Abram; Faith; Hope; Love; The Journey The River
A man's character can no more be composed of a single virtue than a rope of a single strand. But “a threefold cord who shall break?” When the element of faith is interwoven with hope and love we have the perfect character. So, while we find that the leading feature of Abram's life is faith, we find that it is intermingled with the other two spiritual graces, and each present in a marked degree: there is not only a presence of the other elements, but a proportionableness; but faith appears to be the leading characteristic because of the circumstances through which he passed. The principle is seen also in the Epistles. The leading theme of Paul is faith; nevertheless he writes much of hope and love. The leading theme of Peter is hope, but he is by no means confined to this. And the leading theme of John is love, notwithstanding which he writes “that ye may believe;” and that a man “may have this hope on Him.”
Now Abram's life is divided into three epochs, by the insertion of the words “After these things” in Gen. 15:11After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. (Genesis 15:1) and xxii. 1, and I think the different aspects are seen thus—firstly, the call and the response of faith; secondly, the promise and the response of hope; and, thirdly, the trial and the response of love. These aspects in a sort of way correspond to the threefold aspect of length, breadth, and thickness which the scientific men attach to all things; for there is nothing that reaches farther than hope; nothing broader than love; and nothing more substantial than faith.
From chap. 11 to 14 then, we see the call and response. The call comes to a sinner amongst sinners; brings him out thence; and, after trouble and conflict, ultimately, notwithstanding his failure, the section closes on him as he stands triumphant over all foes and difficulties on the hills of Salem, whence Melchisedec comes forth to welcome him, and crown him with eternal benediction in the name of the Most High God. The Talmud as might be expected puts a different appearance on this call—that Abram had been a good little boy and broke his father's idols; that Nimrod had wanted to kill him, and so forth. But from Joshua's statement the facts are evidently quite different. Abram was born and bred amongst idolaters in Ur, the center of the worship of the Moon—God, Sin, and just under the shadow of Babylon's walls, beneath the bondage of Nimrod the Hamite, the despot of an alien race. From thence God, in supreme grace, calls him to come into a land whither He would guide him and where He would welcome and endow him. In traveling to that land, he has to pass by and resolutely leave behind him the world-city, Babylon; has to undergo a difficult and arduous desert journey. But God accompanies him; His wisdom guides him; His grace sustains him, and His power protects him. The representative and typical bearing of all this is too obvious to need much comment. Believers are “called” by the word of God in a way that awakens the power to respond—the call being personal in the experience of each. They are separated by this call from their old sins, penalties and associations; and consecrated to a blameless and glorious destiny. They are brought through the journey of life, which has become to them now, in some sense, barren and unfavorable, though its dreariness is illumined by the light of an accompanying Shechinah. At length they reach the cold and cheerless river that separates the present from the future. Here they must all cross (Abram was the “Hebrew—the immigrant:” Eber means “the passage over"). Some must cross through its chilly flood; others (“we shall not all sleep”) shall cross dry shod, as when the host passed over of old, nigh Jericho, into the “Land of Promise." Every believer must follow the course of the father of the faithful. It is a representative course; “they go from strength to strength,” though outwardly it seems from weakness to weakness. “Every one of them in Zion appeareth before God” whose Great High Priest, “after the order of Melchisedec,” welcomes them to “the Holy City” in whose golden streets “Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other,” and pronounces upon them the ineffable benediction of the Most High God.
“Part of the host have crossed the flood, and part are crossing now!” Some of them plunge boldly into the icy waters; others “linger shivering on the brink, And fear to launch away.” Amongst the most pathetic pages ever written are those at the end of the second part of “The Pilgrim's Progress,” where the weary—pilgrims await their summons across the river. Christiana entered “with a beckon of farewell to those that followed her: the last words site was heard to say were, “I come, Lord, to be with Thee, and bless Thee'.... At her departure the children wept.” Then came the summons to Mr. Ready-to-halt. The messenger says, “I am come from Him whom thou hast loved and followed, though upon crutches.” Mr. Ready-to halt bequeaths his crutches, saying when he comes to the brink of the river, “Now I have no more need of them . . . Welcome life” —so he went his way. Then Mr. Feeble-mind is required and “nothing in his life became him so much as the leaving it.” Mr. Honest had one named Good-conscience to help him over, but he relied not on him: his last words were, “Grace reigns!” Mr. Valiant for-truth goes in gravely; he sinks deeply, but as he went down he said, “Death, where is thy sting?” and as he went down deeper, “Grave, where is thy victory?” The most touching part is where Mr. Despondency is summoned. His daughter Much-afraid says she will go too: and these two infirm and bruised reeds close their lives of doubting, fearing, and trembling, in the joy of their Lord and the power of His might. Mr. Despondency's last words were, “Farewell, night; welcome, day!” “His daughter went through the river singing, but none could understand what she said”