God promised Abraham that He would multiply his seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is upon the seashore, and that they would possess the gate of their enemies (Gen. 22:17). Stars signify the heavenly children of Abraham, the believers in the New Testament; sand signifies the earthly children of Abraham, the children of Israel in the Old Testament. These two peoples eventually will be built together, constituting the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth in eternity. They will reign as kings to rule over the nations forever.
God also promised that all nations of the earth would be blessed in Abraham’s seed (Gen. 22:18). God did not say that all nations would be blessed in Abraham’s seeds, as concerning many, but in his seed, as concerning one, who is Christ (Gal. 3:16). In God’s eyes Abraham has only one seed, that is, Christ, in whom all nations will be blessed. In Christ man is justified (Rom. 5:18-19), in Christ man is sanctified (1 Cor. 1:2), and in Christ man receives the promise of the Spirit (Gal. 3:14). Every spiritual blessing given by God (Eph. 1:3) is received by man in Christ, the unique seed of Abraham. Therefore, the promise that all nations of the earth would be blessed in the seed of Abraham has been fulfilled in Christ through His redemption by the cross and through His coming as the Spirit.
Abraham kept the covenant that God made with him. He got out of his country, from his kindred, and from his father’s house; his name and his wife’s name were changed; and he was circumcised and all the men of his house were circumcised with him. However, he left the land of God’s promise twice. Once he went down to Egypt because of a famine; there he sinned by lying in order to save his own life. However, he experienced God’s keeping grace and learned the lesson that God took care of him in everything and that everything was in God’s hand (Gen. 12:10-20). Another time, acting on his own, he left the place of fellowship with God at the oaks of Mamre in Hebron and went down to Gerar, which was between Kadesh and Shur (Gen. 20:1). There he repeated the old failure, exposing his hidden weakness. Again, preserved by God’s sovereign care, he was able to deal with the circumstances, that the testimony of God’s grace might be maintained. Moreover, he begot Isaac through Sarah when he experienced God’s twofold answer to his shameful intercession.
Because there was a severe famine over all the face of the earth, except in the land of Egypt (Gen. 41:54, 56-57), and because his son Joseph was a ruler over Egypt and he was eager to see him (Gen. 45:28), Jacob, a descendant of Abraham, brought his whole household to Beersheba and offered sacrifices to God. God said to him, “I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again: and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes” (Gen. 46:4). Thereafter Jacob and his sons left the land that God had promised to them and went down to Egypt (Exo. 1:1-5). Then when a new king arose who did not know Joseph, they fell under the tyranny and bondage of Egypt (Exo. 5:9, 14, 17-18). This was a fulfillment of God’s prophecy in the covenant which He made with Abraham the fourth time, that his descendants would suffer for four hundred years.
When the descendants of Noah violated the covenant which God had made with Noah, forming nations to oppose God and eventually falling into idolatry, Jehovah, the God of glory, came to call Abraham (Abram) as the head of a new race and to make a covenant with him, the fourth covenant that God made with man. God made a covenant with Abraham at six different times, the contents of which mainly included the following items: first, God would make him a great nation, and nations would be made of him and kings would come out of him; second, God would bless him and make his name great; third, God would give the land of Canaan to him and to his seed for an eternal possession; fourth, God would cause Sarah, his wife, to bear a son, would multiply his seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is upon the seashore, and would make him the father of many nations and Sarah, a mother of nations; and fifth, God would give him the promise of grace that all the nations of the earth might be blessed in him and in his seed. The result was that although he kept the covenant, he left the land of promise twice. Furthermore, the house of Jacob, his descendants, all left the land of promise and went down to Egypt, falling under the tyranny and bondage of Egypt.