Category: The Land Promise

Understanding the Land Promise: Part 5 (Answering Objections)

~ fundyreformed ~ 18 Comments

–continuing from part 4.

I thought that the fifth post would be the last, but Will Dudding brought up some objections in the comments of the last post. This has caused me to dig a little deeper, and in the end has only increased my confidence in this understanding of the land promise. So before drawing out the implications of this view of the land promise (and then concluding our series), I need to pause and answer some objections. Answering these objections will also serve to recap this series and help us gain an even better appreciation for how the land promise applies to us.

Answering Objections

Will’s comments focused on several questions relating to the specific promises made to Abraham. He focused on two places in Genesis where the land promise is specified, but I’d like to quote all the places the land promise to Abraham is mentioned:

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country… to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation….” “To your offspring I will give this land”. (Gen. 12:1-2a; 7)

“Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth…. Arise, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.” (Gen. 13:14b-17)

On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites”. (Gen. 15:18-21)

“I have made you the father of a multitude of nations…. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. (Gen. 17:5b-8]

“I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed…” (Gen. 22:17-18]

From reading these promises, it is easy to see why Will sees problems with my view. He sees unconditional promises made to Abraham, concerning a specific plot of land to be given to Abraham’s offspring to possess forever. He fears I am saying God has cast off Israel and replaced her with the Church, and that I am ignoring these “forever” promises, and turning them into a spiritual pseudo promise so I can say they are fulfilled. It’s as simple as this: Abraham’s descendants haven’t possessed this land, so the fulfillment must still be expected in the future.

To respond to these objections is a large task, because so many fundamental assumptions are wrapped up in them. Nevertheless, I will give this a try.

The Possession of the Promised Land

I am claiming that Joshua 21:43-45 declares that God fulfilled his promise to give the land to Israel. Nehemiah and Solomon also declare God did not drop the ball on any of his promises. In studying this further, I realize I neglected an important passage in 1 Kings.

Judah and Israel were as many as the sand by the sea. They ate and drank and were happy. Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt. They brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life. (1 Kings 4:20-21)

The inspired author of 1 Kings certainly means to grab our attention here. He is proclaiming the promises concerning Abraham’s seed being as numerous as the sand of the sea, have been fulfilled. He is also pointing us to the exact dimensions of the land promised in Gen. 15, as being now inhabited and ruled over by Solomon. Of course, later in 1 Kings 8:56, Solomon will actually declare that all the promises have been fulfilled. So in one sense clearly, God declares through inspired authors of Scripture, that the Israelites did indeed possess the land. Hold with me here, as we go on to address some other objections.

The Inheritors of the Promised Land

Now the promises above stipulate that Abraham’s descendants will inherit the land. But we observed previously (in part 1) that the New Testament states that the very promise that Abraham would inherit the world, was given to all the spiritual descendants of Abraham (see Rom. 4:11-16). To expand on this, let’s note a few important passages below:

For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. (Rom. 9:6b-8]

Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. (Gal. 3:7)

Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. (Gal. 3:16)

…you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. (Gal. 3:28b-29)

…the Gentiles are fellow heirs… (Eph. 3:6a)

Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. (Gal. 4:28]

That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise [re: the land, see v. 13] may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring””not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, (Rom. 4:16)

See how all the above verses go hand in hand with Rom. 4:16 (the last verse cited above). This is clear New Testament teaching here. Unequivocal. “Offspring of Abraham” = “those who believe in Jesus, who is the specific Offspring of Abraham”. We know that Abraham saw Christ’s day, and his faith was in a future deliverer (John 8:58, Rom. 4, Gen. 3:15). And so we know this New Testament assertion must mean something. If we believers are co-heirs with Abraham and descendants of him, than this seems to change how we are to view the promises made in Gen. Again, suspend disbelief until our next point.

The Nature and Concept of Land

When we talk of land, we must think in ancient terms. Land was always sacred, and vastly more important in ancient times than today. A King and his realm was totally tied up in his land. Like a King, so a god. It was assumed that deities were tied up to the land, and the god of the Canaanites wouldn’t hold sway in Nineveh. Remember Namaan? He gets healed of leprosy by Elisha the prophet and what does he request? A barrel full of dirt! He felt he needed part of the land to take back to Syria so that he could be a worshiper of Jehovah.

Of course, Jehovah declares that he is the One True and Living God. He alone is God. And He owns the whole Earth. Nevertheless, land is integral in how God relates with his people. Adam and Eve needed an Eden. A place where they fellowshipped with God. If you note Abraham’s wanderings, the only places he builds altars are in the land God was giving him. Fellowship with God stemmed from being on His land.

Throughout Deuteronomy, a constantly reoccurring idea is that these laws are to be obeyed, “in the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess — as long as you live in the land” (Deut. 12:1 NIV). Obedience is intricately connected to the land. And the land was a good land. “A land flowing with milk and honey”. This points out that the land is a new paradise — a place of communion with God and blessing. And throughout Deuteronomy it is clear that God is graciously giving this to the Israelites, even though they are exhorted to take it.

The land is intimately tied up with God’s redemptive work toward Israel. At the conclusion of laws regulating life in the land (Deut. 12-25), there is a powerful ceremony highlighting the importance of Israel viewing themselves as stewards of God’s land (Deut. 26:1-11). We will explore the nature of the land further as we look at conditionality and a few other topics in the next post.

Understanding the Land Promise: Part 4

~ fundyreformed ~ 12 Comments

–continuing from part 3.

Here is a fourth, and most definitive basis for “spiritualizing” the land promise….

4) The connection between land and rest

To start, read these verses in Hebrews 4.

Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath,’They shall not enter my rest,” although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” And again in this passage he said, “They shall not enter my rest.” Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, “Today, if you hear his voice,do not harden your hearts.” For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. (Heb. 4:1-11)

The bolded section points out that the rest offered to the Israelites is experienced by us who believe. And the quote in that section, is taken from Ps. 95:

Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways.” Therefore I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.” (Ps. 95:7b-11)

So again, it is clear, that the quote “They shall not enter my rest” is taken from Ps. 95 and quoted in Heb. 4. but now, notice Numbers 14. Keep in mind that even in Ps. 95 that phrase is in quotation marks. Ps. 95 is reminding us of what God said back in Numbers 14:

But truly, as I live… none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it…. “As I live, declares the LORD,… not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. (Num. 14:21a, 22-23, 28b, 30)

And a summary of this passage is mentioned in Deut. 1 where it is specified that God “swore” and in anger made this pronouncement:

And the LORD heard your words and was angered, and he swore, “Not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh. He shall see it, and to him and to his children I will give the land on which he has trodden, because he has wholly followed the LORD!” (Deut. 1:34-35)

In the above two passages, I hope you see that God is saying these people won’t enter the land. Yet in Ps. 95 and Hebrews 4, it is quoted that God said they won’t enter His rest. There is an explicit connection between the land, and the concept of rest. See also this quote below:

…for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance that the LORD your God is giving you. But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies around, so that you live in safety,… (Deut 12:9-10)

Here again, the rest, the inheritance, is living in the land God gives to Israel. Entering the land, is entering rest.

Now since Heb. 3 and 4 clearly make the rest a spiritual reality, the land becomes spiritual too. Entering the rest is something believers have done, and the unbelieving Israelites did not do. If we are experiencing spiritual rest, a spiritual “Sabbath rest”, we are enjoying the spiritual reality the land pointed to. All believers, Gentile or Jew, experience the reality the land pointed to — namely, fellowship with God and enjoyment of His blessings.

Ultimately, Jew and Gentile will live with God on the New Earth, the New Promised Land. With this thought, let’s jump one step further.

Keeping the Promised Land in Perspective

The promised land of Canaan, has to be kept in perspective with other Biblical lands: namely the paradise that was lost, and the future paradise that’s coming. Eden was a place of fellowship with God and enjoyment of His many blessings. The New Earth, and the New Jerusalem, will be as well. In Eden, man was to obey God and fulfill a special calling, in Canaan, Israel was to do the same. Today, each believer enjoys special fellowship with the Holy Spirit and longs for the future fulfillment of all God’s promises in the New Paradise where communion with God and obedience to His calling will be eternally experienced.

Just as Canaan was to be entered by faith, the “Sabbath rest” experienced by believers must be entered by faith as well. And entrance into God’s future kingdom of eternal rest and joy in the New Earth is only entered by faith. The road to Canaan started with Passover and crossing the Red Sea. And interestingly, Passover is a clear parallel with Christ’s death and our salvation, and 1 Cor. 10:1-4 connects the crossing of the Red Sea with baptism. Then the wilderness wanderings required faith and endurance, and the many trials and tribulations that await believers require the same. Those same wanderings included a partaking of a miraculous food and drink, and again 1 Cor. 10-11 would indicate that the Lord’s Supper parallels that experience. Ultimately, the Jordan was crossed by faith, and God’s rest was entered. One day, we’ll cross the Jordan and enter Heaven’s bliss.

Do any old-time hymns sound appropriate right about now? Believers of old have long compared the Promised Land with Heaven, and there is adequate Scriptural basis for this comparison.

In the next (and final) post in this series, I hope to show some ramifications of understanding the promise of the land from this redemptive-historical perspective.

Understanding the Land Promise: Part 3

~ fundyreformed ~ 4 Comments

–continuing from part 2.

Justification for “Spiritualizing” the Land Promise

Whenever one starts talking of “spiritualizing” a text, various wrong-headed assumptions abound. Dispensationalists often use this charge to show our disregard for the Biblical text. And sometimes, any honest effort to show metaphorical language in Scripture is met with suspicion — oh so you are spiritualizing, huh? Now many act as if it is obvious that spiritualizing a text is clearly not acceptable. But what Scripture teaches us this? In fact, is Jesus spiritualizing the Bible, when he claims that the serpent raised by Moses in the wilderness, pointed to Him? Or Paul, when he claims that the Rock in the wilderness wanderings, was Jesus Christ?

Scripture and the Scriptural authors often make clear that they are finding fuller meaning in Old Testament events and pictures. In years gone by, this aspect of Scripture was widely understood and various types and anti-types were common knowledge. But even beyond the places where Scripture points us to a typological understanding, many Christians recognize that some kind of analogical or typological [or more simply, a spiritual] meaning is warranted. I hold that all of Scripture points to and finds its ultimate meaning in Christ. God as the Architect of and sovereign over all history, can work events such that they foreshadow and typify spiritual realities He will later reveal or make clear. Scripture is thick with this, and we can expect that this is how God operates. Granted we do not have liberty to spiritualize and allegoracalize wherever we see fit. We must be guided in this by Scripture.

In the case at hand, I bring forth four reasons why we should view the land promise as pointing to a spiritual reality.

1) God’s purposeful placing of Israel

In Ezekiel 5 we read:

Thus says the Lord GOD: This is Jerusalem. I have set her in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. (Ezekiel 5:5)

This shows us that the very placing of the land of Israel was intentional, by God. It was not just a plot of land, that God liked, but it was chosen to be central to the known world of the day. This strongly hints that the land had a purpose beyond merely being a home for his people. Rather it was to make Israel a city on a hill, and let it testify of God’s might to the nations all around. So there are aspects of the land which have spiritual and other meanings, beyond mere national turf.

2) The connection between the NT Church and the OT Temple

The NT often presents God’s people (the Church) as a figurative Temple.

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? …God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. (1 Cor. 3:16-17)

…we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (2 Cor. 6:16b)

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Eph. 2:19-22)

In the second passage above, it is interesting to observe that the very promise that God would dwell with His people and be their God is not merely for Abraham and Israel. It is not something only ultimately fulfilled in the time Revelation 21 describes. Rather, it is true now, and for God’s people, the Church. And more, God’s dwelling in His Church today is a fulfillment of those promises quoted in 2 Cor. 6:16 (quoted from Old Testament passages such as Gen. 17:7-8, Ex. 29:45, Lev. 26:12, and Ezek. 37:27).

3) The NT interpretation of the OT Jewish restoration promises

Now the Dispensationalists make much of the many promises in the Old Testament that God would restore Israel, and rebuild the Temple. Since this has not happened yet, they argue, these promises point to a future fulfillment. I won’t discount any future aspect to these promises, but I would like to look closely on how a key promise is interpreted and understood by James, the brother of Jesus and leader of the church at Jerusalem.

Here is the passage in Amos:

“In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old, that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name,” declares the LORD who does this…. “I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I have given them,” says the LORD your God. (Amos 9:11-12, 14-15)

It is pretty obvious that this passage is referring to the restoration of Israel in their land. They are going to be planted on their land, never to be uprooted again. However, see how James understands and applies this passage. James is speaking in the verses below:

Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written, “After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.” Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God…. (Acts 15:14-19)

James was not looking for some future fulfillment of this passage. He saw it being fulfilled now. The growth of the Church was the fulfillment of the rebuilding of the fallen tent of David. Gentiles were turning to God, even as the Church was rising in prominence.

This passage should be important to us as we seek to interpret other restoration passages in the Old Testament. The New Testament has provided a model for how to interpret them. The Church is the new Temple. According to Ephesians 2, the Church and Israel together are “one new man” (cf. Eph. 2:15), and are being built into a single dwelling place for God (see the above quote from Eph. 2:19-22).

I’ve already gone too long for a single post, so I’ll keep the 4th point for next time. We’ll look at the connection between land and rest, and move on to view the Promised Land in perspective with other earthly realms mentioned in Scripture.

Before I go, I should point you to this link, where you can hear an excellent treatment of this topic by blogger Drake Shelton, in a message entitled “The Blossoming of the Land Promise“. If you listen to that message, some of my thunder will be stolen, but I want you to have the link. It’s an excellent treatment of the totality of Scripture in regards to this topic.

Understanding the Land Promise: Part 2

~ fundyreformed ~ 16 Comments

–continuing from yesterday’s post.

The Land Promise Fulfilled?

But was the actual promise fulfilled? Were the boundaries of the land promised in Gen. 15:18-21 ever completely owned by Israel? The dispensationalists say no, and they point to history and the Biblical record of what land Israel possessed. The Philistines and other groups remained in the land such that Israel never truly owned all the land.

However, as  I started studying these claims on my own a few years ago, I came across an article by my friend Nathan Pitchford which pointed out that Scripture Itself declares that the promise of the land was fulfilled. In his article entitled Land, Seed, and Blessing in the Abrahamic Covenant, Nathan pointed me to Joshua 21:43-45. Since then, I’ve also seen this restated in other scriptures, which I will quote below.

So the LORD gave Israel all the land which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they possessed it and lived in it. And the LORD gave them rest on every side, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers, and no one of all their enemies stood before them; the LORD gave all their enemies into their hand. Not one of the good promises which the LORD had made to the house of Israel failed; all came to pass. (Joshua 21:43-45)

So the descendants went in and possessed the land, and you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hand, with their kings and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they would. And they captured fortified cities and a rich land, and took possession of houses full of all good things, cisterns already hewn, vineyards, olive orchards and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate and were filled and became fat and delighted themselves in your great goodness. (Nehemiah 9:24-25)

Blessed be the LORD who has given rest to his people Israel, according to all that he promised. Not one word has failed of all his good promise, which he spoke by Moses his servant. (1 Kings 8:56)

Nathan goes on in  his paper to explore how Abraham himself viewed the land. He was looking for a heavenly city and not satisfied with an earthly inheritance, according to Hebrews 11:10, 13-16. Nathan shows how even in Genesis we can see this heavenward focus  about Abraham. I encourage you to read his paper for more.

In the  next post in this series, I will explore a Scriptural justification for “spiritualizing” the land promise. And I’ll link you to another  resource that may put everything into perspective for you.

Understanding the Land Promise: Part 1

~ fundyreformed ~ 27 Comments

Some of you probably know that I am a former dispensationlist. I have since embraced Covenant Theology, at least in a broad sense. One of the key factors in my change concerning this position centered on the promise of the land.

In my experience, the promise concerning a land for Abraham’s descendants plays a vital role in supporting the claims of Dispensationalism. Since the specific plot of land promised in Genesis 15 has not yet been completely occupied by Israel, we must expect a future literal fulfillment of this promise. This leads to the conclusion that God still has dealings with physical/national Israel and promises He must keep for them, which in turn leads us to understand that God’s plans for the Church are different than His plans for Israel. God thus has two peoples, Israel and the Church, and two purposes (at least) for His interactions with man in this world.

My particular understanding of Dispensationalism included the notion that the church age was basically a parenthesis from his plan for Israel. And that his plans for Israel would be culminated in a physical thousand year reign in which the Temple and its physical sacrifices would be reinstated. Many dispensationalists today do not agree with these particular views, but nevertheless there are many who still hold to them, largely because of their support of Dispensationalism.

Since land was so central to Dispensationalism, when I saw how the New Testament treated the land promise, I soon became more and more convinced that Dispensationalism is flawed, and Covenant Theology or something similar to it, must be the preferred way of understanding how Scripture fits together.

New Testament View of The Land Promise

Compare these verses to the Dispensational understanding of the land promise:

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. (Matt. 5:5)

For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith….. That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring“”not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,… (Rom. 4:13, 16)

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” (Eph. 6:1-3)

Notice that the meek inherit the earth. The very promise given to Abraham concerning the land is promised to his spiritual descendants. And also the Gentile Ephesian children are promised long life in “the land” (or “the earth” as the NASB has it). Compare Eph. 6:3 with the promise as stated in Exodus 20:12b: “that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you.” Paul holds up this promise for the Ephesian Christians.

This NT understanding of the land promise certainly seems to spiritualize the promise [should the Ephesians really expect to live long in Canaan? or should the meek expect to inherit Canaan?] or more properly, to expand it to include the whole world (Rom. 4). And indeed the promise that God would be with Abraham’s descendants, dwell with them and be their God (see Gen. 17:7-8, also Ex. 29:45, Lev. 26:12, and Ez. 37:27) is repeated and realized in Rev. 21:3: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them”. Certainly the New Testament seems to indicate that the land promise points us to this ultimate reality.

In the next posts, I will look at the land promise a little more closely, and provide some links which may prove helpful for further study.