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“Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you’” (Galatians 7-8).

God created the world and saw that everything He had created was good (Genesis 1:31). Then sin entered the good creation and corrupted it (Genesis 3). Adam and Eve were cast from the Garden of Eden and the ground was cursed because of their sin. Sin has consequences for many. The corruption got worse until God decided to cleanse the earth through water. The Lord flooded the earth and only Noah and seven family members survived. There are four important Old Testament covenants, each of which builds on the previous. God is responding to the problems humans have brought into the world, which we would call sinfulness (1).

Out of this judgment came the covenant with Noah. There is an interesting reference in this context, going back to Genesis 3. “Never again will I curse the ground because of human beings, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done” (8:21). In order to establish this idea, creation itself is called as a witness. “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease” (8:22). The covenant is that never again will God destroy the earth (2). The reason and warning for both the covenant and the flood was murder (9:6). Out of that a sign would be given that God will keep His promises. “Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind” (9:14). God remembers but do we? One of the highlights after a storm is to see a rainbow in all its beauty. It is not the myth of a pot of gold but of returning to the Creator and His promises (3).

The second covenant is that with Abraham. It is first stated in Genesis 12:1-3, and while it flows out of the one with Noah, it becomes the centerpiece of all covenants. The other covenants certainly keep Abraham’s covenant in view. “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessings. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” There are three promises in this covenant: seed, land, and blessings. What we see is that God is in an ongoing process of fixing the problem of human sinfulness.

More details of this covenant are revealed throughout the life of Abraham. Many look at this covenant as unconditional and in one sense it is. Paul certainly understood it that way in part when he speaks of the faith of Abraham in Galatians 3. Yet there is another sense in which it is conditional. God speaking says to the angels: “For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him” (Genesis 18:19). There is within this covenant an expectation of righteousness, of how to live before the Lord. God is concerned with life on earth, how we live. Go back to Genesis 6 and see the corruption that led to the flood.

The land is one of the promises of this covenant. “I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me” (Genesis 22:17-18). One of the reasons for this repeat of the covenant is that Abraham obeyed God in offering up his one and only son, Isaac. Because of this, the land would become the home of his descendants. Beyond that all nations would be blessed. It is interesting in reading and listening to some Jews on how they understand this text along with Genesis 12:1-3. They state that nations that have treated Jews badly have suffered humiliation. When the Spanish threw the Jews out of Spain in 1492, Spain was a world power. Yet within a century they were a second rate power. We do not have to report what happened to Nazi Germany. In communist Russia, the Jews were badly treated and we now understand the fall of that system. On the other hand, the United States has treated the Jews well and we certainly have been blessed by God (4).

It is important to understand the covenant in light of the righteousness of those who follow or obey it. The covenant is repeated to Isaac in Genesis 26:4. “I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, (why) because Abraham obeyed me and did everything I required of him, keeping my commands, my decrees and my instructions.” We often look at such things from a legalistic prospective but here is another way to see it. A father buys a bike for a child and has to assemble it. As he does, he tells his child some dos and don’ts about riding, like not riding on freeways, and looking both ways a stop signs, etc. We do not see this as a series of laws but a loving father concerned for his child. Likewise, God is a loving Father concerned for His children and gives them dos and don’ts of how to live before Him (5).

The covenant is repeated to Jacob in Genesis 28:13-15. It states that God will bless Jacob’s descendants and will give them the land. God will be with Jacob and “will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” We will see more of this covenant in the next two covenants that we look at as well as in the New Testament. God is a loving Father who is concerned with how His children live, and gives us the basis of these covenants

(1) Thoughts for this article come from Tim Willis, Did We Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater, Pepperdine University Bible Lectureship, 2009.

(2) We need to keep this covenant in mind when we look at the judgment scenes in 2 Peter 3 and the land promise made to Abraham. Lord willing we will explore this further.

(3) In announcing the new covenant with Israel in Jeremiah 31, God likewise calls creation as a witness.

(4) Read or listen to Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, and Daniel Lapin to see how they see this idea.

(5) Illustration from Rick Marrs, Did We Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater, Pepperdine University Bible Lectureship, 2009.