Abraham’s Rest

Genesis 25:1-11

Immanuel – 5/14/23

Today is the 19th and final sermon following Abraham’s journey of faith, and what a journey it has been! At 75 years old, Abraham left everything that was familiar and comfortable – his hometown and his kindred – to follow God into an unknown place with an uncertain future. And all Abraham had to go off of, were promises made by a God he did not know.

God’s promises to Abraham can be put into three distinct categories: blessing, offspring, land. You see, in Abraham God was initiating a plan to restore what was lost in Eden. Adam and Eve were to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, having dominion over it (Genesis 1:28). That was God’s purpose for humanity on earth. In other words, God commissioned our first parents to transform Earth into Eden; the wild world into an ordered paradise.

The rule of Adam and Eve was to bless the earth. Their offspring would fill it and Eden would cover it. But what was lost to the Fall and sin, God was recreating through righteous Abraham.

Again, God’s promise to Abraham:

1. Blessing: Abraham would be both blessed and a blessing; and as God says in Genesis 12:3, such a blessing would touch all the families of earth.

2. Offspring: nations would come from Abraham’s lineage. It’s a promise of near innumerable descendants that will form the nations of earth.

3. Land: God gave Abraham the Promised Land, saying, “Look from the place where you are, northward, southward, and eastward and westward, for all the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever” (Genesis 13:14-15). Of course, there is no place in the Promised Land where all Israel could be seen. In a symbolic way, God was saying that the Promised Land stretches beyond the horizon, and all of it is for you and your innumerable offspring.

All Abraham had to do was trust God by following Him and worshiping Him. Indeed, Abraham did this, though as we have seen time and again, Abraham did not do it perfectly. Even still, his trust in God endured, strengthened, and saturated him. It was for this trust, this faith, that God counted Abraham as righteous.

Purpose

1. Unpack a few elements of Abraham’s death.

2. The shadows of the Abrahamic Covenant are fully revealed in Christ.

Read Genesis 25:1-11

The Passing of the Patriarch

When we arrive at chapter 25, we might be surprised to learn that Abraham had another wife, Keturah; and with this woman he fathered six sons. I don’t have much interest in getting into this now, but the chronology of these first six verses is entirely ambiguous.

Abraham could have taken Keturah as a wife after Sarah’s death, or he could have had these children with her before God called him to the Promised Land. I’ll let the scholars debate the possibilities, and it really isn’t important for us today.

Whether early or late, the naming of the sons of Keturah comes right at Abraham’s death. It’s very much like how we do obituaries today. When an obituary is released, it lists those the deceased are survived by – sons, daughters, grandchildren, even great-grandchildren. I think this lineage appears at Abraham’s death in a similar manner. You’ll notice that in verses 12-18, Abraham’s descendants through Ishmael are also listed.

Verse 6 says that Abraham sent the sons of Keturah to the east country. This is not back to Mesopotamia, this is southeast, into the Arabian Peninsula. Most of the names listed are the names of historical tribes from Arabia, Midian being the most notable. Centuries later, the Midianites would become bitter enemies of Israel.

When Moses had to flee Egypt, he fled to Midian, and there he married his wife. Just like the descendants of Lot were brought back into the covenant people of God, so were the descendants of Keturah, Abraham’s concubine-wife.

Notice that verse 1 calls Keturah a wife, but verse 6 calls her a concubine. She was not a rightful wife, like Sarah. She was a concubine-wife, like Hagar.

Again, the text is not condoning polygamy, just citing that it happened. In fact, when you look closely, it becomes clear that polygamy always produces strife. Both the sons of Hagar and Keturah become enduring enemies of the son of Sarah. Polygamy is against God’s design; He only holds covenant with the son of Abraham’s rightful wife, Sarah. God only holds covenant with the promised and rightful son, Isaac.

Thus, Abraham only gives gifts to the sons of his concubines. But to Isaac, Abraham gives all that he has. Isaac inherits an incredible fortune. But more than that, Isaac inherits the eternal, everlasting, covenant blessings.

But first, God must call Abraham out of the land for a final time.

Read vs 7-8

175 years, Abraham is surely a blessed man! Remember, Abraham entered the Promised Land when he was 75. When he was 100, Isaac was born. This means Abraham lived 100 years in the Promised Land and upon his death, Isaac, his son, is 75 years old. As the narrative continues beyond Abraham, at 75 years old, Isaac’s own journey begins. Wonderful symmetry!

Also, later in this same chapter (Genesis 25:26), we learn that Isaac was 60 when his twin sons, Jacob and Esau, were born. So, upon Abraham’s death, we realized that all three patriarchs lived together for 15 years in the Promised Land.

Three verbs mark Abraham’s death: breathed his last, died, and gathered to his people. Such poetic repetition heightens the solemnity of the moment. God has called the very first patriarch, the man of faith, home. His years of wandering had ceased, his hopes realized.

Of the three verbs marking Abraham’s death, one of them whispers of eternity: Abraham was gathered to his people. It’s an indication that there’s some immortal element of man, a hint that we can unite with ancestors long passed. Genesis only ever casts shadows of an afterlife, shadows that will be expanded and elaborated as God’s progressive revelation continues to unfold before His people.

As time passed, many ancient Jews certainly came to believe in an afterlife. They understood that everyone who died in righteousness – as the father of faith, Abraham, had done – all these would be gathered to Abraham in everlasting life. They called this paradise Abraham’s bosom, or Abraham’s rest. It was another way to say that those who shared in Abraham’s righteousness will forever rest in paradise, like Abraham.

Read vs 9-10

As far as Scripture informs us, Isaac and Ishmael are estranged. Abraham sent Ishmael away when he was about 17; we’ve heard nothing of him since. Now, more than 70 years later, Ishmael returns to bury the father that banished him.

It’s a story that continues down through the ages. Estranged family members gathering to bury their family’s dead, and all the emotional complications that come with such a reunion.

Isaac and Ishmael have returned to the cave where Abraham buried his beloved wife. The only land he ever owned in the Promised Land is the small cave that will receive his family’s remains. Now, Isaac and Ishmael lay the body of their father beside Sarah’s bones.

Right here, at the cave of Machpelah, Ishmael’s story stops. He vanishes into history. All that is left is the lineage of verses 12-18.

But because he is blessed, Isaac’s story continues.

Read vs 11

The patriarchal pattern is that father blessed son, passing covenantal blessing from father to son. Isaac will bless Jacob, and Jacob his 12 sons. Joseph will bless his two boys. But Abraham never directly blessed Isaac. Instead, in Genesis 25:11, God passes the blessing on; Himself blessing Isaac.

The covenantal transition is complete. Isaac has replaced Abraham as the bearer of the covenant blessing, the father of innumerable offspring, the possessor of the land. Abraham’s calling will now continue through his son.

Shadows Cast Aside

But the covenantal calling will not be fulfilled in Isaac, not even in Jacob – Abraham’s grandson. Indeed, even the nation of Israel will never fully see the covenant given to Abraham fulfilled, only shapes and shadows. Indeed, glorious as the Abrahamic covenant was, it was only a shadow of some greater and coming future covenant. In other words, it was a covenant not meant to be fulfilled in that state, but to be swallowed by a greater covenant.

But why? Why would God not allow the Abrahamic covenant to be fulfilled?

Because Israel inevitably thought they could fulfill it, that they could make it happen. They tried to expand their land with swords and geopolitics, fill the earth with only a pure bloodline, and get God’s blessing by earning it. But it was meant to come by faith, not by human works!

And it’s not just the Jews. No, the Jews represent all of us, bent on doing it ourselves: earning, working, achieving, self-reliant self-righteousness.

This is why, in part, God delivered His law to the Jews. 613 commands that prove to us we are not righteous. We deserve Sodom, not the Promised Land! And nothing we do can make ourselves righteous. What we need is to instead trust in God’s faithfulness and mercy. Our only hope is to trust God and believe in His promises, just as Abraham demonstrated.

Yet every human being is sin-twisted into self-centeredness, no one is inclined to seek after God like Abraham. A faithful few Jews understood this. Their greatest king, David, wrote:

God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all fallen away; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one. -Psalm 53:2-3

This is an inverse of God’s covenant with Abraham: blessing, offspring, land. Of all the children of men that cover the entire face of the earth, all have become corrupted. All have fallen away.

To be crystal clear, when it says that no one seeks after God, it means it is an act of our wills. We willingly chose anything other than God; be it pleasure, comfort, security, man’s praise, whatever else. Anything else will do. We certainly do not want to submit God and His ways.

If our modern society is not the perfect illustration of this, then nothing is! Humanity does not want to leave everything we have worked for behind, to follow an invisible God into land that only produces fruit by faith!

Never! And for our wicked self-reliance, and pursuit of pleasures in anything but God, we are not children of God, but children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3). In a scene most troubling, we all learned what wrath we deserved when God rained fire down upon Sodom. Wrath’s only escape is through a salvation God provides.

Yes! The children of men need not die. Did we not see this when Abraham took his son, his only son, to the altar of death upon Moriah? God provided a substitute, a sacrifice to remove humanity’s fiery death.

It was a shadow pointing to a time when God would send His one and only Son, a descendant of Abraham, to take our place and face God’s wrath. Jesus, the perfectly righteous man, stood in place of the unrighteous. He died our death in the most humiliating manner, executed upon the cross as a contemptible criminal.

He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to His own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. -Isaiah 53:5-6

Jesus cast Himself upon our death, into God’s wrath, knowing He would be pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. He took it all. Yet death could never defeat the Son of God, but He rose in glorious victory. Then, resurrected in His own resounding righteousness, Christ extends forgiveness and righteousness to all who would believe.

For our sake [the Father] made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. -2 Corinthians 5:21

Blessing, Offspring, Land

When we believe in this most gracious work of Jesus, that Christ loved us and gave Himself for us, God counts us as righteous. Is there any greater blessing? Every covenant blessing is ours. We are made righteous. Our sins are forgiven, and we possess a peace that surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7). We rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory (1 Peter 1:8).

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.

-Ephesians 1:3-4

Did you see that? God’s promise of blessing, first spoken to Abraham, now rests upon us. The Abrahamic Covenant swallowed in the glory of Christ and extended to all humanity.

And as those who by faith are blessed, these are the offspring of Abraham. As I have quoted many times in this sermon series, our faith in Jesus is the same type of faith held by our spiritual father, Abraham.

In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

-Galatians 3:26-29

By our union to Christ, we are the offspring of Abraham. We are the innumerable descendants, the countless stars Abraham once gazed upon from afar: we Jews and Gentiles, lowly and lofty, males and females, we who are one in Christ, we are the heirs of Abraham.

If we are the children of Abraham, blessed by the mercies of God, then we too are in pursuit of a Promised Land we shall inherit.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. -Hebrews 11:8-10

When Abraham walked the land of Canaan, the writer of Hebrews tells us that he most fundamentally sought a city, a city not made by human hands but built by God.

Where shall we find this city? It is here. It is present. Just as you receive the blessings by faith, and you are Abraham’s offspring by faith, so too do you enter the city of the living God by faith!

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant.

-Hebrews 12:22-24

Listen again to the tense of that language: You have come…to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You already have, if you have come by faith. Like Jesus said,

“The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”

-Luke 17:20-21

The Promised Land does not lie in some future paradise, or some distant land. It is here. Just as it surrounded Abraham then, it surrounds you now.

In Christ, yours is the blessing, you are the offspring, and you dwell in the land of promise.

But just like Abraham, the land is not yet fully possessed by the covenant offspring. So Christ, the founder of a better covenant, has commissioned us to go into all the earth and make disciples.

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” -Matthew 28:18-20

We do not advance this kingdom on the edge of a sword, but with righteousness, peace, and joy (Romans 14:17) in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And as more and more people are drawn to Jesus by our testimony, disciples are made, and the covenant offspring multiply. They are blessed, and from them blessings flow – like rivers of living water.

As the church is faithful to Christ’s commission, all things are being made new, Heaven and Earth are uniting, Eden is returning.

All these glories were seen in the shadows of Abraham, the first patriarch. He was willing to leave everything behind because of his trust in God, and God counted him as righteous. It’s no different for us today. We follow this patriarch into the Promised Land, blessed and bearing fruit.

But more than Abraham, we follow Christ in victory, righteousness, and the power of the Holy Spirit!

One day heaven will come, and all will be completed and consummated. But that day is not today. The sun is high and it is time for work. Your journey is not complete. When your bones are finally laid to rest, will heaven remember you for your faithfulness to God’s call, or will you squander your time on the trivialities of this fleeting moment?

Even at 75 you are not too old. Abraham was just beginning.

Next week we embark on another sermon series, moving from Abraham to David, from the Abrahamic Covenant to the Davidic Covenant, and into the realm of anointed kings and their mighty men.