“The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed…meaning one person, who is Christ.”

It was about 34 years ago.  I sat in a church (I won’t tell you what kind to protect the guilty), one of the very few times I attended during college … well, my first college.  It took me 3 tries at 3 different schools before I finally got an accredited bachelor’s degree.  But I digress.  In my first college experience I was known much more for my beer drinking than church going.  I don’t remember how or why I ended up at church Sunday night; probably somebody invited me.  Why I accepted is a mystery to me now.  Either way, I heard this Dr. so-and-so talk about the promise God made to Abraham in Genesis 12:7: “The Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your offspring [literally “seed”, see NIV footnote] I will give this land.’”

This was a watershed moment for me, the first of several, where God finally got my full attention.  Mind you, I wasn’t a fast learner.  This doctor was going on and on, driveling out this blather, and I was beginning to fall asleep.  And then it struck me: seed!  Seed!  I remembered something in the New Testament about the seed somehow being connected to Christ.  I sat up as if I struck by lightning, grabbed the pew Bible and began searching.  I also kept one ear open, listening to what was coming from the pulpit: more of the same ol’ same ol’.  After not too long, I found it: Galatians 3:16.  The seed wasn’t just related to Christ, it was Christ!  Ka-ching!  All by myself — actually, the Holy Spirit had a lot to do with it; I just didn’t know it at the time — I had made a connection I had never seen before.  That’s why this was a major event.  But where did I first hear that the seed being Christ in the first place?  Somewhere, back in the deep foggy recesses of my immature sophomoric mind, I remembered hearing about it in church or youth group back in high school.  This is one reason why I’m such a strong believer in youth work.  Sometimes youth work is like constantly throwing stuff at young people hoping something will stick.  That’s the way it was with me.  My mother, God bless her, dragged my brother and me off to church, and a few things stuck.  So after making this remarkable discovery, I sat earnestly listening to whatever the good doctor would say next about the seed.  And guess what?  He never mentioned anything about Galatians’ commentary on this text.  Never even got close.  By the time he finished, I thought, “How in the world can a guy with a doctor’s degree in theology miss Galatians?!”  Not only was I shocked, I was angry, appalled even.  If I could get it, why not him?  Little did I know how far some churches have fallen away from their theological moorings.

Galatians 3:16 directly quotes Genesis 12:7.  But the former says “promises,” plural: “The

promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed”.  It is that way both in English and the Greek.  But the later only mentions the promise of the land (or “Promised Land”) being given to Abraham.  God doesn’t say plural when he means singular, so what other promises does he mean?  Clearly, the other promises he made to Abraham, beginning in 12:2-3.  Interestingly, God apparently did not want the importance of these promises to be misunderstood, so he reiterated the gist of them to Abraham’s son Isaac and grandson Jacob.  They seem to be something of a package deal, belonging together and passed on by inheritance.

Back in Galatians, after mentioning Christ the Seed, Paul deals with an objection, namely, the coming of the Law.  His response: “The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God [with Abraham] and thus do away with the promise” (v. 17).  In this case, promise and law are mutually exclusive (v. 18).  The earlier covenant (with Abraham) is thus better than the latter covenant of law, which “was added because of transgressions” (or, to help man better understand just how serious his transgressions are).  Genesis 12:3 spoke of the fact that eternal life would be granted to the Gentiles (Galatians 3:8), something the law never could or would do.

Therefore, I don’t understand why some believers say that the promised land of Israel is no longer a pertinent factor today.  Having read some of their points but not being fluent in them all, the notion seems to undercut the Galatians text.  While we’re at it, shall we also dispense with the promise that the Gentiles shall come to faith too?  Or some of the other promises?  I don’t think so.  Remember that if we follow in Abraham’s footsteps of faith, we too “are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:29).  God’s promises, a core part of his unfolding revelation, are wonderful sources of strength and inspiration.  If you are Abraham’s seed, how many of them fuel your growth in faith and obedience?