But let us observe with what accuracy Abram lays hold of the great principle afterwards brought out by the Spirit in Romans viii. "If children, then heirs." Abram felt that sonship and heirship were inseparably connected, so much so, that without the former the latter could not be. This is the meaning of his question, "Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?" Abram rightly judged that to have "no seed" was to have no inheritance, for the word is, not if stewards or servants, then heirs, but "if children, then heirs" (Rom. viii. 17).
How very important it is that we should ever bear in mind, that all our present privileges and future prospects stand connected with our character as "sons." It may be all well and very valuable, in its right place, to realize our responsibility to act as "faithful and wise stewards," in the absence of our Master; still the most ample privileges—the highest enjoyments—the brightest glories, which belong to us through the grace and mercy of our God, stand intimately connected with our character and place as "sons." (Comp. John i. 12; Rom. viii. 14, 19; 1 John iii. 1, 2; Eph. i. 5; v. 1; Heb. xii. 5.)
In the vision presented to us in the close of our chapter, and which was granted to Abram as an answer to his question, "Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?" we have a further illustration of the teaching of Romans viii. Abram is taught by the vision, that the inheritance was only to be reached through suffering—that the heirs must pass through the furnace, previous to their entering upon the enjoyment of that which God was reserving for them; and I doubt not that, were we more deeply and experimentally taught in the divine life, we should more fully apprehend the moral fitness of such training. Suffering then, is not connected, in this chapter, with sonship, but with heirship; and so we are taught in Romans viii. "If children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together." Again, we must, "through much tribulation, enter into the kingdom of God" (Acts xiv. 22). The Lord Jesus Himself, likewise, stands as the great illustration of the principle upon which we are dwelling. He occupied the place and enjoyed the favor of a Son from before all worlds, (Prov. viii.) yet ere He could lay His hand upon the inheritance He must pass through suffering. He had a baptism to be baptized with, and was straitened (συνεχομενος) until it was accomplished. So also when He remembered that "a corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die," or else abide alone, His soul was "troubled." Now, we are to "know Him in the fellowship of His sufferings," before we can know Him in the fellowship of His glory; hence it is that the palmed multitude mentioned in Revelation vii. had to pass through "great tribulation" (της μεγαλης θλιψεως) ere they reached their peaceful, heavenly home. Passages of Scripture might be multiplied in proof of this point, but I will merely refer to the following, viz.—Phil. i. 29; 1 Thess. iii. 4; 2 Thess. i. 5; 1 Tim. iv. 10; 2 Tim. ii. 12; 1 Peter v. 10.
But, in this remarkable vision, there are two points which, as they appear prominently in the whole of Israel's after history, deserve to be particularly noticed. I allude to "the smoking furnace, and the burning lamp." (ver. 17.) It has been well observed, by a recent writer, that Israel's history might be summed up in these two words, "the furnace and the lamp." Egypt was a trying furnace to the seed of Abraham. There the fire burned fiercely, but it was soon followed by "the burning lamp" of God's own deliverance. The cry of the suffering seed had come up into the ears of Jehovah. He had heard their groanings and seen their afflictions, and had come down to display above their heads "the lamp" of salvation. "I am come down to deliver them," said He to Moses. Satan might take delight in kindling the furnace, and in adding to its intensity, but the blessed God, on the other hand, ever delighted in letting the rays of His lamp fall upon the dark path of His suffering heirs. So, when Jehovah had, in the faithfulness of His love, brought them into the land of Canaan, they again and again, kindled a furnace by their sins and iniquities; He, as frequently, raised up deliverers in the persons of the judges which were as so many lamps of deliverance to them. Further, when by their aggravated rebellion, they were plunged into the furnace kindled at Babylon, even there we observe the glimmerings of "the burning lamp," and finally it shone out for their full deliverance, in the decree of Cyrus.
Now, the Lord was constantly reminding the children of Israel of the above truth. He says to them, "But the Lord hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace." (Deut. iv. 20; 1 Kings viii. 51.) Again, "Cursed be the man that obeyeth not the words of this covenant, which I commanded your fathers, in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace." (Jer. xi. 3, 4.)
Finally, we may ask, are the seed of Abraham now suffering in the furnace, or are they enjoying the lamp of God?—for they must be experiencing either the one or the other—the furnace, assuredly. They are scattered over the face of the earth as a proverb and a byword, a reproach and a hissing among all the nations of the earth. Thus are they in the iron furnace. But, as it has ever been, "the burning lamp" will assuredly follow "the smoking furnace," for "all Israel shall be saved; as it is written, there shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob." (Isa. lix. 20; Rom. xi. 26.)
Thus we see how that Israel's eventful history has all along stood connected with the smoking furnace and the burning lamp, here seen in vision by Abram. They are either presented to us in the furnace of affliction, through their own sin, or enjoying the fruits of God's salvation; and even at this moment, when, as has been already observed, they are manifestly in the furnace, we can witness the fulfillment of God's promise, so often repeated, "And unto his son will I give one tribe, that David my servant may have a lamp (margin) always before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen Me to put My name there." (1 Kings xi. 36; xv. 14; 2 Kings viii. 19; Psalm cxxxii. 17.) If it be asked where does this lamp shine now? Not on earth, for Jerusalem, the place of its earthly display, is "trodden down of the Gentiles," but the eye of faith can behold it shining with undimmed lustre "in the true tabernacle," where it will continue to shine "until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in;" and then, when the furnace, seen in this chapter by Israel's great progenitor, shall have been heated to the very highest degree of intensity, when the blood of Israel's tribes shall flow like water round the walls of Jerusalem, even then, shall the blessed lamp come forth from the place where it now shines, and cast its cheering rays upon the dark path of the oppressed and sorrowing remnant, bringing to mind those oft-illustrated words, "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thy help."[3]
CHAPTERS XVI., XVII.
These two chapters give us an account of Abram's effort to obtain the promised seed by hearkening to the voice of his wife, and also of God's mode of teaching him the unprofitableness of such an appeal to the mere energy of nature as that which his effort involved.
At the very opening of Abram's course we find his faith put to the test in the matter of the famine, but here we find him tried in quite another way, a way moreover, which involved a far higher exercise of faith and spiritual power. "His own body now dead and the deadness of Sarah's womb;" although, in the main, "he considered them not," must have acted upon his mind to a considerable extent.