15 Then God said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. 16 And I will bless her and also give you a son by her; then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall be from her." ~ Genesis 17:15-16
Today, we continue our study of Genesis 17 where we see that throughout the Bible there is a thread which weaves God’s people into His great culture which will gradually heal what is broken within us. His culture steers us to the place where He replaces what sin destroyed. His goal is to replace us with Himself, to replace our sadness with His joy and to replace our chaos with His presence and peace. Today, we will see another step in the delivery of His culture to our souls, it is a thread whereby He inculcates Himself into us.
In v.15 of today's passage we read, "Then God said to Abraham, 'As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.'"
God renamed Sarai slightly different than He did Abraham. Whereas God renamed Abram directly and straight on, He renamed Sarai through Abraham. Just as God works through the Lord Jesus Christ to meet with Christ’s bride, the Church, so He goes through Abraham for the name of Sarai to be changed. The Bible’s use of family hierarchies and the submission of the wife to her husband is subtly underscored here. When the family hierarchy, which has been established by God, is rejected, it inevitably leads to a disrupted family life. This has been born out through history and it is being born out just now before our very eyes in America. As Americans move away from the traditional father-led family established by God, it may appear on the surface to be freeing women from some perceived bondage, but in the end, it only leads to disorder, societal breakdown, and a loss of morality.
Note also that Sarai’s name change was done in the same way that Abraham’s name was changed, by adding a single letter from the name of God to Sarai's name. As was with Abram, God used a letter equivalent to our letter "h." In this case, the "h" was used to replace the "i." By adding the "h" to their names, God imparted to Abram and Sarai a portion of His own nature. Sarah means "princess." God made her, with the changing of her name, to have the presence of "a princess." This was due to His pronounced presence in her life. In 1 Peter 3, the Apostle Peter identified Sarah as the epitome of the submissive wife whom God favors. God attaches a condition to His pronounced presence in our lives. All believers enjoy His presence, but His pronounced presence is something more. This condition is found in 2 Chronicles 15. King Asa had led the armies of Judah to a great victory over Ethiopia's huge army. Yet Asa testified it was God's presence that had scattered the enemy.
In 2 Chronicles 14:11-12 we read, "11 And Asa cried out to the Lord his God, and said, 'Lord, it is nothing for You to help, whether with many or with those who have no power; help us, O Lord our God, for we rest on You, and in Your name we go against this multitude. O Lord, You are our God; do not let man prevail against You!' 12 So the Lord struck the Ethiopians before Asa and Judah, and the Ethiopians fled."
As Asa and his armies led the triumphant procession back to Jerusalem, a prophet named Azariah met them at the city gate with this message from God: "2 Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you while you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you. 3 For a long time Israel has been without the true God, without a teaching priest, and without law; 4 but when in their trouble they turned to the Lord God of Israel, and sought Him, He was found by them."
Herein is discovered the secret of getting and maintaining the pronounced presence of God in our lives. The Lord reminded Asa, point blank, with no holds barred: "Asa, don't ever forget how you got this victory. You sought me with all your heart, turning wholly to me, when you were in trouble - and I sent my presence to you. It was my presence that put your enemies to chase!"
When we came into a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, positionally before God we were transferred into the sovereign care of the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ who is now our God who guarantees our eternal security through His death on the cross of Calvary. The renaming of Sarai to Sarah pictured this transaction made for the believer in Christ.
In v.16 of today's passage we read, "And I will bless her and also give you a son by her; then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall be from her."
The Lord promised to bless Sarah and He also said He would "give a son by her." This son would be different from Abraham's other son, Ishmael, for he was to be "the son of promise." This is the 5th time in the book of Genesis that we see God working through the second son instead of the firstborn. It is the condition of the heart that determines whether we are to be favored by God. If we are not given to embracing the humility needed to access God's blessing, His favor will never rest on us. But when we embrace the needed humility, we enter a new relationship with God Himself.
Whenever we see God in a new way, it always makes a corresponding change in us. We see this with the renaming of Sarai who is never referred to as Sarai in the New Testament. God did not set her up as a pattern for women until she became Sarah and she entered into a new relationship with the Lord which enabled His culture to be developed in her. As Sarah she learned to allow God to define and, as the Apostle Peter tells us in his first epistle, God developed in Sarah "a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious." Sarai was not naturally gentle and quiet. Before this name change she was an argumentative woman and a nagging wife. But she, too, was taught by grace, and through the years she lost the need to defend herself on every occasion. Sarah's insecurities waned over time and she truly became a princess, an honored woman with a meek and quiet spirit.
In the promise of a son through Sarah, God said that kings and many different groups of people would come from her. Through Sarah came King Saul, King David, King Solomon, and many other kings. And ultimately from her would come the King of kings, the Lord Jesus Christ. Sarah was in the lineage of the Lord Jesus so that the Lord Jesus could live within all who believe in Him as Savior.
