bald man blogging

Continuing our exploration of God’s promise to Abram found in Genesis 12:3.

I will bless those who bless you,

I will curse those who treat you with contempt,

and all the peoples on earth

will be blessed through you.

Noting that the first couplet promises a curse on some while the second promises a blessing on all, we must work thru an interpretation that reconciled both couplets.

The first option rooted the second couplet in history and the first in eternity, and it is a pretty common interpretation by my gauge. Now, let’s look at the reverse.

Option #2: Temporal curse; eternal blessing

First, let’s talk about the curse. It is rooted in time and visited upon those who curse Abram. Like before, cursing Abram could be literal and limited to those who had opportunity act in Abram’s lifetime, or it could be extended vicariously to Abram’s descendants as a whole or to a particular descendent such as Jesus. Because the curse is rooted in time, limiting the scope to the historical Abram is a more viable reading than if the curse is rooted in eternity. Regardless, the effects of the curse are felt in history.

When searching to name the curse my mind immediately goes to economic, military, or socio-political effects. These are all rooted in history, and we can conceive of situations where some are blessed and others are cursed. Once you determine what it means to curse Abram (literal vs. vicarious among other considerations), you can appropriately identify the groups who have suffered, are suffering under, or will suffer from the curse. Similarly, you should also be able identify those groups who have received, are receiving, or will receive a blessing because they have blessed Abram, since we would expect the reasoning to be consistent.

Moving on, the blessing given to all is something that transcends time and lasts forever. If you’re attached to an eschatology that includes some sort of eternal curse, such as hell, then this interpretation will raise the hair on the back of your neck at minimum. Once again, however, our personal inclinations have no real bearing on whether or not a particular interpretation is correct. The consensus of all scripture, tradition, reason and spiritual insight are needed. (As I write this I’m discovering that I’m not probably a “sola scriptura” kind of guy. If you are, feel free to omit the portion of the above sentence between, but not including, “scripture” and “are,” correcting for subject-verb agreement.)

Interesting to say the least.

In Part 1 I introduced a potential contradiction found in God’s promise to Abram. Somehow God promises that some with be cursed AND all will be blessed. Since blessings and curses are opposites (I’d be interested to hear an alternative view, as I haven’t been able to come up with one that made sense.), then must deal with a potential violation of logic. Two contradictory statements cannot both be true in the same sense. It is in the conditional clause that we can resolve the tension within the two promises, so let me present…

Option #1: Eternal curse; temporal blessing.

(Quick note: I understand the first couplet contains both a curse and a blessing. I am simply referring to it as a curse for (1) clarity; (2) expediency; and (3) because the contradiction is found in the curse.)

This is probably the common interpretation among evangelicals whether they know it or not. With this understanding, God thru Abram is going to give a blessing rooted in history to all people, but at the end of time some will be cursed eternally. The eternal curse is commonly called hell, but I’ll get into that in a minute.

The only way I can think of to understand how the blessing for all is temporal is to root the blessing in Jesus, the Messiah of all and a descendant of Abram. The other blessings given to all people are those things which I will call “general blessings,” things like rain and sun. It don’t think, however, that the promise is the general blessing that God has given everyone from the beginning of time, because this passage is forward looking. The verbs are future tense. The blessing to all - indeed all the promises contained within verses 2 and 3 - is something that will come and not something already in play. Rooting the promised blessing in God’s general blessing feels contrary to the passage’s weight. It would be like promising to give my kids the clothes they are already wearing. It’s nice, but it’s anticlimactic. This is the story of Abram’s calling and the origination of Israel. The promised blessing must be correspondingly grand, and a Messianic blessing qualifies.

Let’s move onto the eternal curse. The curse is visited upon those who curse Abram. Now, he’s been dead for a long time, so there is needs to be some sort of exchange, some way to vicariously curse Abram in order for God’s curse to have an eternal component.

(I suppose, one could argue that only those who cursed Abram in a direct way will suffer from an eternal curse, but this seems silly. If you do that, then you must also extend the reasoning to the blessing contained in this couplet. This leaves a bunch of people who lived before and after Abram who are unaffected by this eternal promise. Again, given the passage’s weight, such a narrow reading seems unlikely to be correct.)

What or who is the substitutionary Abram? It is Jesus, the Messiah. Those who curse, or reject, Jesus are the ones deemed to have cursed Abram and are thus themselves subjected to the promised eternal curse. This flows nicely out of the reasoning that the blessing to all from the first couplet is the Messiah.

So, those subject to the curse are subject to it in some final or eternal sense. There’s no need to argue about eternal punishment or annihilation or other theories here. Suffice to say: this curse is the last word for those who suffer under it… whatever that might mean.

As I said, this is pretty much the standard line of thinking among evangelicals I have known. A common problem people have with this interpretation is the apparent contradiction created when God, who is love and goodness, chooses to punish people eternally, and I have to say that this is something of a concern for me. Without going beyond this one verse and ignoring my personal displeasure with eternal punishment (which has no real bearing on whether or not the interpretation is correct), let me point out what I think is a weakness.

This interpretation reverses the order of the couplets as they are recorded in scripture. As I read the passage, the curse comes first, and the blessing to all people follows. I like to think this is significant, and it should aid our interpretive efforts. I’m certainly open to correction on this, particularly if it turns out that the English translations have taken some sort of liberty with the arrangement of two couplets.