Abraham's Family

It was not until the appearance of Abraham that all the necessary conditions were met. Four hundred years or ten generations after Noah, God chose Abraham to reestablish the Foundation of Faith.

Abraham was to be placed in the same position as Adam and Noah. It was thus necessary for Abraham to make restitution for the failure of Adam's family by demonstrating absolute faith in God's word.

God called Abraham from Haran3 and commanded him to leave his country, his kindred, and his father's house and to make his way to a land which God would reveal to him. With unquestioning faith and obedience, Abraham left Haran, which represented the satanic world, and went to Canaan.

With him, he took his wife Sarah, his nephew Lot, their people, and possessions. (Gen. 12:1-5)

Thus, Abraham set the condition to separate from Satan's domain in obedience to God's command. His family now needed to establish the basis on which they could restore the failures of Adam and Eve's family and Noah's family.

Since there was a famine in Canaan, Abraham's caravan continued to Egypt. Before entering Egypt, Abraham asked Sarah to pretend to be his sister. In Egypt, the Pharaoh took Sarah into his house because of her great beauty.

God thereupon afflicted Pharaoh's household with a plague. In fear, Pharaoh asked Abraham to leave Egypt with Sarah. (Gen. 12:10-20)

What is the meaning of this strange episode?

While Adam and Eve were still brother and sister, Lucifer took Eve. In Egypt, Abraham and Sarah faced a situation having the same potential as that which Adam and Eve had encountered with Lucifer.

Sarah had been sought by Pharaoh, who was in Lucifer's position, but remained untouched and returned to Abraham safely. By taking back Sarah and leaving Egypt with their nephew Lot, and all their goods, Abraham restored symbolically the wife, children, and all things that Satan had taken from Adam.

By coming victoriously out of Egypt, Abraham symbolically restored his family to the position of Adam's family and was now ready to make the required sacrifices as the central figure for the Foundation of Faith.

Having defeated Satan symbolically, Abraham made a covenant, under which God gave him a promise of blessing. Showing him the stars of heaven, God said to Abraham:

"So shall your descendants be." And he believed the Lord; and he [the Lord] reckoned it to him [Abraham] as righteousness. And he said to him, "I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess." But he said, "0 Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?" (Gen. 15:5-8)

Abraham asked God how to obtain this blessing.

God 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." (Gen. 15:9)

This was the condition Abraham was to fulfill to establish the Foundation of Faith.

In his offering, he would have paid restitution for what had been lost by Abel and Noah.

The sacrifices which Abraham was to offer symbolized the three stages of restoration as well as the entire creation, including mankind.

The turtle-dove and the young pigeon represented the Formation Stage; the she-goat and the ram, the Growth Stage; and the heifer, the Perfection Stage.

In making his important sacrifice, Abraham labored to cut the large animals in two before laying them on the altar.

However, he did not cut the birds in two before offering them. After this, birds of prey descended on the offerings.

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 as 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. 15:12-13)

Abraham should have cut the birds in half. His failure to do so made a base for Satan's intervention in his offering. Thus, vultures came down on the birds that Abraham had failed to cut.

Abraham should have cut each of his offerings in two, one half representing Cain's position, and the other half, Abel's. Because he failed in this crucial offering, Abraham's descendants were destined to undergo 400 years of slavery in Egypt.

To carry out the dispensation of restoration, a complete separation between good and evil had to be made. The good and evil in Adam's family were to be separated through Cain and Abel and their offerings. The flood of Noah's day had the same purpose.

Through the flood-judgment, Noah's family was separated from Satan. Abraham's offering had a similar meaning. Cutting the sacrifices in two symbolized the separation of all things from Satan and their restoration to God.

Secondly, restitution would thus be made for the failure of Cain and Abel. Thirdly, by cutting the sacrifices, Satan's blood would be symbolically removed from the Adamic lineage.

Representing the Formation Stage, the offering of the birds was the foundation of the whole sacrifice. Since the foundation became Satan's, the rest of the sacrifice also became his. Abraham failed in this important instance. Hence, the 400 years from Noah to Abraham were lost.

What would have prompted Abraham to make such a grievous error?

Abraham grew weary and inattentive near the end of his arduous sacrificial offering. This could happen because, although Abraham had suffered more deeply than anyone on behalf of God's providence, even he did not yet fully realize the seriousness of what he was doing at the time of the offering.

From the time Abraham received the order from God to leave his father's house and the homeland he loved, he led a life of misfortune such as he had never experienced. After making the difficult journey to Canaan, he found famine there.

In Egypt, he and Sarah faced incredible dangers from the Pharaoh.

Then, even though his nephew Lot had separated from him, Abraham risked his life to save Lot after Lot was taken captive. (Genesis 14) Abraham must have felt a heart more sorrowful than any other seeker of Heaven had experienced until then.

In Canaan, he did not have any relatives. He did not have any comrades. He did not have any friends. Even then, he had to be responsible for the heart of all misfortunes of humanity and the whole history of restoration.

We have to understand the unfortunate life of Abraham, who had to overcome everything with the mindset that no matter what kind of misfortune, tribulation, sorrow, difficulty, and pain came his way, he would fulfill the will of God.

Although Abraham greatly exerted himself until the time he built the altar and offered the three great symbolic sacrifices, he did not know that an even deeper sorrow would confront him based on the sacrifice itself. He was in an environment of misfortune.

He was representing the historical mission of his age, the mission of the future generation, and the mission of Heaven. However, his thoughts could not reach that far. He thought that by climbing over the hill of external misfortune, everything would be resolved. He did not know that he had to resolve not just the misfortune of that time, but also the misfortune of the past and the misfortune of the future. To

To make restitution for the lost 400 years, the posterity of Abraham had to suffer in the Satanic world for an equal length of time. For this reason, the Israelites were held in bondage for 400 years in Egypt.

Isaac Abraham's failure to lay the foundation for restoration was the third such failure. After the failure of Adam's family, the task was transferred to Noah's family.

After Ham's failure, God chose Abraham to make a third attempt to lay an enduring Foundation of Faith. This dispensation had twice been left unfulfilled; first through Adam's family and then through Noah's family. Three is the number of completion.

Because Abraham was the third to be chosen, he had to establish the foundation. For this reason, Abraham was given a second chance to establish the Foundation of Faith. His second course, however, had to be more difficult than the first, as a condition to make restitution for his failure.

The way this opened to him was through his son Isaac. God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his "only son", Isaac, to make restitution for his failure.' Isaac was given to Abraham with God's promise to multiply his descendants to the number of the stars.

Though Abraham was a man of faith, he could have felt that to offer the promised son as a burnt offering was inconsistent with God's promise. God said to Abraham:

"Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I shall tell you." On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off (Gen. 22:2, 4)

Having realized his grave mistake in the symbolic offering and the consequent future enslavement of his descendants, Abraham resolved to obey God's command.

On the third day after Abraham's departure, God showed him a place to build an altar. Abraham built the altar and bound Isaac in preparation for the sacrifice. He then placed his son on the altar.

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. 22:10-12)

Having observed Abraham's tremendous faith and obedience demonstrated in the offering of his son, God was greatly relieved. Isaac was sanctified by Abraham's dedicated faith so that God could accept Isaac as a living offering.

God then provided Abraham with a ram to burn on the altar. In his first offering, Abraham did not fully realize the significance of God's command. But in his second offering, he reverently obeyed God, since he had realized his great error.

The words, "Now I know that you fear God," are a profound expression of God's relief.

By his wholehearted obedience and cooperation, Isaac became one with Abraham, succeeding his father's mission. Thus, they were victorious in the second offering, and the Foundation of Faith was established. Abraham's position as central figure for the course of restoration was now passed on to Isaac.