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God’s Purpose in Genesis 12:1-3
By Louis Rushmore, Editor
How does God’s promise to Abraham in Gen
12:1-3 reveal God’s purpose? ~ Lavina
Genesis 12:1-3
reads: “Now the LORD had said to Abram: ‘Get out of your country, From your
family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. I will
make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; And you
shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who
curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed’” (NKJV). God repeated this promise to Abraham
again following Abraham’s willingness to obey God by offering Isaac as a burnt
offering: “blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your
descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the
seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your
seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My
voice” (Gen 22:17-18). This promise to Abraham was essentially repeated also to
Isaac and Jacob, respectively, years later. To Isaac God said, “And I will make
your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your
descendants all these lands; and in your seed all the nations of the earth
shall be blessed” (Genesis 26:4). To Jacob God said, “…the land on which you
lie I will give to you and your descendants. Also your descendants shall be as
the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the
north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth
shall be blessed” (Genesis 28:13-15).
From these passages one can discern that God made
essentially three promises: (1) a land
promise, (2) a many descendants
promise, and (3) a spiritual
blessing promise on all families. None of these three patriarchs (Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob) personally realized the land
promise in their lifetimes; their descendants, though, possessed Canaan
after their exodus from Egypt
and subsequently wandering for 40 years in the Sinai
Peninsula (Joshua 23:14-16). That land promise was conditional
according to the passage just cited, and when Israel broke the conditions, God
expelled them from the land.
The second promise, the many descendants promise, was not fulfilled in the days of Abraham
or Isaac either. The many descendants promise began to be fulfilled in the days
of Jacob, but it was not fully fulfilled until the descendants of Abraham had
become a mighty nation while in servitude to the Egyptians (Genesis 46:3; Exodus 1:7-10; Deuteronomy 1:10; 10:22). This
promise, then, is past or fulfilled also.
The third promise, a spiritual blessing promise on all families, was a Messianic promise, fulfilled through Jesus Christ. The
apostle Peter clearly makes this application in so many words in his second
recorded Gospel sermon (Acts 3:25-26). Likewise, the apostle Paul linked that
third promise to Abraham to the blessings afforded all people, Jewish and
non-Jewish (Galatians 3:8, 14).
In conclusion, the first two promises to Abraham served
as the vehicle through which the third promise, the Messianic
promise, came to bless all of humanity. The first two promises were physical
promises and physical in their fulfillment, whereas the third promise is
spiritual and its fulfillment provides incomparable spiritual blessings. The
purpose of God all along in making the three promises to Abraham was that
spiritual blessings would be available to all of humanity—namely, the
forgiveness of sins and the hopeful prospect of spending eternity in heaven
with God. Jesus Christ, our Messiah
and the means by which the spiritual blessing promise on all families, made the
forgiveness of sins possible (John 1:29; Acts 2:38; 4:12;
13:38-39) and as well as making entrance back into the very
presence of God possible (Hebrews 11:16; Philippians
3:20).
