Abrahamic Covenant (Part 2)

What Are We to Make of Israel — Steve Gregg

Next in this series

The Sinaitic Covenant

00:00

Abrahamic Covenant (Part 2)

What Are We to Make of IsraelSteve Gregg

This segment explores the significance of circumcision as a sign of the Abrahamic Covenant. The speaker emphasizes that circumcision marks one as part of the covenant, regardless of biological relation to Abraham. However, the speaker argues that the true meaning of circumcision extends beyond the physical act, as Jeremiah's prophecy suggests. In discussing the descendants of Abraham, the speaker highlights the importance of faith and righteousness in fulfilling God's promises, rather than relying solely on physical descent.

Transcript

Okay, we now need to talk about the sign of circumcision. Everybody knows that the Jews are, you know, practice circumcision and always have, but why? It's because of the Abrahamic Covenant. Circumcision was introduced as the sign of the Abrahamic Covenant in Genesis 17.

I want to read a few verses for you. This is the first time that circumcision is instituted in the Bible. In Genesis 17, verses 10-14, this is God speaking to Abraham, and he says, "'This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you.'" So this is the Abrahamic Covenant.

God speaking to Abraham. This is the covenant you and me have together. This is the covenant that you shall keep, me and you, and your descendants after you.

Every male child among you shall be circumcised. "'And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.'" So circumcision is a sign of being in the Abrahamic Covenant. Right? I mean, plain, not ambiguous.

The fact that you are circumcised is a sign that you are in the Abrahamic Covenant with God. "'He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male child in your generations who is born in your house or bought with money.'" So someone who's not even part of Abraham's family. "'From any foreigner, a Gentile then, who is not your descendant, he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, must be circumcised.'" So to be in the Abrahamic Covenant, you didn't have to be biologically related to Abraham at all.

You just had to be in the covenant, the same covenant Abraham was in, and being circumcised was a sign that you were in it. It says, "'My covenant shall be in your flesh as an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised male child who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people.'" He's broken my covenant.

Okay, so if a person is biologically related to Abraham, but is not circumcised, their cut off. They're not part of the covenant. Isn't that what he said? And if somebody is circumcised, whether he is or is not related to Abraham biologically, circumcision is the mark of being in the Abrahamic Covenant.

The failure to be circumcised means you're not in it. And that would be even if you're Jewish. What he's saying is your children who aren't circumcised are cut off.

And anyone who is circumcised, whether they're your children or not, they're in. So the Abrahamic Covenant is not something that is defined by its biological connections, but by its covenantal faithfulness connections. You circumcise your children and yourself if you're a Gentile to become a Jew, you become a proselyte, whatever.

That is proclaiming your adoption and your faithfulness to the Abrahamic Covenant. Circumcision is the mark of that. The refusal to that or the failure to that is a rejection of the covenant.

Now we see then that those who are legitimate children of Abraham in the covenant, if people say, well, we have to support Israel because there's a covenant that they have with God. Well, is it this one? Is it the Abrahamic Covenant? The Abrahamic Covenant doesn't have anything to do with your race. It has to do with your faithfulness to the covenant stipulations.

Circumcision being the primary one that's identified as the proof that you're in that covenant. Okay. So what do we know? Being circumcised is what makes you qualify for whatever is involved in the Abrahamic Covenant.

This applies to you even if you're not biologically related to Abraham. That is if you're a Gentile, it doesn't, it even applies if you are a biological offspring of him, you're not one of his seed. You're not one of the promised seed if you don't fulfill the covenant requirement.

It's, see, any relationship that anyone has ever had with God is a covenantal relationship. In this case, we're talking about a particular covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant. The reason my wife and I have a relationship that's different than my relation with any other person is because she and I have a covenant.

And because we both honor that covenant, we remain special to each other. If I would violate that covenant, or if she would, that could endanger that relationship. And divorces sometimes take place because of that.

And if that happens, the specialness of that relationship is not there anymore. Why? Because what makes those two belong together is a covenant. What made Israel belong to God is a covenant.

Initially, the Abrahamic Covenant. In another session, we're going to talk about the Sinaitic Covenant. It's another important one made at Mount Sinai.

But this is the basic one. This is the foundational one. And we can see that circumcision is the sign of the covenant.

And uncircumcision means you're not one of Abraham's seed. You're not in the covenant. That was stated right at the outset.

It was never boundaried by biology or by genetics or any of that. Natural descent from Abraham is not indicative of whether a person's in the Abrahamic Covenant or not. Circumcision is.

But what was circumcision a type of? Now that we have no problem understanding because even in the Old Testament, we're told that physical circumcision was less important than another kind of circumcision. In Deuteronomy chapter 10, verse 16, Moses said, Therefore, circumcise the foreskin of your heart and be stiff-necked no longer. This is talking about a spiritual state, a circumcised heart.

Obviously, God has never been too concerned about physical things as an end in themselves. Everything physical is going to pass away. Every circumcised baby is going to die and go into the dust again.

It's a temporary thing, physical circumcision. But the circumcised heart is what makes someone really one of God's people in a spiritual connection that lasts for eternity. The connection that saves is a heart connection, not a physical one.

And so even Moses said, Circumcise the foreskins of your heart. And Jeremiah, the same prophet who talked about the coming of the new covenant, in another passage in Jeremiah 4, verse 4, said, Circumcise yourselves to the Lord. Take away the foreskins of your hearts, you men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem.

Let my fury come forth like fire and burn so that no one can quench it because of your evil doings. Circumcise your hearts. Now, he's writing to people who probably were all physically circumcised, but that wasn't good enough, because the physical circumcision was simply an emblem of something that's supposed to correspond to something in the heart, spiritual.

The circumcision that really makes someone connected to God in a covenantal relationship is a spiritual heart condition. It's not an operation done to part of your body. Now, I'd love to go into detail as to why physical circumcision was chosen of all the possible surgical procedures that God could have chosen, why he chose circumcision as the emblem of circumcision of the heart.

And there's more than one reason that I could identify, but probably one that I should mention that's on the very surface is because the heart is the part that men do not see, but only God does. Man looks on the outward appearance. God looks on the heart.

It's the hidden man of the heart the Bible talks about, the inner man. If there's any part of the body that's more private and hidden from view to other human beings, it's a man's private parts, so called for a good reason. It's private.

And that is the part that bore the mark of the covenant. It wasn't for men to see. It was something that only God and very few other human beings might ever see.

But it's the most private. It's the most hidden part of the body, and if there's going to be any part of the body scarred to represent a scar in the hidden man of the heart, the most private part of the body is a good choice. It's also, by the way, the part of the body from which fruit comes, fruitfulness.

Abraham had one mission in his lifetime, and that's to produce offspring. And the one part of his body that produced offspring had to bear the marks of his faithfulness to the covenant of God. The offspring had to come from a clean member.

An uncircumcised member was unclean. God wanted the fruit of Abraham's life to be brought forth through a clean instrument. Our hearts have to be clean too, because that's where the fruit of the Spirit comes from.

The fruit we bear to God is not physical offspring, but spiritual fruit. And so the member that was circumcised corresponds to the heart in more than one possible way, but that's not really our concern here. The main thing to note is that the Bible made it very clear, even in the Old Testament, that physical circumcision is less consequential than spiritual circumcision, which is, of course, what it represented.

Now, look with me, if you would, to Romans chapter 2. It's amazing how many people who think they derive their theology from Paul don't seem to read Paul with their eyes open. If they did, they would certainly have seen these verses at some point. Romans chapter 2, beginning at verse 26, Paul's rebuking Jewish people who think that because they're physically circumcised, they're God's people, that they stand head and shoulders above Gentiles, because Gentiles are not circumcised, and Jews are, and being circumcised is what makes you one of God's people, and the Jews have that.

The Gentiles don't, so the Jews are better. But what Paul points out is they're not necessarily better. Jews who are circumcised sometimes do all the same evil deeds the Gentiles do.

What are we supposed to make of that? And what he says in verse 26 is, therefore, if an uncircumcised man, that means a Gentile, keeps the righteous requirements of the law, that is, if he actually lives a righteous and holy life, like a Christian does, a Gentile, who's a Christian living a righteous life, he's uncircumcised, but if he's actually keeping the more important parts of the law, will not his uncircumcised state be counted as circumcision, meaning by God? Won't God see a man who's living a righteous life as really circumcised in the way that matters, even though he's physically uncircumcised? Next verse. And will not the physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the law, judge you, who even with your written code and your circumcision are a transgressor of the law? Okay, you Jews, you have physical circumcision, but you break your own law. Here's Gentiles.

They don't have physical circumcision, but they're keeping the righteousness of the law. What do you think God's... Which of those men is circumcised as far as God's concerned? Who does God see as a true son of Abraham and circumcised bearing the mark of the Abrahamic covenant? And he says this, verse 28, for he is not a Jew who's one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. Could have fooled me reading most of the Old Testament, seemed like circumcision was outward in the flesh, but there were some clues.

Circumcise your heart, circumcise your heart, I said a couple of times, but he says, no, it's not the physical circumcision. It's not outward Jewishness. He says, but he is a Jew who's one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men, but from God.

So what do we have? Paul's talking to the Jews who are circumcised. He's talking about Gentiles who are not circumcised. And he says, okay, the Jew has circumcision, but in many cases, many Jewish people don't necessarily keep the whole law, and they live unrighteous lives just like Gentiles do.

On the other hand, there are some Gentiles who don't have physical circumcision, but they, because they're Christians, they do live up to the righteous requirements of the law. So who is God going to really see as really circumcised here? The one who's got the scar physically, or the one who's living according to God's righteousness? Paul makes it very clear. It's not outward Jewishness.

It's not outward circumcision. It's inward that counts with God. Okay.

What about Colossians 2? Colossians 2 and verse 11. Paul said, in him, that is in Christ, you are also circumcised with the circumcision not made with hands. That must be the circumcision of the heart.

By putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Now, the circumcision of Christ could mean the circumcision which Christ himself cut of your heart, which is probably what he means. It could even mean Christ's own circumcision, because he is a baby, we read in Luke chapter two, was circumcised.

And he does say we're in Christ. What is true of Christ is true of us. We're circumcised by his circumcision, by the circumcision of Christ.

We're circumcised. But I think more likely he means the circumcision which Christ accomplishes, since he mentions the circumcision not made with hands. There's a circumcision that matters to God and there's one that doesn't.

And the one that doesn't, you see in Galatians chapter five and verse six. Paul says, let no one, verse six. I'm sorry.

I'm not looking at Galatians, I'm looking at Ephesians. Give me a second here. These are very thin pages.

You can turn many of them without knowing you're doing it. Okay. Okay.

Five, six. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything. That means if you physically circumcise or not physically circumcise, it doesn't matter a hill of beans to God.

It doesn't avail anything at all. Well, what does? What does make a difference? Faith that works through love. Okay.

Faith and love are heart conditions and works come from that. If you have the right kind of faith, the works you do will be loving works. So having a righteous, loving, faithful life to God from the heart, that's circumcision.

That's the Abrahamic covenant, the mark that you're in. You're circumcised in your heart, not in the flesh merely. Now, one other passage in Philippians 3 is very significant because in the Bible, the Jews are sometimes called the circumcision and the Gentiles are called the uncircumcision.

Like in Galatians 2, Paul said that when he met with Peter, James and John, they agreed that the gospel to the circumcision was committed to Peter, James and John. That means they had a ministry to the Jews. But the ministry to the uncircumcision, means to the Gentiles, was to Paul and his companions.

So the circumcision means the Jews. The uncircumcision means the Gentiles. But look what Paul says in Philippians 3. For we are the circumcision.

What is the circumcision? The Jews. We're the true Jews. Who are? Well, Paul's a Jew, but his readers are Gentiles, Christian Gentiles.

Well, who's a true Jew? Who's a true circumcised son of Abraham? Those who worship God in the spirit, who rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. That sounds like you're Christians. The Christians, Jews like Paul and Gentiles like the Philippians, who are worshippers of Christ, they are the true Jew.

They're the true circumcision. They're the, as Paul then says in Galatians 6.16, the Israel of God, he calls them. Okay.

Now, one other point I need to make and then we're done. And that is being a child of Abraham is the category for being one of God's children in the Old Testament, to be part of the son, Israel, the firstborn of God. You have to be a child of Abraham for that, circumcised and so forth.

We saw that we're the ones who are circumcised as far as God's concerned, if we have our hearts circumcised. It doesn't matter whether we're physically circumcised or not. But notice that only those and all those who spiritually resemble Abraham are the children of Abraham.

In other words, being a child of Abraham is, it ceases, maybe never was, ceases to be if it ever was, anything that really has to do with who your parents were, or grandparents or great-grandparents. God doesn't have grandchildren. He only has children.

If you have Jewish parents, wonderful. If you have Gentile parents, equally wonderful. It doesn't make a difference.

If your ancestors came over in the Mayflower, it doesn't tell me a thing about you. I'm not impressed by who your ancestors were, neither is God. John the Baptist said to the Jews, don't think to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our ancestor.

That's exactly what the Jews, that was their boast. We have Abraham as our ancestor. But what did John say? God could have these stones raise up children of Abraham.

Not so great, not so impressive. Who cares? Who cares where you came from? The stones came out of the core of the earth, and God can make them into sons of Abraham. Certainly not into physical sons of Abraham, because stones, even if God worked a miracle to turn a stone into a person, that stone would not have ancestry going back to Abraham.

Stones don't come from Abraham, but God could make a stone into a person, and that person could be a son of Abraham as good as the Pharisees, better. Though they were descended from Abraham, and the stone was not. Don't think that your ancestry matters at all, said John.

Don't say we have our Abraham, our ancestors, and so could these rocks if God chose it. They could be children of Abraham as good as you. Look what God said to Abraham himself in Genesis 18, when he's just about to reveal to him his plan to wipe out Sodom and Gomorrah.

God's kind of doing sort of a soliloquy where he's thinking with himself, talking to himself, well, shall I tell Abraham about this or not? Here's what God says in Genesis 18, verses 18 and 19. He says, well, verse 17 says, "'The Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham what I'm doing? "'Since Abraham shall surely become "'a great and mighty nation, "'all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. "'For I have known him in order that he may command "'his children and his household after him, "'that they keep the way of the Lord "'to do righteousness and justice, "'so that the Lord may bring to Abraham "'what he has spoken to him.'" You see what that said? So that God can fulfill the promises to Abraham's actual seed, Abraham's got to teach his children to live righteously so that they will in fact do righteously so that God can fulfill his promise to them.

They have to be like Abraham. They can't just be descended from him. God can't fulfill his promises to Abraham in seed that are not like Abraham.

They have to be like him. He has to teach them to be righteous so that they will be righteous, so God can do this for them. And so a true child of Abraham is one that has the spiritual traits of Abraham, not the DNA in their cells of Abraham.

Look please at John chapter eight, Jesus' words on this subject. Very significant because Jesus acknowledged that the Jews that were opposing him were physically descended from Abraham. He didn't deny that.

And in John 8, 37, he said, I know that you are Abraham's descendants. Okay, I'm not gonna dispute that. But you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you.

I speak what I have seen with my father and you do what you have seen with your father. They answered and said to him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to him, if you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham.

You don't, you are, he said, I know that you're Abraham's descendants. I know your ancestry. I don't need to be informed about that.

But if you were really Abraham's children in the sense that counts, you would be like Abraham more than you are. You're trying to kill me. So you're like your father, who's a murderer.

And he says in verse 44, you are of your father, the devil. And his, what he wills is what you will. You're more like the devil than like Abraham.

Therefore, I see you as the devil's children, not Abraham's children. Yes, you're descended from Abraham, but that doesn't count if you are not doing the deeds of Abraham, if you're not, if you don't have the faith of Abraham. And that's the point that Paul makes in Galatians 3, seven through nine.

And I'll move as quickly as I can through this. And it's, I'm actually amazed how quickly I am going through it. You might not be, but you know, I know what I want to say.

You don't. Galatians 3, seven. Paul says, therefore know that only those who are of faith are the sons of Abraham.

That sounds kind of exclusive, exclusive of whom? Anybody who doesn't have faith in Christ. People who have faith in Christ, only they are the children of Abraham. Doesn't that mean that others who don't have faith in Christ are not the children of Abraham, as far as Paul's concerned, God's concerned? Sounds like it.

Verse eight, and the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith. Preach the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying in you, all the nations shall be blessed. So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.

Those who have faith like Abraham are Abraham's children. It's spiritual affinity with Abraham, not physical descent from Abraham that makes you a child of Abraham. According to Jesus, talking in John eight, and according to Paul, talking in Galatians 3. In both cases, they make it clear.

It doesn't matter who you're descended from. Doesn't matter at all. John the Baptist said the same thing.

He said, don't think you've got Abraham as your ancestor. Who cares? Who you're descended from doesn't matter in any respect to God. It's who you are that matters.

Where is your heart? Do you have faith like Abraham? Do you do the works of Abraham? Do you live a righteous life like Abraham? Well, then you're in. You're one of his. Is your heart circumcised? Then you're circumcised.

You're in the covenant of Abraham. Abrahamic covenant, that's the mark of it. Now, two other passages very quickly where Paul contrasts the children of the flesh, which is the physical descendants of Abraham, from what he calls the children of the promise.

If you look at Romans nine, we could read more, but we'll only look at three verses here. Romans nine, six through eight. In one of our future lectures, we're gonna go through the whole of Romans nine through 11 in order to see what Paul's conclusion in 11.26 means, where it says, so all Israel will be saved.

We gotta understand that verse as the final statement of three chapters of conversation, chapters nine, 10, and 11 of Romans. But right now we only have time and only need to look at a couple of verses for our present point. Romans nine, six through eight.

Paul says, but it is not as if the word of God has taken no effect. He means by that the promises that God made in the Old Testament that Israel would be saved. Well, how come they're not? Has God's word failed to come true? No, it has not failed to come true.

It is not as though the word of God has failed to take effect, for they are not all Israel who are of Israel. In other words, God made promises to Israel, but he didn't mean everyone who calls himself Israel. Not everyone who is of Israel, that is descended from Israel, not all of them really are Israel, the one that God promised to save.

Well, who is? Well, we know who is, Jesus is, and those who are in him. But Paul doesn't go into that right here. He says, they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children because they're all the seed of Abraham.

But, he quotes from the Old Testament, in Isaac your seed should be called. Now, why do you quote that? Because Isaac was chosen to be the true seed of Abraham, though he wasn't the only biological seed of Abraham. Abraham had eight sons in the first generation after himself.

He had Ishmael, he had Isaac, and he had six other sons by a woman named Keturah. Eight offspring of Abraham, all of them equally being related to Abraham biologically. They all had exactly identical relationship to Abraham, each of the eight.

But God said to Abraham, no, in Isaac your seed is called. I'm looking at Isaac as your seed, not these other seven guys. They have equal qualifications biologically, but that's not what matters.

They are not all children because they're the seed of Abraham, Paul says, because God chose one of the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and said, he's the one. Now, the only point Paul's making is not to make a big deal about Isaac, but to make the deal about the other seven. He's saying, what about these seven guys? They were biologically descended from Abraham, but it didn't help them at all, did it? They were first generation seed of Abraham, and they all died as Gentiles without a covenant relationship with God.

It's not the physical. And he says in verse eight, that is those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as the seed, counted as the seed, the seed that the promises and that inherit the promises of Abraham, who's the children of the promise are counted as the seed. Like Isaac was a seed, a child of the promise.

What are these other guys? They're just children of the flesh. What that means is they all, Isaac and the rest of them, they all had a physical fleshly relationship to Abraham, but flesh, children of the flesh, that's not a category that God cares about. Only a subcategory, the children of the promise.

Now, why is Isaac called child of the promise? Because Ishmael was born while Abraham was fully able to father children. Isaac was fathered after Abraham was no longer able to father children, and his wife, Sarah, had never been able to. He would never exist, except as a fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham.

Abraham could have any number of children by other women than Sarah in his younger life, but Isaac would never have been among them. Isaac came after neither Abraham nor Sarah were capable of having children, and the only reason he's there at all is because God said he's gonna come, because God promised it, and his existence, the only reason he's a seed of Abraham is because God promised there'd be a seed of Abraham, and this is the one. And being a child of Abraham by the flesh is no category of status with God, okay? Now, what's Paul arguing? Of course, he's arguing there's a lot of Jews out there now who have that physical descent from Abraham, but if they're not children of the promise, it just doesn't count for a thing with God.

Is that what Paul's saying? Sounds like it to me. Now, he makes this contrast between children of the flesh and children of the promise in one other place, and this is the last passage we're gonna be looking at tonight, in Galatians 4, and this is very, very telling, because Paul's writing to Gentile Christians, the Galatians, these were Gentile regions, and that's why he didn't want them getting circumcised and so forth like some of them were, and that was his concern. And these Gentiles had Judaizers among them trying to convince them that they should adopt the Jewish law, including circumcision and the festivals and all the Jewish law.

And Paul says, no, that's not the way to go. But it's clear these Gentile Galatian Christians were a little, like some Christians are today, fascinated by all things Old Testament, fascinated by all things Jewish. You know, wanna start using the Jewish pronunciation of the names and keep the Jewish festivals and all that stuff.

Somehow Jewish is better than everything else as far as some Christians are concerned. It's kind of a fringe movement, but it's certainly growing very fast. Well, the Galatians were the first to be influenced that direction, and Paul wrote a letter to tell them, don't go that way.

And look what he says in chapter four, verse 21, we'll read it through 31. This is the longest passage we're reading tonight, but it's a one discussion we have to follow his train of thought. Tell me you who desire to be under the law.

Do you not hear the law? He means the Torah. What do we find in the Torah? We have the story of Abraham in the Torah, for example. It says, for it was written that Abraham had two sons, one by a bond woman, that's of course, Ishmael who came from Hagar, and the other by a free woman, that's Isaac who came from Sarah.

But he who was of the bond woman, Ishmael, was born according to the flesh. Again, Abraham was quite capable of fathering children. It's a very natural thing.

His sperm and the egg of Hagar produced a baby, just like babies are always produced. There's nothing supernatural in that particular birth any more than the birth of anyone. It's just a fleshly genetic thing, okay? Ishmael was a child of Abraham after the flesh and nothing more.

But he who was of the free woman, meaning Isaac who was born from Sarah, he was born through promise. He was not a child of the flesh because the flesh could not produce him. The flesh was beyond the stage of producing babies at all.

The flesh had no power to produce Isaac. He's the child of promise. He's the promised seed of Abraham.

Now it says, which things are symbolic? Now King James, I think is closer to the Greek and saying these things are an allegory. But the point is being made here, the story of Ishmael and Isaac and the difference between them, one born of a slave, one born in the flesh, the other born of a free woman, born because of the promise of God, these represent two kinds of children of Abraham. To this day, there are people who are physical descendants of Abraham and nothing more like Ishmael.

And there are people who are children of the promise like Isaac and that's the point Paul's gonna make. We don't have to read his whole discussion, though I'd certainly encourage you to do it on your own, but just for the sake of time, look down at verse 28. Now we brethren, meaning we Christians, Paul's a Jew and they're Gentiles, Jews and Gentiles who are Christians, we brethren as Isaac was, are the children of the promise.

Why? Because most of us wouldn't have any connection to Abraham at all, if not through regeneration, if not through faith, if not through the spiritual circumcision, we don't belong, there's no way that Abraham would naturally have produced us, we're Gentiles, many of us. We are children of God, not because of fleshly considerations, but because we're the fulfillment of the promise God made to Abraham. We're children of the promise, he says.

But as he who was born of the flesh, that's Ishmael, then persecuted him who was born according to the spirit, meaning Isaac, even so it is now. That is Ishmael at Isaac's circumcision mocked and scorned Isaac, and so Ishmael had to be ejected from the family, that's what Paul says in verse 29, but verse 30, excuse me. Nevertheless, what does the scripture say? Cast out the bond woman and her son, that's Hagar and Ishmael, for the son of the bond woman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman.

Okay, Ishmael will not be inheriting the Abrahamic promises along with Isaac. The son of the bond woman, Ishmael, will not be heir of Abraham's inheritance with the son of the promise, Isaac. So Ishmael had to go out of the family and Isaac alone remained as the heir of the Abrahamic blessings.

Now, where's Paul going with this? Well, we know enough of what Paul said earlier to know where he's going with this. If we didn't know, he'd say it right here, verse 31. So then brethren, we are not children of a bond woman, but of the free.

That is to say, we are Isaac. Well, who then would be Ishmael? You know, a lot of times Christians say, well, you know, the Jews are descended from Isaac and the Arabs are descended from Ishmael. Well, that may be true, but that's of no consequence whatsoever.

Many times prophecy teachers say, oh, the Bible indicates there's gonna be this conflict between Ishmael and Isaac forever, you know, and that explains the Middle East crisis because the Israelites, the Jews, they're descendants of Isaac and the Arabs, they're descendants of Ishmael. And there's been this conflict between the brothers. This point is never made anywhere in the New Testament or to my knowledge in the Old.

The Old Testament never says that Ishmael and Isaac are gonna be continually at odds with each other. We do see, in fact, as Paul points out, Ishmael, the young boy, mocked Isaac, the young boy, but that's the extent of any conflict between them that we ever read about. There's no predictions in the prophets or anything that they're gonna be at odds and their descendants forever.

And certainly nothing in the New Testament, but the only way the New Testament even applies any difference between Ishmael and Isaac is say, the Jews are like Ishmael. That is the Jews who aren't Christians. Of course, many Jews are Christians.

So they're like Isaac. But the point here is being the child of the promise, the child of the free woman is all about being a Christian, being a follower of Christ. Why? Because Christ is the promise seed.

And those who are in Christ are heirs according to the promise, Abrahamic promise. If you are Christ's, you are Abraham's seed and you are heirs according to the promise. So also he says, the children of the flesh will not inherit the promises, only the children of the free woman, the children of the promise.

What could Paul possibly be saying if he's not saying that? What's the whole point of all this ink? The point of the ink is saying, listen, don't envy the Jews just because they have this ancestry thing going for them. If they don't know Christ, that ancestry doesn't do any good to them at all. They're just children of the flesh.

Ishmael was as much so. So were six other men who came from Hagar, from Keturah and Abraham. They all had that going for them.

They're all children of Abraham according to the flesh, but only a small part of Abraham's family really were the ones who came from Isaac. They're the ones that the promises go to. And he says, Isaac's us.

He says, we are the children. We Christians, we're the children of the free woman, not the children of the slave woman. So what is Paul saying? Paul's saying the whole family history of these two sons of Abraham is a type and a shadow of realities that are still to be observed today.

That is that Abraham has two sons, two kinds of sons. Those who have only a physical descent from him, which counts for nothing. And those that are the children of the promise, which Paul identifies as we Christians, we're the children of the promise.

Why? Because Christ is the child of the promise. Christ is the promised one. And if you are in him, what is true of him is true of you.

Now, Paul leaves no room at all for there to be still some Abrahamic blessing that's supposed to come on people who have nothing connected to Abraham other than genealogy. Any Jewish person could be a Christian. The first many thousands of Christians were all Jewish.

The apostles were Jewish. The 3000 at Pentecost who were saved were Jewish. There were probably hundreds, if not hundreds of thousands of Jewish Christians before there were Gentile Christians at all.

We're just living later in history. There's been a larger response of Gentiles than Jews. And now there's more Gentiles, but the church is not Gentile.

The church is neither Jew nor Gentile. In Christ, we're all one. This is not a statement against Jewish people as a race.

It is simply saying Jewish as a race doesn't count for anything more than being Irish as a race or Russian or Chinese or any other race. It's just a race. And all it has to do with is your fleshly descent.

God has never, even in the days of Isaac and Ishmael, we're going back that far, God has never given special privileges to anyone just because they had Abraham as their father. There had to be an additional element. And that additional element is you must be in Christ.

And so who are the children of Abraham? What is the Abrahamic promises? You see, when dispensations say, oh, you people who don't follow our way, your replacement theology, you're rejecting the covenant. You're saying that God is a covenant breaker. You're saying that God doesn't keep his covenants.

Didn't you read that this covenant of Abraham is forever? It's an everlasting covenant. I don't deny that. It is an everlasting covenant, and he fulfilled it 2,000 years ago, and it's still being fulfilled.

All the nations are being blessed through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Christ is carried to the world, and people are blessed when they receive Christ. What is that blessing? It's justification by faith.

That's what Paul identified it as. In Galatians 3, he said that God promised that through Abraham, all the nations would be blessed. He said so that the nations could be justified by faith too, like Abraham was.

That's the blessing. And so when you go all the way back to the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 12, and God said, through you, all the families of the earth will be blessed, it's been happening for the past 2,000 years. All the families of the earth are being reached.

He said, go and preach this to every creature. Go and make disciples of all the nations, not just the Jews. Go and disciple the Gentiles.

Why? Because that's what the Abrahamic covenant calls for. The gospel is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant, and that's why in Galatians 3, Paul says God preached the gospel to Abraham. Strange statement.

He says God preached the gospel to Abraham. Well, he's talking about the Abrahamic covenant. When God made those promises to Abraham, those have their fulfillment in what we know as the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And therefore, we know what the Abrahamic covenant is about. We know who the participants are in it, and we know how it is fulfilled. But what about the Sinaitic covenant? Well, that's gonna be another lecture next time.

What happened at Mount Sinai? What happened when God brought Israel out of Egypt and to Mount Sinai, and he made a covenant and he formed them into a political nation? What about that covenant? Doesn't that have something to do with Israel's claims on things in the land and so forth? That's what we have to look at. But we already know what the Abrahamic covenant's about. There's some other covenants to look at too.

But I'll just tell you a little hint. They're not gonna change anything. We will actually see that the New Testament deals with them all.

The Sinaitic covenant, the Davidic covenant, the New covenant, they're all explained in the New Testament, and the outcome's the same for them all, it's all Jesus. It's all about Jesus and nothing else. All right.

All right.