3:25 The covenant which God gave to your fathers. In the summary that Origen gives of an early version of the rule of faith (→8:37), God “sent the Lord Jesus Christ, first for the purpose of calling Israel.”14 The emphasis here in Peter’s address to Jews on the “covenant” (διαθήκη) of God with the people of Israel as represented by their father Abraham, which Stephen in another address to Jews calls “the covenant of circumcision” (διαθήκη περιτομῆς)