From Abraham to the Catholic Church
How God's Covenant Plan Came to Fullness in the Church
God’s salvific work did not begin with a random act of divine favor. It began with a sovereign choice, a deliberate summons issued into the life of one man who would become the father of nations. “God chose Abram, calling him out of his country…” (Compendium, 8). This call is the axis upon which the entire drama of redemption turns. From the very outset, divine election is not arbitrary—it is covenantal. It is the language of divine love expressed through historical action.
I. The Election of Abram: Covenant as the Genesis of Redemption
In Genesis 12:1–3, we read:
“Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you… and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’”
God’s initiative is almost palpable. God seeks. God chooses. God calls. And this call is not only personal—it is universal in scope. The promise made to Abram includes all the families of the earth. This is the first shimmering light of God’s redemptive plan for the entire human race, fractured by the Fall. The Catechism echoes this truth:
“God chose Abraham and made a covenant with him and his descendants. By the covenant God formed his people and revealed his law to them through Moses. Through the prophets, he prepared them to accept the salvation destined for all humanity” (CCC 72).
This covenantal theme is not isolated to the story of Abraham but finds continuity in the history of salvation. God’s covenant with Abraham is reiterated, expanded, and fulfilled through successive covenants—with Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and finally, fulfilled in Christ (cf. CCC 59–60).
II. From the Patriarchs to the Chosen People
The descendants of Abraham were not merely an ethnic group—they were a covenantal people. As the Compendium states, “The people descended from Abraham would be the trustee of the divine promise made to the patriarchs.” This is not tribalism. It is vocation. Israel is entrusted with the oracles of God (Romans 3:2). As Pope Benedict XVI explains, “Israel’s election has a universal significance. It is the historical starting-point of God’s universal plan of salvation” (Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, 116).
God’s formation of Israel as His chosen people reached its pivotal moment in the Exodus. As Exodus 6:6–7 declares:
“I will deliver you from slavery… and I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God.”
At Sinai, this divine rescue reaches a climax. God doesn’t just liberate Israel from Egypt—He binds them to Himself in covenant, making them His people. Exodus 19:5–6 proclaims:
“Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples… a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
This priestly vocation was always meant to radiate outward. Israel was not saved for itself but for the world. As Isaiah would later declare:
“I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6).
III. Covenant, Law, and Prophecy
The covenant at Mount Sinai is inseparable from the gift of the Law. As the Compendium affirms, “through Moses [God] gave them his law.” The law was not mere moral regulation—it was a concrete expression of divine intimacy. Deuteronomy 4:7–8 asks rhetorically:
“What great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us… and what great nation is there, that has statutes and ordinances so righteous?”
The law of God was the architecture of Israel’s relationship with Him. It ordered their worship, ethics, economy, and society around the holiness of Yahweh. Yet even in this, the covenantal narrative foretells a deeper redemption. The prophets begin to declare that the law written on stone would one day be written on hearts.
“Behold, the days are coming… when I will make a new covenant… I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:31, 33).
This is the anticipatory cry of the prophets: a radical redemption, one that transcends mere national identity, embracing instead the inner transformation of all humanity.
IV. From David to the Messiah: Fulfillment in Jesus Christ
This prophetic vision begins to crystallize in the covenant with David. God promises that a son of David will reign forever:
“Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:16).
This is not mere dynastic survival—it is messianic fulfillment. As Isaiah declares:
“There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse… and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him” (Isaiah 11:1–2).
This “shoot” is none other than Jesus, born from the house of David (cf. Luke 1:32), the heir to the promise, the consummation of covenant history. As the Catechism teaches:
“The coming of the Messiah is the central event of the entire history of salvation” (CCC 280).
In Christ, all the covenantal strands—Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic—are not abolished, but fulfilled. Jesus Himself declares:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17).
St. Paul confirms this universalizing fulfillment:
“For in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham came upon the Gentiles” (Galatians 3:14), and “If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:29).
Jesus is the new Moses (cf. Deuteronomy 18:15), the new Davidic King (cf. Luke 1:32–33), the new Temple (cf. John 2:21), and the mediator of a new and everlasting covenant (cf. Hebrews 9:15). The Catechism declares:
“Jesus is the Messiah, the ‘Anointed One’ of God, born of the house of David… He fulfilled the messianic hope of Israel in his threefold office of priest, prophet, and king” (CCC 436).
V. Covenant as the Foundation of Catholic Faith
What emerges here is a symphony of continuity. The Catholic faith is not a break from Israel’s story; it is its crescendo. The Church is not a replacement for Israel but the ingathering of all nations into the covenant God began with Abraham. As the Second Vatican Council taught:
“The beginnings of the Church are already found in the patriarchs, in Moses, and the prophets” (Lumen Gentium, 2).
We, the baptized, are living participants in the covenantal narrative. As St. Peter writes:
“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9), echoing Exodus 19:6.
The promises made to Abraham have found their ‘yes’ in Christ (cf. 2 Corinthians 1:20), and through Him, we are caught up into the eternal covenant of divine love.
Let us then stand in awe at the majesty of our God, who, in perfect wisdom, wove salvation into the very fabric of history—beginning with one man, Abram—and culminating in the One Man, Jesus Christ, “the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2).