Verse 17
17. Written Genesis 17:5.
Quickeneth the dead The deadness of his own and Sarah’s body, the type and equal of a resurrection power.
As though they were God’s words, “I have made thee father of many nations,” concentrated the wonderful future into the present. It called things future as if they now were. As quickening the dead designates God’s omnipotence, so gathering things that are yet to be into a now designates God’s foreknowledge. Abraham, then, with a large-minded and high soaring faith, realized that it was a God, an Infinite Eternal, with whom he had to do.
As it is the base quality of unbelief to be earthward, materialistic, and grovelling, so it is the noble quality of faith to be high, large, heavenward, and Godward. By it man aspires and ascends, and the man and the race become susceptible of, and tending to, a heavenly elevation. And when that faith fastens upon the True and the Divine, the soul, individual and collective, mounts up toward all goodness and glory. And this shows how infidelity tends to wickedness, and true faith to excellence and goodness. Faith is a moral and holy ambition.
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