Acts 3: 25
“And you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, ‘Through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed.”
Peter has been showing his audience that the coming of Jesus was foretold. However, this is his piece de resistance, the Abrahamic covenant (Genesis 12).
He was saying, “The greatest promise of all, that what is central to your faith, which guides your life and you share with every generation, that the nations will be blessed, that everything will be righted, this has happened now in Jesus!”
There are approximately 395 sections of the Bible that refer at least in part to this covenant. Not even Peter knew how important it was. This would come in Acts 10 when he would realise the promise was for the non-Jewish world too.
Peter looks outward here, far and wide, to the whole earth. He doesn’t use the Great Commission that was given very recently, but he goes way back in time to the Abrahamic covenant. Jesus Commission wasn’t new, it was Him taking hold of the covenant and presenting it again.
The offspring of Abraham would come and from him the earth would be blessed. Who is that offspring? Apostle Paul in Galatians 3:16 states it is Christ though also shows us how all those who are in Christ are heirs to the promises of Abraham.
But there was one offspring in Abrahams line that would bless the world.
Peter is using this to say: this offspring is Jesus!
In our approach to Christmas let us be ever thankful for Jesus. In and through Him we are blessed. Jesus in our lives means blessing to others. That’s what Christmas is about.
Missions Paul 