Tidins for Tuesday
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. Galatians 3:16
“At a funeral for an old friend not long ago, I bumped into one of my Sunday School students, and we chatted about old times. She recalled one of the lessons I had taught, a lesson that she said had remained with her all these years. During the lesson, I had placed an apple on the table in front of the children. Handing them a paring knife, I asked them to cut the apple apart, and to tell me how many seeds were in the apple. They did so. Then, I held up one of the seeds, and asked them if they could tell me how many apples were in the seed. That led to an interesting discussion about the possibilities for that seed, if it were to be planted and it were to sprout into a tree. The tree, we mused, could bear any number of apples over a very long lifetime, and each of those apples would have seeds, any of which could grow into another tree that would produce untold numbers of apples. And so on, and on and on. Like those seeds, as Abraham listened to God’s promises, he had no way to tell the great numbers of his offspring. There were the descendants of Ishmael, the descendants of Isaac, and the descendants of the children of Keturah. And added to all of those are the children of Abraham by faith. These come into the promises not by virtue of Abraham, but of Christ.
Promises were made to the children of Ishmael, and those promises are being fulfilled, even today. Promises were made to the children of Isaac, and those promises are not only being fulfilled today but will see even greater fulfillment in the future. Gifts were given to Keturah and her children, and we know little of those (speaking for myself). But Paul, as he considers faithful Abraham, acknowledges that the great promises of God are through Abraham’s Seed, not through his seeds. He brings before us today the reality that it is Christ, not Abraham, who is the source and channel of all of God’s rich promises. Even the magnificent future that God has in store for His earthly people Israel in a coming day will occur as they recognize in Abraham’s Seed their King and Lord. This is a recognition that every Christian today acknowledges and rejoices in.
Recall the account of a sickly beggar named Lazarus in Luke 16, a man whose death ushered him into Paradise. The name of his abode of comfort is Abraham’s bosom. That was because his comfort came through the promises that God gave to Abraham. Abraham’s bosom awaits us, too, because through Abraham, and Abraham’s Seed, are all of our hopes residing. -Jim MacIntosh