Some events are of such magnitude that they alter the course of history. Southern hopes of an independent Confederacy reached high tide at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in 1863, but when Pickett’s charge on July 3rd was bloodily shattered by the Northern defenders on Cemetery Ridge, rebel fortunes began an ebb tide which doomed the Confederacy and assured that the United States would be one, united, free republic and become the model of democracy to the world.

But a much quieter event about four millennia ago has had a far more important impact on the world. The Lord appeared to a man named Abram in far off Ur of the Chaldees (modern Kuwait) and gave him one command and three promises which together outline the development of the divine plan for the salvation of mankind from sin.

Now the Lord had said to Abram: ‘Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; 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’ (Genesis 12:1-3).

Abram obeyed the Lord, traveled north to Haran, crossed Syria and the Jordan River, and came into Canaan, stopping at Shechem in the hills of Central Palestine. "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" (Genesis 12:7).

In all the Lord made seven specific pledges to Abram, but the seven boil down to three great promises: "I will make you a great nation" (The Nation Promise), "in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (The Seed Promise), and "to your descendants I will give this land" (The Land Promise).

Dr. John F. Walvoord, one of the leading premillennial theologians of the twentieth century, observed of this three-fold promise:

It is recognized by all serious students of the Bible that the covenant of God with Abraham is one of the most determinative revelations of Scripture. It furnishes the key to the entire Old Testament and reaches for its fulfillment into the New. In the controversy between premillenarians and amillenarians, the interpretation of this covenant more or less settles the entire argument. The analysis of its provisions and the character of their fulfillment set the mold for the entire body of Scriptural truth (139).

The question is, How were God’s promises to Abraham fulfilled? Our understanding of the nature and fulfillment of the divine plan of salvation depends upon the answer.

Development of the Promise

Over a span of half a millennium the Lord repeated and expanded upon the promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Joshua. Let’s trace this in order.

Abraham

After Lot left Abram, the Lord again spoke to Abram, this time between Bethel and Ai, and encouraged him by repeating the Nation and Land promises (Genesis 13:14-17).

Still later, when Abram was concerned because he did not have a son to be his heir, the Lord again repeated to him the Nation and Land promises (Genesis 15:5,7). When Abram asked for assurance, the Lord turned the promise into a covenant (legal agreement) with Abram, told him it would be four hundred years before his descendants inherited the land, and specified the extent of the land, "from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates" (Genesis 15:8-21).

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord once more revealed Himself to him. He renewed the covenant with Abram by changing his name to Abraham (Genesis 17:4-5), and promised Abraham this would be an everlasting covenant (verse 7). The Lord expanded the Nation promise by revealing to Abraham that both nations and kings would come from him (Genesis 17:5-6). He also specified that the land of Canaan would belong to Abraham’s descendants "as an everlasting possession" (Genesis 17:8). At this time the Lord God also changed the name of Sarai, Abraham’s wife, to Sarah and promised that she, though barren, would have a son, whom Abraham was to name Isaac (laughter), and who would be the heir through whom the promises would be fulfilled (Genesis 17:15-21).

When Abraham was one hundred and Sarah ninety, Isaac, the child of promise, was born (Genesis 21:1-3).

When Isaac was a lad old enough to carry the wood for a sacrifice up Mount Moriah, the Lord God tested Abraham by commanding him to offer this darling son, the object of all his hope and the dearest thing on earth to him, as a burnt offering (Genesis 22:1-6). (The Lord demanded no more of Abraham than He Himself later did for you and me.) When Abraham obeyed, the Angel of the Lord stopped the aged, faithful patriarch just as he was poised to plunge the knife into that dear boy (verses 7-14). Then God added His oath by His own Name, the highest name by which He could swear, to the promise and covenant, and repeated the Nation and Seed promises (verses 15-18). The three-fold promise now had three-fold divine assurance: the Promise, Covenant, and Oath of the Lord God Who cannot lie.

Usually teachers call this promise to Abraham "unconditional," but there was nothing unconditional about it. Abraham had to leave his home and family and go where the Lord would direct him (Genesis 12:1), "walk before" the Lord, i.e., live in recognition he was in the presence of God, and "be blameless" (Genesis 17:1), be circumcised at age ninety-nine and circumcise all the males of his house (Genesis 17:10-14,23-24), "command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice" (Genesis 18:17-19), and offer his beloved son of promise as a burnt offering (Genesis 22:1-18). How would you like to have to keep all those conditions?! And circumcision of all males as the sign of the covenant became a condition to all succeeding generations (Genesis 17:9-14).

Isaac

The Lord repeated all three promises to Isaac (Genesis 26:4), but He conditioned their fulfillment on Isaac remaining in Canaan rather than going to Egypt (verses 1-3). God also revealed that He could fulfill the promises "because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws" (verse 5). Isaac obeyed the Lord as well (verse 6).

Jacob

The Lord selected Jacob as the son of Isaac through whom the promise would be fulfilled even before Jacob was born (Genesis 25:20-26; Romans 9:9-12). As Jacob fled from his brother Esau, the Lord revealed Himself to him at Bethel in a dream and gave to him all three of the divine promises (Genesis 28:10-15). Twenty years later the Lord appeared to Jacob in Haran and commanded him to return to Canaan (Genesis 31:13), promising He would "deal well" with him and make his "descendants as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude" (Genesis 32:9,12). Jacob obeyed the Lord at the risk of his life, both from his father-in-law Laban and his brother Esau (Genesis 31:17-18). Later God commanded Jacob to go back to Bethel and build an altar to Him (Genesis 35:1), and Jacob obeyed (Genesis 35:1-7). The Lord appeared to him again, blessed him, changed his name to "Israel" ("God prevails" or "a prince with God"), and repeated to him the Nation and Land promises (verses 9-12; cf. 32:28).

Fulfillment of Nation Promise

When Israel was one hundred thirty years of age the Lord brought him and his family into Egypt (Genesis 47:9) in fulfillment of the Lord’s warning to Abraham (Genesis 15:13). At the time Israel began his sojourn in Egypt, his family was comprised of seventy-five people (Acts 7:14).

Four generations later, when that family left Egypt and were numbered by Moses in the wilderness, they could boast an army of six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty men, other than the tribe of Levi, between the ages of twenty and sixty, able to go to war (Numbers 1:45-46). A generation later, as this people stood poised in the plains of Moab to cross Jordan into the land of promise, Moses taught them to say, when they brought the first fruits of their first harvest of the land to the priest, "My father was a Syrian, about to perish, and he went down to Egypt and dwelt there, few in number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous" (Deuteronomy 26:5). The first of the three great, divine promises to Abraham had been fulfilled. In God’s own time and in God’s own way, the seed of Abraham had become "a nation, great, mighty, and populous."

Fulfillment of Land Promise

In two years spent in the wilderness at the foot of Mt. Sinai, Moses the servant of God had given Israel their national laws and organized them as a nation. They were now ready to take the land.

Because they heeded the ten evil spies and failed to believe God, the nation was doomed to wander another thirty-eight years in the wilderness, till all that rebellious generation died. Moses, because of one instance of disobedience, was not allowed to enter the land of promise, but died on top Mount Nebo on the eastern side of the Jordan. Before his death he anointed Joshua to replace him as leader of Israel.

Israel crossed the Jordan at flood stage on dry land and camped at Gilgal. Beginning with Jericho, they conquered the land and divided it among their tribes. Joshua records:

So the Lord gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it. The Lord gave them rest all around, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers. And not a man of all their enemies stood against them; the Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand. Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass (Joshua 21:43-45).

How much of the promised land did the Lord give to Israel? "All the land." What did they do with it? "They took possession of it and dwelt in it." How much of the land promise failed? "Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass." How could Joshua have been clearer or more emphatic?

Later, as Joshua delivered to Israel his farewell address, he repeated:

Behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth. And you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one thing has failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spoke concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one word of them has failed (Joshua 23:14; cf. 24:13).

To be sure, in disobedience to the Lord, Israel did not drive out all the Canaanites, but they did put them "under tribute" (Judges 1:28).

The Lord had promised Abraham that the land his descendants would inherit would stretch from the Euphrates River in the North to the River of Egypt in the South (Genesis 15:18). Both David and Solomon ruled over a land encompassing these borders (2 Samuel 8:13; 1 Kings 8:65; 2 Chronicles 9:26). Solomon, at the dedication of the temple, blessed the Lord for fulfilling His promise and granting His people rest in the land (1 Kings 8:56).

Half a millennium later, the Levites in Jerusalem sang in praise to God:

You are the Lord God,
Who chose Abram,
And brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans,
And gave him the name Abraham;
You found his heart faithful before You,
And made a covenant with him
To give the land of the Canaanites,
The Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites,
And the Girgashites -
To give it to his descendants.
You have performed Your words,
For You are righteous (Nehemiah 9:7-8).

Fulfillment of Seed Promise

"But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Peter 3:8). Peter is not telling us God can’t tell time. God invented time! He always speaks the truth (Titus 1:2), thus, when He promises something will happen in a certain time, that’s the way it happens. The apostle’s point is that the Lord will keep His word regardless of the amount of time it takes. Time limits mortal men but not the eternal God.

The divine promise to Abraham is a perfect example. The Lord promised Abram that his descendants would become a great nation, that all people of the world would be blessed through his Seed, and that his descendants would inherit the land of Canaan (Genesis 12:1-3,7). Although it took four hundred thirty years, Abraham’s offspring did become "a nation, great, mighty, and populous" (Deuteronomy 26:5). Later, they did indeed inherit all the land God promised Abraham (Joshua 21:43-45).

But two thousand years had passed, and still the Lord God had not sent the promised Seed through Whom "all the nations of the earth" would "be blessed." Then, "when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law" (Galatians 4:4). Though He is indeed the Son of God, through His fleshly lineage "Jesus Christ" is "the Son of David, the Son of Abraham" (Matthew 1:1). Christ is the promised Seed of Abraham through whom all nations are blessed (Galatians 3:8,16).

Not only this, all who come to Christ through faith by being baptized into Him become so identified with Christ that they too become sons of God, Abraham’s seed, and heirs of the divine promise to Abraham (Galatians 3:26-29). In so doing, they also become "the Israel of God" (Galatians 6:15-16) and spiritual Jews (Romans 2:28-29; 9:6-8). They become God’s chosen people (1 Peter 2:9-10).

Conclusion

When Abraham demonstrated His godly fear by being willing to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac, the Lord God repeated to him the Seed Promise and even confirmed it by swearing by the greatest Name by which He could swear, His own (Genesis 22:1-18).

So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us (Hebrews 6:17-18, New American Standard Bible).

What a wonderful hope we "who have fled for refuge" to Christ possess. It is the "hope of eternal life" (Titus 1:2), an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time (1 Peter 1:3-5). God, who cannot lie, promised it to Abraham and confirmed it by an oath in His own Name four millennia ago, developed the promises over two millennia, and brought it to fruition in Christ.

Though another two thousand years have passed since the Son of God walked the ancient roads of Palestine, the promise of the Lord God is still unchangeable and secure. All who by faith are baptized into Christ are heirs of the promise. What a strong consolation amid the troubles, temptations, and trials we endure in this weary pilgrimage.

This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek (Hebrews 6:19-20).