As we continue our study of the Abrahamic Covenant, one thing becomes readily apparent: history is moving in a certain direction. God’s plan continues to unfold in the great drama of saving sinners from His wrath that they justly deserve. The promises God made to Abraham in Genesis 12, which would later become formally established in a covenant-cutting ceremony, all point us to the one descendant of Abraham through whom all the promises would be completely fulfilled: Jesus Christ. So far, we have talked about two of those promises: a land and a seed. Today, we will be discussing the third and final promise laid out in our text in Genesis 12; namely, the universal blessing, paying particular attention to the text 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).
To put it plainly, the text means exactly what it says: the promise of blessing is universal in its extent. It is not limited to any particular ethnicity or culture. All who are children of Abraham, which we established last time is ultimately by faith in Christ, will receive the blessing of Abraham. But for many centuries this way in which the universal blessing would come to fruition was a mystery. After all, Abraham had multiple sons in his lifetime, but only one would receive the covenantal blessing, namely Isaac. Likewise, it was Jacob who would receive this blessing from Isaac, not Esau who sold his birthright in exchange for a little bit of food. How is it then that all of Abraham’s offspring would be blessed, especially as the Old Testament narrative continues to focus specifically on the nation of Israel as the beneficiary of the covenant promises? Thomas Schreiner made a similar point in his book Covenant and God’s Purpose for the World and wrote, “The promise of universal blessing isn’t emphasized in the Pentateuch or in the Historical Books, though it surfaces here and there.” Though the hints were there all along, they were nonetheless cloaked in mystery for many centuries. The mystery would only be revealed later in the New Testament.
The apostle Paul famously wrote about the revealing of that very mystery in the following passage in Ephesians:
“For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles—if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace which was given to me for you; that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief. By referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Ephesians 3:1-6).
The last phrase is the key to understanding the means through which this longtime mystery was revealed: “in Christ Jesus through the gospel”. Earlier in the epistle, Paul explained how the blood of Christ brought near all who were once far off, forever removing the barrier of the dividing wall (Ephesians 2:13-14). Jesus lived on our behalf as the perfect Seed of Abraham, never once violating the Law of God, and in order that the Gentiles might receive the covenantal blessing, He became a curse for us (Galatians 3:13). Abraham passed down the blessing to the Jews because it is the Jews among whom the Messiah would be born, and it is through the finished work of this very special Jewish Man, namely Christ Jesus, that all who put their faith in Him would therefore be counted among the blessed. Elsewhere, Paul also wrote: “For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all” (Romans 4:16). This promise is being fulfilled right now in the Church. Every day, people from all over the world come to true, saving faith, thereby becoming children of Abraham and receiving the blessing of knowing Christ and having eternal life.
While we who are in Christ experience this blessing right now, there is very much still a future aspect of this blessing of which we have not yet seen the full fulfillment. The world we presently live in is full of wickedness and violence, just as in the days of Noah. We do not live in a world that is characterized by what God promised to Abraham in Genesis 12. Yet, Scripture is clear that there will come a day when the world will be a place of universal peace and righteousness, a day when, “They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9). When Christ returns in glory, “all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:26). Though the future Millennial Kingdom will be a time of worldwide righteousness and peace, it is important to note that there will still be offspring of the initial survivors of the Tribulation (namely those who will be granted access into the Kingdom by Jesus Christ when He returns, see Matthew 25:31-46), that will need to hear and believe the gospel, thus the nation of Israel will once again be the missionary theocracy that it was always intended to be (see Micah 4:2). Aside from the very end of this future 1000-year period when the world will once again be in rebellion against Christ (Revelation 20:7-9), the Millennial Kingdom will be a time when genuine believers will be the majority, not a remnant like they are in our present age. In summary, the world will one day experience the fullness of the blessing that God promised to Abraham all those centuries ago.
The promise of a land, a seed, and a universal blessing are all realized in the person and work of Jesus Christ, and the culmination of that fulfillment will take place at His Second Coming. Abraham never saw any of the promises fully fulfilled in his lifetime, having died in his own land as a sojourner; yet he died in faith, having seen the promises and welcomed them from afar (Hebrews 11:13). As we continue to study the life of Abraham and his faith in the Lord in the coming weeks, we find that God did not leave Abraham with just verbal promises; He formalized them in a covenant-cutting ceremony, and later on established a particular sign with this covenant. Next time, we will be taking a closer look at when God first established the covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15 and the significance of the ceremony that ensued.
1 (Schreiner, 2017)