# 354 Playing at God

The Book of Genesis

Day 354

Gen 38:8 And Judah said to Onan, "Go in to your brother's wife and marry her, and raise up an heir to your brother."  9 But Onan knew that the heir would not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in to his brother's wife, that he emitted on the ground, lest he should give an heir to his brother.  10 And the thing which he did displeased the LORD; therefore He killed him also.

Why was God so displeased with Onan? It was because of his refusal to participate in the great commission of the Old Testament, that of bringing Christ into the world physically. Onan wanted to keep his own inheritance intact. He sold out for material things.  This is the primary lesson to be learned from the death of Onan. As New Testament followers of Jesus Christ, we have been charged with participating sacrificially in bringing Christ to the world, “spiritually,” through the great commission!

But there are other lessons to be learned from this incident with Onan. Onan’s act of defiance in spilling his seed upon  the ground was nothing more than a primitive form of birth control. We are much more sophisticated in our modern day methods of seeking to block the divine creation of new life.  “No God, we will determine when life will come forth into this world!.” “Don’t You see God, a child right now would cramp our style and we won’t be able to have the nice material things we desire.” Further, if we start a family now, we won’t be able to do the things we want to do!”

“and the thing which Onan did displeased the Lord.”

We don’t know the plans God has for the seed in our body, but we do know He has plans! “Jer 1:5 says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; and I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” (Note the word “before!”)

Will all be prophets like Jeremiah? Of course not, but all of God’s prospective creations in the womb matter to Him. They are all souls that will live eternally. They are souls that Jesus died for, so that they might spend eternity with God. Maybe we ought to start looking at our reproductive life through the lens of eternity, perhaps then we will appreciate the sovereignty of God in this matter, and turn over the size of our families to Him.

# 353 The Sin of Onan

The Book of Genesis

Day 353

Ge 38:8 And Judah said to Onan, "Go in to your brother's wife and marry her, and raise up an heir to your brother."  9 But Onan knew that the heir would not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in to his brother's wife, that he emitted on the ground, lest he should give an heir to his brother.  10 And the thing which he did displeased the LORD; therefore He killed him also.

This obscure levirate law was so important that God took out Onan for his refusal to follow through with his duty to “raise up an heir.”  Why was this so important? Why was God so displeased with Onan?

I think we can trace it back to Abraham, and even to Adam and Eve. God told Abraham that in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed! He had told Eve that her seed would one day rise up and crush Satan. The Messiah would come from the seed of the children of Abraham. Need we say more?

Onan’s purposeful emitting on the ground, was the equivalent of saying, “I’m not interested in the world getting a Savior, I am only interested in MY inheritance…..my worldy possessions. Let someone else do it!”

Onan paid the price for his selfish attitude.

This whole scenario is about bringing Christ to the world. This is the great commission of the OT patriarchs. Christ was to be brought to the world physically through the seed of Abraham. In the NT, Christ is to be brought to the world through the “spiritual” seed of Abraham and that’s you and I folks….that’s the church.

Failure to participate in this NT commission puts our very souls in jeopardy! It puts us in the category of the unproductive servant who buries his talent. Onan’s seed wound up in the ground as did the talent of the unproductive servant and both paid for it with their eternal lives! God has given each one of us a part to play in the great commission, and maybe it’s time for each one of us to discover that part and plug it in our local congregation. Failure to do so is committing the NT equivalent of the sin of Onan.

Lu 9:26 "For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father's, and of the holy angels.