Since Abraham shall indeed become a great and mighty nation; and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him.
God is about to destroy Sodom. First He asks whether He should hide the plan from Abraham, and the reason He gives is the promise He had made to him.
Commentators point to the difference between a servant and a friend.
The heavenly visitors set out toward Sodom, and Abraham went with them for some distance. That led to the incident in which we see Abraham as the friend of God. A mere servant does not know what his Lord is doing, as the Lord showed in John 15:15. A friend, though, has access to things kept secret from others.
Friendship shows in what people talk about. Notice what God chose to talk about here — not Abraham's own affairs.
In business with the world, we say what has to be said about the matter in hand, as politely as we can. Once that is said, it is over. With a friend, we open our minds. We speak of things that have nothing to do with business, of everything that is in our hearts. When Abraham was called the friend of God, God was not talking with him about the promises made to him. He was telling him all He intended to do in the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah.
This is not a new promise. It is one link in a chain that runs through Abraham's life, and the chain has a destination.
God gave the promise of blessing when His call first reached Abraham. That is in Genesis 12:3. Then in Genesis 18:18 He confirms it to him. Again, in Genesis 22:16-18 He enlarges the promise, and we find that it will be carried out through "the Seed," who is Christ... Once the Seed is introduced, He is never left out, because everything in the way of fulfilment depends on Him.
The promise has two halves. One is about a nation. The other reaches past that nation to everyone.
He was given the privilege not only of becoming a great nation, but also of being the forefather of the Messiah, in whom all the nations would be blessed.
The blessing travels in a set order, and much of it is still future.
God gave the promise to Abraham, and He will carry it out in his seed on earth in days to come. "I will make of you a great nation … and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." Here room is left for blessing to go out to the Gentiles. But note this: they are to be blessed in Abraham, and afterwards in his seed.
Later Scripture tells us what God was doing through this promise.
We know the use that the Spirit of God makes of this promise. He says, "The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, 'In you shall all the nations be blessed'" (Galatians 3:8). Abraham did not, and could not, foresee how far the faith he acted on would reach when he answered God's call. But God foresaw that it was the one way of blessing for all the families of the earth. So now, in our small measure, only God can foresee how far the blessing to others may reach when one soul answers the call of God in simple, whole-hearted faith.
God's reason was an ordinary one: the way Abraham ran his own home.
This is not a question of salvation, but of sharing the mind and purposes of God. Let the Christian parent notice this fact and weigh it. When God was looking for a man to whom He could reveal His secret counsels, He chose one who had this simple mark: he was "commanding his children and his household."
Abraham could have used this nearness to God for his own advantage. He did not.
So he did not spare a thought for himself or his house. Like a true man of faith, he used his place in the presence of God to plead for a brother — a man whose love of the world had plunged him into the very middle of the place that God was about to give over to everlasting destruction.
- Friendship — a master does not tell a servant his plans. God told Abraham, because He treated him as a friend.
- Promise — Genesis 18:18 confirms what God first said in Genesis 12:3. Later chapters name "the Seed," who is Christ, as the one who carries it out.
- Reach — the blessing travels in order. Abraham first, then his seed, then all the families of the earth.
- Reason — God chose a man who commanded his own household. The door into His secret counsels was faithfulness at home, not high position.
- Result — Abraham used his nearness to God to plead for someone else in danger, not to secure his own future.
For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of Jehovah, to do righteousness and justice, in order that Jehovah may bring upon Abraham what he hath spoken of him.
God has just promised Abraham a son. Now, on the road toward Sodom, He asks Himself whether to tell His friend what He is about to do. The reason He gives is not Abraham's greatness but his home.
The phrase does not mean God had gathered information about Abraham. It carries warmth, and it explains why the coming judgment on Sodom was disclosed to a man rather than kept among angels.
"For I know him": was that ever said about Lot? It would have had a sorrowful meaning in Lot's case; it has a blessed one in Abraham's. For this is the knowledge of approval, of divine delight. It is the knowledge that prepared the way for Jehovah to trust him with His secrets. Abraham was the one to whom He could tell what no angel knew. Only the angels who had their orders from Him knew, and they were about to carry out His judgment.
God let one man into His plans, and the reason He gives is plain and ordinary. Notice what He did not name.
Here it is not a question of salvation, but of communion with the mind and purposes of God. Christian parents should note and weigh this. When God was seeking out a man to whom He could disclose His secret counsels, He chose one with the simple mark of "commanding his children and his household."
The word "command" can sound like barking orders. What God notices in Abraham runs deeper than that.
More than this, the Lord knew Abraham well, and knew that Abraham would command his children and his household. This is just what God Himself does. Great numbers of people, by contrast, act irresponsibly in so serious a matter. And Abraham did not merely give orders to his children. His character and conduct were such that they respected him.
A household in Abraham's day included servants as well as children. The verse covers all of them, and it does not wait until everyone believes.
The Lord does look for the household to reflect the ways of God with the head of it… And I do not mean only the children, though the children have the nearer place. I mean servants too, if there are any in the house… where there are such servants, the same should be true of them. For what brings blessing among the children secures blessing among the servants. At any rate there should be godly order, even if the children or servants have not yet come to know God.
The verse sets the aim of Abraham's rule. His household is to keep the LORD's way "by doing righteousness and justice." A parent has a model to copy here, not a style to invent.
When I look at the whole record of God's dealings with His house, I find one constant mark. He uses power on the principle of righteousness. He set up His holy authority and has carried it out without ever backing down… Now the servant must always take his Master as his model. If God rules His house with power used in righteousness, so must I. If I differ from Him in any single detail of my conduct, I am wrong in that detail.
The verse ends by linking Abraham's household to God bringing about what He had spoken. Does a parent's faith then cover the children?
A believer's family is not exempt from the need of faith. The father's faith cannot stand in for the child's… Here is not a promise but an assurance. It rests on what his faith produced in practice, in this Old Testament example of faith. God had called him out of the idolatry around him to keep the way of the Lord. So he owned Him as the God of his household, and not only as his own God. With such purpose of heart, his house would prove the wise man's proverb true: "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it."
- Known. "I know him" is approval, not information. God could never have said it of Lot.
- Trusted. That approval is what opened God's secret counsels to Abraham; God confides in the man whose home He can point to.
- Chosen. God did not look for greatness. He looked for one plain thing: a man who commanded his children and his household.
- Copied. The way of the LORD in a house is righteousness. God rules His own house that way, and the servant copies his Master.
- Fulfilled. The closing clause is assurance, not a bargain. Faith that trains a household is never wasted.