Identity - Lesson 3

Dr. James Houston

Identity

th731-03

Identity of Abraham—Man of Faith

Lesson Transcript

If family narrative is Israel’s primal way of knowing Israel’s identity, the national identity of Israel is contained in a series of narratives that form the unitive story of the Torah.

These are summarised many times over. In Deuteronomy 6, we have the Exodus to the occupation of the land in verses 20–24. In Deuteronomy 26:5–9, we have a summary of the settlement in Egypt to the occupation of the land. In Joshua 24:2–13, Abraham’s journey to his occupation of the land is recited. In Nehemiah 9:6–37, the story of creation and the call of Abraham as well as the return from the exile are all summarised. In Psalm 78, there’s the story of the Exodus right to the time of the life of David. And in Psalm 105, we have the summary of God’s dealings with His people from Abraham to the occupation of the land. Or again, Psalm 135, we have creation and the Exodus to the occupation of the land all united. Nehemiah 9:6–37 recapitulates the whole story from the creation to its own time, while Psalm 136 praises God’s hesed love throughout all the content of Israel’s history. And significantly, we find in the New Testament in Acts 7:2–50 how the whole saga of God’s dealings with man is traced from Abraham to Solomon.

Like no other text then, narrative and identity are conjoined in the process. The texts are constantly being reinterpreted as new contexts arise. This is further embraced in a Biblical theology that unifies all the narratives in what, later, Augustine was to call the rule of faith. This embraces the meaning of all reality, of its history. It’s not from a human interpretation of history, but of God’s deeds with human time. This is God’s freedom to act upon and man’s freedom to respond. What might be viewed as chance in the stories of Joseph and Esther are used providentially by God to execute His own purposes. God is to be trusted to be faithful to His promises, yet he remains free in the ways He fulfils them. Yet the mystery of evil is that God’s acts are constantly being resisted, rebelled against by mighty empires from pharaohs to the Roman Caesars, chaotic forces of evil that appear often to prevail upon the plight and sufferings of God’s people.

As we consider further this whole theme of the role of narrative for idenity, let’s now consider what has happened in our time. From the 1960s onwards to the 1980s, narrative has moved to centre stage compared with the abstractions of former philosophy and theology. As Alistair MacIntyre has explored how all human life and thought is traditioned, our life decisions are conditioned by the sense of how they fit into a larger story and narrative. I can only answer the question what am I to do if I can answer the prior question of what story do I find myself a part. And likewise, the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur argues that everyone needs a story to live by in order to make sense of the pastiche of one’s life. Without a narrative, a person’s life is merely a random sequence of unrelated events. Birth and death are inscrutable; temporality is a terror and a burden; and suffering and loss remain mute and unintelligible. Time’s become human to the extent that it is articulated through a narrative mode. And narrative attains its full meaning when it becomes a condition of temporal existence. You will find this quoted from Ricoeur’s Time and Narrative, Volume 1, page 52.

Let’s now return, in what may seem to you an extraordinary switch back of thinking, back to the figural exemplars of faith of the Old Testament. And so we begin with God’s engagement with Abraham and of Abraham’s faith in God. Abraham is already mentioned in the genealogical tables of Genesis 1–11, but Abraham is first identified historically as called of God and then co-commissioned in Genesis 12:1–3. He’s told leave and go into the land I will show you. And what reinforces this call is the affirmation five times over: I will make you a great nation; I will bless you; I will make your name great; I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you, I will curse. Abraham’s identity is no longer familial, but now it’s related to trust in God. Now ringing in his ear is the divine promise of being blessed and he will then be a blessing to others. Just as we all do, he was no blessing when famine forces him into Egypt and is accursed of his host and a distress to his wife.

Alas, as the father of the faithful, he’s not marked fully by faithfulness. So too if we are faithless, he remains faithful. He cannot deny himself, says the Apostle writing in 2 Timothy 2:13. Abraham and his nephew now become very rich in chapter 13 and divide up their territories. Abraham acts rightly to stop the strife between their competing herdsmen in self-denial, allowing peacefully for Lot’s greed to be judged later in Sodom and Gomorrah. Then Lot is captured by the alliance of four kings against him, but Abraham trains 318 men in his household to rescue Lot in battle. And returning from battle, Abraham is met by the King of Sodom and this mysterious King of Salem, Melchizedek, who blesses him. He reappears, Melchizedek does, in Psalm 110:4, and this time we see he’s being considered—as Hebrews 5 indicates—that he’s the King of Righteousness. It’s Christ himself who is foreshadowed by Melchizedek.

And so Abraham accepts the bread and wine from Melchizedek as we accept the bread and wine at the Lord’s table. And immediately there is revealed to Abraham in dream: I am with your shield, your very great reward. And Abraham responds what can you give me since I remain childless? Then showing him the night sky, God promises Abraham and his descendants that they will be numerous like the stars in the heavens. And so Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Yet trust in our lives does not silence all questions. And so God has to further assure Abraham of having a homeland and being ready for the covenant ceremony that will bind all these promises into a solemn oath. Amazingly then, God pledges that if the covenant is broken, God Himself will pay the penalty. This, of course, is echoed in the New Testament in the light of the suffering of Christ on the cross in Ephesians 5:2, Hebrews 9:11–28, 1 Peter 3:18.

But waiting for God to act can be hard, as we find recorded in Genesis 16:1–16, for childless Sarah is offered the Egyptian Hagar to provide a surrogate son. And not surprisingly, when there’s distrust of God, family life becomes dysfunctional. Again, in amazing grace, God promises that Hagar’s child will be blessed. His name shall be called Ishmael, meaning God has heard. And God now reveals the name of El Shaddai as the all powerful provender. Abram’s name as ‘exalted father’ is now changed to Abraham, a ‘father of a multitude’ and Sarai, the ‘childless princess’, is now Sarah, ‘princess from whom nations and kings of people will descend’, in chapter 17, verse 16. Isaac is the fourth name in this scenario, meaning ‘he laughs’, suggesting the incredulity with which he is promised to his barren mother. And God too is laughing, for nothing is too hard for the Lord, as we read in 18:3.

Ironically, Abraham’s first thought is for Ishmael, who’s outside of God’s covenant, yet promised by God to have abundant blessings granted him as the father of rulers and great nations. Then in Genesis 18, there’s the visit of three mysterious men that appear under the great tree of memory to proclaim that within the year Sarah will have a son. Again she laughs then lies to the Lord, who said you did laugh. Then before leaving, they communicate God’s intent of coming judgement on Sodom and Gomorrah, leaving Abraham with a promise: shall not the judge of all the Earth do right. Once again, Abraham, in fear, passes off his wife, Sarah, to King Abimelech as his half-sister, a further act of faithlessness. In other words, although we think of Abraham as the father of the faithful, he’s depicted far more realistically in the reality of his relationship with God. None of us are faithful, not even Abraham. But now God further shows His faithfulness in the birth of Isaac. And even the pagan king in further negotiations with Abraham has to confess God is with you in everything you do.

And now in chapter 22, we come to the great trial of Abraham in offering his son Isaac as a burnt offering. Commanded to destroy his son in verse 2, we’re told in verse 12 that Abraham is acknowledged by God to pronounce now I know you are a God-fearer, that is to say, one who is trustingly and implicitly and completely trusting in God alone. And moreover, Isaac too now shares the same faith as his father, even though he’s trussed and bound for the sacrifice. If you want to understand perhaps one of the most profound interpretations of this amazing story I recommend you to read what Søren Kierkegaard writes about in Fear and Trembling.