For the Jews of Jesus' day, there were few things which would infuriate them more than for someone to claim an inappropriate equality to or  relationship with the God of their forefathers, namely Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It's no wonder they picked up stones to kill Jesus after his words in the last bit of John 8!

Jesus first sets them on edge by indicating Abraham rejoiced to see "His day", to which they questioned how that was possible being that he wasn't even 50 years old so how could Abraham have known anything about this Jesus of Nazareth (or vice versa for that matter)? When Jesus explains how that is possible by saying "before Abraham was, I am.", that's when they lost it. To them Jesus had spoken unforgiveable blasphemy. But the question remains, "what DID Jesus mean after all?" I mean, the Jews weren't wrong ... He was far to young in the flesh to have seen Abraham or for Abraham to have seen Him ... or so we think!

Jesus words hearken back to Genesis 18 where three beings meet with him at the Oaks of Mamre. One of the figures is referred to at the Lord, indicating that one of them was actually God Himself presenting Himself as a human being. Some scholars believe (as do I) that this was the pre-incarnate, though fully embodied, second person of the trinity; none other than the Unique Son of God ... aka Jesus.

Looking back through the lens of Christian history, it isn't hard for us to see that Jesus "was before Abraham", but for the Jews of His day, this was a bridge too far. It is, however, integral to the story of Abraham's covenant.

You see, part of what makes the covenant an everlasting one is the One by whom the covenant is made .... it was made by God, kept by God, insured by God ... the One who has always been and ever will be. Jesus was claiming to be one and the same!

This covenant God made with Abraham has always existed in the shape of the Messiah; and Abraham knew it ... and rejoiced! He knew the bigger story wasn't about him at all. His hope wasn't in land, descendants, or historical prominence. All of those promises were leading towards the coming Son, the One through whom the nations would be reclaimed and rescued.

The Old and New Testaments are not disconnected stories. Jesus was not an appendix to Abraham's calling. He was (and is) the destination toward which the promise was always moving. The nations' blessings would not come through the mere existence of Abraham's offspring, but one in particular, the man Jesus.

Abraham didn't just agree or affirm the coming Messiah; he rejoiced. This tells us something about Abraham's faith. He had a warm and glad expectation rooted in the goodness of God. Even though his view was dim as he peered into the future, he found joy in what He believed and knew God would do.

Sometimes when life gets tough, our faith becomes little more than gritty endurance. We hod on, but not with much gladness to speak of. John 8 invites us to recover joy by seeing what Abraham saw. God's plan to rescue the nations isn't an ethereal mystical idea. It has a face, a name ... and a cross. The promise became flesh.

When you think about God’s plan in Scripture, do you tend to focus more on events and ideas than on Christ Himself?

Father, thank you that our promises are fulfilled in Jesus. Teach me to read your word with Jesus in mind at its center. Help me to find joy in your redemptive plan. Fix my heart on the One to whom all your promises your promises lead. Amen

There's a saying that says "Go big, or go home". This idiom comes to mind when I think of the call of Abraham. Today, Paul helps us to understand just how big and expansive God's plan really is. Paul shows us how far reaching the promise reaches. The blessing of Genesis 12 was never intended to stop with Abraham's physical descendants. God made it with the nations in view and through Jesus, the door to them is thrown open wide!

To drive his point home, Paul quotes Genesis 12. He isn't inventing some new plan or applying some new meaning to Abraham's call. He's drawing out the extension of what was already there. The blessing to "all nations" was far greater than ethnicity, geography, or even ancestry. It was always intended for a multinational, multiethnic family gathered around faith.

In Genesis we saw the mission begin. Here we see the mission goals brought into crystal clear focus. God never intended to build one nation and leave the rest out in the cold. While Israel had (and has) a central part in the story, that role was both priestly and missional. Through Abraham and his lineage, the nations are now invited into the family of promise.

The faith of the nations doesn't erase the story of Israel, it magnifies it as fulfilled purpose. the nations do not arrive as intruders, but as the long lost family members intended to receive mercy. Paul emphasizes that the rescue of the nations wasn't Plan B, it was woven into the promise from the very beginning.

As a gentile (the name by which 'the nations' would later be known), I find this deeply comforting. We know what it is like to wonder whether or not you truly belong, feeling the loneliness of being an outsider. Galatians 3 speaks directly to this fear. In Jesus, those who trust Him aren't spiritual refugees peering in through the windows of God's household. We are counted among the children of Abraham ... children by faith. The family of promise turns out to be much larger than we thought. All because God's grace is bigger than we could ever have imagined.