David Miller wrote:
Good morning, and happy thanksgiving everyone. I trust we are all thankful to the great and gracious Lord God of heaven for the life and abundance of good things that he gives unto the people of his covenant.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Concerning the Abraham / Abimelech incident of Gen. 20:
Although virtually every commentary of man condemns Abraham in this situation, I find it interesting that arguments have been put forth that tend to villify Abraham and praise Abimelech. For example, Jonathan made the argument recently that Abimelech was righteous in this situation and Abraham was not. Such an argument is made based upon the actions of each men. The reasoning is that Abraham deceived Abimelech and so he was in the wrong. Abimelech, on the other hand, supposedly acted innocently, and when the Lord made clear to him that he was sinning against Abraham, he went way beyond the call of duty in his repentance by giving Abraham many valuable gifts. Depsite the actions of these men, one thing seems clear in the text. The anger of the Lord was kindled against Abimelech but not against Abraham. While human reasoning leads us to look disfavorably upon Abraham in this situation, we are still left with the fact that the Lord's anger was against Abimelech but not Abraham.
I have been waiting for the argument to come forth that the reason the Lord was not angry with Abraham was because of his covenant with him. The Lord had a covenant with Abraham but not with Abimelech. Therefore, because of this covenant, perhaps Abraham was viewed as righteous before God whereas Abimelech was not, even though Abraham had been deceptive and Abimelech had acted with integrity and honesty. I don't know why this point has not been argued, so I will present it myself as a possibility and see what the response is. It seems to me that such reasoning would go along with what has been argued in the past, so I find it very interesting that the focus of the arguments has been upon ascribing evil motives to Abraham rather than upon the covenant. It seems to me that the more objective argument from your those who hold to the unilateral thesis would be that it really doesn't matter if Abraham was right or wrong in this situation, and that is the point. His right standing with God came from his faith not from his actions.
Mornin' David. Here is how I see it.
1.There is no question that God rewards faith. Sometimes He even does it here and now as well as in the sweet bye and bye. In the old testament, many of the promises were the here and now variety because God was, through the Jews, establising Himself as the only true God, and He used these rewards for faith to prove His existance and power to the world.
2. God is God. He can make exceptions to His rules any time He wants to, and none of us are qualified to question that. What He did with Abraham was His business. He is the potter. None of us can question how right God was, and none of us can demand an explanation for what we might perceive to be a bending of the rules in this case.
3. Abraham and David are not the only rascals in this story. If you go down the list in Matthew one, you will find whores, thieves, liars, murderers, and adulterers, all part of the family of God. I am glad they are there. If you had to be perfect, I wouldn't have a chance.
Neither would Abraham. I would die without a moments hesitation before I let another man take my wife. That would appear to make me a better man than him. Yet I doubt that I would have enough faith to kill my son on an alter. That makes Abe appear to be a better man than me. The truth is, Jesus Says that there are "none good", and Paul backs that up by saying "All have sinned". That doesn't leave much to discuss. We are all sinners.
Terry
---------- "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man." (Colossians 4:6) http://www.InnGlory.org
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