After reading the account in Genesis 17 of the covenant God made with Abraham there are several things we need to realize.  First, we need to note for whom this covenant was meant. Verse seven states, “And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations.” So, God’s covenant was with Abraham and his descendants.  His offspring and lineage would become known as the Hebrew race. It was the Hebrews who constituted (and still do) the nation of Israel.  That is why the Hebrews in the Old Testament were known as God’s chosen people – because they were the ones with whom God chose to make His covenant.  To be sure, other races could, and did, join Israel to walk with God in Old Testament times, but the overwhelming majority of God’s people were Hebrews until after the death of Christ. In other words, the nature of God’s covenant with the nation of Israel was both nationalistic and spiritual during this era.

Because of this nature it was only natural for it to assume a national quality of sorts. The thing most Christians miss, however, is that this national idea carried over to the church in the New Testament. Louis Berkhof, who taught theology at Calvin Theological Seminary for more than four decades, wrote in his Systematic Theology:

This national idea is naturally very prominent in the Old Testament, but the striking thing is that it did not disappear when the nation of Israel had served its purpose. It was spiritualized and thus carried over into the New Testament, so that the New Testament people of God are also represented as a nation…

Support for this conclusion is drawn from several New Testament texts:

Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it.  (Matthew 21:43)

And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell in them, And walk among them. I will be their God, And they shall be My people.” (II Corinthians 6:16)

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; (I Peter 2:19)

Likewise, the nation of Israel is referred to as a church:

This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the Angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us… (Acts 7:38)

Charles Hodge, the prolific Principal of Princeton Theological Seminary in the mid-1800’s, furthers the claim that the nation of Israel was the God-established church in the Old Testament.  In his authoritative Systematic Theology he wrote:

The Hebrews were called out from all the nations of the earth to be the peculiar people of God. They constituted his kingdom…To them were committed the oracles of God. They were Israelites; to them pertained the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service, and the promises. (Rom. ix. 4.) Nothing more can be said of the Church under the new dispensation. They were selected for a Church purpose, namely, to be witnesses for God in the world in behalf of the true religion; to celebrate his worship; and to observe his ordinances. Their religious officers, prophets, and priests, were appointed by God and were his ministers. No man could become a member of the Commonwealth of Israel, who did not profess the true religion; promise obedience to the law of God as revealed in his Word; and submit to the rite of circumcision as the seal of the covenant. There is no authorized definition of the Church, which does not include the people of God under the Mosaic Law.

Now, the question becomes whether the church established by Christ is a new nation, completely independent from the old nation of Israel, or if it is one and the same.  Was the nation of Israel in the Old Testament a different church from what the Christian body of believers is today or are we a continuation of the same church?  If we are the same church, the same Holy nation called by God, then the implications are clear: We are still under the same covenant God established with Abraham all those centuries ago.

In Scripture, we find that this is indeed the case. In Romans 11, verses 16 through 19, we read:

For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree, do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.”

Charles Hodge remarked that it is here we learn we are “not a new Church, but one and the same. It is the same olive-tree…It is founded on the same covenant, the covenant made with Abraham.” 

This is a good time to recall that this was an everlasting, eternal covenant.  This covenant between God and His people did not have an expiration date.  Therefore, if we are one and the same with the church that existed in the Old Testament then we are under the same covenant that they were – the covenant of grace!  If you miss this, you miss everything: Abraham and his Hebrew descendants were saved by grace, through faith, the same way Christians are today! 

We know this because, in Romans 4, Paul repeatedly points this out:

If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. What does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” (vs. 2, 3)

We have been saying that Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness. (vs. 9)

It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. (vs. 13)

Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. (vs. 16)

The words "it was credited to him" were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. (vs. 23-25)

The last excerpt could not make the point any clearer.  The same promise given to Abraham was given to us, and vice versa. That is why Christians are called his descendants today. We are clearly not his physical descendants but, rather, we are his spiritual descendants.  In the third chapter of Galatians Paul again writes that the blessing given to Abraham has now been given unto us:

He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. (vs. 4)

Later, in verse 29, Paul adds:

If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Charles Hodge, in his Systematic Theology, strongly upheld the doctrine that God’s people in both of these time periods were under the same covenant:

…above all He promised the patriarch that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. By seed was not meant his descendants collectively, bat one person, that is, Christ. (Gal. iii. 16.) The blessing promised, therefore, was the blessing of redemption through Christ, his promise to Abraham was a repetition of the promise made to our first parents after the fall, this promise was the Gospel. The Gospel…has a definite meaning in the Scriptures. It means the announcement of the plan of salvation through Christ, and the offer of that salvation to every one that believes. This Gospel, Paul says, was preached before unto Abraham. The pious Hebrews are, therefore, described as…those who hoped in Christ before his advent. (Eph. i. 12.) This promise of redemption made to Abraham was that "unto which," Paul says, "our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come." (Acts xxvi. 7.) The condition of all these Abrahamic promises was faith. This the Apostle abundantly teaches, especially in the fourth chapter of Romans and the third chapter of Galatians. Abraham believed in the promise of the birth of Isaac. (Rom. iv. 19, 20.) Those of his descendants who believed in the promises of national blessings made to the Hebrews, received those blessings, those who believed in the promise of redemption through Christ were made partakers of that redemption.

Such being the nature of the covenant made with Abraham, it is plain that so far as its main element is concerned, it is still in force. It is the covenant of grace under which we now live, and upon which the Church is now founded. This cannot be doubted by any who admit the account just given of the Abrahamic covenant. This is clear because the promise is the same. Paul says (Gal. iii. 14) that the blessing promised to Abraham has come upon us. In his speech before Agrippa, he said: "I stand, and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers. For which hope’s sake, King Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews." (Acts xxvi. 6, 7.) As the promise is the same, so also the condition is the same. The Apostle argues that men now must be justified by faith, because Abraham was thus justified. Christians, therefore, are said to be the sons or heirs of Abraham, because faith in the promise of redemption secures their redemption just as faith in the same promise secured his. And he tells the Galatians, "If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise." (Gal. iii. 29.) This doctrine, that the Church now rests on the Abrahamic covenant, in other words, that the plan of salvation revealed in the Gospel was revealed to Abraham and to the other Old Testament saints, and that they were saved just as men since the advent of Christ are saved, by faith in the promised seed, is not a matter incidentally revealed. It is wrought into the very substance of the Gospel. It is involved in all the teachings of our Lord, who said that He came not to destroy, but to fulfill; and who commanded inquirers to search the Old Testament Scriptures if they would learn what He taught.

Hodge concluded:

The conclusion is that God has ever had but one Church in the world. The Jehovah of the Old Testament is our Lord; the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is our covenant God and Father; our Saviour was the Saviour of the saints who lived before his advent in the flesh. The divine person who delivered the Israelites out of Egypt; who led them through the wilderness; who appeared in his glory to Isaiah in the temple; towards whose coming the eyes of the people of God were turned in faith and hope from the beginning, is He whom we recognize as God manifest in the flesh, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He, therefore, who was the head of the theocracy is the head of the Church. The blood which He shed for us, was shed from the foundation of the world, as much "for the redemption of the transgressions which were under the first testament" (Heb. ix. 15), as for us and. for our salvation. The promise unto which the twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hoped to come (Acts xxvi. 7), is the promise on which we rely. The faith which saved Abraham was, both as to its nature and as to its object, that which is the condition of salvation under the Gospel.

It is quite clear:  The church in the world today is the spiritual descendant of the church God established with the nation of Israel all those centuries ago.  The covenant God made with Abraham is still valid today. 

Next time we will look at the seal God established as the sign of the covenant, but this ought to give you enough to chew on until then. Once again, the topic has gotten away from me, and something that was meant to be limited to a couple of posts has grown into a monster (I still haven’t finished writing on abortion!).  That’s okay though.  It is good to look at something of this magnitude as thoroughly and carefully as possible.  I would much rather write too much on a subject and risk being a little tedious and repetitive then to haste fully make my way through it and fail to give it due consideration and thought.  

Editor’s Note:  For the rest of this series please see: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 7, and Part 8.