What Christians Should Understand about the Abrahamic Covenant

Writer

Updated August 07, 2023

When you think of Abraham, what comes to mind? His physical descendants include the Jews and the Arabs. From Abraham came the three main religions of the world: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Jesus, the Messiah is a direct descendant of Abraham. Abraham is known in every corner of the world. What a great name he has.

Did you know his greatness springs from a promise God made with him? As we’ll see, it was more than a promise. It began with a binding covenant God made with Abraham.

My friend Joe Thompson has studied covenants extensively. He points out that to understand a covenant, we must understand a covenant’s original meaning. Most think of a covenant like a contract. “A covenant is to a contract as a car is to a bicycle. Both may transport you but there is a world of difference,” he says.

Joe contrasts the difference between a contract and a covenant:

- Contracts deal with the exchange of goods and/or services and can be broken if the other party defaults.

- The purpose of a covenant was to establish and/or secure a relationship.

The first biblical mention of a covenant appears in Genesis 6:18 when God promised to spare Noah and his family from the pending flood. The second time occurs when God promised to never again destroy the earth with water (Gen. 9:11). God gave us the rainbow as a sign of this covenant (Gen. 9:13).

Photo credit: ©Getty Images/kieferpix

What Is the Abrahamic Covenant?

The Abrahamic Covenant is the covenant God made with Abraham. God found Abraham, who was part of a pagan family, and revealed all He would do for him.

“Joshua said to all the people, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods. But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the Euphrates and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants” (Joshua 24:2-3).

Where Do We Find the Abrahamic Covenant in the Bible?

The Abrahamic Covenant is first mentioned in Genesis 12:1-3. It is amplified and repeated in other places (Gen. 13:14-17; 15:1-21; 17:1-14; 22:17-18). In this covenant, God tells Abraham all He will do for and through him and his descendants.

“The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you’” (Gen. 12:1-3).

“I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you” (Gen. 17:7).

Photo credit: ©SparrowStock

What Does the Abrahamic Covenant Entail?

The covenant contains several aspects. God promised:

- To give Abraham and his descendants land

- To make him into a great nation with numerous descendants

- To bless him

- To make his name great

- To bless those who bless Abraham and his people

- To curse those who curse Abraham and his people

- To make Abraham a blessing to the whole world

- To be Abraham and his descendants’ God.

The covenant begins with God telling Abram to go to the land He will show him. Later, God specifies the vast land He will give Abraham and his descendants and the measureless number of offspring that will come from this then childless man.

“The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, ‘Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you” (Gen. 13:14-17).

On different occasions, God reiterated and expanded Abraham’s understanding of the promise.

“I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies,and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me” (Gen. 22:17-18).

Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Prostock-Studio

How Is This Covenant Made?

A covenant required three parties, my friend Joe says. Two parties entered a relationship. The third party enforced this relationship by agreeing to kill either party that breaks their oath. The “enforcer” could be a governor, a king, or God.

Yes, he said “kill.” A covenant was that binding.

“In a covenant,” Joe continues, “if one person fails to keep a promise, that does not relieve the other person from keeping his oath. Either party that fails to keep the oath is killed. If both fail to keep the oath, both are killed.”

The two parties entering a relationship walked between a slaughtered animal. They made their oath, not to each other, but to the enforcer. In biblical covenants, the oath was given to God. They told God what they promised and gave Him permission to hold them accountable. The dead animals showed the cost of breaking the covenant.

For example, “If I don’t do what I swore, I give you permission to cut me in half like this animal.” A covenant couldn’t be undone except under penalty of death.

Genesis 15:1-21 details God making a covenant with Abraham. Since there was no one greater than God, God was the enforcer. He swore to Himself. Abraham’s part was to believe God.

Let’s look at that section. Note how God alone, as symbolized by a smoking firepot with a blazing torch, passes between the slain animals. Abraham sleeps through it. God alone is responsible to fulfill this covenant.

“But Abram said, ‘Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?’ So the Lord said to him, ‘Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.’ Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.
As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the Lord said to him, ‘Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age.’
When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates—the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites’” (Gen. 15:8-21).

Photo credit: Unsplash/Ben White

Why Did God Make the Abrahamic Covenant?

You notice in the covenants God initiated, man seems to be the only one who benefits. What does God gain? God created us to have a relationship with Him. He instituted a covenant with Abraham to establish and secure a permanent loving relationship with Abraham and his descendants. This foreshadows the New Covenant where through His own blood Jesus establishes an unending loving relationship with His bride, the church (Mark 14:23-24).

“‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,’ he said to them” (Mark 14:24).

Why didn't Abraham make the same covenant to God?

Humans are frail and bent toward sin. Abraham could train his family to follow God, but he had no power to ensure they or future generations would follow Him. In fact, Israel failed to keep even the first of the ten commandments. The covenant couldn’t depend on human faithfulness.

Was This Covenant Fulfilled?

God’s promise to Abraham stretched farther than his lifetime. God certainly made Abraham’s name great and multiplied his descendants—those by blood and by faith.

He brought Israel into the Promised Land, but they are yet to possess all God promised. The seed of Abraham that would bless the whole world came in the person of Jesus Christ. Abraham’s descendants, the Jews, have blessed the world with the Law, the prophets, the Scripture, and the Savior.

Throughout history, the nations that blessed Israel were blessed by God. And those who cursed Israel have suffered great loss.

What Do We Learn about God from the Abrahamic Covenant?

God’s covenant with Abraham shows God’s faithfulness. As 2 Timothy 2:13 says, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.”

It shows God does the work and our part is faith. “Clearly, God’s promise to give the whole earth to Abraham and his descendants was based not on his obedience to God’s law, but on a right relationship with God that comes by faith” (Rom. 4:13). Romans 4:9-25 beautifully connects God’s covenant with Abraham to us.

The Abrahamic Covenant Foreshadowing the New Covenant

Like Abraham, God found us. Jesus said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you” (John 15:16).

God’s promises to Abraham were bigger than Abraham’s lifespan. So His promises to us extend beyond our lives. He will fulfill every promise. His covenant to Abraham reminds us that God calls into being what is not yet there. We can trust Him.

As amazing as God’s covenant with Abraham is, the New Covenant in Jesus is superior to it. My friend Joe added, “In a covenant, two parties are assumed to become one person and whatever one person has, the other has also.”

That tidbit opened 2 Corinthians 5:21 in a fresh way. “For God took the sinless Christ and poured into him our sins. Then, in exchange, he poured God’s goodness into us!^”

On the cross, Jesus took our sins (what was ours) and so we could have His righteousness (what was His). He took our hell so we can have His heaven. This offer is available to all who choose to enter the New Covenant by faith.

Debbie W. Wilson is an award-winning author, Bible teacher, and former Christian counselor who speaks and writes to connect fellow sojourners to the heart of Christ. Her books include Give Yourself a Break, Little Women, Big God , and Little Faith, Big God .

She and her husband lead Lighthouse Ministries, a non-profit Christian counseling and Bible teaching ministry. Despite time in Boston, the Midwest, and Southern California, Debbie still says y’all. Her family, which includes two mischievous standard poodles, calls North Carolina home. Connect with Debbie, find free resources, and learn about her books at debbieWwilson.com.