Playing Chess With the Devil: Making Sense of the Most Popular Book In the World. Genesis 12-22. The Covenant With Abraham. Lesson 7
The Importance of Abraham
You are now approaching one of the most important sections of Scripture there is as far as interpretation of the Bible is concerned. Genesis 12-22 is absolutely key for understanding much of the rest of the Bible. Romans, Galatians, and parts of Hebrews are directly linked to these chapters. Without some kind of knowledge of Genesis – and Abraham in particular – much of the Bible is not going to make any sense. Furthermore, Genesis 12-22 presents the first major fork in the road for Biblical interpretation that will determine many things for a believer from this point on. It will sway one on which group of Christians he is likely to associate with, what churches he is likely to attend, what denominations he will likely join, and all kinds of emphases that will attract his attention, such as prophecy and his view on the nation of Israel, for example. In addition, one of the most dramatic periods of revelation in the history of redemption was about to begin. In the next 200 years, the Lord gave a ton of information about Eve’s Avenger and His identity.
Christ Primary in Genesis 12-22
After His resurrection In Luke 24:13-27, Jesus appeared on the road to Emmaus and walked unrecognized with His disciples who were discussing all the events that had happened primarily in the previous week. Jesus asked them what they were talking about, and they were astounded that He had not heard about these events. When he asked them “What things?”, they told Him about the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, his crucifixion, the disappearance of His body and the reported appearance of angels at his tomb that very morning. All this was related with sadness and perplexity about what it all meant. It was then that Jesus said,
“‘How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” (See also John 5:39)
In this summary of Scripture above, you will come to understand that Jesus would have had to talk about Abraham and how he pointed to Himself in His suffering followed by glory. Although you might not expect it, God’s covenant with Abraham is LOADED with Christ as the major theme in these verses.
The Covenant With Abraham – The Promise
**There is a diagram towards the end of this lesson on page 9 that you may use to follow the development of this discussion about Abraham’s heir. It may be found also at: http://public.iwork.com/document/?a=p38279198&d=Lesson_7_-_Genesis_12-22_-_The_Covenant_With_Abraham.pages
When Genesis 12 begins, Abraham and his childless wife were living in Haran with his father Terah. The whole family had been on its way from Ur of the Chaldees to go live in Canaan but had settled in Haran along the way. When Abraham was 75 and his wife Sarah was 65, God spoke to Abraham and made a covenant promise him. Remember that Abraham was directly in the promised line of Shem through whom the Redeemer would come.
The covenant promise to Abraham is found in Genesis 12:3-4 in its initial portion, but it just keeps coming and unfolding in the following chapters with more information. Let’s take a look at each of these installments and see how the content of the covenant develops as time passes.
The first is in Genesis 12:3,4. Four simple facts are presented.
I will make you a great nation.
I will make your name great.
I will bless/curse those who bless/curse you.
All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.
The second installment is just a few verses later in Genesis 12:7. “I will give your offspring this land.” God will give Abraham a LAND and OFFSPRING. It is easy to start concluding prematurely that the land and people are Canaan or Israel and the Jews or the nation of Israel.
In the third mention of this covenant promise in Genesis 13:14-16, God says he will give both ABRAHAM and his OFFSPRING this LAND FOREVER, and the offspring will be as INNUMERABLE AS THE DUST OF THE EARTH. Although many think the land is Canaan or Israel, Abraham knew right then that it wasn’t because God said the land given to his offspring would be theirs FOREVER. Isn’t it apparent that Canaan and Israel aren’t going to be there forever? The Bible tells us the end of this world is coming, all will be burned up, and there will be a new heavens and a new earth, II Peter 3:10-13. Therefore, Abraham looked forward to not just a small, local patch of land but to an entirely new WORLD that would be his and his offspring’s, which is exactly what Romans 4:13 says, “…Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world…”
In Genesis 15:1, the 4th mention of the covenant promise, God tells Abraham what the real objective of the covenant is: GOD HIMSELF is Abraham’s great reward. Here is a hint at what is coming. It is called the Immanuel Principle, that God will dwell in the midst of His people and be with them forever.
Let’s summarize what we have so far. God is going to make Abraham’s name great by making him into a great nation of people who are as numerous as the dust of the earth in their own land, which is the world, forever where God Himself will be the great reward. The land will not be the center of Abraham’s inheritance. The blessing of the covenant is that God Himself will be the heart of the inheritance and will be what the covenant promise is all about, which is exactly the condition that existed in the Garden of Eden where Adam lived directly in the presence of and in fellowship with his Creator . Here God announces that He is restoring through Abraham a people in a world that will be theirs forever and a condition (God with them) which will approximate Eden.
To continue the fourth announcement in Genesis 15:2-5, since Abraham had yet had no children to even suggest he was going to have any of the promises mentioned, Abraham concludes that his heir must be his servant Eliezer. However, God tells him that a son from Abraham’s own body – other than Eliezer his servant – will be his heir and through that son his offspring will be as numerable as the stars. Now let’s stop right here. No name of the child he will have is given. Nor is a time given when this will happen. It looks as if Abraham concluded somehow that this Son from his own body would be the “great reward” of God Himself and the One who would link together all these promises he was being given. You must remember that Abraham was in the direct line of Noah and Shem and Peleg through whom the promise of the Redeemer would come. So Abraham was probably aware of part of his heritage and the fact that the Conqueror would likely come through his branch of the family. It is not difficult to conclude that from what he had heard thus far that the promise was actually going to be realized through himself. When one reads Genesis 15:6, that seems to be exactly what Abraham thought because the text says, “…he believed the Lord, and He (the Lord) counted it to him as righteousness.” One is not counted righteous by believing just anything God says or by believing that any son would come from him but by believing in Christ who justifies the ungodly. This is exactly the point expressed in Romans 3:21-4:5. Jesus Himself expressed exactly what Abraham believed, and what became clearer and clearer to Abraham as his days passed, in John 8:56, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see MY day. He saw it and was glad.”
In addition, there is something even more significant here that comes from the New Testament and may not be so apparent without the New Testament. Galatians 3:16 says, “Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring (seed). It does not say, ‘And to offsprings (seeds),’ referring to many, but referring to one, ‘And to your offspring,’ who is Christ.” So it is clear the promises God made to Abraham were also to Christ, who was the single heir, or Seed, of Abraham in whom all these offspring as numerable as dust and stars are found. What this means is that the promise of land (or the world) and people was to Abraham’s ONE SEED. The promises weren’t made to many people, which is what one could easily conclude without Galatians 3:16. If the promises had been made to many people, then the promises would have been made to the Jews. But Paul says in Galatians that the promises were made to one seed, or one person, who is Christ.
With that in mind, take another look at Genesis 12:3,4.
I will make you a great nation – God will make Christ into a great nation.
I will make your name great – a name that is above every name.
I will bless/curse those who bless/curse you – depending on what one does with Christ, that is his destiny.
All peoples on earth will be blessed through you – people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. It all refers to Christ.
View Christ through Genesis 13:14-16, “All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted.” All the land, or the world (according to Romans 4:13) will be given to Christ, and the offspring through Christ will be as the dust of the earth (or innumerable). All of this accords with other Scriptures about Christ. For example, in Psalm 2:8 God says to His Son, “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.” There is the promise of people and land to Abraham’s single Seed.
Therefore, Abraham concluded somewhere in here that whoever his Son was going to be, He was his heir and all the offspring promised to Abraham was in that one Seed, or Heir, or connected to that Seed.
The Oath – Genesis 15:8-21
After Abraham believed God’s promise about the heir from his own body, he asked God this question, “How can I know I will take possession of the land, or world, you promised me forever?” He wanted some assurance.
That question provoked an incredible response from God, as it should have. God could have simply said to Abraham, “Because I SAID SO.” That would have and could have ended it all right there because the Bible says that God NEVER LIES, Titus 1:2, Numbers 23:19. But God didn’t do that. God did something that has never been repeated ever again. One who never lies does not need to do anything else when He makes a promise. His word is truth, and it is sufficient by itself. But in this case, God went further than that and backed up his promise with an OATH, or another short term promise to guarantee the long term promise. It was a promise to promise. The One who never lies took an oath to prove He was telling the truth. This is an incredulous event, and it has ramifications one would not expect. The writer to Hebrews refers to God’s promise and His oath in Genesis 15 as “two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie…” Hebrews 6:13-18. The first unchangeable thing was God’s promise. Then comes the second unchangeable thing, God’s oath.
He told Abraham to cut into pieces a heifer, a female goat, a ram, and place with them a slain turtle dove and pigeon. He caused a deep sleep to fall upon Abraham. God then gave Abraham a powerful vision in which He passed between the pieces of the slain and torn animals.
Abraham knew what God was doing. He had taken part in similar ceremonies. This is the way important contracts were sealed in his culture. If two people agreed to certain terms, instead of signing documents they would both pass between parts of animals that had been killed and hewn. They were declaring, “May this be done to me if I do not fulfill my promises.” God passed through the carnage of the dissected animals. It was a unilateral covenant. Only God passed through those pieces. He was saying to Abraham: “May this be done to me if I do not fulfill my promises to you.” He made a covenant to forfeit His own life should He fail. Since God cannot lie, Hebrews 6 says that this promise and oath together is a “sure and steadfast anchor for the soul (verse 19).” We have God’s promise, and we have His promise supported by His oath that what He promised to Abraham will come to pass. God essentially said that when you see the oath completed, you will know for an absolute certainty that I will fulfill my promise.
The oath included God passing through the pieces of meat, but it also included some very specific new information in 15:13-16, 18-21. God said that the physical descendants that would come from Abraham would eventually be in bondage in a land not theirs (Egypt) for 400 years. God promised He would deliver Abraham’s physical descendants from Egypt and bring them to Canaan once the Amorites had filled up their cup of sins. It is then that God will give Abraham’s physical descendants the physical land of Canaan in its entirety outwards to the boundaries defined in verses 18-21.
According to Joshua 21:43-45, God performed His oath perfectly about 600-800 years later. Solomon was at the height of his political power in I Kings 4:20-21 and II Chronicles 9:26 and still enjoyed the benefits of God having fulfilled that oath. Shortly afterward, the borders of God’s promise began to shrink because of Israel’s disobedience. By the time of the New Testament, all of that land possession promised in Genesis 15 was gone, and the physical descendants of Abraham have never received it back (and never will again) because the land promise was part of the oath and not part of the promise. Thus, the oath having been completed, we are assured the larger promise will be too.
Ishmael – Genesis 16
In Genesis 16, Abraham is still waiting for that son, or his Heir, that God promised him. He is now 86, and Sarah is 76. His wife thinks her age will preclude her ever having any children with Abraham. So she tells him to have a child with her maidservant Hagar, which Abraham does since he must have concluded the same as she and that God meant Abraham’s Heir would come through another, namely Hagar. It made Sarah very jealous of Hagar when Sarah discovered Hagar was pregnant. God made a promise to Hagar that her son’s descendants would be “too numerous to count.” (16:9) Abraham had heard those words before and probably understood them conclusively to mean that the Heir God gave him was going to be the son of Hagar. Abraham gave him the name Ishmael. Ishmael eventually became the father of the Arab nations.
The Covenant Reaffirmed – Genesis 17:1-8
In the fifth word from God in Genesis 17:1-8, God reaffirms His covenant of an increasing number of descendants through Abraham’s heir, or Seed, so that Abraham will be the father of many nations and that kings will come from him. This accords with Romans 4:16-18 where Abraham is called the father of many nations. We know at the end of time in the new heavens and new earth that the new world will be made up of those from every tribe, language, people, and nation (Revelation 4:9), and the glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it (Revelation 21:26). The people who make up this new world are called “kings and priests to God” (Rev. 1:6, KJV), or a “kingdom of priests” who will rule and reign with God in his kingdom. The same is repeated in Revelation 5:8-10, “…with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.” This fuller description of the descendants of Abraham excludes just the Jews only as being Abrahams’ descendants because many nations are included.
God also repeats that this covenant is EVERLASTING. The land of Canaan will be both Abraham’s and his descendants’ EVERLASTING possession. And…God will be the God of both Abraham and his descendants. Here the Immanuel Principle is slightly expanded in this promise, but it is important to see that the descendants of Abraham through his Heir will be believers and own the Lord as their God. Again, everything keeps getting winnowed down in its specifics to a place and time that is not of this world but is more like a reestablished Eden before sin.
To summarize this again, God is going to make Abraham’s name great by making his Heir into a great nation of kingly, royal people who are as numerous as the dust of the earth and the stars of the sky in their own land forever, which is the world or new heavens and new earth, where God Himself will dwell with His people forever as their God. All these people are going to be in Abraham’s heir, Christ. The land will not be the center of Abraham’s inheritance. The blessing of the covenant is that God Himself will be the heart of the inheritance, which is exactly the condition that existed in the Garden of Eden where Adam, as God’s regent, enjoyed the Garden and all the earth in the presence of God. Here God announces that He is restoring through Abraham a people, a land, and a condition which will approximate Eden.
Circumcision – The Sign of the Covenant, Genesis 17:9-14
God then gives Abraham a physical sign of his covenant promise and its significance. That sign is circumcision and was to be placed on all of Abraham’s male, physical descendants and any brought into the covenant relationship with God who were not his physical descendants. It was to be a reminder of God’s covenant with Abraham and his descendants through Abraham’s Heir and how they became covenant recipients. He would circumcise their hearts. A circumcised heart is a heart that has had the flesh (sin) cut from it so that that person would love the Lord with all his heart and soul, and live (Deuteronomy 30:6). A circumcised heart would own the Lord as his God and God would dwell with him. So it was an apt emblem of the promises made to Abraham for any of Abraham’s descendants to bear. (As an aside, the sign of circumcision on males only and removal of sin by blood was later changed to baptism and removal of sin by water in the New Testament after Christ had fulfilled all the covenant promises given to Him by the Father. The new sign included both males and females as a signature of completion of the covenant.)
Isaac, Abraham’s Heir? – Genesis 17:15-22
God at last announces the coming of the promised son from both Abraham’s and Sarah’s own bodies. Abraham is now 99, and Sarah is 89. Abraham laughs at these words when he hears that his wife is going to have a baby and tells God to just let Ishmael be his heir, as he had probably supposed he was anyway. But God said, “…your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.” The Ishmaelites will be blessed by God with great numbers, but the blessing they receive will not be the blessing promised by God through Isaac.
The 6th and final covenant word comes to Abraham in Genesis 21:1-12. In this chapter, Isaac is born. About three years after he is weaned, there is a feast to celebrate. Ishmael, who is about 14 years old mocks Isaac and his mother Sarah. Sarah becomes very angry, casts out both Hagar and Ishmael, and declares “that slave woman’s son will never share the inheritance with my son Isaac.”
This greatly distresses and upsets Abraham, but God tells him, “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” So now Abraham learns that not even Isaac is Abraham’s Heir. Rather, that Heir is coming THROUGH ISAAC.
Genesis 22 – The Sacrifice of Isaac on Mt. Moriah
All the previous information explains why in Genesis 22 Abraham was able to take his son Isaac, at God’s command, to be sacrificed on Mt. Moriah. Abraham knew that Isaac carried the Seed, or Abraham’s Heir, in whom were all of Abraham’s descendants and the land he looked for. Yet he was willing to sacrifice him. Why? He believed that God could order the killing of Abraham’s son Isaac through whom Abraham’s Heir would come if He wanted to, but eventually God would have to raise Isaac from the dead because God had made both a promise and taken an oath, which made it impossible for God to lie. So, in a sense, Abraham believed in both the death and the resurrection of the coming Seed promised to him. Hebrews 11:17-19.
Genesis 12-22 Viewed From the New Testament
Now all of this discussion squares precisely with what the New Testament says Abraham believed. Read Hebrews 11:9-19, 39-40. Abraham and all the saints of the Old Testament who followed him looked for a country of their own…a better country…a heavenly one, not the land of Canaan. They looked for a new heavens and a new earth. It is interesting to note verses 39-40, “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.” Even though Joshua 21:43-45 says that the Jews received all the land of Canaan as promised by God so that “not one of all the Lord’s good promises to the house of Israel failed; every one was fulfilled,” nevertheless, “…none of them received what had been promised.“
Romans 9:1-9
The diagram below illustrates the facts in Genesis 12-22 and the information referred to in Romans 9:1-9. In these verses in Romans, Paul sorrows for the people of Israel. He says that he would, if he could, be cut off from Christ for the sake of his people. He says that they had every advantage a people could have for being saved from sin. They had the adoption of sons, the divine glory, the covenants, the law, the temple worship, the
promises, the patriarchs, and even the lineage of Christ traced through them. But they were still lost in their sins because of unbelief.
Well, what happened? If they had these promises that they were the chosen people of God as the descendants of Abraham who would inherit an everlasting land, then they should have been saved and inherited the promises. Or, God’s promises to them have failed. But the fact is that neither of these is true. As a people, they are not (and never were) the chosen people of God to whom the promises were made, and God’s promises NEVER fail. There was an OATH and a PROMISE that they would not fail. Then how do we account for this failure of all of Abraham’s physical descendants to be saved?
The answer is in verses 6-9. Abraham had a son named Jacob whose name was later changed to Israel. Jacob, or Israel, had 12 sons. Each of those sons became one of the twelve tribes of Israel, or of Jacob, from which came the Jewish nation. So every natural born Jew is from one of those twelve tribes or sons of Jacob whose name is also Israel. Paul says ” not all who descended from Israel (Jacob) are Israel (or the promised descendants of Abraham).” Right there Paul makes a distinction between two different Israels. Paul earlier spoke of two different Israels in Romans 2:28, 29. There he differentiates between an OUTWARD Jew and an INWARD Jew, one whose heart is circumcised and one whose heart is not circumcised. We might call this the difference between a PHYSICAL Jew or Israelite, and a SPIRITUAL Jew or Israelite. Or, we could say a Jew who is a natural descendant of Abraham and a Jew who is a child of the promise through Abraham’s Heir, Christ. So although it appears that Israel as a whole may not be saved and, therefore, that God’s promises have failed, if one takes into account this distinction between the two Israels, God’s promises have not and will not fail at all because not every individual Jew is really a Jew in the truest sense of the word. There are Jews who are the natural children of Abraham, and there are Jews who are children of the promise. The true children of God do not run through the naturally born children of Abraham but through the line of promise that runs through Christ.
In verse 7, Paul takes it back even a step further. “Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children.” In other words (verse 8), “it is not the natural children who are God’s children.” Paul is saying that because you are a Jew and can trace your lineage back to Jacob, or Israel, and even back to Abraham to whom the original promise was made does not mean you are one of Abraham’s seed. So the Jews as a whole that are born to the twelve sons of Jacob are not the seed of Abraham.
Then who is? The answer is in verse 7, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” If Abraham’s offspring is reckoned (regarded, thought of as) through the promise made to Abraham through Isaac and ultimately through Christ and not reckoned (regarded, thought of) as through the natural born children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then it is as verse 8 says, “…it is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.” The offspring of Abraham takes a sharp turn from the Jewish nation – which is not in the line of promise – and runs through Christ who IS in the line of promise. In the diagram, it is plain to see that the line of promise goes from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to Judah and eventually to Christ, and the Jewish nation as a whole is bypassed. So those who are in Christ, or promised to Christ, are the seed of Abraham. As Paul says in Galatians 3: 7, “…those who believe are the children of Abraham.” Again in Galatians 3:29, “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
How All This Fits Together In the History of Redemption and God’s Promise to Crush the Serpent’s Head
To tie all this together into the story of redemption up to this point in the Old Testament, during the days of Abraham, God finally opened the windows of heaven and brought in a solar system of information and light about the Conqueror of Genesis 3. The world had waited thousands of year to hear anything beyond the promise of Genesis 3 that a Deliverer was on the way. Maybe many had given up hope. Probably few paid any attention because it had been so long. Little information had come. The devil had made some significant advances, but in the end, they were all frustrated. Then, like a brilliant sun across the sky just after it lifts above the horizon, blazing revelation poured down from on high through Abraham. In these chapters, God said that the essence of Eden would be restored. Whereas the devil had brought the human race under condemnation and had alienated His creation from Him, God said He was going to renew everything with a new world and a people more numerous than the stars of the sky and the sands of the sea. These people would be kings and reign with the Lord. The Lord would be their God, and He would dwell in their midst forever. The Lord would fulfill His promise through one Child of Abraham who would come through Isaac, Jacob, and Judah. This Child, even if He were killed, would come back from the dead. Nothing could stop Him.This was a promise from God that was backed up by an oath. There was NO POSSIBILITY of failure. God would redo all the devil had undone. The devil’s doom was sure. The world could rejoice, but it was a dark day for the kingdom of darkness. The Lord moved His pieces on the chess board with authority and at will to let the devil know that He was in charge and that it was only a matter of time when the Heir of Abraham would stamp on the dragon’s seven hideous heads.
But this information also let the devil know where he could grab on to the end of the ball of yarn and just follow it along till he came to the Redeemer for whom Satan himself had plans of his own.
Dale is a resident of California, a motorcycle rider, writer of humorous articles, caricatures, features, and theological studies that help people make sense of the most popular book in the world.
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