A Lenten Bible Study: Genesis to Jesus Lesson Six: Our Father in Faith

Here is the sixth lesson in the Saint Paul Center for Catholic Biblical Theology's Lenten Scripture study, Genesis to Jesus. Follow along, and by the end of Lent, you'll understand the importance of Easter in light of God's plan for our salvation. Sign up to receive new video lessons [here] and buy related study materials.
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In our last lesson, we examined the story of God’s covenant with humanity through Noah. We saw the parallels between the original creation story, and the account of the great flood in which the world experienced a kind of rebirth. Now we’ll look at how God’s covenant blessing passes to all nations, through the great patriarch Abraham. Among other things, we will see the connection between covenant blessing, and the trials that God’s faithful children undergo. We’ll also examine how God rewards Abraham’s obedience by renewing the covenant he made with him. That renewal comes with an incredible promise to regather the families of the earth scattered at the Tower of Babel, and restore them to blessing, in the family of God. Finally, we will see how God’s people eventually make their way down into Egypt, and then trace the events that lead to the Exodus.

Recall that at the very beginning of the world, God gave his blessing to creation. The sign of that blessing is life – both the gift of life itself and the power to bring forth new life. That blessing is passed on from generation to generation through family. We see this in Genesis when, after the Fall, God’s blessing is restored through Noah. Noah, in turn, passes that blessing on to his firstborn son, Shem. In the previous lesson we discussed that when humanity chose to go its own way at the Tower of Babel, God confused their language and scattered the people to the four corners of the earth. He did that because they were glorifying themselves instead of God. That happened in Genesis 11.

Just one chapter later, in Genesis 12, God promises Abraham, who is a descendant of Noah’s son Shem, that he will bless him. Even more, he promises that through Abraham, all humanity will be blessed. In just three verses in Genesis 12:1-3, God actually uses the word “bless” five times.

As in the past, this blessing will be transmitted from generation to generation through the family, this time through Abraham’s descendants. One of the most important things we learn from God’s conversation with Abraham in Genesis 12, is that man will never be united through his own attempts, like at Babel, to make a name for himself. Instead, true unity will only come about through God, who promises to make Abraham’s name great.

We can start to see this unity happening on the timeline of salvation history as God continues to expand his family through covenants. So far, we have seen how God expanded his family from two people – Adam and Eve – to a family – Noah and his household. Now, through his covenant with Abraham, God expands his family even further. Where Noah was the father of a household, Abraham is the head of an extended family. He is the chieftain of a tribe.

If you think back to our lesson on creation, you’ll remember that Adam’s disobedience triggered the covenant curses. These curses continued to weigh heavy on all of Adam’s descendants. However, God calls Abraham as the beginning of his solution to the problem created by Adam. Adam’s failure brought curses upon the world. Abraham’s faithfulness brought blessings upon the world.

Let’s see how all of this unfolds in Scripture. Genesis 12:1-3 states: “1 Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; 2 And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; 3 And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.’”

God promises Abram, whose name he will later change to Abraham, three things; land and nationhood, a dynastic kingdom, and a worldwide family. All families will be blessed through Abram. Later, because of Abram’s patient endurance and faithfulness, God will upgrade these three promises to three covenant oaths.

When God first call Abram, which means “exalted father,” to leave his home and journey to an unknown land, Abram is 75 years-old, very wealth, and childless. Despite his age and his wealth, Abram obeys. Abram’s on the back side of life, he’s loaded and lives in a nice place. God says, “Listen up, Abram, I’m going to bless you, but you’ve got to move to Canaan” (a town 400 miles away). Travel, at this time, was neither simple nor easy. But along with his wife Sarai, and his nephew Lot, and many domestic servants and their families, Abram does it. He leaves to begin a new life in the land of Canaan.

The Book of Hebrews tells us that he did all of this in faith, trusting God’s call every step of the way. Leaving his home and kin at age 75 is only one of the trials Abram will endure after being chosen by God. As we’ll see throughout this lesson, Abram’s life reveals that the road to blessing is paved with trials and temptations. These trials will include famine, exile and the temporary loss of his wife, family strife and division, wars, unfulfilled promises, marital discord, painful surgery, supernatural disaster, the temporary loss of his wife once again, even more family strife, and being asked to sacrifice his beloved son.

But the remarkable thing is that Abram’s faith grows stronger through each of these tests. God rewards that faith by upgrading his promise of blessings to covenant oaths in Genesis 15, 17, and 22. Hebrews 6:13-17 reads: “13 For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, 14 saying, “I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you.” 15 And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise. 16 For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute. 17 In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath…”

Let’s consider how each of God’s promises becomes a covenant oath. But first, we should highlight the fulfillment of another very important promise – a promise that points forward to Jesus Christ. In Genesis 12, God promises to bless Abram. In Genesis 14, he fulfils that promise when Abram encounters a man named Melchizedek. Melchizedek is the righteous king of Salem, which in Hebrew means peace. In Genesis 14:17-20, we see that Melchizedek is not just a king, but also a priest. In fact, he’s the first person to be called a priest in all of Scripture.

During their encounter, Melchizedek offers bread and wine, then blesses Abram. Abram, in turn, pays homage to Melchizedek by offering a tithe. Bread, wine, and tithes probably sound pretty familiar to you – and it should. As scholars have noted, Melchizedek prefigures Jesus Christ in this encounter. Christ is also a priest king, who offers bread and wine, and receives our homage. The author of the Book of Hebrews makes the similarities even more explicit. Hebrews 6:19-7:2 writes:

19 “This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, 20 where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. [Ch 7:] 1 For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham as he was returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom also Abraham apportioned a tenth part of all the spoils, was first of all, by the translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then also king of Salem, which is king of peace.”

We turn our attention to the covenant oaths. In Genesis 12, God promised Abram that he would make him a great nation. But many years later, in Genesis 15, Abram still has no children. So when God comes to him again and promises him a “great reward,” Abram says what good is a reward since I have no son to inherit it. At this point, God pledges to give Abram a son, and through him innumerable descendants. God also tells Abraham that these descendants will be delivered from bondage and receive the Promised Land, the land he promised to Abram back in Genesis 12.

Abram’s encounter with God then ends in a mysterious ceremony where God seals the covenant. After putting Abram into a deep sleep, God himself passes between the remains of animals that had already been cut in two by Abram. While this kind of ceremony is foreign to the modern mind, covenants were often sealed by sacrifice. It is something you see over and over in Scripture. The reason is that there is real symbolism bound up in sacrifice. The blood of the oath-takers would be spilled like the sacrificial animals if they don’t keep the covenant.

This ritual oath ceremony marks the first promise God made to Abram – land and nationhood – being upgraded to a covenant. More time passes, however, and the son God promised still doesn’t arrive. Not surprisingly, Abram and Sarai grow impatient and decide to take matters into their own hands. Perhaps in a fit of desperation, Sarai tells Abram to take her Egyptian handmaid, Hagar, and have a son with her. Abram does what she recommends. This proves to be a mistake. To start with, it creates some serious domestic problems. Once Hagar conceives a son, Genesis 16:4 tells us that she begins looking upon her mistress “with contempt.”

Now, domestic problems are one thing; unfortunately, it didn’t end there. Abram and Sarai’s decision eventually creates a few geopolitical problems that are still with us to this day. The son born of Hagar, Ishmael, becomes the father of the Arab nation. And the son eventually born to Sarai – Isaac – is the father of the Israelite nation. But at this point in our story, Abram’s only son is Ishmael. Thirteen years after Ishmael’s birth, God again appears to Abram, and gives both Abram and Sarai new names.

Abram will now be Abraham, which means “father of a multitude,” and Sarai will be Sarah, which means “great mother” or “princess.” In Genesis 17:16 God says of Sarah, “Kings of people will come forth from her.” This declaration is a foreshadowing of God’s covenant with David in 2 Samuel 7, which we’ll discuss in a later lesson. Next, God tells Abraham that his shortcut to getting an heir through Hagar didn’t work. Ishmael is not the son of the promise. That son will be born of Sarah. God then promises Abraham that Sarah will give birth to a son in one year [See Genesis 17:21].

There is, however, a catch. The promise of a son through Sarah includes a command: Abraham must circumcise himself and all the males of his tribe. Also, from that day forward, all of Abraham’s descendants must be circumcised on the eighth day. Despite the fact that Abraham is 99 years-old at the time, despite the fact that Sarah is 90, and despite the fact that circumcision is a painful and difficult procedure for a grown man, Abraham trusted God and did as he was told. That obedience reveals him to be a man of tremendous faith. The other members of Abraham’s tribe also evidenced great faith in submitting to circumcision along with Abraham.

One year later, Abraham’s faith is rewarded. Sarah gives birth to a son, Isaac. The child grows strong and healthy, and on the day he is weaned, his father throws a great feast in his honor. But during the feast, Sarah sees Ishmael, playing with her son, and begins to fear that he will try to usurp Isaac’s place, possibly by doing Isaac harm. To protect him, she presses Abraham to banish Ishmael and Hagar from their camp – and kick them out. At first, Abraham hesitates. After all, Ishmael may not be the son of the promise, but he is still his son, and Abraham loves him. So rather than act, he waits for directions from the Lord.

The directions come. God tells Abraham to do as Sarah wants, but promises to one day make a great nation out of Ishmael’s descendants. Once Ishmael is banished, Abraham is left with only one son, his beloved son Isaac. Many years pass. Then comes the ultimate test of Abraham’s faith. God asks him to sacrifice Isaac on a mountain in the land of Moriah, a site that will later be known as Jerusalem. Unbelievably, Abraham doesn’t hesitate. He gathers the supplies they’ll need and sets off on the three-day journey, a journey he believes will end with the death of his son.

Once they arrive at Moriah. Isaac carries the wood for the sacrifice up the mountain. Isaac then asks his father, “Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” His father’s response? “God will provide himself the lamb.” And sure enough, just as Abraham is about to plunge the knife into Isaac, the Lord calls out to Abraham and tells him to spare his son. Abraham then spots a ram and offers it to the Lord instead. Afterwards, for the third and final time, God upgrades his promise to Abraham into a covenant, swearing an oath in Genesis 22:15-18 to bless all nations through the seed of Abraham.

The oath God swears in Genesis 22:18 echoes the promise he made to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. If you recall, he promised in Genesis 3 to bring deliverance through the “seed” of the woman. Now, God promises to save the world through the seed or “descendants,” of Abraham. And just as the woman’s seed, not the woman herself, will bring salvation to the world, likewise, it is Abraham’s seed, not Abraham himself, who will redeem the world.

Both seeds, of course, are the same person. Christ, the woman’s seed, is also Abraham’s descendant. Galatians 3:14-17 says: “14 that the blessing of Abraham might be extended to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. 15 Brothers, in human terms I say that no one can annul or amend even a human will once ratified. 16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his descendant. It does not say, “And to descendants,” as referring to many, but as referring to one, “And to your descendant,” who is Christ. 17 This is what I mean: the law, which came four hundred and thirty years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to cancel the promise.”

Abraham’s story is the opposite of Adam’s story. When Adam disobeyed God, humanity was cursed. But when Abraham obeys God, even to the point of sacrificing his beloved son, humanity is blessed. Eventually, through Abraham’s seed, the curses incurred by the human race at the Fall will be fully reversed.

Most of this lesson has been spent talking about the obedience of Abraham. But Isaac deserves credit as well. When ancient rabbis talked about this story, they called it the Aqedah, which meant “the binding” of Isaac. They believed that this story is as much about Isaac’s self-offering as it is about Abraham’s faithfulness. This is because if Isaac were strong enough to carry the wood up the mountain, he was strong enough to resist being tied up to that pile of wood as a sacrifice. He was a young man, not a little boy. He could have easily stopped his elderly father. But he didn’t.

In fact, Jewish tradition says that Isaac was bound at his own request. He asked to be tied down so that he wouldn’t resist and struggle against his father while he was being sacrificed. Like the previous covenants we’ve discussed, the early Church fathers understood that the sacrifice of Isaac foreshadowed the sacrifice of another beloved son – Jesus Christ. Like Isaac, Jesus Christ is the beloved Son of the Father, offered for the salvation of the word. Like Isaac, Jesus carries the wood of his sacrifice up the mountain in full submission to his Father’s will. Hebrews 11:19 tells us that Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son because “he considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead.” And as we all know, Jesus is raised from the dead on the third day, just as Abraham received his son back from the sentence of death at the end of their three-day journey.

In the Church’s liturgy, this story in Genesis 22 is also read in connection with Jesus’ transfiguration. There, at the top of Mt. Tabor, the Apostles hear God the Father say [Mark 9:7], “This is my beloved Son.” This brings to mind God’s words to Abraham [Genesis 22:2], “Take your son, your only begotten son Isaac, whom you love…” The difference, of course, is that God the Father did not stop the death of his beloved Son. In fact, he willed that his Son should fulfill all the covenants of salvation history by a death he freely accepted. Abraham had no idea how his actions would foreshadow that day of ultimate blessing. But, even his words to Isaac, “The Lord will provide himself the lamb,” come true in Jesus Christ. Interestingly, God provides that lamb, Christ, at the very place of Abraham’s sacrifice, Mt. Moriah.

Later in Israel’s history, the Temple of Jerusalem is built on Mt. Moriah. It is there that the people of Israel offer their sacrifices, in effect reminding God of his promise to Abraham. The need for those sacrifices comes to an end, however, when Christ – the promised Lamb of God – is sacrificed on Calvary. And Calvary, located just outside the ancient city of Jerusalem, is part of this very mountain where Abraham offered Isaac so many centuries ago.

Before we consider how Abraham’s descendants ended up enslaved in Egypt, let us review the promises and oaths of God’s covenant with Abraham. Remember in Genesis 12, God made three promises to Abraham: a land and nation, kingship, and worldwide blessing. Later, these three promises are strengthened by covenant oaths. In Genesis 15, God swears an oath that Abraham’s descendants will be given the Promised Land. In Genesis 17, God swears that kings will come forth from Abraham and Sarah. And finally, in Genesis 22, God swears that all nations will be blessed through Abraham’s descendants.

Now, about those descendants. Abraham’s son Isaac has two sons – Jacob and Esau. Just as God chose Abraham’s youngest son Isaac rather than his elder son Ishmael to be the son through whom the blessings of the covenant passed, so too, Isaac’s younger son Jacob is chosen over his older brother Esau. Also, many years later, Jacob’s younger son Joseph will be chosen over his older brothers.

This is a subplot that runs throughout the Bible – the younger being chosen over the elder to carry God’s plan of salvation forward. The younger is often chosen over the elder because over and over again in Scripture, the older son is prideful. Just as Adam, the firstborn of creation, fell into pride, a long line of older sons in the Bible fall in a similar way. However, according to worldly standards, the older should be chosen. After all, shouldn’t the older and stronger son have pride of place? But God flips that argument upside down. He chooses the younger son over the elder son to show that his plans are fulfilled through his power, not man’s. St. Paul makes this clear when he writes in Romans 9:11,16 that God chose the younger over the elder, “In order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call… so it depends not on man’s will or exertion, but upon God’s mercy.”

Besides the younger being chosen over the elder, what happens to Abraham’s offspring? Well to start with, Jacob, Abraham’s grandson and Isaac’s son, gets a new name. Just as his grandfather’s name was changed from “Abram” to “Abraham,” Jacob’s name is changed to “Israel.” Israel has twelve sons, whose descendants become the twelve tribes of Israel. But before that happens, those twelve sons make their way down into Egypt. The story of how that happens is how the Book of Genesis ends.

The beginning of the end, so to speak, is when Israel gives one of his younger sons, Joseph, a beautiful coat. His older brothers become jealous, and sell him into slavery, which seems like a bit of an overreaction to Joseph’s extravagant gift of clothing. In reality, they were furious because the coat was a sign of their father’s preferential love.

Joseph eventually ends up in Egypt, where he lives as a slave and then as a prisoner until he has the opportunity to use his God-given gift of interpreting dreams. That opportunity comes, and he uses that gift to explain a dream of the pharaoh about a coming famine. Recognizing his extraordinary wisdom, the pharaoh makes him prime minister of all Egypt. But while Joseph’s wisdom spared Egypt from starvation, the rest of the region was not so fortunate.

That is why Joseph’s brothers, like many others, come to Egypt hoping to buy food. There, the family is reunited. But instead of returning home to the land God gave them, all of the brothers remain in Egypt. They wanted to enjoy the finest real estate the Egyptians had to offer. Unfortunately, that life of luxury eventually turns into a life of misery when a new Pharaoh arises who doesn’t know Joseph and sees the Hebrew people as a threat.

That new Pharaoh enslaves the sons of Israel. But as they wait for their deliverance, the families of Israel find hope in God’s words to Joseph [Genesis 48:21]: “God will be with you, and will bring you again to the land of your fathers.” Remember, way back in Genesis 15, God promised Abraham that he would deliver his descendants from slavery. The Israelites know help is coming it is just a question of when.

In the next lesson, we will look at the arrival of God’s promised help with the coming of Moses, as well as the direction God’s relationship with Israel takes once he’s delivered them out of Egypt. Moses is easily one of the most pivotal figures in all of Scripture. As we will see, when it came to leading the people of Israel, he had his work cut out for him.