Before going into a study of Abraham’s typology, we should understand why God chose Abraham. Why does God even have a chosen people on earth? The reason God chose Abraham is this.
God’s eternal plan was to become incarnate. So, he chose a man from whom his seed would come. That man was Abraham. God chose Abraham.
He also chose the land in which Abraham would live and from which his Son would eventually rule in the earth, Gen 12:1. So, God told Abraham to leave his country, kindred, and father’s house. For one thing, his father served other gods, Jos 24:2. And he told Abraham to go “unto a land that I will shew thee”.
God moved Abraham to Canaan, Deut 11:12, “a land which the Lord thy God careth for: the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year”. This was the land God chose for himself and his people. This is the place where Jerusalem would be and from which the Lord would one day rule his people and the world.
It’s understood that for God to eventually manifest himself in flesh from Abraham’s seed, Abraham must have offspring. According to God’s promise, his descendants would become a “great nation”, Gen 12:2. God promised to bless Abraham and make his name great. Those who blessed Abraham and his nation would be blessed and those who cursed them would be cursed, Gen 12:3. This has been true historically.
God promised Abraham that “in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed”. In other words, God wasn’t going to exclude all the other families of the earth from blessing, but their blessing would be through Abraham. Gd chose Abraham but didn’t exclude the other nations.
Notice that the descendants of the three sons of Noah (Japheth, Shem, and Ham) were divided into lands, tongues, families, and nations, Gen 10:5, 20, 31-32. God said, “in thee shall ALL families of the earth be blessed”. No family would be excluded.
In Gen 12:7, after Abraham made it to Canaan, God further promised to Abraham that “unto thy seed will I give this land”. So, Abraham knew that the land to which he had traveled was not just for himself but for his descendants, as well.
By Gen 13:14-18, Abraham understood that God’s intention was for his offspring to be innumerable. See also, Gen 15:5-6. Thus, God gave him and his seed “all the land… for ever”. Then in Gen 15:18-21, God covenanted with Abraham that he had given him everything from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates river.
We discussed Abraham’s land grant in great detail in the Sunday School lesson titled Israel’s Land Grant. That lesson will help you understand that Israel is still going to inhabit this land during the millennial reign of Jesus Christ.
God chose Abraham and then Isaac, not Ishmael, Rom 9:7, and then Jacob not Esau, Rom 9:13. From Jacob’s descendants, God chose Judah, Gen 49:8-12. And from Judah’s descendants, God chose David to be king, 2 Sam 7:8, 12-16. Thus in Matt 1:1 Jesus is the son of Abraham, the father of the seed, and David, the king upon whose throne he will sit, Lk 1:31-33. Jesus is the promised seed Gal 3:16. In Jesus’s millennial earthly reign, he will rule Israel and all nations from the city of Jerusalem, Zech 14:9, 16.
When God chose Israel, he wanted them to believe his words and follow his commandments. By their obedience and God’s blessings upon them, they were supposed to be a testimony that no other god was like the Lord God, 2 Sam 7:22-23; Deut 4:5-8.
In Egypt, Moses and Aaron, through the plagues that God sent, showed the world the power of God, Rom 9:17. However, Israel as a nation didn’t believe God’s words and they didn’t keep his commandments. Even while they were in the wilderness, on the way to Canaan, they turned to idolatry, Ex 32.
When Israel went into Canaan, they were to clear out the nations in the land and destroy all their idolatry, Num 33:51-56. But again they disobeyed God. So, the nations didn’t see the unique power of God through their testimony. Israel worshipped their idols, instead.
In the time of the judges they turned to Baal and Ashtaroth, Jud 2:13. In the time of the kings, Solomon led Judah into idolatry and Jeroboam led Israel into idolatry. Never did the other nations of the world see Israel magnifying the glory of their God above all the gods of the world.
While in captivity in the land of the Chaldeans, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to worship Nebuchadnezzar’s image of gold. They were threatened with death in the fiery furnace. And still they refused, counting on God to deliver them. And God did deliver them. The result was that the Babylonians saw that there was no other god like their God, Dan 3:28-29.
When Jesus came to earth, he preached the kingdom of heaven. This is the kingdom of the national preeminence of Israel as one nation in their own land under their own king of the Jews who is a descendant of Abraham and David and God manifest in the flesh.
The Canaanite woman understood who he was, Matt 15:22, but the Jews didn’t, Matt 12:23-24. In Matt 8:11-12, after healing the centurion’s servant, Jesus said, “many shall come from the east and the west (Gentiles), and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom (Jews) shall be cast out into outer darkness”.
At Jesus’s trial, the Jews said, “We have no king but Caesar,” Jn 19:15. But at his death, the centurion said, “Truly this was the Son of God”, Matt 27:54.
Though God chose Abraham, only a remnant of Israel will be saved, who truly believe God’s words and accept God’s choice for their king and Saviour, Rom 9:27. They do this right before Jesus returns to save the nation, Rom 11:25-27, and deliver them from annihilation.
God will fulfill his promises to Abraham and David because this is God’s plan for his Son. The world needs a nation that believes God’s words and obeys God’s commands, Jer 31:31-34, in order to know that God is the true God, Zech 8:20-23. Then they will go to Jerusalem to worship the Lord, Zech 14, and not their idols. And Israel will become a nation of innumerable saints spreading throughout their entire land grant.
This is why God chose Abraham. It was for the purpose of the incarnation of his only begotten Son and for a testimony to the world of the true God, King of kings and Lord of lords, through the nation of Israel.
To study the prior lesson, see Nimrod a Type of Antichrist. To study the next lesson, see Abraham Typifies a Christian.