On God's Face and Abraham's Faith

Disclaimer: deep theological thoughts may be contained in this post and may be too awesome for sleep-deprived or shallow minds. Proceed with caution.

Hi all! M. here. I wanted to share with you another simplex story from my life that happened this Sunday. Be warned; this account is long and requires a lot of thinking...

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At family class, (a Sunday School class for the entire family to attend) a guest teacher came to teach. We focused on the concept of saving God's "face." Think of it as God's reputation among the people of the earth. 

One of the verses talked about was Genesis 22:18. This verse is God talking to Abraham, and He says, "and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me." 

God makes a promise to Abraham. That's a pretty big promise. ALL nations on earth will be blessed. God never breaks a promise, does he? So where is the fulfillment to this promise? Was it through the Law? No, the law was only given to the Jews. It was to be used as a measuring stick, to show the Israelites where they fell short of God's standards. If you were not a Jew, you were not under the Laws given to Moses. You were outside of the special blessing of God. It was possible to gain Jewish citizenship, but it was not easy.

The fulfillment of God's promise comes by Jesus. Why did Jesus die? "To save the world from sin." That's definitely a big part of it, but is it the primary reason for the crucifixion? 

In John 12, verses 27-28, we read the words of Jesus, “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” (for more context of this passage, go here. It's worth reading.)

That sentence in the middle of the verse gives us a glimpse of the true purpose of Christ coming to earth. God promised Abraham that he would bless the whole earth. Christ comes to bring salvation to all. He fulfills the promise and, in essence, saves God's "face" or reputation as the God who keeps His promises.

Make sense to any of you? I assure you, the words I use aren't adequate enough to really show you the weight of this idea. God's glory was Jesus's main purpose!

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After family class, while I was still mulling over these new ideas, we still had big church. (Everyone calls it that; it's so funny. I'm not sure why.) Our passage was Romans 4:1-12. I highly suggest you go and read it here, but the main idea of the passage is this:

Abraham wasn't justified by works. He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. David also was credited with righteousness apart from works. Faith, and the resulting blessing, isn't just for the Jews though. Abraham became "righteous" in God's eyes before the law even came around. It's not our works, the law we follow, or anything we do. It's faith in God.

Here's a few of my notes from the sermon: (which, as you may begin to see, was very connected with the previous lesson)

Debt paid and more added: When Christ died, he paid the debt over our sins. Think of an account in which you have a debt of a million dollars. When Jesus died, he put 2 million dollars in the account. Some covers the debt and the overflow is his righteousness, credited to us.

Now we are all heirs: You are a son, or a daughter of God... Are you proud of it? We are heirs of the promise given to Abraham - "I will bless ALL of the families of the earth through you."It doesn't have to do with our race. Jesus was the fulfillment of the promise God gave and also opened this faith to everyone.

Conflicting passages? In James 2, Abraham was said to be justified by works. He was justified by the work of offering his son on the altar... but Isaac is the promise that Abraham believed in. His faith was justified, or shown to be true. He fully trusted and as a result, obeyed because he believed.

How Sin was dealt with: David was well known for his sin. His sins were buried, or covered, until the Messiah came and took all sin away. God forgave both Abraham and David for their sins.

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This was a really long post with a lot of ramblings, but I hope you may have learned something. The simple story is that I learned something new at church. But the big picture is this: Abraham had faith, and obeyed as a result, and God blessed him and promised to bless all the nations as a result, and Jesus came as the fulfillment of that promise, and God was glorified through it all.

The point is you can stop trying so hard! God in his love, sent his son to fully pay the debt of our sin and left a deposit of his righteousness, so that we can show the world the grace and live of our Father. The rest of the work is up to him. When we are open to truth, God will show it to us. It's not about doing something for your salvation, it's about believing, and saving God's face, always giving Him glory.

See you all next time! As always, thanks for reading!
-M.