Many believe that God's promise to Abraham means that the nation of Israel will be a blessing to all other nations. But the actual blessing is Jesus.
In Genesis 12:1-3, we have one of the most significant and controversial passages in the Bible:
Now the LORD had said to Abram:
1 “Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.
2 I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Many people interpret this covenant as a promise that Israel, the nation-state, will be the "great nation" that in turn blesses "all the families of the earth." In point of fact, the Abramic covenant foretells that Abram's (later Abraham's) descendants will be the instrument of God's blessing the rest of the world. That blessing is not realized in any human nation-state. Rather, the blessing is fully realized in Jesus.
Luke begins his genealogy with Adam, while Matthew reaches back only to Abraham. The difference is that Luke stretches back to Genesis 1-11 which, according to theologian Christopher J.H. Wright, "poses the question to which the rest of the Bible, from Genesis 12 on, answers." What is that question? Namely, how can a sinful and rebellious human race be reconciled with their Holy Creator? Luke's genealogy thus takes us back to the fall of the human race into sin, and the opening of the great question of the universal timeline. Matthew begins with Abram, who represents a significant marker in that timeline.
Abram begins Man's journey back to God. The first step in that plan was to leave Ur and head toward a vaguely promised land upon which God would found a great nation. This nation was not to be understood in the way that the United Nations today would consider a "nation," although the nation-state of Israel (in ancient times and now) is perhaps part of the overall plan. (Future articles will have to address that sticky issue). Rather, what God was promising Abraham was something much more special and significant. Abraham would not only father the Jewish race and people (as well as the Muslim race), but would, in fact, father the genealogical line that would lead eventually to Jesus Christ, the Son of Man and Redeemer of the World.
Hard to top that kind of a blessing.
