There is a prophetic meaning to the story of Abimelech taking Sarah captive from Abraham.
Abimelech signifies the king of this world (Pharaoh, Caesar, etc.). He is the ‘father of kings’ or the ‘father king’ of worldly kings and rulers. Abraham is the father of nations, or the father of elevated hills, signifying free peoples without autocrats ruling over them, who walk in the light of God’s word. Sarah signifies the bride of Jehovah, or the body of Christ, which is Israel by faith, rather than by birth. The kings of this world have taken the wife of God captive with their political and religious systems, thus stealing Sarah into the King’s house. She is eventually released from the world order to re-join her husband.
The story of the women becoming infertile in Abimelech’s kingdom signifies how the Christian religion would become infertile in our age and not bear spiritual fruit (true conversion to Christ). As long as the leaders of Christendom continue to hold the wife and seed of Abraham captive, then the Christian churches will remain sterile brothels and harems producing no spiritual fruit. When the world order finally releases the captives, then God will heal their women (churches) so they can preach true faith that leads to true conversion.
Abraham and Sarah were not lying to Abimelech. That is a simplistic interpretation. Christians repeatedly call Abraham a sinner and liar, nullifying Abraham’s witness of the gospel. Abraham’s witness is about the coming of Jesus Christ. By calling Abraham a liar, Christians are calling him a false prophet and denying his witness.
Note that God needed to heal Abimelech and his house, while God did not need to heal Abraham and Sarah. Sarah was indeed both Abraham’s wife and sister, for Abraham is a type of Adam, whose wife was taken from half his body, and was at that time his only sister. He had no other sister in the faith at that time; Sarah was all there was. This is a spiritual story about the creation to come, and how Abraham and Sarah represent that creation that is being foretold, that creation that will be fruitful and multiply spiritual seed, while Abimelech represents the old, dead religious creation (Egypt, Rome, Judea, Islam, Christendom) that is infertile and cannot produce the seed of true faith in God. The seed of Israel / Adam / Abraham go into bondage of Egypt and its sisters of Isis (the religious system of Christendom and concomitant political systems), and thus the Christian religion will be barren and unable to produce spiritual children on account of its having taken Sarah (the true Israel by faith) prisoner in the King’s house. Today Christianity produces no spiritual fruit, because today as we sojourn in this world Abimelech has taken Sarah captive. Abraham has allowed the world system to deceive itself into thinking it has the right to poach the spiritual wife of God. The prophecy of Genesis is happening now in our day and age, and the Christian religion is the new oppressor that is oppressing the seed of Abraham with its religion, rendering itself infertile and incapable of bearing children of faith.
If Abraham lied to Abimelech when he said Sarah was his sister, then Christians must also accuse Christ Jesus of lying:
“But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.”
Abraham did the will of the father in heaven, and Abraham trusted God and was accounted as righteous!
The story of Abraham is a prophetic allegory foretelling Christ and the Church age. Abraham’s journey was not written to be taken as literal history, as neither Christ nor the Apostles interpreted it literally, as shown in the New Testament:
“I am he who is to be before Abraham becomes.”
Here Christ is telling the Pharisees that Abraham does not exist yet. Like the Christians of today, the Pharisees mistook Christ’s words to mean that he was older than Abraham, and Christians misuse this verse to prop up their pre-existent God-Man theory, which is not what Christ was saying. Christ was clearly pointing out that he first had to come before Abraham could come. In other words, for Abraham to be the many nations he would become, Christ first had to come and die on the cross. Then Abraham would come into being as the nations of Christ. Paul clarifies this very teaching:
“For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an === ALLEGORY ===: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, [fleshly Israel] which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. [Christ believers are the seed of Abraham.]
Notice that Paul says the story of Abraham is ALLEGORY for Christ and the Ecclesial. Those who worship the flesh continue to insist that the Jews are the seed of Abraham. But Christ himself points out that the Jews of his day were NOT the seed of Abraham:
Abraham’s seed are strictly those who are of Christ Jesus. Jesus tells us so:
“They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.”
Paul lays it out clearly: “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” And so Paul tells us that the promise of Abraham is that those who followed after Jesus would be the nations of his promise, not the twelve fleshly tribes of Israel. It is crystal clear to the believer how the story of Abraham is really a prophecy of Christ. Attempting to read Abraham as history misses the entire point of the book of Genesis–the entire book is about the Messiah–told in a pastiche of poetic stories cobbled together from events in the lives of his ancestors. God repeatedly reminds us that he teaches prophecy in parables.
We know for certain that the story of Abraham and Isaac is not about the Jews or tribes of Israel, for the Pharisees themselves tacitly admit this:
“They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?”
The Christian should think long and hard about what was said in this verse. The rulers of the Jews said, “[we] were never in bondage to any man …” Thus they were not even descended from the Israel that came out of Egypt, because Israel had not yet come out of Egypt in the day of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus said they were still in bondage:
“Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
Jesus knew that the Old Testament (Septuagint) was giving a prophetic story of a future spiritual Egypt, the religious and political system in which the Jews were enslaved by unbelief. Thus we know, like Christ knew, that the Old Testament was given not as a history but as a prophecy using some historical figures to paint the picture of future events. Jehovah even tells us this plainly:
“Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.”
Here Jehovah tells Isaiah that the former things of old (the old Testament stories) have not yet been done, and he will make it all happen in the future when he calls his conqueror (ravenous bird) to execute his plan. That ‘ravenous bird’ is Jesus, the Hebrew. Thus we know that the Genesis creation story began at the birth of Jesus Christ, and not a moment before. How do we know? God’s first act of creation was to say, LET THERE BE LIGHT.
Jesus told us he is the light:
“As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
Thus Jesus is God’s firstborn creature, the firstborn of many brethren. Those brethren are also the lights of Genesis, the stars (candles) that give light at night when the great light is no longer in the world:
“Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”
Jesus compares his disciples to candles, or night lights. They are the stars of the Genesis creation, the stars of heaven promised to Abraham, further confirming the futuristic focus of the book of Genesis. God began his new creation with Jesus in a manger in Bethlehem. That is when Genesis starts. That is the beginning. Let him that has an ear to hear both hear and understand it.
Other Old Testament prophets also knew that the Old Testament was written to foretell the events of a future age:
“That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past.”
Christians cannot understand what the Father Above is doing because they don’t rightly divide his word of scripture. They make the same errors as the Jews, assuming that the scripture was written as a history of ancient times, when it was actually written as prophecy of our times from the Cross of Christ forward to this very day and age. The Old Testament is not primordial history. The Old Testament is future prophecy written in a cyclical past tense style that has baffled the unbelieving and religious for centuries. It is no marvel that Genesis was written in past tense. The author saw the events in vision, and like John the Revelator, those events were already past tense for the writer, for he had already seen them.
The Apostles taught to rightly ‘divide’ the word of truth of the Law and Prophets. In the Greek text the word for ‘divide’ is similar to the older English ‘ken’ or ‘knawa’ or ‘know’ which means to cut to the meaning, or properly apply the meaning with sharp wit. The Apostles show us the meaning of the story of Abraham and Isaac by cutting the word with the sword of the spirit.
Abraham and Isaac are prophetic figures of the sacrifice of Christ on Golgotha, and of the nations of Christ-followers that grow up out of that gospel that Christ sent into the nations. Those nations that repented and believed became the ‘seed of Abraham’ or the ‘stars of heaven’ or the ‘sands of the sea shore’ that comprise the children of Abraham.
I have written many things here that are hard or impossible for Christians and Jews to understand. They can’t understand because they are in bondage to sin, a system of legalized sin masquerading as religion, twisting the bible to suit their preconceived religious assumptions. Their religion has lied to them about the true meaning of the Bible, so their eyes are blinded, their ears are stopped, and their understanding is darkened. Unless one understands the the books of Moses are prophecy of Jesus Christ, and a new creation beginning with Jesus Christ, then one does not know the faith of Abraham and is still in bondage to the world of Mystery Babylon, which is the Christian religion. Unless and until the Christian religion sets its captives free and stops enslaving people to its delusions, then every church will remain sterile and unable to bear the fruit of righteousness for Abraham. When the Christian religion is finally broken and chastised and repents of it idols to worship the One God, the Father, then God will heal Pharaoh and Abimelech and let their women bear spiritual seed. If Christendom doesn’t repent of its religious idolatry then it will require the Sodom and Gomorrah treatment.
This is what Genesis tells us about our day and age and the events we are enduring and witnessing. Genesis is not history. Genesis is the future. God the Father is creating a new heaven and earth of spiritual nations founded upon Christ, the Apostles, and the Prophets. Even though it is happening in broad daylight the religious world is blind to the sight of God’s work.