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.
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