The covenant with Abram continued.
The territory that God promised to Abram did not become a part of the nation of Israel until King David. Even the city of Salem (Jerusalem) did not become a part of Israel until King David conquered it and made it the capital of the nation of Israel. The kingdom of David extended from the red sea to the river Euphrates. Therefore, God fulfilled the covenant with Abram during the rule by King David.
God made an unconditional covenant with Abram. Abram did not do anything in return, and God did not require anything. Abram received the reward of righteousness from God for believing that God would do what He promised. However, God’s covenant with Abram was not a reword for something that Abram did. The covenant with Abram impacted the whole of humankind, not only the nation of Israel. God initiated the covenant with Abram. Abram did not have to ask for it.
The covenant (grant) with Abraham included the whole of humankind. God promised Abram that all nations would be blessed in his seed. God said “in your seed” in the singular. All nations were not blessed in the seeds of Abraham. There are many descendants of Abraham. However, only in one seed (person) the whole of humankind is blessed.
God fulfilled the promise to Abram through the body of His Son, Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah. Through the body of Jesus Christ on the cross at Golgotha, God removed humankind’s sin and sinful life and restored it to Him as His children. “But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” John 12:32. The whole of humankind died in the body of Jesus on the cross at Golgotha as the wages for sin committed in the garden of Eden and, therefore, for all sins against the law. God fulfilled His promise to Abram on His initiative and his terms. Humankind could not have contributed anything to it. “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting the men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18 – 19).
