Schoolmaster to Christ
GENESIS CHAPTER 16
Schoolmaster to Christ
GENESIS CHAPTER 16
Scripture Reading: Genesis 16 (KJV)
Here we find unbelief casting its dark shadow across the spirit of Abraham; again turning him aside from the path of confidence in God. "And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold the Lord hath restrained me from bearing." These words speak of the usual impatience of unbelief; and Abraham should have treated them accordingly. He should have waited patiently on the Lord to accomplish His gracious promise. But, the heart will turn to any expedient; any scheme; any resource, rather than be kept in the posture of waiting. It is one thing to believe a promise, and quite another thing to wait quietly for its accomplishment. This distinction is constantly exemplified in a child. While a child may not doubt a father’s word; restlessness and impatience regarding time and manner of accomplishment are easily detected. Like a child, Abraham exhibits faith (Gen. 15) and yet he fails in patience (Gen. 16). Thus, the force and beauty of the apostle's word, in Hebrews 6, "followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises." God makes a promise, faith believes it; hope anticipates it; patience waits quietly for it.
Sarah says to Abraham, "the Lord has failed me; it may be, my Egyptian maid will prove a resource for me." It is often truly marvelous to observe the trifles a heart under the influence of unbelief will take, when it has lost the sense of God's nearness; when it has lost the sense of His infallible faithfulness, and unfailing sufficiency. When this happens, we lose that calm and well-balanced condition of soul so essential to faith.
The consequences of taking ourselves out of the place of absolute dependence on God, is disastrous. Had Sarah said, ‘Nature has failed me, but God is my resource,’ how different it would have been! But, when the eye is taken off God, we are ready for unbelief. It is only when we are consciously leaning on the true, wise, living God, that we are enabled to look away from nature. Like Saul, who, when he looked at David, and then at the Philistine, said, "Thou are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for thou art but a youth." But, the question in David's heart was not whether he was able, but whether Jehovah was able.
The path of faith is both simple and narrow. There is a vast difference between God using the creature to minister, and me using it to shut Him out. God used the ravens to minister to Elijah1, but Elijah did not use them to exclude God. If the heart is trusting in God, it will not trouble itself about His means. It waits on Him, in the sweet assurance that no matter the means He uses, God will bless, and minister, and provide.
It is evident in this chapter that Hagar was not God's instrument for the accomplishment of His promise to Abraham. God had promised a son, but not to Hagar. In point of fact, from the narrative we find we find that both Abraham and Sarah "multiplied their sorrow," by including Hagar; because "when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes." This was the beginning of multiplied sorrows that flowed from hastening after nature's resources. Sarah's dignity was trampled on by an Egyptian bond-woman, and she found herself in the place of weakness and contempt. One who walks by faith and waits on God, is independent of all around; but the moment we become a debtor to nature or the world, we lose our dignity, and will soon feel his loss. It is impossible to estimate the loss sustained by diverging from the path of faith.
"And Sarai said, My wrong be upon thee." When we act wrong, we are too often prone to lay blame on someone else. Sarah was reaping the fruit of her own proposal, and yet she says to Abraham, "My wrong be upon thee." Then, with Abraham's permission, she seeks to get rid of the trial that her own impatience had brought upon her. "But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold thy maid is in thy hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarah dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face." When we make mistakes, and encounter the results, we should not attempt to counteract those results by being high-handed; it only makes matters worse. If we have done wrong, we should humble ourselves, confess the wrong, and wait on God for deliverance. But the reverse manifested itself in Sarah's case. She demonstrates no sense of having done wrong; and, she does not wait on God for deliverance, seeking instead her own way. However, it will always be found that every effort we make to rectify our errors, short of full confession, tends to render our path more difficult. Thus Hagar returned and gave birth to a son that proved to be a great trial to Abraham and his house, as we shall see.
We should view all this in a double aspect: first, as a direct teaching of practical principle; and second, a doctrinal point of view. First, regarding practical teaching, we learn that when we make mistakes, we can not remedy them by our own devices. Things must take their course. "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." The pages of Inspiration, as well as human history, teach this unalterable principle again and again. Grace forgives the sin and restores the soul, but that which is sown must be reaped. Abraham and Sarah had to endure the presence of a bond-woman and her son for a number of years. Had Abraham and Sarah left things in God’s hand, they would not have been troubled with the presence of the bond-woman and her son. However, once they made themselves debtors to nature, they had to endure the consequences. But, we should not be too critical, since we are often "like a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke," when it would be our exceeding comfort to "behave and quiet ourselves as a child that is weaned of his mother." No two figures could be more opposite than a stubborn bullock and a weaned child. The former represents those of us who are senselessly struggling under the yoke of circumstances, and rendering our yoke all the more galling by our efforts to get rid of it; the latter represents one meekly bowing to everything, and, by subjection of spirit, rendering his portion all the sweeter.
Second, regarding the doctrinal view of this chapter, we see Hagar and her son as figures brought into bondage by the covenant of works. (Gal. 4:22-25). In this important passage, "the flesh" is contrasted with "promise." We not only get God’s idea regarding what the term "flesh" implies, but also regarding Abraham's effort to obtain the seed by means of Hagar, instead of resting in God's "promise." The two covenants are allegorized by Hagar and Sarah, and are diametrically opposite one to the other. The one gendering to bondage, because it raised the question as to man's competency "to do" and "not to do," making life dependent on that competency. "The man that doeth these things shall live in them." This was the Hagar-covenant. But the Sarah-covenant reveals God as the God of promise, which is entirely independent of man, founded only on God's willingness and ability to fulfill it. When God makes a promise, there is no ‘if’ attached. God makes it unconditionally, and resolves to fulfill it; and faith rests in Him. God’s promise does not need the effects of nature to reach accomplishment. This is precisely where Abraham and Sarah failed. They resorted to an effort of nature to reach an end – an end that was secured by a promise of God. This is the grand mistake of unbelief. By its restless activity, unbelief raises a hazy mist around the soul, hindering the beams of Divine glory. "He could there do no mighty works, because of their unbelief." One great characteristic virtue of faith is always leaves the platform clear for God to show Himself; and when He shows Himself, man takes the place of happy worshipper.
The Galatians erred because they allowed themselves to be drawn into the addition of human nature to what Christ had already accomplished by the cross. The Gospel preached to them, and which they had received, was the simple presentation of God's absolute, unqualified, and unconditional grace. "Jesus Christ had been evidently set forth crucified among them." This was not merely a Divine promise made, but a Divine promise gloriously accomplished. In reference both to God's claims and man's necessities, a crucified Christ settled everything. But false teachers sought to upset this by saying, "Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved." This was, in reality, "making Christ of none effect." Christ must be a whole Savior or no Savior at all. The moment man says, "Unless you be this or that, you cannot be saved," he totally subverts Christianity; for in Christianity we find God coming down to us, just as we are; lost, guilty, self-destroyed sinners. Through Christ, God comes down, offering full remission of all our sins, and full salvation from our lost estate, all perfectly accomplished by Jesus Christ on the cross.
The great fundamental principle of the Gospel is that God is all; man is nothing. It is not a mixture of God and man. It is all of God. The peace of the Gospel does not depend in part on Christ's work; and in part on man's work. It depends wholly on Christ's work, because that work is perfect forever.
Under the law, God stood still to see what man could do; but, in the Gospel, God is seen acting, and man is to "stand still and see the salvation of God." This being true, the inspired apostle does not hesitate to say to the Galatians, "Christ is become of no effect unto you; whosoever of you are justified by law, ye are fallen from grace." If man has anything to do in the matter, God is shut out; and if God is shut out, there can be no salvation. It cannot be half grace, half law. The two covenants are perfectly distinct. It cannot be half Sarah and half Hagar. It must be one or the other. If it be Hagar, God has nothing to do with it; and if it be Sarah, man has nothing to do with it. The law addresses man, tests him and sees what he is really worth, proving him a ruin. It puts him under the curse and keeps him there. "The law hath dominion over a man so long as he liveth," but when he is dead2, its dominion ceases, though it remains in full force to curse every living man.
On the contrary, assuming man to be lost, ruined, and dead, the Gospel reveals God as He is: Savior of the lost; Pardoner of the guilty; Quickener of the dead. It reveals Him exhibiting His own independent grace in redemption. This makes a material difference and accounts for the extraordinary strength of the language employed in the Epistle to the Galatians: "I marvel"; "Who hath bewitched you"; "I am afraid of you"; "I stand in doubt of you"; "I would they were even cut off that trouble you." This is the language of the Holy Spirit, who knows the value of a full Christ, and a full salvation; and who also knows how essential the knowledge of both is to a lost sinner. This language is not in any other epistle; not even in that to the Corinthians, although it addressed some of the grossest disorders. All human failure and error can be corrected by bringing in God's grace; but the Galatians, like Abraham in this chapter, were going away from God, and returning to the flesh. What remedy could be devised for this? To fall from grace is to go back to our own way; back to law, from which there is only "the curse."
Footnotes:
1
For more information see "Elijah - Servant of God", located in the Religion Library section of Contents.
2 See Romans 6.
