The Promise of Nations

In Genesis 17, the Lord visits Abraham and gives him this message:

And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God. 

God has promised 1) many nations will be created out of Abraham and 2) the land of Canaan.

And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her. Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee! 

I have never noticed before how that Abraham laughed before Sarah did.  I realized when reading this that Sarah laughing in Chapter 18 makes me wonder if Abraham shared this revelation from the Lord with Sarah.

And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. 

God names the son of His covenant Isaac, which means laughter.  

And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. 

I love that Abraham loved both of his sons and requested that the Lord bless them both.  God conveys to Abraham that His covenant is with Isaac.  But He also promises that He will make Ishmael a great nation with very large numbers.  Today, Muslims numbers are growing rapidly around the world.

But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year. And he left off talking with him, and God went up from Abraham.

Although the Lord gave Ishmael the blessing of a great nation, Isaac is blessed with the covenant which was fulfilled through Jesus Christ.  Isaac produced Judah who God renamed Israel, having twelve tribes.  This one son who was promised a covenant.  This covenant was fulfilled through Jesus Christ.

¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.  John 3

Anyone who believes through faith of and in Jesus Christ that they are redeemed and life a life to become more like Jesus by repenting of their sins and turning away from their former life to become more Christ-like share in this promise.

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions —it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:4-9