Special Christmas Message

God Remembers His Holy Covenant with Abraham

Luke 1.68-75

Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus really tells of two miraculous births. The angel is first dispatched to announce the birth of John the Baptist to two old people who had never been able to have children. And then there is the famous announcement of the birth of Jesus to a woman who had never been with a man. When Mary asks the angel how this will happen, the angel reminds her that “nothing is impossible with God.” Angelic visitors announcing a miraculous birth reminds us of another episode in Scripture where an old couple who had never been able to conceive were promised a son. Angels visited Abraham and Sarah and told them that Isaac would be born. Sarah had laughed at the idea of having a child in her old age and the angel asked her “is there anything too hard for the Lord?” God fulfilled His promise to Abraham and Isaac was born. Luke wants us to understand that the birth of Jesus was the ultimate fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham.

Luke is connecting the birth of Jesus with the whole history of the people of Israel and God’s promises to them, beginning with Abraham. We cannot begin to understand the Gospel until we see it in this larger context. Jesus did not simply appear on the stage of world history as if out of thin air. Jesus was born to fulfill, or bring to completion, a long history of God’s dealings with the people of Israel, beginning with a crucial promise that God had made to Abraham. If we want to really understand the meaning of Christ’s birth, we must see it in this way. Jesus was born to fulfill Scripture and prophecies which had been given to Abraham and to his descendants, the people of Israel. The Savior of the world would be born in Israel. He would be a descendant of Abraham and of King David. This was what God had promised and what had been written down in holy Scripture. And so, this is how we would be able to recognize the one God had sent to be the Christ: he would fulfill the prophetic Scriptures and all the promises God had made to Abraham and his family.

This means that Jesus is really the theme of the entire Bible. Everything that was written in what Christians call the Old Testament was pointing to Jesus in anticipation of His birth, and everything that was written afterward, in what we call the New Testament, was written to unpack the significance of who Jesus is and what He came to do on this earth. Everything God has promised to do for us is fulfilled and completed in Jesus Christ. This fact was announced by an angelic messenger when Jesus was to be born so we would understand the context and the significance of what was taking place. At Christmas, with all our tradition and sentimentality, we often do not stop to think deeply enough about the true meaning of Christ’s birth. Even Christians, who respect the Scripture as the Word of God, fail to see everything the Bible is communicating about the significance of Jesus’ birth. The Gospel, or the good news about Jesus, is deeply rooted in what God had already promised to Abraham.

The first eleven chapters of the Bible, in the book of Genesis, tells of the creation of the world and the subsequent fall of humanity because of Adam and Eve’s original sin. Everything that follows the expulsion of our parents from Eden is an illustration of the effects of sin on humanity. The section ends with the incident at the tower of Babel where God comes down to confuse the languages of men and scatter them over the earth. In the next chapter of Genesis, we meet Abram. Abram is a descendant of Shem, one of Noah’s three sons. Abram is living with his family in Ur, a city which is known even to secular historians as one of the great cities of the ancient world. The Bible makes it clear that humanity has already forgotten about the one, true God and has begun to worship idols. Abram does not know the true God, but Abram receives a call from God. Without an explanation, God speaks directly to Abram giving him a command and a wonderful promise:

“Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3).

This promise of blessing comes on the heels of God’s judgement and curse on all the peoples of the earth at Babel. But God’s revealed purpose is to bless the entire world through Abram. This promise of blessing is repeated to Abram several times during his life, always at key times, such as Abraham’s obedience to God’s command to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. The same promise of blessing is then reaffirmed to Isaac and then to Jacob.

Clearly, this promise to Abraham is setting the stage for everything else that God is going to say and do in the rest of Scripture. This promise of blessing for the world, that will come through Abraham, is the revealed purpose of God and thus becomes the context for the progressive revelation of the rest of the Bible. In other words, the rest of the story of the Bible is about how God will keep this promise that He made to Abraham. When the angel announces the birth of Jesus, it is made clear that the time had come for God to fulfill His promise to Abraham. What we have in this promise and its fulfillment in Christ is the key to the message of the entire Bible, the heart of the Gospel, and the essence of Christian faith. New Testament writers, especially the Apostle Paul, will continue to unpack the significance of this promise to Abraham and its fulfillment in Jesus Christ, as well as what this means for the world.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of this revelation. Anyone who really wants to be a student of the Bible and to understand the meaning of the Christian message must understand the significance of the promise God made to Abraham and its fulfillment. Unfortunately, there is tendency, even in Christian circles, to view the Bible as a collection of many teachings on different subject, all of which have equal importance, depending on what our needs happen to be at any moment in time. And while Scripture certainly does speak authoritatively on every subject, we will never gain insight into the whole of Scripture if we approach it piecemeal in this way. Scripture has a single message that runs throughout and forms the foundation for our faith and relationship to God. We must first become familiar with this message or we will inevitably misuse Scripture for our own purposes. The promise of God to Abraham and its fulfillment in Christ is this message that we need to understand.

This word that God gave to Abraham is called a promise, it became the basis for a covenant that God made with Abraham, and it is also something about which God Himself swore an oath to fulfill. This is something that the one, true God has committed Himself to in a radical fashion. God bound Himself to this promise and sealed the deal, so to speak, as a man might sign a legally binding document in a business deal. This consideration should make us pause. Why would God be doing something like this?

We must consider the fact that God owes us nothing in the first place. Other than God’s own desire to do this, there is no other explanation for His choice of Abram. God seems to be doing this just because He wants to, and for no other reason. Abram was not seeking God. But God was seeking Abram. All the impetus was with God. God made a promise He did not have to make, and then, to make things even more interesting, He bound Himself to that promise by making a covenant, a formal agreement, with Abram. Abram did not ask God to do this. And the covenant that God made does not even follow the traditional outline of a covenant. There is nothing for Abram to do on his side of the deal, except to agree to what God is pledging Himself to do for Abram! Under normal circumstances, a covenant has two sides, both of whom must agree to do certain things to keep their end of the bargain. But God did not bargain with Abram at all. God simply made a commitment to Abram. Furthermore, to top it all off, God even swore an oath. We must see the remarkable condescension of God in all of this! God did not have to promise Abram anything, nor did God have to ratify it with a formal covenant. To add one final, seemingly unnecessary thing to this deal, God took it upon Himself to swear an oath to Abraham, that the promise would be fulfilled. Again, Abraham did not insist on God swearing this oath. In fact, it would seem to be an insult to God to insist that He must swear an oath after making a promise. The only reason we would insist on someone swearing an oath is if we felt there was a chance that the individual might not carry through and keep their end of the deal. But God swears an oath that He will keep His promise to Abraham! Is there any chance that God is telling a lie or that God might not be faithful to His promise?

There are two reasons God did these things: first, God wanted to underscore the importance of what He said to Abram. Obviously, this matters to God if He is willing to bind Himself in a covenant and then swear an oath. Secondly, God is helping Abram, and everyone who reads about this promise, to believe what God has said He will do. God is helping us to trust Him and believe His word. The writer of Hebrews gives a profound exposition of this truth:

For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us” (Hebrews 6:13-18).

God’s promise to Abraham has been ratified by a covenant, and confirmed by an oath. There is nothing in heaven or on earth that can stop this promise from being fulfilled! This is a sure thing, and that gives us a reason to trust God and to have hope. This promise is as sure as the rising of the sun each morning.

God’s promise was blessing, not only for Abram and his family, but for all the families of the earth. This blessing would flow out into the world through Abram and his family. To be specific, the blessing would come through Abram’s “seed”, or descendant, the meaning of which will become extremely important. But this promise was made to an old man who had no descendants at all because Sarah, his wife, had never been able to conceive a child. The fulfillment of this promise of blessing would depend initially on Abraham having a child. How would this happen if Abraham and Sarah were barren and past the natural age of child-bearing? Sarah and Abraham decide to help this process by using Hagar to have children for them. The result is Ishmael, who, while technically being the descendant of Abraham, was not the child of promise. God makes it clear that Sarah will have a child and the only way this could have happened was through Divine intervention, since Sarah was barren. The promise was not going to be fulfilled through human effort but by Divine power. And this is more than a passing detail.

God’s blessing cannot be enjoyed through any effort of the flesh, no matter how noble the intentions. Abraham’s blessing is not obtained through our works but only through the work of God in our behalf. In other words, the blessing is enjoyed only by God’s grace. Abraham and Sarah were simply asked to believe or to trust God’s word on the matter. Both Abraham and Sarah had laughed to themselves when they were told by the Divine messengers that they would bear a child in their old age. And so, the child of promise was named Isaac, which means laughter. There is simply no human explanation for the fulfillment of God’s promise and there is nothing we can do to earn the blessing for ourselves. We must trust in the power of God to bring about His promise, as Abraham and Sarah had to do. The blessing would flow to anyone, even those who were not Abraham’s descendants, who would trust God’s promise as Abraham had done.

The rest of the world would come to know the one, true God, and to trust Him, through Abraham and what God had said to him. This is so important in Scripture that God, the one, true God, is called the God of Abraham. We are supposed to think of God in connection to what God promised Abraham. Through this word and the promise made to Abraham we come to know the true God.

Even though God later appeared to the people of Israel at Mt. Sinai and made a covenant with them through Moses, this original covenant made with Abraham was never forgotten by God. The covenant made with Abraham and the covenant made through Moses were both part of a single, Divine purpose from which God never deviated. However, we must understand that the promise to Abraham was always God’s original intent. The Law that God gave through Moses must be seen and understood in the light of God’s first revelation to Abraham. We get a crucial perspective on this from the Apostle Paul. Paul wanted to make it clear to the Galatian churches, who were attempting to go back to the Law as a means of justification, that the Law was never the source of God’s blessing. In fact, the Law that was added to God’s original promise to Abraham, until the promise could be fulfilled. Paul makes his profound argument in this way to the Galatian believers:

“This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise” (Galatians 3:17-18).

When God gave the Law through Moses, this did not in any way cancel the promise He had made to Abraham. If the blessing came through Law, then that would have to mean that the promise made to Abraham had become void. But this could not be, or God would be unfaithful. God would fulfill His promise to Abraham, but the Law was not the fulfillment. The Law was not the blessing God had promised. And the Law could not bring the promised blessing of God to the world. In fact, the Law brought a curse because it underscored the sinfulness of the human heart. The Law was put into effect only until the time came for God to fulfill His promise. The Law did exactly what God designed it to do, which was to point out the problem of sin. For the blessing of God to be realized, something would also have to be done about sin and the guilt brought by the Law. But the Law itself could never remove sin and bring the blessing that God had promised to Abraham.

The blessing promised to Abraham would come through his “seed.” The identity of this seed, or descendant, is crucial here. Could this “seed” simply be Abraham’s children, the people of Israel? Collectively, they are the seed of Abraham and they have certainly been a blessing to the world since through them the world can come to know the true God. But God’s promise to Abraham was that he would have many descendants, and that they would be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the seashore. The blessing would come through a single “seed” not through many descendants, although many descendants were promised to Abraham. The apostle Paul picks up this line of reasoning to the Galatian believers: “Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘And to offsprings,’ referring to many, but referring to one, ‘And to your offspring,’ who is Christ” (Galatians 3:16). Paul is saying exactly what had previously been revealed and announced at Jesus’ birth: Jesus is Himself the “Seed” of Abraham through whom the promised blessing would come to the world! Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham and the source of the Divine blessing for all the families of the earth. Jesus is the true child of promise, born through the miraculous intervention of God into human life. Jesus is the promised blessing and the source of further blessings from God. As the Gospel of John says of Him: “For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace” (John 1:16). The blessing of God flows out to the world through a specific person. If we want the blessing, we must come to know this person. And this is what moved the Gospel writers to show us the facts about who Jesus is. Their accounts do not read like ancient myths, but as actual history and events witnessed by real people. These are not cleverly invented fables designed to start a new man-made religion. This is God visiting His people and keeping promises that He had made previously to Abraham and his family.

Even though the fulfillment of the God’s promise was announced when Jesus was about to be born, we should not think that the birth of Jesus was the single event that fulfilled everything about God’s promise. Rather, the birth of Jesus would begin the fulfillment of the Promise. Remember that we are talking about the incarnation of the Son of God. God had to take on human flesh and be born as a helpless baby to bring about the blessing that God had promised. This would not be any ordinary blessing if it required the Son of God to come in this way. There were blessings that God could send by direct order from His throne without coming to earth as a man. God had blessed Abraham and made him rich. God also promised many blessings to the people of Israel, if they kept His covenant. God is certainly capable of blessing us with material things or with physical strength and vitality. God can bless parents with many children, give increase to our labor, and even victory over our enemies. All these blessings God can give directly from heaven without coming to earth himself as a little baby. But when God really wanted to bless the world, He sent His Son. Therefore, the blessing that God promised to Abraham had to be much more than something earthly or material, such as health or wealth. People today who think of God’s blessing us only in those terms fail to understand the true meaning of God’s blessing and the nature of the Gospel of Christ.

Remember that the Law was not the blessing God promised Abraham, but brought a curse instead of a blessing. The curse of sin and death hung like a dark, black cloud over humanity, shutting off the light and blessing of God. The Law was given to make it clear to us that something had to be done about the problem of sin and guilt if we were to really experience the fullness of God’s blessing. In fact, it would be unrighteous for God to bless us while we were still in our sin. Blessing guilty sinners would be a breach of Divine justice and a compromise of God’s character. The problem of sin was not a simple one. It even presented God with a kind of dilemma. God wants to bless. But, God is righteous and cannot ignore sin, evil, or rebellion. We deserved a curse, not a blessing from God. And so, Jesus came into the world to answer and solve this dilemma. He became a man to take away the curse that man’s sin had brought into the world. In fact, Jesus was made a curse when He went to the Cross. He suffered the death that we all should have died so that God could bless us. That is why Jesus was born. And so, at Christmas we are fond of singing these words:

“No more let sins and sorrows grow

Nor thorns infest the ground

He comes to make His blessings flow

Far as the curse is found

Far as the curse is found

Far as, far as, the curse is found!”

All that remains is for the blessing to be received by us. And for that, Abraham can also instruct us. How did Abraham receive the promise of blessing? He believed God’s word. Abraham became the father of all those who trust God. Abraham was justified by faith. All of Abraham’s children, even those who are Gentiles, are justified, or made righteous before God, in the same way: by faith. Just as Abraham believed the word that God gave to him, we must believe the word of the Gospel of Christ to be justified and made righteous before God. Being justified is more than just being forgiven. We are truly made righteous, given a whole new status with God, and made into His children through the adoption of the indwelling Holy Spirit. The ultimate blessing that God promised to give us was Himself, which is eternal life.