This Sunday I am preaching on the story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22 and one little side point I will make will be to point out that Abraham was well over 100 when God tested him with the call to sacrifice his son Isaac.
Why is that significant"? It is significant because it shows Abraham had, by this time, developed a mature faith, whereas, for much of the biblical story about him he showed an immature faith.
He showed great faith when he left Ur of the Chaldees to go to a land that God would show him (Genesis 12 and Hebrews 11:8-10), and when he believed that God would provide him a child, even in view of its seeming impossibility in Genesis 15:1-6). Yet he shows remarkable inconsistency and immaturity in his willingness to lie about Sarah in Genesis 12 and 20 and in his willingness to go along with Sarah's plan in Genesis 16 regarding Hagar.
In the latter cases he seems to have forgotten, or at least failed to rely on, the promises of God. But in the testing with Isaac, the most severe test he ever faced, he came through with flying colors. In this case he showed a mature and fairly sophisticated theological understanding of the promises of God, as per Hebrews 11:19, he reasoned that God could raise the dead. He connected all the dots - God had promised him descendants through Isaac, but God was calling him to sacrifice Isaac, but God can raise the dead so he can raise Isaac, ergo, in faith he obeyed. Thankfully God spared him from having to go through with this but it is in this incident that he primarily shows himself an example of faith to all of us.
But I also can't help but think there is something to this, that he was well over 100 years old when God brought the test. He had failed so many easier tests earlier in his life, even though he was quite old even then. But when the hardest test came late in life he passed.
This illustrates that maturity takes time and it illustrates that maturity can come even after many failures. In fact it is probably the case that his failures contributed to his faith here. By this time he could probably look back on all the ways he had failed to trust God and act accordingly, and he could also look back on how God had continued to be faithful in the midst of his own unfaithfulness. By this time he "got it." He "got it" that God can be trusted in all circumstances. Getting this, his faith became mature and he could act on it in the most severe trial of life.
A couple of thoughts on the implications of this - first we probably expect too much of ourselves and others. This is hard to say and I'm probably not saying it right, because all disobedience is sin, all disobedience is to be repented of, and obedience is always to be pursued. Yet if the great heroes of the faith are any indication, none of us gets this - none of us are able to consistently act on the highest ideals of the faith and keep the highest standards of the faith.
So we heap too much condemnation on ourselves, although many are good at finding loopholes and rationalizations to excuse their own disobedience, and we heap too much condemnation on our fellow immature believers. We tend to expect people who are young in the faith to act with a kind of faith that can only come through years of maturity.
We tend to act with shock, surprise and condemnation when immature believers sin. We say, or at least think "how could you do that?" or "don't you know better than that?" The truth is that we may or may not do know better than that, but if we're anything like Paul we just aren't able to do the good we know we ought to do - see Romans 7 on that one.
Granted, Paul did pursue holiness and his Romans 7 speech was no excuse for disobedience and I am sure that Paul showed the fruits of progressive sanctification throughout his life.
But I'm also pretty sure that many, maybe most of us are like Abraham, and the truth is that maturity is going to come late for most of us. We're going to spend our whole lives sinning, and for most of us we'll spend the better part of our lives sinning in ways that are obvious to those around us, if not our whole lives. Along with this we and our friend will spend the whole of our lives growing in grace and we'll see evidence of that grace in many ways. I think the parable of the wheats and the tares is not only a parable of the kingdom but in some ways is a parable of the human soul.
Since maturity is going to come late for us we're going to have to learn to put up ourselves and each other. We'll never excuse sin and immaturity but it ought to be dealt with in a loving and patient manner, absent the shock, surprise and anger we so often exhibit.
And we ought not to despair - failure today doesn't mean failure tomorrow. I know that conventional wisdom says that past behavior is the greatest predictor of future behavior, but God can turn that on its head and bring great transformation after years of failure.
Which means, as always we stand on the gospel (if you haven't seen Michael Spencer's Law/Gospel Rant let me encourage you to do so, its one of his best posts). Even when we reach the kind of maturity that Abraham reached in Genesis 22 and pass our greatest test, we won't be without sin and will still need God's forgiveness and grace. But on the way there, while we're lying and following cockamamie schemes rooted in unbelief like Abraham, we won't be out of reach of the gospel of grace.
I was just talking about this at a HFG. Seems like when God does the sanctifying and growing it takes longer when I do it I rush things and fall flat on my face and want to hide.
I so want to leap with Him from mountain top to mountain top. I want the stamina and ability to make it there as an equal so I give him pleasure to you know.
I have seen a few impressive power encounters in my 30 years thus far following Christ and I do know that babies can't do that. I want to do that to.
Posted by: Diane | August 01, 2009 at 02:22 AM