June 17

“….and the covenants….   “ (Romans 9:4).

Paul lists the covenants as the fourth item in the summary of what he describes as the gifts and calling with which Israel was blessed and which God bestowed upon them irrevocably (Romans 11:29).

“He has remembered His covenant for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations, the covenant which he made with Abraham, And his oath unto Isaac, and confirmed the same to Jacob for a law, and unto Israel for an everlasting covenant” (Psalm 105:8-10).

This covenant that God made with Abraham still stands, and will to a thousand generations, for it was unconditional and absolute, and was renewed to Isaac and to Jacob, who became Israel. One principal item in this covenant was that Israel was guaranteed permanent possession of the Land and we see that God has brought them back from their wanderings to dwell once more in the Land that He gave to them.

But it is not only this covenant that Paul refers to when he says the covenants; he means all the covenants; for all of the covenants that God has made with man were made with Israel. Christians often speak of the Jews as the people of the Old Covenant, in contradistinction to themselves, who they describe as the people of the New Covenant; but this is an error. The New Covenant was made “…with the House of Israel and the House of Judah” (Jeremiah 31:31 & Hebrews 8:8).

Individually, men of all nations, through their union with Christ Jesus, are able to be grafted like wild olive branches, onto the natural olive tree of Israel’s covenanted mercies, and, together with the faithful remnant of that nation, draw upon the Hebrew roots to partake of the fatness of the Jewish olive.

But this inclusion of individual gentile believers, who were formerly alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise (Ephesians 2:12), in no way affects God’s purpose in relation to Israel nationally. Theirs are the covenants and every item and promise in those covenants will be fulfilled in His time, until, finally; “all Israel will be saved”(Romans 11:26).

In the meantime, for those who have met the conditions of the New Covenant, both Jew and gentile, the great promise of God to His people everywhere is;

“I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jeremiah 31:33).