THE CALL OF ABRAHAM (Genesis 12:1-9)

Rarely does one individual turn the tide of history. Among those few whose lives have proven to be pivotal in the human experience was a man named Abraham. This figure from the ancient past has impacted the spiritual landscape for over four thousand years, reaching into the lives of people in three different faith systems.

What was it that made Abraham such a significant player on the human stage? In a word, faith. Abraham, or as he was originally named, Abram (“exalted father”), first appears in the Scriptures in Genesis 11:26-32 as the son of Terah and husband of Sarai. He was a resident of the city of Ur in the land of the Chaldeans near the modern Persian Gulf. A brief scan of other Scripture passages shows us that Abraham’s father was a pagan idolater (Joshua 24:2) who apparently became a devotee of the true and living God (Genesis 31:53), possibly through his son’s influence.

God appeared to Abraham in Ur and instructed him to leave that land in favor of a new, promised land (Acts 7:2-3). Abraham believed God’s promise and, by faith, ventured forth as a spiritual pilgrim (Hebrews 11:8-10). As such, Abraham became an example to all who seek God, the God we can encounter only through faith.

Abraham’s story begins in earnest in Genesis 12:1-9, where we read about God’s covenant to which Abraham responded with obedience and worship. From these opening pages of Abraham’s story we learn that God wants us to believe Him, to take Him at His word, to engage in a living relationship with Him through faith.

The Covenant: Faith prompts us to listen to God (12:1-3). God spoke to Abraham. More specifically, God appeared to Abraham (Acts 7:2-3). This took place while Abraham was still a resident of Ur. Ur was a magnificent city in Abraham’s day, one of the few centers of advanced civilization. Leaving Ur meant that Abraham would have to make some significant sacrifices. However, Ur was also a center of pagan idolatry.

God wanted Abraham to forsake this idolatrous setting. Therefore, He instructed Abraham to leave Ur. Furthermore, God promised to bless Abraham in an unusual way. He established an unconditional covenant with Abraham. God spoke, and Abraham listened. The Lord God instructed Abram to separate himself and go to an undisclosed land (12:1). Genesis 11:27-32 informs us that Abraham’s father and family migrated from Ur to the city of Haran in Mesopotamia. There they lingered for an unstated period of time until Terah’s death. Abraham then continued his journey in obedience to God’s command.

The Lord, Yahweh God, had instructed Abraham to separate himself. Specifically, God told Abraham to leave his homeland, to leave his kindred or extended clan, and to leave his father’s house or more immediate relatives.

Separation is an element of faith, particularly when it comes to separation from sin and from people who might entice us into sin. God commanded Abraham to make a clean break with his past in order to enjoy a new future with Him. Abraham’s new future would include a new location, a land that God would eventually reveal to him. The text makes it clear that when Abraham set out in obedience to God, he didn’t know his final destination.

God chose to reveal that land of promise to Abraham only after Abraham began his faith journey. We rarely know the end of our faith journey at the beginning. The Lord God promised to bless Abram, making him into a great nation and giving him a great name (12:2).

God announced His covenant to Abraham, a covenant that wasn’t conditioned on Abraham’s obedience. Abraham would only enjoy the benefits of that covenant, however, if he did respond to God and leave his homeland. In this great Abrahamic Covenant, God promised the patriarch a great heritage. God would make Abraham into a great nation. So far Abraham had no children, and his wife Sarah was unable to conceive (Genesis 11:30).

In order for Abraham to become a great nation, God would have to accomplish a great miracle. God promised to further bless Abraham and give him a great name. This means that Abraham would become renowned throughout history, as indeed his name has come to be known by so many men and women of faith. God would bless Abraham personally, giving him an extensive heritage and an impressive reputation. In this way, Abraham would be a blessing to others. The Lord God promised to bless others through Abram, extending this blessing to all people on earth (12:3).

Abraham would not be the only recipient of God’s blessing as a result of this grand covenant. God promised that those who bless Abraham will themselves be blessed. When we honor Abraham and his descendants, the Jewish people, we enter into the place of God’s blessing. In contrast, those who despise Abraham and his descendants fall under God’s curse. Furthermore, God promised that all families, or people groups, on earth would be blessed through Abraham. God’s covenant with Abraham was a significant step in His redemptive plan. Because of His love for His fallen people, God designed a plan to redeem us from our sins. That redemption, that blessing, would come through Abraham.

Today we know that through Abraham’s ultimate descendant, Jesus Christ, all people can enter into the blessings of God. Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins and restore us to fellowship with God. That saving work of Christ is available to all.

When we believe, as Abraham believed the promise of God, we enter into the blessing of God’s covenant. God spoke to Abraham and He has more recently spoken to us through His Son (Hebrews 1:1-2).

Abraham listened for God’s voice. We, too, must listen to the truth of God through His Son and through His Word. In Jesus Christ we can enter into the manifold blessing of God. The Journey: Faith prompts us to obey God (12:4-5). By faith Abraham listened to the voice of God, and by faith he obeyed. He entered into both a physical and a spiritual journey. The physical journey took Abraham from Ur, through Haran, to the land of Canaan. The spiritual journey, lasting a lifetime, took Abraham to a better, heavenly abode (Hebrews 11:13-16).

Abram left his homeland at an advanced age in obedience to God (12:4). Genesis 12:4 states that Abraham was seventy-five years old when he began his faith journey. We’re never too old to start fresh with God! Abraham left Ur just as God had instructed. After his father Terah died in Haran, Abraham continued his journey.

Abraham’s brother Nahor and Nahor’s family stayed in Haran. Abraham, his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and a number of servants associated with Abraham left Haran to find their new home wherever God would lead them. Lot is specifically mentioned twice in this passage. Some have concluded that Lot’s presence was an indication of Abraham’s merely partial obedience, since God had commanded Abraham to separate from his family. However, the Scriptures never assign guilt to Abraham for including Lot. The fact that Abraham took Lot with him may, in fact, speak more to the patriarch’s tenderness and selflessness. After all, Lot’s father—Abraham’s brother—had died, and Abraham may have become a spiritual mentor to his nephew. The thrust of Genesis 12:4 is clearly the obedience of Abraham. Abraham left “as the Lord had told him.” Abraham listened to God’s voice and by faith obeyed. Abram took his wife, his household, and his possessions to the land of Canaan (12:5). Journeying south and west from Haran, Abraham, Sarah, Lot, and Abraham’s servants took all their possessions to the land of Canaan.

Abraham had apparently accumulated a great deal of wealth during his lifetime. He had also acquired a sizeable entourage of servants. Later, in Genesis 14:14, we read that Abraham had 318 trained men who were born in his household and who served as a small army when needed. Abraham must have had a great number of servants. In fact, many of his servants may have been more than mere servants. They may have embraced the God whom Abraham served by faith. Abraham, his wife, his nephew, and his host of servants journeyed to the land of Canaan. They were sojourners, anticipating God’s promised blessing in a land that was yet unknown to them. As it turns out, God would grant Abraham the land of Canaan.

The Altar: Faith prompts us to worship God (12:6-9). Abraham was truly a man of faith. By faith he listened to God. By faith he obeyed God. By faith he worshiped God among strangers in a strange land. Abram sojourned in pagan Canaanite territory until he reached the village of Shechem (12:6). Having arrived in the land of Canaan, Abraham and his entourage journeyed through the central hill country to the village of Shechem. Shechem at this time was probably a sizeable community. It was a center of Canaanite culture, as this verse indicates. Near Shechem, apparently, was a great tree that may have become associated with a local pagan cult. The mention of this tree coupled with the reference to the Canaanites in this verse seems to emphasize the contrast between the pagan worship of the local residents and Abraham’s faith in the true and living God.

Our faith journey will likely take us into the territory of unbelievers, but our faith need not waver. God is greater than any object of devotion that may capture the imaginations of the people around us. The Lord God appeared to Abram and promised to give him the land of Canaan (12:7a). It was in the midst of Canaan’s pagan society that God chose to break His lengthy silence and once again speak words of encouragement to Abraham. It was at Shechem that the Lord, Yahweh, appeared to Abraham for a second time. In that self-revelation God assured Abraham, promising to give his offspring the land in which he had recently arrived.

Canaan was to be the land of promise for the people of promise. Abram built an altar to the Lord God at Shechem (12:7b). Having once again heard the voice of God, Abraham built an altar, a place of worship. This altar was dedicated to the worship of Yahweh God in contrast to the gods of the Canaanites. It was Yahweh who had spoken to Abraham back in Ur. It was Yahweh who had promised to make Abraham into a great nation and to bless all nations through him. It was Yahweh who had again spoken to Abraham, promising him the land of Canaan for his descendants. Abraham had obeyed Yahweh God, and now Abraham paused to build an altar and worship this God.

Abram traveled to the village of Bethel where he built another altar to the Lord God and proclaimed His name (12:8). Even though God spoke to Abraham at Shechem, Shechem could never be the final stopping place for this spiritual nomad. Abraham would always be on the move. For one hundred years Abraham would sojourn in this land of promise, never establishing a permanent residence because he had set his sights on a heavenly home (Hebrews 11:13-16). So Abraham left Shechem and journeyed south to the hills of Bethel near Ai. Bethel means literally “the house of God.” There Abraham pitched his tent for a time. There he again built an altar to Yahweh God. Abraham sensed that wherever he went, God was with him. Abraham’s tent—a sign of his unsettled, pilgrim way of life—was accompanied by an altar—a sign of his faith in God. At Bethel Abraham “called on the name of the Lord,” referring to an act of public worship. The phrase could be interpreted to mean that Abraham proclaimed the name of Yawheh, publicly declaring his allegiance to Yahweh God in contrast to the pagan gods of the neighboring Canaanites.

Abraham was a man of faith, and his faith was no private matter. Those who came to know Abraham would have come to know about his God. Abram continued to sojourn in southern Canaan (12:9). Abraham eventually left Bethel and moved farther south toward the region known as the Negev. Although unstated, we could understand the pattern there to be the same as that at Shechem and Bethel. Abraham likely pitched his tent and built another altar to the Lord God. He was, after all, a man of worship, a man of faith.

By faith Abraham had listened to the voice of God, obeyed the command of God, and engaged in the worship of God. He would also enjoy the blessings of God. God would indeed make Abraham into a great nation, give him a great name, bless him, and bless others through him. It’s impossible to imagine human history without the spiritual influence of Abraham. Abraham’s example teaches us to believe God and to engage in a living relationship with Him through faith.