Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis. Tonight is study #27 of Genesis, chapter 22, and we are reading Genesis 22:15-19:
And the angel of JEHOVAH called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, And said, By myself have I sworn, saith JEHOVAH, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice. So Abraham returned unto his young men, and they rose up and went together to Beersheba; and Abraham dwelt at Beersheba.
In our last study, we were looking at how God swore by Himself, and we saw that this has to do with the whole Word of God, the Bible, which God has sworn on various occasions, but it was always related to His judgment program or His salvation program. And that is what the whole Bible has to do with, and God has sworn that these things are true and faithful. The things God has said in His Word, the Bible, can be trusted. It can be counted on, and you can know absolutely that everything He declared in the Bible is true and faithful. And He is faithful to bring it to pass. He has already brought most of the things He has said to pass, but the only things remaining have to do with His promises concerning the end of the world and the creation of the new heaven and new earth, which are soon to come.
We also discussed that the Lord was using Abraham as a figure when Abraham had done this thing and not withheld his only son, and it pointed to the deeper spiritual meaning that God the Father had not spared His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. This was what was in view in Abraham’s willingness, historically, to offer up his son at the command of God. The deeper spiritual meaning in the Bible is the level of meaning that is always greatest and more important. It is what God is focused upon and that which He will fulfill.
It says in in Genesis 22:17:
That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven…
We have seen God’s promises to bless Abraham and his seed before, if we go back to Genesis 12:2-3:
And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
I believe that when we went through this chapter, we looked at the word “blessing,” which we will do quickly now as a refresher. Psalm 133 has probably the most definitive verse on the Bible’s teaching of “blessing.” When God speaks of blessing, this is the ultimate blessing. The Lord can give earthly, temporal blessings, like rain and fruitful seasons, but the ultimate blessing (and what the Bible has in view for the most part) is defined here in Psalm 133:3:
As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there JEHOVAH commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.
This is true blessing and ultimate blessing. When God speaks of blessing certain ones and cursing others, if anyone has not received the gift of eternal life, they do not really have the (ultimate) blessing of God. And those that have received the gift of life for evermore possess the blessing of God, even if everything else in their lives in this world is miserable. They may live as a pauper or a beggar full of sores like the example of the beggar in the Gospel of Luke, but they are tremendously “rich” because they have the blessing of salvation. This is the blessing that is in view in Ephesians 1:2-3:
Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
So we have that blessing of salvation, but it is a part of a bounty of rich, spiritual blessing. There is the blessing of receiving a new, perfect soul. There is the blessing of now having communion with God. We will not only live for evermore, but we now have life in the spirit, whereas previously we were dead in trespasses and sins, dead in our soul existence and dead to spiritual things. And since God is Spirit, we were “dead” to God and dead to the kingdom of God. Now we have (spiritual) life and we have communion with God and a relationship with God – our souls have been restored. And now we have existence and life in the spiritual realm, and the Lord can use this new life to channel all kinds of blessings to us through His Word, because the Word of God is spiritual. The Law is spiritual, as we read in Romans 7. So God, through His Word, begins to bless those that became born again and have spiritual life as we read the Bible and the Lord blesses us with understanding of His wonderful truths. He strengthens us in our souls through the partaking of the spiritual Word of God, the Bible. This is all part of God’s wonderful and magnificent salvation program.
It says in Galatians 3:11-16:
But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.
So it was that the blessing of Abraham (which we are reading about) might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ. He was the promised “seed” in the first instance. We read in verse 29 of Galatians 3 that all those in Christ are counted for the seed, and that is what God is referring to in Genesis 22:17:
That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven…
And the blessing is in the “seed,” the Lord Jesus Christ. God blesses all those that He had determined to save before the foundation of the world. Now He has worked all that out, whereby each and every one has become saved. That is the reason He said, “…in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven…” Again, we have seen this type of language before, if we go back to Genesis 17:1-6:
And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, JEHOVAH appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.
This is the language of “multiplying,” which the Lord brought up again in Genesis 22, as well as other times in the Old Testament. It says in Genesis 28:1-4:
And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. Arise, go to Padanaram, to the house of Bethuel thy mother's father; and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban thy mother's brother. And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people; And give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham.
Again, the Lord reiterated the blessing. He gave it to Abraham and Isaac and He gave it to Jacob. It was always the “seed,” because Christ is in view. He is the one identified as the “seed” (singular) and through Him the Gentiles (the nations) would be blessed. This is why Abraham was called the father of many nations. It is the nation of them that are saved. The Gentiles or people of the world that were named in the Lamb’s Book of Life and for whom the Lord Jesus died at the foundation of the world are that “multitude.”
The same promises are repeated in Exodus 32:11-14:
And Moses besought JEHOVAH his God, and said, JEHOVAH, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever. And JEHOVAH repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.
This was at a time in the wilderness sojourn when Israel had done evil or wickedly, once again, and God made this statement. Of course, the promise is to spiritual Israel, not the physical descendants of Abraham, but the descendants through the faith of Christ that would become circumcised in heart by being born again – they are the actual seed of Christ. But, here, God is just using this occasion where He spared the physical descendants of Abraham as an illustration of what He would do spiritually by sparing all His elect.
We have also seen here in Genesis 22 that God said, “That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven.” (It also mentions the sands of the sea shore, which we will look at another time.) The seed will be as the “stars” of heaven. God had brought this up before in Genesis 15:4-5:
And, behold, the word of JEHOVAH came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
Of course, when we look up at the physical sky or heavens at night, we see all the stars. Even before there were telescopes with enormous ability to magnify and show much more of the heavens than the naked eye could see, it was still evident that there were countless stars out there. God was using that. We know there are just incredible numbers of stars, and God uses that picture to indicate that the seed would be as the stars. This was not pointing to the seed (singular), but without Christ there would have been no seed; there would be no multitude of “stars” or elect. But since God is looking at a multitude of stars in the heavens, it has to refer to all those counted in the seed (Christ) that Galatians 29 refers to, and they would be so numerous that we cannot count them. That was also the point that was being made in the entire statement: “That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore.”
You could go to the beach sometime and take a handful of sand, and let it fall back out of your hand onto the beach. It would probably take you a long, long time if you took that handful (of sand) and tried to count each individual grain. And that is only one handful out of an enormous sandy beach.
So it is a very definitive declaration by God that the elect will be a tremendous number. When the Bible indicates that it cannot be counted or numbered, that is true, but God is able to number such things. He is able to number the hairs upon our heads. And, of course, He knows everyone He died for, so He knows the exact number of individuals that He bore the sins for and paid for their sins, and so forth. So if God wanted to reveal that elsewhere in the Bible, that would be according to His good pleasure so to do. And the Bible does give the number of 200 million horsemen that were loosed from Babylon, in the book of Revelation. This may be the total number of those that were named in the Book of Life and saved by the Lord Jesus Christ. I say, “Maybe,” but I would not say that definitely. But if that were the number, it is an incredible number of people – 200 million. One million would be a very large number of people. Ten million would be a super-great number, or 100 million, but 200 million is a vast number. If you were to line them all up, they would stretch pretty far.
So God is indicating that Abraham’s seed, the elect, would be a very great number. We find some information in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 1, and Deuteronomy is becoming more and more interesting as we go through this prolonged period of the Day of Judgment. And we know that the “day of temptation” in the wilderness was also a prolonged period of time that has many parallels with our present Judgment Day or, actually, even dating back to the official day of the ending of the Great Tribulation which was the year 1994. Just as that “day of temptation” was 40 years in the wilderness, the Biblical evidence is indicating that from 1994 to 2033 will be 40 inclusive years of severe testing. And just as the 40 years in the wilderness was called “the day of temptation” in Hebrews 3:8-9, so, too, is the “day of judgment” or the day of the Lord. It is identified with a single day, but a prolonged period is in view. It says in Deuteronomy 1:8:
Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which JEHOVAH sware unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them.
This is, again, referring to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob concerning the Promised Land of Canaan, which was a promise to their seed. We talked about this when we saw that the deeper spiritual meaning is always the more important meaning and, in fact, there are Bible verses where the apparent surface meaning or plain meaning (that the churches insist we cannot go beyond) are impossible to be fulfilled literally, such as the Bible’s command to “circumcise your heart” or God’s statement that He would give the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession. It is an impossibility because the physical land of Canaan will be destroyed with the rest of the world and it will not be everlasting and, therefore, the only way that can be true (and God is always true) is through understanding it on the spiritual level. So when we read here that God speaks of going in and possessing the land, we have to remember, again, that the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness identifies with the “day of temptation,” which identifies with Judgment Day. So the going in to possess the land would relate to the end of the world and going into the eternal kingdom of God. Keep in mind that Deuteronomy is a book that begins in the 40th year, if you look at Deuteronomy 1:3:
And it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spake unto the children of Israel, according unto all that JEHOVAH had given him in commandment unto them;
Not only does the 40th year relate, but the completion of it in the “eleventh” month. Very soon they would enter into the Promised Land. Of course, Moses would not make that trip, but you can see why he was bringing up Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and God’s promise, because where are we living at this time in history? We are living right at the completion of this present wilderness sojourn and severe time of testing. (Well, yes there are a few more years to go, but that is nothing.) Then will come that 40th year, and the Biblical evidence is indicating that will be the end of the world and our final entrance into the new heaven and new earth. So we can see how this relates to our time.
Then it goes on to say in Deuteronomy 1:9-10:
And I spake unto you at that time, saying, I am not able to bear you myself alone: JEHOVAH your God hath multiplied you, and, behold, ye are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude.
He was saying that God had multiplied them. Yes, historically, Israel did multiply to a certain degree and, yet, this is saying that “this day as the stars of the heaven for multitude.” But they were still a nation of not more than one or two million people, so how is that like “the stars of heaven for multitude”? This is another verse that is not true on the plain and literal level. It is not true and, actually, Israel would have greater population at later points in history, so why does God say, “Behold, ye are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude," indicating that the promise made to Abraham (and reiterated to Isaac and Jacob) is fulfilled at that point? And, again, keep in mind what God means by “day.” He said, “Behold, ye are this day,” and God identifies that whole time period as a single day, like the “day of temptation” in the wilderness or the “day of judgment.”
And what can we say at this point in history concerning God’s program of multiplying Abraham’s seed as the stars of heaven for multitude? Well, we will have to answer that question when we get together in our next Bible study.