One of the apostle Paul’s favorite Bible stories comes in Genesis 15. For what Paul has to say about faith as the defining trait of those who belong to the family of God in Jesus Christ, he goes back to the beginning where all the talk of faith and God’s family began.
In Genesis 15, God has already made a shocking and scandalous promise to Abraham, that Abraham will have a family and use that family to bless “all the families of the earth.” (Genesis 12) These promises are scandalous because, let’s be honest, we often don’t want to bless the whole world, but only the parts of it that we approve of. But God made all of it, and plans to bless all of it. The scandal here is also that God will do all of this by partnering with a childless couple in their mid-seventies, a move illogical and ridiculous by any standard but God’s.
By Genesis 15, Abraham is pouring out his frustration that God is taking longer than expected to deliver on these promises (hasn’t the 75-year-old waited long enough already?). But God responds to this frustration with patient and compassionate assurances. Do not fear, I am your shield; your reward will be exceedingly great. You will have a family. Look to heaven and count the stars; so shall your descendants be.
Something now happens within Abraham. The compass of his heart suddenly points in a new direction. “And he believed, and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.” This belief is not simply arriving at the correct doctrinal opinions. Nor is it achieved with ease. Abraham fights for this faith, must interrogate God’s promises. Only then can Abraham abandon the possible for the impossible and believe with a faith that will surrender to God’s outrageous, scandalous promises. Faith/belief is the total human response to God. For Abraham to believe is for Abraham to thrust himself into a promised future that is illogical and impossible by any standard but God’s. And this faith has consequences; it’s going to change the way Abraham lives his life – where he lives, who he lives with, the decisions he’s willing to make. Abraham does not hold certain beliefs only to go about his life, relationships, and work like business as usual. This faith will now determine everything in Abraham’s life.
Paul tells us in Romans that God’s righteousness is known “from faith, for faith.” (Romans 1:17) God’s faithful resolve to keep his promises produces in us the same faithfulness back toward him. And this is indeed an outrageous and scandalous faith, because we’re going to look around us and realize that same faith abides in people we never thought we’d be worshipping next to. This faith will cause us to bless people we don’t want to bless. To believe that God really is blessing the whole world, that Jesus really was raised from the dead and really is Lord of all creation – that faith will change everything about us. The world around us is perfectly willing to settle for possible and scoff at anything else. But for being people of faith means that impossible is no longer something to be scoffed at, but an invitation into something outrageous and exciting and life-giving. It will be as difficult for us as it was for Abraham. But, also like Abraham, we realize that we don’t want to settle for possible, for business as usual. We want to be swept up in God’s shocking, outrageous, scandalous, impossible story. That is why we believe.
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