Abrahamic Covenant & New Covenant

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mercuriel

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Hi there,

In Genesis God declares that the covenant He makes with Abraham is everlasting, and the sign of the covenant is circumcision.

I understand that the New Covenants sign is baptism…therefore my question is this:

If the Abrahamic Covenant is everlasting why don’t Christians get circumcised AND baptized today? Why do we assume faith alone makes us children of Abraham when in the Old Testament it was circumcision which made someone a child of Abraham?

Thank.you for clarification,
Chris
 
Hi TimothyH thank you for partially helping me understand, but I still do not understand why the Abrahamic covenant has ended when God said it would be everlasting in Genesis 17:7.

‘And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.’

Also aren’t modern Jews part of this Abrahamic covenant?
 
mercuriel said:
Hi TimothyH thank you for partially helping me understand, but I still do not understand why the Abrahamic covenant has ended when God said it would be everlasting in Genesis 17:7.

‘And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.’

Also aren’t modern Jews part of this Abrahamic covenant?
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Maybe it is (though I’m not expert so could be wrong) that The Word Made Flesh completed the OT - He IS, the completion; IOW, rather than the old being old, as such, in terms of obsolete, rather it is, the Old Covenant finds its place, its relevance, in the New Covenant - all is washed to become new in the “ocean of His Mercy” (last phrase - “ocean…” are St. Faustina’s).
 
Actually catholicism is a carry over of the covenant but in a new form since the word of god or yeshua died completing the old covenant, and he established the new covenant, and modern jews are a continuance of the abrahamic covenant they follow all the 613 commandments given to moshe therefore abrahams children will be everlasting as long as there are jews on the earth
 
Stillsosola said:
Actually catholicism is a carry over of the covenant but in a new form since the word of god or yeshua died completing the old covenant, and he established the new covenant, and modern jews are a continuance of the abrahamic covenant they follow all the 613 commandments given to moshe therefore abrahams children will be everlasting as long as there are jews on the earth
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According to Judaism, yes.
 
mercuriel said:
Hi TimothyH thank you for partially helping me understand, but I still do not understand why the Abrahamic covenant has ended when God said it would be everlasting in Genesis 17:7.

‘And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.’

Also aren’t modern Jews part of this Abrahamic covenant?
Click to expand...
Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

-Tim-
 
mercuriel said:
Hi there,

In Genesis God declares that the covenant He makes with Abraham is everlasting, and the sign of the covenant is circumcision.

I understand that the New Covenants sign is baptism…therefore my question is this:

If the Abrahamic Covenant is everlasting why don’t Christians get circumcised AND baptized today? Why do we assume faith alone makes us children of Abraham when in the Old Testament it was circumcision which made someone a child of Abraham?

Thank.you for clarification,
Chris
Click to expand...
My understanding is that was for Abraham and his descendants, the Chosen Race, the Israelites. Gentiles not included. But Gentiles were grafted on with the New Covenant. Baptism is the new circumcision. Col 2:11. Since Gentiles are not under the Old Covenant, no circumcision is necessary.
 
I thought the three covenant promises to Abraham were filled first in the Mosaic covenant (deliverance and a land and many descendants), then again with the Davidic covenant (a great nation and kings), and completely fulfilled in the new covenant (through him all nations were blessed).

I need to look back on this later. But I’m not sure the Abrahamic covenant ended so much as it’s been brought to fulfillment by the new.

Edit: Here’s a mini-Bible Study on it from the St. Paul Center: stpaulcenter.com/studies/lesson/lesson-three-our-father-abraham
 
mercuriel said:
Hi there,

In Genesis God declares that the covenant He makes with Abraham is everlasting, and the sign of the covenant is circumcision.

I understand that the New Covenants sign is baptism…therefore my question is this:

If the Abrahamic Covenant is everlasting why don’t Christians get circumcised AND baptized today? Why do we assume faith alone makes us children of Abraham when in the Old Testament it was circumcision which made someone a child of Abraham?

Thank.you for clarification,
Chris
Click to expand...
What is the old covenant consist of? Basically the 10 commandments. And when Jesus taught about loving God, neighbor, and self, this old covenant of laws is what he taught too, along with his other teachings. So then the old covenant is still with us.

However some things in the old covenant such as traditions, religious laws, and the like were abrogated, among them circumcision, purifications, sacrificial ceremonies, unclean food and so on.

The first ecomenical (worldwide) council met in Jerusalem for this reason … to decide if the gentile converts were bound to observe the Jewish circumcision, and other practises as well. And of course they decided that circumcision was unnecessary and to be abrogated.

So the old laws were abrogated but not the old covenant which continues today as part and partial of the new covenant.

I know that we say God never changes…“I am who am”. So it would seem that God would be the same in the OT and the NT.

But there is something new about God in the New that isn’t in the Old…Jesus, the Son of the Father, who became MAN. He became one of us. That is very different and is a big change, not in God, but that God became one of us and made us one with him.

Isn’t the Father so pleased by his only beloved Son’s act of atonement for us, that the Father would deal with us in a totally new way…seeing us now as his sons/daughters as well…the life of Jesus in the souls of men. Wouldn’t that make a huge difference in his treatment of mankind…being now his family?

So there is a great improvement that took place in the New covenant … Jesus becoming our brother, the Father becoming our Father, and the Holy Spirit living in each of us as his holy temple. A dream beyond dreams. A best blessing of all blessings. And a wish we could never have hoped for come true.
 
The Old Covenant has been transfigured into the New Covenant.

So all the promises to the Jews under the Old Covenant, said to be “everlasting” and similar wording, continue even today, but in the new higher form. The Jews who adhere to the Old Covenant, are saved by that Covenant, though in a new higher form (whether they realize it or not). For the Old Covenant is of Christ, though he was known in that time in a limited way, as a future Messiah, just as the New Covenant is of Christ. And the Old prefigured and in that sense contained the New, whereas the New contains the Old, in the sense that the Old was transformed into the New.

If you make a contract with an employer, for a lengthy period of time, you will not be upset if he rewrites the contract, before the term has ended, with greater benefits for you in every way, and reducing your obligations as well. Similarly, the New Covenant does away with the dietary laws and animal sacrifices and other external observances, in favor of the lighter and more beneficial disciplines of the New Covenant. And the New Covenant offers the Church, the Sacraments, and much greater graces and knowledge.
 
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