Theological and Logical

Is the Covenant God made with Abraham conditional, or unconditional? Most will answer, and rightly so, that the Abrahamic Covenant is completely unconditional. God will accomplish and fulfill His covenant apart from any works or preset conditions upon mankind. If one answers unconditional, it will have theological, and logical conclusions. Here they are.

The unconditional fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham is fulfilled in the church, as all families of the earth are blessed by the seed of Abraham...Jesus. It is literally fulfilled by people believing the gospel, people from every nation. The unconditional aspect comes right back to the question of how do people become saved? Is it their choice, or God’s choice? The answer is both theological and logical. If the fulfillment of God’s Covenant with Abraham is God’s predetermined, unconditional, sovereign will and it is fulfilled by people from every nation believing the gospel, then a person’s belief in the gospel is God’s predetermined, unconditional, sovereign will. It’s not left to chance, or to the choice of man.

This is what’s known as a syllogism. A syllogism is a formal deductive argument made up of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion. If the major, or minor premise is untrue, the conclusion will be untrue. If both the major and minor premise are true, the conclusion will always be true. Here’s an example:


Major premise: All birds have feathers.
Minor premise: Penguins are birds.
Conclusion: Penguins have feathers.

Let’s look at another syllogism:
Major premise: The Abrahamic Covenant is fulfilled by God’s unconditional, predetermined, sovereign will.
Minor premise: Individual belief in the gospel results in the fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant.
Conclusion: Individual belief in the gospel is God’s unconditional, predetermined, sovereign will for the individual.

God has not left the fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant into the hands of man’s choice, or into the hands of chance, or into the hands of God’s passive foreknowledge. God has not called His unconditional covenant conditional. If the fulfillment of the covenant is all His work (major premise), and the covenant is fulfilled by people being saved (minor premise), then people being saved is all His work (conclusion). Therefore, the gospel is impossible for a man, women, or child apart from a miraculous move of God’s grace to that individual.