The Promise of a Son to Abraham
Millat-a-Ibrahim: The True Faith of Abraham
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We begin with the promise God made to Abraham that he would give him a son, a promise recorded in both the Bible (Genesis 15:4) and the Qur'an (Quran 37.101). When he was seventy-five years old God said to him:
"Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves". Genesis 12. 1-3.
This glorious promise was repeated on a number of occasions to Abraham. On one of them God said to him that he would make his descendants like the dust of the earth so that, if the dust of the earth could be counted, his descendants also could be numbered (Genesis 13:16). On another occasion he made him look at the stars and said "Look toward heaven and number the stars, if you are able to number them" (Genesis 15:5), adding that in the same way his descendants would be an innumerable multitude. At the same time he promised him that, although he was childless, his descendants would not come from a slave in his house but that his own son would be his heir (Genesis 15:4).
Abraham knew that it was physically impossible for his wife Sarah to have a son as she was barren and "it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women" (Genesis 8:11), she being no less than sixty-five years old. Abraham knew, therefore, that if he was to have a son God would have to act in a supernatural way to bring it about. Without doubting in any way, however, he believed that it would happen. His response of faith and God's appreciation of his trust are described as follows:
And he believed the Lord, and he reckoned it to him as righteousness. Genesis 15:6
There are many people who believe that God can act in a supernatural way and such a conviction is no doubt essential to true faith in him. Abraham, however, believed in the promise for another reason. He responded in positive faith, not because he was persuaded of the power of God to accomplish anything he purposed, but because he trusted to the holy character of God who, he believed, would always be faithful to his own word. It was for this reason that God counted his faith to him as righteousness. To return to the illustration of the sun and the moon, the sun generates light and the best the moon can do is to reflect it as far as its nature allows. So God generates faithfulness and the best a man can do is to have faith in God and so reflect his faithfulness. When Abraham did precisely this, God, who also generates righteousness, counted Abraham s faith to him as a reflection of his righteousness as well On this count he constituted and declared him righteous in his sight not by virtue of his own good works but by virtue of his trust in God's goodness and faithfulness This then is the first thing we learn about the faith of Abraham the millata-Ibrahim as the Qur'an calls it It was a faith in God's faithfulness. He based his whole trust on this precept which was firmly fixed in his mind:
Every word of God proves true. Proverbs 30:5
This brings us to the second thing we learn about his faith, and that is that his belief that God would exercise his power in a supernatural way to fulfil his promise arose, not out of a conviction that God could act in such a way because he was all-powerful, but that he would so act to fulfil his promise. The faithfulness of God to his own word demanded, in Abraham's mind, the conclusion that, although such things had never happened before, they would now, because God would surely fulfil his promise. He believed in God, therefore, as he who "gives life to the dead and calls into existence things that do not exist" (Romans 4:17). The only way a son could be born to him was if God intervened in the natural order and brought about a conception that could not naturally result, and so give life to the womb of a woman that was as good as dead, having ceased to function years earlier. In hope Abraham "believed against hope" (Romans 4:18) because he knew that God would surely fulfil his promise. He knew that God would never break his word and it was this conviction that gave him the grace to believe that he would duly bear a son. The third thing we learn about the real millata-Ibrahim, the true "faith of Abraham", is that he was not a man of blind faith, of uncomprehending resignation to the will of God. He was not the kind of man who did not reason about difficult matters and just trusted to what he had been brought up to believe without any kind of reflection or consideration, like so many people today. Fatalistic resignation was not Abraham's idea of surrendering to the will of God. As we analyse his faith we are bound to see it was far mare profound than this. We cannot accept that God simply said to him Aslim! - "Submit!" - in the way a dog-trainer will command a dog "Heel!" If the dog does so respond, we will not say he has faith in his master, rather that he has been programmed into responding appropriately to the command. The only state of mind in the dog will be a fear of the consequences if he fails to obey. This certainly was not the attitude of Abraham. He did not say aslamtu - "I have submitted" - and come immediately to heel . No -this man Abraham is set forth in both the Bible and the Qur'an as the great human figurehead of faith whose example should be followed by all men (Galatians 3:9). There must have been more to Abraham's faith than blind, uncomprehending submission.
Because he always trusted in the faithfulness of God, he gave God's promise to him that he would have a son serious consideration and reflection. Be considered that it came from a God who is faithful, reasoned that God would fulfil his word, came to a conclusion that it must therefore come to pass, and thus believed it. He reasoned carefully about the promise. He questioned whether it could be fulfilled. He could not naturally have a son but he knew that God was faithful and if God had promised to give him a son, then because of the faithfulness of God to his own word, the promise must surely come true.
Because of this exercise of faith, because he rea-soned carefully about the matter and did not just accept the promise fatalistically, he came to understand how the son would be conceived and in so doing gained a greater understanding of the mind and will of God.
A further proof that God was, in fact, both testing and proving Abraham's faith in this manner is found in what followed. Instead of immediately giving him the son he had promised, God waited twenty-five years before he fulfilled his promise, by which time Abraham was a hundred years old and his wife ninety. In the meantime Abraham had begotten a son through his slave-woman Hagar and, believing God's promise to be fulfilled, he called him Ishmael, meaning "God hears". But no word came from God when Ishmael was born. For thirteen years no communication of any kind came from heaven to confirm that Ishmael was the child of the promise. Instead, at the end of this period, God finally called Abraham again and said to him of his wife Sarah:
"I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her; I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall come from her". Genesis 17:10
At first he was astonished and even laughed to himself when he thought of the respective ages of Sarah and himself. But, being a man of the kind of faith he had, that which alone is true faith, namely a conviction that God will, in his faithfulness, make every word he says come true he immediately realised that this word of God would surely be fulfilled and that Sarah 5 son to come was the real son God had promised. He cried out to God, "O that Ishmael might live in thy sight (Genesis 17:18). God replied emphatically "No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him (Genesis 17:19).
The great promises of God were thus not to be fulfilled through the son of Abraham's slave-woman Hagar, whom Abraham named Ishmael, but through the son of Abraham's free woman and wife, Sarah, whom God named Isaac. Even the Qur'an confirms that the only son promised to Abraham by God was Isaac. In some passages (e.g. Quran 37.101) the son promised is not named, but in others he is specifically named as Isaac, the son of his wife Sarah. Wa bashsharnaahu bi Ishaaq - "And we announced to him Isaac" (Quran 37.112, so also Quran 11.71). Nowhere in the Qur'an is it specifically stated that Ishmael was ever promised to Abraham by name as Isaac was.
This was a severe test of faith for Abraham but here, as anywhere else, we see his faith proved in all its fullness. He knew God was faithful and so he trusted yet again to his faithfulness. He knew that "every word of God proves true" (Proverbs 30:5) and therefore he was quickly assured that Isaac would be born as the promised son. He reasoned carefully yet again and this exercise of his faith is set out very strongly in this passage:
He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead because he was about a hundred years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Romans 4. 19-21.
He trusted, he considered, he grew strong in his faith and he became fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. "That is why his faith was reckoned to him as righteousness" (Romans 4:22). This was the true mil1ata-Ibrahim, the true faith of Abraham, and it enabled him to pass the test when God, through a promise that was finally fulfilled, put him through an exacting trial of patience and willingness to confide in him until the end. In this we see how Abraham came to be called the friend of God, not because he was a righteous servant who did a measure of good deeds, but because he at no time wavered through distrust in the promises God had given him. So also we see why he became the father of all true believers - because his faith was a reflection of God's faithfulness who likewise is the ultimate Father of the faithful. Finally we see why he was an example and prototype of the true religion to come - because he had the only kind of faith that is commendable and acceptable to God, that is, a comprehending and full conviction by sound reason (and not blind resignation) that God is Faithful and True and that every word of God will surely come to pass.