Thanks for the question. Thanks also for laying out some of your views about the covenant between God and us, and the quality of the salvation afford to us through the Cross.
(Apologies for wall of text, btw.)
To give my answer to your question proper weight, I should lay out a few fundamental concepts that I believe will help to contextualize the issue at hand.
First is the principle in the Word that shapes how growth to completion is accomplished in God's creation.
Second is the nature of the ideal of God's creation which form the foundation for all the Father's efforts to restore that ideal after it was lost.
Third is the concept of indemnification, which is what our human responsibility was transmuted to in the Father's providence to restore and resurrect us.
That should provide a good context to address the question of how and what offering Abraham failed in.
One. God created the universe in such manner that all living things pass through a period of time when they grow to reach maturity and completion. In the case of some species of rabbit, for example, the period is about 6 months. After 6 months, they are physically mature, and are able to reproduce. In the case of some plants, they will mature and then seed fully after one season, while others (i.e. ginseng) take 7 years to mature.
In the case of human beings, physically, we can reproduce around 13, 14 years of age, but we really only fully mature physically around 20 or 21 years of age. If Adam and Eve had not fallen, their offspring - any pure child of God - would have matured both physically and spiritually (aka perfection, complete oneness with the Father) at the same time; around 20/21 years of age. So far, only Jesus lived that original design.
For all creatures that maturation process is automatic, as long as they are supplied with the right nutrients, the right environment (warmth) and exercise (action). Likewise our physical body matures automatically with those things. However, the spirit, and our hearts, are created to mature only when we exercises our own responsibility to believe in and embody (action) God's Word (spiritual nutrient), in the presence of God's love (warmth). If we disbelieve, and do not practice to embody the Word, then our spirit cannot grow to maturity. If we cannot experience or access God's love, likewise, spiritual growth stunted.
That maturing or growing period is actually comprised of three sub-periods, each with a distinct character and nature. Remember this. It's important.
Two. The core of God's ideal for his creation is His children: humanity. The design for us, to mature and grow our spirit and our hearts, is the God-centered family. In the family, you have 4 core participants: One, the Father, God. Two, the husband (male), God's son. Three, the wife (female), God's daughter. Four, the child or children, God's "grandchildren" as it were (but also God's children). When a husband and wife have children of their own, they can experience for themselves directly the heart that God has towards them, by loving their own children.
Thus, the family with God at the center is the design for us to experience four core dimensions of God's love: parent's love, spouse's love, children's love, and sibling love. This is key, because what Adam and Eve lost when they fell was their ability to create a family in which God, and God's love, was at the center and fully present. Thus, all children born in such a family are also disconnected from God's love, and are unable to grow to spiritual maturity. Adam and Eve also lost God's Word. God gave them the commandment not to eat the fruit. When they ate the fruit, they lost their ability to receive God's word and believe in it. In the hearts of Adam and Eve, Satan replaced God's word with the Lie (eat).
Because Adam failed to mature fully, he came to be controlled (governed) by the Angel, Lucifer, instead of maturing to become the Lord who had governance OVER Lucifer. He lost his ability to qualify as the Lord over the angels.
Three. By causing Adam to fall, Lucifer 'created' a second unimaginable reality: hell, where God's children became Satan's children, and where they are cut off from God's love and God's word. From the viewpoint of Adam, Adam became a fallen creature. Originally, Adam had only one master and one center: God, the Father. But in believing in and uniting with Satan's word, the Lie, Adam now became the embodiment of both good and evil. Good, innate and inherited from God, but also evil, inherited via relationship with the devil.
Adam failed in his responsibility to unite with God's command, and thus became unable to exercise his natural responsibility to grow. He left his correct position and went in a completely unlawful direction. To return to his original position, and then continue on to grow to completion (oneness with God), Adam and his descendants need to make some condition that God can claim and say to Satan: "Sorry. They have fulfilled their responsibility, so they belong to me, not you." That condition is the key. It's why we have to believe in Jesus and salvation through the cross (that's our small condition of responsibility) in order to access the salvation God offers us. Without that condition, Satan simply claims to God, "they have not fulfilled their responsibility, so they belong to me." and God cannot refuse that, because it's God's principle itself that says we grow to unity with Him via exercising our responsibility.
So, these three things are key to the reason why God had his champions make offerings to him: the offering represents the Word of God, that Adam lost. By making the offering correctly, the anointed person successfully makes the condition of fulfilling the responsibility Adam could not, and thus can come to stand in a place where God can claim that person.
This process unfolds in God's providence through different stages, which is what the scripture describes. That's why the nature of the offering changes.
(Note for future reference: the offering is not the only thing required to restore God's claim over us. We also must embody the Word (which Adam failed to do) and this is done through unity between God's representative and the ones to be restored. This unity symbolizes the unity Adam should have (but which he didn’t) achieved by embodying God's word and achieving governance OVER the angel, Lucifer.)
It should be noted that Jesus Christ is the one who accomplished substantially, spiritually, this embodiment of the Word (meaning He is the Word, but he brought that to perfection by his own efforts and sufferings), and thus gained victory over the fallen angel, thus becoming the author of salvation.
From this view, Jesus himself is the actual model for success in this area (the path each of us must go), but all the representatives chosen by God before Christ came are actually precursors or symbolic representations of Christ that God established to prepare the way. ("So Jesus replied, “Truly, truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing by Himself, unless He sees the Father doing it. For whatever the Father does, the Son also does.")
Prior to Abraham ~ Adam's family and Noah's family
Adam's family
Directly after Adam fell, God worked to have Adam's family restored to him, so that he could bring the Messiah, to give rebirth to them, by having Abel the second son, make an offering. God firstly separated the good and evil in Adam symbolically into the younger son, representing good, and the elder son, representing evil.
Abel made his offering in a manner that pleased God (aka was correct), and this became the condition that Abel united with God's word and fulfilled his providential responsibility, so he could stand as God's representative. Next, Cain (representing Lucifer) had to submit to and unite with him. But Cain murdered him, repeating the Fall where Lucifer murdered Adam spiritually.
Thus, Adam's family (including the 2nd generation) was now lost. Tragically, because Adam's family failed to restore the mistake of Adam, God's providence then had to center on restoring all the mistakes in Adam's family. Thus, Adam and his family became the blueprint for the providence to reverse the effects of the Fall.
To start again, to find a champion to make an offering correctly and who could then stand as God's representative, God worked through 10 generations (10 symbolizing the return to original position) to reset the starting point. After 10 generations, God chose Noah, a righteous man, to make the offering. The offering Noah had to make was the Ark.
Noah's family
Long story short, Noah was successful, and stood as God's representative. However, to have Ham inherit that foundation, and stand as God's representative (like Abel) to Shem (like Cain), the elder brother, Ham had to display complete and unwavering belief in Noah. Sadly, Ham disbelieved in his father, and even convinced his brothers to disbelieve in him "Oh, he is so sinful and shameful, lying there intoxicated!". So, Ham failed to inherit the successful position of Noah, and all God's work in Noah's family, even the 120 year period for the offering of the Ark, was lost. THIS is the reason that Noah cursed Ham when he woke up and realized what Ham had done.
Ham had failed to have unity with his father and inherit the position of God's representative (accordingly, there was no possibility for Shem to unite with Ham to restore the failed relationship between Adam and the Angel, because Ham lost the position of God's representative).
So God had to start all over, and attempt, for the third time, to find and establish a champion who could complete the offering correctly to stand as God's representative, and then have someone in the elder son position (like Cain, or like the Angel Lucifer) submit to and unite with God's representative in the younger son position (like Abel, or like Adam towards Lucifer).
If and when these conditions are met, God has the lawful foundation to say to Satan, this (family, people, nation) are mine. And he can send the Messiah to give rebirth to the offspring of Adam and Eve and restore them back to God's family.
Because God's ideal (which Adam lost) to be restored is the Family, the number 4 x 10 (return to starting point) symbolizes separation from Satan and the fallen situation. Thus, after 400 years from Noah, God found Abraham to become his champion.
Abraham's family
Abraham could thus make the offering at God's instruction after 400 years of separation from Satan.
After a lengthy course of preparing Abraham through all sorts of events (as recorded in scripture) God finally commanded Abraham to make the offering. God commanded 3 different levels of offering: heifer, Sheep + goat, pigeon + dove. The 3 different levels represent restoring the 3 stages of maturing to perfection. Just like the 3 levels in Noah's ark.
Abraham made the offering.
"So the LORD said to him, "Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon." Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away. As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.
But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure." When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, "To your descendants I give this land......"
How to understand all this?
Firstly, the cutting in half of the offering symbolize separating the good in Adam from the evil in Adam, and draining out the satanic blood that Adam became home to when he fell.
Abraham did this correctly for stages 3 and 2, but the foundation stage, the pigeon and dove, he failed to do.
Thus, because the offering was not correctly (and symbolically) separated from Satan, God could not claim it. Instead, Satan claimed it, as symbolized by the birds of prey descending.
The problem here is that this was the third attempt by God to have humanity set the right symbolic condition to restore the mistake of Adam. Abel & Cain was the first attempt. Noah, with Ham and Shem, was the second attempt. Abraham was the third attempt. For reasons I won't go into, there is a condition in God's restoration that Satan cannot claim the third attempt.
Thus, even though Abraham failed in the offer, God was able to set up a situation where Abraham did NOT fail in the offering, by sort of creating a ‘legal’ condition that Abraham succeeded and then executing providence to fix up the mistake AFTER the fact.
This is why a) God declared that the Israelites would have to suffer as slaves for 400 years. This is because the 400 years of resetting the starting point that God worked from Noah to Abraham was lost when Abraham failed to do the offering correctly, so it had to be re-established, and b) why later, God had Abraham offer Isaac. If an offering is failed on one level, it can be recovered by making an even greater offering on a new level. Because Abraham failed to complete the (relatively simple) offering of the [heifer, goat + sheep, pigeon + dove], he could only fix that mistake by making a much harder and more difficult offering, which is the offering of Isaac. For Abraham, offering (killing) Isaac was the same as offering (killing) himself.
So, even though Abraham failed in the offering, God established a providence to fix this later, and so, as you have well pointed out, God then proceeded to act AS IF Abraham had succeeded, as evidenced by the smoking firepot and blazing torch, and God completing his covenant with Abraham.
Fleshing out the understanding
There are a few points that round out this understanding of the events described in scripture.
One, Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. If Abraham had been successful in the first offering, then Isaac, when he united with Abraham, would stand in the position of the younger son, Abel, and Ishmael in the position of the elder son, Cain. If they then achieved unity correctly, then the foundation would be set for God to send the Messiah, Jesus, at that time.
Two, in the offering of Isaac, Isaac was old enough to understand that normally, there should be a sheep. For three days (number 3) they journeyed. Can you imagine the agony in Abraham’s heart? What about Isaac? Even when Abraham laid Isaac on the offering altar, Isaac did not flinch. He had complete and perfect faith in his father, Abraham. Thus, Isaac was able to restore the failure of Ham, who failed to believe in his father.
Abraham being willing to offer his son set the condition for God to forgive his mistake in the first offering. So Abraham could then truly stand as God’s representative. Accordingly, Isaac, who displayed perfect faith in his father, God’s representative, was able ton fully inherit the position of God’s representative (which Ham could not). Via the angel, God re-iterates his covenant with Abraham’s family.
Now, with Isaac standing in the position of God’s representative, the condition had to be repeated in Isaac’s family, with Jacob inheriting the foundation and standing in the position of Abel, and Esau standing in the position of Cain. How that unfolded is recorded in scripture.
Despite what to human eyes seems strange, Jacob valued God’s blessing above all, and eventually was able to get Esau to submit to him, and unite with him, and so, finally, after the third attempt (Adam’s family, Noah’s family, Abraham/Isaac/Jacob’s family), both the person being successful in the offering (symbolizing Adam fulfilling his responsibility to unite with the Word) and the unity between younger son and elder son (symbolizing Lucifer submitting to Adam) were both successful and completed.
This is, in fact, why and how the family of Abraham/Isaac/Jacob became established by God as the chosen family and root of the chosen people. It's not just some random whim of God. Rather, God has worked very hard and very methodically to establish a foundation he could use to separate out a people to him on which foundation he would bring the Messiah.
After the 400 years of slavery, God later expanded the victorious foundation of Abraham/Isaac/Jacob's family to ethnic group and then nation-state level by having Moses complete the same conditions on a new level, albeit with Moses in the position of Abel and the Israelites as a whole in the position of Cain.
So, to answer your question, Abraham actually failed the first offering of the heifer, goat and sheep, pigeon and doves, but through God’s grace and the foundation of success in the third attempt, God was able to treat Abraham as if he was successful by setting conditions to restore the mistake AFTER the fact (Isaac, Jacob).
I’d like to just make a suggestion. Pray on this. Read scripture, reflect on the explanation written here, and seek God’s voice. (Don't be afraid to put aside for a moment your previous concepts of the matter, just as a mental exercise.)
In my experience, understanding these elements is key to understanding later developments in God’s providence, such as Moses’ course of restoration, as well as the 2000 year history of Israel and even Jesus' three-year ministry. E.g. Why did the Israelites have to journey for 40 years in the desert? Why could only the 2nd generation enter Canaan? Why could Moses not? (Was there a failure?) Why did Jesus do the 40-day fast directly after meeting john the Baptist? Etc. Why was the cross necessary? Why must Jesus return? Why has it taken so long?
(Somewhat like the Q board) in the Bible, we actually have more than we know. The Bible is in fact a record of God’s providence, above and beyond simple moral lessons or how to live. It is actually the record of how God directs his providence to achieve very specific conditions that restore the failure of Adam and his descendants and lay the foundation for establishing the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. We are still very much in the midst of that process now, so understanding the WHY and the HOW is actually very important if we are to fulfill our responsibility and make our offering correctly.
I’m a little breathless. Your reply was like the opening scene of the first Star Wars movie––all that scrolling––but you answered all my questions, and I think I understand your viewpoint. Thank you. I very much appreciate your kindness in taking the time to do that.
I did read it all. It’s a bit different from the normal pathways most people tread to think about God’s actions, but that is not a criticism. My own views are not what you would call mainstream thinking on some points, and that comes from my experience with the Lord as a living reality, His revelation to me, and my own study concerning doctrines that didn’t line up with what the Bible actually says. I don’t like mechanical religion because it’s useless and misses the point of having a family relationship with God, and I don’t like trying to retrofit Mosaic law into the New Covenant because it ruins people’s ability to receive God’s grace. I also don’t like the charts and diagrams of prophecy hounds because most of it is spectacularly wrong. (The evangelical branch of the church is ironically ignorant of the fact that every bit of their ubiquitous belief about the end times is rooted in the deliberately bad exegesis of a single Jesuit priest.)
That sounds kind of negative. I suppose I should be talking about what I do like, but unfortunately I have to go get some rest : ). Thanks again.
I’m a little breathless. Your reply was like the opening scene of the first Star Wars movie
Heheh. That's a picturesque description! Yes, normally I am somewhat hesitant to lay things out in such detail and with that sort of breadth, but your question was so beautifully articulate and crystal clear, it felt to me like there was just the right amount of room to go in the direction I did. So, thanks to you.
It’s a bit different from the normal pathways most people tread to think about God’s actions
Certainly cannot deny that! Yes, quite different. I guess the angle here is digging to find out what principles and spiritual laws operate behind the scenes such that they can explain and unify the vast content of data in the scripture. Paul was very clear about the idea that, at some point, God would lift him (and us) up to a new level of understanding vis-a-vis what's really going on in scripture. (For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.)
It's my conviction and faith that we are at that point in time now. So while God is moving on one hand to expose and destroy the Satanic mechanisms that have ruled the world for so long, at the same time, He is knocking on the door for us to rise to an unprecedented and new understanding of scripture that opens the door to a more profound, living relationship with Him. Personally, I feel the reality of that in the revival of faith - centering on relationship, rather than religion - that is springing up all around the world and which is so fundamentally present in the Great Awakening movement.
" that opens the door..." for example, what are the implications for our own practice of faith if the principle is true that God calls us to make the offering of faith and then on that basis, to achieve the unity of brothers that embodies that faith? How does this manifest in our daily lives?
Jesus quoted scripture when he said, in response to the question "Which commandment is the most important of all?”: Jesus replied, “This is the most important: ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.
We can see that these commandments encapsulate the first offering of faith (to believe in and love - unite with - God) and the second offering of unity between brothers. However, specifically, finding the Abels in our life, and uniting with them, and also finding the Cains in our life, and loving them to bring unity with them, these are two fundamental keys to unlocking an outpouring of blessing and grace, imo.
Dang. Sorry. This was going to be a short response in thank you to your comment. But I must confess, these are the topics that really move me, so.... forgive my over-exuberance, please!
I don’t like mechanical religion because it’s useless and misses the point of having a family relationship with God
"having a family relationship with God"
Wow. What a wonderful and powerful phrase!
When I raised my kids, when they were little, I frequently would ask them "how many people in our family?" And at first, they would answer "4" or "5" or "6" (depending on our numbers), but I would explain "No, we have "5", or "6" or "7". "because we have Heavenly Father first, then there's dad, then mum, then you...."
Because God wants to not just be present in our individual lives, but to be at the very center of our family, and in fact, who loves our family more than the Father?
I think its OK to articulate what you don't like in terms of how certain trends prevail in the pursuit of faith. In being clear about what we don't like, we begin to carve out a clearer understanding and description of what we DO like.
"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”
Thanks again for reading and sharing your generous appreciation.
You're welcome. I enjoyed it, so there is no need to apologize. I get going, too, more often than I like to admit, when I am passionate about something. The first book I wrote turned into four before the story was done––more than 600,000 words, and then I started to expand that with other books in the same fictional universe. I should think the saints of God would learn new levels of suffering if I were ever to take up preaching. I can just see them casting desperate glances at the door, hoping against hope that I might finish before they expire.
I do agree with you about an expanded understanding of our faith being underway. It will come with an expansion of kingdom power as we free ourselves from the religious boxes that have held us down. I believe the Bible says what it means, and I have gotten instantly healed more than once believing that. The promises in it are real, and the only reason people live in spiritual squalor is that they just don't believe them. For many it is because they have been taught not to believe on the basis of religious arguments, but that is changing in a generation that will be satisfied with nothing less than the absolute truth. The world is about to see the reality of God from people who truly know Him. It won't be just a few, and the ones who shine won't be the ones carrying around their own spotlight.
Thanks for the question. Thanks also for laying out some of your views about the covenant between God and us, and the quality of the salvation afford to us through the Cross.
(Apologies for wall of text, btw.)
To give my answer to your question proper weight, I should lay out a few fundamental concepts that I believe will help to contextualize the issue at hand.
First is the principle in the Word that shapes how growth to completion is accomplished in God's creation.
Second is the nature of the ideal of God's creation which form the foundation for all the Father's efforts to restore that ideal after it was lost.
Third is the concept of indemnification, which is what our human responsibility was transmuted to in the Father's providence to restore and resurrect us.
That should provide a good context to address the question of how and what offering Abraham failed in.
One. God created the universe in such manner that all living things pass through a period of time when they grow to reach maturity and completion. In the case of some species of rabbit, for example, the period is about 6 months. After 6 months, they are physically mature, and are able to reproduce. In the case of some plants, they will mature and then seed fully after one season, while others (i.e. ginseng) take 7 years to mature.
In the case of human beings, physically, we can reproduce around 13, 14 years of age, but we really only fully mature physically around 20 or 21 years of age. If Adam and Eve had not fallen, their offspring - any pure child of God - would have matured both physically and spiritually (aka perfection, complete oneness with the Father) at the same time; around 20/21 years of age. So far, only Jesus lived that original design.
For all creatures that maturation process is automatic, as long as they are supplied with the right nutrients, the right environment (warmth) and exercise (action). Likewise our physical body matures automatically with those things. However, the spirit, and our hearts, are created to mature only when we exercises our own responsibility to believe in and embody (action) God's Word (spiritual nutrient), in the presence of God's love (warmth). If we disbelieve, and do not practice to embody the Word, then our spirit cannot grow to maturity. If we cannot experience or access God's love, likewise, spiritual growth stunted.
That maturing or growing period is actually comprised of three sub-periods, each with a distinct character and nature. Remember this. It's important.
Two. The core of God's ideal for his creation is His children: humanity. The design for us, to mature and grow our spirit and our hearts, is the God-centered family. In the family, you have 4 core participants: One, the Father, God. Two, the husband (male), God's son. Three, the wife (female), God's daughter. Four, the child or children, God's "grandchildren" as it were (but also God's children). When a husband and wife have children of their own, they can experience for themselves directly the heart that God has towards them, by loving their own children.
Thus, the family with God at the center is the design for us to experience four core dimensions of God's love: parent's love, spouse's love, children's love, and sibling love. This is key, because what Adam and Eve lost when they fell was their ability to create a family in which God, and God's love, was at the center and fully present. Thus, all children born in such a family are also disconnected from God's love, and are unable to grow to spiritual maturity. Adam and Eve also lost God's Word. God gave them the commandment not to eat the fruit. When they ate the fruit, they lost their ability to receive God's word and believe in it. In the hearts of Adam and Eve, Satan replaced God's word with the Lie (eat).
Because Adam failed to mature fully, he came to be controlled (governed) by the Angel, Lucifer, instead of maturing to become the Lord who had governance OVER Lucifer. He lost his ability to qualify as the Lord over the angels.
Three. By causing Adam to fall, Lucifer 'created' a second unimaginable reality: hell, where God's children became Satan's children, and where they are cut off from God's love and God's word. From the viewpoint of Adam, Adam became a fallen creature. Originally, Adam had only one master and one center: God, the Father. But in believing in and uniting with Satan's word, the Lie, Adam now became the embodiment of both good and evil. Good, innate and inherited from God, but also evil, inherited via relationship with the devil.
Adam failed in his responsibility to unite with God's command, and thus became unable to exercise his natural responsibility to grow. He left his correct position and went in a completely unlawful direction. To return to his original position, and then continue on to grow to completion (oneness with God), Adam and his descendants need to make some condition that God can claim and say to Satan: "Sorry. They have fulfilled their responsibility, so they belong to me, not you." That condition is the key. It's why we have to believe in Jesus and salvation through the cross (that's our small condition of responsibility) in order to access the salvation God offers us. Without that condition, Satan simply claims to God, "they have not fulfilled their responsibility, so they belong to me." and God cannot refuse that, because it's God's principle itself that says we grow to unity with Him via exercising our responsibility.
So, these three things are key to the reason why God had his champions make offerings to him: the offering represents the Word of God, that Adam lost. By making the offering correctly, the anointed person successfully makes the condition of fulfilling the responsibility Adam could not, and thus can come to stand in a place where God can claim that person.
This process unfolds in God's providence through different stages, which is what the scripture describes. That's why the nature of the offering changes.
(Note for future reference: the offering is not the only thing required to restore God's claim over us. We also must embody the Word (which Adam failed to do) and this is done through unity between God's representative and the ones to be restored. This unity symbolizes the unity Adam should have (but which he didn’t) achieved by embodying God's word and achieving governance OVER the angel, Lucifer.)
It should be noted that Jesus Christ is the one who accomplished substantially, spiritually, this embodiment of the Word (meaning He is the Word, but he brought that to perfection by his own efforts and sufferings), and thus gained victory over the fallen angel, thus becoming the author of salvation.
From this view, Jesus himself is the actual model for success in this area (the path each of us must go), but all the representatives chosen by God before Christ came are actually precursors or symbolic representations of Christ that God established to prepare the way. ("So Jesus replied, “Truly, truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing by Himself, unless He sees the Father doing it. For whatever the Father does, the Son also does.")
Continued below.
Continued.
Prior to Abraham ~ Adam's family and Noah's family
Adam's family
Directly after Adam fell, God worked to have Adam's family restored to him, so that he could bring the Messiah, to give rebirth to them, by having Abel the second son, make an offering. God firstly separated the good and evil in Adam symbolically into the younger son, representing good, and the elder son, representing evil.
Abel made his offering in a manner that pleased God (aka was correct), and this became the condition that Abel united with God's word and fulfilled his providential responsibility, so he could stand as God's representative. Next, Cain (representing Lucifer) had to submit to and unite with him. But Cain murdered him, repeating the Fall where Lucifer murdered Adam spiritually.
Thus, Adam's family (including the 2nd generation) was now lost. Tragically, because Adam's family failed to restore the mistake of Adam, God's providence then had to center on restoring all the mistakes in Adam's family. Thus, Adam and his family became the blueprint for the providence to reverse the effects of the Fall.
To start again, to find a champion to make an offering correctly and who could then stand as God's representative, God worked through 10 generations (10 symbolizing the return to original position) to reset the starting point. After 10 generations, God chose Noah, a righteous man, to make the offering. The offering Noah had to make was the Ark.
Noah's family
Long story short, Noah was successful, and stood as God's representative. However, to have Ham inherit that foundation, and stand as God's representative (like Abel) to Shem (like Cain), the elder brother, Ham had to display complete and unwavering belief in Noah. Sadly, Ham disbelieved in his father, and even convinced his brothers to disbelieve in him "Oh, he is so sinful and shameful, lying there intoxicated!". So, Ham failed to inherit the successful position of Noah, and all God's work in Noah's family, even the 120 year period for the offering of the Ark, was lost. THIS is the reason that Noah cursed Ham when he woke up and realized what Ham had done.
Ham had failed to have unity with his father and inherit the position of God's representative (accordingly, there was no possibility for Shem to unite with Ham to restore the failed relationship between Adam and the Angel, because Ham lost the position of God's representative).
So God had to start all over, and attempt, for the third time, to find and establish a champion who could complete the offering correctly to stand as God's representative, and then have someone in the elder son position (like Cain, or like the Angel Lucifer) submit to and unite with God's representative in the younger son position (like Abel, or like Adam towards Lucifer).
If and when these conditions are met, God has the lawful foundation to say to Satan, this (family, people, nation) are mine. And he can send the Messiah to give rebirth to the offspring of Adam and Eve and restore them back to God's family.
Because God's ideal (which Adam lost) to be restored is the Family, the number 4 x 10 (return to starting point) symbolizes separation from Satan and the fallen situation. Thus, after 400 years from Noah, God found Abraham to become his champion.
Abraham's family
Abraham could thus make the offering at God's instruction after 400 years of separation from Satan.
After a lengthy course of preparing Abraham through all sorts of events (as recorded in scripture) God finally commanded Abraham to make the offering. God commanded 3 different levels of offering: heifer, Sheep + goat, pigeon + dove. The 3 different levels represent restoring the 3 stages of maturing to perfection. Just like the 3 levels in Noah's ark.
Abraham made the offering.
"So the LORD said to him, "Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon." Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away. As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.
But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure." When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, "To your descendants I give this land......"
How to understand all this?
Firstly, the cutting in half of the offering symbolize separating the good in Adam from the evil in Adam, and draining out the satanic blood that Adam became home to when he fell.
Abraham did this correctly for stages 3 and 2, but the foundation stage, the pigeon and dove, he failed to do.
Thus, because the offering was not correctly (and symbolically) separated from Satan, God could not claim it. Instead, Satan claimed it, as symbolized by the birds of prey descending.
The problem here is that this was the third attempt by God to have humanity set the right symbolic condition to restore the mistake of Adam. Abel & Cain was the first attempt. Noah, with Ham and Shem, was the second attempt. Abraham was the third attempt. For reasons I won't go into, there is a condition in God's restoration that Satan cannot claim the third attempt.
Thus, even though Abraham failed in the offer, God was able to set up a situation where Abraham did NOT fail in the offering, by sort of creating a ‘legal’ condition that Abraham succeeded and then executing providence to fix up the mistake AFTER the fact.
This is why a) God declared that the Israelites would have to suffer as slaves for 400 years. This is because the 400 years of resetting the starting point that God worked from Noah to Abraham was lost when Abraham failed to do the offering correctly, so it had to be re-established, and b) why later, God had Abraham offer Isaac. If an offering is failed on one level, it can be recovered by making an even greater offering on a new level. Because Abraham failed to complete the (relatively simple) offering of the [heifer, goat + sheep, pigeon + dove], he could only fix that mistake by making a much harder and more difficult offering, which is the offering of Isaac. For Abraham, offering (killing) Isaac was the same as offering (killing) himself.
So, even though Abraham failed in the offering, God established a providence to fix this later, and so, as you have well pointed out, God then proceeded to act AS IF Abraham had succeeded, as evidenced by the smoking firepot and blazing torch, and God completing his covenant with Abraham.
Fleshing out the understanding
There are a few points that round out this understanding of the events described in scripture.
One, Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. If Abraham had been successful in the first offering, then Isaac, when he united with Abraham, would stand in the position of the younger son, Abel, and Ishmael in the position of the elder son, Cain. If they then achieved unity correctly, then the foundation would be set for God to send the Messiah, Jesus, at that time.
Two, in the offering of Isaac, Isaac was old enough to understand that normally, there should be a sheep. For three days (number 3) they journeyed. Can you imagine the agony in Abraham’s heart? What about Isaac? Even when Abraham laid Isaac on the offering altar, Isaac did not flinch. He had complete and perfect faith in his father, Abraham. Thus, Isaac was able to restore the failure of Ham, who failed to believe in his father.
Abraham being willing to offer his son set the condition for God to forgive his mistake in the first offering. So Abraham could then truly stand as God’s representative. Accordingly, Isaac, who displayed perfect faith in his father, God’s representative, was able ton fully inherit the position of God’s representative (which Ham could not). Via the angel, God re-iterates his covenant with Abraham’s family.
Now, with Isaac standing in the position of God’s representative, the condition had to be repeated in Isaac’s family, with Jacob inheriting the foundation and standing in the position of Abel, and Esau standing in the position of Cain. How that unfolded is recorded in scripture.
Despite what to human eyes seems strange, Jacob valued God’s blessing above all, and eventually was able to get Esau to submit to him, and unite with him, and so, finally, after the third attempt (Adam’s family, Noah’s family, Abraham/Isaac/Jacob’s family), both the person being successful in the offering (symbolizing Adam fulfilling his responsibility to unite with the Word) and the unity between younger son and elder son (symbolizing Lucifer submitting to Adam) were both successful and completed.
This is, in fact, why and how the family of Abraham/Isaac/Jacob became established by God as the chosen family and root of the chosen people. It's not just some random whim of God. Rather, God has worked very hard and very methodically to establish a foundation he could use to separate out a people to him on which foundation he would bring the Messiah.
After the 400 years of slavery, God later expanded the victorious foundation of Abraham/Isaac/Jacob's family to ethnic group and then nation-state level by having Moses complete the same conditions on a new level, albeit with Moses in the position of Abel and the Israelites as a whole in the position of Cain.
So, to answer your question, Abraham actually failed the first offering of the heifer, goat and sheep, pigeon and doves, but through God’s grace and the foundation of success in the third attempt, God was able to treat Abraham as if he was successful by setting conditions to restore the mistake AFTER the fact (Isaac, Jacob).
I’d like to just make a suggestion. Pray on this. Read scripture, reflect on the explanation written here, and seek God’s voice. (Don't be afraid to put aside for a moment your previous concepts of the matter, just as a mental exercise.)
In my experience, understanding these elements is key to understanding later developments in God’s providence, such as Moses’ course of restoration, as well as the 2000 year history of Israel and even Jesus' three-year ministry. E.g. Why did the Israelites have to journey for 40 years in the desert? Why could only the 2nd generation enter Canaan? Why could Moses not? (Was there a failure?) Why did Jesus do the 40-day fast directly after meeting john the Baptist? Etc. Why was the cross necessary? Why must Jesus return? Why has it taken so long?
(Somewhat like the Q board) in the Bible, we actually have more than we know. The Bible is in fact a record of God’s providence, above and beyond simple moral lessons or how to live. It is actually the record of how God directs his providence to achieve very specific conditions that restore the failure of Adam and his descendants and lay the foundation for establishing the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. We are still very much in the midst of that process now, so understanding the WHY and the HOW is actually very important if we are to fulfill our responsibility and make our offering correctly.
If you read this far, a blessing on your day.
From His Peace to your strength.
I’m a little breathless. Your reply was like the opening scene of the first Star Wars movie––all that scrolling––but you answered all my questions, and I think I understand your viewpoint. Thank you. I very much appreciate your kindness in taking the time to do that.
I did read it all. It’s a bit different from the normal pathways most people tread to think about God’s actions, but that is not a criticism. My own views are not what you would call mainstream thinking on some points, and that comes from my experience with the Lord as a living reality, His revelation to me, and my own study concerning doctrines that didn’t line up with what the Bible actually says. I don’t like mechanical religion because it’s useless and misses the point of having a family relationship with God, and I don’t like trying to retrofit Mosaic law into the New Covenant because it ruins people’s ability to receive God’s grace. I also don’t like the charts and diagrams of prophecy hounds because most of it is spectacularly wrong. (The evangelical branch of the church is ironically ignorant of the fact that every bit of their ubiquitous belief about the end times is rooted in the deliberately bad exegesis of a single Jesuit priest.)
That sounds kind of negative. I suppose I should be talking about what I do like, but unfortunately I have to go get some rest : ). Thanks again.
Thanks very much for the reply.
Heheh. That's a picturesque description! Yes, normally I am somewhat hesitant to lay things out in such detail and with that sort of breadth, but your question was so beautifully articulate and crystal clear, it felt to me like there was just the right amount of room to go in the direction I did. So, thanks to you.
Certainly cannot deny that! Yes, quite different. I guess the angle here is digging to find out what principles and spiritual laws operate behind the scenes such that they can explain and unify the vast content of data in the scripture. Paul was very clear about the idea that, at some point, God would lift him (and us) up to a new level of understanding vis-a-vis what's really going on in scripture. (For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.)
It's my conviction and faith that we are at that point in time now. So while God is moving on one hand to expose and destroy the Satanic mechanisms that have ruled the world for so long, at the same time, He is knocking on the door for us to rise to an unprecedented and new understanding of scripture that opens the door to a more profound, living relationship with Him. Personally, I feel the reality of that in the revival of faith - centering on relationship, rather than religion - that is springing up all around the world and which is so fundamentally present in the Great Awakening movement.
" that opens the door..." for example, what are the implications for our own practice of faith if the principle is true that God calls us to make the offering of faith and then on that basis, to achieve the unity of brothers that embodies that faith? How does this manifest in our daily lives?
Jesus quoted scripture when he said, in response to the question "Which commandment is the most important of all?”: Jesus replied, “This is the most important: ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.
We can see that these commandments encapsulate the first offering of faith (to believe in and love - unite with - God) and the second offering of unity between brothers. However, specifically, finding the Abels in our life, and uniting with them, and also finding the Cains in our life, and loving them to bring unity with them, these are two fundamental keys to unlocking an outpouring of blessing and grace, imo.
Dang. Sorry. This was going to be a short response in thank you to your comment. But I must confess, these are the topics that really move me, so.... forgive my over-exuberance, please!
"having a family relationship with God"
Wow. What a wonderful and powerful phrase!
When I raised my kids, when they were little, I frequently would ask them "how many people in our family?" And at first, they would answer "4" or "5" or "6" (depending on our numbers), but I would explain "No, we have "5", or "6" or "7". "because we have Heavenly Father first, then there's dad, then mum, then you...."
Because God wants to not just be present in our individual lives, but to be at the very center of our family, and in fact, who loves our family more than the Father?
I think its OK to articulate what you don't like in terms of how certain trends prevail in the pursuit of faith. In being clear about what we don't like, we begin to carve out a clearer understanding and description of what we DO like.
"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”
Thanks again for reading and sharing your generous appreciation.
You're welcome. I enjoyed it, so there is no need to apologize. I get going, too, more often than I like to admit, when I am passionate about something. The first book I wrote turned into four before the story was done––more than 600,000 words, and then I started to expand that with other books in the same fictional universe. I should think the saints of God would learn new levels of suffering if I were ever to take up preaching. I can just see them casting desperate glances at the door, hoping against hope that I might finish before they expire.
I do agree with you about an expanded understanding of our faith being underway. It will come with an expansion of kingdom power as we free ourselves from the religious boxes that have held us down. I believe the Bible says what it means, and I have gotten instantly healed more than once believing that. The promises in it are real, and the only reason people live in spiritual squalor is that they just don't believe them. For many it is because they have been taught not to believe on the basis of religious arguments, but that is changing in a generation that will be satisfied with nothing less than the absolute truth. The world is about to see the reality of God from people who truly know Him. It won't be just a few, and the ones who shine won't be the ones carrying around their own spotlight.