The Covenants of Scripture, part 1

Transcript

GRM 1132
2/22/2015
The Covenants of Scripture, Part 1
Genesis 8-36; Romans 4
Gil Rugh

We're going to do something a little different from what we are normally doing. We are going through the book of 2 Corinthians, and we've been talking about the contrast between the Mosaic Covenant and the New Covenant. And this whole subject of covenants is extremely important. So we're going to take a break from moving on in 2 Corinthians and I want to look at the subject of covenants so we're clear, we understand. We're talking about the New Covenant. We understand we're talking about what is the focus and foundation for our salvation today. So we're going to back up and set the framework for this. I don't want it to be too tedious for you, but you have to pay attention and you want to follow through. And I want to start with some covenants that are not biblical, and I want to do this because I periodically talk about Reform Theology or Covenantal Theology. But it's not something that comes up in Scripture so I don't take time to explain what is Reform Theology or what are covenantal people teaching. So I want to present to you what is, in a summary, condensed way, Reform Theology or Covenantal Theology. Called Reform Theology because they take it back to the Reformers—Martin Luther, John Calvin, men that we identify with the Reformation in the 16th century, the theological reformation.

We don't come across the covenants they talk about because the Bible doesn't call them covenants. So I don't recognize them as biblical covenants. (Put up that slide on Reform Theology, if you would.) These are the three covenants, now don't get confused, these are not biblical covenants, I do not believe that they are true covenants. But when we talk about Reform Theology or Covenantal Theology, Covenant Theology, using the term Reform or Covenantal interchangeably. They hold to these three covenants—the covenant of grace, the covenant of redemption and the covenant of works. And I just clipped out a definition of these covenants by a Reform theologian so we accurately represent what they say.

We'll start with the third on your list, the covenant of works. And here is what they say this covenant is. Having created man in His own image as a free creature with knowledge, righteousness and holiness, God entered into covenant with Adam that He might bestow upon him further blessings. The covenant involved, and it’s called the covenant of works, (1) it contained a promise of eternal life upon the condition of perfect obedience throughout a probationary period. So God established a covenant with Adam and it required that Adam have perfect obedience to God during a set amount of time, called a probationary period. (2) The threat of death if he disobeyed; and (3) and note the terminology, the sacrament of the tree of life or the sacraments of paradise and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Then note this admission, the term covenant is not mentioned in the first chapters of Genesis, but they think it is all right to create these because they think they find the elements of a covenant there. I disagree.

So the covenant of works is basically a covenant, they say, that God established with Adam. And if you will be perfectly obedient during whatever set period of time it is, I will confirm you as a righteous person. If you don't, you will die. And somehow they call the tree of life a sacrament. A sacrament is usually a means of grace. Perhaps they mean Adam will be able to partake of that freely if he passes the test. That's the covenant of works, that's key in most covenant theology thinking. Not all, there are variations within this, but this is just a general overview. Just as example, John Calvin the reformer did not believe in a covenant of works. But most covenantalists do, as this man is reflecting.

The Covenant of Redemption, we are working from the bottom (of the way I have them listed) up. According to covenant theology the covenant of redemption is defined as the eternal pact between God the Father and God the Son concerning the salvation of mankind. Covenant theology affirms that God the Father and God the Son covenanted together for the redemption of the human race, the Father appointing the Son to be the mediator, the second Adam whose life would be given for the salvation of the world. The Son accepted it and the Spirit would be involved. So the covenant of redemption happened before creation, God the Father entered into a covenant with God the Son to carry out the work of redemption.

Now I don't want to get you confused. At the men's retreat there was a question about the active and passive obedience of Christ, maybe expressions you are not familiar with because again they don't come up in Scripture. But the covenant of redemption involves a fulfillment of the covenant of works. So in covenant theology they say Christ had to live a perfect life on earth so He could acquire the righteousness that Adam lost through his disobedience. That was His act of obedience to the Father during His earthly life, the passive obedience was He died on the cross. His death on the cross only paid the penalty for sin, it didn't acquire righteousness. Covenant theology gets more and more involved and confusing. In the first place the Bible never uses (we'll get to this in 2 Corinthians 5) never uses the expression, the righteousness of Christ. We receive the righteousness of God in Christ. I realize when we talk about the righteousness of Christ, the righteousness He provided by His death on the cross. This whole idea that He had to have a perfect life to fulfill the covenant of works that Adam failed in, these covenants are important to Reform or Covenantal Theology.

So the Covenant of Redemption was the covenant supposedly between God and Christ before the foundation of the world.

The covenant of grace, I put it at the top here because this is the supreme covenant in Covenant Theology. And they view all the other covenants of Scripture, including the Mosaic Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant as all expressions of the covenant of grace. There is one overriding covenant and their covenants are just expressions of the covenant of grace. The covenant of grace, and it's a little confusing, this is a covenant made by God with mankind. And in this covenant He offers life and salvation through Christ to the elect. This becomes key. It is more exact to say that the covenant of grace is made by God with the elect. This is where limited atonement comes from. It is not derived from exegetical considerations; it's a theologically founded concept that Christ only died for the elect because the covenant of grace was a covenant that God established between Himself and the elect before He created things.

I'm emphasizing this because something that I view as very serious is happening in evangelical churches today—this Reform and Covenantal Theology is becoming very popular. And I think part of the reason is that it is viewed as very scholarly. You wouldn't come to know of these covenants by just studying the Bible, you have to study theology and what men have presupposed to be true. And they have a constant emphasis on going back to the reformers. Why do we go back to the reformers? I appreciate how God used men during the Reformation, but they are not the standard for me. The Bible is the standard, and those who claim to be dispensational are picking up pieces of Covenant Theology like active and passive obedience of Christ to limited atonement and trying to wed it to dispensational theology which is founded on a different set of hermeneutical principles, interpreting the Bible normally, historically, grammatically. And it just undermines the clarity of the Word.

Because of the covenant of grace, Covenant Theology says there is one people of God because God made His covenant of grace with the elect. So it breaks down any real distinction between Israel and the church. Israel was simply the manifestation of the covenant of grace in the Old Testament, now the manifestation of the covenant of grace is the church. There is no future for Israel because God's covenant of grace was with one people—the elect. So when you hear that terminology, there is one people of God, that's where it is coming from. That's not where we are and you don't get it out of Scripture.

All right, that's what is wrong. So when you hear me say we are different than Reform Theology or Covenant Theology, we're not talking about biblical covenants. We're talking about what I call theological covenants that they have created. Then they come back and reinterpret the Scripture through these covenants. I'm going to give you an example when we get to the foundational biblical covenant.

Let's come to Scripture. The air begins to get clearer because let's just call a covenant what God says is a covenant, instead of creating covenants and then trying to reinterpret the Scripture to fit the covenants that we created. Let's let God tell us what a covenant is. Stop and think. This is a test. What is the first covenant in Scripture? And it is the covenant God made with Noah and that's where we find the first use of the word covenant in the Bible. So come to Genesis 8. And we pick up with, the flood is over, Noah and the animals have come out of the ark. And in verse 20, “Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, took of every clean animal, every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.” In connection with the establishing of covenants in the Bible there is sacrifice. We'll see more of that as we move along. “The Lord smelled the soothing aroma. The Lord said to Himself, I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth.” We believe the Bible. We believe in the depravity of mankind. And here God says, I won't destroy the earth again as I have because man is not going to get any better. That was judgment upon a sin-cursed earth. But I will never destroy as I have done. “While earth remains, seed time, harvest, cold, heat, summer, winter, day and night shall not cease.”

We move into Genesis 9, remember there were no chapter breaks as God originally gave this. “God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth.” Note some of the provisions of this covenant, and we'll see the word covenant in a moment. “The fear of you and the terror of you will be on every beast of the earth, on every bird in the sky.” Think of what it would have been like before this, before the days of Noah. You had dinosaurs on the earth and everything, but they didn't have any fear of man. Now God puts the fear of man in the animal world generally. “Everything that creeps on the ground, all the fish in the sea, into your hand they are given. Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you. I give it all to you as I gave the green plant.” So now meat is a valid food, before that vegetarian. Some of you want to be vegetarian, but don't try to establish it on religious grounds, biblical grounds. The Noahic Covenant gives the right to eat all meat. You don't have to eat it, you don't have to eat the salad, either.

“Surely I will require your lifeblood, from every beast I will require it and from every man. From every man's brother I will require the life of man.” Now here is the foundation for capital punishment. “Whoever shed man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed. For in the image of God He made man.” It is a capital offense because you have struck at the image of God when you kill another human being. That doesn't mean war but here what we would call an act of murder.

“Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth.” Then verse 8, “God spoke to Noah and his sons with him saying, now behold I Myself do establish My covenant with you and your seed or descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, birds, cattle, every beast of the earth.” So this is a universal covenant for all creation—mankind, animals are included here in what God provides. And He said Noah and his sons and their descendants. Well, we are all descendants of Noah, we're descendants of Adam through Noah because it was only Noah and his sons and their family that survived the flood. So we are all descendants. So this is made with mankind universally and creation as He says there—the birds, the animals.

Verse 11, “I will establish My covenant with you.” There is further of it. Verse 12, “This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between you and every living creature and for all successive generations. I set My bow in the cloud, it shall be for a sign of a covenant between me and the earth.” That's the rainbow. God is saying I'll never again destroy the earth with flood. The rainbow is not the covenant, the rainbow is a sign of the covenant. The covenant has the content of what God has said, the sign of the covenant is that constant reminder of the covenant God has made.

We're going to talk about conditional covenant and unconditional covenant. Conditional covenant is conditioned upon the agreement of both parties; an unconditional covenant is a covenant that God establishes on His own unilaterally. There is not anybody else. It's a covenant He makes with Noah and his descendants, but as He said in verse 9, “I Myself do establish My covenant.” I'm simply telling you, Noah, and your descendants what the covenant is. Noah is not asked to agree to this covenant, he's not asked if he disagrees. God simply tells him, I am establishing a covenant. It is now in force and here is the sign of the covenant. So when you see the rainbow you are reminded of My covenant.
Now keep this distinction clear in your minds, it's going to become a point that you need to understand in a moment. A sign of the covenant is not the same thing as the covenant, the covenant is what God said the content of it. The sign, as a reminder of it, is the rainbow.

Verse 13, the word covenant again. “I set My bow in the cloud, it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.” And “when I see the bow in the cloud,” verse 15, “I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature” and so on. Verse 16, “When the bow is in the cloud, then I will look upon it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh on the earth. God said to Noah, this is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh on the earth.” How many times did God use the word covenant here? When God wants to say He is establishing a covenant, He can call it a covenant. We don't have to come up with, well, I think I see enough things here, this is going to be the covenants and then we're going to make all Scripture fit between what we have said we have decided are covenants. God tells us when He is establishing a covenant. This is the first covenant of Scripture—the covenant made with Noah and all flesh. And it is made solely because God said, I am establishing the covenant. All right, that's the Noahic Covenant, the first covenant of Scripture.

Now we're going to move on and come to Genesis 12. And we have recorded here the first unfolding of the content of the Abrahamic Covenant. Now the word covenant is not seen here but you'll see it is a covenant because he mentions the content of it here. Later it will be clearly established as a covenant. But here Genesis 12 opens up, “The Lord said to Abram, go forth from your country, from your relatives, from your father's house to the land which I will show you. I will make you a great nation, I will bless you, make your name great so you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, the one who curses you, I will curse. In you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” We usually summarize the major features of the Abrahamic Covenant with three points. The Abrahamic Covenant has land, seed and blessing. Could expand that, bless those who bless you; curse those who curse you. But the substance of it is land, seed, blessing. He brings them to the land, verse 1, “which I will show you.” That gets elaborated. He's going to make him a great nation, that is a seed, descendants that will be multiplied. And then he is going to be a blessing. The end of verse 3, “In you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

And He reiterates to Abram when He brings him into the land, verse 7, “The Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I will give this land.’” He builds an altar, Abram does, to sacrifice to the Lord. So that's the first reference to the Abrahamic Covenant in Scripture. It's unique, it's a covenant that includes redemption. This will be the overarching covenant of Scripture. All other covenants in Scripture are tied to the Abrahamic Covenant in one way or another.

Come to Genesis 13. Now you have the dividing of the ways between Abram and his nephew Lot, but come to verse 14. After they part ways, Lot goes to Sodom and Gomorrah, Abram now in the land. “The Lord said to Abram, after Lot separated from him, now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward, southward, eastward, westward. For all the land which you see I will give to you and your seed or descendants forever.” You see that promise, the land. It was part of the original statement at the beginning of Genesis 12, it was reiterated in Genesis 12:7, now it is emphasized again. You'll see different times the content of this covenant is mentioned and there may be one, two or all three of the elements mentioned. They are all part of the covenant, but they are not all mentioned every time. The land is a key emphasis.

Verse 16, “I will make your descendants, your seed, as the dust of the earth. And if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can be numbered.” That's the seed, the land and the seed. “Arise, walk about the land, through it's length and breadth. I will give it to you.” You see this emphasis on the land. That is something concrete, tangible. It's the land you are walking on, it's the physical land that I have brought you to.

Come to Genesis 15. Now we're going to have this covenant formally established. We don't have time to read all 21 verses, but let's pick up the highlight. God promises to give great reward to Abram. There is a problem, Abram said, verse 2, “Oh Lord, what will you give me since I am childless?” I mean it's wonderful you are going to inherit this land, you are going to have a multitude of descendants and the whole earth is going to be blessed by you, but the fact is, when I die there is no one to inherit the blessing. It will go to Eleazar of Damascus who evidently was the chief servant of Abraham. I mean, I don't have any descendants to pass on. Then God says, no, Eleazar is not going to be your heir. The end of verse 4, “One who will come forth from your own body shall be your heir. You will have a physical heir, your own son. He took him outside and said, now look toward the heavens and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” You know what it is like on a clear night, they didn't have street lights in those days and you could go out and look out at the stars and you are in awe. How do you count them? If you can count them, that's how many descendants you are going to have.

Verse 6, “Then he,” referring to Abram, “believed in the Lord and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Crucial key statement, picked up and elaborated in the New Testament as a clear statement of how God brings His righteousness to an individual. Abraham believed God, God reckoned it to him as righteousness. That's foundational here, this faith relationship between Abram and God. Paul will use this to talk about how salvation occurs, but we'll pick it up here, it's Genesis 15, where we are.

Then what does he say in verse 7? “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess it.” Why did I bring you out of Ur of the Chaldeans? Because I wanted to bring you to the land that I am giving to you and your descendants. So Abram says, how do I know this, Lord? I believe what you say but is there anything more you are going to do to make it clear? God tells him to bring certain specified animals and you cut the animals in two. That's why the word for making a covenant in the Old Testament is to cut a covenant, you are going to cut a covenant. So you cut these animals in two, you lay one half on one side of a path and the other half on the other side. Then the parties to the covenant walk between those divided animals, and you have established or cut a covenant.

So verse 10, “He brought all these, cut them in two, lay half opposite each other.” Verse 12, “Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram. Behold a great terror and great darkness fell on him. God said to Abram,” while he is in this deep sleep, “know for certain that your descendants,” your seed, “will be strangers in land not theirs and slaves and oppressed for 400 years.” That's the Egyptian captivity that we are familiar with. “Then I will judge the nation whom they serve, they will come out with many possessions.” Remember how the Israelites spoiled the Egyptians as they prepared for the exodus. You are going to die and go to your fathers in peace. In other words the promises that I am making to you in this covenant, you are not going to see the realization of. Some of them you will start to see, like the birth of his son.

Verse 17, “It came about when the sun had set that it was very dark. And behold there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, to you descendants I have given this land.” And then he lays it out. The covenant is established, it is cut. Now you note what Abram is doing, Abram as he is still called at this point, he is sleeping, verse 12. Who passes between these divided animals? God. This is an unconditional covenant, it is not conditioned upon Abram's agreement. God is doing it on His own. This will become a further emphasis, but important to understand this. It is an unconditional covenant.

This is from a theological journal a year or year and a half ago. It's a journal published by those who have advanced degrees in our evangelicals. This is a covenant theologian, that we put up to begin with. Here is what he says about the Abrahamic Covenant. We can be grateful that the Lord's covenant with Abraham was both unconditional and conditional. Now did you get any idea here that there are two parts to this covenant, conditional and unconditional? Its unconditionality showed His commitment to the accomplishment of its ultimate salvific purpose. In other words he is saying the only part of this covenant that is unconditional is the provision of salvation, which will be included in the blessing—in you all the nations of the earth will be blessed. Its conditionality showed He was still a holy God with holy and kingdom requirements that would not be dismissed by cheap grace.

Now you see they start this theological system out by creating covenants in their own thinking and now they take the Abrahamic Covenant and divide it into a part that is conditioned because if it were to be fulfilled, that would be cheap grace.

Finally we can be grateful that the Lord did see the Abrahamic Covenant through to its fulfillment in and by Christ so that those who have the faith of Abraham can be saved. The Abrahamic Covenant no longer functions as a covenant, but its great promise has been fulfilled and continues to be fulfilled today when people trust in Christ.

I mean do you not find this offensive? Do we just decide, well, God's promise here, here is the covenant, God just walked between the animals, this furnace of fire representing the presence of God and in that context he says in verse 18, “On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham. To your descendants I have given this land.” And this man says, that won't be fulfilled. It's already done, Christ is the fulfillment of the land promise. It was fulfilled spiritually. There is no physical land, and the Abrahamic Covenant is really not operative anymore. You create a theological system and then you are going to massage and twist and squeeze Scripture into your theological system. I think it is much more safe just to come to the Word and let God lay out what His plan is.

Come to Genesis 17, the Abrahamic Covenant further emphasized. But the covenant was established in Genesis 15, remember, the covenant was cut. Verse 17, “Now when Abram was 99 years old the Lord appeared to him and said, I am God Almighty. Walk before Me and be blameless. I will establish My covenant between Me and you, multiply you exceedingly. Abram fell on his face, God talked with him saying, behold, My covenant is with you. You will be the father of a multitude of nations.” Remember land, seed and blessing? Here is the seed, these descendants. “I will make you exceedingly fruitful, I will make nations of you, kings will come forth from you. I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your seed after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants.” There is no future for physical Israel, either, in covenant theology, there are spiritual descendants.

Verse 8, “I will give to you and your descendants after you the land of your sojourning, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession.” But you understand that was conditional so there is nothing to that. We understand the serious difference in these theological positions. Paul will ask the question, Has God cast away His people? Magnoito, such a thought is inconceivable. What more can God say?

Verse 10, now this is where we want to follow the distinction between the covenant and the sign of a covenant. “This is My covenant which you shall keep between Me and you and your descendants after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised.” Well this is the covenant of circumcision. This is where some will go, then. Well, if the covenant is circumcision and Paul says circumcision is no longer necessary, that covenant must be done. He explains this in the next verse. Verse 11, “You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin. It shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you”. Circumcision is not the covenant anymore than the rainbow in the sky was the covenant with Noah and his descendants. It's the sign of the covenant. The sign of the covenant is not the covenant. When He says this is My covenant, it's an abbreviated way of saying what He says in verse 11, it's a sign of the covenant. Years have passed here, years have passed. We'll see this, between the establishing of the covenant in Genesis 15 and the giving of this sign of circumcision in Genesis 17.

How do we know? Let's read on. Verse 13, “Thus shall My covenant be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.” This sign of the covenant, just like the rainbow continues in the sky, promises that Sarah is going to bear a child. Abraham and Sarah are going to have a child. And this is where Sarai's name is changed to Sarah, and Abram's name is changed to Abraham. And he asks that Ishmael might live before God, which is the son he conceived with the handmaiden of Sarah in Genesis 16, Hagar, we skipped over that.

Verse 19, “God said, no, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son.” Abraham is bent on telling God I will help you out of your predicament. I'm 99 years old, Sarah is close to 90. We can't have children so I'll count the covenant as fulfilled if you just do it in Ishmael. That's not a son between Sarah and me, but it's my son with Hagar. So that will be good enough, Lord. Ready to help God out of His predicament because what are you going to do with an old man and an old woman.

What does God say? No thanks for your help. “I've heard your prayer for Ishmael. I'll bless him, I'll make him fruitful. But, look at verse 19, “Sarah your wife will bear you a son, you will call his name Isaac. I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.” The line goes Abraham, Isaac. It's not every descendant of Abraham, it's descendants of the line of promise because Abraham also had other sons with his second wife, Keturah, in Genesis 25. So you have to be in the line of promise.

So only one son will do, the son that you will conceive with your wife, Sarah. Verse 21, “My covenant I will establish with Isaac.” Now verse 24, “Abraham was 99 years old when he was circumcised, Ishmael his son was 13 years old.” In Genesis 15 Ishmael hadn't even been conceived, the covenant was cut. God established the covenant in Genesis 15. We're maybe 15 years later because Ishmael is 13. He had to be conceived, then it took nine months. So we are 15 years later than the sign of the covenant was given. Well, I guess they didn't have a covenant in Genesis 15. God didn't give the sign of the covenant until years later. When we're going to have the successor to Abraham you have the sign of the covenant. But the covenant is the covenant is the covenant. We distort the Scripture. That's why I say we have to follow a literal, normal interpretation of Scripture. If you read Scripture up to this point, you wouldn't find the covenants of covenant theology—covenant of works, covenant of redemption, covenant of grace. You would hit the Noahic covenant and you would say, I know that is a covenant, God repeated it. You get here with Abraham and you see the content of the promise God makes to Abraham and then it is confirmed by a covenant in Genesis 15 and God takes sole responsibility for the fulfillment of all that is promised in this covenant by being the One alone who goes through the animals while Abram sleeps. Then I think everything in here will be fulfilled exactly as God gives.

So don't get confused. And this man refers to it, connects the covenants of Abraham with circumcision as though circumcision is the covenant. So if you don't have circumcision you don't have the covenant. That confuses things terribly because circumcision in and of itself is only the sign of the covenant. It doesn't mean you are really going to benefit from the covenant because the benefit from the covenant, come back to Genesis 15:6. “Then he,” Abram, “believed in the Lord and He,” the Lord, “reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Israel began to think because they had circumcision they belonged to God. Circumcision is a sign of a covenant that God established with the descendants of Abraham, but it doesn't mean that everyone who is circumcised is a beneficiary of that covenant.

Come over to Jeremiah 9. The men who were at the retreat this weekend, Dwight spoke on Jeremiah 9:23-24. Look at verse 25,”Behold days are coming, declares the Lord, that I will punish all who are circumcised yet uncircumcised.” He's talking about the Jews who are physically circumcised but are not circumcised in their heart. And note what he does in verse 26, “Egypt and Judah,” remember Jeremiah is prophesying in the context of the Babylonian captivity, its coming and its accomplishment. “Egypt and Judah and Edom and the sons of Ammon and Moab, all those inhabiting the desert who clip the hair on their temples. For all the nations are uncircumcised and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised of heart.” God says spiritually and in your relationship to Me you are just like Egypt, Edom, Ammon, Moab and the other physically uncircumcised nations because your physical circumcision is nothing. Because physical circumcision only meant something if you had experienced the circumcision of the heart. Abraham had experienced that already. It's confirmed in Genesis 15:6 when “he believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.” That's the clear statement, Abraham had believed God before that. Hebrews 11 said it was “by faith that he left his homeland of Ur.” But Genesis 15:6 is the first clear statement and so that is picked up, particularly in the New Testament.

Come back to Romans 4. And in Romans 4 he is dealing with the influence coming into the church at Rome of Judaizers who said, fine, believe in Christ but you also have to be circumcised. He starts the chapter, “What then shall we say that Abraham our forefather according to the flesh has found?” Paul writes as a Jew and the Jews in the church at Rome, Abraham is our forefather according to the flesh, he is our physical ancestor. “If Abraham justified by works, he has something to boast about, not before God.” He can boast in himself. What does the Scripture say? Genesis 15:6, “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.” This whole section, we've studied this together, but from Romans 3:21-5:2, I think the words “faith” and “believe” are used something like almost 30 times. It's on faith, it's on faith. You are not saved by works, your faith is credited as righteousness when you believe in Him who justifies the ungodly.

Verse 9, question. “Is this blessing then on the circumcised or on the uncircumcised also? For we say faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness.” Let's get back to where we are in the flowing of the account. They didn't have chapters and verses, but they knew the order of the account in Genesis. For us, we are in Genesis 15, we are 15 years plus or minus before Abraham is circumcised. And God clearly declared him righteous by faith. “How then was it credited? While he was circumcised or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised, and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised.” He says you ought to understand this. God declared him righteous when he was uncircumcised, so why are you trying to say circumcision is necessary for salvation. Why would you say circumcision is necessary to the fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant? God didn't lie to Abraham in Genesis 15, He declared him righteous when he believed and then he established a covenant on the basis of his own soul commitment. That's to be the pattern, salvation is always by grace through faith.

Let's get back to Genesis, we were in Genesis 15, this reiteration of the covenant. Most of Genesis 15, then Genesis 17 and the promise there, the circumcision that takes place. You come to Genesis 18 and God reiterates as He is getting ready to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Verse 17, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do since Abraha will surely become a great and might nation. And in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed.” So you see two provisions of the covenant again—the seed, will be a great nation; and blessing, all the nations of the earth will be blessed in him which will focus primarily in the blessings of salvation.

Come over to Genesis 22, and this is where Abraham is tested by God. “Take your son,” verse 2, Take your son, your only son whom you love,” and bring him to Mt. Moriah and offer him as a sacrifice to Me. So you are familiar, Abraham takes Isaac and he is just ready to bring the knife down on Isaac and the angel of the Lord stops him and says, don't sacrifice your son. And in verse 16, “The angel of the Lord said to Abraham, by Myself I have sworn, declares the Lord.” Remember we studied the book of Hebrews and the writer says God did this to show you how firm and unchanging is His commitment. He took an oath upon Himself. Now God's word is final, but God not only gave His word, He swore, He took an oath. “By Myself I have sworn,” declares the Lord, “indeed I will greatly bless you, I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, the sand of the seashore. Your seed shall possess the gates of your enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed.” You see we keep seeing God confirming again and again and again. Here He does it by oath. How many things does God have to do, and how many times does He have to say it? And yet you have theological professors writing in journals for the learned—the only thing in the Abrahamic Covenant that really is going to be fulfilled and wasn't conditioned was the provision about salvation. It's just not biblical.

All right, the covenant is repeated to Isaac. Come to Genesis 26. Abraham dies in Genesis 25 and so you have Isaac. Remember the promise is to come from Abraham to Isaac. Now how will that go? Genesis 26:2, “The Lord appeared to Isaac and said, do not go down to Egypt. Stay in the land which I shall tell you, sojourn in this land and I will be with you and bless you. For to you and your descendants I will give all these lands, I will establish the oath which I swore to your father Abraham.” I did it by oath. Stay in the land because what I promised to Abraham will come true. I didn't say, if you do this, Isaac, then this could be fulfilled. The covenant is secure. Maybe those who are going to receive the blessings, there will be some sifting. The time when it is fulfilled is determined by God, but the fact and assurance of its fulfillment is settled. It is being established here.

“I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, will give your descendants all these lands. By your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.” Land, seed and blessing, all included here. And the reiterating of the Abrahamic Covenant. This is not a new covenant, “this is the covenant I established with your father Abraham and confirmed it with an oath,” verse 3. The land, seed and blessing are all part of it. How do we get the authority to break out of this and say it's both conditional and unconditional? That's not interpreting Scripture, that's twisting Scripture.

It's confirmed to Jacob because the promise goes Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Muslims, those in Muslim lands, indeed can be descendants of Abraham, but they are not descendants according to promise. The promises of the Abrahamic Covenant are not theirs. The promises belong to those who are descendants of Abraham, through Isaac, through Jacob, and then the twelve patriarchs. Very crucial, very important. We talk about the Abrahamic faith and those of the descendants of Abraham. That's not what is important in the ultimate sense of the Abrahamic Covenant, because it's those who are descendants of Abraham through Isaac, through Jacob, through the twelve sons of Jacob.

We're now going to Genesis 28 and this comes go Jacob. And this is as far as we will get. Verse 1, “Isaac called Jacob and blessed him.” Isaac now is getting old, it's time to pass on the blessing. Esau was the firstborn, he was in the line of succession but he had sold that right of inheritance for a bowl of soup, remember, to his brother Jacob. So the blessing is given to Jacob. Verse 3, “May God Almighty bless you, make you fruitful, multiply you that you may become a company of people. May He give you the blessing of Abraham.” Not the blessing God gave me, primarily, but the blessing that was given to Abraham that is passed on “to you and your descendants with you that you may possess the land of your sojourners, which God gave to Abraham.” Do you get the idea the land is important in this? It seems every time we keep talking about the land, the land, the land.

Come down to verse 12, this is Jacob's ladder. He had a dream and verse 13, “behold the Lord stood above the ladder that reached to heaven and said, I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham, the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth.” Then they look north, south, east, west. The end of verse 14, “in your descendants all the families of the earth will be blessed.” We have land, seed and blessing again. There is no pulling back. I want you to know the blessings will be there but not the land, not the seed. I mean, land, seed and blessing. “I am with you, will keep you wherever you go, bring you back to this land. I will do what I have promised.”

In Genesis 35:9 Jacob, he gets the promise from Isaac passed on but now God reiterates it to Jacob. Verse 9 “Then God appeared to Jacob” again reiterating what He did when He appeared to him in the dream we just read, reiterating again. “God said to him, your name is Jacob, you shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.” We talk about the Israelites, the land of Israel. It takes us back to the Abrahamic Covenant. We need to understand these things, they are unfolding all around us in the world today, we ought to know the theological foundation and be clear on it.

“He called him Israel. God also said to him, I am God Almighty, be fruitful, multiply and a company of nations shall come from you, kings shall come forth from you. The land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, I will give the land to your descendants after you.” And on it goes. And then it will be passed on to the twelve sons of Jacob.

We have to stop here, I'm going to pick this up tonight and I know some of you can't come tonight. But I do want to follow through. We haven't gotten to the new covenant yet, which is where we are going, but while we are doing these covenantal things I want it to be clear. I want to break down the rest of the charts, you just saw chart 1 of the six we have. So we'll be doing that tonight, and that fits with our study of Daniel anyway because the covenant controls everything that is going on. And you understand this is why the world is going where it is going and why all the conflicts we have and the wars and the terrorism and everything. It's rooted back here in the covenant we are studying. This is not just old, out of date, historical stuff. This is the unfolding of God's plan and now we see moving more, this is where we are going. God has to fulfill what He has promised. So we'll look more into this, this evening.

Let's pray together. Thank You, Lord, for all You have revealed in Your Word. Lord, we are in awe that 2,000 years before Christ You established Your covenant with Abraham and all of its provisions will be fulfilled as You have given, as You gave then, as You repeatedly reminded You would do. Lord, our privilege is to believe Your Word, believe Your promises and be the beneficiaries of the salvation You have provided and the establishing of that blessing promised in the Abrahamic Covenant and provided in the death of Your Son in the establishing of the new covenant. So Lord give us an appreciation and an awe of Your greatness. Lord, our confidence is in the fact that You are the God who keeps His Word, You are the God Who cannot lie. We can read what You have said, the promises You have given, the covenants You have established and rest assured that they will be fulfilled exactly as You have given. Thank You for Your love for us, thank You for Your blessings. In Christ's name, amen.