The Doctrine of Revelation: The Storyline of Scripture (Part 9)

Father Abraham had many sons, many sons had father Abraham. I am one of them…though I am not a Jew.

Those are the words of a song I sang as a little boy, well except for that last part. We all marched around, increasingly getting faster (for some weird reason) singing those words over and over and over again. But the reality hit me many years later that this is an odd thing to sing. After all, I am a Caucasian middle-class American male with Scottish ancestors. How can I rightly sing about being a “child of Abraham.” The answer comes as we study Scripture and see that Abraham’s family is ultimately pointing forward to Jesus’ family.

Genesis 12 sets up the covenant that God made with Abraham, which contained three specific aspects: land, name, and blessing. Here’s how the text reads:

1 Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.  2 And 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.  3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3)

What we find is that each aspect of this covenant is ultimately only fulfilled in Christ and only for the people that belong to Him.

Take “land,” for example. God promises Abraham that His people will be settled and they will be His people and He will be their God. Chapter 17 makes this point clear, and yet for all its history Israel still labors, fights, and finds themselves in turmoil. That is because this promise is not directed to a literal land nor to an ethnic people, but in Christ is directed towards the church and to a promised land that is given by God, come down from heaven (Revelation 21:2). Greg Gilbert and Kevin DeYoung speak of it this way:

That refrain, “I will be their God,” shows up again and again in the story of Israel, declaring God’s intention in this great work of redemption: he will bring the people into the land and cleanse them of their sin. Thus they will be his people, and he will be their God. (The Mission of the Church, 77)

That cleansing from sin is only fully realized in Jesus, the sacrificial lamb of God.

In “name,” we find that God’s focus is on making Abraham a great nation. Though Abraham is older than dirt (Paul calls him as as good as dead in Romans 4:19), God promises to make him the father of a great multitude. The nation of Israel will be great, praised and beloved above all. God repeats this same theme in Isaiah, centuries later (2:2); but ultimately this only finally happens in the true Israel: Jesus. Paul makes this abundantly clear in Galatians 3.

16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. (Galatians 3:16)

Jesus is the fulfillment of Abraham’s great name.

Finally, in “blessing” we see this most clearly. Abraham was to be a blessing to all the nations, verse 3 tells us. Even in the election of Israel God is seeking a universal blessing. But how was Abraham a blessing to all nations? Again Paul makes the point clear. In Galatians 3 he writes:

8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”  9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. (Galatians 3:8-9)

Again he writes:

11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.”  12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.”  13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us- for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”-  14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. (Galatians 3:11-14)

It is in Christ, and only in Christ, that I can sing that silly song (not that I do anymore). In Christ all believers are grafted into the tree of Israel and are made heirs of the promise, heirs of the covenant. Abraham’s greatest legacy is all about Jesus!