God's Covenant with Abraham

​“Go to the land I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.”

Genesis 12:1-2

God’s Covenant with Abraham

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A study on the 7 Divine Covenants of Scripture

Be sure to check out the previous articles on God’s covenant with Adam & Noah

​Father Abraham had several sons;
several sons had Father Abraham.
I am one of them, and so are you.
So let’s just praise the Lord!

Unfortunately, that old kids tune is going to be stuck in your head for the next three to five days.  Don’t be surprised if you develop a twitch in your right arm too.

On the brighter side, this earworm sums up the beauty of God’s covenant promises.

The earth had become exceedingly corrupt again.  At the Tower of Babel humanity raised a fist at God, defying his mandate to fill the earth and subdue it.  So, like he had done in the flood, God acted in judgment. He cursed man’s lips and dispersed them throughout the earth.

In Genesis 12 the Lord demonstrates his grace.  His favor comes to rest on a fellow by the name of Abraham.  The Lord establishes a covenant with him, promising him a land, decedents, and that he himself would become a means of blessing the entire globe.

There is a sense in which a new order is started in Abraham.  After Babel, the Lord essentially hits the reset button and starts again with one man and his wife.  It is, as it were, a new creation sprouting out of the chaos of sinful humanity.

There is also a sense in which the story is an old one.  The promises to Abraham develop the story that is already in progress.  These promises enlarge and expand upon the promises which God had already given to Adam & Noah.  

God had told Adam that a Satan crusher would come.  His promise to multiply Abraham’s offspring makes sense in this light.  He would be the channel through which the Seed of the woman would spring.  

To Noah God had promised a preserved earth.  Thus, it is not without warrant that Abraham had hopes to inherit a land.  

Often people get confused at this point.  While the narrative of Abraham (and subsequently Israel as a whole) focuses on the land of Canaan, we should not be so limited in our understanding.  Hebrews tells us that Abraham’s hopes were much larger than that strip of real estate along the Mediterranean coast.

“For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God…he desired a better country, a heavenly one.”  (Hebrews 11:10,16)

In other words, the promises were salvific.  They stemmed from the mother promise of Genesis 3:15.  Satan would be crushed and the original creation would be restored.

In a word, Abraham hoped to inherit the whole earth.

Abraham not only looked forward to a Redeemer and a redeemed earth, he also had been promised a redeemed people.  For in Abraham “all the families of the earth will be blessed.”  

Abraham may be the father of the Jewish race according to his flesh, but that is not his only people.  The New Testament makes it clear that Abraham’s children are a global body because he is “the father of all who believe,” Jews and Gentiles (Rom. 4:11)
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As people are converted throughout the world, families all over the globe come to share in the Abrahamic blessing.  God’s kindness is shed far and wide as the Lord’s saving power is widely proclaimed and wholeheartedly received.

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