The Bible reveals that God's eternal purpose is to express Himself through a corporate Body and that this purpose is fulfilled by the divine life. If we would probe into the depths of the book of Genesis, we must see these two things. In Genesis 1:26 we see that man was made in God's image. The man here is not an individual man but a corporate man. We may say that it is mankind, a corporate Body that can express God's image. In Genesis 2 we see that for the fulfillment of God's purpose we must have the divine life signified by the tree of life. In these two chapters we have two crucial words—image and life. Image reveals God's eternal purpose, and life unfolds God's way of fulfilling His purpose. Never consider Genesis as merely the record of God's creation and the history of some patriarchs. This view is too superficial. When we plunge into the depths of this book, we see that it is not merely a record of creation and history, but that it is a revelation of God's eternal purpose and His way of fulfilling it.
With these two points in mind, let us now come to Genesis 24. Everyone who reads Genesis thinks of this chapter as the record of a marriage. However, the important thing here is not the marriage but what the marriage indicates, implies, and typifies. When we were on Genesis 1 and 2, we saw that those chapters are not only a record of God's creation but a record of life. Everything found in those chapters is related to life. Anything that is not related to life is excluded. If you read those chapters carefully, you will see that many aspects of God's creation are omitted because they are not related to life. In the same principle, only those aspects of Abraham's history which are related to life are recorded in chapters twenty-one through twenty-four.
The entire book of Genesis, a book of only fifty chapters, covers over twenty-three hundred years, the first twenty-three centuries of human history. If Genesis were a record of history, it would need hundreds of chapters to cover this span of time. The fact that such a long period is covered in just fifty chapters proves that Genesis is not a record of history. I say again that although Genesis apparently is a record of history, it actually is a record showing God's eternal purpose and the way of fulfilling it by life. Anything which is not related to God's purpose and its fulfillment by life is not recorded in this book.
Chapters twenty-one through twenty-four, covering forty years (25:20), mention five main things: the birth of Isaac, the growth of Isaac, the offering of Isaac, the death and burial of Sarah, and the marriage of Isaac. Although this record is brief, it is very meaningful. Here we see a proper birth and the proper growth. This birth and growth produced a burnt offering for God's satisfaction. After the birth and growth in chapter twenty-one, we have the burnt offering in chapter twenty-two. Then, as we have seen, in chapter twenty-three we have the death of Sarah and a detailed account of her burial. Following this, in chapter twenty-four, we see a wonderful marriage. But this chapter is not merely the record of a marriage; it is a story which has a deep meaning and significance in life.