# Abrahamic Covenant?



## thistle93 (Dec 9, 2010)

Hi! Two questions for you:

1) Do you see from Scripture that the Abrahamic Covenant is unconditional or conditional? Please include why and with Scripture to back up your response. 

For me it is what you mean. I see it as unconditional in the sense that God orchestrated and instigated without anything on the part of Abraham, much like unconditional election in salvation but I also see it as conditional in that there would be blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience much like their is the condition of faith an repentance for salvation to take place. In both covenants and salvation God is sovereign and His will cannot be thwarted but the conditions for both are clearly laid out in Scripture. 

2) Is it unbiblical to see that the promise of land to Abraham and his descendent's in its fulfillment as ultimately referring to the New Jerusalem in the New Heavens and New Earth and not Isreal as we know it today? Also is it wrong to call the Abrahamic covenant a shadow because this means that it has passed away instead of being fulfilled? Please include why and with Scripture to back up your response. 

For me there seem to be clearly verses even in the OT that point to the Abrahamic Covenant not just reserved to earthly land but ultimately heavenly and this is even more explicitly clear in NT, especially book of Hebrews. 

Looking forward to your responses. 

For His Glory-
Matthew


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## Leslie (Dec 9, 2010)

I believe it was conditional. Genesis 26:5. God told Isaac that the covenant would extend to him and beyond BECAUSE Abraham kept the law.


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## Hippo (Dec 9, 2010)

But Genesis 26:5 clearly states that the blessings arose because of the past faithfulness of Abraham, not the present or future faithfulness of Isaac and his descendents, therefore while there were historic reasons for God to make his covenant the actual covenant and its blessings were unconditional.


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## Peairtach (Dec 9, 2010)

It was conditional in the sense that one could be outwardly, legally, formally, visibly in the administration of the Covenant, and yet if one did not exercise faith it was of no value, indeed of negative value, because it was a great spiritual privilege to be raised in it.

Faith - living faith, which is always accompanied by works - was the condition. Of course at another level, since faith is a gift of God's grace, those in the Abrahamic Covenant who had faith, and those in the Abrahamic covenant today who _have_ faith - since the New Covenant is an outworking and phase of the Abrahamic Covenant - would ascribe it to the unconditional grace of God.

Regarding the Land, in the New Covenant period, the Israel of God has expanded to include Jewish believers and their children and Gentile believers and their children (e.g. Galatians 6:16), with the midwall of partition in the Temple between Jews and Gentile God-fearers knocked down, so they are one international nation.(Ephesians 2:11-18). Full Jewish believers don't have more intimate access to the God of Israel than Gentile believers. 

Also God's Land has expanded to include the whole Earth and is to be conquered not with the sword of iron but with the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God (e.g. Romans 4:13; Gen 15:18 with Ex 23:31 and Ps 72:8; Dan 2:35; Matt 5:5)

Regarding the ethnic Jews, Romans 11 indicates that they will be converted and re-ingrafted into the Israel of God. 

Only those among the ethnic Jews who accept Christ as the King of the Israel of God could really use the Abrahamic Covenant as an argument for the Jews having the Promised Land, since the presence by the Jews in the Land was always tied to godliness on the part of the Jews. But since the New Covenant the Land promises in their simple OT state fall anyway.

The Jews should be thankful that God in His providence has allowed them, as a people largely still rejecting the Gospel, to return to part of Israel. They should try to find some way of making peace with the Arabs, even although they may have to forego having the Land from the River (Euphrates) to the Great Sea, and from the East Bank of the Jordan to the Wadi of Egypt. 

I understand it may be difficult or impossible to make peace with numbers of the Arabs, but they shouldn't use the promises of the Land as a political tool. It seems to be biblically illegitimate.

*Quote from Mary*


> BECAUSE Abraham kept the law.



This was evidence that he had the condition of the Covenant, a living faith. A dead faith is really no faith at all. It's certainly not saving faith from God.

*Quote from Matthew*


> but I also see it as conditional in that there would be blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience much like their is the condition of faith an repentance for salvation to take place.



In its essence the CoG is always unconditional in the sense that the elect are chosen unconditionally and regeneration is worked monergistically in the heart of the elect resulting in faith.

From another perspective the CoG has conditions. There are people in the administration of the Covenant, children and adults that do not have the condition that will make the Covenant savingly effective in their hearts and lives i.e. faith.

There are also other conditions, in this life, for the believer and the unbeliever who are in the Covenant administration. E.g. the possibility of temporary or permanent excommunication because of bringing God's Name into disrepute by gross, presumptious, flagrant sin. The possibility of chastisement.

In the Old Testament, Israel also had typological chastisements and punishments to face that were especially for her, because of her childhood state (e.g. Galatians 4:1-7). The New Covenant Israel of God is no longer a child, and although there are conditions to the New Covenant, they are not accompanied by the childhood and earthly teaching aids of the Old Covenant.

*Matthew*


> I see it as unconditional in the sense that God orchestrated and instigated without anything on the part of Abraham,



The Divine Covenants are never like contracts or agreements between equal parties, because God is God and Man is Man. Of course in the New Covenant period we are entering into covenant with the God-Man, although to the extent that e.g. Abraham rejoiced in the coming of Christ, he was too.

_All God's covenants are of the nature of sovereign dispositions imposed on man. God is absolutely sovereign in His dealings with man, and has the perfect right to lay down the conditions which the latter must meet, in order to enjoy His favour._(Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, p 213)


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## jwithnell (Dec 9, 2010)

What's amazing about the covenants is that the covenant _maker_ ultimately has to be the covenant_ keeper_. All of the covenants point forward to Christ who was the only one who could keep the terms of the covenant, pay the price for our having broken the covenant, and impute to us the righteousness of having kept the covenants. In return, we are blessed and can _be_ a blessing, we are among those who are numbered like the stars or the sand on the seashore, and have the promise of the promised land. (I don't see any way of this promise having been kept other than in the kingdom of Christ having been established as he conquered sin and death and rose to sit at the right hand of the Father. It is significant that no earthly king in the line of David reigned again after the exiles except for Christ Himself.)


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## PuritanCovenanter (Dec 9, 2010)

Jean, You have over simplified it. If one did not circumcise their Children they were put outside. The Covenant of Works was another where responsibility lies. We can also discuss certain things in the Mosaic that would cut one off.


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## jwithnell (Dec 10, 2010)

No doubt the terms of the covenant were binding: the people of God in whatever era are expected to do whatever he commands. But I have some difficulty with the idea of any covenant being conditional or non-conditional. God gives the terms and we are expected to carry them out. We obey because we love God, because we are His people, and we respect that he knows what is best for us and for his church. But we are totally dependent upon Christ to keep the covenant. I think this is the point that has really tripped folks up in the recent (but not really new) perspectives on Paul. God did not save us so that we can go on and strive on our own. All is of grace, but all is still a binding commitment upon us.


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## Peairtach (Dec 10, 2010)

*Quote from Jean*


> But we are totally dependent upon Christ to keep the covenant.



Christ has perfectly kept the CoW for us. I don't think God ever expected Abraham or the Israelites or us to keep the CoG in the sense of sinless perfection.

(a) Because He knew we were sinners anyway and incapable of sinless perfection even after coming to faith.

(b)Because He made provision within the CoG for when we sin even after entering the life of the Covenant and not just the bond of the Covenant.

Someone who is in a healthy spiritual condition deals with sin in a covenantal way. Someone who is not in a healthy condition - saved or unsaved - will need to be dealt with by the Session.

That doesn't lessen our obligation to the Law as a pattern and rule of life, which should be strengthened motivationally-speaking by being in the bond and life of the Covenant. 

*Quote from Martin*


> Jean, You have over simplified it. If one did not circumcise their Children they were put outside. The Covenant of Works was another where responsibility lies. We can also discuss certain things in the Mosaic that would cut one off.



Yes. There is cutting-off/excommunication in the Old Covenant and New Covenant. In the Old Covenant it was occasionally carried out by execution by the elders and the congregation.

If a person is excommunicated under the Old Covenant (sometimes by death from the Land, typifying God's wrath against sin in eternity ) or under the New Covenant, it doesn't and didn't necessarily mean they were going to Hell, because someone who has genuine faith may need to be excommunicated for a shorter or longer time. Under the Old Covenant, someone with genuine faith might break on of the 10C in such a way that it might merit excommunication by the death penalty. He might be executed - typifying Hell - and go straight to Heaven.

If a member of the Covenant People commits a particular sin and is dsciplined and shows no sign of repentance this may indicate that they are unsaved. But ultimately God sees into people's hearts. The Kirk Session has to deal with professors and their children as they appear. Kirk Sessions don't profess to have a supernatural knowledge of people's hearts. Even the Apostles didn't seem to have such a knowledge.

These things (excommunication) are there as an additional provision by God for particular sins that they may be dealt with in a covenant way, that the covenant people may be taught to stay on the straight and narrow, and that the Church may not bring Christ's Name into disrepute by an anything goes approach to the Christian life.

There are also other conditions e.g. God says that we may be open to particular chastisements in His providence, because of our sins.

For the true believer that sins - and we all sin to some extent - excommunication and chastisement are earthly conditions of being in Covenant with God, that will not lead to eternal woe.

The reason the Jews needed excommunication and chastisement to be backed up with "weak and beggarly elements" was because they were in the childhood phase of Israel.

The Law, and chastisement and church discipline and sanctions, can't save us, but they can show us the way to go. We are justified by grace through a living faith that is always accompanied by good works. Therefore no-one is saved without (some) good works accompanying that salvation.


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