# Be a God to you and your seed (Gen 17:7)



## nwink (Nov 11, 2011)

Could someone provide a good description (or a link to a PB thread with a good description) of what exactly the promise of God in Gen 17:7 means that He will be a God "_to your seed_." It would be helpful, too, for some clarification between the orthdox Reformed view...versus the error of how FV may interpret this passage.


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## Contra_Mundum (Nov 12, 2011)

I think Act.2:39 provides a helpful rephrasing of the former promise:
"For the promise is unto you, and to your children... even *as many as* the Lord our God shall call."

The implicit condition in the divine promise found in either Gen.17 or Act.2 is faith--faith for the immediate hearer, or for his children.

Compare with Rom.9:6, "But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel." The promise is to be God to you (believer, parent) and to your children _who believe,_ who are called to faith. And its plain enough that not all the physical descendants of Israel actually belong (in the full and meaningful sense) to Israel. The same was affirmed earlier, Rom 2:28-29, "For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God."

So, the one who declares that the promise of God has no condition (of faith), or has any other condition (than faith), does not read the promise aright. Nor should we say that faith once was present in the apostate, and likewise the saving benefits of union with Christ; and after apostasy those gifts have been rescinded. Rom.11:29, "For the gifts and calling of God are _without repentance._"

Still, God is the God of the covenant; and that covenant has a visible aspect. And so, the church of all ages may be said to possess "their" covenant God. Indeed, the prophets' angry denunciations of the "unchaste," unfaithful nation wouldn't make much sense if the people as a whole (regardless of their heart-commitment) were not in some sense covenanted. The promise implies that God will also offer himself to the posterity of his covenanters, and they also are considered members of this covenant even then in the original expression. So then, those who have entered into this covenant by birth, later find themselves in the position of their own parents (at one time), who once received the promise for them, and which same now receive the promise for their own children. Nevertheless, it is only faith that makes these religious habits worthy.


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## Hebrew Student (Nov 12, 2011)

I would also add to what Pastor Buchanan has said in pointing out that Genesis 17:1-2 provides a condition of the covenant. It is difficult to see, as most modern translations don't translate it this way, but that is starting to change. The New NIV, despite all of the hoo hah that there has been over their gender neutral translations, translates Genesis 17:1-2 almost exactly as I would:

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless. 2 Then I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.”

The "then" at the beginning of verse 2 is extremely important. It shows that verse 1 is a condition of verse 2. It is difficult to go into detail right now, but suffice it to say that Hebrew has different volatives which correspond to the three different persons of a verb. The first person is called the cohortative, the second person, the imperative, the third person, the jussive. When you have one of these volatives [usually an imperative] used and then the next verb is a waw followed by a different volative, the net result is a purpose clause [Waltke O'Connor p.577]. Hence, the semantic force of this passage would be: "Walk before me and be blameless so that I will establish my covenant between me and you and greatly increase your numbers." The same thing happens in Genesis 12:1-3.

The point is, these conditions are passed along from parent to child in Ancient Near Eastern land treaties. A child must fulfill these conditions, or the land goes back to the king. It is interesting that, in these treaties, even if one generation is unfaithful, the promise still goes to the next generation, conditioned upon their faithfulness to the king. That is if one generation is unfaithful, there is still the opportunity for the next generation to be faithful, and thus reclaim the land. In other words, it doesn't automatically leave the family just because one generation is unfaithful, even though the unfaithful generation looses their land rights. If the next generation is faithful, they will regain the land for the family. Even if there are fifteen generations of unfaithfulness, if the sixteenth is faithful, they will get the land back. This appears to be what is meant by an "eternal covenant." It doesn't mean unconditional to the individual, in that it is the person's land precisely because they are seed. The eternal covenant made with the seed is eternal in the sense that any seed that is faithful to the king will have the land.

God Bless,
Adam


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