When God appeared to Abraham in Genesis 12, He made three distinct promises that would serve as the backbone of the Abrahamic Covenant: a land, a seed, and a blessing. Last time, we talked about the promise of the land that God would give to Abraham’s seed, and we ended our discussion with the singular and plural natures of the seed to whom the Promised Land belongs. Now, we turn our attention to the promise of the seed that would come from the loins of Abraham: who this seed would be, and how the identity of this seed fits in the redemption arc. To begin, we will once again be looking at Genesis 12, focusing particularly on the text shown in bold.
“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’” (Genesis 12:1-3)
When studying the life of Abraham, it is often noted that Abraham’s birth name, Abram, means “exalted father”, and this is true. The name is clearly prophetic as Abraham did not yet have children at the time when God first appeared to him. In fact, Moses went out of his way as early as Genesis 11:30 to remind his readers that Abraham’s wife Sarah was barren. But, God promised that Abraham’s very birth name would one day come to fulfillment: a great nation would indeed come out of his loins. Fast forward to Genesis 13, and we see God reinstating the same promise to Abraham. In showing him the land that his descendants would inherit, God said to him, “Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever. I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered” (v. 14-16). The Lord would repeat this promise to Abraham yet again in Genesis 15 when He said, “Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them…So shall your descendants be” (v. 5). Can one count every speck of dust on the earth? Can one count all the stars in the universe? It’s simply impossible, and that’s the point.
This would have been difficult for Abraham to imagine at this point in his life. In fact, many years would go by before God would finally open the womb of Abraham’s wife Sarah, whom the text reminds us was already past childbearing age (Genesis 18:11). It was during this time that Abraham and Sarah did not wait for that fulfillment, but thought that the descendants could come another way, namely through the maidservant Hagar, who bore Abraham a son named Ishmael. But why did the promise have to be fulfilled through Sarah? Was Ishmael not a son of Abraham? Indeed, Ishmael was Abraham’s son in the literal sense, but God would fulfill His promises according to His perfect will and timing, not according to what Abraham might do in his own ability. In other words, God would fulfill His promise to Abraham solely by His grace, not by Abraham’s works. It is for this reason that according to Galatians 4, Hagar and Sarah are allegories of two different covenants: one from Mt. Sinai and the other from the “Jerusalem above”. The former is a covenant of enslavement to works of the flesh, the latter is a covenant of freedom for all those who are children of promise.
Who are the children of promise? Paul answers this question in Galatians 3, where he famously wrote, “And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise” (v. 29). If you have placed your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are counted among the children of promise. This is the plural sense of the seed promised to Abraham, but where do we find that the seed is singular? The answer is found in the person and work of one particular descendant of Abraham, who would be born 2,000 years later: Jesus of Nazareth. The promises given to Abraham belong to all who are in Christ, who indeed is the one and only true Seed of Abraham (Galatians 3:16). In his book Covenant and God’s Purpose for the World, Thomas Schreiner explains it this way: “We know from the New Testament that Jesus Christ is the offspring of Abraham, the true heir of the promise. Hence, the promise of offspring and nation pointed toward the birth and rule of Jesus Christ“[1]. God’s plan of redemption is all about a Savior who would come from one particular lineage out of the loins of this one man whom God graciously plucked out of Ur of the Chaldeans. This lineage would later be further revealed to be a royal lineage from one particular descendant of Abraham, namely King David. In fact, we can even say that the covenant that God would later make with David, which we will further explore in this series, is a reminder that God remains faithful in keeping His eternal promises, including that of a promised Seed.
Is the seed of Abraham then singular or plural? The ultimate answer is yes. In summary, the plural seed wouldn’t be the plural seed at all without the singular seed. To be a true child of Abraham is to have not a certain pedigree, but a certain faith. Everyone, including ethnic Jews, have been commanded by God to turn away from their sins and put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, an outward demonstration of a true circumcision that is of the heart. As Paul wrote in Romans 2:28-29, “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.” Thus, all the descendants of Abraham are true descendants of Abraham because of the finished work of the true Seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ. Abraham rejoiced to see His day, and Abraham’s true offspring likewise rejoice in the day that Christ came and bore their sins on the cross and rose again on the third day.
This of course does not mean that God is finished with the ethnic nation of Israel, for Romans 11 makes it clear that they are under a partial hardening that will one day be removed. One day, there will be an entire ethnic nation of people who are literal offspring of Abraham, namely the Jews, that will enjoy the blessing of the literal fulfillment of all the promises God made to Abraham. The Old Testament reminds us of this far-future fulfillment time and time again in such ways that cannot be directly claimed by the Church. It is equally incorrect, however, to assert that the Church is a kind of “Plan B” in the eternal plan of God because of Israel’s failure to recognize their Messiah. Instead, the Church is made up of believers from every tribe, tongue, and nation, and is therefore the beginning of the fulfillment of the promise of universal blessing God made to Abraham. Everything is happening exactly according to God’s timetable!
Next time, we will talk more about this promise of universal blessing, from the current fulfillment we’re experiencing today in the Church age to the far fulfillment during the Millennial Kingdom when the whole world will experience the peace and righteousness of Christ, and how Christ is the one through whom we receive the blessing of Abraham.
[1] (Schreiner, 2017)