And I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee.
God appears to Abram as the Almighty and sets out the terms of His covenant. It runs on through the generations, and it never ends. Three questions follow. Who is the "offspring"? What does it mean for God to be God to someone? And does any of it depend on Abraham?
The horizon opens wide here. And the word "everlasting" fixes how long it all lasts.
A far greater sphere now opens out for the hopes of Abraham. And the time is unlimited too. It is an "everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you." God had not forgotten the lesser gift while greater things were in view — "all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God."
Notice which word never appears in this chapter. God binds Himself; Abraham is not asked to guarantee anything.
"I will" is the phrase that marks this covenant. It begins with "I will make My covenant" and ends with "I will be their God." The little word "if" stands out only by being missing, for it was a covenant with no condition on Abram's part. He had tried to get offspring by natural means through Hagar. But God meant to multiply him greatly, to make him a father of many nations, to secure the land of promise for his offspring, and to be their God in a special way.
Two things move together in this chapter: a widening circle, and a closer tie.
There were two things in the way in which God revealed Himself in chapter 17. First, grace spreads out to the Gentiles: "You shall be the father of a multitude of nations." For if He is the Almighty God, He could not be shut up, if we may say so, in Israel. The second thing is, I will be God "to you and to your offspring after you." That is, closer communion, a direct relationship with God Himself.
When God attaches His name to a man's name, that title carries weight, and it commits Him.
When God is called the God of someone, it shows a close tie between that person and God, whose name is now joined to his own. It shows a relationship based on what God is to the one whose name He has taken. And it implies a purpose to bless and honour in keeping with that relationship. This purpose must stand. God cannot be unfaithful.
"Your offspring after you" is not one simple idea. The promise of countless descendants stands apart from the promise about one Seed.
The promises of a very large offspring are separate... The reasoning in Galatians is that Christ alone is the seed meant in chapter 22, when it speaks of the nations of the world. And if we are in Christ, we are then the offspring of Abraham.
Israel later took the land under a different covenant, one that hung on their obedience. Did that settle the promise made to Abraham?
When the Israelites entered the land, it was not on the ground of this covenant, but of another covenant. Under that one, their hold on the land no longer rested on God's unconditional promise. It hung on their own obedience. This was not a fulfilment of God's covenant with Abraham. As we shall see, God does not treat it as one. He keeps His covenant with the fathers carefully in reserve, even while He clearly foretells that the nation will fail and be scattered under the later covenant made at Mount Sinai.
Long after Abraham died, God still called Himself the God of Abraham. That title says something about Abraham himself.
If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had ceased to exist, could God still have taken their names to describe Himself to Israel? He might have said, I am He who was with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, when they existed... He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. But this truth went further. Abraham was dead: his soul and body were separated. He was living for God, yet he was not what God meant him to be as his God... He was to be complete, and so raised from the dead. God's name showed His relationship with those who were gone for the moment. That proved the resurrection.
- Everlasting — no time limit, and no narrow border. The circle widens to many nations, and the term runs on for ever.
- Unconditional — the chapter is full of "I will" and holds no "if". What God promises rests on His faithfulness, not on Abraham's record.
- God Himself — the heart of the promise is a relationship: God ties His own name to a man, and that tie commits Him to bless.
- Offspring — the promise reaches countless descendants, and, as Galatians shows, one Seed, Christ. Those in Christ count as Abraham's offspring.
- Unbreakable — the conditional covenant at Sinai never cancelled this one. Death cannot cancel it either, for God is not the God of the dead.
And I give to thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land of thy sojourning, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be a God to them.
Genesis 17 is a chain of promises to Abraham, and verse 8 hands him a whole country. He owned no part of it. The verse joins two gifts: a land held for ever, and God Himself as their God.
The promises of this chapter pile one on another. None of them asks Abraham for anything first. One writer counts how often God binds Himself:
These, then, are some of the blessings of the everlasting covenant that God makes with Abraham. The covenant shows God's settled purpose to bless. Seven times in this message God says, "I will." Now Abraham learns that God looks for an answer in the believer's life to His own grace. Abraham is to walk before God and be perfect.
The walk God asks for comes after the gift; it does not buy it. Some readers treat the spiritual promises as firm and the earthly ones as negotiable. One writer answers that the two stand or fall together:
Here are "the promises made to the fathers," and to Israel, "beloved for the fathers' sakes." God made them to Abraham without any condition, whether they are spiritual or earthly. If you say that the spiritual promises are without condition, by the same reasoning the temporal ones are. God's promise to Abraham, "To you will I give this land," is as certain as the promises He has made in favour of us Gentiles.
The verse names the land by the one thing Abraham was in it — a stranger. He never took possession. When his wife died, he buried her in that land, and commentators read the burial as an act of faith in this promise:
God had revealed Himself to Abraham as the Almighty, and as the God of resurrection. He had assured him that the land where he was a stranger — all the land of Canaan — was his for an everlasting possession. All was his by promise, though not yet in possession. In the faith of God's promise he was careful to lay the body of Sarah to rest in the Promised Land.
Staying a stranger was not a delay in the blessing. It was the setting for it, and God gave him a new name to mark the covenant:
All this for ever, without condition, and his name changed for the covenant. Here, being a pilgrim, and continuing so, God is not ashamed to be called, and to lay the basis of being called, his God.
Israel later lived in Canaan. Israel also lost it. One writer says that spell in the land cannot be what "everlasting" meant:
Finally, God gave the land to the seed of Abraham "for ever," or as it is put elsewhere, "for an everlasting possession." Israel's possession of Canaan was certainly not like that. But has the Lord forgotten His promise? Or are we to assume that the promise was not meant for Israel? Far from it. … "He has remembered His covenant for ever, the word which He commanded to a thousand generations; the covenant He made with Abraham" (Ps. 105:8-11). So Israel's possession, held on terms and for a time, is not the fulfilment of the covenant with the fathers.
The promise names Abraham himself, not only his descendants. He died owning none of it, so the promise must reach past his death:
The promise of God to Abraham could not be fulfilled if there were no first resurrection. Stephen tells us Abraham was a stranger, with no inheritance in it — not so much as to set his foot on. Suppose Abraham were not raised from among the dead until the heavens and the earth flee away, and he had to stand before the great white throne. Then God would have broken His word to Abraham, and that is impossible.
The verse does not end with land. It ends with a relationship, and one writer calls that the greater gift:
The sphere now opened out for Abraham's hopes is far greater, and the time also is unlimited. It is an "everlasting covenant, to be a God to you and to your seed after you." … God had not forgotten the lesser gift in presence of greater things — "all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God."
- Gift, not deal. Seven times God says "I will" in this chapter; nothing in verse 8 waits on Abraham's performance.
- Gift held by faith. The verse names the land by his own status in it — a stranger. It was all his by promise while none of it was his in fact.
- Gift not yet spent. Israel held Canaan on terms and lost it. So the everlasting possession still lies ahead.
- Gift beyond the grave. Abraham died without a foot of it. So he must be raised from the dead to receive it himself.
- Gift behind every gift. The land is the lesser half of the verse; the greater is God's own word that He will be their God.