Transcript Genesis - St. Mary Coptic Orthodox Church of Middlesex

Genesis
Chapter 15 & 16
Abram’s Trial
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6.
Abram’s Obey God Call to leave everything and to
follow Him.
Hindered by His Father – God renew the call
Famine fear for his life
Egypt – Deception and lying Lost Sari and his Alter
Return to Canaan and Lot’s quarrel over the Land –
Been Humble and left God to choose for him
Saving Lot –Faith working through love
Refusing the king of Sodom offering been content
The Priest hood of Melkisadek
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Priest and King
Righteous and peace
Bread and wine.
Blesses Abram and receive the tenth.
His Sacrifice greater than Aaron
He is symbol of Christ.
“Do not be afraid”
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It is mentioned 365 times in the Bible.
Why Abram was Afraid?
Fear of the future and of the reward
“I am your shield”
Acts 18:9-11
9 Now the Lord spoke to Paul in the night by a vision,
"Do not be afraid, but speak, and do not keep silent; 10
for I am with you, and no one will attack you to hurt you;
for I have many people in this city." 11 And he continued
there a year and six months, teaching the word of God
among them.
• 2 Kings 6:16-18
• 16 So he answered,"Do not fear, for those who are with
us are more than those who are with them." 17 And
Elisha prayed, and said, "LORD, I pray, open his eyes
that he may see." Then the LORD opened the eyes of
the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain
was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
18 So when the Syrians came down to him, Elisha
prayed to the LORD, and said, "Strike this people, I pray,
with blindness." And He struck them with blindness
according to the word of Elisha.
The Earthly and the Heavenly
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God’s renew his promise.
Compare Gen 15:5 with Gen13:16
Ishmael represent the dust of the earth.
Isaac Represent the heavenly.
Abram’s Vision
• Abram Asks for a sign.
• St. Augustine
• He did not mean to imply that he does not believe that
• he would inherit it; but said “How shall I know ? “,
namely, He asks for a sign to know the
• way by which, what he believed to gain would be
realized. In this He is like the Virgin St. Mary,
• who asked, not in disbelief, “How can this be, since I do
not know a man ? “ (Luke 1: 34).
• She was asking about the way by which what is to occur,
would be realized;
• “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day,
and he saw it and was glad.“
• Refers to the redeeming work of the Lord
• Christ; When sun went down, at the fulfillment of
time, deep sleep fell upon the Lord, as He
• yielded up His Spirit on the cross, proclaiming
the bitterness of sin, that brought us down to
hell, and delivered us to servitude for some time
Abram’s Vision
• Gen 15:12
• 12 Now when the sun was going down, a
deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold,
horror and great darkness fell upon him
• Gen 15:17
• 17 And it came to pass, when the sun
went down and it was dark
• St. John Chrysostom says:
• [Isaac was born, not according to the law of nature, nor
through legal marriage or body strength; and yet, he is
truly his son. He came from two bodies that were dead;
came from a dead womb; his birth was not according to
flesh, nor he was naturally conceived, as the womb was
dead because of old age and barrenness, but the Word
of God (the divine promise) formed him (through union of
Abram and Sarai as a fruit of the promise, so he is their
son and of their seed).
• It was not the same with the son of the bondwoman, as
he came according to the law of nature.
• However, the one, not according to the flesh, was more
dignified than him, who was born according to the flesh].
• pere' (peh'-reh); or pereh (Jer 2:24) (peh'reh); from OT:6500 in the secondary sense
of running wild; the onager:
• KJV - wild (ass).
• Be'er la-Chay Ro'iy —
• Beer-lahai-roi = "well of the Living One
seeing me"
• a well west of Kadesh, south of Israel
• Gen 15:12
• 12 Now when the sun was going down, a deep
sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and
great darkness fell upon him.
• Matt 27:45-46
• Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there
was darkness over all the land. 46 And about the
ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice,
saying, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" that is, "My
God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
• NKJV
• Gen 15:16-17
• 17 And it came to pass, when the sun went
down and it was dark, that behold, there
appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch
that passed between those pieces.
• Rev 9:1-2
• 2 And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke
arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great
furnace. So the sun and the air were darkened
because of the smoke of the pit.
• NKJV
• Gen 16:1-3
• 1. It is the policy of Satan to tempt us by
our nearest and dearest relations, or those
friends that we have an opinion of and an
affection for.
• The temptation is most dangerous when it
is sent by a hand that is least suspected:
• it is our wisdom therefore to consider, not
so much who speaks as what is spoken.
• Gen 16:1-3
• 2. She owned God's providence in this
affliction: The Lord hath restrained me
from bearing. Note,
• As, where children are, it is God that gives
them (Gen 33:5), so where they are
wanted it is he that withholds them, Gen
30:2. This evil is of the Lord.
• Gen 29:31
• When the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, He opened her womb;
but Rachel was barren.
• Gen 30:1-2
• Now when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel
envied her sister, and said to Jacob, "Give me children, or else I
die!"
• 2 And Jacob's anger was aroused against Rachel, and he said,"Am I
in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the
womb?"
• Gen 30:22-23
• 22 Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and
opened her womb. 23 And she conceived and bore a son, and said,
"God has taken away my reproach."
• Gen 16:4-6
• Those who would keep up peace and love
must return soft answers to hard
accusations. Husbands and wives
particularly should agree, and endeavour
not to be both angry together. Yielding
pacifies great offenses.
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Abram = "exalted father"
Sarai = "princess"
Hagar (haw-gawr'); foreign, Alien
Ishmael.
Yishma` e'l (yish-maw-ale'); from OT:8085
and OT:410; God will hear;
• Gen 16:10-14
• He gives a character of the child she should
bear, which, however it may seem to us,
perhaps was not very disagreeable to her (v.
12):
• He will be a wild man; a wild ass of a man (so
the word is), rude, and bold, and fearing no
man-untamed, intractable living at large, and
impatient of service and restraint.
• Gen 16:10-14
• (1.) That he should live in strife, and in a
state of war: His hand against every man this is his sin; and every man's hand
against him - this is his punishment.
• He that has his hand and tongue against
every man shall have every man's hand
and tongue against him, and he has no
reason to complain of it.
• Gen 16:10-14
• (2.) That he should live in safety, and hold
his own against all the world: He shall
dwell in the presence of all his brethren;
though threatened and insulted by all his
neighbours, yet he shall keep his ground,
• Gen 16:7-9
• Those that have gone away from their
place and duty, when they are convinced
of their error, must hasten their return and
reformation, how mortifying so ever it may
be.
• Abram = "exalted father"
• Abaham = "father of a multitude" or "chief
of multitude"
• Sarai = "princess"
• Sarah = "noblewoman"
Circumcision
Greek=peritomh, which is translated by the Latin
circumcisio, i. e. “a cutting around”, a custom
among many Eastern nations of cutting off part
of the prepuce, as a religious ceremony.
The Jews, through Abraham, received the rite from
Jehovah; Moses established it as a national
ordinance; and Joshua carried it into effect
before the Israelites entered the land of Canaan
Males only were subjected to the operation, and it
was to be performed on the eighth day of the
child's life; foreign slaves also were forced to
submit to it on entering an Israelite's family
CIRCUMCISION
• The penalty of death for a neglect of this ordinance
appears in the case of Moses to have actually been
demanded of the father, when the Lord "sought to kill
him" because his son was uncircumcised (Ex 4:24-26).
• During the passage through the wilderness the practice
fell into disuse, so that of those who entered Canaan
none had been circumcised.
• As this was fatal to their title under the covenant to take
possession of the land, Joshua, in obedience to God's
command, caused all the males to be circumcised (Josh
5:2-9).
When first appointed by God, circumcision was
expressly set forth as a token of the covenant
which God had made with Abraham; and the
apostle tells us that Abraham received "the sign
of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness of
that faith which he had, being yet
uncircumcised" (Rom 4:11);
So that to Abraham it was not only a sign or token
of God's covenant, but also an obsignation or
certificate that he was in a state of acceptance
before he was circumcised
CIRCUMCISION
• In consequence of this, it became the medium of
access to the privileges of the covenant, and
entailed on all who received it an obligation to
fulfill the duties which the covenant imposed
(Rom 2:25; 3:1; Gal 5:3).
• In a word, it was the token which assured to
Abraham and his descendants the promise of
the Messiah (Gen 17).
Circumcision
• Our Lord himself was circumcised, because it became
him who was of the seed of Abraham according to the
flesh to fulfill all righteousness, and because he was "a
minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to
confirm the promises made unto the fathers" (Rom 15:8);
• and Paul caused Timothy to be circumcised to avoid
offense to the Jews, his mother being a Jewess; but the
spirit of Christianity was averse from such institutions
(Acts 15:1-11; Gal 2:3, etc.) -- for the outward carnal
circumcision it sought to substitute that of the heart (Rom
2:28,29),
• "the circumcision not made with hands in putting off the
sins of the flesh, even the circumcision of Christ" (Col
2:11)
• Gal 6:15
• 15 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision
nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a
new creation.
• Col 3:11
• 11 where there is neither Greek nor Jew,
circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian,
Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all
and in all.
• Rom 2:28-29
• 28 For he is not a Jew who is one
outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is
outward in the flesh; 29 but he is a Jew
who is one inwardly; and circumcision is
that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the
letter; whose praise is not from men but
from God.
• Col 2:11-14
• 11 Not Legalism but Christ
• In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision
made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins
of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 buried with
Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with
Him through faith in the working of God, who raised
Him from the dead. 13 And you, being dead in your
trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has
made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all
trespasses, 14 having wiped out the handwriting of
requirements that was against us, which was contrary to
us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to
the cross.
CIRCUMCISION
Baptism
• 5. The early ecclesiastical writers universally
held thee views here given. Their doctrine, made
dependent on John 3:5, that ptisma, baptism of
water and the Spirit, was equivalent to ,
regeneration by water and the Spirit, caused
them to speak of baptism as (GREEK( peritomh\
pneumatikh), spiritual circumcision, because the
Spirit was always joined with the water in the
baptism of an infant, or a converted, believing
adult.
In Justin Martyr baptism is very frequently alluded
to as the "true circumcision," of which the
ancient rite was a type. "God commands you to
be washed with this purification, and to be
circumcised with the true circumcision"
He says that Christians "had not received the
fleshly circumcision, but the spiritual one, which
Enoch and those like him made use of; and we
received it through baptism, "
The ordinance of baptism was to Justin "the water
of life"
• Cyprian and his council, held in the
baptism of infants that the analogy then
followed of ancient circumcision should not
be binding
CIRCUMCISION
• Its significance is, the cutting the outside flesh of
the organ of generation denotes corruption as
inherent in us from birth, and transmitted by our
parents, and symbolizes our severance from
nature's defilement to a state of consecrated
fellowship with God.
• Jehovah consecrated the nation to Himself; and
whatsoever male was not circumcised on the
eighth day was liable to be "cut off.
"Uncircumcised" is used of the lips (Ex 6:12,20),
the ears (Jer 4:4; 6:10), the heart (Lev 26:41;
Deut 10:16; Acts 7:51),
• Acts 7:51-53
• "You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and
ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your
fathers did, so do you. 52 Which of the prophets
did your fathers not persecute? And they killed
those who foretold the coming of the Just One,
of whom you now have become the betrayers
and murderers,
• Rom 5:12
• Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death
through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned
John 3:3-7
• 3 Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you,
unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
• 4 Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old?
Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?"
• 5 Jesus answered, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born
of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit
is spirit.
• 1 Cor 15:47-49
• 47 The first man was of the earth, made of dust;
the second Man is the Lord from heaven. 48 As
was the man of dust, so also are those who are
made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so
also are those who are heavenly. 49 And as we
have borne the image of the man of dust, we
shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.
• 51 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood
cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does
corruption inherit incorruption.