Although we devoted considerable time in our previous series to the covenantal promises God made to Abraham, we believe a brief refresher is now in order which will help in this study. Let’s pause once more to reflect on the Abrahamic Covenant, but from a fresh angle. As we move through this study, we’ll center our attention on this patriarchal covenant, underscoring the ways it speaks to Abraham’s own descendants rather than to the nations at large. At the heart of any examination of Israel’s identity lies the foundational reality of God’s covenant with Abraham. An Israelite is defined primarily by his/her lineage to the patriarch Abraham and in return to the covenant promises that Yahweh made with him (Romans 11:1). Let’s take a moment to examine some of the stipulations of that covenant in the book of Genesis.
Genesis 12:1-7
First and foremost, an Israelite is a descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Israel) and who finds an ancestral association with the 12 sons of Israel. According to the Torah, they are of the descendants that God promised to bless through a covenant. These covenant promises are first revealed in Genesis 12:1-7 where we read:
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, And from your relatives
And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you; And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you 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.”… The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him.
We see in the above text that there are four main promises pledged to Abraham by God in this covenant. Abraham was promised four things: a great nation of descendants, a role as the standard of blessing and cursing, possession of the land of Canaan, and the extension of divine blessing to all nations through him. So, in the stipulations of this covenant, the Patriarch Abraham becomes the agent of blessing to others who will see his descendants become so numerous that they will be called a great nation and even the blessing of foreign nations will be attributed to him. But just as importantly, God will confirm the promises also by giving him the land of Canaan.
Genesis 15:1-21
Later, in Genesis 15, God confirms these covenant promises with Abraham through a ceremony to ratify this covenant (Genesis 15: 1-21). To assure Abraham of the legitimacy of the promises, in light of Abraham’s age, God set His seal through this covenant ritual to guarantee the covenant stipulations. Not only does God establish the promises of Chapter 12 but now expands the understanding of these promises by stating that his descendants would be like the sands of the sea and reiterate that he would possess the land (vs. 5-7). Abraham asked for confirmation, and God responded by making a covenant with him and swearing an oath to uphold His promise. (v.18). The ritual of cutting the animals symbolized the severe consequences that would befall anyone who failed to uphold their obligations within the covenant.
Genesis 17: 1-21
Then, just two chapters later, in Genesis 17, Yahweh further expands the revelation of the promise. The text states that: you will be the father of a multitude of nations (v.4 & 5) and kings will come forth from you (v.6). Not only would Abraham be the father one particular nation but from him a multitude of nations and Kings would find their ancestry. This same promise was also made to Jacob (Genesis 35:11) and extend to the 12 tribes of Israel (Genesis 49:8-10). The sign of this covenant, circumcision, is then introduced as a means of Abraham and his descendants signing the covenant (Genesis 17:14) and strict obedience to “keep” this covenant was essential (Genesis 17:9).
So, with all this said, the first attribute to identify what makes Israel, Israel, is that they are descendants of Abraham, and heirs of the promises of Abraham. To receive the benefits of these covenant promises, they must take the the sign of the covenant (circumcision), along with a solemn charge to remain faithful to its terms. As part of the agreement, both blessings and curses are pronounced, contingent upon their obedience or failure to uphold the covenant. The Abrahamic Covenant becomes the foundation behind their identity and how God distributes blessings.
Physical Fulfillment of the Covenant?
Was God faithful to fulfil the promises of multiplying Abraham’s seed, making him a great nation to the extent that they’d be like the sand of the sea, for kings to come from him and most importantly in giving his descendants the land? Are we awaiting the fulfillment of the physical accomplishment of these promises even today? The scriptures are clear that the land promises that were assured to Abraham and his descendants were fulfilled. We read in Joshua 21:43-45 that God gave all the land to Israel that He had sworn to give them.
So the Lord gave Israel all the land which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they possessed it and lived in it. And the Lord gave them rest on every side, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers, and no one of all their enemies stood before them; the Lord gave all their enemies into their hand. Not one of the good promises which the Lord had made to the house of Israel failed; all came to pass.
We also read in Nehemiah that:
“You are the Lord God, Who chose Abram And brought him out from Ur of the Chaldees, And gave him the name Abraham. “You found his heart faithful before You, And made a covenant with him To give him the land of the Canaanite, Of the Hittite and the Amorite,
Of the Perizzite, the Jebusite and the Girgashite— To give it to his descendants. And You have fulfilled Your promise, For You are righteous. (Nehemiah 9:7-8)
The promise to multiply them as the sand on the sea was fulfilled in both the Old Testament:
Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand that is on the seashore in abundance; they were eating and drinking and rejoicing. (1 Kings 4:20)
and in the New Testament:
Therefore there was born even of one man, and him as good as dead at that, as many descendants as the stars of heaven in number, and innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. (Hebrews 11:12).
The physical promises to Abraham in God’s covenant were fulfilled which means that the Lord is no longer obligated to further carry out any of the stipulations. Some object to this by stating that the land promises were not accomplished entirely because the complete scope of the land was never granted to them. But for the land to be granted and all the promises of descendants to be given, there was a stipulation to the Abrahamic Covenant. They were required to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice (Genesis 18:18-19). Anyone who reads the Old Testament will recognize that the nation had strayed from the paths of righteousness and justice. Again and again, Yahweh confronted them for neglecting the responsibilities they had agreed to in the covenant.
But we know that even after these promises were given, there was still a future accomplishment to come communicated in the scriptures. Let’s turn to the New Testament.
New Testament Fulfillment
The New Testament reveals how the blessings promised to Abraham reach their fulfillment.
Brethren, I speak in terms of human relations: even though it is only a man’s covenant, yet when it has been ratified, no one sets it aside or adds conditions to it. 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. (Galatians 3:15-16)
In Galatians 3:15-16, Paul attributes the covenant blessings of progeny and land to one seed, not a multitude of seeds. That seed is explicitly identified as our Lord Jesus Christ. It would be the true descendant of Abraham, and in return, the true Israel, who would receive the culmination of these promises as the ultimate inheritor and beneficiary. The central inheritor of this covenant’s blessing is Christ, but Paul then makes another extraordinary statement at the end of this chapter. He writes to the Gentile believers in Galatia that There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise. (Galatians 3:28-29). Paul’s point is that those who are “in Christ” through faith, the same type of faith that Abraham exhibited in the offering of Isaac, could claim being a descendant (or seed) of Abraham and an inheritor of the promise (Galatians 3:6-7). The Gentiles would be the recipient of the promises of Abraham through the stipulation that all the nations would be blessed in him (Galatians 3:8b). It wasn’t to those physical descendants (regardless of one’s ethnicity, social status or sex), but those who were of the same faith as Abraham.
Still, there are those who contest this interpretation. The argument stems from the notion that God made promises to Israel and to the nations and that it is the latter that Galatians is addressing. But the seed in this text is not differentiating between the two. Christ is the one seed of Abraham, bringing about the salvation of both Jews and Gentiles by fulfilling the law of Moses which Old Testament Israel was bound to. Israel was bound to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, both that were fulfilled in Jesus (1 Corinthians 1:30; 1 John 2:1). It was Christ who fulfilled the stipulations of the Abrahamic Covenant and in return received its promises.
Weren’t the Promises to Physical Descendants?
For many, there is still a struggle in seeing these promises to Israel as fulfilled entirely in Christ and His spiritual progeny. Doesn’t the Old Testament say that the promises are for believing physical descendants of Abraham only? It is true that in the Old Testament, we are only told that the believing physical descendants of Abraham would receive the covenant promises. But we must remember that the New Testament shines a light on those promises and gives us clarity on how they’d be fulfilled. Ephesians 3:4-6 tells us that Gentile inclusion as co-heirs is the mystery of Christ which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations, but now revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.[1] The realization of these promises existed as a mystery to those under the Old Testament but came to light in the New. Paul further defines the identify of a descendant of Abraham in his epistle to the Romans.
For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God. (Romans 2:28-29).
Those promises that were promised to Abraham and in return fulfilled in Christ are not awaiting a physical fulfillment in the future by a return to the land or a rebuilt temple but are granted to both the Jew and the Gentile who is in Christ.
If Christ & the Church are the recipients of the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant under the New Covenant, and the New Testament says nothing of these physical covenantal promises being given to ethnic Israel alone, then the New Covenant saints, both Jews & Gentiles, are in fact descendants of Abraham and in return, Israel.
The Jews in the New Testament
Much like under the Old Testament, there were unbelieving Gentiles (with a very small cluster of believing Gentiles), unbelieving Jews and the remnant. The Jews in the days of Jesus were adamant that their righteous standing before God was through their lineage to Abraham. They continuously brought up Abraham as the source of their justification before God when challenged by the Lord Jesus (Matthew 3:9; John 8:33). The Lord rebuked them for their presupposed righteous standing because they were descendants of the great patriarch. Jesus warns that this lineage really had no significance if they didn’t do the works of Abraham. He tells them do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. (Matthew 3:9). Their desire to kill the Son of Man was evidence that they didn’t follow Abraham who obeyed God’s truth (John 8:39-40).The rebuke for their assumptions takes on a very different tone when the Lord states I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 8:11-12). The non-believing descendant of Abraham would never see receive the promises of Abraham because they would not receive it by faith.
In our next segment, we will look at another distinct attribute of Israel mainly that of a Faithful Son.
[1] Kingdom Come, Sam Storms, Page 190.
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