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Irenaeus: CHRIST FULFILLS THE SEED OF ABRAHAM

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CHRIST FULFILLS THE SEED OF ABRAHAM

Irenaeus wrote Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching to survey the many ways the Old Testament testifies to the person and work of Jesus Christ. In this way, he shows the unity of the Old and New Testaments and provides a strong case against the false teachers of his day who argued the Old Testament presents a God inferior to the God of the New Testament. In the following selection, Irenaeus summarizes from this work (24,35) the story of Abraham and how Jesus fulfills God’s promise to have many descendants.

In process of tithe, that is to say, in the tenth generation after the Flood, Abraham appeared, seeking for the God who by the blessing of his ancestor was due and proper to him. And when, urged by the eagerness of his spirit, he went all about the world, searching where God is, and failed to find out, God took pity on him who alone was silently seeking him. 

God appeared to Abraham, making himself known by the Word, as by a beam of light. For he spoke with Abraham from heaven and said to him, “Go out of your country, and from your kindred, and from thy father’s house, and come into the land that I will show you” and there dwell (Ac 7:3). And he believed the heavenly voice, being then of ripe age, even seventy years old, and having a wife. 

Together with her he went forth from Mesopotamia, taking with him Lot, the son of his brother who was dead. And when he came into the land which now is called Judea, in which at that time dwelt seven tribes descended from Ham, God appeared unto him in a vision and said: “To you will I give this land, and to your seed after you, for an everlasting possession,” and (He said) that his seed should be a stranger in a land not their own, … being afflicted and in bondage four hundred years, … and that God would judge that race which had brought his seed into bondage. 

And, that Abraham might know as well the multitude as the glory of his seed, God brought him forth abroad by night, and said: “Look upon the heaven, and behold the stars of the heaven, if you are able to number them. So will your seed be.” And when God saw the undoubting and unwavering certainty of his spirit, he bore witness to him by the Holy Spirit, saying in the Scripture: “And Abraham believed, and it was counted unto him for righteousness” (Rm 4:3). 

Abraham was uncircumcised when this witness was borne, and so that the excellency of his faith should be made known by a sign, God gave him circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of that faith which he had in uncircumcision. And after this there was born to him a son, Isaac, from Sarah who was barren according to the promise of God. Abraham circumcised Isaac according to that which God had covenanted with him.…

¶ Jesus Christ fulfilled the promise made to Abraham, which God had promised him, to make his seed as the stars of heaven. For this Christ did, who was born of the Virgin who was of Abraham’s seed, and constituted those who have faith in him “lights in the world.” [B]y the same faith with Abraham [Christ] justified the Gentiles. 

For “Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness” (see Rm 4:3). In like manner we also are justified by faith in God: for “the just shall live by faith.” Now “not by the law is the promise to Abraham, but by faith,” for Abraham was justified by faith and “for a righteous man the law is not made.” In like manner we also are justified not by the law but by faith, which is witnessed to in the law and in the prophets, whom the Word of God presents to us.



James Stuart Bell, ed., Ancient Faith Study Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bibles, 2019), 20–21.

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