Does God Still Remember this Promise?
God’s Global Promise
Often when we consider the promises of God, we think of them on a radically personal level, e.g. God's comfort in my suffering or blessing on my family. Such promises are legitimate, and God’s children should claim them and rest on them. However, we also need to lift up our eyes to catch a much larger vision of God’s work.
God has made promises that radically affect world history, that are global in their scope, and that pertain to every ethnic group in the world—what I like to call his “global promises.”
God made such a global promise when he spoke these words to Abram in Genesis 12:3:
"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” (ESV; my emphasis).
God gave his unfailing word to Abram that there would be a worldwide blessing through him. As a reminder of this global promise, God even changed Abram’s name to Abraham for God was making him “the father of a multitude of nations” (Genesis 17:5).
God’s Faithfulness to His Promise
From Abraham came the promised son Isaac. From Isaac came Jacob. From Jacob came the twelve sons from whom came the twelve tribes of Israel. Though Israel’s history was fraught with unfaithfulness, God remained faithful.
He often reminded Israel of his global plans to bless more than just Israel:
“All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you” (Psalm 22:27).
“For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts” (Malachi 1:11).
God’s Faithfulness Embodied
At the appointed time, God took on flesh and entered into our world. We find out that Jesus is the ultimate descendant and offspring of Abraham through whom all the nations would be blessed!
After Jesus died on the cross for the forgiveness of sins and rose from grave, he gave his disciples a commission that had the backdrop of the global promise first given to Abraham. Jesus commanded, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…” (Matthew 28:19a; my emphasis).
How would the global promise to Abraham come to pass? Through disciples proclaiming to the nations the blessed gospel of Abraham’s ultimate offspring. This is precisely what the early disciples did, evidenced in the book of Acts when people from the nations, from all sorts of backgrounds and languages, came flooding into the kingdom of God through faith in Christ.
God’s Faithfulness to the End
How will God’s global promise all work out? We do not have to wonder, for God has given us a sneak peak into the end of time:
“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb’” (Revelation 7:9-10; my emphasis)!
What a magnificent picture! God’s faithfulness to that long-ago promise on full display.
But we have not arrived to this glorious day. There are still over 2000 language groups without a single Bible verse translated into their language and over 3 billion individuals who have little to no gospel access. Of the multitudes of elect peoples pictured in Revelation 7:9, there are still unrepresented tribes, nations, and languages on earth.
This means that God wants to use you, his disciple, in fulfilling his global promise. Faithfully respond to your faithful God. Send laborers or go to the lost nations with the gospel so that they also would share in the Abrahamic blessing in Christ!