Bible Chronology Timeline

10. JOHN THE BAPTIST’S MISSION

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory 1 Corinthians 2: 7-8.

Two Cousin Priests

Our Saviour’s life and plan of salvation was not only safeguarded by the way God communicated his secret through dreams and the genealogy of Jesus, but also by the upbringing of one of the greatest prophets the world has ever seen, John the Baptist. Was John the Baptist born to the priesthood? Yes he was; his father was a Levite priest who had been officiating in the Holy Place of the temple when he received the angel’s announcement that he was to become the father of one of the greatest men. But of John the Baptist nothing had been written concerning his priesthood in the house of the Lord, yet he was to be anointed priest at the age of thirty years because he was the son of a priest. John was filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb and willingly ministered as a priest calling the people to repentance.

How appropriate it was that to safeguard the plan of redemption, John the Baptist was born and grew up in the south of Israel, in the hill country of Judea. Bear in mind that Bethlehem the prophetic town where the Messiah should be born was situated in the province of Judea. Now, to protect the life of the Saviour and the plan of salvation, God in His providence had directed Joseph, before he met Mary, to move from the land of his inheritance, from Judah’s tribal land, to Galilee in the north of Israel where he met Mary who also belonged to the tribe of Judah. So they had settled down in the town of Nazareth in Galilee, where the Lord Jesus’ conception took place. But the Messiah was born in Bethlehem in Judea and remained there for just a couple of days before Joseph fled with his family to Egypt. They eventually returned to Galilee where they settled down in Nazareth.

It was impossible for Satan to figure out who of the two holy men was the Messiah. One was growing up in the right place in Judea and the other one was growing up in the wrong place, the place of which Nathanael said “can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? (John 1:46) One was to become a priest following his Levite lineage, the other one was a humble carpenter living in the wrong place, but of Whom it was written that He was a “priest of the most high God (Hebrews 7:1), he is a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec (Hebrews 5:6).

As a priest John the Baptist prepared the way of the Lord Jesus. John served the purpose of safeguarding the ministry of Jesus. He grew up in the south, he had the vow of a nazarite from birth, and he was a righteous man who lived in the desert. But in the north was growing up Emmanuel, the Lord Jesus who is called Christ (Matt. 1:16). He was a man of humble beginnings, a most righteous Man Who earned His living working in His home carpentry shop but more importantly the only One Who never sinned (Hebrews 4:15).

Jesus’ Priestly Ministry Begins in 4183 at Age 30

John the Baptist, was a Nazarite, a priest and a prophet, one who matched many of the characteristics of the Messiah. He began his public ministry at age 30 around the time when the Lord Jesus also began His public ministry in 4183. The Word of God gives ample evidence that John the Baptist began his ministry at the age of thirty years; just like the rest of his brethren the Levite priests.

Luke the evangelist gives an insight about the fact that John the Baptist was called to the ministry when he was thirty years of age; just like our Lord Jesus. The Gospel links the exact year of Jesus’ beginning of his public ministry with the year when John the Baptist received God’s call to prepare the way for the Lord. First, he wrote that it was in the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was Governor of Judaea (Luke 3:1). Then he stated that Annas and Caiaphas were High Priests when “the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness” (Luke 3:2). Once again Luke makes reference to the prophecy of Isaiah; which was fulfilled in that very year. He wrote:

“As it is written in the book of the words of Esaias the prophet, saying,The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight” (Luke 3:4).

Matt. states that “in those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea” (Matt. 3:1); here the evangelist is making reference to the time when the Lord Jesus also began his public ministry as Messiah and Priest. After writing that John had just begun his ministry, Matt. presents the fact that the Lord also began his ministry on the day of His baptism (Matt. 3:13). Of Him it is written that He was anointed by the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:38). Notice that the Lord comes from the north, from Galilee Galilee where nobody would imagine that the King from David’s lineage would descend. Remember that the tribe of David was in the south in Judah, where David established his kingdom.

John the Baptist played a vital role as prophet and priest because through him not only was the secret hid from the enemies of God, but he was also instrumental in the anointing of the Messiah by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, “In those days” the prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled in the life and ministry of John the Baptist, as Matt. says: “For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias” (Matt.3:3). The evangelist quotes all the words of the prophecy:

“The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (Isaiah 40:3).

Bear in mind that God purposely omitted the name of John the Baptist from Isaiah’s prophecy. He would rather prophesy of him as the voice of one crying in the wilderness. God could have given the name of such a mighty man of valor, but He intended his name to be undisclosed. Isaiah prophesied of King Cyrus and called him by his full name even when that king had not yet been formed in his mother’s womb. Likewise, God could have revealed a complete family background about the Baptist, but instead He chose to prefigure him as an anonymous preacher. Revealing his name God would have taken away one of many safety nets arranged to maintain in low profile the early life of our Saviour.

John the Baptist had preached in a very short period of time to most of the country of Israel. He traversed through the Jordan River valley as he preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins (Luke 3:3). He had declared to all Israel that his baptism was with water; but that one mightier than him was coming Who shall baptize them with the Holy Spirit (Luke 3:16). And one day, when John had finished baptizing, Jesus was also baptized (Luke 3:21) and the heavens were opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus while a mighty voice came from heaven saying: “Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22). All these things happened in the days when John received the commission to preach and baptize for the remission of sins, when “Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age” (Luke 3:23). The phrase above has just mentioned that the Lord began His ministry when he was about thirty years of age. Therefore, in the year 4183 two 30 year old priests met each other in the Jordan River, one after the order of Melchisedec, the Lord Jesus, and the other after the order of Levi, John the Baptist.

Behold the Lamb of God

The secret about the Lord Jesus was so well kept that not even John the Baptist knew Him. Even though John’s mother Elisabeth and the Lord’s mother Mary were cousins, they had not seen each other ever since the visit of Mary thirty years earlier. So they were not acquainted with each other except that the Holy Spirit had instructed John about the Lord. The Baptist says “I knew him not” (John 1:31). Then the Baptist reveals a very important information about the Lord, he declared that the reason why he was sent to baptize was for the purpose that the Lord Jesus “should be made manifest to Israel” (John 1:31). Therefore here for the first time the God of Heaven was going to reveal Jesus, the lowly carpenter coming from Galilee as the Son of God, and therefore the Lord was going to be made manifest as Christ the Messiah.

A few days before meeting the Lord Jesus, John had told his followers that one is coming and is “mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear” (Matt. 3:11). And on the day when the Lord was baptized, John guided by the Holy Spirit, called his followers’ attention to the Majesty of Heaven and proclaimed: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). With such grand acknowledgement John realized that his own salvation depended on the life of Jesus. But John did not address the Lord by his name because he did not know him (John 1:33). However, John was also commanded to make Him manifest in the eyes of the Israelites; therefore, he was given a sign for identifying the Lord (John 1: 26). Thus the Holy Spirit had beforehand informed him that: “Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost” (John 1:33).

Nobody else but John saw the Spirit descending from heaven and resting on the Lord Jesus (John 1:32). It was an identifying sign intended only for John to see. Later the Baptist remarked “and I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God” (John 1:33).

How amazingly the plan of salvation had been kept secret from the enemies of God! How important it was that John and the Lord remain unacquainted during those thirty years; because in that way Satan could not possibly identify the Messiah before due time. Bear in mind that sometimes circumstances compel people to speak. For instance: the incident when Peter was rebuked by the Lord with the phrase: “get thee behind me Satan” Jesus felt compelled to say this because the devil had put those words in Peter’s mouth. Similarly, Satan might have been questioning John the Baptist through his human instrumentalities as to whether he was the Christ. Therefore, the Baptist revealed an important piece of information when he said: “Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him” (John 3:28).

John the Baptist was not in the habit of calling the Lord by His name, but by his mission title. Thus, the day after Jesus’ baptism, while John was standing with two of his disciples and looking at Jesus passing by, the Baptist said: “Behold the Lamb of God!” (John 1:36). When John’s two disciples heard him speak of the Lord, they decided to follow Jesus (John 1:37). Andrew was one of them who left John to become one of Jesus’ disciples (John 1:37).

On the day that the Lord was baptized, not only the people of Israel were eyewitnesses to the glorious manifestation of God’s mystery, but the whole universe witnessed God’s proclamation of Jesus the Saviour of the world, the Son of God. “The heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him” (Matt. 3:16). There, the Lord Jesus was manifested in the hearing of all present as the Christ. Remember that there was an audible voice, a voice that was heard from heaven which said: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17). There and then for the first time Satan realized that the Lord, the Majesty of Heaven was also the humble Galilean man whose physical appearance was nothing extraordinary. Of Him the prophet Isaiah had written: “he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2). Had the enemy known that the lowly Nazarene carpenter boy growing up in the grace of God was the Saviour of the world, he would have focused all his rage on Him and the Lord Jesus would have been a fugitive all His life.

All Eyes Focused on our Lord Jesus

The devil could not believe it when the Lord Jesus was the focus of attention at the Jordan river and God said: “This is My beloved Son”. Satan realized just then that all his perspicacious observations of the events taking place were of no avail to him, because he had been kept in the dark regarding God’s plan of salvation. Satan had been defeated by God’s wisdom all those years. But the devil wanted to verify it himself whether Jesus was indeed the Saviour of the world, the Son of God. Therefore, on the occasion when the Lord was led by the Spirit into the desert, after He fasted and prayed forty days and forty nights (Matt. 4:1-2), Satan assailed Jesus with the same question and asked twice: “If thou be the Son of God”. With that question the devil wanted to achieve many things: he wanted to make sure whether Jesus was indeed the Son of God. Satan also tempted the Lord to prove his Divinity by commanding the stones to become bread. But the Lord’s answer was: “It is written; Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).

Satan was astonished that Jesus gave all credit to the Word of God, consequently the tempter immediately changed his strategy and began quoting Scripture, but not without first trying to irritate the Lord by a repetition of the same question “If thou be the Son of God”. If Satan could cause the Lord to be irritated, he could also incite Him to demonstrate self pride, either by showing off His faith or His power. Therefore, very subtly the devil said: “cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone” (Matt. 4: 6). Once again the Lord calmly replied “It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” (Matt. 4: 7). With such an impressive reply, the Scriptures reveal that the Lord Jesus had already perceived Satan behind all these temptations. But Satan had not understood that Jesus had recognized him from the very beginning, from the moment when Satan opened his mouth. Therefore in His second reply, Jesus made it clear that He was not acceding to the devil’s temptations. Nonetheless, Satan was more determined to try to get the Lord angered by offering Him, Who is the Creator and Owner of everything, all the kingdoms of the world, which Satan claimed as his possession. Satan insulted the Lord by saying: “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me” (Matt. 4:9).

To Satan’s daring proposal the Lord Jesus replied: “Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” (Matt. 4:10). Only God can be worshiped, not an angel (Revelation 19:10), not a man, notice what happened in the book of Acts “as Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him, and fell down at his feet, and worshipped him. But Peter took him up, saying, Stand up; I myself also am a man” (Act 10:26).

Only to God belongs the prerogative to be worshipped: “Exalt ye the LORD our God, and worship at his footstool; for he is holy” (Psalms 99:5). The Almighty God has for eternity been worshipped by His creatures, and He commands all the heavenly beings to reverence and worship God the Son. Therefore, “when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him” (Hebrews 1:6).

Satan had disguised himself as a heavenly angel. However, our Lord Jesus did not focus his attention on the messenger’s physical appearance. On the contrary, He paid close attention to the message. The Lord Jesus tested the spirit’s message by the written Word of God, and the same counsel is given to God’s church: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8).

Thus, the Creator of all animate and inanimate things in the universe, was confronted by one of His creatures, a renegade and malevolent fallen cherub who approached the Lord with the murderous intent to cause Jesus’ downfall. It was none other than the archenemy of God, Satan himself, who used to be called Lucifer “son of the morning” (Isaiah 14:12), who tempted our Lord Jesus.

When Satan approached the Lord Jesus, he did not appear as the mighty covering cherub that he once was, but as a common angel. Satan took the form of an unknown angel that Jesus could not recognize as one of those He had created. Remember that the entire angelical hosts were created by Jesus:
“For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him” (Colossians 1:16).

Our Lord Jesus, who had created all the angelical hosts and had given them their personal names, could certainly have recognized any of his loyal angels coming to visit him when he had been in prayer all those days. Nonetheless, He was confronted by a disguised stranger who dared to open his mouth to tempt the Lord. The Lord who opens our understanding that “the Word of God is not bound” (2 Timothy 2:9), Himself was not going to be bound to Satan’s whim. Our Saviour knew that there must be compatibility between the Word of God and God’s messengers: they must speak in accordance with Scripture; that is, “to the law and to the testimony” (Isaiah 8:20), for Scripture counsels us to test the spirits whether they are from God (1 John 4:1). God counsels His children to follow Jesus’ example; that is, to “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7). He was our example in submission to God and resistance against Satan, for the devil fled from him.

Satan presented himself in disguise, in the form of an angel and not in the form of a powerful cherub as he once was. “And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” (2 Corinthians 11:14). Satan retains the capacity to transform himself into the external and physical appearance that he may choose. He may opt to approach humanity even in the similitude of the universal Christ that humanity has come to accept as “the authentic” portrayal of our Lord Jesus.

Satan could not try to deceive the Lord Jesus by approaching Him in the form of one person of the Godhead, because as the Holy Scriptures reveal of our Lord Jesus: “And we know that the Son of God is come… Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life” (1 John 5:20). Our Lord Jesus is the true God! And the Word of God reveals: “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him” (John1:18). Because the Lord Jesus is God and He alone has seen the Father, then the tempter would not dare tempt Jesus by impersonating the Godhead. Satan can only deceive humanity by impersonating divine beings because no human being has ever seen God the Father. He can only deceive those who pay little or no attention to the written Word of God and His commandments. People should know that there is not a single authorization in the Word of God for the apostolic church to have a portrait of our Lord Jesus. Satan knows that he can only deceive those who expect the coming of the Jesus he has painted in the minds of people.

Time and again it is clear that foreign forces are at work trying to distort and rewrite the Holy Scriptures in the minds of people who ignorantly prevaricate as they fall into the trap of make-believe they are doing Jesus a favor. They want to give our Lord Jesus a decent portrayal of people’s own conception of what He should look like. And the worst thing is that in trying to help Jesus they downgrade Him from His glorious and magnificent figure to a level of a mere human being. No wonder God strongly warned His people not to make any similitude of God so that they should not corrupt themselves:

“Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the LORD spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female” (Deuteronomy 4:15-16).

The Baptist: “I must Decrease that He may Increase”

As the Lord became very popular because of His earnest desire to save His people from their sins, John the Baptist commented to his disciples: “This is he of whom I said, after me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me” (John 1:30). By this statement, the Baptist was conferring all honour to our Creator. John was also baptizing in Aenon near Salim, for he was not yet been put in prison (John 3:22-23). One day, John’s disciples’ asked him: “Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou barest witness, behold, the same baptizes, and all men come to him” (John 3:26). To that comment the Baptist replied: “A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven. Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him. He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:27, 28, 30). John the Baptist had solemnly proclaimed:

“And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God” (John 1:34).

Execution of John the Baptist in 4183

Not willing to accept defeat, Satan poured all his rage upon John the Baptist. While the Lord was in the desert fasting for forty days and forty nights, John the Baptist was preaching and baptizing in the Jordan River. But when our Saviour returned victorious He also began preaching and baptizing. The Scriptures reveal that when the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, he departed to Galilee (John 4:1-3). When the Lord departed from Judea to Galilee, He heard that John had been put in prison (Matt. 4:12). John’s imprisonment happened in the year 4183, just a little time after Jesus returned from praying in the desert.

Satan was opposed to John the Baptist, not only because he came preaching repentance of sins, but because through his life the Lord Jesus’ plan of salvation had been protected. Herodias had for a long time wanted to kill the Baptist because he had reproved her sin of committing adultery with her brother in law Herod (John 6:18, 19). Therefore, Satan was looking for the opportunity to destroy John but did not do so until “a convenient day was come” (John 6:21). Satan sought the opportunity to kill John after he learned that through the Baptist, God’s plan of redemption had been kept secret. It was not politically right for him to carry out his murderous plan beforehand. But the day came when in 4183 Satan’s murderous scheme was carried out as Herodias and her daughter asked for John the Baptist’s head in a charger for a birthday present (John 6:25).

Jesus Preaches of Judgment Day in 4187: “As the Days of Noah”

In the year 4187 when the Lord Jesus had visited Jerusalem before His death on the cross, He preached about God’s final judgment. In His preaching he brought to memory the events that took place in the year 1656 when God destroyed the earth with a worldwide flood. The Lord Jesus warned that “as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matt. 24:37). In His prophetic words the Lord revealed to His disciples that the condition of the world will be morally degraded but also that the people of the world will be living upon earth as if everything is okay, showing an attitude of carelessness for the Kingdom of Heaven and living unaware that judgment had been going on for a long time, just like the days of Noah who had been warning his contemporaries for a period of 120 years before the flood. Therefore, the Lord Jesus continued:

“For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matt. 24:38-39).

Jesus Preaches About the End of the World

There are those who deny the events that took place in sacred history as recorded in the first chapters of Genesis But the Lord Jesus when He preached while sitting down on the Mount of Olives near Jerusalem brought to His disciples’ attention the events that will take place prior to His second coming.

The Lord Jesus made reference to the strange dawning of that day when in the year 2045 Jehovah destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with brimstone and fire from the Lord (Genesis 19:24). The Lord said: “Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all” (Luke 17:28-29).

The Messiah: A Blessing for All Nations

Counting from the beginning, 4187 years had elapsed in the chronology of this world since the day when the Lord had pledged His life as a propitiation for the fallen human race (Revelation 13:8). The Messiah had finally come and was “despised and rejected of men” (Isaiah 53:3), He was smitten of God (Isaiah 53:4), “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5), “and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6), he was “brought as a lamb to the slaughter yet he opened not his mouth” (Isaiah 57:7).

The long expected Messiah was none other than the Creator of this world Who had offered Himself as a sacrifice on the day that Adam and Eve brought upon themselves the curse of death by transgressing God’s holy Law. All the patriarchs from Adam to Abraham, as well as the Jews, had been sacrificing unspotted and unblemished lambs for a period of 4187 years. These sacrifices represented the Messiah Who had finally offered Himself and laid down His life for us in 4187 as He hung on the cross. And Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled that prophesied about the Messiah who was crucified and martyred in Jerusalem:

“I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people…” (Isaiah 65:2).

Yet He offered Himself for the remission of our sins: “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Hebrews 9:12). On the cross the Lord Jesus redeemed the entire human race. He exclaimed “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46), as He died; and the prophecy of Genesis 3:15 was fulfilled that the old serpent who poisoned Adam and Eve should bruise the Messiah’s heel. But our Creator triumphed over sin and Satan, and as the Lord resurrected, the second part of the Genesis’ prophecy was gloriously fulfilled, so that by the Messiah’s victory that old serpent’s head was symbolically utterly crushed as the devil was judged (John 12:31); and soon the sentence will be executed about him: “and never shalt thou be any more” (Ezekiel 28:19).

God’s Children of the Promise

Since the days of Adam God’s people on earth had been waiting for the fulfillment of the promise-the Savior of the world. Such a promise was not new to Abraham; to him God said: “for in Isaac shall thy seed be called” (Genesis 21:12). So there is no point in other religions disputing the promise, because the Savior did not come from the seed of Ishmael, or any other, but from Abraham through his son Isaac. Remember that Ishmael was cast out from Abraham by the directions of God (Genesis 21:9-13).

Salvation comes from Yahweh God Almighty and it is offered to Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and to all the races of the world. Yet, the Savior would come from God’s chosen children of Abraham; that is, “…Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise” (Hebrews 11:9). So the Savior comes from the people of Israel as it is written: “But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend” (Isaiah 41:8).

If Abraham built an altar with one of his children it had to be with Isaac, and it was on Mount Moriah, the place where God tried Abraham’s faith to see if he would offer his son Isaac in a burnt offering (Genesis 22:2). It was on that site that “…Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem in mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father…” (2 Chronicles 3:1). There is no other city of the thousands in the whole earth that God calls holy apart from “Jerusalem the holy city” (Nehemiah 11:1). It is of Jerusalem that the prophet said: “…the outcasts in the land of Egypt, shall worship the LORD in the holy mount at Jerusalem” (Isaiah 27:13). If ever Ishmael, an outcast in Egypt, wished to worship God in a holy city, that would have to be in Jerusalem, of which the prophet wrote: “O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city” (Isaiah 52:1).

Explaining how the promise was received, the apostle wrote: “Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called” (Romans 9:7). The truth is that the Seed was not coming from the loins of Ishmael whose children are also descendants of Abraham. “That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed” (Rom 9:8). “For this is the word of promise, at this time will I come, and Sarah shall have a son” (Romans 9:9).

Whether you are a Jew, or a Muslim, or Hindu, or Buddhist or a Christian; if you accept God’s offer of salvation through His Son Jesus, then God’s promise is yours: “Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth… Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away” (Isaiah 41:9). Therefore, you are also invited to belong to the children of the promise. You and I are called to belong to the true God and Savior Jesus, as it is written: “Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise (Galatians 4:28). That is the reason why God said to Abraham: “And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed…” (Genesis 22:18, Acts 3:25), because God’s blessing is the salvation for this world. Therefore, it is also written: “Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you in turning away every one of you from his iniquities (Acts 3:26). And speaking of David, God says: “Of this man's seed hath God according to his promise raised unto Israel a Savior, Jesus” (Acts 13:23).

Chronologies of the Mysteries of God - Page 11