Introduction
I wonder what you have been thinking as we’ve been working through this series on covenant theology and the sacraments. I hope you haven’t gotten the wrong idea. You don’t have to be reformed or agree with me on paedobaptism to be a Christian or a member of this church. In that sense, it doesn’t matter. But, make no mistake, it does matter. That’s why I’m preaching through it. Everything I do and everything I preach is with the great aim of seeing you all become all the more faithful and joyful. If you’ve ever wondered what the great conspiracy behind my ministry is, if you’ve ever wonder where I hope to lead this church, that’s it… towards greater faithfulness to and joy in the Lord. And that’s why I preach reformed theology.
At the heart of reformed theology is Calvinism and Covenant Theology, that is God’s total sovereignty and His sovereign grace given to His people in and through His covenants. And that may sound like a bunch of heady nonsense to you, but it’s not. And that has never been as clear to me as it has been this week. Spurgeon said, “The sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which the child of God rests his head at night, giving perfect peace.” And that’s what I’ve seen as I’ve walked with some of my closest friends as they watched their 11 year old son die. As you all know, Micah was like a son to me, as he was close to and loved by all of us in this church. And it’s no accident that he was in this church and recently given over to the Lord properly through baptism. That was God’s good sovereignty.
Over and over again this last week or so I have heard Jesse and Amy say things like, “This was God’s plan. And whatever God ordains is right. I know Micah is the Lord’s. He belonged to Him before he belonged to us. He’s yours Lord. Keep him in the embrace of your mercy and grace.” I have watched a family, through the deepest possible pain, rests their heads on the pillow of God’s good sovereignty. I have watched them lean on the promises of God, knowing that they gave their child back to the Lord through baptism, and thus could trust God as He took him into His loving embrace all the more through death.
Beloved, these doctrines, covenant theology, baptism, and the like are not meaningless. They are not a bunch of deep doctrines meant to be argued over. They are our life. They are what get us through life. They are our hope and our peace. The promises and the covenants given to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus Himself are at the very heart of our faith. They are not something to be divided over, but something to rest in, so that together we can know Christ, trust Christ, and follow Christ, come what may. So with that in mind, look with me at Genesis 17:15-21.
Context
In the wake of all of the pain and heartache that we have been going through, we took a break last week from our series on the Family of God, and took a Sunday to just focus on the heart of Christ for sinners and sufferers like us. If you missed that sermon you can find it on our website. Today we’re going to jump back into our series, but I believe we will still find a comforting and edifying Word for us. I’ll do an overview of what all we have seen so far, and then close with a look at the beauty of the promises we see in the Abrahamic Covenant. And my hope is that we will see that God’s promises to Abraham are His promises to us… And He is a good God that can be trusted to keep His Word.
In fact, this is what we’ve seen throughout this series thus far. In the beginning God created Adam and Eve and called them to keep covenant with Him through obedient faith, but they failed. Led astray by the lies of the evil one and the desires of the flesh, they came under the curse of the Law, becoming spiritually dead, and heading towards physical death and eternal condemnation. But, instead of unleashing His wrath and fury, His holy hatred of sin upon them, God lavished Adam and Eve with His mercy and grace.
Adam and Eve failed to keep Covenant with God, but instead of condemning them forever, God responded by establishing a Covenant of Grace with them. The sinfulness of man did not catch God by surprise. He knew exactly what man would do. But, because the LORD is, “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6), He created man anyway, even allowing the fall to happen, because before the foundation of the world God the Father and God the Son made a Covenant of Redemption, to not only create, but to redeem, and to magnify the glory of Jesus as the true and better Adam, who would live for His people, die for His people, and rise again for His people, so that sinners from every nation and generation would not only know God as their Creator, but also as their Savior.
The puritan John Flavel helps us understand this Covenant by describing it through a conversation that the Father has with the Son before the foundation of the world. He says, “My Son, here is a company of poor miserable souls, that have utterly undone themselves, and now lie open to my justice! Justice demands satisfaction for them, or will satisfy itself in the eternal ruin of them: What shall be done for these souls? And thus Christ returns. O my Father, such is my love to, and pity for them, that rather than they shall perish eternally, I will be responsible for them as their Surety; bring in all thy bills, that I may see what they owe thee; Lord, bring them all in, that there may be no after-reckonings with them; at my hand shalt thou require it. I will rather choose to suffer thy wrath than they should suffer it: upon me, my Father, upon me be all their debt. But, my son, if thou undertake for them, thou must reckon to pay [every last penny], expect no [discounts]; if I spare them, I will not spare thee. [I am] Content, Father, let it be so; charge it all upon me, I am able to discharge it: and though it prove a kind of undoing to me, though it impoverish all my riches, empty all my treasures…yet I am content to undertake it.”
This is the God we serve. This is our Creator. This is our Redeemer. This is the God who enters into covenant with His people… A Covenant of Grace, where we must simply trust Him by faith to be our Savior and our Lord. God promised that a Savior would come from the line of Eve who would crush the head of the enemy, and indeed Jesus is that Savior who came and crushed sin, Satan, and death through His perfect God-glorifying life, sacrificial wrath-absorbing death, and death-defeating justifying resurrection. But from the very beginning there has been rebellion and rejection of such grace.
Though Adam and Eve’s rebellion was overpowered by God’s grace, leading them to trust God’s promises by faith, their children were another story. Cain and Able were called to obey the same gracious Covenant conditions that God put on Adam and Eve, but Cain rejected God and rebelled against Him, and killed Able. Able was a man of faith who trusted and obeyed the Lord. His line looked to be the one through which the promised Savior would come, but Cain murdered him before that could happen. But God’s Word does not fail. He who promised is faithful. So God gave Adam and Eve another son, Seth, through whose line the promised Savior would come. And Seth and his line, unlike Cain and his line, called upon the name of the Lord by faith, and kept Covenant with the God of grace.
Now, when God promised Adam and Eve a Savior, He also promised that the offspring of the evil one would rage against the godly. And so, even as Seth and his line sought faithfulness and to advance the cause of grace, so too did Cain and his line, so too did the evil one seek to sow wickedness and to advance the cause of evil. And as things went on, just as the lies of the evil one and the desires of the flesh led Adam and Eve astray, so too were many of Seth’s descendants led astray. And the world grew more and more wicked, until, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him to His heart. So the Lord said, ‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.’ But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord” (Genesis 6:5-8).
And once again, in God’s grace, though He had every right to take out the whole of mankind, God graciously saved Noah and his family. Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord… That is, unmerited and ill-deserved favor… That’s what grace is. By God’s grace Noah was a man of faith… A man who looked to the promises of God and took God at His Word. And so God graciously dealt with Noah and his family, bringing them into His Covenant of Grace, and into His ark, saving them from the destruction that fell upon the world. The grace of God poured out upon Noah and his family, while the rest of the world was immersed in the wrath and fury of God. Peter tells us this was a type of baptism, pointing to covenant blessings for the faithful and covenant curses for rebels.
Like Adam and his family, Noah and his family were called to obey the same gracious Covenant conditions; they were to look to God by faith… to trust and obey. Those who kept Covenant with God by faith received covenant blessings. Those who broke Covenant with God through unbelief and rejection of God’s promises received covenant curses. And though Noah and most of his family looked to God by faith, one of his sons did not. Ham rejected God’s grace, and showed himself to be of the evil one just like Cain. And so, the battle between good and evil, between the offspring of grace and the offspring of the serpent continued. Though Noah was a righteous man, he was not the promised Savior. But, the promised Savior would come from his line… either through Japheth or Shem. And indeed, what we’ve seen over the last few sermons in this series is that the promise continues on through Shem’s line with our forefather Abraham.
Though he was one of Shem’s descendants, Abraham was basically a pagan idol worshipper. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved [him], even when [he was] dead in [his] trespasses” saved him by grace (Ephesians 2:4-5). God called him and led him away from sin and idolatry, and to a life of obedient faith. God brought Abraham into His Covenant of Grace and promised him great covenant blessings. God told him, “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 12:2–3). And Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.
So God brought Abraham and his household into the Covenant of Grace, promising covenant blessings for those who look to Him by faith, and covenant curses for those who rebel. But, God’s grace goes even further; to strengthen Abraham’s faith God renewed His covenant through a covenant cutting with Abraham. God had Abraham sacrifice and divide in half a number of animals, and then God alone passed through the animals, which was God’s way of saying that if He breaks covenant with Abraham, if He doesn’t keep His Word then He will allow the same thing to happen to Himself. In other words, as Hebrews 6:13 says, “when God made a promise to Abraham, since He had no one greater by whom to swear, He swore by Himself.” And since God cannot lie and cannot die, Abraham knew he could take God at His Word. And so can we.
God told Abraham to walk before Him and be blameless; that is, to trust and obey, to live by faith, obedient faith that loves Him, trusts Him, and follows Him. Faith that believes His gospel and obeys His Law. Faith that believes God and His promises, and therefore unites to Christ and His righteousness. The righteousness that comes in and through the gospel. After all, that’s what Paul said God gave Abraham. In Galatians 3:7-9 Paul says, “Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 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.’ So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.”
And God in His grace not only gave Abraham this gospel and these covenant promises, but like Adam and Noah, He gave it to his household with him. God told Abraham, “I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you” (Genesis 17:7). God will keep covenant with them, but they must keep covenant with God, they must look to God by faith to receive these covenant blessings.
God goes on to say, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant” (Genesis 17:9–14).
In Romans 4:11-12 Paul tells us that Abraham, “received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.” In other words, circumcision, like baptism, is a sign and seal of the covenant that points to the righteousness that comes by faith. It’s a sign and seal that reminds the recipient that they are not their own. They belong to God, and they are to glorify God. They are to trust and obey. They are to keep covenant by obedient faith.
Like baptism circumcision was an initiatory rite into the covenant community, it signified an inward reality, it pictured the death of the old man of sin, it represented repentance, regeneration, justification by faith, a cleansed heart, and union and communion with God. It indicated citizenship with God’s people, separation from the world, and can lead to either blessings or curses depending on ones faith and faithfulness. Circumcision pointed to the need for regeneration, showing that natural birth wasn’t enough. Outside of the grace of God the male reproductive organ only produces sin and death. That’s why circumcision was applied there. And as the heads of their households, men were the ones who were called to bear that mark and reminder that they, in and of themselves, were not enough.
But circumcision also pointed to the need for a blood sacrifice, especially the perfect sacrifice of Christ, who is enough. It pointed to the need of a circumcised heart, to the new birth that only Christ can give, and the obedient faith He gives to those whom He causes to be born again. And just as the flesh is cut away so too are God’s covenant people cut away from the world and brought into union and communion with God and His people. Which is why, if any in Abraham’s house refused to be circumcised they were cut off from God’s people. Those of a certain age had the choice to be cut off from the world or cut off from God’s people. But none of them had the choice of being in covenant with God or not. They could either be covenant keepers or covenant breakers. The children in Abraham’s house were to be raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord as covenant keepers. They were to be circumcised at eight days old. But, all who refused to be circumcised were in that sense refusing to trust and obey God, and therefore were to be cut off from God’s people because they were being unfaithful to the covenant they were already in. And this is the same reality we see in baptism: those who are not baptized are not in right covenant communion with God and His people and therefore are cut off from taking the Lord’s Supper… at least until they are baptized and walking in faithfulness.
What we see in the Abrahamic Covenant is the same basic reality of the New Covenant administration of the Covenant of Grace we are in. In 1 Corinthians 7:14 we’re told, “the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.” To be holy there doesn’t necessarily mean to be saved, but to be set a part by God for God. It is a covenant reality that one must live up to by faith. To be truly holy and righteous happens by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. But, God lays claim to believers and their children, to believers and their household; and their is a covenant responsibility upon them all. That’s what circumcision said, and that’s what baptism says. They are not their own. They belong to God. Therefore they are to glorify God. They are to trust and obey, to look to Him by faith, and to walk in faithfulness. Obedient faith, that is true living faith is the covenant condition we must keep to be in right relationship with the Lord. That’s the reality circumcision pointed to, and that’s the reality baptism points to. That’s why Noah and his household were baptized and Abraham and his household were circumcised. They both tell us that justification is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. And this brings us to the rest of the Abrahamic Covenant.
Genesis 17:15-21, 18:18-19, 21:1-7, 22:1-18
As I read earlier, in Genesis 17:15–21 we see that just as God changed Abraham’s name from Abram, meaning exalted father, to Abraham, meaning the father of a multitude of nations, so too now He changed Sarah’s name from Sarai, meaning princess, to Sarah, meaning the mother of nations. For God was preserving His promise from Genesis 3:15 through Abraham and Sarah. Not through anything they could do in and of themselves. Which is why God did not choose Ishmael. For, as I read earlier, God’s promises depend not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy (Romans 9:16). This is a promise that is kept by God alone. It is all of His sovereign grace. Abraham is not the exalted father, God is. And Abraham is a father of a multitude of nations, just as Sarah is the mother of a multitude of nations, all by God’s grace alone. And that grace is going to be seen in the birth of a son, namely Isaac.
Eternal covenant blessings and covenant promises would continue on, children of God who are heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ would come from the line of, and in line with the faith of the child of promise, their own son in the flesh, Isaac. To a man who is 100 years old and a woman who is 90 years old, all these promises would come so that God would get all the glory, not man. God will establish, that is confirm and uphold His covenant, His eternal covenant, by sovereign grace, with Isaac.
This eternal covenant that is rooted in the Covenant of Redemption made in eternity past, will continue on into eternity future, because it is all rooted in and flows from who our eternal God is. He is, and always has been, “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6). That’s why God calls it an eternal covenant: it does not end and it has no beginning, for it is rooted in the God who has always been. God’s love for His people, and thus His Covenant and His grace are rooted in eternity past because they are rooted in who He is as the eternal God. Which is cause for great assurance. Because, as the theologian Geerhardus Vos put it, “The best proof that He will never cease to love us lies in that He never began.”
Because God is eternal so too is His covenant and His covenant love for us. And this is tied to the continuity we see between circumcision and baptism as well. God does not change, therefore neither do His covenant dealings with His people. God has laid claim to believers and their children. As Malachi 3:6 says, “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.” So, whether circumcision or baptism, both are tied to the eternal God who does not change and has establish an eternal covenant with His people. And He deals with His people by household. So, as B. B. Warfield put it, “The argument in a nutshell is simply this: God established His church in the days of Abraham and put children into it. They must remain there until He puts them out. He has nowhere put them out. They are still then members of His Church and as such entitled to its ordinances.”
In Genesis 18:18-19 God says, “Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him… For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has promised him.” God’s plan, His covenant with Abraham, wasn’t merely about blessing his family, that is the Jews or ethnic Israel… it was always about blessing the nations… it was always about Jew and Gentile being blessed in him, that is by following in the footsteps of his faith and ultimately being blessed in Christ. But notice that at the heart of this purpose is raising his children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Abraham was to command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, that is to walk in covenant faithfulness. He was to raise them in the covenant community and covenant culture of the Lord so that they would trust and obey, and the promises of God would continue on. As God says so beautifully in Deuteronomy 7:9, “Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His commandments, to a thousand generations.” And God’s purpose in His covenant faithfulness is to bring about what He promised Abraham, namely that through him the nations would be blessed. And these same commands and these same promises apply to us… we too are to raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We too are to make disciples and advance the culture of the Lord, for that is how that nations are untimely blessed, through coming to Christ and living for Christ.
Through Christian households and Christian families, through Christian parents in partnership with Christian churches, raising their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, the nations will be blessed. That is, through the ordinary everyday faithfulness of Christian husbands and Christian wives, of Christian fathers and Christian mothers, of Christian sons and Christian daughters, of Christian churches, “the earth shall be [filled with] the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9). For that is the grand purpose of God’s promise to Abraham: people from every nation and generation, to a thousand generations will be blessed in Christ and will inherit all with Christ. That’s what your life and your household and this church are a part of. That’s why your faithfulness in all things matters. You’re a much bigger deal than you realize… and so is every aspect of your life.
This is what God shows us in and through Abraham. In Genesis 21 God makes good on His promise to Abraham, and he and Sarah have a son. Isaac is born, and Abraham seeks to raise Isaac in covenant faithfulness, starting with circumcising him when he was eight days old. This is an act of giving the child back to God that God gave to them, pledging to raise him in covenant faithfulness. But Abraham would soon be called to do this on a far grander scale. God chose to test Abraham and to display the weight and realities of His gospel promises in a greater way than ever before.
In Genesis 22:1–8 God’s Word says, “After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.’ So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.’ And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. And Isaac said to his father Abraham, ‘My father!’ And he said, ‘Here I am, my son.’ He said, ‘Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?’ Abraham said, ‘God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.’ So they went both of them together.”
This scene reminds us, and reminds Abraham that Isaac was God’s before he was Abraham’s, and God can choose to do whatever He wills with Him. But, notice the faith of Abraham. Like Isaiah in Isaiah 6, after he has had his sin atoned for, he replies in faithfulness to the Lord, “Here I am.” And Abraham knows that the God who cannot lie or die has sworn, by Himself, that He will keep His promises. So he trusts that if the Lord wants him to slay Isaac, that the Lord will raise him again. For he tells his servants that he and his son will go worship, and both of them will return. Like Job said, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last He will stand upon the earth” (Job 19:25). And Abraham clearly believes that Isaac will as well.
So Abraham, with faith that had been strengthened by the Lord again and again, walks in faithfulness and takes his son as the Lord commanded him. In Genesis 22:9-15 we read, “When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.’ And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, ‘The Lord will provide’; as it is said to this day, ‘On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.’”
Tradition tells us that the same mountain that Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac upon is Mount Calvary, the same mountain upon which God’s Son was sacrificed. Isaac marched up the hill with the same wood upon his back that he was to be sacrificed upon, just as Christ marched up the hill with the same wooden cross upon His back that He was to be sacrificed on. But just as Abraham was going to sacrifice his son, the Lord stopped him. Abraham proved his faith and showed that he truly believed God would keep His promises. Whether God allowed Isaac to die or not, Abraham knew that God would keep His Word. And beloved, that’s a Word we all need to hear.
We’ve just lost our brother Micah; but Micah is not lost. Micah was a child of God who took God at His Word. He believed God, and thus we can rest assured that he is with the Lord even now. Death has separated us from him for a time, but death will not get the last say. Micah has eternal life. He lives with our Lord and Savior in glory now, and he will live with our Lord and Savior on a redeemed earth forever in the days to come. Again, as Job said, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last He will stand upon the earth” (Job 19:25). And so will Micah. Just as Abraham knew that Isaac would, so we can trust that all who are in the Lord will fully and finally be raised to newness of life in the glory of the resurrection. God will keep His Word. And we see this to be true ultimately in Christ.
Abraham told Isaac, “God will provide for Himself the lamb.” But it was a ram caught in the thicket that was sacrificed in Isaac’s place. And that’s because that was not the true Lamb that God was ultimately going to provide. The true Lamb is Jesus. As John the Baptist said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29)! Jesus, God the Son, took on flesh and live the perfect obedient life that we all have failed to live, and then laid His life down upon Mount Calvary as a sacrifice for sinners like us. Upon the same mount where Isaac face death Christ faced death for us. Upon the cross He had the wrath of God due His people poured out upon Himself, and then died in the place of His people, and then He rose in victory so that all who look to Him by faith would be saved… Saved from sin, saved from Satan, and ultimately saved from death.
God kept Isaac from being sacrificed… He held back from having Abraham’s son sacrificed. But He didn’t hold back when it came to His own Son. He didn’t hold back one ounce of pain and suffering from His own Son so that He wouldn’t have to hold back one blessing from us. He didn’t keep His Son from death so that He wouldn’t have to keep us from life. And death couldn’t keep His Son because He was and He is the perfect God-man who triumphs over death. So on the third day He rose from the grave so that all who look to Him would be saved and have eternal life as well.
God didn’t hold back, therefore we have hope. Because our Redeemer lives so do all who look to Him by faith. And Abraham looked to God by faith. And God saw that. That’s why in Genesis 22:15-18 God told Abraham, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”
Abraham feared God, that is, he had true obedient faith. Abraham didn’t hold anything back from God, not even his own son, so God didn’t hold anything back from him, not even His own Son. And in and through His Son God grants Abraham all the glorious blessings of the Covenant of Grace. That’s what He’s promising him here when He says, “I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore.” And beloved, we are a direct result of that promise. We are children of Abraham. We are a part of this eternal covenant, because we, like Abraham, are looking to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And indeed, this is a blessing that will overtake and save the whole world.
God promises Abraham that his offspring shall possess the gates of his enemies, and in his offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed… And this promise is fulfilled in the church, in us. In Matthew 16:18 Jesus said, “on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” The gates of hell, the gates of the evil one shall not prevail against us because we will prevail against them. In Christ we shall prevail against the gates of our enemies. Because Jesus has victory over sin, Satan, and death, so do we and so shall we. And through our ordinary faithfulness we shall be fruitful and multiply, and little by little, day by day overtake the earth. Not only will we prevail, we shall possess the very gates of our enemies. As we saw earlier, “the earth shall be [filled with] the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9). The evil one and his offspring will not prevail. Christ will. Jesus wins, and therefore so do we. The gospel will conquer all, and the nations will come to Christ.
Conclusion
Beloved, what we see in God’s Covenant with Abraham is God’s Covenant with us. He is a God that does not change, and therefore His covenant dealings with His people remain the same. He saves as He always has, by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. In each administration of the Covenant of Grace we see God’s Law and God’s gospel, and we see God’s people who live by faith. And that’s what we’re called to do. We are called to walk, to live this life in obedient faith. We are to trust and obey, and to seek to be faithful in all things, especially the everyday ordinary things. And we are to do it looking to our Redeemer, looking to His promises, knowing that He lives and therefore so do we and so shall we. God doesn’t hold anything back from us, not even His own Son. So may we not hold anything back from Him. May we trust in Him come what may, and joyfully submit every area of our lives to Him, because He gave His life for us. And because He lives never to die again.