Everlasting Promises Lead To Christ

I read an interesting argument in Nehemiah Coxe’s Covenant Theology: From Adam to Christ. In laying the foundation for the Particular Baptist view, he demonstrates that God made two covenants with Abraham. The first was the Covenant of Grace, and the second being the Covenant of Circumcision. He then seems to argue (if I understand him correctly) that both covenants are unbreakable by man. However, the Covenant of Circumcision will eventually be done away with by God Himself in order to bring about the New Covenant in Christ promised to Abraham in the Covenant of Grace.

What many Evangelicals struggle with today is that God made promises to Old Testament Israel that are stated with the term “everlasting”. For instance, Genesis 17:8 says, “I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”

Therefore it is assumed that the nation of Israel will always exist. Nehemiah then argues:

“The difficulty arising from those terms in the promise which give the right of the inheritance of Canaan to Abraham in the first place has already been considered and cleared, as well as how the land of Canaan may be said to be an everlasting possession. In the same sense this covenant is said to be everlasting. Israel could not be finally cut off from the promised inheritance until the covenant by which it was given to them expired. As the duration of the inheritance and of Israel’s right in it was everlasting, so was the duration of this covenant.”

You might be asking about how he cleared this argument earlier. He says a few pages earlier:

“…the other difficulty arises from the extent of the promise in regard to time. For here God promises to give this land to Abraham and to his seed ‘for ever’ and in Genesis 17:8 ‘for an everlasting possession.’ Now it is evident they have for many ages been disinherited of it. But the solution to this doubt will be easy to him who consults the use of the terms in other texts, and the necessary restriction of their sense when applied to the state or interests of Abraham’s seed in the land of Canaan. For the priesthood of Levi is called an everlasting priesthood. This is the same sense that Canaan is said to be an everlasting inheritance. No more is intended than the continuance of these for a long time, that is, throughout the Old Testament economy until the days of the Messiah, commonly spoken of by the Jews under the notion of the world to come. In this a new state of things was to be expected when their old covenant right and privilege was to expire, its proper end and design being fully accomplished.”

The argument as I see it is that there are many promises under the Covenant of Circumcision that according to the flesh will not be broken until Christ came. Then those “everlasting promises” will be fulfilled in Christ.

In other words, who would disagree that Christ fulfills the Law. For example Exodus 12:14 says, “Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance.”

When Christ came, did He not change this permanent ordinance? The time for this ordinance under the Old Economy was fulfilled in Christ. The New has truly come. Jesus is the true Israel of God, and He has established the New Covenant promised to Abraham so long ago.

Today, one does not have to be Jewish or an Israelite according to the flesh. A true descendant of Abraham is one who possesses his faith now looking to Christ.