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GOD’S
ETERNAL PLAN TO REDEEM MAN [Part Seven] “According
to the eternal purpose”
(Ephesians 3:11) By
Bob Myhan Review Before
the world began, it was the eternal purpose of God not only to create man but
to give to him eternal life “in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 1:8-11; Titus
1:1-2). When Adam and Eve sinned, by eating the forbidden fruit, God
began to reveal His eternal purpose (Gen. 3:14-15). He
gave man a wakeup call in a flood only eight persons survived. Man, however,
did not wake up but continued to deteriorate morally and religiously. God
called Abraham and promised to make of him a great nation, to bless
him and make his name great and to bless all families of the earth in
his seed. And
he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness. (Gen.
15:1-6) Abraham,
thus, became “the father of all those who believe” (Rom. 4:16). When
Abraham was a hundred years old and Sarah, his wife, was ninety, they gave
birth to a son as God had promised them (Gen. 21:1-5). When a problem arose
between Isaac and Ishmael, God reminded Abraham, “in Isaac your seed
shall be called” (Gen. 21:12). God
later tested Abraham’s faith, by commanding him to offer up the son of
promise as a burnt offering. Abraham
rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young
men with him, and Isaac his son; and he split the wood for the burnt offering,
and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. (Gen.
22:3). By
faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received
the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, "In
Isaac your seed shall be called," concluding that God was able to raise
him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative
sense. (Heb.
11:17-19) After
the death of Sarah, Abraham married Keturah, who
bore him six children. He died at age 175. While
Abraham provided for all of his children, he left the bulk of his estate to
Isaac, the son of promise (Gen. 25:1-8). Isaac
and Jacob
At
this point in Moses’ inspired narrative, the focus shifts, as God promises
to Isaac what He had promised Abraham. And
his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the There
was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of
Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech king of the
Philistines, in Gerar. Then the Lord appeared to
him and said: "Do not go down to The
birthright and the blessing were
passed on to Isaac, rather than Ishmael, by the will of God, not by the will
of man. But
it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Likewise,
Esau was the first one born to Isaac, but Jacob was chosen by God. This
is the genealogy of Isaac, Abraham's son. Abraham begot Isaac. Isaac was forty
years old when he took Rebekah as wife, the
daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padan
Aram, the sister of Laban the Syrian. Now Isaac
pleaded with the Lord for his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord
granted his plea, and Rebekah his wife conceived.
But the children struggled together within her; and she said, "If all is
well, why am I like this?" So she went to inquire of the Lord. And the
Lord said to her: "Two nations are in your womb, Two
peoples shall be separated from your body; One people shall be stronger than
the other, And the older shall serve the younger." So when her days were
fulfilled for her to give birth, indeed there were twins in her womb. And the
first came out red. He was like a hairy garment all over; so they called his
name Esau. Afterward his brother came out, and his hand took hold of Esau's
heel; so his name was called Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore
them. (Gen.
25:19-26) And
not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one man, even by our
father Isaac (for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or
evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works
but of Him who calls), it was said to her, "The older shall serve the
younger." ( Esau
despised his birthright
selling it for “one morsel of food” (Gen. 25:27-34; Heb. 12:16-17).
Jacob received the birthright and the blessing not because of his
deceit but because it was the will of God (Gen. 27:1-29). Thus, the “seed
promise” was passed on to Jacob, rather than Esau. However, this does not
mean that Jacob was unconditionally elected to salvation and that Esau was
necessarily lost. It simply means that God elected to fulfill His promises to
Abraham through the younger, rather than the older, of the sons of Isaac. God
appeared to Jacob in a dream and repeated the promise that He had made to his
father and grandfather before him. Then
he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached
to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And
behold, the Lord stood above it
and said: "I am the Lord
God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I
will give to you and your descendants. Also
your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to
the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed
all the families of the earth shall be blessed. (Gen.
28:12-14) God
changed his name from Jacob, meaning “supplanter,”
to Years
later, Jacob moved his family to " “Judah
is a lion's whelp; From the prey, my son, you have
gone up. He bows down, he lies down as a lion; And as a lion, who
shall rouse him? “The
scepter shall not depart from Review
of this Lesson Thus,
God revealed His eternal purpose a little at a time. First, He would put
enmity between the woman and the serpent, between his seed and her seed. Her
seed would bruise the serpent’s head, but the serpent would merely bruise
His heel. (Gen. 3:14-15) God
later revealed, to Abraham, that all the families in all the nations of the
earth would be blessed through his seed (Gen. 12:3; 22:18). He later
eliminated Ishmael by identifying Isaac as the “seed of promise” (Gen.
17:21; 26:1-5). He still further eliminated Esau by making His covenant with
Jacob, or Then,
through Jacob, God eliminated eleven tribes by identifying [To
be continued] |