Page 192 - Through New Eyes

The World of the Patriarchs 189
triarchal period. The Hebrews were a family and a church, but
not a state.

Symbolism
Six symbols stand out as especially relevant to the Abra-
hamic covenant and the patriarchal era. These symbols picture
the nature of God’s people and of their ministry. The symbols
that come to play prominently in the patriarchal era are stars,
dust, altars, pillars, trees, and wells. These symbols will recur in
the Mosaic covenant, where they will be organized into a
package, the Tabernacle. During the patriarchal era, however,
the symbols were distributed “under the open sky.”
God told Abram, “I will make your descendants as the dust
of the earth; so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth,
then your descendants can also be numbered” (Genesis 13:16; cf.
22:17; 28:14; 32:12). God also told Abram that his seed would be
like the stars of the heavens in quality (Genesis 15:5; see Chapter
5) and quantity (Genesis 22:17; cf. 26:4; 37:9-10). Thus, the peo-
ple of Abraham would be a new heavens and a new earth. The
promise to Abraham was that a righteous people wouldjll the
earth as the dust, and that a righteous people would rule the
earth as the stars. The Kingdom of God, the spiritual people of
Abraham, would someday cover the earth and rule it. 13
Abraham was to conduct a ministry of evangelism and guid-
ance among all the nations of the world. In this way he would be
a “father” of many nations, and they would be his spiritual chil-
dren. Paul picks this theme up and expands on it in Remans 4,
but it is found in Genesis (cf. Genesis 45 :8). Abraham began his
evangelistic ministry in Haran, before he got to Canaan; and we
read that many converts came with him on his exodus (Genesis
12: 5). 14 He conducted this ministry by erecting altars, which
were as we have seen, models of the holy mountain, ladders to
heaven. At these altar sites, Abraham and his descendants led
their converts in worship, and taught them the ways of God
(Genesis 12:7, 8; 13:4, 18; 22:9; 26:25; 33:20; 35:1, 3, 7).
Abraham pitched his altars in connection with special trees,
also ladders to heaven, as we have seen in Chapter 7 (Genesis
12:6; 13:18; 14:13; 18:4, 8; 21:33; 23:17; 35:4, 8). The association
of trees with altars, holy mountains, reminds us of the Garden of