Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Chapter XXI.—Abraham’s faith was identical with ours; this faith was prefigured by the words and actions of the old patriarchs.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter XXI.—Abraham’s faith was
identical with ours; this faith was prefigured by the words and actions of the
old patriarchs.
1. But that our faith
was also prefigured in Abraham, and that he was the patriarch of our
faith, and, as it were, the prophet of it, the apostle has very fully
taught, when he says in the Epistle to the Galatians: “He therefore
that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you,
[doeth he it] by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Even
as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness.
Know ye therefore, that they which are of faith, the same are the
children of Abraham. But the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify
the heathen through faith, announced beforehand unto Abraham, that in him
all nations should be blessed. So then they which be of faith shall be
blessed with faithful Abraham.”4114
For which [reasons the apostle] declared
that this man was not only the prophet of faith, but also the father of
those who from among the Gentiles believe in Jesus Christ, because his
faith and ours are one and the same: for he believed in things future, as
if they were already accomplished, because of the promise of God; and in
like manner do we also, because of the promise of God, behold through
faith that inheritance [laid up for us] in the [future] kingdom.
2. The history of Isaac, too, is not
without a
symbolical character. For in the Epistle to the
Romans, the apostle declares: “Moreover, when Rebecca had conceived
by one, even by our father Isaac,” she received answer4115
| 4115 Massuet would cancel these
words. | from the Word, “that the purpose of God
according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calleth,
it was said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of
people are in thy body; and the one people shall overcome the other, and
the elder shall serve the younger.”4116
From which it is evident,
that not only [were there] prophecies of the patriarchs, but also that
the children brought forth by Rebecca were a prediction of the two
nations; and that the one should be indeed the greater, but the other the
less; that the one also should be under bondage, but the other free; but
[that both should be] of one and the same father. Our God, one and the
same, is also their God, who knows hidden things, who knoweth all things
before they can come to pass; and for this reason has He said,
“Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”4117
3. If
any one, again, will look into Jacob’s actions, he shall find them
not destitute of meaning, but full of import with regard to the
dispensations. Thus, in the first place, at his birth, since he laid hold
on his brother’s heel,4118
he was
called Jacob, that is, the supplanter—one who holds, but
is not held; binding the feet, but not being bound; striving and
conquering; grasping in his hand his adversary’s heel, that is,
victory. For to this end was the Lord born, the type of whose birth he
set forth beforehand, of whom also John says in the Apocalypse: “He
went forth conquering, that He should conquer.”4119
In the next place, [Jacob] received the rights of the first-born,
when his brother looked on them with contempt; even as also the younger
nation received Him, Christ, the first-begotten, when the elder nation
rejected Him, saying, “We have no king but Cæsar.”4120
But in Christ every blessing [is summed up],
and therefore the latter people has snatched away the blessings of the
former from the Father, just as Jacob took away the blessing of this
Esau. For which cause his brother suffered the plots and persecutions of
a brother, just as the Church suffers this self-same thing from the Jews.
In a foreign country were the twelve tribes born, the race of Israel,
inasmuch as Christ was also, in a strange country, to generate the
twelve-pillared foundation of the Church. Various coloured sheep were
allotted to this Jacob as his wages; and the wages of Christ are human
beings, who from various and diverse nations come together into one
cohort of faith, as the Father promised Him, saying, “Ask of Me,
and I will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, the uttermost
parts of the earth for Thy possession.”4121
And as from the multitude of his sons the prophets of the Lord
[afterwards] arose, there was every necessity that Jacob should beget
sons from the two sisters, even as Christ did from the two laws of one
and the same Father; and in like manner also from the handmaids,
indicating that Christ should raise up sons of God, both from freemen and
from slaves after the flesh, bestowing upon all, in the same manner, the
gift of the Spirit, who vivifies us.4122
| 4122 The text of this sentence is in great confusion, and we
can give only a doubtful translation. | But he (Jacob) did all
things for the sake of the younger, she who had the handsome eyes,4123
Rachel, who prefigured the Church, for which Christ
endured patiently; who at that time, indeed, by means of His patriarchs
and prophets, was prefiguring and declaring beforehand future things,
fulfilling His part by anticipation in the dispensations of God, and
accustoming His inheritance to obey God, and to pass through the world as
in a state of pilgrimage, to follow His word, and to indicate beforehand
things to come. For with God there is nothing without purpose or due
signification.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
