November 28, 2021 – Fulfillment of Genesis 17, 28, 49

The promises given to Abraham’s son, Isaac, and grandson, Jacob, and great-grandson, Judah, continue to emphasize Messiah who would come from Abraham’s line. Promise: “Then God said, ‘Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him’” (Genesis 17:19). --> Fulfillment: “Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, ‘It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned’” (Romans 9:7).

Promise to Jacob: “Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring” (Genesis 28:14). --> Fulfillment: Jacob is part of Jesus’ genealogy; Messiah is “the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor” (Luke 3:34).

The royal scepter will come through Judah. Promise: “The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he to whom it belongs shall come and the obedience of the nations shall be his” (Genesis 49:10). --> Fulfillment: Judah is part of Jesus’ genealogy: “the son of Amminadab, the son of Ram, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah" (Luke 3:33). We sing of the One who has come through Isaac and Jacob and Judah, the line of Abraham.

O come, O come, Immanuel,

and ransom captive Israel

that mourns in lonely exile here

until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel

shall come to you, O Israel. -- J. M. Neale (1851)