The Abrahamic Covenant

We're thankful to have Saripong and his wife, family, with us this morning from Bangkok. We pray for you guys regularly and we're thankful that you're with us this morning.

If you have your Bibles turned to Genesis 12, we're starting a series continuing on with what we started last week on how to understand our Bibles, to understand the relationship between the Old Testament and the Old Covenant, which a testament is a covenant, and the New covenant or the New Testament. Why do we have two testaments? Why is one old? Why do we not carry on some of those regulations and commands? Why can we eat pork when the Old Testament saints were unable to do so? How does the Old and New Testament fit together? What are their relationships? And we to understand relationship between the Old Testament and New Testament, you have to understand the relationship between the covenants. That God is a covenant God who makes covenants with His people. A covenant is a contract and it has promises and it's got stipulations or terms. A covenant, all covenants, even the covenants you sign at the bank, agreements, every covenant that you enter into, marriage covenant, all covenants are rooted in the moral law of God. Without the moral law of God there's no such thing as a covenant. There's no such thing as morality and ethics and a standard. So where every contract is built upon the moral law of God. It's the heart of the covenants and it's true even in all the covenants of Scriptures.

every covenant from the covenant we looked at last week that God made with Adam and Eve, the covenant that God made with Abraham, which we're going to look at this morning, the covenant He makes with Aaron, covenant He makes with David, the new covenant that He makes with us.

Every covenant is rooted in God's moral law.

The thing about God's moral law, it is timeless, it's eternal, it's based upon the very essence and character of God Himself.

So the law cannot be altered or changed.

It doesn't matter about our cultural customs.

It transcends time.

The law will be with us in heaven and it will be with those who are in hell.

The law still condemns.

It will always condemn those in hell.

And because of Jesus Christ, it will always justify us in heaven.

So the law is eternal and it cannot be abrogated, altered, or changed, or done away with.

But we talked about how though all covenants are rooted in the moral law of God, a particular covenant when we think about a particular contract, even the contracts you enter into to buy a house, every contract is a administration of the moral law.

It's built upon the moral law.

And so these various covenants in the Old Testament from Abraham and Moses and David and Aaron, all these Old Testament covenants that we read about have positive laws attached to them. And to review ourselves from last week, a positive law is any such law that is given to a particular person or people group that is enforced as long as the contract is valid. And a contract can be null and void through two ways, it being fulfilled, you pay off the debt, pay off your car, the bank has no more claims on you. It's pay off, contract contract is over. No need to revisit that contract. Thankfully we can look at how Jesus paid the contract for us. And it's over. That's one way to get a contract to be over. Another way is for the covenant to be broken. You don't pay your bill.

You don't pay your payment. And after so many mis-payments they're coming after you and they're repolling your house or your car.

The contract is made void through breaking the terms, through unfulfilling the terms.

So a contract is enforced when the terms are satisfied or when the terms are unsatisfied or broken.

And so the moral law can never end, but administrations of that moral law can come to an end.

So that's the difference between an administration of the covenant of works and, if you would, the covenant of works itself or the law itself.

In other words, the word covenant of works is just another way of saying the law, wherever the law is, it's a legal binding contract. It's made between God and you, God and humanity.

And that is all the terms of a contract is in the law itself. It's not optional. You're not free to go, "I don't like these terms." The terms of the law, of the covenant works, do and live. If you obey, you're justified. If you disobey, you die. The wages of sin is death. It's a contract upon all humanity. The law, the moral law, the covenant of works is made with universally with all people, Jews and Gentiles, all humanity. God has made the covenant of works with, he's issued the law with everybody. He's written the contract in our conscience. Someone says, "Well, I wasn't aware of this contract." God says, I wrote my law in your hearts.

You knew about it.

But the positive law or the particular contracts or covenants that God makes throughout the Old Testament, He doesn't make with everyone universally.

Covenant that He made with Israel, He did not make with Gentile nations.

He did not make with the Babylonians.

He didn't make that contract with all people.

He did not write that contract upon the law, that all those positive laws of not mixing fabrics and not eating pork.

He did not put those moral, those positive laws in the hearts of humanity.

He wrote it down and made that with Israel, particularly with Israel.

God made a particular covenant with Adam.

And he says, don't eat from this particular tree.

We're not under that obligation.

Only Adam and Eve were under that obligation.

And that covenant was broken.

God made a covenant with Abraham we're going to look at and it was circumcised your children, your male children were no longer under that obligation.

made a covenant with the house of Israel, Mount Sinai, and he gave them particular laws based upon the moral law, rooted in the moral law, good laws, but they're particular to that people group.

And as long as that covenant's enforced, those laws are enforced.

But once that covenant has been broken or fulfilled, those particular laws are no longer valid.

So we have to understand the difference between moral law and positive law to understand the difference between the covenant of works and an administration of the covenant works.

And there are various administrations of the covenant of works.

We looked at the first administration of the covenant of works last week, the covenant God made with Adam.

Now we're going to look at the second administration of the covenant works, the covenant that God makes with Abraham.

If you have your Bibles turned to Genesis 12, read with me in verses 1-3.

Now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you and I will make you a great nation and I'll 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." So he's telling Abraham what he's going to do, and then he enters into a particular covenant, five chapters over. So turn with me to Genesis 17, starting with verse 7. And so here's the actual wording of the administration of the covenant works that God makes with Abraham.

"I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring, after you throughout their generations for everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you. I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your soul journeys, all the land of Canaan for everlasting possession, and I'll be their God." And God said to Abraham,"As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their 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 brought with your money from a foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is brought 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. The word here means cursed. Cut off, cursed from his people. He has broken my covenant. Now we learn in Genesis 22.18 the verse is repeated over and over in the New Testament which is summarizing the Abrahamic covenant. In Genesis 22.18 it says, "In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed." So here is the covenant.

And the covenant, God makes certain promises. I will do this.

You know the bank says I'm going to give you $40,000. Here's the money you're going to have paid off over a five-year period.

Here's your terms.

So God makes a promise.

Here's what God's going to give to Abraham.

We see that the promise includes two major things.

One that His children will be the people of God.

Now that's a wonderful promise.

We see that in verse 7 of chapter 17.

"I will establish my covenant between me and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you. I'll be their God." That is amazing. Now how would you like God coming to you and say, "I'm going to be the God of your children." Man, what a promise. What a promise.

The second thing God promised Abraham to give them a dwelling place, a land. We see that in verse 8, "I will give to you and your offspring after you the land of your souljournings, all the land of Canaan for everlasting possession, and I'll be their God." This is a permanent dwelling place, and we could develop this out, but throughout scriptures this dwelling place is a place where they would dwell forever in the presence of God.

They would be the people of God dwelling with God in the land of God.

promise. We learn in chapter 12 and then in chapter 22 that the promise ultimately say, "In Abraham all the families of the earth shall be blessed. In your seed, in your offspring, all the families, not just the one nation, not just Jews, but all nations, Gentiles included, shall be blessed." And one of One of the things we have to note about the terms of the covenant and the promises of the covenant, that's really important that this land is eternal.

This land is not just for a thousand years.

It doesn't have a time stamp on it.

It's not just for the duration as long as the earth stands, this land will be Abraham's in his offspring.

No, this is an eternal inheritance forever.

It says it twice, an everlasting covenant, an everlasting possession.

Last week we read in the Bible reading that we're to give our money to the Lord because our money doesn't belong to us, we're stewards of it.

And it says so that you will actually receive real possession.

That's amazing.

your money is not yours, it's fleeting, your stewards of it, and you know your land doesn't belong to you. Nothing belongs to you. You take nothing with you. But we can take what doesn't belong to us and use it correctly in order to store up for ourselves eternal riches that really will belong to us. That's amazing. So this promise, the promise of the the Abrahamic covenant is eternal blessings. This land is an eternal inheritance. Now, however, here's these promises.

They're glorious. I want, how do I, a Gentile, get in this. I want to partake of that. But we've got to recognize that these promises have terms. There's conditions. They're not free. You have to earn them. You have to keep the conditions. What is the condition? Well, we read it. I'm going to do this, but your offspring have to be circumcised. Everyone who's going to live in this land has to be circumcised. And if the child is not circumcised, he's cut off from the people. He's cursed.

He's exiled. He's to be exiled out of the camp. He's to be cursed. He has broken a covenant.

So the covenant is not free. A lot of people want to mistake the Abrahamic covenant as this administration of the covenant of grace. It's not a covenant of grace. No, there's promises God is saying I'm going to do this. But you've got to do your end. You've got to, talking about the physical children of Abraham. Abraham and your children, listen, you have to be circumcised. Now circumcision is a positive law. It's not a moral law. We know that in the New Testament. God is not chastising Gentiles for not being circumcised.

Oh, you're not circumcised, you're breaking the law. No, that's actually a term of the Abrahamic covenant. It's situational particular to that people group. So Gentiles are not under that obligation. There's nothing in and of itself that you have to be circumcised to be a moral person. However, all, every positive law, like we talked about last week, is built upon moral law, that the heart of all laws, all rules, all regulations, if it's a good regulation, should be based upon love God and love your neighbor. You tell your kids, don't play with the light socket when they're little. That doesn't apply to them when they're teenagers, but when they're little, they're infants, toddlers, don't play with the light socket. Well, why do you say that? Because you love them.

So that positive law is built upon a good moral law of of love. You're not making laws just to show your power, just to be flexing your muscles.

God never does that. Every positive law, such as circumcision, is built upon the moral law and therefore it demands obedience to the moral law of God. If you're, do not eat from the tree, the knowledge of good and evil. That implied more than just not just eating from that tree it implied do not sin in any way. Well the command to be circumcised in your flesh demanded that you have a circumcised heart. The Bible says if you sinned in any points of the law you broke all of the law. Circumcision, the very meaning of that implies not just an outward cutting of the flesh but that you have your heart circumcised. This Jeremiah told the Jews in chapter 9 that the days were coming, declares the Lord that he's going to punish all those who are only circumcised in the flesh and not circumcising the heart. He commands the Jews, "Circumcise your hearts." Now they couldn't do it, but that was the command. And Jeremiah is saying, "If you've only been outwardly circumcised, if that's all you've been done. If that's all you've done, you haven't kept the law. In fact, Abraham himself knew that this circumcision was emblematic of full obedience to the moral law.

In Genesis 18, after the covenant was given, the angel of the Lord appeared to Abraham telling him about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. And remember right before Abraham starts to go, "Well, will you spare the city if I can find 50 righteous people. Before he goes into that dialogue, God said, must I keep this a secret from Abraham, seeing that all the families of the earth are going to be blessed in him. And in verse 19, it says, "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 injustice. So he's to command his children to obey the law.

Not just circumcision, but obey all the law. And it goes on to say, "So that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him." Now you see this, God tells Abraham, "Tell your kids to obey me so that I will fulfill the promises." We learn there that the promises are conditioned. All these wonderful promises are conditioned upon the children of Abraham obeying God. Now Moses himself understood this. Moses tells the Jews in Deuteronomy 7 verse 11, he said, "Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments and in the statues and the judgments which I command you this day to do them. Therefore, so that it shall come to pass, if you hark into these judgments and keep and to do them, that the Lord your God shall keep unto thee the covenant of and mercy which he swore unto your fathers." So keep these laws so that God will give the promises that He's promised to Abraham.

Deuteronomy 7:11

Christ Himself understood that circumcision demanded full obedience to the law.

John 7, verse 22, Jesus says, "Moses gave you circumcision, not that it's from Moses but from the fathers.

John 7:22

When you circumcise a man on the Sabbath, if on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken." So he's showing how the law of Moses is connected to circumcision.

Paul understood that as well in Galatians 5-4.

He says, "I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. Romans 2.25, "For circumcision indeed is a value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision." And Romans 2.28, "For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical.

But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. So his praise is not from man but from God. So here we see that when God has placed this positive law of circumcision upon the Jews, it actually demanded that they have circumcised hearts. It actually demanded that they would be perfect. And without perfection, Without obedience, the promises would not come about.

You say, "That's not good.

How is it going to happen?" I mean, that's high terms.

Perfect obedience, or you're not going to have a promised land, you're not going to be the people of God.

That's the terms.

You cannot be a child of God or the people of God.

You're not going to have God rule over you.

You're not going to have God as your God, and you're not going to have an eternal possession to inherit without perfect obedience.

That's the standard.

That's the Abrahamic covenant.

That's why it's an administration of the covenant works.

In verse 14 of chapter 17, it says, "Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised will be cut off." from his people, for he has broken my covenant.

Now, how did the children of Abraham do?

They did not circumcise their hearts.

You can go over and do a web search on circumcision of the heart.

You can see in the Old Testament that it was a command, circumcise your heart, circumcise your heart.

Don't rely upon physical or outward circumcision.

need more than that." And they failed to do that. They couldn't do it. They did not keep the terms of the Abrahamic covenant at all. Jeremiah 11 verse 10 says, this is towards the end of their history. "The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers." The one I made with Abraham, they broken it. "Therefore says the Lord, behold, I will bring evil upon them which they shall not be able to escape. Cursed. They would be blessed. They would inherit an eternal possession, but now they're cursed because of their disobedience. The Jews would be the people of God if they were obedient. That's the terms. That's the covenant. And I know you might be from a background that says, okay, that Jews are the people of God. No, read the terms. Read the condition. Read the covenant. Read the contract. This is why if you read the book of Romans, Paul begins by trying to address the Jews in their self-confidence.

Jeremiah 11:10

The Jews took confidence that they were the children of Abraham and they were circumcised. They took confidence that they had the law of Moses. They had the law, they were circumcised. They could trace their lineage all the way back to Abraham. We are Abraham's children. And they thought these outward benefits secured their eternal destiny. That they were the people of God and that the dirty Gentiles, those dogs are outside of God's covenant people.

And so they looked down upon Gentiles and boasted in themselves.

They boasted in the law and circumcision and their genetics.

But in Romans, systematically Paul says don't trust any of that.

First in chapter 2 he says do not trust the fact that you have the law.

Romans 2, 17, "You call yourself a Jew and rely upon the law and boast in God and know His will and approve what is excellent because you are instructed of the law.

You take pride in that you have all these laws and…" But don't boast in that.

He goes on to say, "For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.

For it is not the one who hears the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified." So don't, just because you possess it and you know it, don't boast.

It's the one who does it, implying you're not doing it.

For we all sin and come short of the glory of God.

Paul has already made note.

He says, "For when Gentiles who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, They are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.

They don't have it given to them on tablets of stone, but they've been given it to them written in their conscience.

So you're not the only ones who have the law.

Gentiles have the law too, but that doesn't make them right.

It doesn't make you right.

We're both condemned under the law.

So don't boast in the fact that God made a covenant and given you the law.

And also don't boast in the fact that you have circumcision.

You know, the thing that marked out the Jews from the Gentiles is that they had the sign of the covenant in their flesh.

So they boasted in the fact that they were circumcised.

And, you know, it's not like Goliath who has, who's uncircumcised.

He's a dog because he's uncircumcised.

He's unclean.

Gentiles are unclean.

And Jews are somehow cleaned.

Externally, they're clean.

They're circumcised.

Paul says, "Do you think you're actually clean? Do you think you can actually boast that just because you have a mark in the flesh, you think that somehow is sanctified your hearts that you're actually clean internally? No." This is why he says, "For circumcision indeed is a value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision." So if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, hypothetically, if a But Gentile actually was holy and perfectly obey the law, he would be pure, even without circumcision.

Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who will have the written code and circumcision but break the law.

Thirdly, the Jews boasted in their ethnicity, their bloodline.

the Pharisees come to Jesus, we have Abraham as our Father. We're the children of Abraham.

We're special. He made a covenant with Abraham and we happen to be the children of Abraham so that covenant's made with us. We've got to understand that here's the terms. This is why Paul says in Romans 2, 28, "For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly." That is a true child of Abraham, and circumcision a matter of the heart, by the Spirit not by the letter. His phrase is not from man but from God. Hermann Witzia says, "Yet none of these things, the law, circumcision, and bloodline, nay all of them put together if we only consider the external confederation was sufficient them for salvation. For they are not all Israel which are of Israel, neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they the children of promise." And this is why Jesus looked to the Pharisees who took confidence that they were special in the eyes of God because of the Abrahamic covenant. He says,"Do not presume to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. For I tell you, God is able to make these stones stones, or maybe eugentiles, the people who are called not my people. Maybe he's able to make these stones to rise up as children for Abraham. Remember they were boasting that they were the children of Abraham and John 8, Jesus said to them in verse 39, they said to the Lord Jesus, Abraham is our father.

Then Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham." But he goes on to say, "You are of your father the devil." So he's looking at the Jews, these Jews who thought that they were special.

He says, "Don't think Abraham's your father.

Your father's the devil." That might be a shock to some of us, but let me be clear, outside of Jesus Christ, outside of faith in Jesus Christ, everyone's going to hell.

Jew and Gentile.

There is none righteous.

No, not one.

Genetics does not get you to heaven.

And this is true for children of believers.

Your mom and dad's faith doesn't get you there.

You're born under the condemnation of the first Adam.

And this is true with all of Abraham's physical children.

You see, the Jews did not receive any internal inheritance.

You know, the Promised Land, Abraham, you realize the Promised Land, the eternal herets was promised to Abraham, "I will give it to you." It's not just, "I'll give it to your children one day." Four hundred years from now, maybe your children will inherit.

God told Abraham, "I'm going to give it to you, all the land that your feet touch, Abraham's feet touch.

I'm going to give it to you." You've got to realize Abraham hasn't received a bit of it yet, not one square inch.

The Bible makes an important historical fact that Abraham had to buy a little plot of land, a cave to bury his wife, Sarion.

Why does the Bible talk about that?

He wouldn't even take it as a gift because he understood that the promise, he could say,"Well, he already owned the cave.

God gave everything to him." true in a way. But the Bible will make it clear that he did not receive his inheritance in this life. Hebrews 11, we'll get to that in a minute. He wandered his whole life as a pilgrim, as a stranger. He lived in tents. He did not settle down. This world was never his home. So he did not receive it. And his sons did not receive it. In fact, he didn't, you know, it's like this is the the inheritors of Abraham, he didn't give it to his sons, he didn't have it to give to his sons. He had earthly possessions, he passed that down. But those earthly possessions, the wealth of Abraham that he accumulated, where is that today? It's not eternal. All the earthly possessions, the livestock, the sheep, all that wealth that he inherited or he collected and he passed on to his sons and his sons' sons and his grandchildren, None of that is eternal.

Moreover, the Promised Land is cursed.

Think about this.

Google Earth and do a map search over Israel. It's not a land flowing of milk and honey. It used to be.

It's a desert land.

There's still thistles and thorns covering that land.

It's not an eternal possession, the physical land, because there's decades, thousands of years that pass by, Israel's not on it.

So this is, is this what God promised?

I'm going to give it and it's going to be everlasting possession.

Is God not keeping His end of the deal?

No.

You see the Abrahamic covenant was an administration of the covenant works that required Abraham's children to obey the positive law of circumcision that demanded full obedience to the moral law of God.

They failed.

Well, does that mean God's not gonna fulfill His promise to Abraham?

What about God's faithfulness?

What about the Abrahamic covenant?

We see the failure of Abraham's physical seed, but let's move on to the faithfulness of God.

Well, we learn an important detail about the Abrahamic covenant when we come to Galatians 3, 15 and 16.

The promise that in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed, we learn in Genesis 22 that would be in his seed particularly.

Through Abraham the nations of the earth will be blessed, then we learn that it's going to be a particular seed that all the earth and nations of the world will be blessed.

In Galatians 3.15 we learn that seed is not referring to all the physical children of Abraham but to one child of Abraham.

To give a human example, Paul says, "Brothers, even with a man-made covenant, no one annoles it or adds to it once it has been ratified.

Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring or seed.

It does not say and to offsprings, referring to many or in the plural, but referring to the one and to your offspring.

And Paul says, who is Christ?

Do you see?

All the offspring of Abraham had to obey the law, had to be circumcised.

And in that one child, all the earths would be blessed.

Well, Jesus Christ is the true physical, biological child of Abraham.

And Jesus Christ was circumcised according to the law, according to the terms of the Abrahamic covenant on the eighth day.

And Jesus Christ was the one seed, the only seed who obeyed the whole moral law of God.

Romans 15, 8 says this, "For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the circumcised on behalf of God's truth." So he is a servant to the Jews, to those who have circumcised to confirm the promises made to the fathers.

You see, Jesus Christ through the obedience of his life, obeying circumcision of the flesh and of the heart.

He brings about the promises of the Abrahamic covenant.

You see, even Abraham realized that it would be a seed that would bring about the promises, not all of his children, but he saw the Messiah.

He saw the hope of Israel.

Jesus says in John 8, 56, "Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day.

He saw it and was glad." You know, God gave him a promise,"In your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed." He was given this promise when he didn't have any children.

And Abraham believed that promise and he was looking for the Messiah.

He saw the Messiah coming.

The promise given to Adam and Eve after the fall.

But he saw that promise that it would be his seed and he believed God.

And by believing he saw Jesus through faith in that the seed would be one day the one who brings blessings to the nations.

And he was glad about it.

You see the promise of the Abrahamic covenant was not to a single nation, but to a multitude of nations.

Not a single nation with uncircumcised heart, but a multitude of nations consisting of those with circumcised hearts.

This is why in Galatians 3, 8 says, "The Scriptures foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announce the gospel in advance to Abraham.

All the nations will be blessed through you." This Abrahamic covenant is the gospel.

It's not just some temporal land that you get to have for a little while and it'll be passed on to the next generation until the end of the age.

No, this isn't a promise of an eternal inheritance that fades not away.

It's the gospel itself.

You see the children of Abraham are those who are not circumcised in the flesh, but those who have faith.

Romans 4 16. That is why it depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on grace and be granted to all his offspring, Abraham's offspring. Not only to the appearance of the law, but also the ones who share the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, have made you the father of many nations and the presence of God in whom he believed who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

So we're the children of Abraham.

How do we become heirs of the promise by faith and faith alone?

In other words, Paul says we become heirs of the Abrahamic covenant in the same exact way that Abraham becomes, became an heir of the Abrahamic covenant.

How did Abraham receive the promise?

it through circumcision, through works, through obedience? No, he received it by faith. And that's why Paul says he asked the question, did he receive it before he was circumcised or after he was circumcised in Romans 4? It's not after he was circumcised, he was justified by faith prior to being circumcised so that he would be the father of not just of the Jews, but he would be the father of all who believe Jews and Gentiles.

You see, faith makes you and I who are alienated or outside of the original covenant, it brings us in.

The middle wall petition has been brought down by faith.

He said, "Well, how does faith make you a Gentile?

I mean, how does faith make you a Jew?" That seems anti-science.

How does that work with biology?

If you're not, if you don't have the DNA of Abraham in your blood, how can you be a child of Abraham?

Well, this is how Paul explains it.

The promise was to one man, his name is Jesus.

Well he was the only one that could keep the terms.

All the other physical children of Abraham disobeyed the terms.

They were cut off.

They were cursed.

The Abrahamic covenant did not bless them.

But Jesus Christ is the single and only child, physical, biological child of Abraham that obeyed the terms.

Because he was the actual seed that God had in mind when he promised Abraham that in your seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed.

So Jesus receives all of the inheritance.

Everything goes to King Jesus.

Every bit of it.

He owns it all.

How does that help you and I?

The Bible says faith unites you to Christ.

By faith, you become one in Christ Jesus.

You become united, you're joined, you're brought into Him.

So it's not that Christ takes His inheritance and starts giving it out.

He keeps it.

He has it.

And by faith, you become joint heirs with Christ Jesus.

Jews and Gentiles who believe become united together as one family in Christ Jesus.

This is why it says in Galatians 3, 7, "Know then that is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham, and the Scriptures were seeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, 'And you shall all the nations be blessed.' So then, those who are of faith are blessed among Abraham.

This is why in Romans 9, 8, "So it is not the children of the flesh who are God's children, but the children of promise who were regarded as His offspring." In other words, the only way to be a child of Abraham, the only way to be blessed of God, a child of God and in the people of God and to have the inheritance and an eternal dwelling place, you have to have faith. If you're a Jew or Gentile, you have to have faith. Abraham had faith. King David had faith, meaning the Old Testament saints had faith.

And they become the children of Abraham, not just by genetics, but they became children of Abraham by faith. The wonderful news, the wonderful news is for us Gentiles. It's glorious news that we too become heirs of these eternal promises.

And as we conclude here, we've got to understand this eternal blessing is true blessings.

It's not just some temporal land that's going to pass away filled with thorns and thistles.

It's not a temporal land, but it's an eternal dwelling.

Again, Abraham was promised this dwelling place.

And if it was only talking about some geographical area in the Middle East, which I believe that's part of it, but if it was only dealing with this temporal place or only for a thousand years in the future, then how is that eternal?

himself knew, he knew it wasn't this current world under the current situation.

Hebrews 11 8 says, "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called out to go to a place that was to be received as an inheritance." Verse 13 says, "These all died, including Abraham in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar and having a knowledge that they wore strangers and exiles on the earth.

It tells us that by faith Abraham obeyed when he was called out.

And it says, along with Isaac and Jacob, in verse 10 it says, "For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God." Abraham, by faith, he was looking for something more than the land that he was walking on.

He was looking for an eternal inheritance.

This is why Romans 4.13 says, "The promise to Abraham and his offspring was that he would be the heir of the world." I believe in the new hands and the new earth.

And when God told Abraham, "As far as you can see this way, that way, that way, that way, wherever you touch, this whole world is yours." And the Bible tells us over and over that we're waiting after the destruction of this curse world when this world is finally subdued, where all pain and sorrow and sickness and all sin and evil is cleansed, that will have a new heavens and the new earth where only exclusively righteousness dwells forever and ever and ever.

And when Christ comes back, He's going to purify this world, this very world, the physical earth that Abraham walked on and the physical world that God says, "I give it to you." Abraham is going to receive and it's going to be altogether glorious.

And it doesn't end after a thousand years.

It goes forever and ever and ever.

You see, as we conclude, the Abrahamic covenant is like a coin.

It had these promises, these eternal promises of glory, of heaven, of salvation, of the gospel.

The heart of the Abrahamic covenant is the gospel.

But the gospel demands obedience.

It demands that the covenant of works is satisfied.

could not do it, any of his other children could not do it. You and I could not do it, but there was one child of Abraham who did it. And this is why the boast is not in us.

It's not in a circumcision that we can take boast in. It's so that the boast and the glory may be in God. This is why Paul says in Romans 3, 27, "Then what becomes of our boasting?" to the Jews. It is excluded by what kind of law? By a law of works? No, by the law of faith.

For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of the Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also. Since God is one, He will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith so that no one may boast and God alone through the works, the merit, the works, the righteousness of Christ alone may get the glory.

Now this is the most encouraging news that you could have if you're a Gentile.

Hey, it's the most encouraging news you can have if you're a Jew.

Doesn't matter if you're a Jew or Gentile.

We're all equally condemned, but we all have a gospel.

By faith, we can receive the promises, not by works, but by the grace of God.

Amen.

[ Pause ]