# Because Abraham Obeyed My Voice



## KeithW (Dec 17, 2014)

I ran across two passages which are causing me difficulty. They do not appear to fit what the Bible says elsewhere. Here are the two passages. I have highlighted the part, the word, I am having trouble reconciling.



KJV said:


> And the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; *because* thou hast obeyed my voice. (Genesis 22:15-18)



Unto Isaac,



KJV said:


> And there was a famine in the land, beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines unto Gerar. And the LORD appeared unto him, and said, Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of: Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee; for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father; And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; *Because* that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. (Genesis 26:1-5)



God made these promises to Abraham earlier in Genesis. God placed no conditions on Abraham regarding these promises. The promises are typically taught as being part of the covenant God made with Abraham, and that this covenant was unconditional. But that word _because_ shows up. The Genesis 22 passage could be argued that the amount of the promise will be increased because of Abraham's obedience, but the same idea is not in Genesis 26.

In English [1828 Webster] the word _because_ means "for the cause which is explained in the next proposition". So in our verses God's promises occur because of Abraham's obedience. To me this does not fit with what I understand of God's dealing with Abraham with regards to God's original promises.

What about the Hebrew word (Strong's H6118) for _because_? The definition Strong gives is "on account of, because". The definition the BlueLetterBible website gives is "as a consequence, because, consequently". The words _because_ and _consequently_ have opposite dependence order. In English [1828 Websters] the word _consequence_ means "an event or effect produced by some preceding act or cause".

If the meaning "because" is used, God's promise is because of Abraham's obedience. If the meaning "consequence" is used, God's promise resulted in Abraham's obedience.

Does anyone know of a source which teaches the latter?

Thanks.


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## VictorBravo (Dec 17, 2014)

KeithW said:


> God placed no conditions on Abraham regarding these promises. The promises are typically taught as being part of the covenant God made with Abraham, and that this covenant was unconditional.



God indeed made a condition, and granted Abraham would fulfill that condition:



> Gen 17:1 And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.
> Gen 17:2 And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.



"Walk before me, and be thou perfect."

I think the short answer is that, although Abraham was not literally perfect, his faith was instrumental in rendering him to be considered obedient to this command. The "because" is as good as saying, "it was by faith that this promise is confirmed."

And (implicitly), by faith alone.


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## Dearly Bought (Dec 17, 2014)

There are basically two ways to take this. You can take a modern Klinean approach and turn this into a typological covenant of works whereby Abraham covenantally merited the reception of the promises by his obedience, works constituting the antecedent condition of the Abrahamic covenant. Or you can recognize this to be the covenant of grace wherein the ground of the promises is to be found in the all-sufficient God (cf. _El-Shaddai_, Gen. 17:1), the promise is appropriated through the instrumentation of faith, and the promise is administered in the way of obedience.

In relation to Genesis 26:5, the Geneva notes provide some helpful insight,


> He commends Abraham's obedience, because Isaac should be even more ready to follow the same: for as God made this promise of his free mercy, so does the confirmation of it proceed from the same fountain.


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## chuckd (Dec 17, 2014)

> Does anyone know of a source which teaches the latter?



Calvin Institutes Book 3, Ch. 18.2


> There is nothing in the term reward to justify the inference that our works are the cause of salvation. First, let it be a fixed principle in our hearts, that the kingdom of heaven is not the hire of servants, but the inheritance of sons (Eph. 1:18); an inheritance obtained by those only whom the Lord has adopted as sons, and obtained for no other cause than this adoption, “The son of the bond-women shall not be heir with the son of the free-woman,” (Gal. 4:30). And hence in those very passages in which the Holy Spirit promises eternal glory as the reward of works, by expressly calling it an inheritance, he demonstrates that it comes to us from some other quarter. Thus Christ enumerates the works for which he bestows heaven as a recompense, while he is calling his elect to the possession of it, but he at the same time adds, that it is to be possessed by right of inheritance (Mt. 25:34). Paul, too, encourages servants, while faithfully doing their duty, to hope for reward from the Lord, but adds, “of the inheritance,” (Col. 3:24). You see how, as it were, in formal terms they carefully caution us to attribute eternal blessedness not to works, but to the adoption of God. Why, then, do they at the same time make mention of works? This question will be elucidated by an example from Scripture (Gen. 15:5; 17:1). Before the birth of Isaac, Abraham had received promise of a seed in whom all the families of the earth should be blessed; the propagation of a seed that for number should equal the stars of heaven, and the sand of the sea, &c. Many years after he prepares, in obedience to a divine message, to sacrifice his son. Having done this act of obedience, he receives the promise, “By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son; that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea-shore, and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice,” (Gen. 22:16-18). What is it we hear? Did Abraham by his obedience merit the blessing which had been promised him before the precept was given? Here assuredly we see without ambiguity that God rewards the works of believers with blessings which he had given them before the works were thought of, there still being no cause for the blessings which he bestows but his own mercy.


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## Contra_Mundum (Dec 17, 2014)

And for what it's worth, even in English the simple use of the word "because" does not--apart from context--absolutely determine the causal direction.

So for example, the phrase, "...because of mercy." It might mean either that mercy was the cause of something else; or that mercy should be the result of another cause, mercy _intended_. In the latter case "because" conveys the sense: "for the sake of."

Consider the Gk. "χάριν" (charin); in Gal.3:19 (KJV) it clearly points to "transgression" (because of t.) as coming before the law, i.e. the first sense. Thus sin in a certain sense is a cause of instituting Mosaic law.
See Jud.1:16 (KJV) for a clear case of the second sense; compare this place with later translations of the same that reflect a more modern trend to replace "because," since "because" today is used overwhelmingly to express antecedent cause.​
Webster's says no differently; the entry on "because" has several glosses, including: "for the reason next explained," which reason (or _purpose_) may well be subsequent to a syntactically and chronologically antecedent proposition.


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## whirlingmerc (Dec 18, 2014)

Partly grace carries and supplies and empowers 
Partly Abraham's actions vindicated the faith he had and was saved by earlier. 
Partly the journey God brought him though prepared him for the choice God would set before him to showcase God's glory
God did walk through the cut animals by himself, taking in some sense the fulfillment of the covenant on himself


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## KeithW (Dec 18, 2014)

Thanks for the input. I don't want to simply appeal to commentary since most of it is unsupported in this case.

Thank you Victor, I missed that one.

Rev. Buchanan, thank you for your comments. While I am not trained in language I want to accurately understand the language being used here by the Bible.

I printed out the Genesis chapters on Abraham for making notes a few years ago. I specifically wanted to understand, Abraham believed God and it was credited as righteousness. It is time to pull that out to look at the context of every time God makes that same promise. And to look at the New Testament commentary on Abraham offering Isaac, such as Hebrews 11. I had forgotten one of my own rules. Find every place in the Bible which talks about the same thing, then read them together.


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