Chapter 21

§ 1.

Now that in Abraham also our faith was prefigured, and that he was Patriarch, and as it were Prophet of our faith, the Apostle hath taught very fully in the Epistle to the Galatians saying,¹ He therefore who giveth you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you;—is it of the works of the law, or of the hearing of faith? As Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture foreseeing that God justifieth the Gentiles by faith, foretold unto Abraham that in him all nations shall be blessed. Therefore they who are of faith, shall be blessed with faithful Abraham.

For which cause He entitled him not merely Prophet of the Faith,² but Father also of those who of the Gentiles believe in Christ Jesus, his faith and ours being one and the same, in that he indeed believes in things future as already done, because of the promise of God, and we in like manner by faith contemplate the inheritance which is in the Kingdom.

§ 2.

And the circumstances too of Isaac are not without meaning.³ For in the Epistle to the Romans the Apostle saith, Yea, and Rebekah after one conception by our father Isaac received an answer from the Word; that the purpose of God according to Election might stand,⁴ not of works,⁵ but of Him that calleth, it was said unto her, Two people are in thy womb,⁶ and two nations in thy bowels, and one people shall overcome the other, and the elder shall serve the younger. Whereby it is plain that not only the predictions of the Patriarchs, but the travail pains also of Rebekah were a prophecy of two peoples; and that one is greater, the other less; one under servitude, the other free; yet of one and the same father. Our God and theirs is one and the same, Who is cognizant of hidden things,⁷ Who knoweth all before it come to pass;⁸ and therefore He said, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

§ 3.

And if any man acquaint himself also with the acts of Jacob, he will find them not empty, but full of providential turns:⁹ and first in his birth, how he seized his brother’s heel,¹⁰ and was called Jacob, i.e., supplanter: holding, and not holden: binding the feet, and not bound; wrestling and overcoming: holding in hand his adversary’s heel, i.e., victory. For to that end the Lord was born, of whose generation he was exhibiting the type; of Whom John also saith in the Revelation, He went forth conquering, to conquer.¹¹ And afterwards in receiving the rights of the first-born,¹² when his brother spake reproachfully of them: even as the younger people received that First-born Who is Christ, on his being rejected by the elder people with the words,¹³ We have no King but Cæsar. Again in Christ is all blessing: and therefore the later people stole from the Father the blessings of the former people, as Jacob took away the blessing of this Esau. For which cause he endured the plots and persecutions of his brother, though he were his own brother: even as the Church endures the same from the Jews. In his sojourning were born the twelve tribes, the family of Israel, because Christ also as a sojourner began to produce the twelve-pillared firmament¹⁴ of the Church.¹⁵ There were many coloured sheep, who became the hire of this Jacob: and the hire of Christ are the men who become so on assembling from various and different nations into one troop of faith; as the Father promised Him, saying,¹⁶ Desire of Me and I will give Thee the Gentiles for Thine inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Thy possession. And because they were born to Jacob as Prophet of the number of the Lord’s children,¹⁷ it was quite necessary that he should have sons of two sisters, as Christ us of the two Laws which were of one and the same Father: and in like manner too of the handmaids: signifying that Christ would raise up sons to God of free men after the flesh, and of slaves, bestowing upon all alike the gift of the Spirit which quickens us.¹⁸ But he did all for the sake of that younger one, having good eyes, Rachel; the figure of the Church, for which Christ suffered.

And so far indeed He was by His Patriarchs and Prophets prefiguring and foretelling things future, exercising beforehand His part in God’s ordained ways, and training His heritage to obey God, and to be strangers in the world, and to follow His Word, and to fore-signify what is to come. For with God nothing is void, nor without significancy.