The Patriarchs and the Promise of God

Where In the Bible: Genesis 12-50

Up to this point in the story, God has made a perfect world but it has been ruined by sin. Violence and death have spread through the world. Despite several interventions from God, it looks like the original design of people living in harmony with God, with each other and with the land is a long way off. In this section, we see the beginning of God’s rescue plan for the world. God chose one man and asked him to leave home and go in faith. This man was Abram (later called Abraham), and God promised him a great name, many descendants, a land for them to live in, and blessing for the world through one of his offspring. The rest of the Genesis story tracks the line of this promised descendant from generation to generation, through Isaac, Jacob and Judah. Along the way, we see God’s grace in choosing the unlikely candidates to inherit the promise, and we see God’s sovereign hand in working out his purposes regardless of the circumstances at a human level.

Promise and Faith (Gen. 12:1-8; 15:1-7): God’s calling of Abram stands in stark contrast to the previous chapter, where people had come together and settled in one spot with a desire to make their own name great. In Genesis 12:1-3, God’s word to Abraham was made up of a call and a promise. The promise had three components to it. Firstly, that God would make Abram into a great nation. Given that Abram was seventy-five years olds at this stage (and his wife Sarai was sixty-five) this seemed unlikely, and when another twenty-five years passed before fulfilment it seemed impossible. The second aspect of God’s promise echoes the language of the builders of Babel, who wanted to make a great name for themselves. God promised Abram this great name, only it would not be by his own efforts but would be a gift from God. Thirdly, God promised the nations would be blessed through Abraham (Gen. 22:18 explains that this will come through his offspring, and Galatians 3:16 shows that this is talking about a singular descendant of Abraham). Genesis 15 adds that God would give Abraham descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and would give them a promised land to live in. This section of the story shows us that the solution to the broken world does not come from our best efforts to establish ourselves, but from God’s own promises. Abraham’s response in verse 4 was to respond to God’s call and to go, leaving his father’s house and following on a journey to wherever God would show him. This is the response of faith, and it is the only right response to God’s promise. We are told later (Gen. 15:6) that Abram’s faith was credited to him as righteousness.

God Choosing the Unlikely (e.g. Gen. 25:21-34): The Genesis story follows the next three generations of Abraham’s family, and at each stage there are multiple candidates for who will inherit the promise the God had made to Abraham. At each stage, the choice God makes does not follow the human norm of things being passed down to the first-born and most likely candidate, but instead shows God’s grace in choosing the unlikely. Abraham’s first son was Ishmael, born when Abraham had grown impatient and slept with his wife’s servant instead of waiting on God’s promise. Though Isaac was born after Ishmael, God was clear that he was the son of promise, and it was through his line that the promise would be reckoned. Isaac had twin sons: Esau and Jacob. Esau was born first and seemed the stronger and more favoured by his father. Nevertheless, God said that the elder would serve the younger (Gen. 25:23). Through Esau surrendering the birthright for a bowl of stew (Gen. 25:33) and Jacob tricking their father into giving him the blessing (Gen. 27:27-29), the promise passed through Jacob’s line and not Esau’s. The final generation featured in the story is the twelve sons and one daughter of Jacob. The eldest son is Reuben, but the favoured one is Joseph, and much of the story focusses on Joseph’s story. Nevertheless, it is neither Reuben nor Joseph that inherits the birthright but Judah. Throughout the story we get occasional glimpses of Judah’s narrative arc. Initially he is a man who would use others for his own good and sell his brother for money, but by the end ready to lay down himself that others would live. Throughout the story, God shows time and again that he does not choose based on human power metrics, but makes his own sovereign choice – just as in the church he has not chosen the rich and powerful but those who are weak and foolish in the world’s eyes (1 Cor. 1:26-31).

God’s Providential Hand (Gen. 50:19-21): These chapters of Genesis contain a lot of messy stories. There is family trauma that is repeated from generation to generation, with siblings at war and parents playing favourite. There are lies and deceitful dealings. Men have children with multiple women, including their wives’ servants. The portrayal we get is not one of idealised behaviour, as though these characters are doing the right thing. It is ordinary human life, with all the brokenness and sin that comes with that. Nevertheless, weaving through all of it is the purpose of God being worked out. From the perspective of Genesis, we see both God’s sovereignty at work and messy human life playing out; one does not thwart the other. The best example of this may be in the story of Joseph. When Joseph is sold by his brothers into slavery (Gen. 37) their motive is evil: they want to get rid of their Joseph and to make a profit in the process. This leads Joseph to Egypt, where is enslaved, falsely accused and imprisoned, but then raised up through his ability to interpret dreams, and given a powerful position to allow him to provide food during a famine for the whole known world, including his brothers. As Joseph reflects back in what has happened to him, he recognises that his brothers meant harm, but also that God was working for good through the same events. This principle is true for much of God’s dealings with the world, through the Bible story and through history: people will do what they do and are responsible for their own actions, but through it all God is at work bringing his purposes to pass (and nowhere is this seen more clearly than with Jesus on the cross – see Acts 2:23)

Potential Applications:

• This part of the story emphasises that our hope is in God and not ourselves. It should orient our hearts to prayer, hope and faith more than to our own independent efforts.
• Abram responds to God in faith – believing the promise and going where God shows him. This is a model of the life of faith and an example of how to respond to God’s promises in our own life.
• God is in control, even through the mess. For some of us, life can feel messy. You can speak assurance, and offer prayer, that God will work even when it seems to us like things are out of control.