"After these things, the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram. I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward." The Lord would not suffer his servant to be a loser, by rejecting the offers of this world. It was infinitely better for Abraham to find himself hidden behind Jehovah's shield, than to take refuge beneath the patronage of the king of Sodom; and to be anticipating his "exceeding great reward," than to accept "the goods" of Sodom. The position into which Abraham is put in the opening verse of our chapter, is beautifully expressive of the position into which every soul is introduced by the faith of Christ. Jehovah was his "shield," that he might rest in him; Jehovah was his "reward," that he might wait for him. So with the believer now: he finds his present rest, his present peace, his present security, all in Christ. No dart of the enemy can possibly penetrate the shield which covers the weakest believer in Jesus.
And then as to the future, Christ fills it. Precious portion! Precious hope! A portion which can never be exhausted: a hope which will never make ashamed. Both are infallibly secured by the counsels of God, and the accomplished atonement of Christ. The present enjoyment thereof is by the ministry of the Holy Ghost who dwells in us. This being the case, it is manifest that if the believer is pursuing a worldly career, or indulging in worldly or carnal desires, he cannot be enjoying either the "shield" or the "reward." If the Holy Ghost is grieved, he will not minister the enjoyment of that which is our proper portion, our proper hope. Hence in the section of Abraham's history now before us, we see that when he had returned from the slaughter of the kings and rejected the offer of the king of Sodom, Jehovah rose before his soul in the double character, as his "shield and his exceeding great reward." Let the heart ponder this, for it contains a volume of deeply practical truth. We shall now examine the remainder of the chapter.
In it we have unfolded to us the two great principles of sonship and heirship. "And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go _childless_, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, Behold, thou hast given to me no _seed_: and lo, one born in my house is mine _heir_." Abraham desired a son, for he knew upon divine authority that his "seed" should inherit the land. (Chap. xiii. 15.) Sonship and heirship are inseparably connected in the thoughts of God. "He that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir." Sonship is the proper basis of every thing; and moreover it is the result of God's sovereign counsel and operation, as we read in James, "of his own will begat he us." Finally, it is founded upon God's eternal principle of resurrection. How else could it be? Abraham's body was "dead;" wherefore, in his case, as in every other, sonship must be in the power of resurrection. Nature is dead, and can neither beget nor conceive aught for God. There lay the inheritance stretching out before the patriarch's eye, in all its magnificent dimensions; but where was the heir? Abraham's body and Sarah's womb alike answered "_death_." But Jehovah is the God of resurrection, and, therefore, a "dead body" was the very thing for him to act upon. Had nature not been dead, God should have put it to death ere he could fully show himself. The most suitable theatre for the living God is that from which nature, with all its boasted powers and empty pretensions, has been totally expelled by the sentence of death. Wherefore, God's word to Abraham was, "look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them; and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be." When the God of resurrection fills the vision there is no limit to the soul's blessing, for he who can quicken the dead, can do any thing.