From Eternity to Eden
Last week we started our overview of the history of the church, or overview of what the Bible says about the people of God. We learned that the church is the people of God who believe the promises of God, from both the Old and New Testaments, in their gathered state. We learned that, by definition, the “church” is the assembly of God’s people, those who’ve been called out of the world and called together to worship God. We learned that this assembly was conceived in the mind and heart of God before time began. Ephesians 1:4, God “chose us in him before the foundation of the world.”
To summarize, the church is the chosen people of God who believe the promises of God and who’re gathered together before God.
From Eden to Exodus
We learned last week that the what of God’s plan for the world starts in eternity past. This week we’ll see that the story of how God would accomplish his plan begins in a garden in Genesis. Today we’re going to follow this story from the Garden of Eden to Mount Sinai, from “Eden to Exodus,” focusing on the story of Abraham in Genesis.
Life in the Garden
In Genesis 1, we learn that God created the universe out of nothing by his powerful word. We learn that he created a beautiful garden and created man and woman to enjoy it and take care of it. I love how Carl Laferton describes life in the garden in his book for children called, The Garden, the Curtain, and the Cross. He says, “In the garden, everything was wonderful. The world was full of laughing and playing and smiling and fun. There was nothing bad, ever. There was no one sad, ever. And best of all, God was there! He made it all. He was in charge of it all. He loved it all. People could see God, and speak to God, and just enjoy being with God. It was wonderful to live with God.”
Life Outside of the Garden
Adam and Even living with God in perfect fellowship, worshipping and enjoying and obeying him, are the first hints at what will become the church. Unfortunately, they disobeyed God and those hints were scattered. As Laferton says, “Sin spoils things. So sin has no place in God’s wonderful garden. God said to the people, ‘You can’t live with me in my garden anymore.’ And he sent them outside…Now things were sometimes bad, and people were sometimes sad. But people still kept sinning because they didn’t want God to be in charge. So no one could come into God’s wonderful place. God said, ‘Because of your sin, you can’t come in.’”
Because God is just and will never leave sin unpunished, Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden. But because God is merciful, he didn’t kill them immediately. He let them live and gave them children and a promise that one day the serpent would be destroyed by the offspring of the woman (3:15).
God didn’t reject mankind. Instead, he patiently prepared his plan to assemble a people who would worship and enjoy him forever. Man’s work in the garden was done, but God’s work with man was only beginning.
Church on a Boat
In the next scene of the story, in Genesis 6-9, God saves eight people from a cataclysmic flood because they believed God’s promise of a rescue. This again hints at what will become the church. Christians, like Noah and his family, are people who obey God and trust his promises, live differently from their surrounding culture, and are baptized (or get wet without drowning, just like Noah and his family) as evidence of their faith.
A City Collapses
The next scene brings us to a plain in the land of Shinar (modern day Iraq), where people attempted to build a tower in order to make a name for themselves (Gen. 11). Unfortunately for them, their attempt to build a city at Babel and make themselves a people comes to a halt. Fortunately for us, God’s plan to build a people for himself remains in motion.
Adam and Eve failed to honor God in the Garden. All of humanity, even Noah, failed to honor God before and after the flood. And the people at Shinar failed to honor God with their tower and city. But God’s plans and purposes were not failing. In spite of and even through these spectacular sins, God’s plan of assembling a people for himself was moving forward.
Abram Enters the Plan
One of the most important parts of his plan involves a Chaldean man named Abram from a city called Ur. In Genesis 12, God comes to Abram, who was seventy five years old with no kids, and moves him to center stage in his plan for the world. Despite impossible odds, God will make a people for himself through old, childless, Abram.
Look at what God promises Abram in Genesis 12:1-3. God tells Abram to leave everything he knows and follow him into the unknown. He promises to bless him and make him a great nation and give him a great name, to bless those who bless him, curse those who curse him, and bless all the families, or nations, of the earth through him. God goes on to promise Abram a great land (13:14-15) and innumerable descendants (v. 16).
Two Types of Covenants
God uses the language of “covenant” to describe what he’s doing with Abram (15:18). What is a covenant? Pastor Michael Lawrence says that a covenant “is not merely a ‘contract’ or a ‘promise’ as we understand such things. Rather, it’s a bond that establishes an all-encompassing relationship…It’s a claim on someone’s total loyalty and allegiance.”
There are two types of covenants, conditional and unconditional, or covenants of works and covenants of grace. In a conditional covenant, or covenant of works, the promises are dependent on obedience. The Mosaic covenant is a conditional covenant. In an unconditional covenant, or covenant of grace, the promises are not dependent on obedience. The Abrahamic covenant is an unconditional covenant. Yes, God makes demands on Abraham, but the fulfillment of his promises aren’t dependent on Abraham’s obedience, but are rather gifts God’s grace.
God’s Covenant with Abraham Intensifies
In Genesis 17, God’s vow with Abram intensifies. How do we know this? Several reasons. Abram and Sarai are given new names as a result of what the Lord says here. A “sign of the covenant” is given (i.e. circumcision). It would no longer be ambiguous who was part of the covenant and who wasn’t. And, perhaps most importantly, the covenant is now called an “everlasting covenant” (vv. 7, 13).
We learn several other important things from this chapter about the people that God is assembling starting with Abram and Sarai. God’s people would be a miraculous people, an international people, and a marked-off people.
A Miraculous People
First, we see that God’s people will be a miraculous people, meaning that they’ll have a miraculous origin (vv. 1-5). God says that he’ll “multiply Abram greatly” (v. 2) and that he’ll be “the father of a multitude of nations” (vv. 4-5). Remember, Abram is almost one hundred years old and his wife Sarai is ninety. People at that stage of life can’t do many things, one of which is have intercourse, get pregnant, and have children. But God insists that they won’t just have a child but will be “exceedingly fruitful” (v. 6). Try telling this to your grandparents next time you see them and see how they respond. They’ll probably respond the same way Abram does in verse 17.
But God wasn’t kidding. He used the language of mathematics (“multiply,” v. 2), biology (“offspring,” v. 7), astronomy (“stars,” 15:5), and geology (“dust,” 13:16) to make it clear that Abram’s people would be innumerable. Later he compares the number of his descendants to the sand at the beach (22:17). God tells a childless couple who’s almost one hundred years old that their offspring will number in the billions.
How is this possible? Only by God’s miraculous intervention. Their children will come from God’s hand (v. 16). Nothing else can explain how they’ll be able to have billions of descendants, much less have one child. God will get all the credit for what happens with Abram and Sarai’s family because he’s the one who started it.
God’s people are a miraculous people who owe their origin to God alone. This truth carries forward into the New Testament. Listen to how the apostle John describes why people receive and believe in Jesus: “To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn. 1:12-13). And the apostle James, “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth” (1:18). God brings us to Jesus, grants us faith, and gives us the right to be his children by his grace and through his word, not by our will.
If God is the one who makes us his, we need to stop thinking that we can do anything to force his hand. He creates his people by grace. And if he makes us his, he has purposes for us. If he makes us his, he will keep us. If he makes us his, he will be with us. If he makes us his, we should worship him.
An International People
The second thing we learn about the people that God is assembling through Abram is that they’ll be an international people. Abram and Sarai’s people will come from all the nations. We see this in verses 4-6 and verse 16.
This promise was part of the Lord’s initial calling of Abram in 12:3. God wanted to bless “all the families of the earth” through Abram. God set his gracious gaze on Abram the Chaldean, but his eyes were on all the nations. His plan was to assemble a people, starting with Abram, that would eventually include all the people groups of the world.
Abraham of course never saw this fulfilled. He had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. God promised to make Ishmael a great nation (17:20), but it would be Isaac who would inherit the covenant (v. 21). Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau. Esau’s descendants became the Edomites and were enemies of God’s people. Jacob was renamed “Israel” and his descendants inherited the covenant promises made to Abraham.
Abraham’s son Ishmael and his two grandsons, Jacob and Esau, would turn into three nations. This is hardly the “multitude of nations” that God promised Abram (v. 4). But the promises were for Abraham and his offspring (v. 7). His grandson Jacob understood this. When he was dying, he prophesied that Judah, one of his twelve sons, would receive “the obedience of the peoples” (49:10). All the peoples of the world would come under the rule of one of Abraham and Judah’s descendants.
This means that God has always loved all ethnic groups and that ethnocentrism, or thinking that your ethnic group is superior, is ungodly and evil. This also means that we should focus our mission efforts on unreached people groups, as bringing them all under the obedience of Christ is God’s goal in the world.
A Marked-Off People
The third thing we learn about the people that God is assembling through Abram is that they’ll be a marked-off people. They’ll be visibly identified through an outward ceremony. We see this in verses 9-14. Abraham’s people would be circumcised. This would be a “sign of the covenant” between God and Abraham (v. 11).
This “sign” did not save Abraham. All of God’s promises to him were made to him in his uncircumcised state. His circumcision thus does not mark the moment when he suddenly belonged to God. Paul understood this. He says in Romans 4:11, “He (Abraham) received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.”
The only way to be made right before God is through faith. Genesis 15:6, “(Abraham) believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” Trusting the promises of God is the only way to get the righteousness of God. No outward religious act, no good behavior, no moral excellence will bring you into a right relationship with God.
Righteousness is granted to those who know that they’re not righteous, those who understand that they’ve sinned against their Creator, those who understand that, because of their sin, they can’t go in to his presence. Righteousness is granted to all who humbly acknowledge their guilt before God and turn to Jesus to save them.
Jesus, the Righteous One, always did what was right. He died in the place of those who’ve done so much wrong. Through faith in his work, he takes our sin and gives us his righteousness. 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Despite what you’ve done, do you stand before God with a heart unburdened of guilt? Do you have peace with God? Whose righteousness are you hoping in?
Abraham and Sarah, despite all their faults, teach us that God is pleased with humble, obedient faith in his promises. This kind of faith is rewarded with righteousness. Have you humbly obeyed the gospel and repented of your sins and put your trust in God’s promise of forgiveness in Christ? If you have, you’re part of God’s great assembly. If not, you’re still on the outside looking in.
The Sign of the New Covenant
God’s people are saved by faith, but they’re marked-off by a sign. The sign of the old covenant was circumcision. The sign of the new covenant is baptism. Paul mentions both, linking them in Colossians 2:11-12. Paul’s assumption is that those who’ve been baptized have received new life through faith. Although baptism doesn’t save anyone, in the New Testament it’s a clear marker of those who’ve been saved.
This is one reason why we don’t baptize babies. Circumcision and baptism are similar, but not the same. Circumcision marked off the ethnic people of God. Baptism marks off the spiritual people of God, those who’re trusting his promises.
As we get ready to observe two baptisms this morning, let me point out that baptism is about Jesus’ story, not our story. We’ll hear the stories of two individuals coming for baptism, and I love this because it gives us an opportunity to see what God has done to bring them to this point.
But baptism points us to a story that’s the same for every follower of Christ. Colossians 2:12 says that, through baptism, we’re buried “with Christ” and raised “with Christ through faith in the powerful working of God.” Baptism, therefore, identifies us with Jesus so that his story becomes our story. We died with him and were raised with him. Our baptism is our way of saying publicly, “Jesus’ story is my story. What happened to him has happened to me. I have died with him, and now I live with him.”
God’s people have always been marked-off by an outward sign. Our baptism is the sign that we’re believing the new covenant promises of God. This is one reason why we ask that only those who’ve been baptized partake of the Lord’s Supper with us. Baptism publicly identifies us as those saved by Jesus’ blood.
What Have We Learned about the People of God?
What have we learned from Genesis 17 about the people of God? We’ve learned that God’s people are a miraculous people, an international people, and a marked-off people.
Let’s put what we learned last week and this week together. Who is the church? The church is the chosen, miraculously created, international, marked-off people of God who believe the promises of God who are gathered together before God.
Abraham’s people ended up slaves in Egypt, but God wasn’t done with them. He would fulfill his word. He would assemble his church. So he raises up a descendant of Abraham, an Israelite who’s an Egyptian prince, Moses, and uses him to lead his people out of slavery and to the land promised to Abraham. But first they must stop at Mount Sinai and assemble before God. This is where we’ll pick up the history of the church next week.