Genesis 12:1-9 - Typical Blessings

Find out how God's promise to bless Abraham applies to you.

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Genesis 12:1–9 (NIV)

SINCE WE LAST LEFT OFF: About 300-400 years have elapsed since God dispersed the people from Babel.

12 The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

² “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. 

³ I will bless those who bless you,

and whoever curses you I will curse;

and all peoples on earth

will be blessed through you.”

⁴ So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. ⁵ He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.

⁶ Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. ⁷ The LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.

⁸ From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD.

⁹ Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.

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CANONS OF DORDT

Point 1, Article 7:

Before the foundation of the world,

by sheer grace,

according to the free good pleasure of his will,

God chose in Christ to salvation

a definite number of particular people out of the entire human race,

which had fallen by its own fault

from its original innocence

into sin and ruin.

Those chosen were

neither better nor more deserving than the others,

but lay with them in the common misery.

He did this in Christ, whom he also appointed from eternity

to be the mediator,

the head of all those chosen,

and the foundation of their salvation.

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Summary

It's hard to overemphasize the importance of of this passage to world history - especially the first three verses. Three of the world's primary religions - Christianity, Judaism and Islam - find their basis here, which is why they're often referred to as the Abrahamic religions.

The first eleven chapters of the Bible reveal an ugly cycle: man sins against the LORD, and the LORD inflicts consequences. First, Adam rebelled and was evicted from the garden; soon, man's wickedness on the earth became great, so God destroyed the world in a flood. Subsequent generations tried to usurp God with a tower reaching to heaven, so God scattered them by confusing their language.

But here in chapter 12, a new cycle begins. This time God initiates it, calling Abram seemingly out of nowhere to go somewhere. This time reward isn't predicated upon obedience, rather it precedes it. No longer is God's blessing tied to a tree or enclosed in an ark. Through Abraham, the LORD promises, all the families of the earth (ESV, NET, LSB) will be blessed.

And no longer is mankind dependent upon the obedience of one man to gain the promised blessing. Six times over the LORD makes clear how it will come about:

• I will make you into a great nation;

• I will bless you;

• I will make your name great;

• I will bless those who bless you;

• I will curse whoever curses you;

• All peoples will be blessed through you (by the LORD's power).

  Dig Deeper  

Bam.

We just ran into another interpretive problem in our second week of our year long Bible study, and it's a big one! It comes in verse seven:

The LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.”

Does this mean that the land described here in Genesis - the land that's come to be known as Palestine - belongs exclusively to God's people? Lots of good Christians would say yes, an idea that has shaped American middle eastern policy for decades.

While we're not going to hash out all of the difficult nuances of foreign policy here in a short blog post, we can sharpen our theology by reading the Bible - especially the Old Testament - through a typological lens. That is, we look for key concepts called types that foreshadow how the LORD's promises are fulfilled in the New Testament.

Today's passage introduces us to two big types:

1. Offspring - Salvation comes to the seed of Abraham. One of the most controversial issues the young Church faced in the New Testament is how Gentiles could be considered sons of Abraham. But the Hebrew word that lies behind offspring is singular, not plural - it points to one Man, Jesus Christ. So all those who are in Christ are offspring of Abraham, and heirs to his blessing.
   

2. Land - God certainly did give the patch of ground that Abram surveyed in today's passage to Abram's offspring for a time, but the New Testament helps us understand that God's future plans are not geographically limited. Today, in the light of Christ, we understand the Old Testament concept of land typifying the coming Kingdom of God.

We will see these two types over and over again in the coming months as we keep reading the Bible together this year.

AAA Prayer (About)

• ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who will bless the offspring of Abraham (that's us, in Christ!);

• ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that you would respond as faithfully to God's call as Abram did;

• ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:

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