Thoughts on Genesis: 17:1-8 (Part II)

17 When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, ²that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” ³Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, ⁴“Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. ⁵No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. ⁶I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. ⁷And 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. ⁸And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”  (Gen. 17:1-8 ESV)

There are several items that God’s covenant with Abram confers:

1. Abram will be the father of many nations

You know the song, “Father Abram, had many sons…” Yeah, of course not because Abram does not have many sons…well at least not yet. God’s promise is that Abram would be the father of a multitude of nations, but this extends beyond geography. As the Apostle Paul writes in Galatians 3:28-29,

“And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.”

Abram’s descendants would be Israel and other physical nations, but most importantly they would be those who embraced a spiritual lineage to Abram through Abram’s faith.

2. Abram would hence forth be called “Abraham”

Now the song makes more sense! Abraham literally means “father of a multitude.” It would not do for Abram to embrace his new covenant without a name that reflects his new identity from God. There is something similar to this that happens when we accept Christ:

Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To everyone who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give a white stone, and on the white stone is written a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it. (Rev. 2:17 ESV)

This new name is also to be identified to the spiritual descendants of Israel:

The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory; and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give. (Isa. 62:2 ESV)

Giving a new name to someone allows God to reshape their identity and their destiny. Abram being renamed Abraham was God’s way of bringing Abram into the next level of intimacy and relationship.

3. Abraham would be the father of kings.

Unbeknownst to Abraham at the time, there would be many kings that came from Isaac, the child of promise. But what the author of the text does not know (especially if the originator is Moses) is that God is specifically talking about the future kings of David (the human type of the future Christ), his lineage (though fallen and corrupted like David), and ultimately Jesus the Christ who is God-man, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

It is interesting though that God did reveal to Moses that Israel would have kings, as in this passage from Deuteronomy:

¹⁴“When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ ¹⁵you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you…¹⁸“And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. ¹⁹And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, ²⁰that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.” (Deut. 17:14-15, 18-20 ESV)

So, there is an expectation that the children of Abraham (here only the Israelites are in view) will bring forth kings that God will bless, and they will rule the nation under the authority of Yahweh as the King of Kings.

4. This covenant would include all of Abraham’s descendants.

This is perhaps the greatest part of this covenant: God would bless not only Abraham, but also all those who would be descended from him. The writer of Genesis has only the physical descendants in mind, but the New Testament clearly progresses this view; consider as an example John the Baptist’s sarcastic remarks about the claim that many Jews boasted to compare themselves with Gentiles and Samaritans:

⁹And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. (Matt. 3:9 ESV)

Jesus had something similar to say when some Jews claimed to be Abraham’s children:

³⁹They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, ⁴⁰but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. ⁴¹You are doing the works your father did.” They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father—even God.” ⁴²Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. ⁴³Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. ⁴⁴You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (Jn. 8:39-44 ESV)

Jesus attributed being a descendant of Abraham with being one who did the deeds and had the faith of Abraham, therefore the crowd denying Jesus proved that they were not true descendants of Abraham. Even Jesus’ Messianic lineage has instances where Gentiles were included in the promise as spiritual descendants of Abraham. (Rahab, Ruth, etc.)

As the verse above points out, all of those in Christ are true descendants and heirs of Abraham’s faith and practice.

5. God would give Abraham and his offspring the land.

This is an interesting promise considering that Abraham, though capable of roaming freely over the land of Canaan, never owned anything but his burial plot (slightly morbid) in the land. Were the promise that Abraham’s offspring would inherit the land, then that would make sense considering that Moses is writing this down as the Israelites are about to take possession of Canaan. But it is not just to Abraham’s offspring, it is also to Abraham!

I think the writer of Hebrews brings a little clarity to this:

⁸By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. ⁹By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. ¹⁰For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God…¹³These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. ¹⁴For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. ¹⁵If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

(Heb. 11:8-10, 13-166 ESV)

The promise of the land had a double meaning: 1) that the Israelites would inhabit the land of Canaan and 2) that Abraham and his descendants would inhabit the whole earth forever. The land promised to Abraham truly is the land of Canaan…and so much more. Abraham died never seeing the promised fulfilled, but one day Abraham and all his descendants will inhabit the heaven-earth that God will cleanse and make new. The promise is for Abraham, and my brothers and sisters it is for us as well.

But what would be the seal of this covenant? Find out next time.