Monday
Monday
The Seed of Abraham
I will bless you … and you will be a blessing…. And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.
Genesis 12:2–3
Abraham is a towering figure of the Old Testament, being the first of the three great patriarchs, or founding fathers, of Yahweh’s covenant people. In addition to his promises to give Abraham a land and a seed, God promised in more general terms to bless him, to make him a blessing, and even through him (i.e., through his descendant, the Messiah) to bless all the families of the earth.
It is no exaggeration to claim that the rest of the Old Testament, and indeed the rest of human history, has been a fulfillment of these promises. Consider Paul’s argument. Because God made his promises to Abraham and to his seed (in the singular), his use of this collective noun alluded to Christ and so to all who are united to Christ by faith. For if we belong to Christ, then we are Abraham’s posterity (Gal. 3:16, 29).
The apostle goes on to contrast the words curse and blessing, or more particularly “the curse of the law” and “the blessing of Abraham.” “Christ redeemed us,” he writes, “from the curse of the law [that is, the judgment that the law pronounces on those who disobey it] by becoming a curse for us … in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:13–14). He bore the curse that we might inherit the blessing.
God’s promise to bless the world through Abraham’s seed lies at the foundation of the Christian missionary enterprise. We must continue to share the gospel with both Jews and Gentiles until the countless number of the redeemed is drawn from every nation and language and so is as numerous as the stars in the sky and the dust of the earth. Only then will God’s promise to Abraham be fulfilled.
For further reading: Galatians 3:6–25