Posted on 03/04/2015 4:45:12 AM PST by Alex Murphy
Abraham alone ought to be to us equal to tens of thousands if we consider his faith, which is set before us as the best model of believing, to whose race also we must be held to belong in order that we may be the children of God. What could be more absurd than that Abraham should be the father of all the faithful, and not even occupy the meanest corner among them? He cannot be denied a place in the list; nay, he cannot be denied one of the most honourable places in it, without the destruction of the whole Church.
Now, as regards his experience in life, the moment he is called by the command of God, he is torn away from friends, parents, and country, objects in which the chief happiness of life is deemed to consist, as if it had been the fixed purpose of the Lord to deprive him of all the sources of enjoyment. No sooner does he enter the land in which he was ordered to dwell, than he is driven from it by famine.
What is the happiness of inhabiting a land where you must so often suffer from hunger, nay, perish from famine, unless you flee from it? Wherever he goes, he meets with savage-hearted neighbours, who will not even allow him to drink of the wells which he has dug with great labour. At length Isaac is born, but in return, the first-born Ishmael is displaced, and almost hostilely driven forth and abandoned. Isaac remains alone, and the good man, now worn out with age, has his heart upon him, when shortly after he is ordered to offer him up in sacrifice. What can the human mind conceive more dreadful than for the father to be the murderer of his son? Had he been slain by some stranger, this would, indeed, have been much worse than natural death. But all these calamities are little compared with the murder of him by his father's hand.
Let it not be said that he was not so very distressed, because he at length escaped from all these tempests.
....Abraham alone ought to be to us equal to tens of thousands if we consider his faith, which is set before us as the best model of believing, to whose race also we must be held to belong in order that we may be the children of God.
Transcribed from the book Day by Day with John Calvin, published by Hendrickson Publishers. The devotional is excerpted from Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, chapter 10, section 11.
The devotional is excerpted from Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, chapter 10, section 11.
Two chapters where he discusses the similarities between the testaments and the differences.
The good doctor goes on the catalog the hardships of the OT saints to demonstrate that their hope and reward was heavenly, not centered on earth.
Good reading.
**But all these calamities are little compared with the murder of him by his father’s hand.**
How profound.
Thanks!
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