God’s Covenant with Abraham
God invited Abraham into a special relationship with him called a covenant. A covenant is a faithful agreement between two parties. As his part of the covenant, God made important promises to Abraham. These promises extended far beyond Abraham’s own lifetime, to involve his descendants as well. As such, God’s covenant with Abraham is global and even eternal in scope. That’s why God’s 4,000-year-old covenant with Abraham is vitally important for your life as a believer today. The promises apply not just to Abraham’s literal descendants, but others can also become adopted children of Abraham and thus receive the same promises.
The Covenant Promises
The initial statement of God’s covenant promises is found in Genesis 12.
Genesis 12:1-3 The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”
The promises God made to Abraham fall into three categories. First, God promised a great posterity (“a great nation”) and a land for them to live in (“the land that I will show you”). This refers to the people of Israel, through whom came the prophets, the Scriptures, and the Messiah himself. Second, God promised to extend his blessings beyond Abraham and beyond his descendants until “all the families on earth will be blessed through you”). This promise eventually culminated in the death and resurrection of Abraham’s greatest descendant, Jesus Christ – the Savior of the world.
The Promise of Justification
In another passage (Genesis 15:6), God also promised Abraham the gift of justification. He declared Abraham righteous before him because of Abraham’s faith. God had promised to act on Abraham’s behalf. The appropriate response to this was faith. Abraham had to learn to trust God for these promises. But in the end, he trusted God to keep his word even in the face of all appearances. His first act of faith was to leave his homeland to go to an unknown land God said He would show him. Most significantly, he trusted God for an heir through whom the promised nation would come, even though he and his wife were beyond child-bearing years. In response to that faith, God declared Abraham justified. That is, He promised to forgive Abraham’s sin: past, present, and future.
We Are Included
How does this relate to us? This becomes clear in the New Testament. Many Jews rejected Jesus as their Messiah. As the apostle Paul wrestled with this troubling fact, he wrote, “ Being descendants of Abraham doesn’t make them truly Abraham’s children” and “Abraham’s physical descendants are not necessarily children of God” (Romans 9:7-8). In Galatians 3, he took this one step further: “The real children of Abraham are those who put their faith in God” just as Abraham trusted God (Galatians 3:7). This includes people who are not Jewish (verse 14): “Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham.” In conclusion, Paul says (verse 29), “And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.”
What Counts Is Faith
Abraham was justified before God by his faith. Likewise, if you have come to God through faith, like he did, you are his heir. The great promises of God apply to you. Your sins are forgiven. You are right with God. God is for you.
Romans 4:23-24 And when God counted him as righteous, it wasn’t just for Abraham’s benefit. It was recorded for our benefit, too, assuring us that God will also count us as righteous if we believe in him, the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.
Abraham lived 2,000 years before Jesus came to earth, but he was declared righteous because he had faith in what God had promised he would do. We live 2,00o years after Jesus came, but we are declared righteous when we place our faith in what God has done through Jesus Christ.
- What is your initial reaction to this topic? What jumped out at you?
- What is the biggest promise anyone ever made to you? Has that promise been fulfilled?
- How should Abraham’s faith affect the way you think about and relate to God?
- Consider God’s plan to bless “all the nations” through His promise to Abraham. What implications does this have for how we view the world today?
- Write a personal action step based on this conversation.
