat to make legal decisions.
• 14:07
  It was where the marketplace was.
• 14:09
  But most importantly, in times of war, it was the weak point.
• 14:12
  It was the place you defended at all costs.
• 14:15
  If the enemy breaches the gate, the city falls.
• 14:18
  So to possess the gate of your enemy means you have totally
• 14:22
  won. It means total conquest.
• 14:24
  It means you've taken over their seat of government and their
• 14:26
  primary point of defense. It moves the promise from just
• 14:29
  survival. You know, like I hope you all
• 14:31
  make it to Dominion. It's offensive warfare, not
• 14:34
  defensive. That is exactly correct, and so
• 14:37
  we have to ask who is the seed that conquers the gate?
• 14:40
  Well, in the immediate context, maybe Joshua conquering Canaan.
• 14:44
  Partially, yes, that's a partial fulfillment.
• 14:46
  But the ultimate fulfillment is Christ.
• 14:49
  Remember Matthew 16? Jesus says I will build my
• 14:52
  church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
• 14:55
  So Jesus is the one storming the gates.
• 14:57
  Charles Spurgeon had this wonderful imagery of Samson.
• 15:01
  Remember Samson in the Old Testament?
• 15:03
  He goes to the Philistine city of Gaza, rips the city gates
• 15:06
  clean off the hinges, post bar everything, and carries them up
• 15:10
  a hill. I.
• 15:10
  Remember that. Spurgeon says that is what
• 15:12
  Christ did to death. He ripped the gates of death off
• 15:15
  the hinges on Easter morning. That is a strong image.
• 15:18
  So the believer isn't fighting for victory, we are fighting
• 15:22
  from victory. Yes, the gate is already
• 15:24
  possessed. The enemy is already disarmed.
• 15:26
  We are just the occupying force enforcing the victory.
• 15:29
  Christ has already won. And this victory, it's not just
• 15:32
  for us to gloat over. Verse 18 expands the scope
• 15:36
  dramatically. In your off spring shall all the
• 15:39
  nations of the earth be blessed. This is the missional mandate.
• 15:42
  This is the universal horizon. Up until this point, the story
• 15:45
  has been very, very focused. One man Abraham, one son, Isaac,
• 15:49
  1 mountain Moriah. It feels incredibly exclusive.
• 15:52
  But here in this verse, God just blows the doors off, he said.
• 15:55
  This is not a tribal cult. This is a global rescue mission.
• 15:58
  And it counters the idea that the Old Testament is just about
• 16:01
  Israel and the New Testament is about the world.
• 16:04
  The covenant was never ever meant to be a cul-de-sac where
• 16:07
  the blessing drives in and just parks.
• 16:09
  It was meant to be a thoroughfare, a channel.
• 16:13
  Abraham is blessed so that he could be a blessing to the
• 16:15
  nation's. And you mentioned Galatians
• 16:17
  earlier. Paul makes a big point about the
• 16:19
  grammar here too, right? He does.
• 16:21
  In Galatians 3.1 scene Paul makes this brilliant argument
• 16:25
  that the word seed is singular. He says God did not say seeds
• 16:29
  plural as in many people. He said seed singular, meaning
• 16:32
  one person, Christ. So the mechanism for blessing
• 16:35
  the nations is Jesus. Right, and this helps us refute
• 16:38
  2 very common modern errors. First, it refutes universalism,
• 16:43
  the idea that everyone is automatically saved in the end.
• 16:46
  The text doesn't say all nations are blessed, period.
• 16:48
  It says they are blessed in your offspring.
• 16:50
  You have to be in the seed to get the blessing.
• 16:52
  And if you're outside the seed. If you are outside the seed, you
• 16:54
  are in the gate of the enemy. You are in the place of
• 16:57
  judgement, not the place of blessing.
• 16:59
  And the second error. It refutes pluralism, the idea
• 17:02
  that all religions are equally valid paths to God.
• 17:06
  The text is very specific. The blessing is mediated through
• 17:10
  the Abrahamic line, culminating in Christ.
• 17:13
  It doesn't come through general spirituality or other gods.
• 17:16
  It comes through the seed. So it's exclusive in its
• 17:19
  mechanism, but completely inclusive in its scope.
• 17:21
  That's a perfect way to put it. Anyone from any nation can come,
• 17:25
  but they must come through the one door.
• 17:26
  OK, so the oath is sworn, the promise is ratified, the
• 17:30
  theology is set. Now we have to get Abraham off
• 17:33
  the mountain. Verse 19.
• 17:35
  Abraham returned to his young men, and they rose and went
• 17:38
  together to be a sheep. This is the descent, and I think
• 17:41
  it's one of the most practical pastoral verses in the entire
• 17:45
  chapter. Why is that?
• 17:46
  I mean, on the surface it just seems like travel logistics.
• 17:48
  Because of the atmosphere shift. Yeah, He goes from the Thunder
• 17:51
  of the oath and the high drama of the altar to the silence of
• 17:55
  the Negev desert. He goes back to his servants.
• 17:57
  He goes back to the commute. That is so relatable.
• 17:59
  We have these spiritual highs, maybe a great retreat or a
• 18:01
  powerful Sunday service, and then Monday morning just hits
• 18:04
  you in the face. The believer cannot stay on the
• 18:06
  mountain top. We don't build tabernacles at
• 18:08
  there. True faith is lived out in the
• 18:11
  return. It's lived out the ordinary.
• 18:13
  It's lived out in Beersheba. And Beersheba, that means well
• 18:16
  of the oath, doesn't it? It does, and look at the
• 18:19
  geography as theology. Abraham moves from the mountain
• 18:22
  of the oath to the well of the oath.
• 18:24
  He lives his daily life immersed in the reality of what God
• 18:27
  swore. He drinks from that water every
• 18:29
  single day. I noticed something else in the
• 18:31
  text here. It says Abraham returned to his
• 18:33
  young men. It doesn't mention Isaac.
• 18:36
  That is a detail the commentators have agonized over
• 18:40
  for centuries. Where is Isaac?
• 18:42
  Did he stay on the mountain for a while?
• 18:44
  Did he run away from his dad who almost killed him?
• 18:46
  Some have suggested that obviously he is implied to be
• 18:49
  there because he appears later in the story just fine, but the
• 18:51
  narrator leaves him out intentionally.
• 18:53
  Why do that? To focus our attention on
• 18:55
  Abraham as the covenant head, and to emphasize that the story
• 18:59
  isn't about the boy anymore, it's about the promise.
• 19:02
  Abraham walks down that mountain with the assurance in his heart,
• 19:05
  not needing to cling to the boy as his only hope, because his
• 19:09
  hope is now securely in the oath of God.
• 19:11
  And the text says they went together.
• 19:14
  That restores the community. Abraham had to leave the
• 19:17
  servants behind to go worship. The test was solitary, but the
• 19:22
  Christian life is not solitary. He returns to his household, to
• 19:25
  his leadership role. He's not an isolated monk or
• 19:28
  some ascetic. He is a man with a community to
• 19:30
  lead. OK, let's pivot to application.
• 19:33
  We've talked about the theology, the history, the geography, but
• 19:36
  what does this mean for the person listening right now?
• 19:39
  We like to use the framework of head, heart and hands.
• 19:42
  Let's start with the head. This is all about assurance.
• 19:45
  We mentioned the Westminster Confession earlier.
• 19:47
  Yes, the Westminster Confession speaks of infallible assurance.
• 19:51
  So many Christians I know live in a state of low level anxiety.
• 19:54
  Am I really saved? Did I do enough today?
• 19:56
  Is my faith strong enough? It's an emotional roller
• 19:58
  coaster. This text says get off the
• 20:01
  roller coaster. Your assurance is objective.
• 20:04
  It is based on God's oath, not on your feelings.
• 20:07
  Your feelings change with the weather or how much sleep you
• 20:10
  got last night. God's oath is immutable.
• 20:12
  It does not change. It's the anchor for the soul
• 20:15
  from Hebrew 6. It is if God swore by Himself.
• 20:18
  You are safe. Stop looking at your own
• 20:21
  fluctuating obedience and look at His unchangeable character.
• 20:24
  That's the head. Now the heart.
• 20:26
  This is where it gets a little more convicting.
• 20:28
  Yeah, we have to look at the test itself.
• 20:31
  Your son. Your only son whom you love God
• 20:34
  touched the idol. He touched the one thing Abraham
• 20:37
  might have loved more than God himself.
• 20:39
  And the question for the listener is, what is your Isaac?
• 20:42
  Right. What are you withholding?
• 20:44
  For many of us, it's not a child.
• 20:45
  It might be our reputation. It might be our financial
• 20:47
  security. It might be a relationship we
• 20:49
  know is wrong but we just will not let go of.
• 20:52
  It might be our sense of control over our future.
• 20:55
  And we fear that if we put it on the altar, God will kill it.
• 20:58
  We do, but look at the story. Abraham surrendered Isaac and
• 21:02
  God gave Isaac back to him. Surrender does not always mean
• 21:05
  loss, but withholding always leads to idolatry.
• 21:09
  If you clutch it too tight, you will crush it.
• 21:11
  If you give it to God, he either gives it back to you sanctified,
• 21:15
  or he replaces it with something better, which is himself.
• 21:19
  That's a. Hard word, but a good one.
• 21:21
  OK, finally the hands. What do we do with this?
• 21:23
  We look at the because, because you obey my voice.
• 21:28
  This drives us to mission. How so?
• 21:31
  Well, if we are the seed of Abraham by faith we have
• 21:34
  inherited the mandate. We are blessed to be a blessing.
• 21:37
  A church that is not missional, a church that does not care
• 21:40
  about the nations, that doesn't care about its neighbors, is not
• 21:43
  an Abrahamic church. It's a disobedient church.
• 21:45
  It is. We are called to possess the
• 21:47
  gate. That means we engage, we share
• 21:50
  the gospel. We don't retreat into a holy
• 21:52
  huddle. We go out into the world knowing
• 21:54
  the victory is already won. And there's a warning here for
• 21:56
  the unbeliever, too, isn't there?
• 21:58
  A very stark one. If you are not in the seed, if
• 22:02
  you are not in Christ, you're currently in the gate of the
• 22:05
  enemy. You are in the path of the
• 22:06
  conquest, and the call today is to surrender.
• 22:10
  Don't wait for the army to overrun the city.
• 22:11
  Come out now with your hands up, repent, and flee to the seed who
• 22:15
  is Jesus. This has been such a full
• 22:17
  discussion, I feel like I am seeing the story in, I don't
• 22:20
  know, Technicolor now. It really is the bedrock of our
• 22:22
  faith. So much is packed into these few
• 22:25
  verses. As we wrap up, I just want to
• 22:26
  summarize what we found. The story of Genesis 22 is not
• 22:30
  just about a test of a father's love.
• 22:32
  It's about the oath that secures all of history.
• 22:35
  The ram was provided. The seed has conquered.
• 22:37
  The blessing is secured. And I'll leave you with this
• 22:40
  final thought to mulover. Abraham went down the mountain
• 22:43
  with Isaac alive. It was a picture of
• 22:45
  resurrection, as Hebrews tells us.
• 22:47
  But there's a key difference between the shadow and the
• 22:49
  reality. Abraham stayed in Beersheba.
• 22:52
  He lived and he died there, but the true sea, Jesus, he didn't
• 22:56
  stay. He ascended.
• 22:57
  He went to the right hand of the Father to send the Spirit.
• 23:00
  So while Abraham drank from a physical well in the desert, we
• 23:03
  have living water welling up inside of us.
• 23:05
  So the question for you is, are you drinking from that well of
• 23:09
  the oath in your daily life? That is something to chew on.
• 23:13
  Thank you for listening to Reformed Thinking.
• 23:15
  We will see you next time as we continue to mine the depths of
• 23:17
  the word. Grace and peace to you.