Without necessarily using the word that is reported to have
been spoken to Adam and Noah, God promises Abraham that he will be made “fruitful”. To that promise of fruitfulness is added “I
will make nations of you, and kings will descend from you” (17:6b). Thus,
in Abraham and through the family that will spring from him, the earth will be
filled, as Abraham, and God working through Abraham and his descendants, serves
to fulfill that to which the original human pair had been purposed, and the
divine image is rightly borne throughout all of God’s creation.
In the seventh verse of Genesis seventeen, the Creator God
of Israel takes up the language that is determinative of righteousness,
justification, and right standing, saying “I will confirm My covenant as a
perpetual covenant between Me and you. It will extend to your descendants
after you throughout their generations” (17:7a). These descendants, as we
would know if we are familiar with the Abraham story, are composed of
“nations.” This is more than one nation. This is many
nations. As it echoes and intends to fulfill the Adam and Noah stories,
and as it reverses what took place at Babel, this promise concerning the
covenant extends to the whole of the earth and all of its peoples. As
circumcision is not yet on the table, though it will be in short order, it
would be extraordinarily difficult for the honest and forthright teller of the
Abraham story, or physical descendant of Abraham, or one who has adopted the
mark of circumcision so as to join the family of Abraham and so position
themselves to experience the blessings of the covenant of the Creator God, to
insist that this covenant and its promises are ultimately limited to one people
bearing one mark, that being Israel.
Further speech continues to reveal the heart of God, and we
can imagine the Apostle Paul, in his use of the Abraham narrative, embracing
the words of Genesis as vital to his mission and his Gospel, as we hear “I will
be your God and the God of your descendants after you” (17:7b). Again,
these descendants, whom God counts as His own, and from whom God expects
recognition, are composed of a multitude of nations. There is to be no
limitation here. On what basis might these people groups engage in a
relationship with the God of Abraham? Naturally, it will be through
believing the Lord, trusting in the terms and ends of His covenant, and so
responding in faith so as to prove genuine loyalty to that God and His purposes
for His image-bearers and for the whole of His creation.
Is this not what is proposed in the New Testament? Is
there not a demand to believe in the Gospel (Jesus as Messiah/King) as that
which brings righteousness (justification-covenant inclusion)? It is
loyalty to Jesus’ claims about Himself, and the claims made about Him by His
followers, that He was and is the Messiah/King of Israel and therefore worshiped
as God-manifest, that the New Testament demands. This response of faith
puts those that believe in Jesus in the same category as Abraham, with God
creating His covenant with Abraham (Abraham entering into a covenant
relationship with the Creator God) based on a response of faith. It would
be much later that Abraham bears any mark of this covenant, which will be
circumcision. Until that time comes, Abraham’s belief in God, and in His
power to bring His promises to pass, more than suffices.
Consequently, it seems worthwhile to make mention of the
fact for those that believe in Jesus, the ongoing mark of the loyal response to
Jesus will be the verbal and non-verbal confession that “Jesus is Lord,” with a
life of love, mercy, and compassion in imitation of that Lord following the
confession. For those that would insist that circumcision is necessary to
be in covenant, Paul will grip on to the words of the prophets and looks upon
the continued confession of Jesus, in both word and deed, as the circumcision
of the heart.
Having made it clear that God intends for the nations that
fill the earth to be the beneficiaries of His promise and to be encompassed by
His covenant, He adds: “I will give the whole land of Canaan---the land where
you are now residing---to you and your descendants after you as a permanent
possession. I will be their God” (17:8). Now how does this fit with
the world-encompassing scope of the covenant and its promises? This seems
like a draw-down of substantial proportions. God has been talking about
descendants and nations, with this provided its context by the filling of the
earth with His glory (His divine image bearers inhabiting the creation in such
a way that they reflect the glory of God in all creation), but now seems to
limit the scope of the promise and Abraham’s descendants to one piece of land
and one group of people that will come to inhabit that one piece of land.
Without being dogmatic (though we can certainly offer
propositions in the utmost of confidence), it could be reasonably suggested
that Canaan, because of the obvious connection between Abraham’s and Adam’s
stories, is something of a new Eden. As Eden was for the entire human
family, given the context of descendants and nations and kings that will
flourish from Abraham, so too would be Canaan. It seems that Paul, in his
conception of the covenant and the results of the Christ-event, most certainly
enlarges Canaan. Through the lenses offered by the crucified and risen
Christ, magnified by the words of the prophets of old, Paul comes to see Canaan
(the promised land) as a microcosm of what God intends to do for His entire
creation, celebrating that promise in the eighth chapter of Romans.
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