The Dispensation of Promise

I. Introduction

A. The Importance of the Covenant with Abraham

1. Abraham as our example

- Obeyed by faith God’s call to Canaan
- Believed God unto righteousness
- Received a new name/nature
- Was confirmed in faith.

2. Abraham as the ground of blessing.

- We have to step back to see the forest rather than the trees in order to fully appreciate all that God
has done in Abraham.

B. The Preconditions of the Covenant

1. The Promise of a Redeemer

- The Seed of the Woman (Gen. 3:15) who would undo what had been done in the Fall.
- While God made man responsible for the moral law written on the heart, the promise of the
Seed pointed to a better way. In the light of this promise “men began to call upon the Lord” for
deliverance. (Gen. 4:26)

2. The Establishment of Human Government.

- Under the previous dispensation lawlessness prevailed. So, God made a covenant with Noah to
establish human self-government. We are our brother’s keeper. (Gen. 9).
- This is the beginning of God restoring His authority among the nations in the earth.

- It is a necessary precondition for the establishment of the Kingdom of God on the earth.
- Just as the moral law failed to curb the sin of man, so did the establishment of human
government. In fact, it led to united rebellion against God.

3. The Two Lines

- Through the course of these two dispensations, we have seen the contrast between the godly
line of Seth and the ungodly line of Cain. This distinction was threatened by the incident with the
Nephilim just prior to the flood and so God solidified the line of the Seed of the Woman by Noah’s
blessing of Shem.

- However, even this is not sufficient because, Abram, his descendant was born in a land of
idolatry. Thus, God needed to establish not only the line of descent, but the guardians of the
promise, as it were.

Gen. 12:1-3
II. The Dispensation of Promise

A. The Aspects of the Covenant Promises to Abraham

1. The Blessing
- I will bless you And make your name great;
- And you shall be a blessing.
- I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you
- And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed

2. The Nation/Seed
- I will make you a great nation
Also

- Genesis 15:4–5. “And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This one shall
not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.” Then He brought him
outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.”
And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.””

3. The Land
- To a land that I will show you
Also
- Genesis 12:6–7. “Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the
terebinth tree of Moreh. And the Canaanites were then in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram
and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” And there he built an altar to the Lord, who had
appeared to him.”

B. Three Recipients of the Blessing

- Genesis 22:15–18. “Then the Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of
heaven, and said: “By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and
have not withheld your son, your only son— blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will
multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and
your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth
shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.””

- Abraham
- The Seed/nation
- The families of the earth

C. The Conditions of the Covenant

1. To establish the covenant
- Obedient faith on the part of Abram
- By leaving Ur and traveling to Canaan Abram has met the condition to covenant with God.

2. To maintain the covenant.

- Once the covenant is made it becomes unconditional on the part of Abram.
- This is evidenced by the fact that God alone passes through the parts in the cutting of the covenant
in Genesis 15.
- Thus, fulfillment of the covenant depends completely on God.
3. To enjoy the blessings of the covenant
- However, there are conditions for enjoying the blessings of the covenant in
a temporal sense.
- This is made clear in two ways.
- First, Abram was to receive the blessing when he was in the land.
- This is also indicated in passages concerning Isaac and Jacob.

- Genesis 26:1–6. “There was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days
of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines, in Gerar. Then the Lord
appeared to him and said: “Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land of which I shall tell you.
Dwell in this land, and I will be with you and bless you; for to you and your descendants I
give all these lands, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father. And I will
make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all
these lands; and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; because Abraham
obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.” So
Isaac dwelt in Gerar.”

- Genesis 28:12–15. “Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its
top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And
behold, the Lord stood above it and said: “I am the Lord God of Abraham your father and the
God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. Also your
descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east,
to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be
blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back
to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.”

- Thus for Abraham and his descendants, receiving the blessings of the covenant are dependent on
being in the Land.

- Second, there are two aspects of Gentile blessing, one of which is conditioned and one of which is
not.

- The conditional blessing for Gentiles is that they bless Abraham and his descendants. For the
nations, this becomes the principle of responsibility for this dispensation, as evidence by the curses
that come upon Egypt precisely because they did not bless Israel but instead brought them under
bondage.

- The unconditional blessing is that God will bless all the families of the earth
through Abraham.

D. The duration of the Covenant

1. Everlasting

- Genesis 13:14–15. “And the Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: “Lift
your eyes now and look from the place where you are— northward, southward, eastward, and
westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever.”
2. Temporal

- While the covenant is an everlasting covenant, all of the blessings are not fulfilled immediately.

- Genesis 28:1–4. “Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him, and charged him, and said to
him: “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. Arise, go to Padan Aram, to the house
of Bethuel your mother’s father; and take yourself a wife from there of the daughters of Laban your
mother’s brother. “May God Almighty bless you, and make you fruitful and multiply you, That you
may be an assembly of peoples; And give you the blessing of Abraham, To you and your descendants
with you, That you may inherit the land In which you are a stranger, Which God gave to Abraham.””
- Hebrews 11:13. “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen
them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and
pilgrims on the earth.”
- Hebrews 11:39–40. “And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not
receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made
perfect apart from us.”
- Leviticus 14:14–17. “The priest shall take some of the blood of the trespass offering,
and the priest shall put it on the tip of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed, on the thumb of
his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot. And the priest shall take some of the log of oil,
and pour it into the palm of his own left hand. Then the priest shall dip his right finger in the
oil that is in his left hand, and shall sprinkle some of the oil with his finger seven times before the
Lord. And of the rest of the oil in his hand, the priest shall put some on the tip of the right ear of
him who is to be cleansed, on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot,
on the blood of the trespass offering.”
- Hebrews 9:22. “And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and
without shedding of blood there is no remission.”
- Hebrews 10:3–4. “But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is
not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.”

III. Application

A. Guarding the Gospel

1. Errors come from de-emphasizing aspects of the covenant.

- For instance, the land promise is completely lost in theologies that hold that the church has
replaced Israel in God’s covenant program.
- This robs the covenant of one of its central components and renders the promises of God to
Abraham and His descendants as completely meaningless. In essence, God was not telling the
truth.

2. Errors come from invalid principles of interpretation.

- How do theologians justify ignoring important aspects of the covenant such as the Land Promise?
By an invalid method of interpretation.

- “The Old Testament records two kinds of promises which God made to national Israel: national
promises and spiritual promises. The spiritual promises encompassed every spiritual descendant of
Abraham, and were not restricted to national Israel . . . . The spiritual promises still are being
fulfilled through the church today. Israel’s national promises all have been either fulfilled or
invalidated because of unbelief.” (Cox, 34)
- So the promises that God made to Isaac and Jacob regarding their physical descendants were false.
They did not, as Hebrews indicates, receive those promise and they will not. Who is fulfilling those
promises? Gentiles in the church. This kind of spiritualizing of the promises leads to the idea that
God has permanently cast off Israel because of their unbelief.

- This completely undermines the security we have in Christ.

A. Understanding the Covenant

1. Helps us Understand the Course of History

- This is God’s plan for the redemption of man and his cosmos.

2. Helps us Understand the Mosaic Covenant

- As we will see, the Law was given as the first answer as to how to inherit the promises on a
permanent basis.

3. Helps us understand the Gospel.

- The Condition of Faith
- The distinction between temporal and eternal blessings
- The assurance of fulfillment