Our Guarantee - The Spirit

Believers are the heirs of Abraham and the Covenant. The future possession of that inheritance is guaranteed by the Gift of the Spirit.

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

The promises are being fulfilled through Jesus Christ. The Gift of the Holy Spirit received by believers guarantees the future consummation of all those promises, especially the “redemption” or resurrection of their bodies.

[Waterfall Photo by Chad Madden on Unsplash]

Scriptural passages that promise 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 the Land of Canaan - (Genesis 12:1-3, 13:14-16, 17:1-8).

In the New Testament, “inheritance,” “heir” and “possession” are reapplied 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” along with him. All men and women who have the “faith of Jesus” become “children of Abraham” and heirs of the Covenant.

The inheritance of Abraham 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 followers of Jesus alike are now “children of Abraham” and heirs of the Covenant and its many promises and blessings:

• “There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither slave nor free, there can be no male and female; for you all are one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise” - (Galatians 3:28-29).

• “The Gentiles are coheirs and fellow members of the body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” - (Ephesians 3:6).

• “You also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ <…> But you are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that ye may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, who in time past were no people, but now are the people of God. Who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy” - (1 Peter 2:5-10).

THE BLESSING OF ABRAHAM

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 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 are the heirs and “sons of Abraham,” whether Jewish or Gentile, circumcised or not - (Galatians 3:4-9).

We 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 for us, and therefore we have the assurance of the possession of the inheritance, especially the bodily resurrection and everlasting life in the New Creation – (Ephesians 1:14, Romans 8:19-23).

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”:

• “Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruptibility, and this mortal must put on immortality” – (1 Corinthians 15:51-53).

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 and Palestine.

Christ did not abandon the original Promise but universalized it, making Abraham a blessing to “all the nations of the Earth” through the Gospel of Jesus Christ just as God promised. However, membership in the Covenant is based on faith, the “faith of Jesus,” and not ethnicity, circumcision, or other “works of the Law” - (Genesis 12:2-3, 22:18, Matthew 6:10, Romans 3:22):

• “For this reason, it is of faith, that it may be according to grace; to the end, that the promise may be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. As it is written, A father of many nations I have made you, before him whom he believed, even God, who gives life to the dead and calls the things that are not, as though they were. Who in hope, believed against hope, to the end that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, So will your seed be” - (Romans 4:16-18).

The land promised to Abraham has become a universal promise through Jesus Christ. The Patriarch is now the “Heir of the World” or ‘Kosmos’ along with his children. The Promise will be implemented fully in the New Creation when Jesus raises his brethren from the dead, and they inherit all things - (Romans 4:10-13, 1 Corinthians 15:24-28).

Jewish and Gentile believers become children and heirs, a reality and promise confirmed and guaranteed by our possession of the Gift of the Spirit, the “earnest of the inheritance.” Our future resurrection and the New Creation will be the culmination of the original covenant promises to Abraham, and the possession of the Spirit is the foretaste of the full inheritance.

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SEE ALSO:

• The Redemption of our Bodies - (Paul links the bodily resurrection of believers to the New Creation. Both events are part of the redemption achieved by Jesus – Romans 8:1-23)

• Our Resurrection and Salvation - (Salvation includes the resurrection of believers and the New Creation, both of which will occur when Jesus arrives from Heaven)

• Completion and Resurrection - (Paul expresses his goal of going on to completion, a process that will culminate in bodily resurrection when Jesus arrives in glory)

• Death, the Last Enemy - (The arrival of Jesus at the end of the age will mean the resurrection and the end of the Last Enemy, namely, Death - 1 Corinthians 15:24-28)