Genesis 17:1-8
1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless. 2 And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.”
3 Then Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying: 4 “As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. 5 No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you.
7 And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. 8 Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”
God made good on His earlier promise to Abram (Genesis 12:2, 13:16, 15:5, 18) to multiply his lineage to father many nations, including Israel and all others to come in a spiritual sense through faith. It was not just a promise of genetic inheritance but of the spiritual by that faith in God’s promises. This is why we who are in Christ are there among the nations and Jews with the same faith as Abraham (Galatians 3:7-9). Here we see that Abram did not seek out salvation or the promise by his own initiative, but it was the LORD God who called him out and chose him to be the father of all in the hope to come of the Messiah, Jesus the Christ. We see how God made a covenant promise based on his obedience of faith and holiness, which we now find the same faith is required, but the holiness of acceptance is found in the righteousness of Christ and not ourselves. This was intended all along, but the obedience to the Law to follow later in Moses was to demonstrate our complete inability to appease God by our fallen nature of corruption (Romans 3:20-23, 6:23) that never is righteous enough to save us from sin’s penalty. God promised to multiply Abram exceedingly and abundantly to have many physical offspring and descendants, hinting at those to follow would be by the lineage of faith and not the physical lineage we first see in scripture here. As we read in the explanation found in Romans (Romans 4:13, 18, 4:20-22, 23-24), our righteousness is obtained through faith as Abraham demonstrated. These are the true descendants of the promise by faith in God’s work and promise found in the Messiah out of all nations and not just one by physical descendants. Abram believed God and that was his righteousness and why God bestowed the promise on him. He established His covenant of grace as a foreshadowing of the sign of circumcision which pointed through the flesh (Romans 4:11, 12) to the spiritual reality of God cleansing the hearts (Romans 2:28-29, Colossians 2:11) of men and women by faith in His work to transform them. He therefore gives those of the faith like Abraham the everlasting possession of the kingdom of God in Christ that is so much more than a physical country (Hebrews 11:16). The proof of our covenant is the seal of God’s Spirit in us (Ephesians 1:13-14) which is obtained by God calling us and covenanting with us by His lifeblood on the sacrifice of the cross to make us His spiritual children and people by this trust in His work and word. This is God’s covenant with all who have the faith of Abraham.
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