III. THE PROVIDENCE OF RESTORATION IN ABRAHAM'S FAMILY

Abraham had to restore through indemnity the foundation of faith, and his sons had to restore through indemnity the foundation of substance.

1. The Foundation of faith

1.1 The Central Figure for the Foundation of Faith

In the providence of restoration in Abraham's family, the central figure to restore the foundation of faith was Abraham. However, Abraham could not inherit this mission unless he first restored through indemnity all the conditions which had been given to Noah to fulfill, but which were lost to Satan due to Ham's sin.

Abraham was to inherit the mission of Noah and thus the mission of Adam. In this capacity, he represented restored Adam. As God had blessed Adam and Noah, God also blessed Abraham.

1.2 The Object for the Condition Offered for the Foundation of Faith

1.2.1 Abraham's Symbolic Offering

God commanded Abraham to offer a dove and a pigeon, a ram and a goat, and a heifer. (Gen. 15:9) These were the objects for the condition which he offered to restore the foundation of faith. Abraham strengthened his faith in preparation for making the symbolic offering.

Since Noah was the second human ancestor, for Abraham to restore the position of Noah, he also had to assume Adam's position. For this reason, he was required to make a symbolic indemnity condition to restore the position of Adam's family before he could make the actual symbolic offering.

What was the significance of Abraham's symbolic offering? Abraham was required to offer in an acceptable manner objects for the condition to restore all that Cain and Abel were supposed to accomplish through their sacrifices, and all that Noah's family was trying to accomplish through the dispensation of the ark.

Abraham offered three types of objects as the condition for his symbolic offering: first, a dove and a pigeon; second, a ram and a goat; and third, a heifer. These three sacrifices symbolized the cosmos, which was completed through the three stages of the growing period. The dove represented the formation stage.

The ram represented the growth stage.The heifer represented the completion stage.

Why did Abraham place the three sacrifices - the dove and pigeon, the ram and goat, and the heifer, symbolizing the formation, growth and completion stages - on one altar? Before the Fall, Adam was responsible to grow through all three stages in his one lifetime. Similarly, Abraham, now in the position of Adam, was supposed to restore, all at once, the long providence which God had conducted through the three providential generations of Adam (formation), Noah (growth) and Abraham (completion).

Now let us study how Abraham made the symbolic offering:

He said to him, "Bring me a heifer three years old, a she-goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon." And he brought him all these, cut them in two, and laid each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. And when the birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away. As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram; and lo, a dread and great darkness fell upon him. Then the Lord said to Abram, "Know of a surety that your descendants will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be slaves there, and they will be oppressed for four hundred years." (Gen. 15:9-13)

Because Abraham did not cut the dove and pigeon in two as he should have, birds of prey came down and defiled the sacrifices. As a result of his mistake, the Israelites were destined to enter Egypt and suffer hardships for four hundred years. Why was it a sin not to cut the birds in half?

The sacrifices were to be divided to make the condition to sanctify the offering by draining out the blood of death, which had entered fallen humanity when they were bound in blood-ties to Satan.

When Abraham offered the birds without first dividing them, it meant that he offered what had not been wrested from Satan's possession. His mistake had the effect of acknowledging Satan's claim of possession over them. The dove, symbolizing the formation stage, remained in Satan's possession. Consequently, Satan also claimed the ram, symbolizing the growth stage, and the heifer, symbolizing the completion stage, both of which were to be fulfilled based upon the formation stage. Since it had the effect of handing over the entire symbolic offering to Satan, not dividing the birds constituted a sin.

Abraham's mistake in making the symbolic offering caused the offering to be defiled. All the conditions God intended to restore through it were lost. As a consequence, Abraham's descendants had to suffer oppression and slavery for four hundred years in the land of Egypt.

Abraham failed, repeating the mistakes of the past. Consequently, the providence centered on him was prolonged through the three generations of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

1.2.2 Abraham's Offering of Isaac

After Abraham failed in the symbolic offering, God commanded him to sacrifice his only son Isaac as a burnt offering. (Gen. 22:2) In this way, God began a new dispensation for the purpose of restoring through indemnity Abraham's failure.

Before he could offer Isaac as a sacrifice, Abraham once again had to demonstrate right faith by repeating the symbolic indemnity condition for the restoration of Adam's family, as he had when he was about to make the symbolic offering.

How did Abraham offer Isaac?

When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. Then Abraham put forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here am I." He said, "Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me." (Gen. 22:9-12)

Abraham's faith was absolute. In obedience to God's command, he was about to kill Isaac, his only son, intending to offer him as a burnt offering. God intervened at that moment and told Abraham not to kill the boy.

1.2.3 Isaac's Position and Symbolic Offering in the Sight of God

Since he had failed to fulfill his responsibility, Abraham was not qualified to repeat the symbolic offering himself. Somehow, God had to find a way to regard Abraham as though he had not failed in the symbolic offering or caused the prolongation of the providence. To achieve this, God commanded Abraham to offer Isaac as a burnt offering.

When Abraham was prepared to slay his son, even the son of the promise, he demonstrated utmost loyalty to Heaven. This act of faith was tantamount to Abraham killing himself - a self which had been defiled by Satan due to his earlier failure in the symbolic offering. Accordingly, when God saved Isaac from death, Abraham was also resurrected to life, now loosed from all the ties with which Satan had bound him when his symbolic offering was defiled. Furthermore, Abraham and Isaac attained inseparable oneness in their fidelity to God's Will.

In making the offering, Isaac and Abraham underwent a process of death and resurrection. As a result, two things were accomplished. First, Abraham succeeded in the separation of Satan, who had invaded him because of his mistake in the symbolic offering. He restored through indemnity the position he had occupied before he had made the mistake and transferred his providential mission to Isaac from this restored position. Second, by faithfully obeying God's Will, Isaac inherited the divine mission from Abraham and demonstrated the faith which qualified him to make the symbolic offering.

After the divine mission had passed from Abraham to Isaac, Abraham offered the ram provided by God as the substitute for Isaac:

Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. (Gen. 22:13)

In fact, this was the symbolic offering by which Isaac restored the foundation of faith.

2. The Foundation of Substance

To establish the foundation for the Messiah in Isaac's family, the foundation of substance had to be laid next. For this purpose, Isaac's sons, Esau and Jacob, had to be placed in the divided positions of Cain and Abel respectively. By making the substantial offering, they were responsible to fulfill the indemnity condition to remove the fallen nature and lay the foundation of substance.

However, before Esau and Jacob could fulfill the indemnity condition to remove the fallen nature and make the substantial offering, Jacob first had to fulfill the indemnity condition to restore the position of Abel. In all, Jacob had the following missions: First, he should fulfill the indemnity condition to restore the position of Abel, the central figure of the substantial offering. Next, he should make the substantial offering. Finally, as will be discussed in the next section, Jacob would enter Egypt to commence the four-hundred-year course of indemnity required of his descendants because of Abraham's mistake in the symbolic offering.

Jacob made the indemnity condition to restore the position of Abel in the following manner. First, Jacob fulfilled the condition of victory in the fight to restore on the individual level the birthright of the eldest son. Jacob, as the second son who had the responsibility to restore the birthright of the firstborn son, cleverly obtained it from Esau in exchange for some bread and a pottage of lentils. (Gen. 25:29-34) Because Jacob highly valued the birthright and worked to reclaim it from his brother, God had Isaac bless him. (Gen. 27:27-29)

Second, Jacob went to Haran, which represented the satanic world. After suffering through twenty-one years of drudgery, he triumphed over Laban in the fight to restore the birthright by gaining family and wealth as his due inheritance. After winning this victory, Jacob returned to Canaan.

Third, on his way back to Canaan, the land of the promised blessing, Jacob triumphed in wrestling with an angel at the ford of Jabbok, thereby restoring dominion over the angel in a substantial struggle. Through these three victories, Jacob restored through indemnity the position of Abel. Thereupon, Jacob became the central figure of the substantial offering.

When Jacob returned to Canaan with his family and wealth after enduring twenty-one years of hardship in Haran, he moved Esau to overcome his former hostility:

And Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, Esau was coming, and four hundred men with him. So he divided the children among Leah and Rachel and the two maids. And he put the maids with their children in front, then Leah with her children, and Rachel and Joseph last of all. He himself went on before them, bowing himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother. But Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept. (Gen. 33:1-4)

When Esau opened his arms and affectionately welcomed Jacob, they fulfilled the indemnity condition to remove the fallen nature. For the first time, the foundation of substance was laid successfully.

When Jacob and Esau succeeded in making the substantial offering, their victory in the providence centered on Abraham also restored through indemnity, horizontally in one family, the long vertical course of history in which God had been working to restore the foundation of substance.

3. The Foundation for the Messiah

God's work to lay the foundation for the Messiah, which He first tried to establish in Adam's family, had to be conducted three times because the central figures of the providence of restoration could not fulfill their portion of responsibility. The third attempt was in Abraham's time, yet even this was prolonged when he failed in the symbolic offering. Isaac and his family inherited the Will and laid the foundation of faith and the foundation of substance. At last, the foundation for the Messiah was established. One would expect that the Messiah would have come on the earth at that time.

However, the foundation for the Messiah must make it feasible for this satanic world to be restored into God's Kingdom ruled by the Messiah. By Abraham's time, fallen people had already built up satanic nations which could easily overpower Abraham's family. Hence, even though the foundation for the Messiah was laid at that time, it was a limited foundation, on the family level. The Messiah could not have safely come on that foundation. A foundation of a sovereign state was needed to cope with the nations of the satanic world.

Though the descendants of Isaac had established the family foundation for the Messiah, they would leave their homeland and suffer in a foreign land for four hundred years as the penalty for Abraham's mistake. Despite their suffering in Egypt, they would flourish and consolidate as a people. They would return to Canaan and build the national foundation for the Messiah as a sovereign nation prepared for the Messiah and his work.

Jacob's family stood upon the foundation for the Messiah which had been completed in Isaac's family. Inheriting the position of Isaac's family, they set out to complete the dispensation entrusted to Abraham by taking responsibility for Abraham's sin and embarking upon the four-hundred-year course of indemnity. In Jacob's family it was Joseph, the son of Rachel - Jacob's wife on God's side - who was to secure the position of Abel by entering Egypt and walking the course of indemnity.

Jacob, as the central figure who laid the foundation for the Messiah in Isaac's family, was responsible to shoulder Abraham's sin. He was also responsible to embark upon an indemnity course to realize on the national level the Will which had been entrusted to Isaac. Therefore, as was the case with Abraham and Isaac, God regarded Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as the same person with respect to His Will, even though they were three different individuals.

In conclusion, Jacob was victorious in taking responsibility for the indemnity course to pay for Abraham's mistake. By using his wisdom for the sake of God's Will, Jacob triumphed as an individual in his struggle with Esau to win the birthright. He entered Haran and, as a family, triumphed in a twenty-one-year struggle with his uncle Laban to win the birthright. On his way back from Haran to Canaan, Jacob was victorious in the fight with the angel. He was the first fallen man to fulfill the indemnity condition to restore dominion over the angel. Thereupon, he received the name "Israel," (Gen. 32:28) signifying that he set the pattern and laid the groundwork upon which the chosen people would be established. After returning to Canaan with these victories, Jacob won Esau's heart, and together they fulfilled the indemnity condition to remove the fallen nature.

Jacob thus victoriously completed the model course to bring Satan to submission. Moses, Jesus, and even the people of Israel would walk this course after the pattern set by Jacob. The history of Israel can serve as a good historical source for understanding the course to bring Satan to submission on the national level. For this reason, it is central to the study of the providence of restoration.

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