In Luke chapter one, an old man named Zechariah and a young girl named Mary both received a visit from an angel, who gave them a message about a baby boy to be born. In both cases, such a birth seemed impossible - in Zechariah's case because his wife was too old to have children, and in Mary's case because she was a virgin who had never been with a man. In response, both seemed to ask the angel the same question, but a closer look at the Greek text reveals a subtle and important difference. Zechariah's, "How can this be?" was the how of unbelief, while Mary's, "How will this be?" was the how of willing partnership.
This week, in the Old Testament book of Genesis, I read a story that seems surprisingly similar. In Genesis 15, God speaks to an old man called Abraham and promises him a great reward. Abraham must have understood the reward to mean material blessings, because he replies sadly that he has no son and heir, so will have to leave all his earthly possessions to one of his servants. God then announces a miracle: You will have a son of your own, and your descendants will be as many as the stars in the sky. Abraham and his wife were already advanced in years and had never been able to have children, so their situation is very similar to Zechariah's in the New Testament. Verse 6 tells us that Abraham believed what God said, no matter how impossible it sounded, and so God considered him to be a righteous man.
But then something interesting happens. God asks Abraham to look around him at the land of Canaan, and tells him, not for the first time, that he and his descendants are going to take possession of it. And this is where Abraham raises the how question: "Oh Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will take possession of it?" Did it seem more impossible to overcome heathen tribes and occupy a whole country than it did to have a biological chid in your old age? The Hebrew word for "know" is the verb yada: Abraham was asking, how can I know for certain, know in my own experience, that I'll inherit this land? Was his question the how of unbelief like Zechariah or was it the how of willing partnership, like Mary?
It seems that this time it was the good kind of how. God wasn't the least bit offended by his question, and went on to give Abraham further clarification: by the end of the prophetic word, Abraham knows that he won't inherit the land in his own lifetime, but that his descendants will take possession of Canaan more than four hundred years later. The promise now has a time frame attached to it, and Abraham feels no compulsion to try to make it happen.
But the first part of the promise didn't have such a clear time frame attached, and this opened the way for one of the most tragic mistakes in world history. Read on in the post below for more about the test of God's timing.
