ISAAC’S COVENANT
U.S.A.
It’s difficult to understand how so many of the current crop of pastor/teachers continue to tout the universalism decree from the pulpit while there are several scriptures that are quite simple in context that explain the actual selection of the people of the covenant. I went in to the book and found a few instances where the situation is defined in very simple terms and thought I’d put them out for all to see and ponder. At Genesis 17 Abraham is talking with the LORD God of Israel about who is to continue the covenant that the Lord had instigated with him and Abraham was attempting to get Ishmael put into the role of the seed mentioned earlier. The Lord made it clear in just a few words what he had in mind and who was to be the key person for continuing the covenant. First he changes Sarai’s name. Henceforth she is to be Sarah. The context given about the kings to be of her is that it isn’t a series of kings but many kings existing at once. That happened! Abraham tries to hide his unbelief and promote Ishmael but the Lord responds with an absolute response as to whom he was to select. At verse 19 we’re told that Sarah is to have a son and call him Isaac and the Lord says “I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant.” The Lord then calms Abraham regarding Ishmael and tells what he will do for him, but again at verse 21, he reiterates his selection of the role for Isaac; “But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year.”
I think it is quite plain that the covenant that the LORD God of Israel refers to as “MY COVENANT” which he says is an everlasting covenant, is to be established between The Lord and Isaac and Isaac’s seed and no one else.
And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee! And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year. And he left off talking with him, and God went up from Abraham.
Here is a little graphic that shows the succession of the men from Abraham: Abraham’s Sons.
Note that the covenant was established only with Isaac and his seed which takes us all the way to Jesus Christ. It also continues on to all the true seed of the twelve tribes of the whole house of Israel.
All the other sons of Abraham are outside the covenant, although many were blessed and became a significant population . Only Isaac, his seed and the 12 tribes of Jacob/Israel are the participants in the perpetual covenant.
Now, several hundred years later, we have the Children of Israel wandering around in the wilderness and many have been destroyed due to their unbelief. (Numbers 14) At Deuteronomy 5 Moses is giving another discourse to the children of Israel in order to direct them to obey the laws and commandments given them previously. They had been told of the vast amount of land they were to attain by conquering the residents of that land. It was made clear that  it was their land and all they had to do was comply with direction of the Lord and take it. At verse 5:2 Moses reminds them that “the Lord made a covenant with us in Horeb. (Exodus 19) “The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.” Then in Deuteronomy 7 the children of Israel are told about the conquest of the Promised Land. At verse 6 Israel is told the unique relationship they have had established by the Lord God of Israel – note that he says “the Lord thy God has chosen thee (Israel) to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.” That phrase means just what it says! The tribes of Israel have been selected to be “above all the (other) people on the face of the earth.” Later at verse 14 Israel is told they are to be blessed above all (other) people also .
Deuteronomy 7:1
‘ When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them: (another translation says make no peace with them) Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.
 But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire. For thou art an holy (set aside) people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.
The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people:
But because the LORD loved you, and because he woµld keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep  his  commandments to  a  thousand generations;
And repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face.
Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command thee this day, to do them. Wherefore it shall come to pass, if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep, and do them, that the LORD thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which he sware unto thy fathers: And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee.
 Thou (Israel) shalt be blessed above all people: there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle. And the LORD will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee; but will lay them upon all them that hate thee. And thou shalt consume all the people which the LORD thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee.
 After many years the situation of the house of Israel had changed significantly. They had been through the settling of the Promised Land and gone through the Judges and several kings and had drifted away from the provisions of that covenant given to them while in the wilderness under Moses . The Lord God of Israel called upon Jeremiah to tell him words to give to the house of Judah (the southern two tribes) and Israel. (the northern ten tribes) Here again this is a unilateral covenant – the Lord is telling the whole house of Israel how it’s going to be. Also as was the previous covenant it is applicable only to those mentioned in the award, no others are affected or associated. The covenant stated starting at verse 33 is yet to come! Chapter 30 and the first part of 31 tell of the tribulation and regathering of Israel in time to come (the days come). Although many years had passed it is still a covenant with the seed of Isaac!
Jeremiah 31:31
Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD. (This is in reference to that covenant called by the Lord “my covenant,” mentioned a Deuteronomy 5 that was given to Israel earlier and described at Exodus 19:3.) But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, (this is after “those days” described in chapter 30 and the first part of 31.) saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever. Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD. (These are impossible “if’s” and will never come to pass!)
A couple hundred years after Jeremiah was given this covenant to publish, Paul thought it necessary to inform the “scattered” brethren (adelphos) in the book of Hebrews the content of the covenant to the exiled tribes. These are the sheep that Jesus mentioned at John 10:16 as his “other” sheep. At 3:1 Paul calls those to whom he is writing “holy brethren,” the Greek for holy in this case is “hagios ” or dedicated. That specifies to whom the entire letter is directed. Since they had long been away from the organized worship in the area called Ephraim (although it had become so far from the worship specified by law , which was the cause of the scattering) Paul felt he had to inform them of the new covenant that awaits the whole house of Israel. In chapter 8 he sets forth the “better” covenant and repeats most of the wording found at Jeremiah 31. After telling them he explains why the new covenant is so superior to the old which he says “decayeth, waxeth old and is ready to vanish away.”
 So , we have a well-documented story of the particular covenant initiated by the LORD God of Israel with Abraham, with Isaac the second party and continuing through all the OT and even described in both Jeremiah and Hebrews as pertaining to the twelve tribes in the future at their regathering. In the same manner that a modern day contract (covenant) affects only the signatories , the standing contract (covenant) between the Lord and Isaac’s seed is applicable only to the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob/Israel – others need apply!
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