God revealed Himself gradually and in stages and in words and deeds throughout Salvation History by entering into covenants with the human race. After His covenant with Adam and Eve, and the renewal of all creation through His covenant with Noah, God entered into a covenant with Abraham and made great promises to Him for His descendants. The people descended from Abraham become God’s Chosen People to whom God continued to reveal Himself to and through whom He would prepare the whole world to receive salvation.

The End of the Early World

The descendants of Noah disobeyed God’s command to “be fertile and multiply and fill the earth” and instead settled in one place. There, they fell prey to the same sin of Adam and Eve and the line of Cain and sought to make a name for themselves rather than honor God. In other words, they sought to make themselves like God by building a tower to Heaven. In punishment, God scattered the language of men and scattered them about the world so they could not unite again to try to supplant Him. At Pentecost, however, with the coming of the Holy Spirit at the advent of the Church, the human race was once again united in Christ, reversing the curse of Babel.

Abraham

God called a man named Abraham to leave his home and follow Him. This Abraham did and became the “father of faith.” God led Abraham to the land of Canaan and there made him three great promises: He would make of Abraham a great nation and bless him, He would make Abraham’s name great and bless those who blessed him and curse those who cursed him, and He would bless all the families of the earth through him. Each of the promises were made with Abraham, but were for his descendants. To prove to Abraham that He would fulfill His promises to him, God raised each promise to the status of a covenant. And so, God chose a people descended from Abraham to be His and to whom He would deepen His relationship and prepare the entire world for salvation in His Son, Jesus Christ. Each of the promises God made to Abraham find their fulfillment in each of the next covenants in Salvation History. In God’s covenant with Moses, Moses leads the Chosen People out of slavery in Egypt into the Promised Land where they would become a great nation. In God’s covenant with David, David reigns as king as the first in an everlasting line of kings. And in the New Covenant, Jesus Christ blesses the world with salvation from sin.

The Patriarchs

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph are the Patriarchs, the fathers of our Faith. The story of the sacrifice of Isaac foreshadows Christ’s own sacrifice on the Cross. God calls Abraham to sacrifice his only beloved son, Isaac. On the journey to the mountain of sacrifice, Abraham reveals to his son his faith that God will provide a sheep for the sacrifice. Isaac remains obedient to his father’s will, even though he knows it means his own death. In the end, God sends an angel to stop Abraham from killing his son, and instead a ram caught in a nearby thicket is sacrificed. Isaac’s son Jacob becomes the fathers of an entire nation of people through his twelve sons, who found the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Along the way, Jacob wrestles an angel to a draw, demonstrating powerfully the battle of prayer. For his willingness to struggle with God, Jacob’s name is changed to Israel, which means, “He who wrestles with God.” His name would become the name of the entire Chosen People. Jacob’s favorite son, Joseph, endures the rejection of his own brothers in order to bring about the salvation of the people of Egypt and his own family who sold him into slavery. Joseph, through his unerring faith in God, rises to be the second in command of all of Egypt where he saves the people from a great famine.

Through the Patriarchs, God continually renewed His covenant promises and showed the depth of His love and mercy for His Chosen People. And through the stories of the Patriarchs, we receive a small foretaste of the entirety of God’s plan of salvation.