Explanation
On Sunday, January 24th, 2016, I began a Core Seminar on Redemptive History & Biblical Theology at my church, Lake Drive Baptist Church. During the course of this series I’ll be sending out emails recapping lessons and directing recipients to resources for further study.
Rather than just share these recaps with my church family, I’ve decided to share them here on the blog for anyone else who might be interested. I will be posting them occasionally over the next couple of months on a weekly basis or so.
See previous posts:
- Introducing Biblical Theology and Redemptive History (LDBC Recap 1/24/16)
- The Significance and Relevance of Biblical Theology and Redemptive History (LDBC Recap 1/31/16)
- Foundational Principles and Basic Frameworks for Redemptive History and Biblical Theology (LDBC Recap 2/7/16)
- Redemptive-Historical, Biblical-Theological Hermeneutics (LDBC Recap 2/14/16 Pt. 1)
- Redemptive-Historical Survey: 1 | Creation (LDBC Recap 2/14/16 Pt. 2)
- Redemptive-Historical Survey: 2 | The Fall (LDBC Recap 2/21/16)
- Redemptive-Historical Survey: 3 | The Flood & Noahic Covenant (LDBC Recap 2/28/16)
Recap/review
This week we finished up our discussion on the Abrahamic Covenant and moved through the role of the Exodus in redemptive history. Since we completed coverage of two stages in redemptive history this week, we’ll have two parts to our recap. In this post (part one) we’ll review the Abrahamic Covenant.
Overview of Biblical material
Genesis 11:27-50:26
- God calls out a man named Abram (eventually renamed Abraham) and makes a covenant[1] with him and his descendants.[2] God is with Abraham and blesses him throughout his life.
- Abraham and his wife Sarah miraculous have a child, Isaac, according to God’s specific covenant promise of numerous descendants.
- As promised (Gen 17:7, 19, 21), God’s promise to Abraham is passed to his son Isaac (Gen 17:21; 26:1-6, 19-26) and then Isaac’s son Jacob (eventually renamed “Israel”—father of the nation of Israel [Gen 27:18-29; 28:10-16; 35:6-15]). God is with Isaac and Jacob and blesses them throughout their lives.
- Through a great series of events, involving the selling of Jacob’s son, Joseph, into slavery and a great famine, Jacob (Israel) finds himself and his family in the land of Egypt. Again, God is with them and blesses them.
Role within redemptive history
We summarized the role of the Abrahamic Covenant (and, by extension, God’s dealing with select descendants of Abraham–the patriarchs–on account of this covenant being passed down to them) the following way: God initiates his new-creational kingdom plan in the form of covenant-bound promises to Abraham.