Becoming Who We Are
[In Genesis 17:1-8] God Almighty appears to Abram, and reiterates part of the promise he’s already made: Abram’s numbers will be increased greatly, particularly through offspring. There’s common ground for their visions of the future: Abram wants children, and God promises him children. Abram falls face down in worship and reverence, and then God says something absolutely astonishing.
“No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you the father of many nations” (Genesis 17:5).
What’s the problem with that statement?
The problem is that Abraham is not the father of many nations. He has one son, who wasn’t even borne of his wife Sarai! But here is God, giving Abram a brand new name, reimagining his identity, bestowing a name that would remind him every time it was spoken, “God has made you the father of many nations.” How can that be?
Because then, to add more eyebrow raises and concerned looks, God goes on to say, “I will - future tense - make you fruitful and give you many children, I will make nations and kings out of your family line, I will give your offspring this land." Is God schizophrenic? Forgetful? Inconsistent? Talking out both sides of his mouth, so to speak?
No! These words that God spoke to Abraham, these words that God is still speaking to us, are spoken this way for a purpose - to open our eyes to see something about ourselves as we continue on the odyssey of faith, and to open our eyes to see something about God and what he is doing for us as we continue on the odyssey. When God says, “I have made you the father of many nations,” and then immediately says, “I will make you fruitful,” he is saying that his promises and his faithfulness are so rock solid, so unshakable, so assured simply by the very nature of God himself, that he can call us what we are not yet as if we were; in other words, God can say he has made Abraham the father of many nations, in spite of the fact that as of that moment he wasn’t, because God is so faithful to keep his promises that it is as good as done.
The closest verbal parallel I can bring to my own mind for this is a negative example, but I think it helps us understand this concept: the phrase, “he’s a dead man walking.” If I’m not mistaken, that saying was birthed out of the moments when a prisoner was being led from their cell to their place of execution. So the image is, “he’s still alive, but it’s so certain and assured that he’s going to die, that we’ll call him a dead man even while he’s walking.” Of course, we human beings are limited and finite in our capabilities, so we can only make such statements confidently when they’re in the negative. But God is so powerful and so faithful, he can make those kinds of statements about future good things. “I have made you the father of many nations, even though you aren’t yet.”
And you realize that God does the same for us? For we who follow in Abraham’s footsteps on this odyssey, for we who believe God like he did, for we who believe that Jesus is our great reward and our only hope for salvation, God calls us what we are not yet.
Hebrews 10:14 says, “Through a single offering [which is Christ crucified] God has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” Through faith in Jesus, God’s people are called “perfected” even while they’re being continually molded and shaped into that image - the image of Jesus himself! We are being told, to put it another way, “You are holy and set apart, as I am making you holy and setting you apart.” The last time I checked, I was galaxies away from being “perfected.” But the certainty that God will finish what he’s started in my life, in your life, in the lives of all who walk the odyssey of faith in him, is so strong and unbreakable, that he can say we are perfected, even as we are being sanctified and asking for forgiveness for our sin and leaving behind the false gods we used to bow down to.
