Matthew, in the first verse of the New Testament, associates three men of great importance in God’s plan for the salvation of men—Abraham, David and Jesus. Being a writer inspired of God, Matthew introduces Jesus by calling particular attention to the fact that he was son of David, son of Abraham. Why ? Jesus could have been introduced without mention of any of his forefathers since he was well known in his own right, or by identification with others of his ancestors in the genealogy, such as Jacob, Nathan or Mary, his mother. But, in fact, he was introduced as Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Let us look for the reasons. We will discover when we go further into the New Testament record that in the ancient days God made a covenant of promise to Abraham, and about 1000 years later God amplified and expanded the implication of that covenant by additional promises to David, King of Israel. These promises to Abraham and David found their full meaning in the mission of Jesus Christ. So then, at the very threshold of the New Testament we are introduced to Abraham and David, who were chosen of God as mediums of His everlasting covenant in Christ.
There are many references to Abraham and David in the New Testament, but herein we wish to point out those which show that the mission of Jesus Christ was, and is, to fulfill these covenants. Let us first consider what the New Testament has to say about Christ’s connection to the covenant God made with Abraham, and to see the importance of this to each of us who would seek God’s mercy and favour.
In the first chapter of Luke, we are told of the Angel appearing to Mary and informing her that she was chosen by God to bear the long-promised Messiah. In rejoicing over the great honor bestowed on her, she enumerates certain blessings that had been promised to Israel and connects them in their origin to what God had spoken to “Abraham and to his seed forever” (Luke 1:46-55).
Again, in this first chapter of Luke (V. 67-73), Zacharias, speaking by the Holy Spirit, says that the hope of fulfilment of promised blessings was revived by the prospective birth of Jesus. It was another step in the performance of the mercy promised to our fathers and the remembrance of His holy covenant, the oath which he swore to our father Abraham.
In the Book of Acts (Chap. 7) we are carried a step further in our understanding of that intimate connection between Christ and the Abrahamic covenant. Stephan was accused of blasphemy against the law of Moses and the Temple (see Chap. 6), and he makes his defence in chapter 7. He begins in verse 2, “Men, brethren and fathers hearken : The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham.” He then recounts the history of Israel leading on to the “coming of the Just One” in verse 52, of whom, says Stephen, the Jewish authorities have been the betrayers and murderers.
For many reasons — although none of them good ones—the Jewish authorities considered Jesus of Nazareth an imposter in claiming he was the promised Messiah and the Son of God. In every way possible they opposed and persecuted those who proclaimed Jesus to be the Christ. The Jews believed the original promise to Abraham and Stephen explains to them that what was happening in their day was a continuation of the plan originating in that promise. Continuing, Stephan reminds them that God called Abraham out of his native country into the promised land—the very land the Jews were then occupying, but that God “give him none inheritance in it, no not so much as to set his foot on, yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child” (V. 5). For Stephen to have said, “None inheritance in it” would have been enough, but he emphasizes that fact by saying, “No, not so much as to set his foot on.” The promise was given but the substance of the things promised was not received. This fact is twice affirmed in Hebrews 11 :13, 39. “These all (Abraham and others) died in faith not having received the promises . . . God having provided some better things for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.” In other words, in God’s plan the perfection of immortality implied in the promises is only to be realised at a time when all the heirs of promise can receive it together, at the second coming of Christ.
In the 4th chapter of Romans, one may see the importance of believing the promise to Abraham. The context of Romans 4—and going back a few verses in chapter 3—is that faith is the only principle for which God will justify, or impute righteousness unto men. “Faith” is the noun form of the verb “believe.” In the Bible sense, faith is always the belief of promises. Not mere acquiescence, or mere favourable opinion, but an abiding confidence. A belief of a promise so strong that it becomes a motivating and propelling force of life. Paul uses “faith” in this sense in verse 20 of chapter 4, “Abraham 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.” Paul says that because of Abraham’s firm, unstaggering faith (belief) of God’s promise, that God “imputed righteousness unto him,” or justified him. (See Rom. 4:6, 9).
We notice the Apostle makes a point of the fact that the promise given to Abraham, which eventually led God to impute righteousness unto him, was one given before Abraham was circumcised. (V. 9-13). This timing and order of things was not accidental, as Paul shows in V. 10, but so Abraham could be the father of all them that believe the same promise. The basis of Abraham’s justification is therefore applicable to all succeeding generations “who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised. For the promise that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith” (V. 12, 13). The important and personal application Paul makes of these facts is found in Rom. 4:23, and which surely needs no comment: “Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed if we believe . . .”
In the 3rd chapter of Galatians Paul shows the direct connection in God’s plan between Abraham, Christ and ourselves. We notice in Verse 6 that Paul goes back to Abraham again as he did in writing to the Roman brethren, and use 3 the same fundamental facts as the basis of his argument ; namely, that belief of the promise was the basis of his justification before God. In writing to the Romans he shows that justification was pronounced before circumcision-13 years before.
Therefore, Paul reasons, justification could not depend on a ritual introduced after he was justified. And in this 3rd chapter of Galatians Paul uses the same argument to prove that upon the same principle the Law of Moses cannot invalidate the promise, because it came 430 years after the promise was confirmed by the oath of God (See V. 17, Gen, 22:16, 17; Heb. 6:16-20). In Verse 15 the Apostle takes an illustration from the affairs of men to show that there can be no alterations made in a covenant after it is confirmed in law.
To the Jews it would seem that Paul was arbitrarily casting aside the Law by his argument in Galatians, chapter 3. The Apostle anticipates this objection in verse 19. “Wherefore then serveth the law ? It was added (to the promises) because of transgression, ’til the seed should come to whom the promise was made.” Circumcision and the Law were like the scaffold to a building — useful and necessary for the masons to lay the stone, but not found in the blue-print.
In Galatians 3 :16, Paul makes the most significant statement. He says that the “seed” named in the original promise to Abraham did not refer to the natural descendants of Abraham ; that “seed” in the promise was not plural, but singular, and referred to Christ. The implications are tremendous. This being true, the world inheritance (Rom. 4:13) was guaranteed by the oath of God to Abraham and Christ, making them the channel of blessings to all the people of the earth.
With the knowledge that Christ was the seed named in the promise, we can read the history of Abraham and the promises given to him with renewed interest. And the first verse of the New Testament (Matt. 1 :1) becomes invested with new meaning and significance.
It was because of belief in the promise that God justified Abraham, but, as we have seen, it was not for his sake alone but “for us also” (Rom 4 :24) if the strength of our faith leads us to be baptised into Christ : “For as many of you as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ . . . And if ye be Christ’s then are ye Abraham’s seed. and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:27-29). Without that faith and baptism, we remain “strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12).
We see then that “faith in Christ”—a phrase used loosely in the religious world—has comprehensive proportions embracing belief in the original promise to A bra h a m, that what God has promised He is able also to perform through Christ.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One