Not Just Passing Through

Christians have always thought of ourselves as pilgrims, sojourners, or whatever synonym one wants to use. We think this because the Bible teaches it. We think this because we have a longing that nothing in this lifetime can satisfy. However, we are not all agreed on what it means to be on this journey. Sometimes we hear this idea in the form of this maxim: “This world is not our home.” At its best, what this maxim is meant to communicate is that this world, as it is in the fall, or, this world, as we experience it in our lifetime, is not our home. However, under the dual-spell of Gnosticism and Pietism, such a distinction can be lost on us, and when we hear these words, we might tend to view salvation as mere escapism: an ethereal, disembodied destination to nothing in particular. We begin to get the message that nothing that we do in this world and with this world matters. A very different picture emerges in Genesis 23:1-20. It addresses us on the surface, and then more deeply under.

• Our final arrangements in this world point to a transcendent world.

• Our final arrangements in this world point to a perfected world

By “final arrangements,” I don’t just mean those preparations made at the last minute or even in the last few years, as far as one can tell they have some amount of time left. I am talking about any arrangements of one’s life with the end in view—with eternity in view—as the “final cause” (or end cause) of any action is that reason for the action, or that motive which moves the actor.

Doctrine. Christians are pilgrims who own the perfection of all we pass through.    

Our final arrangements in this world point to a transcendent world.

On the surface, this is a simple chapter and one that would be easy to pass over with not much said. Abraham is planting a seed for the resurrection. It says, ‘Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her’ (v. 2), but he testifies to Paul’s words that we, “not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thess. 4:13). He is grieving for his wife, but he believes that they will meet again.

“These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (Heb. 11:13).

There’s that language of stranger or exile. It’s someone passing through. But what moves them? The author of Hebrews goes on to make this even plainer:

“For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city” (Heb. 11:14-16).

As we close the book on Abraham, so to speak, what does all the Holy Spirit-inspired New Testament commentary on Abraham’s final arrangements teach us? At least three things about what is ultimate:

Our ultimate desire (or fixation, or longing) is for the City of God—always a “better country” (Heb. 11:16) or “lasting city” (Heb. 13:14).

Our ultimate allegiance is to the City of God. Abraham would have this testimony to his neighbors more than seek an easy peace by burying Sarah secretly. Paul says that, “our citizenship is in heaven” (Phi. 3:20a).

Our ultimate vantage point is from the City of God, as Paul’s next words to the Philippians say, “and from it [from that City] we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phi. 3:20b).

The most obvious language, on the surface, is that Abraham is looking forward to the new world. But what does that mean?

There is discontinuity and continuity in this witness to the resurrection. Discontinuity between this world and the future state because, as Paul said,

“What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power” (1 Cor. 15:42-43).

Something unimaginably greater, but greater with what? There’s continuity too, as Paul continues, “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44). A spiritual body is not a non-body. It is a perfected, glorified body. Why exactly would the safe-keeping of Sarah’s bones matter if bones didn’t matter? In fact, what exactly would Sarah’s bones matter if her identity in the future didn’t matter? Someone may say, “Well, that is purely for our benefit, the memorial.” So, a memorial to a lie? Something that will come to nothing, forever and ever? Or does it not memorialize something with a nature to be perfected?

Our final arrangements in this world point to a perfected world.

We will see here in this typology of Abraham burying Sarah, that the Christian insists on right relations in this world; and the Christian makes a dent in history.

First to those right relations. What is going on with this transaction between Abraham and the Hittite council (vv. 3-7) and then the one individual named ‘Ephron the son of Zohar’ (v. 8)?

Kinder explains in his commentary,

“A stranger (ger) was a resident alien with some footing in the community but restricted rights … and in this chapter the keen question under the elaborate courtesies was whether Abraham was to gain a foothold or not. The flattery in 6 was an inducement to remain a landless dependent. Abraham’s rejoinder, naming an individual, made skillful use of the fact that while a group tends to resent an intruder, the owner of an asset may welcome a customer.”1

Notice now the specific request, ‘in your presence as property for a burying place’ (v. 9). A witness—a contractual obligation—to recognize Abraham’s people as possessing land. Where the whole council wanted to simply store Sarah’s body ‘in the choicest of our tombs’ (v. 6), and now Ephron makes the same move, ‘No, my lord, hear me: I give you the field, and I give you the cave that is in it’ (v. 11). You might remember Abraham’s insistence to the King of Sodom in Chapter 14 that he not receive freely and so be a debtor to them. So it is here, that Abraham responded again:

“But if you will, hear me: I give the price of the field. Accept it from me, that I may bury my dead there” (v. 13).

Abraham had not just matured in faith. He had matured in wisdom about the world. Jesus said with a clear sense of lament: “For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light” (Lk. 16:8). Abraham became an exception. He knew that to live for the future world makes a dent in this world. The Christian knows that to have the mind of eternity makes a difference in time. We make a dent in the world. Think of statements like, “glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:20), or “they [the Jerusalem church] will glorify God because of … the generosity of your contribution for them” (2 Cor. 9:13).

Recall “the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world” (Rom. 4:13); or one of the Beatitudes of Jesus, that “the meek … shall inherit the earth” (Mat. 5:5).

“For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s” (1 Cor. 3:21-23).

To be heir of the earth in the end implies that one is actually heir of the earth now. If Christ is King of all now for the church (Mat. 28:18; Eph. 2:20), then it doesn’t matter much that the words of the Hittite leader, ‘you are a prince of God among us’ (v. 6) was done in flattery, the fact remains that the Christian is a prince of God among men.

Even that “seed for the resurrection” is a historical dent. That’s why we have tombstones. We are bearing witness, even to those who do not believe. That’s a dent. That’s temporal. Think again of that Hebrews 11 passage—specifically the words, “If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country” (vv. 15-16). Now, isn’t it interesting that those words speak of Abraham coming out of Ur to Canaan in order to seek a heavenly country—and especially that the “opportunity to return” is treated as the opposite direction to heaven. But if one’s earthly location didn’t matter to one’s eternal expectations, then what difference would returning to Ur have made? The same as Lot choosing Sodom. The same as Israel returning to Egypt. The same as the disciples going back into their fishing boat. Earth doesn’t just fade into heaven. Heaven moves earth now, and it takes it over later.

Practical Use of the Doctrine 

Use 1. Exhortation. One commentator, very understatedly, said, “Abraham saw far beyond the present,”2 and then quoted another place in that Hebrews 11 chapter: “For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (v. 10). If final arrangements can be made years, even decades, before death, then we don’t just want to die in the right state and place, but also to live in the right place—partly to rightly position those souls under our care. We want to live in a place and with people that we can spiritually entrust our children and grandchildren to. Even Jesus from the cross said to John, “‘Behold, your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home” (Jn. 19:7). Even the One in the act of securing an eternal redemption was making final temporal arrangements in light of it.

Use 2. Correction. All this talk about being a pilgrim in this world reminded me of an analogy used by Augustine in his book On Christian Doctrine. It was imagery of a man on a journey, but specifically on route to his homeland. At least that was the goal. And he makes a distinction for all Christian pilgrims to consider, between that which we ought to enjoy and that which we ought to use. But much like Bunyan’s pilgrim getting tempted by the sights and sounds of Vanity Fair, he says,

“If the amenities of the journey and the motion of our vehicles itself delighted us, and we were led to enjoy those things which we should use, we should not wish to end our journey quickly, and, entangled in a perverse sweetness, we should be alienated from our country, whose sweetness would make us blessed.”3

Abraham and his line are described by Hebrews as “living in tents” (Heb. 11:9) for this reason, which implies that the tents mattered. Anything heavier would have weighed them down in the Canaan as it existed around them. So we cannot say that living for eternity makes things in time matter less. They actually make them matter more.

Use 3. Instruction. At the end of this first book of the Bible, we read,

“Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, ‘God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here’” (Gen. 50:25).

This was the second time he used the expression. A sentence before he had said “God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob” (v. 24), and then he repeats that expression. The exodus will be one visitation, but another divine visitation will come to His people, and it is for this final reason that we arrange our bones and our bodies and our children and our money and even our own thoughts and feelings, as we do in this world to make a dent that will last forever.

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1. Kidner, Genesis, 156.

2. Hughes, Genesis, 309.

3. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, I.4.4.