FROM THE TREE TO THE CROSS

Genesis 18:3-4
My Lord, if I have now found favor in Your sight, do not pass on by Your servant. Please let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree.

Did Abraham know and understand the significance of these two verses when he spoke them?
Did he know that 2000 years later Jesus would return the gesture of his friend and humble servant Abraham by washing the feet of men at the passover supper before he would be hung on a tree and rest for three days

John 13:6-7
Then He came to Simon Peter. And Peter said to Him, “Lord, are You washing my feet?”
Jesus answered and said to him, 
“What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.”

John 8:56
“Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”

Genesis 18:17   And the  Lord said,  “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing“

It’s possible that Abraham did understand that this simple act of kindness to wash the LORD’S feet and provide a meal while they rested was ordained and meant to happen and that the symbolism of his humbleness and kindness would reverberate across time and space until it’s eventual fullfilment in the last supper and the cross.

The wording of the scriptures throughout chapter 18 of Genesis seems to call attention to the parallels that would happen first in Exodus 12 with the passover Lamb, and then later in all four of the gospels in the fullfilment of the passover ritual when Jesus became the passover Lamb whose blood would cause the wrath of God to pass over us.

Exodus 12:13
And when I see the blood, I will pass over you

The Bread of Abraham

Genesis 18:5-6
I will bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh your hearts. After that you may pass by,
They said, “Do as you have said.”
So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah and said, “Quickly, make ready three measures of fine meal; knead it and make cakes.

Bread or cakes can not be made quickly with yeast because it would have needed hours to rise, so this would have been unleavened bread that Sarah prepared and cooked for this meal in a hurry
Which is paralleled again in

Exodus 12:39 
And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they had brought out of Egypt; for it was not leavened, because they were driven out of Egypt and could not wait

Jesus gave a reference that paralleled Sarah and this moment of her making bread in
Matthew 13:33
“The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.”

But leaven or yeast is always a symbolic reference to sin in the bible.

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Just as the washing of the feet of the LORD by Abraham was returned in kind by the LORD washing the feet of his disciples
So to was the offering of bread by Abraham returned with the offering of the true bread given to men which is the Word of God made flesh in the man who was Jesus.

Luke 22:19
He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”

John 6:48-58 
I Am the bread of life, which I shall give for the life of the world
“This is the bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead.
He who eats this bread will live forever.”

John 6:4-13 Now the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near. Then Jesus lifted up his eyes, and seeing a great multitude coming toward Him

Then Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” And Jesus took the loaves, and when He had given thanks He distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those sitting down; and likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted.  So when they were filled, He said to His disciples, “Gather up the fragments that remain, so that nothing is lost.” Therefore they gathered  them up, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten. 

Jesus is the same LORD who appeared to Abraham beneath the oak tree where he washed his feet and ate what would become the symbol of the passover meal of unleavened bread and passover Lamb that was sacrificed in order to spare God’s people from death and bring them out of slavery.

John 8:57-58
Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?”
Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”

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So why is all of this symbolism of the passover in this one chapter of Genesis 18 but not the passover lamb?
After all, Abraham prepared a calf for the meal, not a lamb

It’s because Isaac, the promised son soon to be born who would later symbolically represent the sacrifice of Jesus and the passover lamb, had finally been conceived in the womb of Sarah.

Genesis 18:14
At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.”

“The time of life”  is meant to describe in the season of spring, which later became the time of passover.

Isaac became the symbolic representation of Jesus and the passover lamb when Abraham once again obeyed a command of God that seemed like he understood its historical and symbolic significance when God asked him to bring Isaac to Mount Moriah and offer him there as a sacrifice.
Abraham never questioned or doubted this unusual command because he understood that God always has a plan and that his faith in the promise of God to make Isaac into more offspring then the stars was a part of that plan. 

Genesis 22:6  So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. 

John 19:17 And Jesus, bearing His cross, went up to a place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha, where they crucified Him.

When Isaac asked Abraham,
Father, where is the lamb?
Abraham replied  “My Son, God will provide for Himself the Lamb.

when John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him he said     “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  John 1:29

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God stopped Abraham before he could complete his command because this was only a display of Abraham’s faith and a testament pointing to the future when Mount Moriah would later become Jerusalem where Solomon would build the temple and Jesus the Son of God would become the Lamb that God provided to be sacrificed on a tree.

The place where Jesus was hung on the tree was directly above the garden tomb of Joseph of Arimathea where Jesus was laid for three days before he rose from his rest.
Pointing once again to that 4th verse in
Genesis 18:4 when Abraham said to the LORD
Wash your feet and rest yourself under the tree.

This may all seem like inference or conjecture on my part and is simply a coincidence, but let me ask one last question, and then I will leave it up to you to decide what it means.

Later, in chapter 18, verses 23-33
Abraham pleads with the LORD to spare Sodom if there is at least 10 righteous people found in the city.

So why did he not ask for 4, which would have accounted for Lot his wife and 2 daughters.
Or 6, which would have added in his 2 sons in law?
why 10?

Once again, this is a symbol pointing towards the passover but not of Sodom or of Egypt because they were both destroyed, but rather the passover on the day of the death of the true passover Lamb that God provided for us all who is Jesus.
And on that day, the wrath of God was kindled towards men because they had denied his son in their hearts and instead hung him on the cross.

Matthew 27:45-54
Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, 
“Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, 
“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

Some of those who stood there, when they heard that, said, “This Man is calling for Elijah!” Immediately one of them ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed, and offered it to Him to drink.

The rest said, “Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to save Him.”

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.

Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

So when the centurion and those with him, who were guarding Jesus, saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they feared greatly, saying, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

God could have destroyed the whole world on that day that they crucified his only son instead of accepting him into their hearts, and he would have been justified in doing so.
But he didn’t for two reasons
One because he already knew that they would do this and that is why the blood of the passover Lamb became a covenant promise to the jews that when God seen the blood of the innocent lamb he would passover them.
And two, because of Abraham’s plea with God to spare them if he found at least 10 righteous in the city.

So how do we know that there were 10 righteous in the city?
Actually, there was one more than 10
There were 12 disciples. One had betrayed Jesus and then killed himself (judas)
The other had denied him three times (peter), but that didn’t stop him from being his disciple.
So there were at least 11 righteous in the city that caused God’s wrath and judgment to passover as Abraham had requested.
But a day is coming when there will be no more righteous to hold back God’s wrath, and the earth will be punished like Sodom and Egypt.
But then on that promised day, we will all get to hear Abraham himself tell us the story of the day that he humbly washed the feet of God beneath a tree.