Genesis
12:6 ¶ And Abram passed through the land
unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then
in the land. 7 And the LORD appeared
unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he
an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him. 8 And he removed from thence unto a mountain on
the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on
the east: and there he builded an altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name
of the LORD. 9 And Abram journeyed,
going on still toward the south.
Sichem
is another spelling for Shechem. Noah built an altar to the Lord and offered
sacrifices upon leaving the ark in 8:20 acknowledging thanksgiving and God’s
mercy. Abram here builds an altar to the Lord confirming his acknowledgment of
God’s promise and direction. In between Noah and Abram there was a great deal
of counterfeiting of the religious impulse placed in man by God that carried on
through the centuries, even today where we don’t necessarily refer to God
directly but call our god by the names of Self, Ambition, Science,
Entertainment, Sports, Country, etc. etc. But, modern man does build altars
quite regularly acknowledging his relationship with his god.
After
Noah, perhaps in remembrance of the sons of God who led the pre-Flood earth in
rebellion and eventually in veneration of elders who died such as Noah, Shem,
Ham, and Japheth, men accepted that there were gods everywhere, little gods,
gods that could easily be made angry because they were so irritable and
malevolent. This belief, “crushed man with the fear of always having the gods
against him, and left him no liberty in his acts.”[1]
For
Abram to turn from this powerful social and religious impulse of man, to leave
his own responsibilities for the family religion, to turn from the gods to THE
God, this return to monotheism, as a scholar might say, was remarkable evidence
of God’s interaction with him in choosing this man out of thousands to reveal
Himself to a fallen world and APPEARING to him in the form of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the visible image of the invisible God (John 1:14; 14:9; 2Corinthians
4:4; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3).
Not
having God walking physically with them as Adam and Eve enjoyed in the garden
in Enos’ time man called upon the name of the Lord.
Genesis
4:26 And to Seth, to him also there was
born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name
of the LORD.
And
again, in this age of man, which some call “the church age,” we bring into our
minds the authority of our Creator over us and He establishes a relationship
with us and His Spirit indwells us by our calling upon His name and
acknowledging His sovereignty over us and over all that exists.
Romans
10:13 For whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved.
But,
God, in the form of His physical presence, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word by
which all things were created, appeared to Abram. One cannot see the soul of
God, the seat of His will and self-identity, God the Father, so an angel, which
is an appearance of someone or something which is someplace else actually, or a
vision, or the physical presence of the pre-incarnate Christ is what Abram
could see. And the Lord appeared unto
Abram and made this covenant and promise.
[1] Numa Denis Fustel De
Coulanges, The Ancient City: A Study of
the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome (1864, repr.
Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2006), 211.
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