2002-01-01
Good Morning Fellow Lovers of God’s Word,
I never get tired of reminding myself how very blessed all of us are that our Lord God, El Shaddai, is the “All-Sufficient One.” We can learn so much about our loving Abba by which name for Him is used in Scripture citations. Who else could make the kind of promise El Shaddai made to Abraham and be able to keep it than our God, the “All Sufficient One?” GN 17: 1-8, “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘I am the Almighty God. Obey Me and always do what is right. I will make My covenant with you and give you many descendants.’ Abram bowed down with his face touching the ground, and God said, ‘I make this covenant with you; I promise that you will be the ancestor of many nations. Your name will no longer be Abram, but Abraham, because I am making you the ancestor of many nations. I will give you many descendants, and some of them will be kings. You will have so many descendants that they will become nations. I will keep My promise to you and to your descendants in future generations as an everlasting covenant. I will be your God and the God of your descendants. I will give to you and to your descendants this land in which you are now a foreigner. The whole land of Canaan will belong to your descendants forever, I will be their God.’ “ This promise is huge! We already know that God has fulfilled two of the three promises (people, land, and king) contained in this eternal covenant. The Jewish people are the nation. Israel is the land. The only promise yet to be fulfilled is that of the King. I firmly believe that will be fulfilled when Christ establishes His eternal Kingdom.
Am I foolish to believe that in spite of the on-going conflict between Arabs and Jews that Israel will survive? I don’t think so. That is because of the description “everlasting covenant” used in (7). Not even the battle of Armaggedon itself will mean the end of the Jewish people if we take El Shaddai at His word here. That is another reason in addition to RO 11: 25 and ZECH 13: 8-9 for why we can reject replacement theology entirely. El Shaddai is a promise-keeper. One need only look at His track record to know that. Paul recognized the importance of this and reminded us of it in RO 4: 19-22. “He [Abraham] was then almost one hundred years old; but his faith did not weaken when he thought of his body, which was already practically dead, or of the fact that Sarah could not have children. His faith did not leave him, and he did not doubt God’s promise; his faith filled him with power, and he gave praise to God. He was absolutely sure that God would be able to do what he had promised. That is why Abraham, through faith, ‘was accepted as righteous by God.’ “ God knew ahead of time that Abraham’s lineage through the line of Isaac (called the “the child of the promise) would lead not only to King David, but to Christ Himself. He left the indelible footsteps for that line in GN 5, GN 10, MT 1: 1-17, and LK 3: 23-38, so that we could follow each step and know the truth of Christ’s lineage.
Abraham’s faith was no accident, nor was God’s decision in GN 15: 6 to deem him acceptable for it or to impute righteousness to Abraham’s account. When we go back to the Hebrew language, this important truth is uncovered in the very name that God gave Abram in GN 17: 5. The Hebrew letter, hay, the chief letter of God’s own name, Jehovah, when added to Abram makes “Abraham.” The Hebrew word, El, means “might” or “power.” The exact translation for “Shaddai” isn’t clear, but it often speaks of God’s might or power as they apply to His judgments and of His all-sufficient nature. In Abraham’s example of faith, God has given us a paradigm to follow. Abraham was willing to renounce self and his own power to take up the power that comes from faith in God. To that end, he was willing surrender Himself to God in obedience, to allow God to be his Judge rather them himself, and was circumcised when he was 99 years old and his son, Ishmael was 13 [GN 17: 24-27]. From that point on, all Jewish males and their male slaves were circumcised in accordance with God’s command in GN 17: 11-13.
Paul in RO 4: 9b-12 made an important point about the real meaning of Abraham’s circumcision. “…We have quoted the Scripture [GN 15: 6], ‘Abraham believed God, and because of his faith God accepted him as righteous.’ When did this take place? Was it before or after Abraham was circumcised? It was before, not after. He was circumcised later, and his circumcision was a sign to show that because of his faith God had accepted him as righteous before he had been circumcised. And so Abraham is the spiritual father of all who believe in God and are accepted as righteous by Him, even through they are not circumcised. He is also the father of those who are circumcised that is, of those who in addition to being circumcised, also live the same life of faith that our father Abraham lived before he was circumcised.” The bottom line is that the inward supernatural transformation by the renewal of Abraham’s mind had already taken place by the time he was circumcised. The physical act of circumcision was a sign of that transformation, but not one necessary for salvation. Paul very aptly described the miracle of faith, that most precious act upon a believer by El Shaddai, in RO 2: 29 in the context of defining a real Jew. However this principle applies to all of us. “Rather, the real Jew is the person who is a Jew on the inside, that is, whose heart has been circumcised, and this is the work of God’s Spirit, not of the written Law. Such a person received his praise from God, not from a man.” In the supreme court of God’s judgment, that person has been deemed forgiven of prior sins, righteous, and innocent by El Shaddai Himself.
PRAYER: O Lord, You have given us the story of a righteous man, Abraham, so that we might see Your all-sufficient nature. You demonstrate Your power to grant a couple beyond normal child-bearing years a son, whose descendants will become a nation. You show us that it was Your will that from that nation should come a King for all of us. When we read the book of Joshua, we can see that You alone had the power to keep Your promise to Abraham’s descendants through Isaac and Jacob to grant them the land called Israel. Joshua and His men could not have vanquished all the Canaanites there without the power You granted them. You are the all-sufficient, El Shaddai, the only Judge Who could have justified Abraham or anyone else in response to his faith in You. You deemed him, and those of us who have repented and come to true faith, as innocent and imputed us with righteousness. No other entity could do that. We have been “circumcised in our hearts,” and we do look to You for praise rather than other people. We are blessed by Your forgiveness and acknowledge You as our one and only God, our El Shaddai. We humbly praise, thank, worship, adore, and honor You. In Christ’s name we pray, amen.
Tomorrow, we will begin looking at citations in which God reveals His attributes as Adonai, “the Lord.” This ties in with Him as Jehovah Sabaoth, “the Lord of Hosts,” and as Yahweh, which is the same as YHWH or Jehovah. Until then, please know that He is the only God we will ever need. He is truly, El Shaddai, the “All-Sufficient One,” Who not only can, but will see to our every need. We are all loved abundantly by El Shaddai, Who eagerly awaits when we seek Him out. We are never alone, unloved, or abandoned as long as we have faith. Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn