God made a similar covenant with Abraham, but Jews missed the point. examine the Abrahamic Covenant, known as "the Brit bein HaBetarim, the "Covenant Between the Parts" in Hebrew. Calvinists accept that covenant as one part - the person does nothing, and God does it all. The term for that is sola gratia which means "by grace alone." Note that nobody but Jesus died because of your sin. You were not on the cross but Jesus was. That is sola gratia. The other part of the "parts" of the Covenant is, What you do with that grace? The correct answer is that you appreciate Jesus for that and love him for it. It is not graceful to be given a gift, then reject it. It is necessary for anyone to accept the gift of grace and love God for it.
If given a new cell phone for Christmas, it is appreciated if it works because a non-working cell-phone has little value. If one works and the recipient has a need for it, normal people would love the giver and appreciate the working gift. Given that allegory, for people to love and appreciated God, they must believe that his death on the cross was efficacious.; that Jesus's spilled blood and water was an acceptable propitiation for their own sins. If one truly believes that, they are born again (John 3:7). They must trust that Jesus's sacrifice of himself was sufficient, and there is no need to do anything themselves just to make sure!
The trust and gratitude they have must endure to the end. Five minutes of faith is not enduring. "The end" of which Jesus spoke is when the gospel is preached to all the nations; then the end will come. Most people will not make it to the end; their end comes at the time of death. Thus, Christians who trust Jesus until they die "shall be saved." Once converted or born again, "shall be" is sometimes in the future from then. That time is when Satan can no longer influence the Christian. Death prevents Christians from any further persuasion, and regardless of what preachers say, the dead cannot be preached or prayed into heaven if they have not first believed (John 3:16)! "Belief" was translated too generally. The Greek word " pisteuw" means "faith." Faith then, must endure to the end. That entails loving Jesus until death as the dead cannot change their belief.
The point is that the two party Covenant of Grace is Jesus dying in your place, and you keeping the faith unto the end. The promise is "shall be saved." Nowhere in the scheme of salvation is property, health, money, or worldly pleasures offered. "Prosperity" is limited by the Covenant of Grace to salvation at the time of death. True Christians will appreciate that and accept that prosperity at face value. True Christians can expect nothing else! Not even is tomorrow promised (Jas 4:13-14), let alone any other material or emotional prosperity. In fact, Christians can expect persecution for Jesus's name sake (Mat 5:10), and "Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed" (2 Cor 4:9). Just as with Job when God kept him safe (Job 1:10), He will not allow Satan to destroy the believer (Job 1:12). That is the "safety" (Greek sosos) in which Christians are kept until saved in the end.
Now back to the Abrahamic Covenant: It too was a Covenant of Grace, the same Covenant. It was just misunderstood. The prosperity the Hebrews was promised was the the land which became the Kingdom of David. To this day, Jews believe that was the Covenant, and the land shall remain theirs until the end since it is an eternal covenant (Gen 15:19-21). To fill the land, Abraham's line would be made a great nation (Gen 12:1-3). For them, that prosperity for them was salvation.
Also, that land was to be for all of Abraham's descendants (Gen 17:2-9) and was sealed for perpetuity by circumcision (Gen 17:9-14). What they read but failed to comprehend was the part about, "And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed" (Gen 12: 1-3). You may have missed that promise for prosperity yourself because you fail to consider the Word "blessed" to any extent!
The keyword in the Abrahamic Covenant is not "land," but "blessed," meaning "of or enjoying happiness, specifically, Christianity: enjoying the bliss of heaven" (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). The Hebrews focused on Canaan land even though Abraham was focused on the true place of milk and honey - Heaven. He made it there whereas many Hebrews did and will not. Scripture refers to prosperity in Heaven as "Abraham's Bosom" (Luke 16:22). I believe that the paradise of Israel is the place of the Garden of Eden and New Jerusalem when Heaven comes down (Rev 21:2).
The Hebrews saw Israel as the prize, but Abraham saw the unseen. His destiny was the paradise of Heaven and to this day, Jews think it was the promised land. Judaism, as practiced, is the prosperity gospel, little different from what televangelists preach. Judaism itself, however, looked toward Jesus, and is early Christianity since Abraham's "prosperity" was obtained by his great faith:
Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all, (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were. (Rom 4:16-17).The faith of Abraham is our faith. His brand of Judaism is Christianity! Paul, in the scripture above, pointed out to the Romans that the faith of the spiritual Jews is the same as the Covenant of Grace through Jesus. He even paraphrased the Abrahamic Covenant to make his point.
Many Romans got the point (the Gentiles) as the Jews still missed the point in that the "promised land" was not really the paradise of Canaan but the Paradise in Heaven. Abraham knew where they were going but most did not. He focused on death at the place of the skull (Golgotha) as most focused on the prosperity of the land.
I fear that too many Christians are followers of Jesus for the wrong reasons. Although, the Comforter assists Christians in tribulation, He did not promise to provide riches. Remembering that the love of money (avarice) is the root of all evil (1 Tim 6:10), and that "avarice" is prosperity from that love, then the prosperity anti-gospel is evil. Prosperity Christianity misses the point. They are the Jews who would never see the promised land, and who died in the wilderness. They failed to endure tribulation to the end! Theirs is a false gospel.
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