The struggle for freedom, godly and righteous freedom, is as old as humankind. In the beginning, God created a wonderful world, so much so that Genesis 1:31 ends with “And God saw every thing that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” But then, like what we have seen in our own time, the corruption pries its way into the scene. Beginning with Adam and Eve, and God’s ordained order of creation, and then Cain and Able, two stories that end tragically—the first with paradise lost and the second, with the first murder and death on the earth. Humanity brings chaos to creation. This is the start of the struggle of humankind, where God’s creation teeters on the balance of man’s innate battle over God’s truth and liberty.
Next, we have two stories of Noah, the Flood and the Tower of Babel. Both are about human society and the struggle between freedom and order. The Flood is about a world of violence and lawlessness where “everyone doing what is right in their own eyes” corrupts God’s order. Babel is about a world where tyranny and the imposition of a single language on a people corrupts God’s perfect liberty for mankind. And God intervened in both. In all four narratives, God is eternal and universal, He created the universe, and humanity, made in His image. He blessed, and even made a covenant with them after the flood. This covenant called the Noachide Covenant, was made with Noah, his sons and all human descendants, and also with all the living creatures on earth.
This specific covenant with Noah is that a flood will never destroy all of the earth and that the earth would remain—and that planting, harvest, seasons, day and night will continue. Even today, man is trying to defy God’s promise saying that “global warming” will melt the polar ice caps and destroy the world by flood. Humankind just can’t get out of its own way. Genesis then turns back to a man and a woman—Abram (Abraham) and Sara. This is extremely significant to our walk in the Lord. Genesis 12:1-2 tells us “Now ADONAI said to Abram, “Get yourself out of your country, away from your kinsmen and away from your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation, I will bless you, and I will make your name great; and you are to be a blessing.” The Hebrew words Lekh l’kha, literally mean “go for yourself.”
According to the Jewish commentator Rashi, the word l”kha implies that the going would be for Abraham. He was leaving all he knew, his family, his country and journeying to a land he didn’t know, but it would be for his benefit. He would have the children he wanted and would become known throughout the whole world, and he could then have a positive influence on the chaos. Humanity as a whole does not naturally live as God would have them live, so God intervened once again and set an example of a man, Abraham and his family, to show what it means to live faithfully in the presence of God. We, too, as Christ followers, must go for ourselves, leave the corrupt and chaos, and be set apart in God’s perfect liberty that we may be a blessing. Thanks to God’s intervention, we can overcome the darkness and become living lights in Christ.
