Heirs of the Covenant

The disciples of Jesus are the Heirs of Abraham, and the future possession of the full inheritance is guaranteed by the Gift of the Spirit.

Israel’s possession of Canaan was an earlier stage in God’s redemptive plan, which always envisaged something larger than Israel and a small plot of land in the Middle East. With the arrival of the Messiah and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the covenant promises found their fulfillment in the true “Seed of Abraham,” and therefore in his “brethren” and “coheirs.”

[Photo by Carlo Borella on Unsplash]

The promises are being fulfilled through Christ, and the Gift of the Holy Spirit received by believers guarantees the consummation of all those promises. Scriptural passages that promised land to Abraham employ words like “inheritance” and “heir,” including the Hebrew word translated as “possession,” terms linked to the Abrahamic Covenant that referred originally to the “possession” of Canaan - (Genesis 12:1-3, 13:14-16, 17:1-8).

In the New Testament, “inheritance,” “heir” and “possession” are applied to what God is doing through His Son, the true Heir of Abraham and all things. The Gift of the Spirit is the “earnest” and “down payment” of the Promise - (Matthew 21:38, 28:18, Mark 12:7, Luke 20:14, John 13:3, Romans 8:17, Colossians 1:12, Hebrews 1:2).

Jesus is the “Seed” of Abraham, and his followers become “heirs according to promise” with him. All men and women who have the “faith of Jesus” become “Children of Abraham” and heirs of the Covenant.

The Patriarch’s inheritance belongs to the “brethren” of Jesus, the saints who “are no longer slaves but sons, and if sons, then heirs through God,” both Jewish and Gentile disciples of Christ - (Exodus 19:5, Galatians 3:29).

The Gift of the Spirit is the “earnest of our inheritance for the redemption of the possession.” It is the “Blessing of Abraham” for the nations promised to the Patriarch by the God of Israel. Because Abraham believed the word of God, it was “reckoned to him for righteousness.” Men and women of the same faith become the “Children of Abraham” regardless of their ethnicity - (Galatians 3:4-9).

Believers are “sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, the earnest of our inheritance for the redemption of God's possession.” The promised gift has become real and substantial for us, and the guarantee of our coming possession of the inheritance, the bodily resurrection and everlasting life in the New Creation:

• “For the earnest expectation of the creation is waiting for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation is groaning and travailing in pain together until now. And not only so, but ourselves also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, the redemption of our body”– (Romans 8:19-23).

• “In Christ also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of His will; to the end that we should be for the praise of His glory, we who had before hoped in Christ, in whom you also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom, having also believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is an earnest of our inheritance, for the redemption of God's possession, for the praise of His glory”– (Ephesians 1:11-14).

FORETASTE OF THE RESURRECTION

If the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead “dwells in us,” we are assured that God will raise us from the dead and grant us immortal bodies. Not only so, but the Spirit is the “first fruits” of the final harvest, including the “redemption of our body” - (2 Corinthians 1:20-22, 5:5).

• “But now has Christ been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who sleep. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ will all be made alive” - (1 Corinthians 15:20-22).

When he returns, Jesus will declare to all who have responded to him with faith, “Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” No longer is the inheritance limited to Israel or Palestine. Jesus did not abandon the original promises but universalized them, making Abraham a blessing to “all the nations of the Earth” - (Matthew 6:10).

The land that was promised to Abraham has become a universal promise. The Patriarch is now the “Heir of the World,” the ‘Kosmos’. The Promise will be actualized in all its fullness in the New Creation when the saints are resurrected bodily and inherit all things - (Romans 4:10-13).

Jewish and Gentile believers become children and heirs of Abraham, a reality and promise affirmed by our receipt of the Gift of the Spirit. The coming resurrection and New Creation will be nothing less than the culmination of the original Covenant, and our present possession of the Spirit is the foretaste and the assurance of the inheritance.

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SEE ALSO:

• Evidence of Sonship - (The Gift of the Spirit demonstrates beyond question who belongs to the covenant community of Jesus, and who does not)

• Spirit and Covenant - (The Church and the gift of the Spirit have been integral to the redemptive plan of God from the very beginning)

• The Life-Giving Spirit - (Jesus declared, The Spirit makes alive. The flesh profits nothing. The words which I have spoken to you, they are spirit, and they are life)

• The Blessing of Abraham - (The Gift of the Spirit is imparted by Jesus as part of God’s promise to bless all the nations in Abraham’s Seed, namely, Jesus)