Shifting Strategy; Set Purpose

            Genesis 1-11 is the record of God’s dealings with humanity as a whole.  That approach led to the Fall, the murder of Abel, the Flood, and the scattering at Babel.

            In Genesis 12, the Lord changed strategies and began to deal with one family out of the all the families of the earth for the benefit of all the families of the earth.  That is to say, the point of God’s dealings with Abram and his family—dealings that extend all the way to the book of Malachi—is to bring salvation to all humans.  Abraham’s family will be the instrument, the conduit, through which He will bring healing to the nations.

            Too often in Israel’s history she failed to grasp that grand purpose and thought that she was the end in herself.  She held on to the promise about being a great people and she held tenaciously to the promise about her land.  But she missed that she was meant to be a light for the Gentiles.  (One can argue that the Church has the same problem.  When God chooses you for a special purpose, it’s pretty easy to start thinking your special and losing sight of the fact that your ‘specialness’ consists in being used for God’s purpose.)

            Anyhow, look at Genesis 12:1-3 a little more closely:

            “The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.

            “I will make you into a great nation

                        and I will bless you;

            I will make your name great,

                        and you will be a blessing.  

            I will bless those who bless you,

                        and whoever curses you I will curse;

            and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (NIV; Genesis 12:1-3).

Notice God’s promise has seven clauses—three pairs of two and a climactic seventh one.  Literarily, it’s clear that the last clause—about the peoples being blessed through Abram is the main point of the promise.

            Then look at the other story in Genesis 12:  Abram goes to Egypt to escape a famine and passes Sarai off as his sister, not his wife.  I think the reason this story is placed right here is to underline the important point that Abram is not the story.  God’s promise is the story.  For Abram’s part, he loses his nerve.  He does not believe the land God promised him will support him; he does not believe God will protect him until the promise just made is kept.  God’s response—to afflict the Egyptians—is probably not meant as a punishment to the Egyptians, rather, I think it’s meant as a goad to get the Egyptians to kick Abram out and get him back to the land he was supposed to be in.

            Abraham’s family will give the Lord as many problems as Adam’s family ever did.  But by placing His promise in one people in one land, He will manage and protect that promise for the eventual blessing of all humanity.  God’s goal and purpose remain the same; His strategy to accomplish that goal and purpose shifts a little.  In the long story of Abraham’s family, let’s not lose sight of the fact that the Lord is always moving things toward His eventual goal:  the undoing of Adam’s sin and the damage it has done to His creation.