Question
When did the Program with Israel start? Abraham?
Response
Strictly speaking, the answer to this question is “Yes”. As Genesis 12:1-5 sets forth, it is not until God calls Abraham unto Himself and separates him from the rest of the world that God declares His plan for having a “nation” of His own creation, and that He would make that “great nation-out of Abraham. And then it is not until God establishes Abraham’s “house for the developing of His “great nation” by confirming His covenant with Abraham first in his son Isaac, and then in Isaac’s son Jacob, that God changes Jacob’s name to Israel so that His nation would be called “Israel”. So again, strictly speaking God’s program with Israel started with Abraham. However, it is important to understand that God’s purpose in His program with Israel (or in other words God’s reason for calling Abraham unto Himself and creating His own nation through him) goes all the way back to His original purpose in creating the earth in the first place. Therefore, when God called Abraham unto Himself and Hereby started His program with Israel, He did so for the purpose of bringing into existence the specific means by which He would fulfill His original purpose for the earth when He created it. So then it would be through God’s creation of the nation of Israel that He would go about fulfilling His original purpose for the earth.
Abraham understood that this was God’s ultimate purpose with him when God told him to “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee”. Based upon what God had said to him, Abraham understood that God was moving him to the land that God had chosen for Himself as the place for His residence on the earth in connection with fulfilling His original purpose for the earth. For this reason, as Genesis 12:6-9 relates, when Abraham came into the land the LORD not only “appeared unto him and promised the land to his seed, but then Abraham moved unto a mountain on the east of Beth-el, and pitched his tent, having Beth-el on the west, and Ha-i on the east”. God therefore had Abraham ‘pitch his tent’ in the very place whose name (Beth-el) means ‘the house of God’. It will be in this very land that God will establish his ‘house’, or His place of residence on the earth, in accordance with fulfilling His original plan and purpose for the earth. For this reason, later on in Genesis 28, God gives Jacob the dream about the meaning and significance of Beth-el. Also, for this reason, later on in Hebrews 11:8-10 it describes Abraham’s understanding and faith regarding the issue of God eventually establishing His city in the land, which is the reason for which God created the earth in the first place.
So then even though God’s program with Israel started with Abraham, God’s purpose in His program with Israel goes all the way back to His design and purpose for the earth when He created it. Through His program with Israel God will establish His residence and kingdom on this earth, and in so doing will fulfill His original plan and purpose for the earth.
Because God’s program with Israel is the specific means by which He will fulfill His original plan and purpose for the earth, the Lord Jesus Christ said what He did in Matthew 25 and Peter said what he did in Acts 3. In Matthew 25:34 the Lord says that when the kingdom of heaven is established on this earth and He sits “upon the throne of his glory” and He then deals with the nations on the basis of what He said to Abraham back in Genesis 12:1-3, that He will say to the nations that He puts on His right hand, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world”. As the Lord says, “the kingdom” has been “prepared” for them “from the foundation of the world”. Likewise, Peter in Acts 3:21 declared to the people of Israel that “the heaven must receive (the Lord Jesus Christ) until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began”. So then when the Lord returns to Israel to establish His kingdom and to bring about the times of restitution of all things. He does so in fulfillment of what God has planned for, and has spoken about, from the foundation of the world.
So once again, even though it is correct to say that God’s program with Israel started with Abraham, it is important to understand that God’s purpose in His program with Israel goes back to His original plan and purpose for the earth and is ultimately for the fulfilling of that original plan and purpose.
Keith Blades
Enjoy The Bible Ministries
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