The Faith of Abraham

Paul seems to have had great admiration for Abraham and spoke of him often in his epistles.  In Romans 4 he showed how Abraham was justified through his faith before the Law of Moses even existed.  He wrote the great faith of Abraham: “Against hope believed in hope…, and not being weak in faith… he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform” (Romans 4:18-21).  I wonder if Paul was inspired by this faith of Abraham to believe in the promise the Lord had made concerning Paul himself: “He is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel” (Acts 9:15).  If Ananias had told him that at the time of Paul’s conversion it must have seemed an incredible promise to fulfill, just as the Lord’s promise of countless seed to Abraham appeared impossible to fulfil in his old age.  Assuming him to be the author of Hebrews, Paul spoke again of the faith of Abraham in Hebrews 11: “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, Of whom it is said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead” (Hebrews 11:17-19).  In other words, Abraham knew that Isaac was supposed to be the father of nations, and so when commanded to slay him, Abraham believed that God would then raise him from the dead.  That’s incredible faith in the promises of the Lord, and it must have inspired Paul to trust in the promises of the Lord.  Paul wrote more about Abraham in Galations 3.  “Even as Abraham believed in God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.  Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham….  So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham” (Galations 3:6-7, 9).  From this I think we learn that even if we are not blood descendants of Abraham, if we are “of faith” then we are indeed the “children of Abraham”.  He is the father of the faithful because he was a man of such great faith.  I wonder if part of Paul’s admiration of Abraham came from the fact that he, like Abraham, was very much a wanderer.  He spent most of his Christian life traveling and preaching the Gospel: from Jerusalem to Greece, from modern day Turkey to Rome, and he went possibly as far as Spain.  Abraham likewise was a wanderer—“he went out, not knowing whither he went”—going from Ur to Haran, through Canaan to Egypt, and back to the land of Canaan, “dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob” (Hebrews 11:8-9).  Paul and Abraham were both “strong in faith” and their examples should inspire us to believe in the promises the Lord has made.