Week 10 - Monday

God Gives Life To The Dead

(as it is written, "A father of many nations have I made you") in the sight of Him whom he believed, even God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist. (Romans 4:17)

God, by His grace, offers salvation to everyone who believes. (Rom. 10:11-13). The Jews would have rather believed that this wasn't so. They liked to think that salvation was reserved for them alone. The Jews were so prejudiced against the Gentiles that they didn't want any of them to be saved. In Romans 4:9-17, Paul shows them that God's plan for salvation includes the Gentiles also. Verse 17 begins with the words, as it is written. This means Paul is going to use the Scriptures to prove his point. The words, "A father of many nations have I made you", are referring to Genesis 17:5. In this Old Testament verse God tells Abraham, "I will make you the father of a multitude of nations". This verse very clearly proves that Abraham's descendants would be Jews and Gentiles also.

Abraham is one of the great heroes of faith because he believed the promises of God. God told Abraham that his wife Sarah would bear him a son and they were to name the boy Isaac. God also told him it would be through Isaac that all of Abraham's descendants would come. But Abraham had to wait until he was 100 years old to receive the son God had promised him. Then, several years after Isaac was born, God commanded Abraham to take his son to the land of Moriah and offer him as a sacrifice to God there. Abraham obeyed God and traveled to Moriah. Once he got there, he built an altar and placed Isaac on it. Even though Abraham loved Isaac, he was willing kill his son because God had asked him to. Why would Abraham do that? Why would he take the life of the son that he loved and had waited so long for? Abraham knew that God had promised to bring him countless descendants through Isaac. If God wanted him to kill Isaac, Abraham figured that God must have been planning to raise him from the dead. (Heb. 11:17-19). That's the only way he could see that God could still keep his promise. Just as Abraham was ready to bring the knife down to kill his son, an angel of the Lord stopped him. Stuck in the bushes was a ram and the angel told Abraham to sacrifice the animal instead (Gen. 22:1-13). God did not intend for Abraham to sacrifice his son. It was only a test of Abraham's faith. However God Himself would later do what he did not require Abraham to do. God would sacrifice His own son, and then raise Him from the dead.

Many people have a hard time believing that God raised Jesus from the dead. To them it just doesn't seem possible. Many don't believe that one day God will raise all people from the dead too. But it shouldn't be any problem believing that God gives life to the dead. Especially when you consider that He was the one who created everything in the first place. God has the power to call into being that which does not exist. He only has to decide what He wants and it exists, simply because He wants it to. If God can create things from nothing, it is no trouble for him to raise people from the dead either. We see evidence of this in nature all the time. When a seed goes into the ground it first decomposes, then a short time later it springs into new life. A small seed that dies in the ground has no power of it's own to become a flower or a tree. It can only produce new life because God causes it to. In this often repeated act of nature, God is giving an example of what He will do to us after we go into the grave. An even greater demonstration of God's life giving power is seen whenever a child is born. A small seed goes into a womans womb and develops into billions of complex parts that all work together to form a new human being. This doesn't happen because the seed or the woman's womb have power to create new life. It is God who created that life. The womans womb is nothing more than the place where God chose to do it. God also gives new life to those who are spiritually dead. He takes sinful people who are dead to the things of God and gives them spiritual life. Salvation is God's doing, not man's. It is a gift from God, given through faith, by His grace, to undeserving sinners.

Readings for today: Gen. 1:1; Jer. 32:17; Isa. 44:24; 2 Cor. 4:14; 1 Cor. 15:35-38; Eph. 2:1, 4-5