Abraham's Offspring

As we work our way through God’s covenants with people, there are certain aspects of these covenants that I can’t possibly do justice to on Sunday morning. But, in the same way, I provided some additional notes while we were working through the creation account I will do that here also.

In our study of God’s covenant with Abraham this week, I highlighted that the Scripture speaks of the “offspring” differently in different circumstances. For example, in Galatians 3, within just a few sentences, Paul demonstrates that the offspring is Jesus (Gal 3:16), and just a few verses later, we are Abraham’s offspring by faith (Gal 3:26-29). But two other ways should also be considered.

This multifaceted view of Abraham’s offspring affects our views of the church community, who should be baptized, and whether God has more than one people. Traditionally, these views get separated into two camps – Covenant and Dispensational Theology.
Personally, I don’t fit into either of these camps. I can’t agree with the Covenant theologians that infants should be baptized or that the church includes unsaved people. But, I also can’t agree with the Dispensationalists that God has more than one people in the world. In part, it is the four aspects of Abraham’s offspring that highlight what I think are errors in both camps.

Below I’m sharing an excerpt from the book Kingdom Through Covenant by Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum that will further explain why we need to consider every aspect of Abraham’s offspring. If you want to study it further, I’m happy to let you borrow the book.

Multifaceted Aspects

The nature of the Abrahamic covenant is multifaceted and diverse. In its textual and historical context, it not only encompasses spiritual-internal aspects that link it ultimately to the new covenant but also consists of national and typological elements that must be carefully unpacked through the covenants, which results in some significant discontinuity in the new covenant. This complexity is illustrated by thinking about how Scripture speaks of Abraham and his seed.

First, the “seed of Abraham” refers to a natural (biological) seed, namely, every person who was in any way biologically descended from Abraham, such as Ishmael, Isaac, the sons of Keturah, and by extension Esau, Jacob, and so forth. In each case, all these children received the sign of the Abrahamic covenant, namely, circumcision, even though many of them were unbelievers and even though it was only through Isaac that God’s promises and covenant were realized (Gen. 17:20–21; cf. Rom. 9:6–9).

Second, the “seed of Abraham” refers to a natural (biological) yet special seed tied to God’s elective purposes, namely, Isaac, by extension to Jacob and the entire nation of Israel, and to the Davidic king. Built into the Abrahamic covenant is the promise both of Abraham’s seed to be a mighty nation (Israel) and of the arrival of kings—realized in the Davidic covenant yet ultimately fulfilled in a singular royal seed (Gen. 17:6–8; 22:17–18a; 24:60; 49:8–12; etc.). Yet even within this special sense of Abraham’s seed, the nation remains a mixed people—that is, the individual within the nation may be a believer or unbeliever. Concerning the nation of Israel, salvifically speaking, not everyone in it was the elect, although they, unlike the mere natural-biological seed (e.g., Ishmael), had the supreme privilege of being God’s covenant people under the Mosaic covenant. Furthermore, this special seed also functioned typologically to point to Abraham’s singular, royal seed who, in himself, would bring salvation to the world.

Third, the ultimate “seed of Abraham” refers to the true/unique seed, namely, Christ (Gal. 3:16), the antitype of the previous special seeds of Abraham. In Christ, then, we have the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham, rooted in Genesis 3:15, so that in the truest sense he is the seed of Abraham, the true Isaac and Israel, and David’s greater Son. In this way, Jesus is the unique seed of Abraham since he biologically comes from Abraham’s specific genealogical line, while at the same time, he is greater than those who preceded him since he is the antitype of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Israel, and David.

Fourth, the New Testament teaches that all believers, regardless of nationality are the spiritual “seed of Abraham” now that Christ has come and inaugurated a new covenant. This includes all believing Jews and Gentiles in the church (Eph. 2:11–21), thus fulfilling the Abrahamic promises of blessings to the nations. In this last sense, only those who have experienced an internal circumcision of the heart by the transforming power of the Spirit and who are united to Christ by faith are Abraham’s spiritual seed (Gal. 3:26–29). Under the new covenant, being a true member of Abraham’s family, and thus part of the church, does not involve biological birth in a specific national lineage or merely receiving the external sign of circumcision but believing in God’s covenant promises centered now in Christ and being born of the Spirit.

What is significant about noting the multifaceted nature of the Abrahamic covenant? At the very least, it does justice to the Abrahamic covenant in its historical context, and it is a crucial point of difference between dispensational and covenant theology, as discussed in chapter 3. Let us first focus on covenant theology.

Dispensational theology has often criticized covenant theology for its tendency to “flatten” the Abrahamic covenant by reducing it primarily to its spiritual aspects while neglecting its national and typological aspects. On this point we tend to agree with the overall dispensational critique. This is why, in the Israel-church relationship, covenant theology so easily views the church as the “new Israel” with the entailment that just as Israel was a mixed entity, so is the church. And, they say, just as the genealogical principle operative in the Abrahamic covenant—“you and your seed” (Gen. 17:7)—applies to Israel, so also it applies to the church in exactly the same way. And just as the covenant sign of circumcision functioned in Israel, so paedobaptism functions the same way in the church. However, the problem with this view is that it fails to do justice to the multifaceted nature of the Abrahamic covenant, and it reads too fast into the Abrahamic covenant many of the legitimate spiritual realities of the new covenant. In doing so, it fails to exegete the Abrahamic covenant first in its own immediate context and then think through how it is picked up in later covenants “before reaching its fulfillment in the new covenant.

However, it is also important to add that dispensational theology criticizes covenant theology at this point because dispensationalists are convinced that this is the reason why covenantalists do not do justice to the role of national Israel in the future, especially related to the land promise. Yet dispensationalists’ critique is only fair if they can demonstrate that their overall understanding of Israel’s role in God’s plan is correct, something we contend that they have not demonstrated because they have not consistently put together God’s plan from creation to new creation as progressively unveiled through the covenants, which is now fulfilled in Christ and the church.