God made glorious promises to Abram, and to us (Genesis 12:2-3, 7)
Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
(Gen. 12:1-3 ESV)
God makes a long series of incredible promises to Abraham from Genesis 12:2. There is no conditional statement here between v1 and v2. God doesn’t say that if Abram does what he is told, then he will receive these blessings. No, the blessings are just promised. God states often and firmly: “I will” do this for you. Look at the repetition of “I will” all through here. All of these blessings will come about not as a reward for obedience, but through God’s grace and God’s power.
Let’s work our way through the list of blessings briefly. God promises to make Abram into “a great nation”. We should note at this point that Abram is 75 with no children when this promise was made, married to Sarai who could not have children. One would be a miracle; a great nation seems ridiculous. The word “nation” means more than a ‘people’; it envisions a country with a government and a land. God promises a future where the descendants of Abram would be united under one rulership.
God then promises to “bless” Abram. That’s a very general word, but the key word of this section. It can mean in terms of money, but the word is more general than that. Abram would have the blessing of God.
God also promised to “make your name great”, or as some translators put it, to make Abram famous. We should note the contrast with the tower of Babel, where the people aimed to make a name for themselves. That didn’t work. But now, another one gets a promise to have a great name, and this time God will do it himself. Later on in Bible history, King David received a similar promise from God in 2 Samuel 7. This is a kingly promise. God is telling Abraham he would be great, like a king, famous and respected and powerful.
And this will be done so Abraham “will be a blessing”. These promises were never supposed to end with Abraham. God was working towards something much bigger than just blessing one man, or even one man and his family.
Verse 3 then has a quite interesting promise in it. God would bless those who bless Abram, but curse those who dishonour Abram. In other words, Abram would be identified with God to such an extent that what people do to him, they are seen as doing to God himself. Abram would be God’s representative, if you like, as if he was in God’s family. However you treat Abram is how you treat God. Does that idea sound familiar to you? There is similar language in the New Testament applied to Christians. Jesus tells people in Matthew 25 that whatever you do to the least of these – by whom he means Christians – you did to me. Paul, when he was converted on the road to Damascus, heard Jesus tell him that when he persecuted Christians, he was persecuting Jesus. God’s people, those he has called, are in God’s family. God protects his family from those who would harm them, and rewards those who would help them. It’s been that way since Abraham.
Later on, after Abram had moved to the land, God appeared to him (v7). This is a higher stage than speaking. After this first act of obedience from Abram, God gave another promise. This time, God promised that Abraham and his offspring would be given the land. It would be theirs. He didn’t yet have any offspring. He didn’t own even a little bit of the land. Yet this massive promise was given to him.
Abram was told of such blessing that he did not yet have. He needed to trust God. Again, there is a similarity to the Christian life here. God promises us a lot, and we don’t have it all yet. Abram had a special relationship, blessing, and promises. We too have a special relationship, blessing, and promises. Abram had the promise of a better future; so do we. In fact, our promises are even bigger. An eternal future with no pain, with no crying, no mourning. A relationship with God that is perfect, face to face, with nothing that could harm us. We’re heading there. Not there yet. But it is so incredible, and it is all God’s doing and not ours. Like Abram, we can have every confidence that God’s promises will come about.