The Call of Abraham

After the scattering at Babel, the Bible's lens narrows to one man. God speaks to Abram in Ur of the Chaldeans with a startling command and an even more startling promise: 'Get thee out of thy country... unto a land that I will shew thee. And I will make of thee a great nation... and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed' (Genesis 12:1–3). With no map and no heir, Abram obeys, setting out for Canaan by way of Haran.

The promise has three strands — land, a multitude of descendants, and blessing to all the nations of the earth — and it is repeated and deepened over Abram's life. In Genesis 15 God 'cuts' a covenant with him, passing alone between the divided animals to bind himself to its fulfillment, and 'Abram believed the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness' (Genesis 15:6). In Genesis 17 God changes his name to Abraham, 'father of many nations,' and gives circumcision as the covenant sign.

The promise is then tested to the breaking point — by long years of barrenness, and finally by the command to offer his son Isaac on Mount Moriah, where God provides a substitute in his place. Through it all Abraham becomes the model of faith: a man who 'against hope believed in hope,' trusting God to keep a word that only God could fulfill.

The call of Abraham is the hinge between the universal story of Genesis 1–11 and the rest of the Bible. God's answer to a world fractured by sin is to choose one family through whom blessing will flow back to all families of the earth — a plan the New Testament says is fulfilled in Christ, 'the seed of Abraham,' so that 'they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham' (Galatians 3:7).

Abraham also defines what it means to be right with God. Paul builds his entire argument for justification by faith on Genesis 15:6: Abraham was counted righteous not by works but by believing God's promise. Every believer, Jew or Gentile, is in this sense a child of Abraham, an heir of the promise made on this day.