Pilgrim’s Regress
Genesis 20:1–18
And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” Genesis 20:2
The cause of Abraham’s sin was lack of faith in God. He did not believe that God could take care of him in this new situation. That lack of faith disturbed everything. When Abraham began to doubt God, thinking less of him than he should have thought, his view of himself was also altered, for he began to think more of himself than was proper. It was the old principle of the seesaw in theology. So long as our view of God is up, our view of ourselves will be down. God will be sovereign, wise, and holy. We will see ourselves as weak, foolish, and sinful. But if our view of God goes down, so that he becomes less than sovereign in our thinking, then our view of ourselves will go up and we will begin to imagine that we are generally quite able to take care of ourselves. This is what Abraham imagined. Thinking that God could not take care of him, he assumed that he would have to take care of himself, and this got him into the foolish predicament of this episode.
More than this, as his opinion of himself rose, his sensitivity to other people declined, and he began to look down on them. We see this in his attitude toward Abimelech. When Abimelech caught him in his deception, Abraham replied, “I did it because I thought, ‘There is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife’” (v. 11). This was a slander on Abimelech, who had a great deal of reverential fear for God. Abraham was blind to this because of his own foolish pride and disobedience.
Despite Abraham’s doubts about God’s ability to take care of him, God’s ability to do so was not altered in the slightest. He may have doubted God’s grace, but God remained as gracious as he had ever been.
God showed this grace to Abraham. Abimelech must have thought of Abraham as a cowardly, hypocritical, two-faced charlatan—or worse. But this is not the way God spoke of Abraham to Abimelech. God said, “Now then, return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live” (v. 7). God was not indifferent to Abraham’s sin. But the sin did not change God’s view of Abraham. Abraham was still “a prophet.” He was still God’s man.
It is good to serve a God like that, a God who remains sovereign even when we doubt his ability to care for us, a God who remains gracious even when we sin. To serve a God like that is this world’s greatest joy and opportunity. To know that he is like that is the greatest incentive you will ever have to keep from sinning.
Taken from Come to the Waters by James Boice ISBN 9798887790954 used with permission from P&R Publishing, Phillipsburg NJ 08865
Scripture quotations are from the ESV (the Holy Bible English Standard Version) copyright 2001 by Crossway a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.