The Divine Covenants

The Abrahamic Covenant (Part 4)

The first great purpose of the Abrahamic covenant was to make known the stock from which the Messiah would come. When God said that “all the peoples of the earth will be blessed through you”, we have the first intimation of this.

When we take a close look at the events in the life of Abraham we conclude that he was raised to a pre-eminent position and he became the root and center of the future history of the world. This is a big statement! The peculiar honor given him was that the great fountain of blessing was to be in him. However, the divine promise could not be realized in him personally. This will get better definition as we go along. There was at the most a beginning made in his own experience regarding the promised blessing. But the blessing was to spread out from him to the whole world. “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.”

The promised blessing was to occur in its widest sense not by Abraham individually and immediately, but through him by means of the seed that should be given to him. Jesus, then, as the essential core of the promise and the Seed of Abraham, rather than Abraham himself, was to have the honor of blessing all nations.

Not only was Jesus, according to the flesh, “the son of Abraham”, but every believer in Jesus is of Abraham’s seed; and the entire group of the redeemed will be considered along with Abraham.

· Gen 12:6-7,  The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.

I think it is unfortunate that the NIV uses the word “offspring” here. The New American Standard Bible uses the more appropriate word.

· Gen 12:7,  And Jehovah appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land. And there builded he an altar unto Jehovah, who appeared unto him.

Now there is a reason why the latter is preferable. That which now concerns us is the meaning of the word “seed”. The word “offspring” has a different connotation than ‘seed” in this verse.

· Gal 3:16-18, The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed," meaning one person, who is Christ.  What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise.

Here the NIV properly uses “seed”. We need to explore the deep meaning that is intended here. It is important that we look here to the spirit of what is said rather than just the “letter”. To rely on the letter we will miss something very significant.

Notice again verse 16 above: The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Abraham was the “father” of a twofold “seed”, a natural and a spiritual; and if we pay attention to the context here, there is really no difficulty in determining which of them the Holy Spirit had in mind. Now note verse 6,

· Galatians 3:6, Consider Abraham: "He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."

From this it is altogether safe to draw the conclusion that,

· Gal 3:7, Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham.

What could be plainer than that? That is, genuine believers are the children of Abraham. It cannot possibly mean his literal children because generations come and go. But we are children of Abraham because of our faith, we are believers. Sinners today are justified by God in precisely the same way as Abraham was---by faith.

· Gal 3:8-9, The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you."   So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

Once again we see the same truth reaffirmed in this passage. It was God’s purpose to justify the called among the Gentiles so He proclaimed this good news to Abraham himself, saying that “All nations will be blessed through you,”

· Gal 3:13-14, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."  He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

Believers receive the same spiritual blessing that Abraham did, namely, the righteousness of Jesus imputed to their account, so that they now measure up to every requirement of the law. And that is so because Jesus redeemed us from the curse of the law. But you say that Jesus had not even come to earth in Abraham’s day! How could the righteousness of Jesus be imputed to the Gentiles of Abraham’s day? You are forgetting two things:

1) God is sovereign.

2) God’s plan in the Everlasting Covenant was already an accomplished fact before creation, including His plan for Jesus to die for our sins and that we were chosen before the foundation of the world.

Paul in Romans says much the same thing.

· Rom 4:16-17,  Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring-not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all.

The passages we have been looking at have referred to the “seed” of Abraham. This has caused many commentators a lot of trouble because many have thought of “seed” as being without limitation.  We need to understand the scriptural idea of “seed”. Notice that in an earlier passage in Galatians 3 we read that the Spirit said, Seed, not seeds. The reason for that is that the promise made to Abraham was the idea of a single person, and that single seed was Jesus.

Now it is important at this point to remember that the term “Christ” literally means “anointed”, but is also used as a special title of Jesus Himself and is given to Him as a public person including both the head and members of the church.

The promises of God were never meant to be by human procreation and the other by divine regeneration. But the promises were made not to both of his seeds, but to one of them only, namely the spiritual, mystical “Christ” the redeemer and all who are spiritually united to Him. So we need to think in terms of the “unity” of the seed in contrast to the diversity of the seed.

Let me give some examples of what we are talking about here. Abraham had two sons; but one of them, Ishmael, was excluded from the high privileges: 

· Gen 21:11-13, The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son.  But God said to him, "Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.  I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also, because he is your offspring."

So it is through Isaac that God intends to bring forth the blessing to all nations. But there is no indication that all of Isaac’s descendents would be blessed.

Later, the line from which the Messiah would come was better defined. Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau. Esau was rejected and Jacob chosen. Out of Jacob there were twelve sons. Judah was chosen as the tribe from which Jesus would come. And out of the thousands of families of Judah Jesse was chosen; and of Jesse’s eight sons David was appointed.

So we see that as time went on, the channel through which Abraham’s Seed should come was more and more definitely narrowed, and thereby God gradually made it known how His original promises to Abraham were to be fulfilled. The limitation of the promises was evidenced by the rejection of Ishmael and Esau, which clearly intimated that all of Abraham’s descendants were not included.

Then there is the obvious conclusion that the spiritual descendants of Jesus are the only ones to inherit the blessings promised to Abraham. The promises were originally limited and the same is true today. Hence the unbelieving descendants of Jacob were as much excluded as the descendants of Ishmael. And likewise the unbelieving descendants of the gentiles in our own day. 

We have just been looking at material that is of basic importance, not only to an understanding of the Abrahamic covenant, but a sound understanding of the much of the Old Testament. Once it becomes clear to us that the type (Abraham) merges into the antitype ,Jesus, and, that believers in Jesus are Abraham’s children, it will be seen that we have a reliable guide for getting us through the maze of prophecy.

· Romans 4:16, Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring-not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all.

· Gal.3:6-7, Consider Abraham; “He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham

The promises of God to Abraham and his Seed were never made to his natural descendants, but belonged to those who had a faith like him. All the promises were left in the hands of the Mediator, and none of those who are not believers in Jesus can lay claim to the promises.

So the unbelieving descendants of Jacob were as much excluded from the Abrahamic covenant as were the descendants of Ishmael and Esau; whereas those promises belonged to the truly believing Gentiles as they did to Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. What we want to emphasize here is to insure that we know WHO ARE THEY THAT ARE ABRAHAM’S CHILDREN!!!!!

Believers in Jesus have the same heritage as Abraham.

· Gal 3:28-29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Therefore,

· Rom 8:17, Now if we are children, then we are heirs---heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

In that last verse in Galatians 3 that we have just seen Paul draws the unavoidable conclusion that true believers are spiritually children of Abraham. Or to say it another way, we are Abraham’s spiritual seed. And so is Jesus.

So the inheritance given to Abraham was given by God long before the law. Now the question is, What was the inheritance which God gave to Abraham?

Well, Genesis 12:7 seems to tell us that the inheritance was the “land of Canaan”. There are many examples in the Old Testament where the event seems to say one thing but the truth is revealed in the New Testament. For example, the 14th chapter of Genesis tells the account of Melchizedek, the king of Salem and priest of the Most High God, bringing bread and wine and blessing Abraham, to whom Abraham paid tithes. But there is a spiritual meaning here that is revealed in Hebrews 7 that Melchizedek was intended as a striking example and type of Jesus in His official capacity.

So we should learn from this that the Old Testament events had a higher meaning than their literal significance. In other words, the historical was simply an earthly foreshadowing of that which has its reality in heaven.

So why not apply this reasoning to the promise God made to Abraham and his seed regarding the land of Canaan? Since believers in Jesus are Abraham’s children and “Heirs according to the promise”, then it follows that they are interested in all the promises to him. It is a mistake to think of some of the promises as being simply temporal and to Abraham’s natural descendants, and that others had heavenly meaning and pertained to his spiritual children, In the Bible the outward and temporal must be consistently viewed as the shell or shadow of the spiritual and eternal.

Let’s look at Hebrews 11:8-16.

· Heb. 11:8-16, By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.  By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.  For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.  By faith Abraham, even though he was past age-and Sarah herself was barren-was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.  And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.  All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.  People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.  If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.  Instead, they were longing for a better country-a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

It is clear from these verses that they looked beyond the literal promises to a heavenly and eternal inheritance. Now this leaves open the question of, what was God’s intention as to the earthly land which He seemed to promise, even giving natural boundaries? We do not intend to deal with that question now, rather to dwell on higher spiritual interpretation.