10 Then the LORD [c] said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.”
Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. 1112 So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my master [d] is old, will I now have this pleasure?” Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing.13 Then the LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ 14 Is anything too hard for the LORD ? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son.”
15 Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.”
But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.” Genesis 18:10-15
The Bible is simply uninterested in painting its characters in their best light. This is just one small reason we can rely upon its veracity. It is real.
God promised Abraham and Sarah they would have a son. Lest we be unfair, we should note that Abraham also laughed when he was first told this.
Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, “Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” Gen 17:17
Abraham and Sarah took matters into their own hands by Abraham fathering a child through the maidservant Hagar. When the subject came up again, the Bible says Sarah laughed in her doubt as Abraham did. To make matters worse, she lied right in the face of God by denying she laughed when the LORD called her on it. Just imagine…these two are held up as some of the most “faithful” people of the Bible (cf. Hebrews 11) – the two people through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed.
Unlikely as it may have seemed, the news was true. Isaac, the miraculous son of promise would indeed be born within a year’s time, and he held the key to God’s fulfilling all the other promises He had made to Abraham in their covenant. God may use the most unlikely of people to accomplish His divine plans, but they come to pass just the same.
Many years later, another miraculous son of promise was born to another unlikely couple in Abraham’s family line. Mary was a young, unmarried woman engaged to Joseph, a simple Jewish carpenter. The Abraham and Sarah story is really a shadow of this greater miracle God would work and the greater son of promise who would ultimately fulfill the covenant with Abraham.
Like Abraham and Sarah, Joseph and Mary were informed by God that she would bear a child in a miraculous fashion. Let’s focus this study on the two women and notice that Mary’s overall reaction is quite different from Sarah’s. Mary accepts the news with an incredible display of graciousness and faith.
In a profoundly subtle way, this demonstrates the gospel. Abraham and Sarah had faith – the Bible says they did. However, their faith was immature and shallow. They were still heavily relying on their own ability to do what God said He would do. This is why Abraham and Sarah attempted to fulfill God’s promise through Hagar. They were relying on their own works to accomplish God’s purposes.
Later, when God reiterates His promise (in the Genesis 18 citation above), Sarah laughs. Why? Because she is weak in faith. She is still relying on her own human efforts to accomplish God’s purposes for Him. She only sees the impossibility of the aged bodies of her and her husband producing offspring, not the fact that God can do the impossible.
On the other hand, Mary replies with trusting faith in what God promises. She is at first naturally bewildered, simply stating:
34And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” Luke 1:34
Gabriel reminds her that with God nothing is impossible, and unlike Sarah’s lie in an attempt to save face, Mary quickly accepts the news from the angel in trusting obedience:
38And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” Luke 1:38
Why didn’t Mary laugh like Sarah? First, let’s not be too hard on Sarah. She had never heard about an old woman, a barren woman or a virgin giving birth. She had never heard about God parting the Red Sea, about the plagues of Egypt, about the Exodus, about the miracles in the Wilderness, the defeat of Jericho, etc. Mary had the advantage knowing the rich history of God fulfilling His promises in miraculous ways.
Still, this illustrates the folly of a works-based theology when it comes to God’s promises to us and His expectations of us. Relying heavily or solely on our own efforts to accomplish what God has promised ultimately results in doubt and despair at our hopeless inabilities. This is a disobedient spirit that disguises itself as an obedient one. We think we are being obedient because we are working so hard, but we are in fact disobedient because we have placed our faith in something besides God. We have placed faith in ourselves. True faith in the sufficiency of God’s work, on the other hand, results in peace of mind and a genuinely obedient spirit.
This amazing story from Genesis points us smartly to the good news of God’s plan for man’s response of faith to His grace and to the miraculous son of promise in whom our faith and hope for salvation will lie – Jesus Christ.
