CHRIST IS THE SEED OF ABRAHAM

God’s covenant with Abraham is an important part of the Bible. To understand what God has done for us in Jesus, you need a knowledge of what God promised He would do through Abraham. And the glorious good news of the Gospel is that Jesus is the fulfillment of that covenant.

Jesus is what God’s promise to Abraham was all about. Jesus is Abraham’s inheritance. And all who believe in Christ and put their trust in Him as Lord and Savior become a part of that covenant and a part of that inheritance. Everyone who is in Christ is one of God’s chosen people. And we are the recipients of the blessings promised to Abraham.

This fact was included in the promise to Abraham. Even when the covenant was first made, it was not a fleshly covenant based on race. It was based on faith. Abraham had faith and we have faith, and God sees the faith we have the same way He saw the faith Abraham had. To Abraham, God even said that “all the families of the earth” would be blessed through him (Genesis 12:3). God’s plan has always been to include everyone.

This promise is foundational for understanding the Old Testament. You do not have to understand everything in the Old Testament to know what it is about. It is about Jesus. And God’s covenant with Abraham is an important part of what God has done through Jesus. We see God reaffirm this covenant several times with Abraham and his descendants (Genesis 22:18, 26:4).

The New Testament interprets the Old Testament for us. We do not have to wonder what God’s covenant with Abraham was all about, because Paul explains it for us in the New Testament. Lest anyone get the wrong idea and think that it was a covenant with Abraham’s physical descendants, Jesus is the covenant with Abraham.

Paul said it was not to the multitude of Abraham’s fleshly descendants, but rather it was speaking of one single “Seed.” And Paul reveals who this was. It was not the physical nation of Israel or any other earthly nation. The Seed was Christ Jesus our Lord (Galatians 3:16).

Matthew was careful to show that Jesus was a descendent of Abraham (Matthew 1:1), which demonstrates the reality that Christ is truly the point of the covenant. Christ Himself is the heir of the covenant and all of the covenant promises, and those who belong to Christ are heirs of it as well through Him (Romans 8:17).

The covenant with Abraham was never a fleshly covenant. It never depended on mankind’s ability to do right. It was never a covenant of deeds, but rather a covenant of faith. It was not even a covenant based on the Law of Moses, which came 430 years later. But it was a covenant base on the unfailing mercy and love and grace of God (Galatians 3:17-18).

So we should rejoice at this wonderful news. It is the Gospel. The word Gospel means good news. And the good news of the Gospel is that everyone, Jews and Gentiles alike, who receive the Lord Jesus Christ, are one with Jesus and share in God’s promises to Abraham. Paul writes, “If you belong to Christ, then you are the seed of Abraham, and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:29).

Your standing before God is based on your relationship with Christ. It has nothing to do with your social standing or your race (Galatians 3:26, 28). Having the faith of Abraham, not being a physical descendent of Abraham, makes you a child of God (John 1:12). When we trust in Christ, then we are people of faith the way Abraham was. We are trusting in the promises and character of God. And thus, the Bible calls Abraham the father of all who believe (Romans 4:16).

The promises of God find their “yes” and “amen” in Jesus (2 Corinthians 1:20).   Everything that the covenant with Abraham pointed to is found in Jesus Himself. Nowhere else. Nothing else. Only in Jesus. If you have Jesus as your Lord and Savior, which you can have any time you decide to, then you are blessed with Abraham, the believer (Galatians 3:9).

Since we are the spiritual family of Abraham, then we are the recipients of all of the covenant promises. We are the true children of God—those who believe in Jesus and serve Him with their lives.

God swore by Himself to “surely bless” and “multiply” Abraham’s descendants (Hebrews 6:13-14). That’s right. In Christ, you are a descendent of Abraham. And you have the eternal spiritual inheritance promised to him because of Jesus.

Your spiritual inheritance in Christ is based on His love and mercy and faithfulness. It does not depend on your ability to keep law or on what race you are (Romans 4:16). If we trust Him and receive Jesus Christ, then we are “found in Him,” and are made righteous, not because of who we are or what we have done, but because of Jesus Christ (Philippians 3:9).

It simply will not do to claim physical heritage while rejecting Jesus. That will get you nowhere. That does not make you a disciple of Jesus Christ who is saved. Jesus said to physical descendants of Abraham, “I know that you are the descendants of Abraham. But you are trying to kill me...Abraham did not do such things” (John 8:37, 39).

God has always intended to reconcile all of humanity to Himself (2 Corinthians 5:18-19). It was never about flesh or one nation, it was always about those who would put their faith in God and serve Him faithfully. We receive new life in Jesus Christ, being born again into the family of God (John 3:3-4; 1 Peter 1:3), And we become “fellow citizens with God’s people and members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19).

The family of God is based on faith in Jesus Christ, and that is where the oneness and the unity comes from (1 Corinthians 12:27). We are not looking for, nor are we concerned about a physical land here on earth, but we are citizens of heaven (Philippians 3:20). The land promise of Jesus is spiritual, eternal life in that heavenly land, that “better country” that Abraham was seeking (Hebrews 11:10, 16).

So Abraham’s Seed is Jesus and we are Abraham’s seed because we are in Jesus. This is God’s eternal plan of redemption for everyone. Trust in Christ and you are in on all of the promises God has ever made concerning eternal salvation to His chosen people. Believers in Christ are the chosen people of God, the children of God.

      Bryan Dewayne Dunaway