God's covenant with Abraham was unconditional and had many promises attached to it. It is first stated in Genesis 12:1-3:

(Gen 12:1-3 KJV) Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee: {2} And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: {3} 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.

The only thing Abraham was told to do was to leave his homeland and go where God would lead him. Abraham did obey, so if there was any condition attached to this covenant, it is already fulfilled and the rest of its fulfillment is in the hands of God alone. Later Abraham was told that males would have to undergo circumcision in order to be ushered into the blessings of the covenant, but this was a condition only to the individual to take part in that which God promised He WOULD bring about. Therefore, it was not a condition that had to be fulfilled for the covenant with Abraham to be fulfilled. God's promise that He would do this unconditionally ultimately finds its proof in the fact that God ALSO promised this to Abraham's Seed, which was Christ, and therefore God had to fulfill it.

Entrance into the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant must come through Christ alone. Those who are in Him becomes heirs to the promises made to Abraham:

(Gal 3:29 KJV) And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

The sign of the Abrahamic Covenant is given in Genesis 17:9-14:

(Gen 17:9-14 KJV) And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations. {10} This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised. {11} And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. {12} And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed. {13} He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. {14} And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.

The circumcision of the flesh established in God's covenant with Abraham translates to the circumcision of the heart in the New Testament:

(Rom 2:28-29 KJV) For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: {29} But he is a Jew [a seed of Abraham after the Spirit], which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

Circumcision of the flesh was "a token of the covenant betwixt me [God] and you [Abraham and his seed]." Now, men must circumcise their hearts in following Christ to receive all that was promised to Abraham and his Seed. What was it that God promised Abraham He would do?

1. God promised to make Abraham a great nation: "And I will make of thee a great nation" (v. 2). Abraham has become a great nation through Isaac, but also the father of a great spiritual nation, consisting of all those who have Abraham's faith:

   (Gal 3:7 KJV) Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.

2. God also promised, "and I will bless thee" (vs. 2). God did bless Abraham physically, as described in Genesis 13:14-17:

   (Gen 13:14-17 KJV) And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: {15} For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. {16} And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. {17} Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.

   In Genesis 15:6, God blessed Abraham spiritually, counting him righteous because of his faith:

   (Gen 15:6 KJV) And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

3. God promised to make Abraham's name great: "and make thy name great" (v. 2). Even today this is true beyond a doubt.

4. God also promised Abraham he would be a blessing to others: "and thou shalt be a blessing" (vs. 2). No doubt Abraham was a blessing to the men of his generation, but ultimately, he was a blessing to all of humanity because of his Seed, our Lord Jesus Christ.

5. God promised to "bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee" (vs. 3). This, too, finds ultimate fulfillment in Christ.

6. God also promised "and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed" (v. 3). MARK THIS POINT: the fulfillment of this is Jesus Christ Himself, not Abraham doing something to fulfill this with God's assistance. All families receive the blessing of Abraham in Christ in that He made it possible for all men to receive the promised Spirit by faith:

   (Gal 3:14 KJV) That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. (Gal 3:22 KJV) But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.

THE FULFILLMENT OF THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT BY "NEW" ISRAEL

Latter Rain teaching misinterprets the five verses in Galatians which refer to blessings given to Abraham. For example, British teacher Alan Vincent says that God promised to bless every family on the face of the earth through Abraham's seed, MEANING THE CHURCH, not primarily through Christ. Jane Lead's and others' prophecies that prepared the way for the "Toronto Blessing" also named the nations as the recipients of this "new" blessing. The door that opened the way for this error was a misinterpretation of two of God's promises to Abraham: "and thou shalt be a blessing" (v. 2) "and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed" (v.3). These points will be discussed in the next two chapters:

1. "and thou shalt be a blessing" is interpreted to mean that Abraham was supposed to TAKE his blessing to the nations as Toronto has done

2. "and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed" is interpreted as taking the "Toronto Blessing" to every family on the face of the earth

That points to one thing: global dominion by the apostate Church.

ABRAHAM IN GALATIANS

Now carefully read the following verses. We're all familiar with what Paul wrote in his letters to the Romans and Galatians about what was promised to Abraham. Let's recap it:

1. God spoke promises to Abraham and to his one seed, who is Christ (Gal. 3:16). By believing on Christ and being placed in Him as the Seed of Abraham, we become heirs according to the promise. We DO NOT become THE GIVER of the blessing of receiving the Spirit by faith. We are the heirs, the ones who RECEIVE the blessing, and that is true of everyone who believes on Christ.

   (Gal 3:16 KJV) Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.

   (Gal 3:29 KJV) And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

   Note this important point: the Church does NOT become the one to take the Abrahamic Blessing to the nations.

2. What God promised through Christ was the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ as presented in the gospel, which would be offered to all nations (Gal. 3:2).

   (Gal 3:7-8 KJV) Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. {8} And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.

   The Blessing of Abraham IS given by Christ to the individual who believes the gospel preached by the Church, but the Church is given power to do so by the Spirit they received. All is of Christ, and it is through Him alone that everyone on earth will be blessed IF THEY BELIEVE, not through the Church distributing "the anointing." The true blessing of salvation by faith is a personal one between Christ and the individual and administered by Him personally. This is our next point.

3. Christ is the one who blesses the nations by giving the Holy Spirit to all INDIVIDUALS who believe through the preaching of the PERSONAL gospel (Gal. 3:2).

   "That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith" (Galatians 6:14).

   (Gal 3:2 KJV) This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

4. This was fulfilled at Pentecost and is ongoing (Acts 2:33) towards the individual.

   (Acts 2:33 KJV) Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. . . . {38} Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. {39} For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.

   Notice the words: "ye shall RECEIVE the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is . . ." It's Jesus who fills the new believer with the Holy Spirit. It's not, "Come up to the front of the church so I can lay hands on you and GIVE YOU 'the anointing.'"

5. The true Abrahamic blessing is to be given on an individual basis in order to prepare a corporate people who Christ will personally gather to Himself at the end of the age (the harvest), which is the end of Daniel's 70th week, and not before. The final harvest includes those in the resurrection of the dead, which the "new" Israel "revivalists" are incapable of bringing about. Christ will then complete the Abrahamic Covenant by fulfilling Ezekiel 47 and 48, establishing Israel on the promised land. The harvest takes place at the coming of Christ as described here:

   (Mat 24:29-31 KJV) Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: {30} And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. {31} And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

6. Those who do not believe in Him are excluded from the blessing and will not inherit the earth when Christ returns at the end of Daniel's 70th week.

Taken together, these verses mean that God spoke promises to Abraham and to his ONE seed, who is Christ. What He promised through Christ was the Holy Spirit and the gospel, which would be offered to all nations. This blessing of Abraham would come through Jesus, who FULFILLED the promise which would then be GIVEN TO the HEIRS, who are all who belong to Christ:

(Acts 2:33 KJV) Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.

(Acts 1:4-8 KJV) And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. . . . {8} But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

Four points need to be made here:

1. Christ is the one who blesses the nations by giving the Holy Spirit to all who believe in Him and His finished work. This was fulfilled at Pentecost and is ongoing. The recipients of the blessing are those who receive the Spirit because of their faith in Christ: "Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?" (Galatians 3:2). Those who do not believe in Him are excluded from the blessing.

   Latter Rain teaches that every person on earth is to receive this blessing, called "the anointing," through the Church, not from Christ personally and through faith in Him. In other words, the recipients replace Christ by themselves becoming "distributors" of the spirit based on their own intercession. This redefines the Abrahamic Blessing as the Toronto Blessing, making it man-delivered instead of God-sent.

2. In Latter Rain teaching, the Church intercedes for the nations, and then God releases the blessings promised to Abraham through their efforts to TAKE "the Blessing" to the nations. Salvation is moved from a personal level to a territorial one, with emphasis on "taking the land" or nations. Then after all have received what is offered and the earth is cleansed of all who would not receive, God's Kingdom can be supposedly set up.

3. Latter Rain teaches that the blessing of Abraham will be released into the nations as the Church celebrates the Feast of Tabernacles or the Ingathering of the Harvest. But the promise was fulfilled when Christ sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Therefore, any spirit "released" through the "new" Israel celebrating Tabernacles now cannot be the Holy Spirit. The Feast of Tabernacles is not a vehicle to unite the world, but is the main feast to be celebrated in the millennium after Christ establishes His reign (Zech 14).

4. The Spirit seals all believers as God's guarantee that when Christ returns to judge the nations and establish His rule, we will receive all of God's promises.

   But Latter Rain teaches that the Church is the promised seed (corporate) which enters into its inheritance by 1) celebrating the Feast of Atonement, 2) experiencing Pentecost, and 3) entering the time of the Feast of Tabernacles. The expected outcome of this "journey" is that Christ becomes incarnate in His perfected members, bringing them immortality and enabling them to be His endtime army, Joel's Army. As they take "the blessing" of Abraham (i.e., the Toronto Blessing) to the nations, this Army ESTABLISHES that which Scripture says they are to INHERIT: the Kingdom of God (Matthew 25:34). This is what Toronto is all about. But it makes no sense that the Church has to establish its own inheritance.

In Latter Rain teaching, the Corporate Seed will supposedly fulfill the Abrahamic Covenant because - hear this - ABRAHAM FAILED AT IT, JESUS FAILED AT IT AND THE DISCIPLES FAILED TO FULFILL IT. I will come back to this later. Latter Rainist Alan Vincent, for instance, teaches that EVERY city and family on earth is to receive this blessing through the Church. In a taped talk entitled "God's 'Suddenlys,'" Vincent's new revelation brings together "Isaac" with the Abrahamic covenant and the feasts God gave to Israel. In reality, he is redefining God's Covenant with Abraham. Vincent said,

"[God has] had this on His agenda for millennium, and now you're privileged to see the fulfillment of all of that the prophets have said. That was true, of course, for the nation of Israel, it was true for the city of Jerusalem, now it's becoming true for every single city on the face of the earth because God promised through Abraham, He said, '. . . through your seed, WHICH IS THE CHURCH, every family on the face of the earth is going to be blessed.'"

God supposedly said to Vincent that through Abraham's seed, "Isaac" ("the redefined Church") who is now released to the nations, EVERY FAMILY - HEAR IT - EVERY FAMILY on the face of the earth is going to be blessed. Remember the words "every family" because this is the global "new" Israel that is attempting to establish dominion in the world. I'm going to come back to this, but recall now what was prophesied of Toronto:

"The Lord is going to be sending out many people, filled with His Spirit with strong gifting, vision, and love to the nations on all continents."(1)

Every family on all continents will be affected by the release of "Isaac" through Toronto. But in truth, it is NOT the church which is to *TAKE* THE PROMISED BLESSING TO THE NATIONS. This is based on the false premise that Abraham failed to TAKE the blessing to the nations, and so did Jesus and the disciples. But now, supposedly, the Church has matured (evolved) to a point where it can finally fulfill the Abrahamic Covenant. But nowhere did God EVER tell Abraham to TAKE this blessing to the nations. Nor did Jesus ever tell His disciples anything like this.

And again Vincent said,

"God, you promised Abraham, seven full times you repeated it, you swore it by an oath, every time you talked about a covenant, you said 'this is the heart of the thing.' And soon as the Spirit comes and starts to shake the city of Jerusalem, Peter says, 'Oh, this is what the prophets have talked about!' This is just one city experiencing what every city must experience. Otherwise, God's the biggest liar there ever was, and of course, that's impossible. I'm saying that quite shockingly. Beloved, God HAS to keep His word. It has to happen. Why should God keep saying again and again, 'This is what I'm going to do through the seed,' and then Jesus coming in the sudden rapture theory, and spoiling God's covenant promises to Abraham? It's impossible for Jesus to come until these things are fulfilled."

Notice that Vincent does away with the one event that will fulfill the entire, true Abrahamic Covenant: The return of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Vincent then said that God will bless every city on earth and thus fulfill His covenant promise to Abraham. How? BY MOVING THE SEED OF ABRAHAM INTO THE CELEBRATION OF TABERNACLES, or, into a time of HARVEST:

"But I tell you what God said to me was, He said, 'Alan, I am moving the Church from the Day of Atonement to Tabernacles.' . . . As if the devil could stop him fulfilling His covenant to Abraham. As if the devil could even stop Him from using the Church. . . . [God supposedly told Vincent,] 'The Day of Atonement is over and Tabernacles is coming, and I'm getting ready to laugh and I'm getting ready to roar, and I tell you this whole world is going to feel the shaking of that laughter and the power of that roar.'"

Here it is again: THE WHOLE WORLD. Every family. EVERY person is going to feel the power of "God" through corporate "Isaac." I want to summarize what the Latter Rain prophets have said:

1. God said there would be a season of New Beginnings;

2. these New Beginnings are based on and proliferated by New Revelations;

3. the New Revelations are bringing forth a corporate child who is Abraham's seed, and through whom every city on the face of the earth will be blessed; and

4. that blessing will be fulfilled through the celebration of a type of Tabernacles in a time of revival, harvest and unity.

The celebration of the true Feast of Tabernacles is described in Zechariah 14, which places it in its proper time frame - Tabernacles will be celebrated AFTER Jesus returns. This is the HOPE OF THE GOSPEL - Christ's return - and the current celebrations of Tabernacles implemented by the "revivalists" have nothing to do with the true Church. The one verse always tied to this "revival" is "this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then the end shall come" (Matthew 24:14). But what gospel? And what does this false celebration of Tabernacles have to do with our hope of Christ's return leading to the true celebration of Tabernacles in the Millennial kingdom? Nothing. Celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles now, along with the harvest and judgment of corporate "Isaac," will supposedly bring in the Kingdom of God. But Scripture says that Christ must return personally before the Kingdom is established because He is the one who establishes it.

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(1) Mantle of Praise Ministries, Inc. A two part prophecy by Mark Dupont concerning revival coming to part of the church of Toronto. May 1992 & July 1993, Part One: May 92, While In Toronto For The Area Of Southern Ontario, Point E.