This is a followup to the promise in Genesis 12.3, when God said to Abram,

“I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
(Gen 12.3).

In Genesis 18, Moses revealed that God was about to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the other cities of that area, yet, through Abraham God wanted to bless all people. God then asked the question whether the destruction should be hidden from Abraham, since God was going to bless people through Abraham. Did Abraham need to know this, since he was a man of blessing? Did Abraham want to know this destruction?

“And the LORD said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing, since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?” (Gen 18.17-18).

Although this destruction appears to be contrary to God’s desire to bless, it does fit in with His holiness and righteousness, because God has to remove sin in one of two ways: His wrath, or His forgiveness.

In Acts 3.25, 26, it is written that Peter said to the Jews,

“You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities” (Acts 3.25-26).

Paul showed the connection between the Gospel of Jesus Christ with Abraham,

“And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, ‘In you all the nations shall be blessed’…There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3.8, 28-29).

Revelation 7.9 shows the fulfillment as well with this picture of the people in heaven,

“After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands” (Revelation 7.9).

Then the narrative continues with this,

“Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, ‘Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?’ And I said to him, ‘Sir, you know.’ So he said to me, ‘These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb'” (Revelation 7.13-14).

We wash our robes in the blood of the Lamb when we are baptized into His death (Romans 6.3, 4).

Related Articles

• Messianic Prophecy Number 8: Gen 12.3 – All Families Blessed through Abraham (theoldtestamentandthenewtestament.com)
• The Bible In Our World (Lesson 5) (thebiblemeditator.wordpress.com)
• Messianic Prophecy Number 9: Gen 14.18 – Melchizedek, a Type of Christ (theoldtestamentandthenewtestament.com)