The covenant God made with Abraham — a binding promise, given by God and guaranteed by Him — is the central thread of the entire Bible. Every subsequent covenant — the Mosaic covenant, the Davidic covenant, and the New Covenant in Christ — grows out of the promises first made to Abraham. Understanding this covenant is the key to understanding the whole of Scripture.

Outline of the life of Abraham

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Reference	Event
Leaving Ur	Went as far as Haran — the “halfway house”
Gen. 12:1-4	Called farther out, but takes Lot along
Gen. 13:14-18	Lot leaves — Abraham stands alone before God
Gen. 14:18-20	The blessing of Melchizedek (the first mention of tithing)
Gen. 15	The “cutting” of the covenant
Gen. 16:1	10 years and no son — Abraham takes matters into his own hands
Gen. 17:1-3	Promise renewed 13 years later
Gen. 17:11	Circumcision introduced as the sign of the covenant
Gen. 17:17-22	Promise renewed again — Abraham pleads for Ishmael
Gen. 18:9	Promise renewed once more
Gen. 21:1-2	25 years after the original promise — “God did as He had promised”
Gen. 21:9-20	Abraham releases his own efforts — Ishmael sent away. Note God’s blessing to Ishmael.
Gen. 22:1-2, 12	The test on Mount Moriah — Abraham has learned to trust: Jehovah-Jireh
The Everlasting Covenant	Not terminated and replaced in the New Testament, but expanded into the fullness of its life. Like a bulb becoming a flower — the flower is what the bulb was planted for.

Read Hebrews 11:1–22 for the Hall of Faith perspective on the men and women of Genesis.

Terms of the Abrahamic covenant

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Old Testament term	New Testament fulfillment
Gen. 12:2-3	All nations of the earth shall be blessed Eph. 3:6-15; Gal. 3:6-14 — a matter of faith, not bloodline
Gen. 15:7	I will give you this land Heb. 11:9; 12:18-24 — Abraham was “looking forward” to a city with foundations
Gen. 17:9-14	The sign of the covenant Col. 2:8-23 — fulfilled in the circumcision of the heart
Gen. 22:15-18	“You will take the enemies’ gate” Matt. 16:13-20 — “The gates of hell will not withstand the onslaught of God’s church”

One covenant people, not two

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This study speaks of the church as God’s covenant people, and it means that in a particular way. It does not mean that God discarded one people and started another. It means there is one covenant people across both Testaments.

Said plainly: this study does not teach supersessionism — the view that the church has replaced Israel and inherited her promises in her place. God has not revoked what He swore to Abraham, and He has not written off the people He made those promises to.

In the Old Testament, to belong to that people was to belong to Israel — by covenant, marked in the flesh, entered by birth, and affirmed and lived out by faith. Faith was never the new part. Abraham believed God before there was a nation, a law or a temple, and it was counted to him as righteousness; what changes in Christ is not that faith is introduced, but that birth is no longer the door. In the New Testament the same covenant is opened to the nations through Abraham’s seed, so that the people of God consists of Israel by covenant and Gentiles by faith, together.

That was the promise from the beginning. It is in the first words spoken to Abraham — “Through you every family on earth will be blessed” (Genesis 12:3) — and repeated after the mountain: “Through your descendant all the nations of the earth will be blessed” (22:18). The nations were in the promise before there was a nation of Israel to bring it.

Paul says so directly, and calls it the point of the promise:

You must understand that people who have faith are Abraham’s descendants. Scripture saw ahead of time that God would give his approval to non-Jewish people who have faith. So Scripture announced the Good News to Abraham ahead of time when it said, “Through you all the people of the world will be blessed.”

Galatians 3:7–8  ·  God’s Word

If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants and heirs, as God promised.

Galatians 3:29  ·  God’s Word

The picture Paul uses is a tree, not a replacement

But some of the olive branches have been broken off, and you, a wild olive branch, have been grafted in their place. You get your nourishment from the roots of the olive tree. So don’t brag about being better than the other branches. If you brag, remember that you don’t support the root, the root supports you.

Romans 11:17–18  ·  God’s Word

Notice what the image will and will not allow. The root is unchanged. Branches are broken off and branches are grafted in, but nobody plants a second tree. And the grafted branch is warned in advance against exactly the attitude the words new Israel can encourage — you don’t support the root, the root supports you. Paul adds that the natural branches can be grafted back, “because God is able to do that” (11:23–24), which is not how anyone speaks of a people who have been replaced.

Ephesians says the same thing in the language of citizenship. Gentiles were “excluded from citizenship in Israel” and are now “no longer foreigners and outsiders but citizens together with God’s people” (Ephesians 2:12, 19). You cannot be given citizenship in something that has been abolished.

Why this study avoids the phrase “the New Israel”

It is a common expression and it is often meant well, but grammatically it claims a second Israel replacing a first — and that is not what these texts describe. This study says instead: God’s covenant people, Jew and Gentile together. It is the plainer phrase, and it is closer to what the prophets were actually promising.

What the promises to Israel are not

Three things follow, and they are worth stating because the shorthand people use often implies the opposite.

• The promises were not transferred. Gentiles do not take over what belonged to Israel; they are brought into it. “Citizens together with God’s people” — not instead of them.
• The covenant was not cancelled. What failed at Sinai was the people’s side of it, which is exactly why Jeremiah is given a new covenant that writes the law inside rather than on stone. God’s side has never been in question.
• The natural branches have a future. Paul says outright they can be grafted back in, “because God is able to do that,” and warns the grafted branch against arrogance on precisely this point.

Where thoughtful readers differ

Others read the promises to Israel as awaiting a distinct future fulfilment for the nation as a nation, and hold that the church does not absorb those promises. They are not being careless with Scripture when they say so; Romans 11 itself keeps a future in view for the natural branches. The reading set out here is the one this study follows, and it is worth knowing that it is a reading. Weigh it yourself.