Abraham, my Friend 58

Machpelah, a costly hiding place

In the Hebrews 11 ‘National Gallery of the Heroes of Faith’ there is a single reference to Jacob/Israel but with a double focus:

By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff. By faith Joseph, when his end was nigh, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones. (Heb 11:21–22 ASV)

By faith,  Jacob blessed and he worshipped… and, by faith, Joseph gave commandment concerning his bones. In fact, Jacob had given commandment concerning his bones too:

All these are the twelve tribes of Israel: and this is it that their father spake unto them and blessed them; every one according to his blessing he blessed them. And he charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a burying-place. There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah… (Gen 49:28–31 ASV)

Machpelah became the family tomb

Why this preoccupation with a tomb? Secular historians trace the story from Genesis 23 and see in it the first historical records of Israelite possession or stake in the ‘Promised Land’. It is one of the earliest recorded transactions in history, and it makes Israel’s claim to the land incontestable, so some say. Let’s be sure we have located the site properly:

And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre (the same is Hebron), in the land of Canaan. (Gen 23:19 ASV)

…So, Mamre, Hebron, Machpelah are all referring to the same location. This takes us back almost to the beginning of our story when Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and ‘built there an altar unto Jehovah’ (Gen 13:18 ASV). This was where God appeared to Abram on his separation from Lot, and it became the base from which he launched his private army to rescue Lot. It was in the plains of Mamre that God came visiting Abram (Gen 18:1).

The events that provided punctuation for his life all had their links with Machpelah, Mamre and Hebron.

But this part of the story has a special time context. In type, Calvary has been enacted in Genesis 22; the father’s son has passed through death and into resurrection. He is united again in harmony with his father. Father and son dwell together in perfect harmony at the well of the seven, Beersheba.

The scene is set for another remarkable revelation of the Father’s heart. It seems they were still nomadic and Sarah had died in Hebron (Gen 23:2) at 127 years of age. ‘And Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her.’ It is a poignant picture. They had been through so much together. There can be no doubt that this was a love-match. In his grief Abraham has a request of the ‘sons of Heth’:

And Abraham rose up from before his dead, and spake unto the children of Heth, saying, I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight. (Gen 23:3–4 ASV)

A curious record

When we recall the economy with which the Scripture records so many events we may be encouraged to think more deeply about why the Scripture should devote a whole chapter to a burial. Perhaps the clue lies in the phrase used in Gen 23:4 and again in Gen 23:8; Abraham wanted to bury his ‘dead out of my sight’.

In most western countries we are insulated from the consequences of death. If you ask a company of 30-year-olds how many of them have actually seen a dead body you may be surprised at how few will answer. The hospital, the undertakers, the gravediggers; their work is hidden from most of us, as is ‘death’ itself. It has become an absence rather than a presence. But in ancient times the cruelties of death were seen quickly; this woman, desired by others and loved by Abraham had been a beauty, but now death has come and Abraham knows the consequences. Soon all her beauty will be ruined and the woman in whom he delighted will become a stench in his nostrils. This is the reality of death. Not a slipping into a peaceful sleep but a descent into dereliction and putrefaction. ‘Give me,’ he asks the sons of Heth, ‘a burying place… that I may bury my dead out of my sight.’

Adam had never seen death before sin entered, but he felt it before he saw it. ‘As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin…’ (Rom 5:12). Death is not the absence of life but the presence of a dynamic and destructive power; by one man’s offence, says Paul, death reigned (Rom 5:17). The Lord’s description of Satan is interesting in the order in which it lists his vandalism; ‘the thief cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and destroy’. Adam died long before his body did. God had said, ‘in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die’ (Gen 3:17). In the day he ate he died, although it was almost a thousand years before they laid his body in the ground and buried it out of their sight.

Abraham needed to bury the nauseous consequences of death out of his sight. I think God is the same — not that there is anything delicate or refined about God, but that death as the consequence of sin is repulsive to him. This is not how things were to be. Man was created to be instinct with life; death and its captives are the consequence of sin and final rebellion. Only by entering this experience himself would Christ demonstrate his final victory:

Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil… (Heb 2:14 NKJV)

The costly hiding place

By means of a costly purchase, Abraham achieved his purpose in providing a means of burying his dead out of his sight. God did the same.

We have referred before to the Hebrew idiom of the ‘face’. The same idiom is used here; Abraham wanted to provide a place where Sarah could be buried ‘out of his sight’ or ‘out of his presence,’ literally, ‘away from his face’. It is one of the key ideas of sin that God later gave to his people.

The scapegoat was released into the wilderness carrying upon it the confessed sins of Israel:

…And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a solitary land: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness. (Lev 16:21–22 ASV)

Bearing upon his body and bearing away from God and his people, the scape-goat carried the sins of the nation. It was the truth John Baptist testified to: ‘Behold, the Lamb of God which beareth away the sin of the world.’ The Old Testament has several places where this imagery is used:

Behold, it was for my peace that I had great bitterness:
But thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption;
For thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. (Isa 38:17 ASV)

Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth over the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in lovingkindness. He will again have compassion upon us; he will tread our iniquities under foot, and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the lovingkindness to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old. (Mic 7:18–20 ASV)

The pictures are varied — ‘carried away into the wilderness’, ‘thrown backwards over his shoulder with not a rearward look’, ‘cast…into the depths of the sea’, but the truth is one; God has a place where he can ‘bury his dead out of his sight’.

Where is this Machpelah?

It is the place where the price was paid; it is Christ himself. Many a Christian is haunted by the ghosts of his past; the horrors of what they had become threatens to overwhelm them. Some try to keep busy and to hide their past in their service, but that is folly. Some try to attain merit and hope that their future acts will outweigh those of the past. But there is no safety in these hiding places. I have an enemy who seems to know just where I left them and can exhume them at the most critical time. What we need is a place where all the past can be dead and buried, and can never threaten me again or be the cause of God’s displeasure. What I need is a Machpelah.

Burial with Christ in Spirit baptism is a regular feature of Paul’s writings:

Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection… (Rom 6:3–5 NKJV)

All that Adam’s race had become was incompatible with God’s plan for man. It is significant that God is never called ‘the God of Adam’; in that sense, God will have nothing to do with him. He is incurably dead and rotting. The only thing to do with him is to bury him out of God’s sight. Paul has another reference to the ‘old man’ in Ephesians where he describes him as being in a process of continual corruption; ‘the old man which is being continually corrupted’ (Eph. 4:22).

…the old man who is being corrupted in accordance with deceitful desires  (Eph 4:22 NET)

Death in the ‘old man’ is not a fixed state but a ‘dynamic and destructive power’; its active pollution continues unabated.

What can be done with such a man? There is no remedy; bury him, out of God’s sight.

But Paul has a word too for those who have passed through death into life with Christ:

If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. (Col 3:1–4 NKJV)

The hiding place

Can everything that I have been be hidden so as to provide no enervating flashbacks or levers for an enemy to use against me? Yes. The future is not determined by the past but by the present. If I am raised with Christ and set my affection on heavenly things, I can rest in absolute assurance that all that I was has been laid to rest in Calvary’s Machpelah:

God has buried his dead out of His sight, and there will be no resurrections of the old man. ‘The reign of sin and death is o’er.’ Neither, as we see the truth of Machpelah, will there be any hauntings from the past…

‘Tis finished! The Messiah dies,
Cut off for sins, but not his own:
Accomplished is the sacrifice,
The great redeeming work is done.

‘Tis finished! All the debt is paid;
Justice Divine is satisfied;
The grand and full atonement made;
God for a guilty world hath died.

The veil is rent in Christ alone;
The living way to heaven is seen;
The middle wall is broken down,
And all mankind may enter in.

The types and figures are fulfilled;
Exacted is the legal pain;
The precious promises are sealed;
The spotless Lamb of God is slain.

The reign of sin and death is o’er,
And all may live from sin set free;
Satan hath lost his mortal power;
‘Tis swallowed up in victory.

Saved from the legal curse I am,
My Saviour hangs on yonder tree:
See there the meek expiring Lamb!
‘Tis finished! He expires for me.

Accepted in the Well-beloved,
And clothed in righteousness Divine,
I see the bar to heaven removed;
And all thy merits, Lord, are mine.

Death, hell, and sin are now subdued;
All grace is now to sinners given;
And lo, I plead the atoning blood,
And in Thy right I claim Thy heaven.

Charles Wesley