If we are to understand Gen. 17, we must know what God's purpose is. God's purpose, which He made in eternity past, is to express Himself through a body of people on earth. In order to have a collective people as His expression, God created the universe and within the universe, as its center, He created man in His image with the intention that man would express Him and represent Him so that He may have a dominion on earth as His kingdom. This was God's purpose with Adam and with the children of Israel in the past, it is His purpose with the church today, and it shall be His purpose in the millennium and throughout eternity. Throughout all the ages, God's purpose has remained the same: to have Himself expressed and represented by man on earth.
For the fulfillment of His purpose, God needs a people. If God can gain a people, He will be able to accomplish His purpose, but if He cannot gain a people, He will be defeated. But our God cannot be defeated! God created Adam, and Adam became a failure. Then God called Abraham to be the head of a new race. Although God called only one person, Abraham, this person had to become a race so that God could be expressed and represented on earth. God called Abraham for this purpose. It is impossible for an individual to fulfill God's purpose, for what God needs is not just an individual but a people. One Abraham must be multiplied into a great many Abrahams. But this cannot be accomplished according to man's natural understanding or by his natural ability, strength, or being.
The Bible reveals that God's way to express Himself is to work Himself into man. God's way is extraordinary. Although God wants us to do things for Him, His desire is not that we do anything but that He come into us to do everything through us for Himself. His desire is to work Himself into us, making Him one with us and us one with Him. But no one is willing for God to do this. Everyone seems to say, "O Lord, if You ask me to do something, I'll do it for You, but I cannot bear to have You come into me to annul me and dethrone me. When I do something for You, I like to do it by myself." Nevertheless, God would say, "Before you do anything for Me, I must work Myself into you. By coming into you, I will have you crucified and then I will make you alive by, with, and for Me. Are you willing for this?" Abraham did not wait for God to do this, but, as Genesis 16 reveals, he acted on his own to bring forth a seed.
In 17:1 God came in to unveil His divine title, unveiling what He, the very God, is. To unveil a name is to unveil a person, for a name always represents a person. Since God's divine title denotes His divine Person, the unveiling of the divine title is actually the revelation of the divine Person. In 1:1 God was unveiled as Elohim, which primarily means the Mighty One, the Strong One, and which is mainly related to God's creation. In Genesis 2 God was revealed as Jehovah, the great I Am. The name Jehovah means "I Am that I Am," implying that God is the self-existent and ever-existing One. This title of Jehovah refers to God's relationship with man. Furthermore, God revealed to Abraham that He was the Most High God, the Possessor of heaven and earth (14:22). This is mainly related to God's care for His people's existence. But now in chapter seventeen, God comes in to unveil Himself further, revealing Himself to Abraham as El-Shaddai, the all-sufficient Mighty One with an udder.
God's all-sufficiency is in His divine udder. Perhaps some readers are unhappy with the use of the word udder and prefer that we use the word breast. However, if we were to use the word breast, most people would associate it with the matter of love. But the divine title in 17:1 denotes that God is the rich source of supply as grace to His people for them to fulfill His purpose. Although He wants us to fulfill His purpose, He does not need anything from us. He wants to be our supply. Our God has an all-sufficient source of supply, and this source is likened to an udder. This is the meaning implied in the title El-Shaddai. Everything that is supplied to us from the udder of a cow comes into us and even becomes our constituent. All of the elements and ingredients of the riches of the milk we drink become our constituent, our organic tissue. It seemed that God was saying to Abraham, "You have known Me as the Most High God. Although that is wonderful, it is no longer adequate. I am not only the Most High God to you objectively, but I want to be the divine milk to you subjectively. I must be the One that you drink into your being."
Our mind may be bothered at the thought of such a divine drinking. The first time that I gave a message on the eating of Jesus was in 1958. After that message, a very highly educated brother said to me, "Brother Lee, that message was very good, but the term 'eating Jesus' is too wild." I replied, "Brother, I am not the first one to use this term. In John 6:35, 57 the Lord Jesus said, 'I am the bread of life' and 'He who eats Me shall also live because of Me.'" Are you troubled by the likening of God's rich breast to the udder of a cow? Although I would prefer to liken God to a nice, tender, gentle mother with a loving breast, it is more meaningful to liken God to a cow with a rich udder, as the Scripture implies. We all have been positioned under this divine udder.
Many verses in the Bible give us the ground to speak of God in this way. Exodus 3:8 says, "I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey." The good land is a type of the all-inclusive Christ. With this Christ there is the flowing of milk. Before the children of Israel came into the good land to drink of the milk, they drank of the water that flowed from the riven rock which also was Christ (Exo. 17:6; 1 Cor. 10:4). In Revelation 22 we see that in the New Jerusalem there will be a river flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. If we put all of these verses together, we can see that our God today is One out of whom something is flowing to quench, supply, and satisfy us. Regardless of whether we call it milk or living water, it flows out of God's being to supply us. Hence, 1 Corinthians 12:13 says that we have all been made to drink of one Spirit, who is God Himself (John 4:24). When we are drinking of the Spirit, we are drinking of God. Our God is so rich that one type or symbol cannot give us a complete understanding of Him, so the Bible uses different types and symbols to reveal the various aspects of His riches. The milk and the living water both reveal how rich God is to us. The principle in each case is the same: that the riches of His divine being are flowing out to be our supply as grace to us for us to fulfill His purpose. We all must drink of the rich supply that flows out from our God that we may be able to fulfill the divine purpose.
None of us is qualified to fulfill God's purpose. Although religion tells us that we must do certain things for God, what God wants us to do is to take Him in as our supply so that He may become our constituent and that we may become one with Him. The Bible reveals that God's intention is to get into us and that we must eat and drink of Him, taking something of Himself into our being. As we take into our being some element of His divine being, partaking of His divine nature, this divine element will work in and through us to fulfill His purpose.
At the time of Genesis 17, God needed to reveal this divine title of His to Abraham. In Genesis 16 Abraham did something not for his own purpose but for the fulfillment of God's purpose. However, what Abraham did for the fulfilling of God's purpose was accomplished by his natural being and natural strength. Since he did something for God by his natural strength, God was displeased and disappeared from him for thirteen years. After that long absence, God came in and seemed to say, "Abraham, you must know that I am the all-sufficient One with an udder. You must drink of the supply of this udder and not do anything for Me by your natural strength or natural ability. Doing something for Me by your natural strength is an insult to Me. I don't want anything from you. I want you and I need you, but I do not want you to use your natural strength and natural ability to bring forth the promised seed. You must bring forth a seed by My supply. Stop using your strength, deny your natural being, and put aside your natural ability. Since I am the all-sufficient Mighty One, you should not do anything by yourself or apart from Me. Apart from Me, it is impossible for you to fulfill My purpose because apart from Me you can do nothing for My economy. Abraham, in order to fulfill My purpose, you must drink of the supply out of My udder and take Me in. I am not here now as the Most High God or as the Possessor of heaven and earth. You have learned that already. I am now here before you as El-Shaddai, the all-sufficient Mighty One with an udder out of which is flowing a rich supply for you. Abraham, you must walk before Me. This means that you must drink of My udder and live by Me." The Divine Word is deep, and we cannot understand it superficially. We must dive into it before we can see what is revealed there. How good it is that God revealed Himself to Abraham as the Mighty One with an udder full of the all-sufficient supply for His people to fulfill His purpose.
Immediately after the divine title was revealed to Abraham, God told him that his name was to be changed (17:5). This is very meaningful. Not only must God's title be unveiled to us, but our names need to be changed, meaning that we need to be changed. The name Abram has to be changed to Abraham. As we pointed out in the previous message, Abram means exalted father and Abraham means the father of a great multitude, that is, a multiplied father, "a father of many nations." If you had a choice between being highly exalted and being multiplied, which would you choose? Instead of being highly exalted to the heavens, would you choose to be flattened out and multiplied? According to our natural concept, we would all desire to be exalted rather than multiplied. It is troublesome to be multiplied, for the more children we have, the more problems we have. Everyone likes to be exalted; however, God does not want to exalt us but to multiply us, making us a father of a great multitude. Are you willing to be multiplied?
It is impossible for an exalted father, who is only good for exhibition, to fulfill God's purpose. For the fulfillment of God's purpose, there must be a multitude. So we need to be multiplied, not exalted. Today most Christians want to be spiritual giants, and religion encourages them in this way. When I was young, I was taught and encouraged to be a spiritual giant, but I was never told that I needed to be multiplied. While our natural tendency is to be exalted, God wants to change our name from the father of exaltation to the father of multiplication. How our concept needs to be changed! What is the multitude that God wants? It is the church, a corporate people. God needs the church, the multitude. If you remain by yourself, God has no way of fulfilling His purpose through you. For the sake of the fulfillment of His purpose, we need to forget our old name and be changed from being exalted to being multiplied. To be multiplied is for the fulfilling of God's purpose, not for anything else. It is not merely for the increase or for the expansion of our work; it is for God to be expressed and represented on the earth.
To change the name is to change the person. It is not that originally I am a frog and that now you change my name to fish. Although you may call me a fish, I am still a frog. The title has been changed, but the person has not. The proper changing of the name is the changing of the person. When our person has been changed, the change of title follows.
In the church life today we do not need any exalted fathers; we need many multiplied fathers. This is why the Lord has led us to have the communal life in so many homes. It is not easy for a family to live together with several young people because we all like to have our privacy and stay by ourselves. If the husbands are honest, sometimes even living with their wives is too much for them, and they would prefer to be left alone. But if we all stayed in private, how could we take care of the young ones? The changing of names helps the communal life. Why does the increase take place so slowly in the proper church life? Simply because we lack the fatherhood and because there are not enough homes to take care of the new ones. We need the multiplied fathers' homes to take care of the multitude.
One of the qualifications of an elder is hospitality (1 Tim. 3:2). If you are not hospitable, meaning that you are unwilling to take care of others but only care to be individually holy, you are not qualified to be an elder. If we are going to be hospitable, our name must be changed from the father of exaltation to the father of multiplication. Only a multiplied father is hospitable. The more we take care of others, the better it is for the church life. This is the real changing of names and the real changing of our person.
Not only Abraham's name was to be changed but also Sarah's. The name Sarai, which means my princess, has to be changed to Sarah, which means princess. "My princess" has to be changed to "princess," to "a mother of nations." Your particular character has to be changed into a general one so that you can be a mother of nations and take care of many people.
While every brother likes to be an exalted father, every sister wants to be a "my princess." When our name is Sarai we say, "My husband, my home, my day, my children, my position, my function in the meetings, my everything." Although the sisters may say "my princess," God wants them simply to become "princess" without any "my," to be general, not particular. We should not be exalted but multiplied, not particular but general. Particularity always goes with exaltation; they make a good couple. In the church life, none of us should be for exaltation or in particularity. We all have to be multiplied and general, to be a "father of nations" or a "mother of nations" (17:5, 16).
The church life depends a great deal upon the changing of names. If the brothers still insist on being exalted and if the sisters still prefer to be particular, how could we have the church life? We could only have a religion with a Sunday morning service and come together once a week, greet one another, and then go our separate ways until the next Sunday. In order to have the church life, there must be a great multitude of people that has been built up and compacted together, a people who truly know and practice the communal life. When the brothers no longer want to be exalted but multiplied and the sisters no longer want to be particular but general, then we shall be able to live together and have the proper church life and the multitude for the fulfilling of God's purpose. Then we shall live together day by day and be a churching people all the time. Nearly every time will be a meeting time. We shall be meeting together constantly because no one will want to be exalted but multiplied and because no one will want to be particular but general. This is not merely a doctrine. The changing of names is not only a change of term but a change of our being, of our person. Thus, we may change the title of this message to "the unveiling of the divine Being and the changing of the human person for the fulfilling of God's purpose." Although God's divine being has been unveiled, if we remain the same, His being unveiled will not profit us. His unveiling depends upon our changing. We need to be changed not only in name but also in person. Then we can enjoy the unveiled God and drink at His rich udder.
The changing of names in the sense of changing the person is also seen in the case of Jacob and Peter. For the fulfilling of God's purpose, Jacob's name was changed to Israel (Gen. 32:27-28); a heel-holder, a supplanter (Jacob), was changed into a prince of God (Israel). If Jacob had remained a supplanter, he could never have been used by God in the fulfillment of the divine purpose. Jacob had to be changed into a prince of God. For the building of the church, Peter's name, Simon, was changed to Cephas, which means a stone (John 1:42). Peter's natural being was muddy, and he had to be transformed into a stone, even a precious stone, for God's building (1 Pet. 2:5) to fulfill the divine purpose.
By the Lord's mercy, we have no confidence in ourselves or in anyone else. We do not have confidence in people because we have learned that no one is qualified to fulfill God's purpose. Whatever we can produce is just an Ishmael. The proper church life is not concerned with anything human or natural. The proper church life is that which carries out God's eternal purpose through being supplied with the riches of God Himself. Whatever we are able to do means nothing in the fulfilling of God's eternal purpose. All that is needed for the fulfillment of God's purpose is the supply of the divine udder. So we must drop ourselves, depreciate our natural strength and ability, and walk before God, drinking of the riches of His udder. If we do this, spontaneously some element of His divine being will be wrought into us to produce the seed for the fulfillment of His purpose. This is the proper church life.
We have seen that both the seed and the land are Christ. Now we need to see that the seed and the land are not only Christ but also we. After drinking of God's rich supply, we all shall become the seed and the land. Eventually, the seed becomes the land. For the fulfilling of His purpose, God needs a people to possess the land. In that land, God will have a kingdom to be built up with His habitation for His name. This is God's purpose. Since we are the seed, the people to fulfill God's purpose, we, the seed, shall also become the land. Among and within us God has His dominion, and in this dominion God has a kingdom in which He may build up His habitation.
We become the seed and the land by enjoying the riches of God and by having God wrought into us. God and we, we and God, are one in producing the seed and possessing the land. This is something heavenly on earth. It is Bethel, the gate of heaven, with the heavenly ladder joining earth to heaven and bringing heaven down to earth. Here we have God and man, man and God, joined together to be a mutual habitation. How is this fulfilled? By the unveiling of the divine Being and the changing of the human person. Once we have been changed, then we are qualified to enjoy the unveiled God as our grace. God has been unveiled, but this unveiled God needs the changed person. Regardless of who or what we are, we all need to be changed from having natural character to having spiritual character, changed from our source to the divine udder for the supply we need to fulfill the divine purpose. We need to forget ourselves, cease from our natural source of supply, walk before God, and drink of His udder all day long. Then the riches of the unveiled divine Being will be wrought into our human being as the all-sufficient grace for us to fulfill the divine purpose. The Apostle Paul labored more abundantly than all the apostles; yet it was not he but the grace of God that was with him. By the grace of God he was what he was (1 Cor. 15:10). He fulfilled God's purpose in his ministry by enjoying the Lord's sufficient grace (2 Cor. 12:9). Paul surely was drinking of the divine udder to receive the sufficient supply of grace. He did not exercise his natural strength to produce Ishmaels but enjoyed the rich supply of the sufficient grace to bring forth many Isaacs. He lived and worked in the way of "no longer I who live, but Christ" (Gal. 2:20). The real changing of a name is the change from I to Christ — El-Shaddai, the all-sufficient grace Supplier. Only Christ, not I, can fulfill God's purpose.
