Genesis, Message 15: The Seed for the Fulfillment of God's Purpose

My Great Delight in God's Word

Crystallization-Study of Genesis, Message 15

The Seed for the Fulfillment of God's Purpose

Last week, we had a journey with Abraham, starting from Ur of Chaldea, crossing the river (thus the name Hebrew), and entering the promised land, Canaan. Most importantly, we could see that God kept appearing and speaking to Abraham again and again regardless of Abraham’s failure to fully obey His commands. What a patient and gracious God have we! 
Before leaving his hometown, God gave him a threefold promise: giving him a land, making him a great nation, and blessing all the nations through his seed. The first and the second ones seemed not too difficult. He was soon given the land and had so many people with him. But what about the last one? He was 75 years old when God appeared to him and called him out of Haran. He waited year after year, and there was no any clue that the seed from his own body would become real. It was not until when he was about 100 years old that he was given the seed.
What can we learn from Abraham's experience of choosing the heir? What does this seed really represent? Let's start the investigation together.

Isaac - the promised son of Abraham

Before Isaac was born, Abraham had been tempted to consider some other people to be his heir. Throughout his life, there were 4 potential candidates for the heir: Lot, Eliezer, Ishmael and Isaac. Given that through this seed God would fulfil His purpose of blessing the world, choosing the right seed was really important. Let's consider each of them and see why Isaac was chosen as the son promised by God.

- Lot

It is so easy to exclude this man from the list. Even though he was his relative and used to be his companion, it was obvious that he was so worldly minded.

- Eliezer of Damascus

After entering the promised land, Abraham's life was not perfectly smooth. Despite of being one of the heroes of faith, he was just a human being and had the time of fear too. In Genesis 14, Abraham had a great victory over many kings. However, very soon after the great victory, Abraham fell into a great fear. He had offended the 4 kings by saving his relative, Lot, and offended the king of Sodom by declining his goods. It was possible that the kings would take revenge on him for those offenses. Graciously, God appeared to him again, and gave him a great comfort.

After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward." (Genesis 15:1 NKJV)

Why should he not be afraid? Simply because God Himself was his shield and his exceedingly great reward. What a blessed assurance! What else would he need if he already had the Lord with him?
Then Abraham proposed Eliezer as a potential candidate.

But Abram said, "Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" (Genesis 15:2 NKJV)

I wonder if Abraham's question sounds a bit sarcastic, politely blaming God that He had not given him the seed so far. At this point, we see how patient and merciful God was. Even though Abraham's question sounds somewhat sarcastic, God kept appearing, speaking and promising to him. So we don't need to be anxious that what we say to God may offend Him. As long as we keep coming to Him and talking with Him, God always wants to hear from you and talk with you.
Reasonably, as until then God still had not given Abraham a son, Eliezer chould be the seed. Moreover, this servant was a good man and had been so helpful to Abraham.
However, God answered him clearly that Eliezer was not the one who would fulfil God purpose. The seed that would come from his own body was yet to come.

And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, "This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir." (Genesis 15:4 NKJV)

Eliezer represents what we have. As Eliezer was not the means whereby God fulfilled His purpose in Abraham, our possessions are not essential for God to fulfill His purpose in us. One may think that he has to become very rich so that he can use his money to fulfil God's purpose. He has got a great misunderstanding. Money is not what God needs the most. Only the right seed can He uses to accomplish His plan on the earth. 

- Ishmael

Ten years after God's promise was given to him, when he was 85, he still had no son. With his strong desire to help God fulfil his purpose by producing the seed for Him, he obediently followed Sarai his wife to take Hagar her maid to be his wife.

Then Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan. (Genesis 16:3 NKJV)

The mission was so successful. He eventually had a son who came from his own body. The thing he did seemed to be right, good and according to God's will. As God wanted a seed that would come out of his own body, Ishmael may have been the promised seed. 

¹⁸ And Abraham said to God, "Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!"
¹⁹ Then God said: "No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him." (Genesis 17:18-19 NKJV)

Abraham proudly presented his own achievement. He had already produced the seed for God. And God answered him plainly that Ishmael could not be the one. The seed must be born of Sarah.
Ishmael represent what we can do. One may think that if what he is doing is fulfiling the criteria of "good," "right," and "according to God's will," they are the things God wants him to do. However, the big question is not only whether what we are doing is good, right, and according to God's will or not, but also what the source is. Yes, it is great to do the things that are good, right, and according to God's will. But if the source is not God, He cannot accept it. 
Watchman Nee explains more about Ishmael, saying "What then is Ishmael? Ishmael is anything born prematurely. It is doing things by oneself. We can say that Ishmael includes two characteristics: the first is a wrong source, and the second is a premature timing."
Following the Lord is not easy, is it? We may need to wait for His perfect timing, which is not usually as fast as we want. Moreover, most people love to do and achieve things by their own. Like a boy scout, they want to earn badges from God when they do good, hoping that one day they will have enough merit badges on their uniforms to make God happy. But that is not what God wants. God wants us to totally rely upon Him. Let Him do His job through us at His perfect timing. He is the only Source. Without Him as the source, all things we do in our flesh are worthless, and God can never use them to fulfill His purpose in us.

 -Isaac

Now there is only one choice left - Isaac. God gave him a covenant to Abraham that Sarah would bear him the real promised son, through whom God would fulfil His purpose, and all the nations would be blessed.

But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year. (Genesis 17:21 NKJV)
And He said, "I will certainly return to you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son." (Genesis 18:10 NKJV)
And the Lord visited Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as He had spoken. For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. (Genesis 21:1-2 NKJV)

Isaac represents what we can receive by God's grace - the promise of God. Before the time God gave Isaac to him, He led Abraham to the point that he was completely desperate. God waited until Abraham realised that he could do nothing to help God fulfil His purpose, and only God could do in His timing. It was not what he had or what he could do, but what he could only have by receiving. It was all about God's grace. The principle of Isaac is that God's goal has to be achieved only according to God's time and through God's power.
 May I conclude this first session with the words from Watchman Nee.

May God bring us to the point where we can say to the Lord, "I want to do Your will! You are within me and You must enable me to do Your will. I am not here to do Your will by myself! It must be You, not I!"
We will not please God if we sin, and neither will we please God if we try to do good by our flesh. Whether or not we please God depends on whether the cross has done its work in dealing with our flesh and the natural life. Are we saying, "God, I cannot do anything, and I am not qualified to do anything; I can only look to You"? A person who truly believes in God is one who does not act according to his flesh. God is the Master of the work. The thing that offends God the most is usurping His place in the work. This is often where our mistake lies. We cannot believe, we cannot trust, and we cannot wait. We cannot commit everything to God. This is the root of our offense against God.

Jesus - the real promised Seed of Abraham

Without the light of the New Testament, we can never see how this seed relates to us. In typology, Isaac represents Christ. And allegorically, the apostle Paul demonstrates to us that this singular seed actually is the Seed, Christ Jesus.

Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, "And to seeds," as of many, but as of one, "And to your Seed," who is Christ. (Galatians 3:16 NKJV)

It was not Isaac who fulfilled God's purpose that all the nations would be blessed. No one can be blessed apart from the redemptive work of Christ on the Cross. He was not only cursed in our place, but He also became the curse for us, so that Abraham's blessing would come upon us who receive the promise of Spirit through faith.

¹³ Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"),
¹⁴ that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. (Galatians 3:13-14 NKJV)

Hallelujah for the Seed! He has fulfilled God's promise to Abraham for all the believers. In Him as the Seed, the blessing of Abraham has come upon us!

The Church - the corporate seed of Abraham

The apostle Paul explains that not only Christ, but also all the believers are the seed and heirs according to the promise.

26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Galatians 3:26-29 NKJV)

In God's part, Christ as the Seed has fulfilled the promise. In our part, the Church as the corporate seed is only to enjoy the promise and the inheritance, which is Christ Himself.
Let's come back to Abraham's story. Through Abraham's faith in the Seed, all the Gentiles could become the descendants of Abraham, which were revealed to be as many as the stars in the heaven. All these were not the work of Abraham, but of God who worked in him and through him. All he had to do was function as the vessel through which the Seed was being brought forth. All he had to do was put his faith in the Lord, and by this faith, God accounted him for righteousness.

⁵ Then He brought him outside and said, "Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them." And He said to him, "So shall your descendants be."
⁶ And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness. (Genesis 15:5-6 NKJV)

What kind of faith did Abraham have? It was by no means the faith that God would provide for him the outward blessing, or the prosperity. For Abraham, it was the faith that God was able to work something into him to bring forth the seed. Interestingly, the righteousness that was accounted to him was not directly associated with sin, as God did not mention about sin at all in the context. On the one hand, the justification is needed for salvation, as it is an essential process of it. On the other hand, this particular justification for Abraham was for fulfilling God's purpose of bringing forth the seed for the blessing to all the nations.
We need to have the faith like Abraham. It is not the faith that God can provide good health, wealth, good family, success and all other worldly blessings. Yes, God can do all of them. But that is not the kind of faith God is after. We are to have the faith that God can work Himself into us to bring forth Christ. Through this faith, God justifies us, thereby bringing us to salvation and enabling us to fulfill God's purpose of creating the church to express Him and exercise His dominion on the earth.

Further reading

• The Holy Word for Morning Revival: Crystallization-Study of Genesis, week 15.

• Collected Works of Watchman Nee, The (Set 2) Vol. 35: The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, chapter 4.

Thirayost Nimmanon (Tony)