A Literal Seed

by

Philip du Nard

To reestablish some continuity, we saw in Genesis 9 that the worship of the true God would be more intimately linked with the descendants of Shem than with the other sons of Noah and that since Christianity, historically, has been more prevalent among certain peoples than among others, it makes sense to consider that at least some of these peoples are predominantly of the line of Shem rather than the other two sons as is traditionally believed and to regard the United States as among the tents of Shem.

In Genesis 12, we saw that God continued His response to the Tower of Babel project with the call of Abram and we begin to get a little clearer picture regarding His plan for world civilization. Instead of a secular, one-worldism, God would use the descendants of one man to be the agents of His blessing all the nations of the earth. From the writings of Paul, we see that this only makes sense in a Christian context. God promised Abram and his descendants land in the Middle-East and then in Genesis 14, we saw that the first manner in which Abram was a blessing to other nations was through military intervention. The United States is a great Christian nation that has tried to fulfill this role albeit not always perfectly or wisely and often reluctantly. And some of our wars must be regarded as chastening.

In Genesis 15, there are several points worth mentioning.

In verse 15 is the first mention of a covenant between God and Abram. After his military activity, Abram was concerned that God had not yet given him any offspring. Starting in verse 4, the text reads,

  And, behold, the word of the LORD [came] unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.   
   And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.   
  And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.


So God made it clear to Abram that Eliezer, his steward, would not be his heir, but his actual, physical offspring would be. In this context, it is also clear that the seed of Abram that was to number as the stars would be his physical seed, that which would "come forth out of thine own bowels" , not some spiritual seed that finds its fulfillment in the body of Christ. So in our search for the seed of Abram, we should not limit ourselves to a group of people that are few in number relative to the rest of earth's peoples as the Jews are.

In Romans 4, Paul expounds on the fact that it was Abram's faith that was counted for righeousness and this is an example to the rest of us that faith is what God is looking for in the individual. When Abram was questioning God about why certain events had not yet transpired, God didn't just go "poof" and make it happen before Abram's eyes to prove it to him. He just reaffirmed His earlier promise which required that Abram believe God. Abram did, God has honored and will honor that faith and that is what ensures that Abram's seed would be great in number, not the Law covenant put into effect at Mt. Sinai. When the book of Romans is expounded regarding the importance and necessity of faith, sometimes Christian people lose sight of what Abram was believing God for.
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