They are still physically children of Abraham but spiritually children of the devil. There is physical and there is spiritual.
"As above, so below" comes to mind, but I think that's some satanic concept iirc. Idk. I took Jesus' statements in these verses to actually be redefining, or rather properly defining, what God meant in His promise to Abraham, regardless of whether Abraham knew it at the time. One could argue though that this cannot be, by using some of Paul's writings about what advantage hath the Israelite of the flesh etc. Once again I must ask, how are we supposed to even know who's a real, blood-line Israelite anymore? Also, is it feasable that Abraham has had enough blood-line descendents to make the hyperbolic "as numerous as the stars in heaven" make sense? If we consider his "spiritual children", though, it would be a much larger number of descendents..
I think "numerous as the stars of heaven" and "as many as the sand on the seashore" should be seen as rhetorical and not taken literally, since it is not feasible for there to be that many people on the earth. There estimated to be as many as 20 trillion stars in the observable universe, and there is ~148 million square kilometers of land not covered by water on the earth's surface. Divide that space by 20 trillion and, by my calculations, I get that each person would have 0.74 square centimeters of space. That is tight AF.
What about counting them at birth (and/or 'New birth'), and keeping a running total sum as time progresses forward? I didn't mean to say all alive at the same time
Fair point. So either God has planned on this earth realm to continue on for a looooooong time still to come, (which would really upset some people of certain eschatological views ,kek) or the promise was extremely hyperbolic.
It would be interesting to try and locate other instances in the Bible where God used such hyperbole to establish whether it's something consistant with how He operates. I am reminded of when Jesus said to cut off your arm / pluck out your eye, but this may be a spiritual cutting / plucking parabolic statement so idk for sure if it fits.
We could also examine the promise itself to try and better understand any linguistic nuances it may contain. In Hosea 1:10 it says
Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.
which might shine a bit more light on the statement, as it includes "which cannot be measured nor numbered"
"As above, so below" comes to mind, but I think that's some satanic concept iirc. Idk. I took Jesus' statements in these verses to actually be redefining, or rather properly defining, what God meant in His promise to Abraham, regardless of whether Abraham knew it at the time. One could argue though that this cannot be, by using some of Paul's writings about what advantage hath the Israelite of the flesh etc. Once again I must ask, how are we supposed to even know who's a real, blood-line Israelite anymore? Also, is it feasable that Abraham has had enough blood-line descendents to make the hyperbolic "as numerous as the stars in heaven" make sense? If we consider his "spiritual children", though, it would be a much larger number of descendents..
I think "numerous as the stars of heaven" and "as many as the sand on the seashore" should be seen as rhetorical and not taken literally, since it is not feasible for there to be that many people on the earth. There estimated to be as many as 20 trillion stars in the observable universe, and there is ~148 million square kilometers of land not covered by water on the earth's surface. Divide that space by 20 trillion and, by my calculations, I get that each person would have 0.74 square centimeters of space. That is tight AF.
What about counting them at birth (and/or 'New birth'), and keeping a running total sum as time progresses forward? I didn't mean to say all alive at the same time
Ah yes, true they don't all have to be alive at once, but still, that is a fuggin lot of people.
I wonder how many people have lived in all of known human history? My search engine says 105-107 billion. That is still not even close to 20 trillion.
Fair point. So either God has planned on this earth realm to continue on for a looooooong time still to come, (which would really upset some people of certain eschatological views ,kek) or the promise was extremely hyperbolic.
It would be interesting to try and locate other instances in the Bible where God used such hyperbole to establish whether it's something consistant with how He operates. I am reminded of when Jesus said to cut off your arm / pluck out your eye, but this may be a spiritual cutting / plucking parabolic statement so idk for sure if it fits.
We could also examine the promise itself to try and better understand any linguistic nuances it may contain. In Hosea 1:10 it says
Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.
which might shine a bit more light on the statement, as it includes "which cannot be measured nor numbered"