In the above passage, we see Paul identifying a special group of people from the Jewish heritage that God called to redeem man from his waywardness. These people are those who have THE PROMISE IN THEIR LOINS. Of course we know that this line of Abraham’s progeny will carry the seed of promise: Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ would make a way for humanity to be blessed by God. We see in Genesis that humanity had totally embraced corruption in the Garden of Eden. After the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden, we see mankind’s self-will contaminate the whole world, moving away from the goodness of God to the evilness of man. The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. (Genesis 6:5) When Noah’s ark landed after the flood, he presented God with sacrifices of birds and animals, thanking God for his faithfulness to him and his family by sparing them from the destructive flood. God accepted his sacrifices, probably because they took the place of God’s wrath on Noah and his family. Sin is to be dealt with by the sentence of death. These animals and birds died in place of Noah and his family. However, God knew that the flood and these sacrifices did not rid mankind of his wickedness. Inside of men abode a rebellious spirit, a spirit that strove to free itself from the constraints of God’s goodness and righteousness. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. (Genesis 8:20-21) We see God in these words reiterating the hopelessness of the human race. Mankind would continue to exist, but he would exist in the milieu of sin, under the control of the evil one. As Paul explained in the New Testament, So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and MAKING ME A PRISONER OF THE LAW OF SIN at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? (ROMANS 7:21-24) Since God cannot tolerate man’s sinful nature, outside of Christ, mankind will always be open to God’s judgement of death. After the flood, God promised not to destroy mankind by water, but due to sin man’s very existence would be one of trouble, sorrow, and death, never experiencing fully the grace and mercy of God, and for sure, never inheriting eternal life with God.
Yet in today’s verses, we see God coming to the rescue of a doomed creation. Through Isaac God intended to bring Christ, THE PROMISE of eternal life, into existence. This favored segment of humanity will carry the SEED of the promise in their DNA. Because Abraham the father of Isaac was a man of faith, believing God created all things and secondly that God could raise people from the dead, He received a promise that God would make him a father of many nations. Since this promise is fulfilled in Christ Jesus, millions of Christians populate the world. Abraham’s progeny from Issac forward received this same promise, and the Jewish people would be cherished by God because they carried the promise within their beings. The promise Abraham received was passed from one generation to the next. Paul points out that not all of Abraham’s physical descendants were recipients of this promise. We know Ismael, Abraham’s first child, did not inherit this promise from God, for he was born out of Abraham’s desire to fulfill God’s promise to him. Ismael was a product of works, not grace—the product of Abraham’s will, not God’s will. Abraham’s volition, not God’s will, was evident in the birth of Ismael. The Bible says that God does not share his glory with any man, not even a man of great faith. I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not yield my glory to another or my praise to idols. (Isaiah 42:8) God’s actions will be honored, not Abraham’s. In this excellent example of works and grace, Abraham’s work, his attempt to fulfill a plan, does not satisfy God’s perfect will. God’s grace that leads up to the THE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST satisfies God’s complete, exact nature. Consequently, Isaac was conceived, a miracle in itself, a product of God and not of man. We know that Abraham and Sarah were physically beyond birthing a child; therefore, Isaac is a supernatural work of God. Likewise, Jesus was a supernatural child, conceived not by the action of an earthly father, so was Isaac supernatural in the sense that two humans beyond the physical ability to produce a child conceived Isaac. Through Isaac, God begins to fulfill his promise to Abraham. Isaac personifies God’s will, his nature of mercy and grace. At the appointed time I WILL RETURN, and Sarah will have a son. In recounting this story, Paul disarms the Jewish idea that all Jewish seed will be blessed, for they carry within themselves the human ancestry of the Messiah. Paul says the Promise comes not just through the physical nature of ethnicity, nor through their religious identity, but through faith. Abraham was the father of faith. The ancestry of Faith produced the Messiah, not the physical or religious nature of a specific ethnic group. The grace and mercy of God produced the Messiah, not the physical, religious, or societal traits of any one people. THE PROMISED seed was carried through the biological existence of the Jewish people. This faith was conceived from Abraham’s faith, carried through to the day of Jesus, when Abraham’s faith that God could raise the dead was realized. Jesus was resurrected and so will we be resurrected to meet our Savior in the air.
God’s will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. His will is to bless all people on the Earth through the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Eternal life is the gift of God that Paul expounds upon in today’s scriptures. The promise to Abraham was really a promise of eternal life, existence forever, and that eternal life could only come through THE PROMISE, JESUS CHRIST. He would come through the seed of Abraham, and the passage of that seed would go through the progeny that God selected, not merely a physical action, but a spiritual action. The Jews carried this promise from one generation to the next, always with a hope that the Messiah would soon come to rescue them from sin and death. The Messiah did come from their physical identity, conceived by the Holy Spirit, through the virgin Mary. The Jewish ancestry is not what is important, but the ancestry of faith is the important factor in the realization of the Messiah. It is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. We who are alive IN CHRIST because of our faith in his works before God and not in our works shall forever inherit life. This is our inheritance: But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have be saved. (Ephesians 2:4-5) We, from every country, are children of Abrahams’s faith. We believe as Abraham believed that God created all things and that He raises the dead. Because of that belief in the works of Jesus Christ, we are new creatures. Our birthdate begins at the time of our faith in the Messiah’s work. We are known as born again creatures, inheriting the likeness of God, not man. We are not of one ethnic group, but we are still family. We are not familiar with all of our brothers and sisters in the family of God at this time, but one day we will know all of them by name, for we are brothers and sisters in this holy family. Our names and our nationalities are different, the way we think and act have earthly peculiarities; but we are more like our elder brother, Jesus Christ, that any other characteristic. Our basic nature is his, so we love beyond human understanding. We even love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Isaac was born to parents too old to have a child: his was a supernatural conception. We who are alive IN CHRIST were destined for oblivion before we met him. Who could deliver us, conceived under the auspices of sin, evil in the way we think and act, away from God as all humanity is away from God? Christ could! He brought life to all of us who were dressed in soiled rags, destined for destruction. Praise God, we are clothed in new garments, beautiful in every way, illustrating God’s great love for humanity. At the appointed time, God comes! Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Corinthians 5:17) Rejoice, dear friends.
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