About this sermon
Matthew calls Jesus the son of Abraham. God promised Abraham a great name and offspring as numerous as the stars, a gift of grace, not a reward. Then he told Abraham to offer Isaac, his only son, on Mount Moriah, and provided a ram in his place. Isaac carrying the wood is a type of Christ, but God did not spare his own Son. As Galatians 3 explains, Christ is the true offspring of Abraham, and all who believe in him are Abraham’s children and heirs of the promise.
Sermon transcript
At this time, let us open in God’s Word to Genesis 22. Genesis 22 is found on page 14 of your Old Testament. And then our other reading will be from Matthew chapter 1. That is found on page 1 of your New Testament, remembering, again, that the pagination begins again when we go to the New Testament of the Bible, which is in our pews. Here we read of the offering of Isaac. Let us give close attention, for this is the Word of God. Now it came about after these things that God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham.
And he said, here I am. He said, take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you. So Abraham rose early in the morning, and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son. Then he split wood for the burnt offering, and arose, and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day, Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance. Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey and I and the lad will go over there and we will worship and return to you. Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac, his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife.
So the two of them walked on together. Isaac spoke to Abraham, his father, and said, My father. And he said, Here I am, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering? Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.
So the two of them walked on together. Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood and bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, here I am. And he said, do not stretch out your hand against the lad and do nothing to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son from me.” Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns.
And Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son. Abraham called the name of that place, the Lord will provide, as it is said to this day. In the mount of the Lord it will be provided. The angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven.
And said, by myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, indeed I will greatly bless you. And I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore. And your seed shall possess the gates of their enemies. in your seat all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. So Abraham returned to his young men and they arose and went together to Beersheba and Abraham lived at Beersheba.
Let’s open to Matthew chapter 1, just reading a few verses there. 1, 1, and 2, and then 17. Hear the Word of God once again. The record of the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers. and then down to 17. So all the generation from Abraham to David are 14 generations. From David to the deportation to Babylon, 14 generations. And from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, 14 generations.
So in the reading of God’s Holy Word, let us briefly pray. Our Heavenly Father, We are without Christ if we do not believe in Him. Help us to believe in Jesus Christ. Help us to know Him. Cause us, O Lord, to rejoice in our Savior and to not lose heart and to not lose faith. Strengthen our faith. Give us assurance of even our own salvation. Do this by giving us assurance of all that your Son has done. For we understand, we believe, we know that He has died and He rose again for us. Empower us this day, O Lord. In Jesus’ name, amen. Well, we continue our study of the genealogy of Jesus, which is in the first chapter of Matthew.
Last week, we looked at what it means to be son of David. This week, we look at what it means to be son of Abraham. That is supposed to mean a lot to us. Jesus Christ is son of Abraham. But what does it truly mean that Jesus is the son of Abraham? Is it even that significant to be called a son of Abraham?
At church camp, many young people sing a song that goes something like this. Father Abraham had many sons. Many sons had Father Abraham. I am one of them, and so are you. So let’s all praise the Lord. Maybe many of you sang that. It’s been around for a long, long time.
Well, if we’re gonna say that Jesus is son of Abraham, we’re gonna think, that’s really significant. But if everyone at church camp is son of Abraham, Maybe it’s not so significant at all. John the Baptist seemed to speak about being a son of Abraham as somewhat common as well. You see, the time that John the Baptist went about preaching and preparing the day of Jesus’ coming and his ministry There were people who said, we are the sons of Abraham, so we’re blessed. Basically, people who are used to being coddled their whole life say, they’re there.
You’re a son of Abraham. And John says, son of Abraham means nothing. God can take these stones and make them into sons of Abraham. So Jesus is son of Abraham. That’s supposed to be significant, but everybody at church camp is, and God can just raise these stones to be sons of Abraham. Maybe it’s not that significant at all. Or maybe it is very significant that Jesus Christ is the son of Abraham.
We’re gonna look into that, we’re gonna delve into the significance of what that means. But first, we must just do a study of Abraham’s life. I might just go through some of the high points that are revealed to us in God’s Word about this one. In order to understand what a son of Abraham is, we have to understand who Abraham is.
This might be a little bit of review for some of you, but for some of you, you may be hearing this for the first time. Abraham was born Abram. God is going to change his name later on. It’s in the early chapters of the book of Genesis we read about Abram, who’s later Abraham.
And he lived in one of the most fabled cities of the ancient world, named Ur. And that city was famous for being a rich suburban community with high culture, with fabulous architecture, with vast wealth, with comfortable homes, with music and art. Sounds like Swickly a bit.
This was 4,000 years ago this man lived But we are told in the book of Joshua that Abraham worshiped other gods. He did not worship the God who created all things. God calls him to leave civilization as he knew it, to travel to Canaan. And there he lived almost 100 years.
So the Lord comes to Abram and he says, I will bless you and make your name great. In you, Abram, all the families of the earth will be blessed. How about that? God comes and says, I’m going to make your name great. There are a lot of people who are working very hard to make their name great. And who wouldn’t want their name to be great? We certainly would love for people to speak well of us in every household in the land. There are many people who are working very hard at that.
But God bestows this upon Abraham by grace. It’s not anything that Abraham did. God shows his grace and kindness and says, your name is going to be great in all of the land. It is God’s prerogative to raise up some of his servants and bless them beyond their own understanding, anything that they could even fathom. And that is what he does. to Abram. He blesses him. But at that time, Abram had no children. And that was a perplexing problem for him, as it would be for anyone who has an estate the size of Abram’s. So he complains to the Lord. Because who’s going to take over the estate when he passes it on?
In chapter 15 of Genesis, we have one of the high points in redemptive history. The Lord comes to Abram and he says, I am your shield and I am your great reward. God says he’s going to bless him, but he protests there. He says, you haven’t blessed me. You said I’m going to have a son. You said I’m going to have seed, but you haven’t given me that.
And if I were to die, there would be a man named Eliezer of Damascus who would just take over my estate. Apparently Eliezer of Damascus is one who was high up, maybe the highest ranking member in Abram’s household. And that’s the person who’s going to take over. He has no one to give all of these things to that comes from him.
So the Lord takes him outside of his tent And he points him to the stars. And he says, look toward heaven, Abram. Number the stars if you are able to number them. Then God said to Abram, so shall your offspring be. Can anyone count the stars? It would be a very difficult thing to do for those of us who have tried it. It doesn’t end well.
It’s at that point Abram believes God and it is accounted to him as righteous. One of the highest points of the Old Testament, as I said. He believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness. What this means is that he was reckoned as righteous before God. By simply believing what God said, by trusting in God’s word, he has a right standing before God. It’s very important that we understand this passage, Genesis 15, where we read about this.
We understand that we are sinners as Abraham was, as Abram at the time was. How are we going to be right by God? How are we going to be right before him? Is there an amount of things that we can do that will eventually reach a point where God will say, now I accept you.
You have done enough good works. Not at all. Salvation is of the Lord. God gives His servants, whom He wants to bestow upon them, He bestows upon them faith as a gift. And that faith is the instrument that makes us right with God. For we throw ourselves upon God fully, acknowledging that He is right and that He is just, that we are unholy, and He saves us by faith, and by faith alone. He saves us by faith plus nothing. Abram is the model of that. He is the picture of one who has faith, and we are all to have faith in God and trust Him, for He is worthy to be trusted and praised.
It’s just a couple chapters later, Genesis 17, where we have, again, another high watermark of God’s redemptive history. In Genesis 17, we have circumcision. The whole household of Abram is to be circumcised. Circumcision is to be a sign and a seal of the faith that Abram By that time, this is chapter 17, I can quit calling him Abram. Abraham had.
It is an external ceremony. that is a picture of what God does within the person. It is, we could say, a cutting away of that which is excess. And if we trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, guess what? We have had a circumcision of our hearts. God has cut away that which is vile. God has done heart surgery upon us. very significant that the whole household of God was to be circumcised in the Old Testament. All of the seed, or all of the offspring, were to be circumcised. All of the men, all of the boys at that time.
Have you ever contemplated what is the the common what brings chapter 15 and 17 of Abram’s life together what brings the stars looking at the stars in the sky and circumcision what I mean is this when we look at the stars there aren’t too many we have what is called light pollution City lights drown out, they choke out the lights that we would see.
So only the brightest stars shine for us to see, unless we go to the country, we go out of town. But even then, I’ve read of Alaskan religions that they’re losing their religion. Because they’re based on the stars, and city life is getting rid of that because they can’t see the stars anymore. Well, obviously, the right option is to become Christians. That’s what we’d hope, right?
Abram lived outside of town. He moves away from Ur, and he was a wilderness wanderer. he would have had a lot of stars in the sky. There was no light pollution. It was very dark. Now the thing that brings the stars of the sky and looking at them and circumcision, what I’m about to say, I don’t want you to think that I’m simply being provocative or crass. What I want you to understand is these are real people in our Bible. real historical people who struggled with all kinds of things. Real things.
Abram was an older man. And as an older man, some may testify to this, when you reach the point of middle age or so, things begin to change. The male bladder and the male prostate so that he’s not as young as he used to be, he begins to have to go to the bathroom multiple times in the night. And so every time Abram would wake up to go to the bathroom, leaving the tent, there he was, the most simple, the most basic of human activities.
The sand, must have reflected the stars. And there he looks up, reminded of God’s promise with circumcision, reminded of God’s promise with the stars, sometimes multiple times in the night. But also, in his intimacy with his wife, circumcision once again.
You see, the most basic and drab of human activity to one of the highest heights of his relationship with his wife, God is testifying to Abraham that you’re going to have seed, that you’re going to have seed that is going to be innumerable. You won’t be able to count them all. And that is exactly what God does. God in his kindness promises this.
But as we read the testimony of Abram, who becomes Abraham, and believe me, we’re just gonna really, we only read chapter 22. We could have read the whole thing, but I spared you that. Let me just read you some of the promises that God gives. Genesis chapter 12, seven.
Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, to your offspring will I give this land. Look at this land, it’s going to go to your offspring, to your seed. Genesis 13, 15, all the people that you see, I will give to you. And all the land that you see, I will give to you and your offspring forever.
And then Genesis 17, 7, once again, talking about offspring or seed. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.
If we read Genesis, who is the seed of Abraham? very clearly the seed of Abraham is Isaac, the child of the promise. He is the seed. But it goes beyond that, because God brings out of Isaac, Jacob, out of Jacob, the 12 tribes, ultimately with some distinction, and those 12 tribes They end up being so numerous that they cannot be counted. Isaac is son of Abraham. But all of those innumerable people are sons of Abraham as well. And some of the rival nations, when they went into battle with them, saw that they covered the face of the earth. They were an innumerable number to people. God knew the number.
But before all those things happened, Abraham had to be tested. And that’s why we read Genesis chapter 22. Surely a heart-wrenching thing for Abraham to endure. The Lord says, you must take your son, your only son, and you must sacrifice him Many of you, being parents, you just think, I could not imagine slitting my son or my daughter’s throat. But as anomalous as it may seem, God told him, you must do that.
Now we are told later that this seed Abraham had had confidence in what God could do for this seed. Hebrews 11, 19 tells us that Abraham considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead. That is what Abraham was counting on. He was hopeful in that.
He says, the Lord has promised me great things. and how can he allow me, how can he make me snuff my son’s life from existence? Surely God is going to raise him from the dead, and out of this, my only seed, God is going to bless all of the nations. But just in the nick of time, Just as he is going to put his son to death, we hear those words that are so comforting. Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me.
We see that Isaac, in one sense, is a type of Christ. But ultimately, the type of Christ is not Isaac there. For Isaac is moved off of the place where the burnt offering is going to happen. Because as Abraham said would happen, it does happen. The Lord will provide the sacrifice. And it was not a lamb at that point, it was a ram. And that became the sacrifice. Really that ram ends up being, as I said, the type or the picture of Christ.
But when it comes to the Lord Jesus Christ and the father smiting the son, there is no one who held back his hand. There was no one who could call to God the Father and say, God the Father, hold back your hand from this, your only begotten Son. We read of the power of our God. Nebuchadnezzar, in Daniel chapter four, learns of God’s great power. And he specifically says there, in four, I believe, 35, I believe it is, that no one can hold back God’s hand. No one can say to him, what have you done? No one will be able to say that. Nebuchadnezzar the king, he felt God’s wrath, at least mildly. He understood that no one can hold back God’s hand. No one holds back God’s hand from smiting His Son so that we might be found in Him, so that we might have the forgiveness of sins, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ and in Christ alone. Paul the Apostle writes about all the things that Abraham endured.
But if you would, open to Galatians chapter 3 if you’d like, or I’m going to read Galatians chapter 3 to you. Specifically just verse 16 I’m going to read, not the whole chapter. Listen to what Abraham, what Paul says about Abram, Abraham. Now the promises were made to Abram, Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say and to offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one. And to your offspring, who is Christ. many times in genesis the lord says i’m going to bless your seed i could count i read some of them for you and as you read it you it really appears to be the case that god is talking about the multitude of his seed the many many people who eventually become the ethnic people of Israel.
That’s the way you’d think about it as you’re reading it. But Paul understands differently, and Paul understands better even, that embedded within those promises of seed, there is a promise of seed. What I mean is, collective singular. Paul is using the collective singular. He says seed. Even Greek and Hebrew you can do this. Both languages.
You can speak of seed and you can mean many or you can mean one. It’s like us when we think of deer. You have one deer or you have many deer. You don’t have Lots of deers, right? Equally so, you can have seed or you can have many seed. It’s all the same. What I talked to you about last week was, I use the language again, the total eclipse of the sun.
God promises David a son to sit on his throne and God gives the Lord Jesus Christ so that there’s Solomon, but Christ comes and he takes the place so that ultimately we see that the long-term fulfillment is what it was really about. The same goes on here.
When God promises that there is going to be seed, it’s Isaac. But it’s also all of the many Israelites, all of the Hebrew people, but Jesus Christ, son of Abraham, Matthew 1, 1. He is, in a special and in a significant way, the one that it was really about.
So that you have Isaac, but Jesus comes along and replaces him, and he eclipses that son so that Jesus is truly Abraham’s son, the one that was looked for, the one who was promised. And Abraham looked forward to Jesus’s day. Jesus said so in John chapter 5, John chapter 8, 56, Father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day. When Abraham heard that, He somehow was looking forward to Jesus Christ, the Messiah who was going to come. So we have Jesus eclipsing Isaac.
But it is certainly the case that that song is right. If we are trusting in Christ, if we are trusting in God alone, then we are sons of Abraham. Not in the same way that Jesus is, but by faith, for Paul tells us as much. He says, know then, Galatians chapter three, that it is those of faith who are sons of Abraham. and the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, i.e. us. God preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, in you shall all the nations be blessed. So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. If we have faith like Abraham, then we are blessed.
But if we have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, then we are Abraham’s sons. So we can say in a very real way, Father Abraham had one son. One son had Father Abraham. And that’s true, Jesus Christ is the son of Abraham, par excellence. But by faith in Christ, we are sons of Abraham as well. And we inherit an eternal and heavenly New Canaan land. It is ours by God’s gift if we have faith in Christ. Let us pray.
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