…for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
— Galatians 3:28-29

We continue our journey from Egypt to the promised land. Now that we have come into the land of rest, we can, like our father Abraham, “Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are; northward, southward, eastward, and westward” [Gen.13:14] This land belongs to us. Interestingly, just as Israel went from Egypt to the promised land, so Abraham went from Egypt to the land of Canaan, which God had promised to give him as an inheritance. We read: “Then Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, to the South.” [Gen.13:1] Interestingly, if you look at a map, you usually go down to the south, not up. Further: “And he went on his journey from the South as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, to the place of the altar which he had made there at first.” [Gen.13:3-4]

Abraham went back from Egypt to Bethel by the same way he had gone from Bethel to Egypt, but now very rich. Abraham’s journey reveals the path Jesus took when He came down to earth into Mary’s womb [the South] and was then born in Egypt. Then He went back to the South [the heart of the earth], and from there into the house of God, Bethel, to where He was in the beginning. Just as Abraham was very rich when he left Egypt [Gen.13:2], so Jesus “knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God [from Bethel] and was going to God [to Bethel]”. [Jhn.13:3]

Lot in this story is righteous according to the law, whereas Abraham was righteous by faith. Notice that Abraham did not wander in the wilderness for forty years like the Israelites, because he was a believer, and faith carries you straight from Egypt into the land of rest without any wandering in the wilderness, whereas the Israelites wandered for forty years and perished because of unbelief. What happened to Abraham and Lot when they came to the land of Canaan? A quarrel broke out between Abraham’s and Lot’s herdsmen, and then Lot chose the land on the other, eastern, side of the Jordan, where the unbelieving people of Israel later perished. What does all this tell us? Paul writes: “For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.” [Rom.4:13]

Abraham and Lot, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau cannot both be heirs of rest, for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. [1 Cor.15:50] Lot, Ishmael and Esau are types of the old, fleshly man, who can neither believe nor inherit rest, because the flesh is always at war, and war and rest are direct opposites. “But you are not in the flesh [the wilderness] but in the Spirit [rest], if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.” [Rom.8:9] We have not received a fleshly spirit, the spirit of bondage, of the law, of Egypt, of the wilderness — call it what you like — but the Spirit of adoption, of rest, of joy and righteousness. All who have the Holy Spirit are Christ’s, and if they are Christ’s, they are heirs according to the promise. All means all.