God’s Covenant with Abraham
Notes
Transcript
Handout
We praise God Who is Merciful
72 To perform the mercy promised to our fathers And to remember His holy covenant,
73 The oath which He swore to our father Abraham:
74 To grant us that we, Being delivered from the hand of our enemies, Might serve Him without fear,
75 In holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.
Introduction
If I make a covenant with God and I didn't keep my side of the covenant, will God fulfil his part?
Why are you making a covenant with God in the first place?
The Bible actually doesn’t say anything of instructing a person to make a covenant with God, but instead is filled with the fact that God makes covenants with His people, promising to bless them if they will trust Him and walk in obedience to His Word.
It is dangerous to make vows to God - because we often do not keep our word. How many of you have been there?
Even if we were able to do what we’ve promised, this is not what true Christianity is all about.
The basic idea behind us making vows or covenants with God is this: if I do something for God, and serve Him well, then surely He will love me, and reward me for what I’ve done - He’ll bless me, and ultimately give me a place in heaven.
However, this is not the message of the Bible - this is what we call religion.
Man’s failure to keep their covenants is seen all throughout the OT storyline. After rescuing the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt in the opening chapters of the book of Exodus, God proceeds to make numerous laws with His people, firstly for the governing of their lives together, and then for regulating the system of worship in the tabernacle. These laws in Exodus are also followed up by many others in the book of Leviticus, and what God essentially tells His people is this: "if you will obey these rules then you will know my blessing" (see Exodus 23:20-33, and also Deuteronomy 7:12-26 - when Moses was reminding the people of the covenant in Exodus).
However, we see from the history of Israel that even some of those we might know as the greatest of God’s servants, completely failed to keep the law in all its fullness.
On it’s own the law presents to us a covenant which is just impossible for us to keep. Therefore the New Testament reveals to us what the law was really there to do - firstly it confirms what we already know in Romans 3:19:
Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
The law was never there to give us the way to salvation, it was there to show us that we could never be good enough for God on our own, and in turn it was to point us to the real way of salvation, as we’re told in Galatians 3:24:
Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
So the purpose of the law wasn’t to save, but was to show us that we are sinners, and always fall short of the standard God requires of us. The law does this so that we might be ready to receive the real answer to our problem, and the only true way of salvation, which is found in Jesus Christ.
Don’t depend on any covenant you may have made with God in the past for Him to bless you.
You need to trust in the covenants God has made to you
1/ Why did God make covenants with man? - vs. 72
1/ Why did God make covenants with man? - vs. 72
to show mercy
There are 5 key Biblical covenants between God and man:
Noahic Covenant
Noahic Covenant
“While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Winter and summer, And day and night Shall not cease.”
Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
“...without this covenant, human sinfulness would have made the earth liable to one catastrophic judgment after another. Instead, God purposed to maintain the regular order of seasons and days and promised to never again destroy the earth with a flood or to destroy all living beings (Gen 8:22; 9:11).” (Brian Collins, “The Noahic Covenant,” in Lexham Survey of Theology).
Abrahamic Covenant
Abrahamic Covenant
Reducing the Abrahamic Covenant to its very basics, it contains three aspects: the land, the seed, and the blessing.
Luke 1–5: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary The Promise of the Abrahamic Covenant
Underscoring its crucial significance in the flow of redemptive history, the Abrahamic covenant is reiterated eight times in the book of Genesis (chapters 12; 13; 15; 17; 22; 26; 28, and 35).
Mosaic Covenant
Mosaic Covenant
setting apart Israel as the nation that would further the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant, carry out symbols and types that illumined God’s plan of redemption, and demonstrate the futility of any salvation based on personal righteousness.
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.”
So Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before them all these words which the Lord commanded him.
Then all the people answered together and said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” So Moses brought back the words of the people to the Lord.
Lexham Survey of Theology The Mosaic Covenant
In the Mosaic covenant, God promised the nation that they would be a special nation to him among the nations of the earth (Exod 19:5). He would be their God, and he would dwell among them (Exod 25:8). God had also promised Abraham that he would be a blessing to the nations, and God therefore intended for Israel to bless the nations by serving in a priestly role to them—Israel was supposed to draw the nations to God (Exod 19:6; Deut 4:5–8). God also promised blessing to the nation of Israel if it obeyed the commands of the Lord within the covenant (Deut 28:1–14). The blessing to the nation focused on both seed and land. The land and kingship promises to Abraham are applied to the nation in the Mosaic covenant. The nation will be a kingdom (19:6) which will inherit the land promised to Abraham (34:11).
Lexham Survey of Theology The Mosaic Covenant
The Mosaic covenant stands in continuity with the other covenants with its focus on blessing, seed, and land (cf. Gen 1:28). It stands distinct from the other covenants, however, with its focus on God’s law. Beginning with the Ten Commandments, God gives the people numerous laws in the overall Mosaic covenant. This is partly due to its function as a national covenant. It deals with the kinds of legal issues that all nations must deal with. But much of the instruction—such as that dealing with the tabernacle and sacrificial system—served as symbols that pointed toward greater fulfillment in Christ.
Renewal of the Covenant in Deut 29-30 reiterates the land promise
Davidic Covenant
Davidic Covenant
God promised an eternal Davidic kingdom that would restore the rule of man under God’s greater rule on earth.
The Lord has sworn in truth to David; He will not turn from it: “I will set upon your throne the fruit of your body.
If your sons will keep My covenant And My testimony which I shall teach them, Their sons also shall sit upon your throne forevermore.”
New Covenant
New Covenant
“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—
not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord.
But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
The Davidic covenant is universal; it involves the eternal rule of Jesus Christ over all. The Abrahamic covenant is national; it designates God’s promised blessing of Israel. The New covenant is personal; it refers to God forgiving sin in the lives of individuals.
No one will enter into the full blessings of the Davidic and Abrahamic covenants apart from the salvation provided in the New covenant.
2/ What promises did God make to Abraham? - vs. 73
2/ What promises did God make to Abraham? - vs. 73
The Blessing
The Blessing
I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
The Land
And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you.
Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”
On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates—
the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites,
the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim,
the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”
The Seed
I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you.
And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you.
Then God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.
And I will bless her and also give you a son by her; then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall be from her.”
Unconditional
Unconditional
And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you.
Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him.
Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years.
And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions.
Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age.
But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces.
3/ How will God fulfill his Covenant with Abraham? - vs. 74-75
3/ How will God fulfill his Covenant with Abraham? - vs. 74-75
To grant us that we, Being delivered from the hand of our enemies, Might serve Him without fear,
In holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.
He gave him a Son - Isaac
He gave him a Son - Isaac
Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.”
God reiterates the covenant to Isaac (Gen 26:2-5, 24) and to Jacob (Gen 28:13-15)
He made him a great Nation - Israel
He made him a great Nation - Israel
Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you.
I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
He sent a Savior for all Mankind - Jesus
He sent a Savior for all Mankind - Jesus
In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
How then was it accounted? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised.
And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also,
and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised.
Biblical Doctrine: A Systematic Summary of Bible Truth The Abrahamic Covenant
Believing Gentiles and Jews retain their ethnic identities, but both are united to Abraham through faith and are identified as descendants of Abraham (see Gal. 3:29). The Abrahamic covenant, therefore, affirms that all kinds of people will be saved by grace through faith like Abraham but that Jews and Gentiles will retain their ethnic identities within the people of God.
And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
He will give him the land - in the Millennial Kingdom
He will give him the land - in the Millennial Kingdom
“Reducing the Abrahamic Covenant to its very basics, it contains three aspects: the land, the seed, and the blessing. The land aspect is developed in the Palestinian Covenant[my note: land covenant made in Deut. 29]; the seed aspect is covered in the Davidic Covenant; and the blessing aspect is presented in the New Covenant.” (Fruchtenbaum, Israelology, 575–576)
Ryrie’s Basic Theology B. The Premillennial Viewpoint
Premillennialism insists that all the provisions of the Abrahamic Covenant must be fulfilled since the covenant was made without conditions. Much of the covenant has already been fulfilled and fulfilled literally; therefore, what remains to be fulfilled will also be fulfilled literally. This brings the focus on the yet-unfulfilled land promise. Though the nation Israel occupied part of the territory promised in the covenant, she has never yet occupied all of it and certainly not eternally as the covenant promised. Therefore, there must be a time in the future when Israel will do so, and for the premillennialist this will be in the coming millennial kingdom. Thus the Abrahamic Covenant gives strong support for premillennial eschatology.
Conclusion
How do you respond to God’s promises?
Application Questions:
1/ Why is it merciful for God to make a covenant with man?
2/ Do relationships require covenants? Why or why not?
3/ How does the Abrahamic Covenant impact the church today?
4/ Why is it significant that part of the Abrahamic Covenant has been literally fulfilled?
5/ What are some ways your family could be a blessing to others?