by Douglas Goodin
Now the LORD said to Abram...
According to many Christians, God made promises to Abraham which He has yet to keep. Abraham waits like a girl sporting a big engagement ring...for ten years. The proposal has been made, but the ceremony delays.
But what do the Scriptures say? Is Abraham still standing at the altar? Is he still waiting? It will be my contention in this article that the wedding has occurred, the photo album is displayed, and his family tree has more branches than Wells Fargo.
Promises Made: Great Name, Great Nation, Multitude of Nations, Kings
“I will make you a great nation, and make your name great” (Gen. 12:2).
Great and influential people have widespread name recognition. For awhile. But, as one generation becomes the foundational layer for the next (and the next,...), a name lies covered and forgotten (Ecc. 2:16). As unbelievable as it may now seem, someday the name Tiger Woods will produce only blank stares. Which makes the enduring familiarity with Abraham all the more remarkable. People all over the world know exactly who is meant when one speaks of Abraham. They do not wonder if you mean Abraham Maslow or Abraham Lincoln; they know that you mean the Abraham of the Bible. Even Google’s first response is Isaac’s dad. And this for a guy who lived 4,000 years ago. Prior to considering any biblical texts, we see clearly that God kept His promise to the wandering Chaldean.
God’s vow meant that Abraham would be the first ancestor of a multitude of people who look with pride on their descent from him. This was fulfilled in the nation of Israel through his son, Isaac, and grandson, Jacob; and there were more. Abraham’s first son, Ishmael, became the father of many princes (Gen. 25:16). Isaac’s other son, Esau, produced the Edomites and their kings (Gen. 36). Abraham’s second wife (Keturah) bore him many sons, including Midian (Gen. 25:1-4). To this day, Muslims and Arabs are thought to be sons of Abraham through Ishmael.
And have you ever wondered why the genealogies of some characters were included in the canon? Why Ishmael’s line (Gen. 25), or Esau’s (Gen. 36)? We are not told specifically, but I believe that at least part of the reason was to document God’s faithfulness to make Abraham’s name great.
God kept His promise to Abraham.
Promises Made: Blessing to Abraham’s Friends, Curses to His Enemies
And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse (Gen. 12:3).
It’s never a good idea to stir up unnecessary trouble, but it was a particularly bad idea to let the air out of Abraham’s tires. The king of Egypt learned this the hard way.
When we read of Abraham and Sarah traveling to Egypt for food in Genesis 12, and how the Mr. asked the Mrs. to play “sister” rather than “wife,” the tendency is to jump all over Abraham for his deception (maybe even thinking that if the exalted father fibbed to save his skin, we mere mortals may not be so inferior after all). However, their little game of hide-and-seek with the truth is not why this narrative occurs in the Bible. The real story is indeed Abraham’s failure, but specifically, his failure to trust God’s promise to curse those who curse him. The great man of faith had not yet become the great man of faith.
Pharaoh, on the other hand, was about to be God’s means of increasing Abraham’s faith. When he made a play for the attractive “sister” of Abraham, God stepped in with both barrels loaded, ready to enact the curse should he continue his assault on the blessed father. Pharaoh desperately pleaded ignorance, and castigated Abraham for withholding the essential facts. Ignorance, however, was no excuse because God had a promise to keep. Abraham should have trusted God to make good on His promise. Abraham was faithless; God remained faithful. That is the real message of Genesis 12:10-20.
God’s protection of Abraham’s friends is demonstrated by his military victories of the kings who captured his nephew Lot (Gen. 14) and in preserving the latter from the devastation leveled against the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19).
God kept His promise to Abraham.
Promise Made: Descendants to Outnumber the Stars
"Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them." And He said to him, "So shall your descendants be." (Gen. 15:5)
Put yourself in Abraham’s sandals for a moment, and imagine hearing the Lord speak of His promise to multiply you exceedingly (Gen. 17:2), and to make you the father of a multitude of nations (v4). He changes your name from “Exalted Father” to “Father of a Multitude of Nations” (v5), and mentions your kids growing into empires (v6). He describes His covenant with your (non-existent) children (v7) and the land He will give to them (v8). All of this, and you are just shy of one hundred years old with exactly zero children. Nevertheless, God continued to pledge a vast family to Abraham, more than the stars of heaven and the dust of the earth.
Eventually, Abraham the centenarian became a father (Gen. 21). Then a grandfather. Then a great-grandfather. Then a great-great-grandfather. And so on, until centuries later, Moses proclaimed to millions of Abraham’s descendants, “The LORD your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are this day as the stars of heaven in number” (Deut. 1:10).
God kept His promise to Abraham.
Promise Made: The Land of Canaan
"All the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever” (Gen. 13:15).
Abraham did not live to see the day—in fact, he was told in advance by the Lord that it would take four hundred years to be fulfilled (Gen. 15:12f)—but his children did occupy the promised land. Under the leadership of Joshua, the Israelites took possession of Canaan, which became their home for centuries.
God kept His promise to Abraham.
Promise Made: All families/nations of the earth will be blessed in Abraham
The one promise made to Abraham that is not specifically declared to have been fulfilled is, “In you all nations of the earth will be blessed.” Why does the Scripture omit a reference to its achievement? The answer, of course, is that its fulfillment is recorded in the Bible, but not until the New Testament. The realization of this particular pledge to the great father was to occur in his most important Son—Jesus Christ. My next article will discuss this.
Conclusion
According to the Scripture, God made grand promises to Abraham and He fulfilled them. This needs emphasis because many theologians, especially from the Dispensational camp, are still waiting for God to come through with the goods. But if we let the Bible be the judge, God has not only fulfilled His obligations to Abraham, but He has done so exceedingly, abundantly beyond all the exalted father could hope or imagine—in His own Son, Jesus Christ. Yet even on a “literal” scale, the Bible makes it clear that God kept His word. We will let His Word have the last word:
Thou art the LORD God,
Who chose Abram
And brought him out from Ur of the Chaldees,
And gave him the name Abraham.
And Thou didst find his heart faithful before Thee,
And didst make a covenant with him
To give him the land of the Canaanite,
Of the Hittite and the Amorite,
Of the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite--
To give it to his descendants.
And Thou hast fulfilled Thy promise,
For Thou art righteous.
“Thou didst also give them kingdoms and peoples,
And Thou didst allot them to them as a boundary.
And they took possession of the land of Sihon the king of Heshbon,
And the land of Og the king of Bashan.
And Thou didst make their sons numerous as the stars of heaven,
And Thou didst bring them into the land
Which Thou hadst told their fathers to enter and possess.
So their sons entered and possessed the land.
And Thou didst subdue before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites,
And Thou didst give them into their hand, with their kings, and the peoples of the land, To do with them as they desired.
And they captured fortified cities and a fertile land.
They took possession of houses full of every good thing,
Hewn cisterns, vineyards, olive groves,
Fruit trees in abundance.
So they ate, were filled, and grew fat,
And reveled in Thy great goodness.”
(Nehemiah 9:7, 8, 22-25, emphasis mine)