Christ in all the scriptures Genesis 24

 Genesis chapter 24

"And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had...go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac...and the servant... swear to him concerning the matter."  extracts from Genesis 24v1-9

It is well established that Isaac is a type of Christ, and in the narrative we can think of Abraham as God the Father; his servant as a type of the Holy Spirit; Isaac as a type of Christ; Rebekah as a type of the church. This is an illustration of the mission of the Spirit to woo a bride for Christ.  The chapter ends with Isaac's love for Rebekah-v67, and sets it as one of the great love stories.  In fact this is only the second mention of love in the bible, the first being the love of a father for a son; the second. the love of  the son for his bride.  Through the narrative, we discern many pictures of the work of the Spirit as He seeks a bride for the Son.

Behind the biblical narratives are deeper than just the surface meanings, and God reveals Himself in narrative, prose, and prophecy, and wisdom sayings.  All forms of revelation are a revelation of God.  We consider this chapter as typical of the wooing of the bride of Christ by the Servant sent by the Father.  We repeat the outline concerning Christ in the chapters:

Chapter 21 the birth of Isaac             the birth of Christ

Chapter 22 the sacrifice of Isaac       the death of Christ

Chapter 23 the death of Sarah           the setting aside of Israel

Chapter 24 the wooing of Rebekah   the wooing of the Church

Chapter 25 the inheritance of Isaac   the riches of Christ

We are therefore considering the mission of the servant which results in a love union, corresponding to the present day, when the Spirit of God is calling a bride for Christ.  Prophetically speaking this took place on the demise of Israel.  This story takes place some 15 years after chapter 22, and three years after the death of Sarah.

The servant chosen was the closest to Abraham, his trusted, eldest servant who ruled over all his house 24v2.  The typology is never perfect but sufficient to illustrate the truth.  To woo the church for Christ, God sent the one closest to Him, His holy Spirit, one who was His equal, who carried all His authority and trust.  The words of the Spirit are the words of God, and His promises through Him are certain.  This is the unequivocal teaching of the New Testament scriptures-notably John 14v26, 15v26, Acts 2v33, and others.  The One who was sent, who came, is one of the Godhead.  He was called "Another Comforter", one of the same as Jesus, who would comfort God's people in His absence.  

He was to take a Gentile bride.  There are a number of Gentile brides in scripture, and the Church the bride of Christ is predominantly Gentile.  Rebekah of Mesopotamia; Asenath of Egypt;  Zipporah of Midian;  Rahab of Jericho; Ruth of Moab.  One common feature of all these, is that while there are many Jewish wives whose deaths are recorded, including Sarah in chapter 23, none of the Gentile brides' deaths were recorded, symbolising the eternal union of Christ and the Church.  God works all these wonderful details into His book.  

The servant vowed that the will of Abraham would be carried out.  The Spirit is in the world to perform the wishes of the Godhead.  John 14v26 "He shall teach you all things"; John 15v26 "The Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of me"-the message of the servant was of Isaac, the message of the Spirit is of Christ; John 16v13 "...when He, the Spirit of truth is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak, and He will shew you things to come.  He shall glorify me, for He shall take of mine and show them unto you."  In the narrative, the servant travels with the goods of His master, evidence of the worthiness of Isaac to be accepted-refer 24v10-22.  

Rebekah agrees to go with the servant, pressing her folks not to hinder her.  She said "I will go".  The Spirit woos, but will not press, the lady must want to go.  This, of course is all over the New Testament.  God is not in the business of enforcing His will on people, it must be with their agreement-24v23-60.

When the decision was made, she was committing herself to someone she had never seen.  Said Peter "Whom having not seen ye love, and in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory"-1st Peter 1v8.  She came by faith, not by sight, she believed the evidence of the servant, and she was not disappointed.  So it is by the members of the bride of Christ, they hear, they believe, they leave their old life behind and follow the servant to a new life.

Isaac came from the well Lahai-roi, and saw the party including the servant and his new bride afar off.  Their eyes met, and they came together, and Isaac took her to his mother's tent, and she became his wife, and he loved her.  What a picture of what has come to be known as the Rapture, when the saints of God from all the age, saints only by faith, will meet Him in the air,"...and so shall we ever be with the Lord!"  Truly, rapture it will be when first we see Him whom we love and enter an eternal union which shall never be broken.   A lovely story, prefiguring the GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD.

Christ in all the scriptures Genesis 22

 Genesis chapter 22

"Take now thy son, thine only Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah ; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of."

Genesis 22 so obviously points to the sacrifice of Christ, the details of which will unfold as we read on.  It is worth noting that previous pictures of the sacrifice have emphasised animal sacrifices, but this account tells us that the sacrifice for the world will be a human being.  This is confirmed in Isaiah chapter 53, where the repetition of "he", "him", and "his", confirms this.  In normal terms, human sacrifice was an abomination to God, and was condemned, for obvious reasons.  Human beings, born in sin, and subject to sin, could never be accepted by God.  In the event Isaac was not sacrificed, but he remains a type of the death of Christ for the world.  The narrative tells the story.  We can look at it in a number of ways:

The Son that He loved...the journey that they made...the place where they went...the altar of sacrifice...the lamb that was prepared...the blessing that accrued.  All of these point to Christ.

The Son that He loved    The sacrifice, which God demanded, was not just of any human being but of His Son, his nearest and dearest.  The pathos of this is spelt out in the text.

"Thy son...thine only Isaac", (son is omitted for Isaac was not his only son) he was the promised seed through whom all the nations would be blessed-21v12; v3 "Isaac his son"; v6 "Isaac his son"; v8 "My son"; v9 "Isaac his son"; v10 "...took the knife to slay his son"; v12 "seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only from me".   Fast forward to the New Testament "God...gave His only begotten Son..."-John 3v16, and a host of other scriptures.  Only begotten is monogenes, only one of His kind.  When God gave Him, He could give no more, He gave the dearest and best.  Here it is in picture form in Genesis.  He was the son of His love, repeated over and over; this is the first mention of love in the Bible, the love of the father for the son; the next mention is of the love of the son for his bride in chapter 24.  As depicted in Abraham, God gave His dearest in sacrifice, as a substitute on the altar.

The Journey they took    They journeyed together, the father and the son went the whole way; v2 "Get thee into the land of Moriah...".  This was no mean journey from Beersheba to Moriah in Jerusalem; it is reckoned to be 3 days journey, about 45 miles.  Abraham took Isaac his son, with his servants on the three day trek by camel and on foot.  What thoughts flooded his mind on the way as he pondered the reason for the trek.  When the neared the destination, they left the servants behind and "went both of them together"-v6.  Consider the journey Jesus took from heaven to earth, through incarnation, rejection, and finally crucifixion.  What thoughts through all these years filled His soul as He sped unflinchingly to the altar of sacrifice!  Father and Son had to leave behind all the followers as they proceeded to Gethsemane, Gabbatha, and Golgotha.  The agony in the soul of Abraham was mild compared to the agony anticipated by Christ. They went together, yet separate from everyone else.  Some pointers are: Matthew 26v39-44, "And He went a little further...He went away again...And He left them and went away again..."; Mark 14v35-39, "And He went forward a little...", "And He went away and prayed...".  All the while the Father was with Him; Luke 22v41, "And He was withdrawn from them a stone's throw...", yet He kneeled down and prayed, saying "Father, if thou be willing let this cup pass from me."  The servants could only go so far, but the Father was with Him all the way.  He stood alone in Gabbatha, yet the Father was with Him; He died in agony in the darkness, yet though God must forsake Him, yet as Father He did not as He began and ended the time on the cross with reference to His Father.  The trauma, the torture, the mental anguish, are all documented in scripture of which Genesis 22 is a preview.

The Place where they went      v1 "Get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there..."     v3 "...went unto the place of which God had told him"; v4 "Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off"; v9 "And they came to the place which God had told him of, and Abraham built an altar there..."; v14 "And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-Jireh: as it is said to this day, in the mount of the Lord it shall be seen."  In Luke 23v33 it is recorded that "When they were come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified Him...".  This place is very specific and holds a key link in the strands of biblical prophecy.  The place where Jesus was crucified was mount Moriah, the same as where Abraham offered up Isaac.  It is associated with the temple of Solomon, which is figurative of the future millennial temple-2nd Chronicles 3v1.  From this very place where He was crucified in shame, He will rule the world in glory!  It is associated with the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, which is symbolic of God removing the judgment from His people-2nd Samuel 24v19-25.  Its significance continues to this day-Genesis 22v14, and will do on into the future, as the place where the Lord made provision for sinful man.

The Altar of sacrifice        v2 "...offer him there for a burnt offering"; v3 "...he clave the wood for the burnt offering"; v6 "And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and the knife"; v9 "And they came to the place which God had told him of, and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar on the wood."  The details are staggering when compared to the gospel records of the death of Jesus.  The wood reminds us of the cross; the fire of His spiritual sufferings, the knife of the bodily sufferings.  The wood he gave to Isaac...he went forth bearing His cross.  The Altar-He must be offered; the wood, it was on a wooden cross; the fire, Divine judgment on sin must fall; the sacrifice must die; fine details written so remotely, yet fulfilled centuries later.

The lamb prepared by God   v8 In answer to the question, where is the lamb for a burnt offering, the reply was "My son God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering...".  The lamb would be of God's providing, indeed Himself was the provision for Christ the Lord was the Lamb of God; the one who was equal with God was the provision made.  This subject runs throughout holy scripture from beginning to end.  In Genesis He is the Lamb prophesied; in Exodus He is the Lamb prescribed; in Leviticus He is the Lamb accepted; In Isaiah He is the Lamb rejected; in John's gospel He is the Lamb identified; in Revelation, He is the Lamb glorified.  His worth is unquestionable, His work will last forever, His honour is irreproachable, He is the Lamb God provided, the value of which will remain unto the countless ages of eternity.  In this simple narrative is a portrait of worth untold.  He died that we might live, He became our substitute, just as the ram caught in the thicket was a substitute for Isaac.

The Blessing that has accrued   "And the Angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, and said, by Myself I have sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore: and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.  And in thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice."

We now know that the sacrifice prefigured here, is the precursor to the unique sacrifice of Christ, through which God has sworn blessing to all who believe.  He is Jehovah Jireh, the everlasting one who provides salvation for all Abraham's seed.  "In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen" points to the glorious future when from mount Moriah, Christ will bring in everlasting righteousness.  This marvellous story at the beginning of the bible proclaims for us the intervention of God in our extremity, to provide for us when the only alternative was certain loss.  The fruits of this will yet be seen, and we marvel at the precision of the Old Testament account.