Additional Teaching on the Land Covenant

Additional Teaching on the Land Covenant

Galatians 3v6-7, 29

‘Consider Abraham: “He believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Understand then, that those who believe are children (sons) of Abraham... If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.’ 

• Any Jew, who is physically descended from Abraham, regards Abraham as their ‘father.’ On the physical level then, Jews are his ‘sons.’ But the above passage makes it clear that to be a true son of Abraham one must believe on Jesus Christ. True sonship is about what one believes on the spiritual level!

• Jews may be physically ‘sons’ of Abraham, but until they repent and believe on Jesus, (like any other person in the world), they are not true sons spiritually! The faith that Paul repeatedly argues for is a faith in Jesus which credits to us righteousness, i.e. justifies us. A faith like that of Abraham’s is needed.

• Jews, who believe that they are favoured by God, just because they are Jews, are in error! One is not saved because of their race, but by faith in Messiah Jesus! This doesn’t mean that God hasn’t got a plan for the remnant (group) of the Jews before the return of Christ, see Romans 9-11, see 11v25-26. But what it does mean is that true ‘Jewishness’ is about a response to Jesus as Messiah, and him alone.

• The fact is Jesus, all that he was and taught, is the truest form of Old Testament Judaism! He was its ultimate fulfilment! It is to him that Jews and Gentiles must turn and believe. The remarkable truth is that all believers in Jesus Christ, Jew or Gentile, are Abraham’s sons/children, spiritually speaking!Earlier I commented that through Abraham all people on earth can be blessed through believing on Jesus! Now we can see exactly why!

• A helpful verse is Romans 2v28-29, ‘a man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit...,’ see also Romans 4v11-12, 9v6-8 and Deuteronomy 30v6 and Jeremiah 4v4, 9v25.

• Christian believer, you have had your heart circumcised, you have been set apart by God spiritually. You are in that sense a ‘true Jew,’ spiritually speaking. Abraham is the father of the Jews because they physically descended from him.But spiritually speaking you are a true son or child of Abraham, as is any Messianic Jew or Gentile.According to Galatians 3v6-7, 29 you are a true son of Abraham, his seed, because you are in Christ!

Galatians and the land covenant

• There are a number of Christian Bible teachers who teach the following. They say that because the New Covenant has come and the focus is now about faith in Jesus and becoming true spiritual sons of Abraham, then the land covenant I have taught about, has ended.

• Essentially they extend the teaching about what it means to be sons of Abraham, to include the land covenant. In so doing they then undermine any Jewish prerogatives to the land.

• But just because one is a spiritual son or child of Abraham by trusting Christ, it does not logically follow that the land covenant has ended for those who are Abraham’s physical descendants. Why should a covenant made upon the spiritual level necessarily cancel out the one made on the physical level?

• I suggest then that the covenant through Abraham operates on two levels, albeit closely related, but not mutually exclusive. After all, the land covenant was an everlasting possession forever. It is a case of ‘both/and,’ rather than ‘either/or.’

• Moreover, it needs to be noted that nowhere does the New Testament actuallystate that the land covenant has finished. In fact, neither does the book of Galatians; this being a case in point.

• Galatians 3v15, 17 states: ‘Brothers, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established… The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise.’

• The point being: if Moses law had not cancelled out Abraham’s and Noah’s covenants which had come before it, then neither has Christ’s new covenant cancelled them out either!

Conclusion and Summary

• In conclusion then, we have observed that there are 4 covenants still in existence today. Noah's, David's, the Messianic (New) Covenant in Jesus and Abraham’s covenant.

• Through Abraham’s covenant via Jesus comes true spiritual sonship for all those who believe on Jesus. Also, through Abraham the land covenant remains intact for his physical descendants, the Jews.

• This has implications for the modern land of Israel and our view about it. But, because we have theological credence for its existence, it does not mean we have to agree with all that goes on in the Middle East.

• And so we must pray for Jews to become Messianic. We must pray for Palestinians and Muslims and all Gentiles to become Messianic also! We are to be a people of prayer in these days!

Questions for thought

• God is faithful to his Word and his covenants, even if it takes many years for him to honour them. What hope does God’s faithfulness bring to you today? Believer, you have a New Covenant relationship with God the Father through Jesus. What does this covenant agreement mean for the Christian’s salvation? What does it guarantee you in your Christian life?