“And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3b). When Abraham heard these words, God was saying so much more than what Abram could understand. God was telling him that He had chosen a family through which the embodiment of all His love, grace, mercy and justice would come. It is in this passage that the story of the Bible bottlenecks down to one family line. Isaac, Abraham’s promised son, was given the promise in Genesis 26:4. Jacob, the usurping son of Isaac, received the same promise in Genesis 28:14. In Galatians chapter 3, we are shown how blessed we really are.
“Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham, and the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, ‘In you all the nations shall be blessed.’ Then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham” (Gal. 3:7-9). Abraham had in his possession the gospel news, but he did not know its value. We, through faith, are blessed like Abraham to have a relationship with God.
The law was given to bring us to faith. “But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor” (Gal. 3:22-25). The Old Testament had a purpose. It was limited because the promise was made, and God intended something better for us.
Because of the promise, we were received in adoption. “Having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will” (Eph. 1:5). “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4-5). We have been adopted as children. According to Romans 11:17, we were grafted in the work that was done before. We were made part of the goodness of God because of His promise.
What Abraham did not understand, Paul wrote in Galatians 3:26-29, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”