10. The Son of Promise.
THE birth of Isaac was surrounded with divine interpositions. God would not allow that the seed He had promised to Abraham should come to him in the ordinary way of nature, and to this both the record of the Old Testament and the teaching of the New testify.
“Sarah laughed within herself” as she stood in the tent door, and overheard the Lord say to Abraham, “Sarah, thy wife, shall have a son.” It was an unbelieving laugh, supported by unbelieving reasoning. (Gen. 18:1212Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also? (Genesis 18:12).) Being exposed by the Lord, she tried to escape owning her unbelief, but this He would not allow, saying, “Nay; but thou didst laugh.” Probably no one heard the laugh but God, and how often are God’s people like Sarah, and measure God’s word by their own resources, instead of believing that He promises blessing according to His own will; and “is there anything too hard for the Lord?” But they laugh in their hearts, and reason out their unbelief to their own satisfaction.
Sarah did not forget her unbelief, for when her son was born to her as the Lord had promised, she said, “God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me.” She recognized His grace in turning her ridicule into the exultant joy of realization, and the secret folly of her heart into such an open confession to God’s power and faithfulness, that all that heard should laugh with her. Such is God’s grace to us. So the promised son was called Laughter―Isaac.
Faith in God’s word is regarded as a silly thing by modern religious wisdom, but in the fulfillment of that word even the world will have to own the faithfulness of God. When the day of realization comes, the evidence that God is true will be before men’s eyes. At the longest, at the end of a lifetime it will be found that God is true.
With her own son in the tent, the son of divine promise, Sarah, with right instincts, determined that he should have his proper place, which was, and could but be, not the first, but the only place as son. When Isaac was weaned, and thus, as it were, entered into a distinct and individual position in the house, being no longer a babe in his mother’s bosom, Abraham made a great feast. Due honors were paid to the son― the heir. All eyes were to be fixed henceforth on him; in him the glory of Abraham, his father, was to express itself. And then it was that the son of the bondwoman began to mock! He laughed at the son of promise. Ishmael had hitherto been Abraham’s hope, but now, Isaac being no more a babe in arms, called out his jealous rivalry.
This, Sarah would have none of. There should be no rival son in her tent. None should make light of her Isaac; he was all to her, and should be all. “Cast out this bondwoman and her son,” she cried, “for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son; even with Isaac.” And she was right, neither was there any denying of her. She was peremptory. It had to be done. Further, God declared she was right― “in all that Sarah had said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.”
Ah! would that there was like decision for Christ, The. Seed; would that the instincts the affections of God’s people were as true to Him as were those of Sarah to her son of promise. Christ alone no rival, no sharer a His honor; Christ alone! He is supreme—in all things give Him the pre-eminence. How would such a spirit relieve our weighted Christianity from its burden of legality, ritualism, and the family of the bondwoman, and rid the tent of their mocking and their ridicule as we make our feast in the honor of our Isaac, our Laughter, our Jesus! How would such a spirit empty our hearts of the rivals of the Lord and fill our souls with His glory! How would the legal spirit flee were Christ’s place truly regarded. Christians, what are own spiritual instincts for Christ?
“Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond maid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory..... Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh, persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless, what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son; for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. Stand fast therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” (See Gal. 4:1919My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, (Galatians 4:19)―5:6.)
Cast out legal efforts, cast out every idea that makes little of Christ; and all that makes anything of self good or bad, does but mock at Christ. Away with these Ishmaels, let Isaac have his place, which is the sole place. There never can be terms between Christ and the law, the Spirit and the flesh, grace and works, faith and doings. Out, all these contrary things must go from the heart. And if they are banished from the hearts, they will be ousted from the tents of God’s people. There will be no temporizing with the spirit of ritualism, which is a denial of Christ’s supremacy, and a substitution of priests and sacrifices for His priesthood, His sacrifice; no temporizing with sensuous worship, which is but the effort of man to produce goodness pleasing to God out of what pleases our own eyes, ears, and senses, and which thereby leaves Christ out, and mocks at His place, which never can be a divided, but is the sole and only place.
May we all have the true spiritual instincts, and though we may, like Sarah, have been slow of heart to believe, let us now, since we know Christ, be jealous for His honor, as was she for that of Isaac.