Jesus: God's promise to Abraham

Q: How is Christ the ultimate fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham?

A: Thank you for your question. There are a few ways to look at how Jesus is the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham.

The Nations will be Blessed

One of the most well known passages in the Bible is Genesis 12:3. In the passage God says to Abraham, "I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” Many people take this passage to mean that the nations of the world are to support the Nation of Israel in order for God to bless their own nations with prosperity or face His wrath otherwise. While that is one way to look at it, I take this passage to be a foreshadowing of the promised blessing God offers to the world through Jesus Christ. Jesus said, "Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son (John 3:18)." All the peoples of the earth are blessed through Abraham because Jesus Christ, the savior of the world, was a descendant of Abraham and offers Himself to anyone who accepts Him by faith. Matthew 1:17 states, "Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ." Thus, Jesus is the blessing to the nations that has come "through" Abraham.

The Promised Child

For most of his life Abraham did not have any children. As Paul recounts in Romans 4:19, "Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead." However, God promised Abraham he would have a son by Sarah. Genesis 15:4 says, "Then the word of the LORD came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." The child that God promised to Abraham was his son Isaac. Genesis 17:19 reads, "Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him." Sarah did give birth to Isaac in fulfillment of the promise of God. Jesus was also a promised child. Luke 1:30-31 says, "But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus." Jesus, like Isaac was to Abraham, was a promised child. And, as mentioned earlier, Jesus is a descendant of Abraham through Isaac. Matthew 1:1-2 says, "A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham: Abraham was the father of Isaac..."

The Sacrifice of a Son

 We all know John 3:16; "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." However, God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his promised child, Isaac. Genesis 22:2 says, "Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”  Not only is there similarity in the sacrificial aspect of these two instances, but also in the expressions of love. God loved the world. Abraham loved Isaac. But, God commanded Abraham not to kill Isaac because He was testing Abraham. It is easy to think that the similarities between these two events end here because Jesus was sacrificed and Isaac was not. The similarities do not end there. In Genesis 22:7, while on their way to where Abraham was going to sacrifice his son, Isaac asked, "The fire and wood are here ... but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”Abraham, not wanting to tell Isaac that he was the burnt offering, replied in Genesis 22:8, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." God will provide the lamb. That is significant. What did John the Baptist refer to Jesus as being? In John 1:29, he said of Jesus, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"

Taking away their Shame

It would behoove us not to forget how God removed the shame of the women in the fulfillment of His promise to Abraham. We have to go back to the Garden of Eden and the Fall to see where this first happened. After the Fall, in Genesis 3:15, God told Satan, "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” Eve was still in the midst of dealing with the enormity of allowing herself to be deceived by Satan. But we see where God is promising that Jesus will come through her offspring. Secondly, there is Sarah, the wife of Abraham. In Genesis 18:10 it says, "Then the LORD said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.” For a women in her time to not have any children was embarrassing and made the women subject to public scorn. But, God took her shame away in Isaac. Finally, there is Mary, the mother of Jesus. Because she became pregnant with Jesus while still a virgin, Matthew 1:19 says, "Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly."All three women, Eve, Sarah and Mary, were dealing with various forms of shame. Eve was dealing with the shame of being deceived into eating the forbidden fruit, Sarah with the shame of not having any children and Mary with the shame of having people believe she had committed adultery. All of this happened prior to any of them having children of their own and all of them used by God to fulfill His promise.

I pray this has shed some light on your question. Grace and Peace.