Hey friends, this is the last installment of our Abrahamic Covenant series.

I wanted to begin our FOI Blog with the Abrahamic Covenant series because all of our convictions at the Friends of Israel stem from this eternal promise.

First, the promise that God deeded the land of Israel to the Jewish people, that’s why we teach about the significance of the land of Israel (past, present, and future) and we stand in solidarity with the Jewish people. Second, the promise that God made to Abraham that he would be the father to many descendants, and in particular ONE descendant that would change the course of human history, His name is Jesus. This is why we strive to communicate the truth about the Messiah Jesus effectively to all people. Finally, today we look at the universal nature of the Abrahamic Covenant, the Blessing.

So far every element of the Abrahamic Covenant we’ve examined (Land and Descendants) has been directed to Abraham for the benefit of the Jewish people. Yet, what is often overlooked concerning this amazing promise is that God designed and implemented this covenant for the benefit of ALL mankind! Yes, if you are a believer in Jesus the Messiah in many ways you are beneficiary of this grand promise.

God said to Abraham, “…And so you [Abraham] shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Gen 12:2-3).

What did God mean when He told Abraham he and his descendants would be a blessing?

God wanted Abraham to know that his name and his descendants would always be known as a people of blessing to the world. Ultimately, if anyone was searching for a prime example of what it meant to be a blessed they could see Abraham and his descendants (Israel) and find the God that has abundantly blessed them. With this understanding of “blessing” in mind The New English Translation (NET) translates Genesis 12:2, “… I will bless you [Abraham], and I will make your name great, so that you [Abraham] will exemplify divine blessing.”

God wanted to use Abraham and his descendants as a tiny mirror to reflect the immensity of God’s grace to a lost and broken world. The Lord strategically placed that tiny mirror in the land of Israel on purpose. Israel is a natural land bridge between modern day Europe, Turkey, and Middle East to Egypt and Northern Africa. That’s why every major historical empire wanted to control it (Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans) and sought to conquer it. When these convoy of traders journeyed though the promised land they encountered the people God chose to communicate His message. God wanted to use the land He promised to Abraham as a place to announce to the world that regularly traveled through that He is the one and only Sovereign God.

I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse.

God’s promise to Abraham was established on this premise, that if he goes, God is with him (not a bad deal). God united Himself to Abraham through this covenant, therefore, anyone who enriches Abraham or his descendants benefits from the blessing, that is God blesses them.

On the other hand, anyone who “curses” Abraham has God to answer to. The first “curse” in Genesis 12:3 literally means “to take lightly”. God was saying to Abraham if anyone takes this covenant lightly and mistreats you or your descendants I will curse them because they mistreated Me. The second “curse” in Genesis 12:3 means “to banish, or remove from blessing”. Again the New English Translation (NET) translates this verse, “I will bless those who bless you, but the one who treats you lightly I must curse.”

If the covenant made with Abraham is eternal in nature than we must assume this aspect of this promise still applies today. That is, God does not take lightly His covenant with Abraham. I believe this comes across in Paul’s letter to the Romans when he tells even the church, “… do not be arrogant toward the branches [Israel]; but if you [church] are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root [Abrahamic Covenant]. but the root supports you” (Rom. 11:18).

And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.

The Abrahamic Covenant is not a static promise that remains in the book of Genesis, its purpose flows all throughout the Scriptures (OT & NT) and does not solely benefit the Jewish people, but is designed to bless all the families of the earth.

I’ll give you two ways the Abrahamic Covenant has blessed us. First, God communicated His Word through the promised descendants of Abraham. The Bible you and I read during church, devotions, bible studies, and Sunday schools was promulgated through the Jewish people. Everyday His Word encourages, corrects, teaches, and reveals to us more about the character of God and His Son, Jesus. That’s a blessing!

Second, through the Abrahamic Covenant God promised to send one particular descendant that would change the course of human history forever, Jesus. Jesus, according to the Scriptures, a descendant of Abraham is the promised Messiah who fulfilled all the prophecies spoken by the Jewish prophets. He lived a perfect life, He died a sacrificial death according to the Law, and it was by His blood that we’ve been set free from sin (Rev. 1:5). He was resurrected from the dead to validate His sacrifice and deity, thus enabling us to live in newness of life by the promised Holy Spirit (Rom. 6:4). Now that’s a blessing! All these blessings that come from the one promise made to Abraham more than 4000 years ago.

How have you been blessed by the promise made to Abraham?

About the Author

Last week we unpacked the Abrahamic Covenant (Promise), which we said consists of three major elements: Land, Descendents, and Blessing.

We concluded in our previous blog that within the Abrahamic Covenant (click link to view previous blog) God deeded the Land to Abraham and his descendants through an ancient ritual, in which parties walk through bisected animals to make a binding covenant or contract (Gen 15:9-21).

This week we want to analyze the second portion of the Abrahamic Covenant: the Seed or Descendants. When God called Abraham to leave his homeland of Ur by faith, trusting only in the Lord’s voice, Abraham left on the premise of God’s promises. One of those promises was, “And a will make you a great nation” (Gen 12:2).  God already promised Abraham a special plot of land in Genesis 12:1, now He’s assuring Abraham He will provide the people to fill the land because you simply can’t have “nation” without people, right? Something to remember, God made this promise to Abraham when he had no children.

Abraham walked by faith to the land of Canaan with the assumption God would provide a son. When Abraham arrived in the land a doubt set in that God would fulfill His promises since he and Sarah were still childless. In a very honest conversation between Abraham and God, Abraham says, “O Lord God What will you give me since I am childless, and the heir to my house is Eliezer of Damascus” (Gen. 15:2). Abraham explained to God in a simple way that he followed Lord to the land He promised yet Abraham’s closest heir to inherit the divine promise is Eliezer of Damascus.  Side note: Damascus should probably not be used to refer to the place of Eliezer’s origins, like the city of Damascus. There is a play on words occurring in the Hebrew language in Gen. 15:2 between “heir” and “Damascus”. The end of Genesis 15:2 should probably be translated “Eliezer will possess it.”

God reassured Abraham of His intentions to provide a son as his heir, “This man [Eliezer] will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir” (Gen. 15:4). The Lord not only provided Abraham a direct descendent in the person of Isaac, but God also promised to Abraham, “’Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ And He said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.‘” (Gen. 15:5). A “nation” just as God swore in Genesis 12:2.

Descendants to Descendant

Really God’s promise to Abraham, that he would be the father to innumerable descendants, is the launching pad for the Lord’s ultimate plan of redemption for all mankind. The term “descendants” in Genesis 15:5 is the Hebrew word “seed”. In the context of Gen 15:5 the term “descendent” or “seed” is used in the plural refering the countless descendants that will originate from Abraham. In fact, you see this promise unfold throughout the book of Genesis when Abraham fathers Isaac, and Isaac fathers Jacob, and Jacob fathers his twelves son, and the twelves sons father the Sons of Israel!

However, in the epistle to the Galatians Paul borrowed the term “seed” from the Abrahamic Covenant and inserted a divine twist by reading it in the singular form to speak of the one “seed” that originated from Abraham, Jesus the Messiah, “Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say,‘And to seeds,’ as referring to many, but rather to one, ‘And to your seed,’ that is, Christ” (Gal. 3:16). Johnston in the book Jesus the Messiah rightly says, “God’s promise of seed to Abraham would find its ultimate culmination in the Messiah as his descendant par excellence.”2

The Abrahamic Covenant did not remain confined to the book of Genesis. It’s purpose to build a “nation” that would come from Abraham is found all throughout the scriptures. For instance, even when Israel was disobeying God and the covenant seemed strained, the Lord remained faithful to the disobedient nation because of the covenant he swore to Abraham (Deut. 9:5; 2 Kings 13:23). The Lord remained faithful to Abraham because it would be through this promised “nation” that one would come to bring redemption to all people.  This divine and eternal covenant launched out of Genesis and set course to see an aspect of its fulfillment in one particular descendant of Abraham, Jesus the Messiah!

CJK

About the Author