It has been noticed by others that in Abraham we have a striking illustration of election, while in Isaac we get, typically, the precious truth of sonship. Abraham was the one chosen and called by God; Isaac was the one promised and born of God’s power. The historical order of Genesis is thus the doctrinal order of the New Testament. Thus we read in Ephesians 1:4, 5,

“According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him: in love having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.”

Isaac brings before us in type regeneration, and it is this which will now engage our attention.

The first point we would here dwell upon is that before Isaac was born the power and activities of nature were made an end of. Abraham and Sarah had come to the end of themselves. Abraham’s body was “dead,” and so too was Sarah’s womb (Romans 4:19). And in order for Isaac to be born that which was dead must be quickened, quickened by God. This is a very humbling truth; one which is thoroughly distasteful to man; one which nothing but the grace of God will enable us to receive. The state of the natural man is far worse than he imagines. It is not only that man is a sinner, a sinner both by nature and by practice, but that he is “alienated from the life of God” (Ephesians 4:18). In a word the sinner is dead — dead in trespasses and sins. As the father said of the prodigal,

“This my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:24).

That the natural man is dead in trespasses and sins is no mere figure of speech; it is a solemn reality, an awful fact. It is ignorance and the denial of this fact which lies at the root of so much of the false teaching of our day. What the natural man needs first and foremost is not education or reformation, but life. It is because the sinner is dead that he needs to be born again. But how little this is pressed today! The unspeakably dreadful state of the natural man is glossed over where it is not directly repudiated. For the most part our preachers seem afraid to insist upon the utter ruin and total depravity of human nature. This is a fatal defect in any preaching: sinners will never be brought to see their need of a Savior until they realize their lost condition, and they will never discover their lost condition until they learn that they are dead in sin.

But what does Scripture mean when it says the sinner is “dead”? This is something which seems absurd to the natural man. And to him it is absurd.

“The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).

To the natural man it seems that he is very much alive. Yes, and Scripture itself speaks of one that lives in pleasure as being “dead while she liveth” (1 Timothy 5:6). Herein lies the key to the meaning of that expression employed by our Lord in His teaching upon the Good Samaritan. Describing the condition of the natural man under the figure of one who had fallen among thieves, who had stripped him of his raiment and left him wounded by the wayside, the Savior termed him “half dead” (Luke 10:30). Mark then the absolute accuracy of Christ’s words. The sinner is “half dead”: he is alive manward, worldward, sinward, but he is dead Godward! The sinner is alive naturally — physically, mentally, morally — but he is dead spiritually. That is why the new birth is termed a “passing from death unto life” (John 5:24). And just as the deadness of Abraham and Sarah — in their case natural deadness, for they but foreshadowed spiritual truths had to be quickened by God before Isaac could be born, so has the sinner to be quickened by God into newness of life before he can become a son of God. And this leads us to say.

Second, before Isaac could be born God had to perform a miracle. As we have said, Abraham’s body was “dead” and Sarah was long past the age of child-bearing. How then could they have a son? Sarah laughed at the mention of such a thing. But what was beyond the reach of nature’s capacity was fully within the scope of Divine power.

“Is there anything too hard for the Lord?” (Genesis 18:14).

No, indeed.

“Ah, Lord God, behold! Thou hast made the heaven and the earth by Thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for Thee” (Jeremiah 32:17).

As it was with Isaac so it is with every Christian. Before any of us could be born again God had to work a miracle. Make no mistake on this point; regeneration is the direct result of the supernatural operation of God. This needs to be stressed today, for regeneration has been so misrepresented by modern evangelists that to the popular mind the “new birth” signifies nothing more than a process of reformation. But the new birth is no mere turning over of a new leaf and the endeavor to live a better life. The new birth is very much more than going forward in a religious meeting and taking the preacher’s hand; very much more than signing a card and “joining the church.” The new birth is an act of God’s creative power, the impartation of spiritual life, the communication to us of the Divine nature itself.

Abraham and his wife — each of them nearly a hundred years old — desiring a son — what could they do? Nothing! absolutely nothing. God had to come in and work a miracle. And thus nature had nothing to glory in. So it is with us. The natural man is not only a sinner, a lost sinner, but he is a helpless sinner impotent, unable to do anything of himself. If help comes it must come from outside of himself. He is, like Abraham and Sarah, shut up to God.

Third, the coming of Isaac into Abraham’s household aroused opposition and produced a conflict.

“And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had borne unto Abraham, mocking” (Genesis 21:9).

In the epistle to the Galatians we are shown the dispensational meaning and application of this, and there we read,

“But as then he that was born after the flesh (Ishmael) persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now” (Galatians 4:29);

but it is with the individual application of this type that we are now concerned. Ishmael exemplifies the one born after the flesh: Isaac the one born after the Spirit. When Isaac was born the true character of Ishmael was manifested; and so when we are born again and receive the new nature, the old nature, the flesh, then comes out in its true colors.

Just as there were two sons in Abraham’s household, the one the product of nature, the other the gift of God and the outworking of Divine power, each standing for a totally different principle, so in the believer there are two natures which are distinct and diverse. And just as there was a conflict between Ishmael and Isaac, so the flesh in us lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh (Galatians 5:17).

It is of first importance that the Christian, especially the young Christian, should be clear upon the two natures in the believer. The new birth is not the improving of the old nature, but the receiving of a new; and the receiving of the new nature does not in any wise improve the old. Not only so, the old and the new natures within the believer are in open antagonism the one to the other. We quote now from the works of one deeply respected and to which we are much indebted: “Some there are who think that regeneration is a certain change which the old nature undergoes; and, moreover, that this change is gradual in its operation until, at length, the whole man becomes transformed. That this idea is unsound, can be proved by various quotations from the New Testament. For example: The carnal mind is enmity against God. How can that which is thus spoken of ever undergo any improvement? The apostle goes on to say, “It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” If it cannot be subject to the law of God, how can it be improved? How can it undergo any change? Do what you will with flesh, and it is flesh all the while. As Solomon says,

“Though thou shouldst bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him” (Proverbs 27:22).

“There is no use seeking to make foolishness wise. You must introduce heavenly wisdom into the heart that has been hitherto only governed by folly” (C. H. M.).

Fourth, it is to be noted that it was the birth of Isaac which revealed the true character of Ishmael. We know practically nothing of Ishmael’s life before the birth of Isaac, but as soon as this child of promise made his appearance the real nature of Hagar’s son was made manifest. He may have been very quiet and orderly before, but as soon as the child of God’s quickening-power came on the scene, Ishmael showed what he was by persecuting and mocking him. Here again the type holds good. It is not until the believer receives the new nature that he discovers the real character of the old. It is not until we are born again we learn what a horrible and vile thing the flesh is. And the discovery is a painful one: to many it is quite unsettling. To those who have supposed that regeneration is an improving of the old nature, the recognition of the awful depravity of the flesh comes as a shock and often destroys all peace of soul, for the young convert quickly concludes that, after all, he has not been born again. The truth is that the recognition of the true character of the flesh and a corresponding abhorrence of it, is one of the plainest evidences of our regeneration, for the unregenerate man is blind to the vileness of the flesh. The fact that I have within me a conflict between the natural and the spiritual is the proof there are two natures present, and that I find the Ishmael-nature “persecuting” the Isaac-nature is only to be expected. That the Ishmael-nature appears to me to be growing worse only goes to prove that I now have capacity to see its real character, just as the real character of Ishmael was not revealed until Isaac was born.

Fifth, we read,

“And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac being eight days old, as God had commanded him” (Genesis 21:4).

Our space is exhausted and we must be very brief on these last points. The circumcising of Isaac, and later of the Israelites, was a foreshadowing of our spiritual circumcision:

“And ye are complete in Him, which is the Head of all principality and power: in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ” (Colossians 2:10, 11).

Judicially we have been circumcised and God no longer looks at us in the flesh but in Christ, for circumcision — typically and spiritually — is separation from the flesh, and the eighth day brings us on to resurrection ground in Christ. Compare Colossians 3:9, etc.

Sixth,

“And the child grew, and was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned” (Genesis 21:8).

Here again the type holds good. Isaac “grew” by feeding on his mother’s milk. Thus, too, is it with the believer. By the new birth we are but spiritual babes, and our growth is brought about by feeding on the milk of the Word.

“As new-born babes, desires the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby” (1 Peter 2:2).

We cannot now touch upon the significance of the “great feast” above.

Seventh,

“And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had borne unto Abraham mocking. Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac. And the thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight because of his son. And God said unto Abraham, let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called. And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar,putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away” (Genesis 21:9-14).

At last the conflict is over. He who “persecuted” Isaac is now “cast out” (Galatians 4:29). So it will yet be with us. Judicially the life of the flesh is already ended for us, but practically it is still here with us and in us. But blessed be God what is true now judicially shall soon be true experimentally also. When Christ returns for us, the flesh shall be put off for ever, just as Elijah left behind him his earthly mantle. But mark how accurate our type is: not till Isaac “grew” and was “weaned” was the persecuting Ishmael cast out! Let this be our closing thought. Soon our Ishmael shall be east out. Soon shall this vile body of ours be made like unto the body of Christ’s glory (Philippians 3:21). Soon shall the Savior return and we shall be “like Him,” for we shall see Him as He is (John 3:2). Blessed promise! Glorious prospect! Does not the presence of the vile flesh within us now only serve to intensify the longing for our blessed Lord’s return? Then let us continue to cry daily, “Come quickly. Even so, come Lord Jesus.”