02. The Promise of the Seed to Abraham

And the angel of Jehovah called unto Abraham a second time out of heaven, and said, By myself have I sworn, saith Jehovah, because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice. (Gen 22:15–18 ASV)

 

(I will follow the 1901 American Standard Version in the Old Testament references to maintain the link with ‘the Seed.’ I’ll revert to the NKJV in the New Testament references.)

Following the Seed

In the first of this Advent series, we went back to the beginning, to the First Book of Moses (Genesis). In the above passage the story has moved on, and we have arrived at one of the great events of the Old Testament; this is the time of Abraham’s testing and is approximately 2000 years before the birth of Christ. It records a unique event. It would be good to read the whole chapter… slowly, and to wonder at the event that is recorded here. It records a unique moment when God took an oath! Abraham has set out to obey a strange word that God had brought to him. He was to travel to the area of Moriah and sacrifice his son Isaac:

The words are electrifying: ‘Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest…’ For those living in our own era they point unmistakably to another Father and another beloved Son and another place of sacrifice.

Why would God take an oath?

The writer to the Hebrews tells us plainly.

   For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, “Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.” And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute. Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. (Heb 6:13–18 NKJV)

 

It was in order that strong ‘consolation’ (better ‘encouragement’) might be given to ‘lay hold of the hope set before us’. It was, in a word, not to increase the certainty of the event but to encourage those who heard it. The word translated ‘consolation’ here is the Greek word ‘parakaleō’. No doubt Abraham would have been emotionally exhausted by the drama that he had just experienced. God took an oath to encourage him, and, through him, us.

But it is not only in the epistle to the Hebrews that we find a reference to this event. In the letter to the Galatians Paul gives a definitive interpretation to this ‘promise with an oath’. He boldly asserts that ‘the Seed’ promised here in Genesis 22 is a reference to Christ himself and later asserts that all those ‘in Christ’ are Abraham’s Seed. Breathtaking!

“…that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” (Gal. 3:14 NKJV)

What is a Gentile?

It is someone who is outside the Covenant. At Sinai God separated the people of Israel from all others. In a technical sense there were no ‘Gentiles’ before Sinai. Sinai created a unique and watertight people group to be his own covenant people. He was to be their God and they were to be his people, exclusively. It was an exclusive covenant.

“Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.” (Ex. 19:5–6 NKJV)

It’s easy to miss the phrase ‘all the earth is mine’ in this quotation but it is important. From this time forward, during the period of the Sinai Covenant, this distinction between Israel and the nations (Heb. Goiim, nations/Gentiles) is the backdrop to the whole history of the people of Israel and their covenant God; Jehovah/Yahweh. The Bible is not the story of world history. It is the story of God’s people and his relationship with them. Other nations come into the story as they ‘touch the apple of God’s eye’ but many nations have no part in this story and their history is not recorded. Only the times and places where the story of the nations (Gentiles) touches the story of Israel have a place in this narrative.

Abraham, technically, was neither Jew nor Gentile. His times were hundreds of years prior to the distinction created by the Sinai covenant.

Paul, in the epistle to the Galatians, however has not missed the significance of the ‘promise with an oath’ given to Abraham, and he knows that God neither overlooked or forgot it. Part of the significance of Christ’s death was to ensure that the ‘blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ.’ As he graphically describes it elsewhere…

“Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands— that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.” (Eph. 2:11–16 NKJV)

 

There we have it. The Gentiles were “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise”.

“But now… in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation…”

For those ‘in Christ’ there is now neither Jew nor Greek (Gentile).

“For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Gal. 3:26–29 NKJV)

Covenant Clarity

The epistle to the Galatians is very clear about the distinctions between covenants. It makes it clear that the covenant between God and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob is to be distinguished from the covenant between Jehovah/Yahweh and the covenant people of Israel. Just as later the epistle is very clear about the distinction between the Sinai Covenant and the Calvary Covenant. There are, Paul declares, ‘two covenants’.

Abraham’s Covenant was brought into force centuries before the Sinai Covenant and Christ brought the Sinai Covenant to its fulfilment and conclusion at Calvary. But this remarkable scripture leaps from Abraham to Christ and a covenant that brings all peoples into the family of God. It is an insight that has great implications for our own day. Way back, 2000 years before Christ, God had you in mind and swore an oath in his own name to encourage you that you are included in his provisions in Christ.