The Everlasting Covenant

The One Promise to Abraham

This is the only promise concerning which God swore to Abraham. It was a confirmation of the original promise. But, as we have already seen, it involved nothing less than the resurrection of the dead through Christ, who is the seed. “The last enemy that shall he destroyed is death,” ² that the words of God by the prophet may be fulfilled, “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death; O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction.” ³ Not till then will the promise be fulfilled, which God swore to Abraham, for not till then will all his seed possess the gate of his enemies. EVCO 162.2

To the weeping mothers who mourned the loss of their children that had been slain by the command of Herod, the Lord said, “Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears; for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border.” ⁴ Only through the resurrection can the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob come again to their own border. This was indicated to Abraham when he was told that before his seed should possess the land they should be afflicted in a strange land, and that he should die; “but in the fourth generation they shall come hither again.” EVCO 162.3