In This Is Love (part 5)

Continuing to qualify the insistence that Israel is the second entity in the line of definitively regarded sons of God, note must also be taken of Abraham.  Clearly, Abraham is given a covenant, and that covenant carries with it terms that will allow for the demonstration of his obedience.  In his case, the term was circumcision.  Also, righteousness is a term regularly associated with Abraham.  As one considers the divine promises that are said to be on offer to Abraham, it becomes rather clear that the Creator God reveals Himself to Abraham, and in turn reveals Abraham to the world. 

This revelation, when considered within the grand scheme of the Scriptural narrative, would seem to be for the purpose of destroying the works of the devil.  This becomes poignant in light of the fact that Abraham will come to be identified as the father of the faithful, with all of those that eventually gain status of being a part of the Creator God’s covenant people, both before, during, and after the time of Christ, referred to as children of Abraham. 

Abraham may not have thought of himself as having the role of destroyer of the devil’s works, and this may be true of Adam as well, but this study is concerned with the worldview of the author, and with what that means for the worldview that would have undoubtedly shaped his communication to the church of the Christ.  It must be well-noted that Abraham makes his Scriptural appearance after what is said to be the height of man’s rebellious activity, which was the event generally referred to as the tower of Babel, as mankind is reported to have gathered together in one place for the purpose of making a name for themselves.  In this, it is implied that mankind is thereby rejecting the Creator God’s implied command to inhabit the whole of the created world. 

This rejection of responsibility could quite plausibly be identified as the work of the devil, and it can be nicely equated to what Adam had done.  Consequently, Abraham’s call represented the beginning of the Creator God’s corrective measures, and one is almost always well served by bearing in mind that the church (the covenant people of the Creator God) does not strictly begin with Jesus and His disciples, but rather with Abraham.       

In an continuation of this process of qualifying Israel as the explicitly referenced son of God of Scripture, the study is also forced to make reference to the son and grandson of Abraham.  These two, Isaac and Jacob, are set forth as in-line recipients of the Abrahamic covenant and its blessings.  Therefore, if at the bottom line, Abraham’s covenant-connected call was to destroy the works of the devil, then so too was that the call and charge of these two men as well.  However, it should be recognized that the call to do this destroying of the devil’s works was not nearly as overt as it would be for the descendants of Jacob. 

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’s roles appear to be more oriented towards being a blessing to those that surrounded them, primarily (it would seem) through the amassing and distribution of the wealth that is understood to represent the direct blessing of their God, thus providing them with the ability to function in that world-blessing role.  Not only would this be a matter of being able to meet physical needs, but the great wealth which all three came to possess without having to resort to domination and oppression, would inevitably lead to numerous inquiries, from all manner of men, as to the reason and source of such wealth.