And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.
After Abraham proved he would not withhold his only son Isaac when commanded to offer him, God renewed the covenant with a solemn oath that through his descendant all the nations and families of the earth would be blessed because he had obeyed His voice. The promised descendant in whom the blessing comes is Christ, the Saviour of the world, whose sacrifice brings deliverance and turns all who accept Him, Jews and Gentiles, from sin. This renews the covenant of grace first given after the fall, offering to all pardon and help to obey through faith in Christ, with eternal life on condition of fidelity to God's law. Abraham's unhesitating obedience showed genuine faith that God's promises were sure, even trusting God could raise Isaac from the dead, and it is recorded as the example of perfect surrender and implicit confidence for all his believing children. He was called from his kindred and Israel was made separate not for selfish greatness but to be a blessing, to make God's name known, preserve His truth, and carry Heaven's gifts to the world.
Setting and Wording
The promise comes at the close of the test, after Abraham proved faithful in offering his only son Isaac and did not withhold him, renewing the blessing through his seed to all nations because he obeyed. It stands at the end of the account in which he was commanded to offer Isaac as a burnt offering and rose to go and carry out the command. The command concerned Isaac as the joy of his life and heir of the promises, and the renewal followed the further promises to multiply his descendants and give them victory over their enemies.
It was spoken on Mount Moriah, on the consecrated spot where Solomon's temple was later built, where the covenant of blessing was confirmed to Abraham. That place, where Abraham revealed his willingness to sacrifice his only son in obedience to Jehovah, pointed forward to the sacrifice of the Son of the Most High for the deliverance of the human race.
God reaffirmed the covenant blessing with a solemn oath, spoken before heaven and the intelligences of other worlds, and extended it to Abraham's descendants through all generations. The oath was given not only for Abraham's own good and for succeeding generations but for the instruction of sinless beings, since the field where the controversy between Christ and Satan is fought and the plan of redemption is worked out is the lesson-book of the universe. Because Abraham had shown lack of faith in the promises, Satan had accused him before the angels and before God of failing to meet the conditions of the covenant and being unworthy of its blessings. God proved the loyalty of His servant before all heaven to show that nothing less than perfect obedience can be accepted and to open the plan of salvation more fully before them, all heaven witnessed his unfaltering obedience and applauded his fidelity, Satan's charges were shown false, and the oath testifies that obedience will be rewarded.
The seed in whom the blessing comes is Christ, the promised Saviour of the world. He is the star to arise out of Jacob, the Desire of all nations, the firstborn of heaven and the only begotten of the Father, filled with all the treasures of eternity, who assumed humanity to impress upon it the glorious image of the everlasting God and restore the moral image of God in man. All nations of the earth and all the families of the earth are embraced in the covenant, which was first given to Abraham and then repeated to reach every people. The words because thou hast obeyed my voice state the reason for the promise, spoken in commendation of the act in which at God's command Abraham gave up his beloved son.
Blessing Through Christ
The promise that blessing would reach all nations through Abraham's seed is a glorious Messianic promise of deliverance through the sacrifice of the Son of the Most High. It was fulfilled in the advent of the promised Messiah, whose sacrifice brings blessing to humanity. Peter applied it to Jesus as the risen Son first sent to Israel to bless them by turning each person away from sin, and the testimony to the resurrection led many hearers to believe. The blessing comes through Christ as the eternal Son and Mediator of the covenant, so that people of every nation, Jews and Gentiles alike, share in it if they accept Him.
It renews to Abraham the covenant of grace first made in Eden after the fall. It offers to all pardon and the assisting grace of God for future obedience through faith in Christ. It promises eternal life on condition of fidelity to God's law and gives the hope of salvation. God fulfills His word for His own glory and for the good of His people.
Abraham understood the promised seed as Christ and trusted in Him for forgiveness of sins, and that faith was counted to him for righteousness. His obedience was trust in God producing fruits. He was saved by faith in Christ exactly as the sinner is saved by faith in Christ today.
The covenant upholds the authority of God's law and joins the promise of blessing with faithful obedience. It called Abraham to walk perfect before God and to obey His voice and keep His charge, commandments, statutes, and laws, as part of the everlasting covenant to be a God to Abraham and his seed after him. Obedience to the law is essential to receiving favor and blessing, and the worldwide promise to his offspring was spoken in commendation of his act in giving up his beloved son at God's command. God enables His people to serve Him in holiness and righteousness. Those who receive His righteousness through faith in Christ depend on Him for salvation and show their faith through obedience and good works.
The covenant blessing to Abraham's seed is a spiritual birthright, not possession of wealth. It embraces communion with God such as righteous Abraham had, offering the sacrifice of atonement for the family, being progenitor of the chosen people and of the promised Messiah, and inheriting the immortal possessions embraced in the blessings of the covenant. Isaac was honored as heir to these promises through which the world was to be blessed. These eternal blessings are to be esteemed above temporal blessings, yet desiring them without experimental knowledge of God and a heart renewed by divine grace leads to seeking to secure the blessing by human devising.
Obedience and Mission
Abraham obeyed with perfect, unhesitating obedience though old and feeble and sorely tested by the terrible command concerning Isaac, the joy of his life and heir of the promises made concerning him. He did not plead his age, question the justice of the command, point out its apparent conflict with the promises, murmur or reproach God, fear others’ judgment, worry that his teaching would be rejected, or yield to personal anguish, but trusted God implicitly and obeyed at once. When he could not reason out the command to offer up his only son he stopped reasoning and obeyed, and he did not wait to reason before beginning the painful journey. No one could have been more severely tested, and the test was given for his present and eternal good.
His obedience showed genuine faith that God’s promises were sure, for the promise that Isaac would become a great nation remained sure because Abraham trusted that God could raise him from the dead. After he did not withhold his son God renewed the promise, and he came off conqueror. He carried out the test in purpose of heart as fully as if he had taken his son’s life with his own hand, and this showed why he was called God’s friend and Father of the faithful. His willingness to surrender what was most precious when God commanded proved his faith to be genuine obedience.
In his own experience he was permitted to understand something of God’s great sacrifice in giving His beloved Son. The account reveals that the Father also made a sacrifice, accepting the death of His Son to save a guilty rebellious race that could never rescue and restore itself after falling from loyalty through disobedience. Christ took the sinner’s place, the guiltless suffering for the guilty, so that by immeasurable sacrifice the ransom could be obtained. The tested obedience teaches implicit confidence in God’s requirements even when painful, perfect obedience to them, complete surrender to the divine will, and submission to God. Nothing possessed is too precious to give to God, the dearest treasure belongs to Him, His claims must be regarded first, and the example is recorded for the benefit of Abraham’s believing children as the example of faith.
Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son, the child of promise, even when it required great sacrifice, is joined to his faithfulness in teaching his children and household to follow the Lord. His faithfulness in governing his household — restraining evil and promoting justice and godliness by teaching and example — worked in harmony with God’s plan and fulfilled his part. Whether he would personally share in the promises depended on the course he chose. Christian parents must likewise so educate and mold their children in high respect and exalted reverence for God and everything sacred and holy that they will sacrifice all for Him and exemplify faith by works, counting it a privilege to yield even life itself when God requires it rather than hesitating and clinging to earthly things.
His faith requires cheerful compliance with God’s claim upon faith, service and affection, and strict observance of every requirement down to the least, since to disregard one precept is to transgress the sacred law. Neither age nor convenience nor want excuses disobedience, for God will provide for His faithful ones. The same testing comes to God’s people today, when the Lord puts His purposes in the place of their devising even when contrary to human desires and inclinations and contrary to the dictates of the flesh. Abraham was called out from his kindred to be a light-bearer to the heathen, and Israel was made a separate independent nation in Canaan, delivered from Egyptian bondage, not for selfish greatness though promised posterity as numerous as the sand by the sea, but to be a blessing to the nations and to make God’s name known throughout all the earth. Their privileges and advancement, and their being placed far in advance of other peoples in wisdom and understanding and supremacy if obedient to God’s requirements, were meant only so that through them God’s purpose for all nations might be fulfilled, to preserve His truth and serve as a means of bringing Heaven’s gifts to the world.
After Abraham proved he would not withhold his only son Isaac when commanded to offer him, God renewed the covenant with a solemn oath that through his descendant all the nations and families of the earth would be blessed because he had obeyed His voice. The promised descendant in whom the blessing comes is Christ, the Saviour of the world, whose sacrifice brings deliverance and turns all who accept Him, Jews and Gentiles, from sin. This renews the covenant of grace first given after the fall, offering to all pardon and help to obey through faith in Christ, with eternal life on condition of fidelity to God's law. Abraham's unhesitating obedience showed genuine faith that God's promises were sure, even trusting God could raise Isaac from the dead, and it is recorded as the example of perfect surrender and implicit confidence for all his believing children. He was called from his kindred and Israel was made separate not for selfish greatness but to be a blessing, to make God's name known, preserve His truth, and carry Heaven's gifts to the world.
Setting and Wording
The promise comes at the close of the test, after Abraham proved faithful in offering his only son Isaac and did not withhold him, renewing the blessing through his seed to all nations because he obeyed. It stands at the end of the account in which he was commanded to offer Isaac as a burnt offering and rose to go and carry out the command. The command concerned Isaac as the joy of his life and heir of the promises, and the renewal followed the further promises to multiply his descendants and give them victory over their enemies.
It was spoken on Mount Moriah, on the consecrated spot where Solomon's temple was later built, where the covenant of blessing was confirmed to Abraham. That place, where Abraham revealed his willingness to sacrifice his only son in obedience to Jehovah, pointed forward to the sacrifice of the Son of the Most High for the deliverance of the human race.
God reaffirmed the covenant blessing with a solemn oath, spoken before heaven and the intelligences of other worlds, and extended it to Abraham's descendants through all generations. The oath was given not only for Abraham's own good and for succeeding generations but for the instruction of sinless beings, since the field where the controversy between Christ and Satan is fought and the plan of redemption is worked out is the lesson-book of the universe. Because Abraham had shown lack of faith in the promises, Satan had accused him before the angels and before God of failing to meet the conditions of the covenant and being unworthy of its blessings. God proved the loyalty of His servant before all heaven to show that nothing less than perfect obedience can be accepted and to open the plan of salvation more fully before them, all heaven witnessed his unfaltering obedience and applauded his fidelity, Satan's charges were shown false, and the oath testifies that obedience will be rewarded.
The seed in whom the blessing comes is Christ, the promised Saviour of the world. He is the star to arise out of Jacob, the Desire of all nations, the firstborn of heaven and the only begotten of the Father, filled with all the treasures of eternity, who assumed humanity to impress upon it the glorious image of the everlasting God and restore the moral image of God in man. All nations of the earth and all the families of the earth are embraced in the covenant, which was first given to Abraham and then repeated to reach every people. The words because thou hast obeyed my voice state the reason for the promise, spoken in commendation of the act in which at God's command Abraham gave up his beloved son.
Blessing Through Christ
The promise that blessing would reach all nations through Abraham's seed is a glorious Messianic promise of deliverance through the sacrifice of the Son of the Most High. It was fulfilled in the advent of the promised Messiah, whose sacrifice brings blessing to humanity. Peter applied it to Jesus as the risen Son first sent to Israel to bless them by turning each person away from sin, and the testimony to the resurrection led many hearers to believe. The blessing comes through Christ as the eternal Son and Mediator of the covenant, so that people of every nation, Jews and Gentiles alike, share in it if they accept Him.
It renews to Abraham the covenant of grace first made in Eden after the fall. It offers to all pardon and the assisting grace of God for future obedience through faith in Christ. It promises eternal life on condition of fidelity to God's law and gives the hope of salvation. God fulfills His word for His own glory and for the good of His people.
Abraham understood the promised seed as Christ and trusted in Him for forgiveness of sins, and that faith was counted to him for righteousness. His obedience was trust in God producing fruits. He was saved by faith in Christ exactly as the sinner is saved by faith in Christ today.
The covenant upholds the authority of God's law and joins the promise of blessing with faithful obedience. It called Abraham to walk perfect before God and to obey His voice and keep His charge, commandments, statutes, and laws, as part of the everlasting covenant to be a God to Abraham and his seed after him. Obedience to the law is essential to receiving favor and blessing, and the worldwide promise to his offspring was spoken in commendation of his act in giving up his beloved son at God's command. God enables His people to serve Him in holiness and righteousness. Those who receive His righteousness through faith in Christ depend on Him for salvation and show their faith through obedience and good works.
The covenant blessing to Abraham's seed is a spiritual birthright, not possession of wealth. It embraces communion with God such as righteous Abraham had, offering the sacrifice of atonement for the family, being progenitor of the chosen people and of the promised Messiah, and inheriting the immortal possessions embraced in the blessings of the covenant. Isaac was honored as heir to these promises through which the world was to be blessed. These eternal blessings are to be esteemed above temporal blessings, yet desiring them without experimental knowledge of God and a heart renewed by divine grace leads to seeking to secure the blessing by human devising.
Obedience and Mission
Abraham obeyed with perfect, unhesitating obedience though old and feeble and sorely tested by the terrible command concerning Isaac, the joy of his life and heir of the promises made concerning him. He did not plead his age, question the justice of the command, point out its apparent conflict with the promises, murmur or reproach God, fear others’ judgment, worry that his teaching would be rejected, or yield to personal anguish, but trusted God implicitly and obeyed at once. When he could not reason out the command to offer up his only son he stopped reasoning and obeyed, and he did not wait to reason before beginning the painful journey. No one could have been more severely tested, and the test was given for his present and eternal good.
His obedience showed genuine faith that God’s promises were sure, for the promise that Isaac would become a great nation remained sure because Abraham trusted that God could raise him from the dead. After he did not withhold his son God renewed the promise, and he came off conqueror. He carried out the test in purpose of heart as fully as if he had taken his son’s life with his own hand, and this showed why he was called God’s friend and Father of the faithful. His willingness to surrender what was most precious when God commanded proved his faith to be genuine obedience.
In his own experience he was permitted to understand something of God’s great sacrifice in giving His beloved Son. The account reveals that the Father also made a sacrifice, accepting the death of His Son to save a guilty rebellious race that could never rescue and restore itself after falling from loyalty through disobedience. Christ took the sinner’s place, the guiltless suffering for the guilty, so that by immeasurable sacrifice the ransom could be obtained. The tested obedience teaches implicit confidence in God’s requirements even when painful, perfect obedience to them, complete surrender to the divine will, and submission to God. Nothing possessed is too precious to give to God, the dearest treasure belongs to Him, His claims must be regarded first, and the example is recorded for the benefit of Abraham’s believing children as the example of faith.
Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son, the child of promise, even when it required great sacrifice, is joined to his faithfulness in teaching his children and household to follow the Lord. His faithfulness in governing his household — restraining evil and promoting justice and godliness by teaching and example — worked in harmony with God’s plan and fulfilled his part. Whether he would personally share in the promises depended on the course he chose. Christian parents must likewise so educate and mold their children in high respect and exalted reverence for God and everything sacred and holy that they will sacrifice all for Him and exemplify faith by works, counting it a privilege to yield even life itself when God requires it rather than hesitating and clinging to earthly things.
His faith requires cheerful compliance with God’s claim upon faith, service and affection, and strict observance of every requirement down to the least, since to disregard one precept is to transgress the sacred law. Neither age nor convenience nor want excuses disobedience, for God will provide for His faithful ones. The same testing comes to God’s people today, when the Lord puts His purposes in the place of their devising even when contrary to human desires and inclinations and contrary to the dictates of the flesh. Abraham was called out from his kindred to be a light-bearer to the heathen, and Israel was made a separate independent nation in Canaan, delivered from Egyptian bondage, not for selfish greatness though promised posterity as numerous as the sand by the sea, but to be a blessing to the nations and to make God’s name known throughout all the earth. Their privileges and advancement, and their being placed far in advance of other peoples in wisdom and understanding and supremacy if obedient to God’s requirements, were meant only so that through them God’s purpose for all nations might be fulfilled, to preserve His truth and serve as a means of bringing Heaven’s gifts to the world.