Life in the Trinity: An Introduction to Theology with the Help of the Church Fathers by Donald Fairbairn

Author:Donald Fairbairn [Fairbairn, Donald]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2010-02-28T05:00:00+00:00

Ag. Her., bk. 5, chap. 21, par. 1 (ANF, vol. 1, 548-49)

The promised person: a blessing for the world. In the progressive unfolding of the promise, the next major step comes in Genesis 12. God appears to Abram while he is living in Haran (in what is today northern Iraq) and tells him to leave his people and country for another land (Canaan, which will later be called Israel). At the same time God makes the following promise to Abram: “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 12:2-3). Several aspects of this promise are noteworthy, but for our purposes, the most significant is that Abram’s descendants will constitute a nation which God blesses in order that through that nation he may bless all peoples (equivalent to what we would call “people groups” or “ethnic groups” today) of the world. Abram and his descendants will not be the only ones who will be blessed. Instead, that nation will be the channel through which God will bless all the families of the earth. Thus the choosing of Abram and his descendants was not a means of excluding the rest of humanity; it was for the purpose of blessing the whole world through Abraham.

Notice that in this passage, the word seed does not occur, and so there is no explicit link between the promise of Genesis 3:15 and the promise God makes to Abram here. However, later in the book of Genesis, God repeats this promise in one form or another four times: to Abram (whose name has subsequently been changed to Abraham—see Gen 17:5) in Genesis 18:18 and Genesis 22:18, to his son Isaac in Genesis 26:4, and to Isaac’s son Jacob in Genesis 28:14. Significantly, in the last three of these four passages, the repetition of the promise includes the word seed. After God prevents Abraham from sacrificing Isaac, he says to Abraham, “Because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 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 22:16-18). Then in the repetition of the promise to Isaac and then Jacob, the language is almost the same: the descendants will be numerous, and through the seed/descendant all nations will be blessed.

If one were to read these passages solely in light of Genesis 12:2-3, then one would naturally understand them as referring to the descendants of Abraham in general. Abraham’s seed will be numerous—a great nation will come from him—and through this large nation God will bless all nations of the world.

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