“The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’”(Genesis 12:1-3).

Let us review the covenants we have learned about so far:

1. God’s Covenant with Adam – a conditional, or works-based, covenant. Adam broke the covenant and introduced sin into the world.
2. God’s Covenant with Noah – God’s unconditional, or grace-based, covenant with Noah and his descendants (in other words: all of us) whereby he dealt with corruption caused by sin and promised never to destroy the earth by flood again.

Later in Genesis, we find God making another unconditional covenant of grace with Abraham. In this covenant, as given in Genesis 12, God promised to bless the world through one family and through one Son from that family. This covenant gave Abraham many descendants, a good land, and a great name.

All of this came at God’s initiative; God chose Abraham and announced to him what he would do for him. In Genesis 15:17-18 we read of a sacred ceremony called a blood covenant where God covenanted to fulfil this promise. This ceremony was how the culture of the day sealed their contracts. Typically, both parties to the agreement passed between the carcasses. In this case, only God had to pass. In essence, God was covenanting with Himself to make and keep this promise to Abraham and his descendants. And “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6).

Both Paul in his letters to the Romans and Galatians, and James in his letter, recall this verse from Genesis 15:6 to emphasize that we are we are ultimately declared righteous because the obedience of Christ is imputed to us through faith in Him alone. In other words, we are saved by the work of Jesus—his obedience. The passage from James goes on to say that faith without works is dead. He is not saying that our works save us, but he is saying that our works are a demonstration of our faith just as Abraham showed his faith by seeking to obey God and repenting when he fell short (James 2:14-26).

This covenant frames up much of what transpires in the remainder of the Old Testament as the people of Israel seek to live in relationship with God; how they cycle through obedience, complacency, disaster, repentance, obedience, and so on. If you are anything like me, it should sound familiar. And what is so beautiful, is that God never walks away. He is always there, keeping his part of the covenant, ready to greet them/us with open arms when we decide to return to him.

This Abrahamic covenant has far-reaching power, and Abraham was considered a great man of faith because  ^“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going….And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.” (Hebrews 11:8, 12).

What exactly is faith? “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). We can have this confidence because our God does not change and He keeps his promises. “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed” (Malachi 3:6).

This Hebrews Hall of Fame of Faith sums it up by saying “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.” (Hebrews 11:39-40).

Abraham looked forward to God’s salvation; we look back on it since Jesus has come. As we said before, all of God’s promises are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. According to Got Questions, “Five times in Genesis 12, as God is giving the Abrahamic Covenant, He says, “I will.” Clearly, God takes the onus of keeping the covenant upon Himself. The covenant is unconditional. One day, Israel will repent, be forgiven, and be restored to God’s favor (Zechariah 12:10–14; Romans 11:25–27). One day, the nation of Israel will possess the entire territory promised to them. One day, the Messiah will return to set up His throne, and through His righteous rule the whole world will be blessed with an abundance of peace, pleasure, and prosperity.”

How does this promise relate to us today? “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:26-29).

This is one in a series on the Promises of God which started on January 4, 2023. In subsequent Chaplain’s Corners, we will continue to look at these promises and with them, the nature of our awesome God.

In Christ,

Judy