Genesis 12:3

3. I will bless… curse The promise is here expanded Abram, as the man of faith, is to be identified with the divine plan for human redemption; his friends are, therefore, God’s friends, his enemies God’s enemies . Faith makes man one with God; takes up his plans into the divine plan . Thus “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called [as was Abram] according to his purpose,” who elects, as sons of God, those in whom this faith is foreknown . Romans 8:28-29. The foreknowledge of Abram’s faith was the basis of the great promise, in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. This promise was conspicuously fulfilled in three modes by Abram. Abram became a channel of the divine law to all mankind. 1) From him came the Hebrew people, who for fifteen centuries preserved the knowledge of the unity, spirit, and holiness of God amidst manifold and abominable idolatries, which saturated all the ancient ceremonies. 2) From him thus came the Bible, God’s book, to the world. 3) And from him came the Messiah, the Incarnate God and Redeemer. This promise is as broad as mankind, as deep and high as human wants and aspirations, as far reaching as immortality itself. Abram believed it, though imperfectly comprehending it; not receiving in his earthly lifetime the thing promised, yet having God’s testimony of acceptance through faith, (Hebrews 11:39,) God having, in all this preparatory dispensation, provided, (Hebrews 11:40,) foreseen, and arranged for better things concerning us who enjoy the revelations in full sunshine, whose twilight gleam patriarchs saw afar off. Yet they were made perfect in their love by this distant view; what then must be our responsibility, who have come unto Mount Zion?