If you were to put into a simple statement God's goal for Abraham, it would be this: God made Abraham into a great father. Even his name reveals God's plan: Abram means "great-father" and "Abraham" means "father of many." When we read the story of his life, we are reading about one of the major events in God's plan to offer eternal life to humans. Through Abraham and Sarah a family was begun which passed saving faith on to their children, one generation after another. In time this family grew into a nation and 1,400 years after that the Son of God was born as a member of that nation (Mt 1:1). Abraham was the first in a new strategy by which God would produce an unbroken chain of "saved" people from Abraham to the birth of Jesus. Believing parents, with a special burden placed on fathers, would pass their faith on to their children, who in turn would pass it on to their children. God's preparation of Abraham to be a father concerned much more than just his physical conception of a son. It required intense spiritual preparation so that he could pass on the kind of faith that brings the gift of righteousness (Ge 15:6) and the blessing of God's powerful presence (Ge 17:7,8). Today God still calls His followers to become anointed parents and there's still a special calling placed on men to be fathers.

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