Do you know what the basis for receiving ANYTHING from the Lord is? It’s simply believing we are qualified to receive it. This is the way Abraham received from the Lord. God told him He was going to bless him, and Abraham believed it, no questions asked.
But there is actually more to it than that…Abraham believed the same Gospel that you and I believe. God declared the Gospel to Abraham in a very creative way, and in that display of creativity He promised Abraham that you and I would be blessed today because of the coming Messiah.
“…just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, ‘In you all the nations shall be blessed.’” (Galatians 3:6-8)1
If we look back in Genesis, we will see that God gave the Gospel story to Abraham when He told Him to look towards the skies:
“He brought him outside and said, ‘Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.’ And He said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And he believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.” (Genesis 15:5-6)
The word translated in the New Kings James for “count” and “number” is the Hebrew word “caphar” which means “to count, to recount, to relate.”2 The King James Version translates it this way: “Look now toward the heaven and TELL the stars if thou be able to number them, and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.” God was telling Abraham that he would have as many descendants as the stars in the sky, but He was saying much more than that. The “Seed” of Abraham is Jesus Himself.3 God was telling Abraham to look in the sky and see the story of Jesus. Before the Bible was even written, God put the Gospel story in the sky in the constellations, beginning with Virgo, the virgin, and then ending with Leo, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Jesus!4 Today the occult has perverted the meaning of the arrangement of the stars into astrology, but God is the one who arranged the stars in the sky to tell the story of redemption.5 And Abraham looked at it and believed the Lord.
The stars in the constellations are all the spiritual descendants of Abraham. That includes you and me. Think of it: we are written in the story of the Gospel! His story is our story! We were baptized into His death and raised to new life in His resurrection!6 It’s too awesome to get our minds around, but when we look up at the stars we should feel the extravagant love of God for us!
(from pages 255-256 of Unveiling Jesus)
Want more from Tricia Gunn? Check out excerpts from the Unveiling Jesus 20-part series!
Unveiling Jesus, by Tricia Gunn, is a verse by verse study of the pure gospel of grace. It’s an amazing journey of love, identity, and freedom in Christ.
Shop Unveiling Jesus Products
Unveiling Jesus Book
Unveiling Jesus 20-Part Series
Original Unveiling Jesus, 10-part series
1All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New King James Version. Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.
2H5608 (caphar), Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon, website: http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H5608&t=KJV, accessed 6-5-14
3Galatians 3:16
4Revelation 5:5
5For further study, see The Real Meaning of the Zodiac, D. James Kennedy, Coral Ridge Ministries, 1989
6Romans 6:1-5″
