“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. 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. 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 ESV)
Covenants mark the narrative of redemption. God chose people like Adam, Noah, and David and made sovereign agreements with them regarding present and future actions he would complete. These covenants included promises like the withholding of further global destruction (Genesis 8:20-22) and the eternal reign of the Davidic heir (2 Samuel 7). As God established covenants with his people throughout Scripture, each one built upon those previous, not like individual, self-contained monuments but like steppingstones that, though distinct, fit together to form one redemptive path.
Genesis 12:1-3 is a precursor to one such covenant. Three chapters later, God would formally make a covenant with Abram which included the promises of a land, a people, and a blessing, which are seen in seed form here.
Abram and his immediate descendants would see partial fulfillment of these promises during their lifetimes, but this would be only a foreshadowing of their ultimate fulfillment in Christ.
When Abram’s descendants eventually possessed the Promised Land, it was a climactic event in Israel’s history as they entered what was promised. Yet, as the author of Hebrews notes, not even their rest in the physical Promised Land can compare to the ultimate rest that awaits us in glory.
The growth of the nation of Israel to a population of around two million at the time of the Exodus was proof of God fulfilling his promise to make Abram’s descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven (Genesis 15:5). Furthermore, the church of Jesus Christ, composed of both Jews and Gentiles from among all the nations (Revelation 7:9), represents an even deeper fulfillment.
Abram became a blessing to the nations of the ancient world in various ways—not least of all through Joseph’s saving of Egypt from famine—and, as would become clearer later, it was through Abram’s offspring that Jesus (Genesis 22:18) would bring full and eternal blessing to the nations through the efficacious blood of his sacrifice on the cross.
These promises, declared millennia before Christ’s coming, give significance to our celebration at Advent. Christ, the Messiah, is most certainly a gift to us today. By looking to Christ as the object of our personal faith for salvation, personal righteousness is imputed to us, by which we stand personally justified before a holy God. This personal faith, however, must not cause our view of Christmas or Christ’s work to be myopic. While it is true that we would not be saved without the Messiah, we must also recognize that there would be no Messiah without God’s covenant with Abraham.
Christ blesses all nations by providing a way of salvation for all who are far off and at enmity with God. He brings every single blood-bought saint into the innumerable nation of those who are his inheritance, and he secures for us an eternal land of peace and rest.
While we cannot take every promise given to Abram, or to the nation of Israel that came from his bloodline, and apply it directly to ourselves, we are the recipients of the most complete fulfillment of those promises.
Our faith is not merely a “New Testament” faith as some claim. Our faith is a whole Bible faith. If we unhitch ourselves from everything that precedes Matthew 1:1, our faith will be empty and inconsequential by comparison.
The gospel message, which is for all nations, is the outflow of God’s promise to make Abram’s offspring a blessing to the nations. The work of missions is necessarily a work of Abrahamic roots. The dividing wall of hostility between Jews and Gentiles (Ephesians 2:14) is broken down because God is fulfilling his promise to Abram.
At Advent, we remember that Christ came to fulfill the promises God made to Abram. It is through Christ’s coming, and the work he accomplished, that these promises find final fulfilment.
Prayer:
Heavenly Father,
Thank you for the spiritual heritage and blessings we inherit from your promises to Abraham. As we celebrate the coming of Christ during Advent, help us to also remember Abram, and his faith in your promises, which you are always faithful to fulfill.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
Prayer Requests:
- Tuesday: Pray for gospel ministry in Canada through the Open Toronto Initiative.
- Wednesday: Pray for several of the missionaries on the Togo team as they also engage in church planting efforts in Benin.
- Thursday: Pray for Live Global missionaries Felix and Oana as they do church planting work in Bucharest, Romania.
- Friday: Pray for missionaries engaged in evangelistic agricultural education and computer training in South Asia.
- Saturday: Pray for an ABWE publishing ministry in Chile.
- Sunday: Pray for missionaries doing pro-life ministry in Costa Rica.
- Monday: Pray for missionaries who are serving East Asian pastors with training and resources.
