An altar to Abraham was like a living thing. To him it was a living memorial of the promises YHWH had made to him, and a living reminder of YHWH choosing him and his family through the generations as the means by which those amazing promises would be fulfilled.
The altar was just a pile of rocks but it had a living purpose, because it continues fulfilling its purpose in our lives today – as we see in 1 Peter 2:5, when Peter describes the Christians of his day as being “like living stones.”
It seems like a contradiction in terms to call lifeless stones and rocks as “living,” but amazing things happen in the lives of those who recognize what YHWH has promised for our world, and the staggering realization that he’s working out his promises through rocks and stones like us.
Take what happened to Abraham, for instance. Right after building his altars in Genesis 12:7-8, a severe famine struck in verse 10. So the very land – in which YHWH had just promised to make Abraham a great nation (2) – had become impossible to live in. Out of the blue, then, Abraham is faced with a decision he never saw coming. So, how did he react, knowing what YHWH had promised?
Did he “call on the name of the Lord” like he’d done at the building of his second altar (8), and in faith look to YHWH for a solution? Not in the Holy Spirit record, he didn’t. Instead, he ups sticks (10) and drags his wife and possessions down to Egypt – where things get worse when he realizes his wife’s beauty could get him killed if someone takes a shine to her (12). But again, no record of him trusting YHWH for a solution. Instead he figures his life will be spared if he passes his wife off as his sister (13).
So this is what it’s like being a living altar: we know YHWH is working out his plan through us, but he also allows life to throw impossible situations at us. Why? So that, just like Abraham, we learn two things: that first of all, we can make a right botch of things when not trusting YHWH and trying to resolve our impossible situations ourselves. And secondly, that YHWH is totally aware of our flaws, but in those flaws he reveals his love and mercy, as he did in Abraham’s case by putting a stop to the Pharaoh taking Sarah, Abraham’s wife, as his own (17).
Abraham was learning about a loving God he could trust in, so “What did knowing YHWH’s love do to Abraham?”….(next blog)
Buck To Basics 