From Abraham to You: Securing God’s Generational Blessing
God’s Epic Story: Covenants, Families, and a Thousand-Year Legacy
New Section from my unfinished book “The Ruling Household”
“I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse…”
From Genesis 12 throughout the rest of human history, God tells His story through a family. He demonstrates the glory of his steadfast love through the generational blessing he persistently pours out on a single family line. King Louis XIV once asked the Christian philosopher, Blaise Pascal, for the best evidence for the existence of God, and his response was simply, "The Jews, Your Majesty, the Jews!" Keep in mind this conversation took place in the 1600s before the re-establishment of the State of Israel, before the resurrection of the Hebrew language and back when the Jewish people were some of the poorest communities in Europe while today the Jewish people who represents less than .2% of the Earth’s population has earned more than 22% of the Nobel Prizes.
Nevertheless, Pascal was able to discern how God was telling an epic story through his faithfulness to this one family. From our vantage point in the 21st Century, it’s far easier to see. But why? Why has God chosen this one family? It’s an important question because while this family has been blessed, nothing has inspired more hatred than the claim that they are chosen to be blessed.
At this point, perhaps more than any other, it’s essential to see the story of Abraham not as the exception to every rule but as the demonstration of every rule. God uses Israel to reveal His character to the world. Yes, God has chosen the family of Abraham, and this decision will have lasting implications until the end of time, but God has also chosen other families. If you’re reading this, I’d venture to guess there’s a good chance God has chosen to place a multigenerational blessing over your family as well.
How can we know this is true? Does the Bible support such a claim? Here we must venture into the New Testament theme of election. The Apostles insisted that Gentiles who trust in Jesus as Lord are not only saved but chosen (Ephesians 1:4, 1 Peter 2:9). And while, after 2000 years of theologizing, Christian teachers have still not reached a consensus for exactly how election works, we must receive the doctrine of election as a foundational part of our identities. Every Apostle chosen by Jesus was Jewish, and every one of these Jewish men knew what it meant to be raised and steeped in the identity of chosenness, and to their great surprise,e they discerned through the Holy Spirit that this chosenness was now being extended to Gentile believers (Acts 11:18) and their families (Acts 2:39).
As Paul wrote, “And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.” (Galatians 3:29 NLT)
Tool: Making a Thousand Generation Covenant with God
God has made the sovereign decision to relate to humanity based on covenants. These covenants outline specific conditions and are received and activated through trust. As we trust or believe God will keep his covenant and as we live a life of faith in the conditions and promises of the covenant, God acts in accordance with those promises.
Paul pleaded with the Galatians not to activate the conditions of the Mosaic covenant through circumcision because that covenant included curses “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, "Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them." (Galatians 3:10 ESV).
Today, through the blood of Christ, we relate to God by a better covenant. Our salvation is secured not by our righteous deeds but by our trust in the finished work of Christ.
But God is not done making covenants. While we’ll never need another covenant to be reconciled to God, our families can each secure a special covenant of blessing to the glory of God. We know this because God revealed it to Moses on Mt Sinai when Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” (Exodus 33:18 ESV). God agreed and replied, “I will make all my goodness pass before you” (Exodus 33:19 ESV). And what was that “goodness”?
“The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out,
“Yahweh! The Lord! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness. I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations. I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But I do not excuse the guilty. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations.” (Exodus 34:6-7 NLT).
Then in the second giving of the Law God reiterates the covenant keeping part of his character saying, “Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face.” (Deuteronomy 7:9-10 ESV)
The covenant God made with Abraham is not the last covenant God will ever make with a family, but it may have been the first. God is looking for patriarchs who love him and keep his commandments in order to bless their families to a thousand generations. For every father reading this, what could be a better gift you could give to your descendants? Abraham shows us the way.
But this path is not easy. Abraham lived his whole life trusting in a promise he never saw fulfilled in his lifetime.
“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise…These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar…” (Hebrews 11:8-9, 13 ESV)
God repeatedly tested Abraham, and as Abraham passed these tests, he would reiterate his commitment to the covenant.
The good patriarch is the father who exchanges his short time here to secure future blessings. We don’t know what will happen. We won’t be there when our future descendants make decisions. But we are friends with someone who will be. We serve a God who loves to keep covenants with his friends by blessing their descendants. If you want to give your children and grandchildren a lasting inheritance, make a thousand-year covenant with a covenant-keeping God.