1. Examples of God's Promises Within the Old Testament
• The promise of ___________________________________.
◦ The proto-evangelium (literally “first gospel”): found in Genesis 3:15
◦ First time God revealed something about ____________________________.
• The promise to never again ________________________.
◦ Found in Genesis 8:21-22, 9:1-17
• The promise to __________________________ through which all families of the earth
should be blessed; the promise of ________________.
◦ Found in Genesis 12:2, 7, etc.
◦ Often referred to in Exodus 12:25 and Deuteronomy 1:8 and 11, 6:3, 9:28, etc.
• The promise of _________________________________.
◦ Found in 2 Samuel 7:12-13, 18 and 1 Kings 2:24, etc.
• The promise of Israel's ____________________, of the ______________, of a new and
everlasting _______________, of the new covenant and outpouring of
___________________.
◦ Found in Isaiah 2:2-5, 4:2, 55:5, 66:13; Jeremiah 31:31-34, 32:37-42, 33:14; Ezekiel
36:22-31, 37:11, 39:25ff, etc.
Where are the Ten Commandments in the above list?
Why aren't they listed?
The 10 Commandments and Mosaic Law were examples of __________________
agreements made between God and his people: If you didn't abide by the Law, then God
___________________. These were __________ or _____________ from God that his people
were commanded to heed.
The agreements made in the promises listed above, however, were actually
_______________ agreements made between God and his people. Despite the fact that God's
people were unable to perfectly abide by the Law, these promises could never be
________________ ___ _____ .
These promises fall under the ______________________ ____ _______.
Group Discussion:
Read through Romans 4 reading:
1) If no one but God is righteous, why does God credit
Abraham with righteousness?
2) Why does Paul consider Abraham a model of
Christian faith?
2. Examples of God's Promises Within the Old Testament
• man's salvation
◦ his plan for the salvation of the world
• curse the ground or destroy all life with a flood
• make a great nation; the land of Canaan
• continued kingship
• Israel's restoration; Messiah; new and everlasting
kingdom; new covenant and outpouring of the Spirit
The 10 Commandments and Mosaic Law...
conditional; cursed you; duties; imperatives
The agreements made in the promises listed above were...
unconditional; reneged by God; righteousness of God
ANSWER KEY TO FILL-IN-THE-BLANKS SECTION
3. (verses 13-15)
Romans 4 For the promise that he would inherit the
(verses 1-8) world did not come to Abraham or to his
What then are we to say was gained by descendants through the law but through
Abraham, our ancestor according to the the righteousness of faith. If it is the
flesh? For if Abraham was justified by adherents of the law who are to be the
works, he has something to boast about, heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.
but not before God. For what does the For the law brings wrath; but where there is
scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and no law, neither is there violation.
it was reckoned to him as righteousness.’
(verses 16-25)
Now to one who works, wages are not For this reason it depends on faith, in
reckoned as a gift but as something due. order that the promise may rest on grace
But to one who without works trusts him and be guaranteed to all his descendants,
who justifies the ungodly, such faith is not only to the adherents of the law but
reckoned as righteousness. So also David also to those who share the faith of
speaks of the blessedness of those to Abraham (for he is the father of all of us,
whom God reckons righteousness as it is written, ‘I have made you the father
irrespective of works: of many nations’)—in the presence of the
Blessed are those whose iniquities God in whom he believed, who gives life to
are forgiven, and whose sins are the dead and calls into existence the things
covered; blessed is the one against that do not exist. Hoping against hope, he
whom the Lord will not reckon sin. believed that he would become ‘the father
of many nations’, according to what was
(verses 9-12) said, ‘So numerous shall your descendants
Is this blessedness, then, pronounced only be.’ He did not weaken in faith when he
on the circumcised, or also on the considered his own body, which was already
uncircumcised? We say, ‘Faith was reckoned as good as dead (for he was about a
to Abraham as righteousness.’ How then hundred years old), or when he considered
was it reckoned to him? Was it before or the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No
after he had been circumcised? It was not distrust made him waver concerning the
after, but before he was circumcised. He promise of God, but he grew strong in his
received the sign of circumcision as a seal faith as he gave glory to God, being fully
of the righteousness that he had by faith convinced that God was able to do what he
while he was still uncircumcised. The had promised. Therefore his faith ‘was
purpose was to make him the ancestor of reckoned to him as righteousness.’ Now the
all who believe without being circumcised words, ‘it was reckoned to him’, were
and who thus have righteousness reckoned written not for his sake alone, but for ours
to them, and likewise the ancestor of the also. It will be reckoned to us who believe
circumcised who are not only circumcised in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the
but who also follow the example of the dead, who was handed over to death for
faith that our ancestor Abraham had before our trespasses and was raised for our
he was circumcised. justification.
4. FACTS ABOUT ABRAHAM
Abraham
(1996 BC-1821 BC)
3000 BC Stonehenge
2750 BC First Pyramids Built
2700 BC Huang Di, One of the Five Emperors
(China)
1800 BC Buddhism
1303 BC Ramses II, Ramses The Great Born
(Exodus story)
1000 BC Jerusalem, Capital of Israel
700 BC The Torah, First Five Books of the Bible
Abraham was born in Ur c1996 BC. Ur was one of the major cities
of Sumer (home of the Sumerians) which is located in the south of
modern-day Iraq. Abraham was 75 years old before receiving God's
calling in Haran. Haran (now Harran) is some 1000km north west of
Ur in north western Mesopotamia. From the age of 75 Abraham
spent the next 100 years travelling southwest through Damascus and
Shechern before reaching Zoan. From Zoan he travelled north east
to Hebron where he died at the age of 175.