We have found from our previous studies that God, in all His previous Covenants, set up a process of selection.  And if we don’t remember any other verse, in the context of these studies, we must always keep in the back of your mind, the statement recorded in Romans 11:29;

I don’t care what the enemy does, and I don’t care what man says. It doesn’t make any difference to the fact that when God has said He is going to do something, then that is the living end of it.  There is no argument that will ever change God’s mind.  I don’t know how people can be so utterly stupid, let alone arrogant, as to think that they can introduce their own personal ideas, and all their other denominational theology, that appear to be designed to explain away what God said He was going to do, rather than to support it.  The whole purpose of this series of articles is not to burden anyone just with my words or opinion. I have no particular interest in my words, other than that they should accurately reflect the Words of God. I hope you haven’t either from that point of view.  I get a little bit tired of hearing about people following other people.  All too many folk these days concentrate on quoting the opinions of this leader or that leader, without seemingly checking to ascertain whether or not those opinions actually agree with the basic principles of what God has said.  Even Paul had that problem, you know.  He said, “Some follow Paul and some follow Apollos”.  He warned them of the dangers that could arise out of such practices, in the form of envyings and division.  In other words, he simply and directly told them that in following particular people, they were losing the plot.  Read the account in I Cor. 3:1-4.

The basic principle that we must follow when studying God’s Word is set forth in Malachi 3:6;

We find at this stage that the Abrahamic covenant, the Davidic covenant, and the New covenant, form the most important of all the covenants.  I’m not saying that the others are not important, nor am I in any way detracting from the importance of the other covenants.  It’s just that without the three covenants mentioned, the others would become redundant.

It should also be recognised that we are not speaking here of individual, general, or spiritual covenants.  These are NATIONAL COVENANTS.   They begin with a man named Abram, who later became Abraham.   The covenant that God made with this man guaranteed the formation and everlasting existence of an earthly nation which was to become the Kingdom of God on earth.   The Davidic covenant, as we will see in a future study, set up and guaranteed the everlasting Throne that was to reign over this kingdom.  Whilst the New covenant was God’s assurance of the everlasting condition of this kingdom and throne. The new covenant was the culmination of all these things.  So what was this covenant which God made with Abram?   We read it in Genesis 12:1-3;
 

“Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee:
2.  And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
3.  And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”

Or alternatively, are we willing to accept the current teaching from many theological sources that this nation, which was later named as Israel, became so bad that God couldn’t do anything with them, and so changed His mind, destroyed the very nation that He had specifically formed and nurtured to be the witness to His very existence, and then awarded these promises to a multi-national organisation called ‘the church’.  And before you wonder whether or not I’m serious, I assure you that I have read this actual statement, and had it quoted to me on a number of occasions.  It is standard teaching in many theological colleges today.

Perhaps, before commencing an examination of the specific terms of this covenant, we should assure ourselves of their continued validity.   We read in Jeremiah 31: 35 to 37;
 

35  “Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name:
36  If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.
37  Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD.”

Are we seriously asked to believe that the ordinances of the sun and the moon have ceased?  God said that the seed of Israel would cease from being a nation only if this happened.  Who do we believe?   God or man?

 Since when have the heavens been measured?  We are still regularly hearing of discoveries of the vastness of the heavens that are far and beyond anything previously suspected.  As a matter of fact, the more one hears of what they discover, the more one becomes amazed that these people haven’t turned from their ‘evolution’ theories to acknowledging the only True God as the Creator. They have their enormous telescopes, and their radio telescopes and all their highly sophisticated equipment which boggles the mind, and tell us that the heavens just go on, and on, and on and on.  They have no idea where it finishes.  It’s a far cry isn’t it, from the old days when you used to get burnt at the stake if you believed that the earth was a ball and not just a flat plate, and that you would fall over the edge if you went too far.  That’s only a few hundred years ago.  With all the most accurate and sensitive instruments that man has been able to devise they have got to the stage where they cannot even begin to fathom the immensity of the heavens .  And God says, ‘You will cease being a nation if ever you get to the stage where you can measure the heavens.’  They are never going to get to that stage.  And this is why the Lord uses these illustrations.

And when did we complete searching out the foundations of the earth?  Only when we can answer these questions in the affirmative can we then say that God has changed His mind.  The apostle Paul gives the perfect answer in Romans 11:2;
 

“God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew.”

 So with this in mind, let us turn to the specifics of this covenant which we previously quoted from Genesis 12:1-3,  keeping in mind that there are six distinct and specific promises contained in this covenant.

1. A Great Nation.

 The first specific promise within this covenant was that God was going to make of the seed, or descendants of Abram, a great nation.  Let us take note of the fact that He did not promise Abram that he would become a great ‘conglomerate of people’, or a great ‘organisation’.  He specifically used the word “Nation”.  So what is a ‘nation’?  In Hebrew it is the word “goy”, whilst in the Greek it is “ethnos”.  It applies to “a multitude of people living under common institutions, having common descent, progeny, or offspring.”  It is used in respect of both Israel and non-Israel nations, according to the context.  Nowhere does it apply to ‘the church’ in its modern usage.

 In order for us to understand the ramifications of this promise we need to look at a few other references.  In Gen. 15:1-6 we read the following;
 

“After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.
2  And Abram said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?
3  And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir.
4  And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.
5  And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
6  And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.”

 Look carefully at the portions which I have emphasised.  Abram, at the time of this promise, had no children.

Well that’s not an unsurmountable problem, at least in the normal course of events.  In fact, in chapter 15 we find the account of where Sarai gave Abraham her handmaid Hagar to wife, who subsequently bore a son, Ishmael, to Abraham.  But Ishmael was not the son whom God had chosen through whom He was to fulfil His covenant with Abraham.  The covenant was to be fulfilled through a son born to him of his wife Sarai, as stated in chapter 17, verse 21.  So father Abraham had a real problem.  Abraham was 86 years old when Ishmael was born, and now God appears to him again some 13 years later when he was 99 years of age, having had no children since Ishmael, and having, as we shall see, passed the age where he was able to sire children.  Let us take up the account as recorded in Genesis 17:1-8;
 

17:1.  And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.
2  And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.
3  And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying,
4  As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.
5  Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.
6  And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.
7  And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.
8  And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”

• (v1), Abram was a very old man being 99 years of age.
• (v2), God confirmed His covenant of multiplicity for Abram’s descendants.
• (v3), Abram, no doubt realising the enormity of what God was saying, fell in humility upon his face.  More people should try this.
• (v4), God confirmed that Abram himself, and not someone else, would be the father of this multitude.
• (v5), not only was his fatherhood of this multitude confirmed, but God changed his name as an assurance of this.  The name “Abram” means ‘high or honoured father’, whilst his new name, “Abraham” means ‘father of many nations’.
• (v6), he was going to be exceedingly fruitful, and was to be the father of both nations and kings.
• (v7), God’s covenant was to apply not only to the man Abraham, but also to his descendants.  Furthermore, this covenant was to be both continuous to all generations, and was to be everlasting.  The word “everlasting” means ‘to the vanishing point; time out of mind; always; continuance; eternal; lasting, long time; perpetual; world without end.’   (Strong’s #5769).  I well remember an incident when I was about 20 years of age.  A fully qualified minister of one of our largest denominations tried to convince me that I was wrong in believing that these covenants were for ever, stating that the word actually meant “for the life of the person to whom the promise was made”.  So much for five years of seminary study.
• (v8), the land involved was to remain in the permanent possession of Abraham’s descendants, and the Lord God was to be their God.

15  And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be.
16  And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.
17  Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?
18  And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!
19  And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.
20  And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.
21  But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year.
22  And he left off talking with him, and God went up from Abraham.”

“And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.”

“Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age; and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.
Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?”

“Is any thing too hard for the LORD? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.”

“Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,
(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.
Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.
And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb:
He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;
And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.”

 But what was it in fact that Abraham had to believe?  Remember, both he and Sarah were old and unable to have children.  I can’t for an instant believe that Abraham did not appreciate the full import of what God was saying. By this time, as Paul later recorded, both their bodies were “dead” as far as child-bearing was concerned.  For them to now have children, God must totally rejuvenate both their bodies. In particular, Sarah’s normal child-bearing bodily functions must now be restored.  God had to reverse the normal effects of time in both their bodies.

 God had quite deliberately ordered things so that the fulfilment of the Covenant He had made with his servant Abraham required a miracle of outstanding proportions.  But we might ask as to why He should have gone to all this trouble when He could have, for instance, initiated this covenant years earlier when Abraham and his wife Sarah could have had a child under normal circumstances.  So why wait until the situation became humanly impossible?   Why did God decide to employ the use of a miracle for this event?

There is only one satisfactory answer to this question.  It is that the “Nation” that was promised to Abraham was to be a “miracle nation”.  It therefore required a “miracle formation”.  This was to be no ordinary nation.  Here we have the formation of what was to become “the Kingdom of God” on this earth.  Here was the foundation of the nation that was destined to “Rule with God”. The nation that was to be God’s witness to the fact that He is the only true God.  Here was the root beginnings and formation of what was to become known as the nation and people of Israel.

As we shall see in a future study, this “miracle factor” was repeated on two more occasions.  Are we seriously expected to accept that God would go to such extremes to form this special people as His Servant People, and then have so little regard for His own decision that He would replace them with something else.  What happened to His promise as stated in Malachi 3:6, which we quoted earlier;

What are we supposed to think of when we recite the Lord’s Prayer?  How on earth can we pray for His Kingdom to come, and for His will to be done, here on earth, if the Kingdom which He deliberately formed in order to achieve this purpose no longer exists, or exists in a form which is not in accord with what He promised it would be, or has been transferred to heaven?

If God has really changed His mind, as so many claim, and has taken His promises from the literal nation of Israel, and transferred them to “the church”, then how can we possibly relate this change of heart to the very promises which form the basis of our on-going study?  Let us read them again, remembering that they were made to the very people of whom both our Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul said would NOT pass away or be destroyed;

 We will study this further in our next up-date.
 

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