Life in the land of the promise made to Abraham
In one of the most solemn declarations of all time, Yehovah
promised to give to Abraham an entire country. On a mountaintop somewhere
between Bethel and Ai, in the land of Canaan, God commanded "the Father of
the faithful" (Romans 4:16) to "look from the place where you
are, northward, southward, eastward and westward: For the entire
land you are looking at I will give to you and to your descendants forever" (Genesis 13:14, 15). As an additional assurance of God's gift to
him, God then instructed Abraham to "arise, walk through the length and
breadth of the land, for I will give it to you" (Genesis 13:17).
Abraham's conception of the ultimate reward of
faith was firmly linked to the earth. As he looked northward Abraham would have
seen the hills of Judea marking the border with Samaria. Towards the south, the
view extended to Hebron where later the Patriarchs were to be buried in the
only piece of the land ever owned by Abraham. To the east lay the mountains of
Moab and to the west the Mediterranean Sea. God’s oath guaranteed to Abraham
perpetual ownership of a large portion of the earth. Later the promise was
repeated and made the basis of a solemn covenant:
"And I will establish my covenant between me and you, and between
your offspring after you, throughout their generations as an everlasting
covenant to be as God for you and to your offspring after you. And I will
give to you and to your offspring after you the land in which you are living as
an alien, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting property. And I will
be to them as God" (Genesis
17:7, 8).
Traditional Christian theology
has almost no interest in the land promised to Abraham, as can be
seen by inspecting the indexes of standard systematic theologies, Bible
dictionaries, and commentaries. And yet, as Gerhard von Rad says, in the first
six books of the Bible "There is probably no more important idea than that
expressed in terms of the land promised and later granted by Yehovah." The
promise is unique. "Among all the traditions of the world, this is the only
one that tells of a promise of land to a people.” Because the land is
promised on oath Davies suggests that it might more properly be called "The
sworn Land." So compelling was the promise of land to Abraham
that it became "a living power in the life of Israel.” “The promise to
Abraham becomes a ground for ultimate hope.... There is a gospel for Israel in
the Abrahamic covenant." (Cp. Paul's statement that "the gospel
was preached in advance to Abraham," Galatians 3:8) W.D. Davies points out
that large sections of the law make "the divine promise to Abraham the
bedrock on which all the subsequent history rests." Von Rad maintains
that "the whole of the Hexateuch [Genesis to Joshua] in all its vast
complexity was governed by the theme of the fulfillment of the promise to
Abraham in the settlement in Canaan." We might add that the Abrahamic
covenant permeates the whole of Scripture.
That the patriarchs expected to inherit a portion
of this planet is obvious not only from Yehovah’s promises made to them but
also from their zeal to be buried in the land of Israel (Genesis 50:5). The
land promise to Abraham and his offspring runs like a golden thread throughout
the book of Genesis. The key words in the following passages are
"land" "give," "possess," "heir,"
"covenant."
The Promise
to Abraham
"Go to the land I will show you (Genesis
12:1). All the land which you see I will give to you and your offspring forever
(Genesis 13:17). A son coming from your own body will be your heir (Genesis
15:4). I am Yehovah who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees to give you this
land to take possession of it (Genesis 15:7). On that day Yehovah made a
covenant with Abram and said, to your descendants I give this land (Genesis
15:18). I will make nations of you and kings will come from you. I will
establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your
descendants after you, to be your God and the God of your descendants after
you. The whole land of Canaan where you are now an alien, I will give as an
everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you and I will be
their God (Genesis 17:6-8). Abraham will surely become a great and powerful
nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen
him... (Genesis 18:18, 19). Your descendants will take possession of the cities
of their enemies (Genesis 22:17). God promised me on oath, saying, 'to your
offspring, I will give this land' (Genesis 24:7). {Abraham] is a prophet"
(Genesis 20:7).
Isaac
"I will establish my covenant with him as an
everlasting covenant for his descendants after him... My covenant I will
establish with Isaac (Genesis 17:19, 21). Through Isaac, your offspring will be
reckoned (Genesis 21:12). To you and your descendants, I will give all these
lands and will confirm the oath which I swore to your father Abraham (Genesis
26:3).
Jacob
"May God give you and your descendants the
blessing given to Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land where
you now live as an alien, the land God gave to Abraham (Genesis 28:4). I will
give you the land on which you are lying.... I will bring you back to this land
(Genesis 28:13, 15). ...the land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to
you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you" (Genesis
35:12).
The Twelve
Tribes
"God will surely come to your aid and take you
up out of this land to the land He promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob" (Genesis 50:24).
The promise to the nation of Israel received a
primary fulfillment under Joshua's leadership (Joshua 21:45). Long after the
death of the patriarchs, both the Law and the writings of the prophets of
Israel express the conviction that Israel's settlement of the land under Joshua
was only an incomplete fulfillment of the covenant made with Abraham. It was
clear that the patriarchs had never gained possession of the land. A further
and final fulfillment was to be expected. The point is a simple one with
momentous implications for New Testament Christians who become heirs to the
Abrahamic covenant. Von Rad points out that
"Promises which have been fulfilled in history
are not thereby exhausted of their content but remain as promises on a
different level...." "The tradition, however, changed, continued
to contain the hope of life in the land. Deuteronomy makes it clear
that there is still a future to look forward to: the land has to achieve rest
and peace.... The land looks forward to a future blessing."
Thus, in the Old Testament the hope of an ultimate
and permanent settlement in the land, accompanied by peace, remains in view:
"My people shall live in peaceful dwelling
places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest" (Isaiah 32:18).
"...descendants from Jacob and Judah...will
possess My mountains [i.e., the land]; My chosen people will inherit them and
there will My servants live" (Isaiah 65:9).
"Then all your people will be righteous, and
they will inherit the land forever" (Isaiah 60:21).
"Israel will possess a double portion in their
land; everlasting joy will be theirs" (Isaiah 61:7).
"Thus, they shall inherit the land a second
time, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads" (Isaiah 61:7, LXX).
"But the man who makes me his refuge will
inherit the land and possess my holy mountain" (Isaiah 57:13).
"The righteous shall never be removed: but the
wicked will not inherit the land" (Proverbs 10:30).
"Dwell in the land and enjoy safe
pasture.... The meek will inherit the land and enjoy great
peace... The inheritance of the blameless will endure forever.... Those Yehovah
blesses will inherit the land... Turn from evil and do good, then you will
dwell in the land forever... The righteous will inherit the land and
dwell in it forever... God will exalt you to inherit the land; when the wicked
are cut off you will see it... [Note carefully that the righteous should
not expect to inherit the land before the wicked are cut off. There is a
caution for dominion and reconstructionist theologies here!] There is a future
for the man of peace" (Psalm 37:3, 11, 18, 22, 27, 29, 34, 37).
"The days are coming, declares Yehovah, when I
will bring my people Israel and Judah back from captivity and restore them to
the land, I gave their forefathers to possess" (Jeremiah 30:3).
The integrity of Yehovah's word is at stake in this
question of the future of the promised land. It was obvious to all that Abraham
had never received the fulfillment of the covenant promise that he would
possess the land. Moses was not allowed to enter the promised land and Israel
was eventually expelled from her homeland.
Based on the Abrahamic covenant,
however, the faithful in Israel clung with passionate tenacity to the
expectation that the land of Israel would indeed become the scene of ultimate
salvation. That hope remained as the beacon light not only of the prophets but
also of the original Christian faith as preached by Jesus and the Apostles; until
it was extinguished by the intrusion of a non-territorial hope; "heaven
when you die."
A non-biblical view of the future, divorced from
the land and the earth, was promoted by Gentiles unsympathetic to the heritage
of Israel, for whom the promise of the land to Abraham was the foundation of
the nation’s deepest aspirations. In direct contradiction of Jesus, the
pagan-influenced Gentile church father’s Christianity has substituted
"heaven at death" for the biblical promise of life in the
land God promised Abraham. The message of Jesus' famous beatitude,
"Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the land" (Matthew 5:5)
can no longer be heard above the din of endless funeral sermons announcing that
the dead have gone to heaven!
Gentile antipathy to the covenant made with Abraham
has rendered large parts of the Old Testament meaningless to churchgoers. Worse
still, it has put the New Testament under a fog of confusion, since the New
relies for its basic understanding of the Christian faith on the promises of
God given to Israel through Abraham. All the major doctrines of the faith
are adversely affected when the Abrahamic Covenant is disregarded or
misinterpreted.
The "murder of the [Old Testament biblical]
text" by critical scholarship was later equally responsible for the
suppression of the biblical hope of "life in the land" based on the
promise made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, promises which according to Paul,
Jesus came to "confirm" or "guarantee" (Romans 15:7). Fragmenting
the Old Testament text in the interests of a theory of composition, scholarship
lost sight of what James Dunn calls the Pauline presupposition about the
authority of Scripture, "that a single mind and purpose (God's) inspired
the several writings [the Scriptures]."
After nearly two thousand years
of uncomprehending Gentile commentary, the promise to Abraham of progeny,
blessing and land must be reinstated as the coherent and
unifying theme of New Testament faith in God and the Messiah and the essential
core of the Christian Gospel of the Kingdom of God. The Gospel rests on the
promise to Abraham that in the Messiah all the faithful will possess the land
forever (Matthew 5:5, Revelation 5:10). Not only will they possess the land,
but that "future inhabited earth" will be under the authority of the
Messiah and the saints (Hebrews2:5). This concept is what the writer to the
Hebrews calls the "greatness" or "importance" of salvation
which we ought not to neglect:
"How shall we escape if we disregard so great
a salvation.... For God did not put the coming society on earth under the
authority of angels but the Son of Man" (Hebrews 2:5ff.)
The results of the inexorable process of
dismantling the divine Revelation to Abraham can be seen in the comments of
the Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 13:14, 15. The problem for
the commentator (who sees no relevance in the land promises for Christians) is
to reconcile God's declaration, "I will give the land to you
[Abraham]" with the assertion made by Stephen some two thousand years
later that God "did not give Abraham any inheritance [in
the land of Palestine]; not even a square foot of land, but he promised to
give it to him as a possession [kataschesis; cp. LXX Gen. 17:8, 'everlasting
possession'] and to his descendants with him." How is the apparent
contradiction to be resolved? The Pulpit Commentary offers two
solutions. Firstly a retranslation so that the promise of Genesis 13:15 reads:
"To you I will give the land, that is to say, to your descendants."
In this way the failure of Abraham to receive the land personally will be
explained: God promised it only to his descendants and they received it under
Joshua. But this is no solution at all. Throughout God's dealings with
Abraham, the promise of land to the Patriarch himself is repeatedly made. Genesis
13:17 reads: "Walk through the length and breadth of the land; to you I
will give it." Abraham would have every right to complain if this were to
mean that he personally should not expect to inherit the promised land!
The commentary offers a second way around the
difficulty. It maintains that the land did in fact belong to Abraham during his
lifetime. "The land was really given to Abram as a nomadic chief, in the
sense that he peacefully lived for many years, grew old, and died within its
borders." However, this is to contradict the emphatic biblical
assertions that Abraham definitely did not possess the land. Genesis 17:8
specifically reports that God said to Abraham:
"And I will establish my covenant between me
and you and your descendants after you in their generations to be a God to you
and your seed after you. And I will give to you and to your
seed after you the land in which you are a stranger-all the land of Canaan for
an everlasting possession" (Genesis 17: 7, 8).
These, then, are the biblical
premises:
Abraham is to possess the land forever. He lived out his life as a stranger
owning none of the land (except for a small piece of property bought from the
Hittites as a burial site for Sarah, Genesis 23:3-20). Abraham himself
confessed to the Hittite inhabitants of Canaan: "I am an alien and a
stranger among you" (Genesis 23:4). As the New Testament witnesses:
"God gave Abraham no inheritance here [in Palestine], not even a foot of
ground. But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would
possess the land" (Acts 7:5, NIV).
How then is the covenant grant of land to Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob to be fulfilled? The answer to the problem throws a flood of light on
the Christianity of the New Testament. There is only one way in which
the Covenant can be realized: by the future resurrection of Abraham,
enabling him to inherit the promised land forever. To Abraham and his descendants,
the land belongs forever by covenant-oath. Abraham died. Abraham must
therefore rise from the dead to receive the "land of the promise,"
which is Canaan, the land to which he ventured forth from Babylon and in which
he lived as a foreigner. The promise to Abraham will be fulfilled,
as Jesus said, when "...many will come from the east and the west and will
take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the
prophets in the Kingdom of God" (Matthew 8:11 and Luke 13:28, 29).
The absolute necessity for resurrection in the
divine plan was the point of Jesus' important interchange with the Sadducees,
who did not believe in any resurrection and thus denied the covenant hope of
life in the land for the Patriarchs and all the faithful. Jesus' response to
their inadequate understanding of eschatology and consequent failure to believe
in the future resurrection of the faithful to inherit the land involved a stern
rebuke that they had departed from God's revelation:
"You are in error because
you do not know the Scripture or the power of God. At the resurrection people
will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in
heaven. But about the resurrection of the dead; have you not read what God said
to you: 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is
not the God of the dead but of the living" (Matthew 22:29-32).
The logic of Jesus' argument was
simply that, since Abraham Isaac and Jacob were then dead, they must live
again through resurrection in the future so that their relationship with the
living God could be restored and they could receive what the covenant had
guaranteed them.
Hebrews
The Book of Hebrews expounds the drama of Abraham's
faith in the great promises of God making a future resurrection the only
solution to the mystery of Abraham's failure as yet ever to own the land.
"By faith Abraham when called to go to a
place he would later receive as his inheritance..." (Hebrews
8:11).
So, the story begins. Abraham's inheritance, we
observe, is to be the "place to which he was called," i.e., the land
of Canaan. This is exactly what the Genesis account describes. That very land
Abraham was destined to receive "later," but how much later we are
not yet told. The writer continues: "By faith, Abraham made his home in
the land of the promise like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived
in tents as did Isaac and Jacob who were heirs with him of the same
promise" (Hebrews 11:8, 9). Abraham, Isaac Jacob and other heroes of
faith "died in faith not having received the things promised; they only
saw them and welcomed them from a distance and admitted that they were aliens
and strangers in the land (v. 13). Note that the wrong idea is
suggested by our versions when they translate "in the land" as
"on the earth," giving the impression that the Patriarchs were
expecting to go to heaven! However, the point is that people who say they are
aliens in the land "show that they are looking for a country of their
own" (Hebrews 11:13, 14), i.e., the same land renewed under the promised
government of the Messiah.
The important truth about the
land promise has been rescued by George Wesley Buchanan:
"This promise-rest-inheritance was
inextricably tied to the land of Canaan, which is the place where the
Patriarchs wandered as sojourners (Hebrews 11:13). It was called the
land of the promise (Hebrews 11:9) and the heavenly country (Hebrews 11:16) ....
This does not mean that it is not on earth any more than the sharers in the
heavenly calling (Hebrews 3:1) who had tasted the heavenly gift (Hebrews 6:4)
were not those who lived on earth. Indeed, it was the very land on which the
patriarchs dwelt as 'strangers and wanderers' (Hebrews 11:13). ['Heavenly']
means that it is a divine land which God himself has promised."
"Heaven"
will be on earth.
It is important to note the evasion by popular
Christianity of the implications of Hebrews 11:8, 9. To preserve the
tradition that heaven is the reward of the faithful, it is argued that the
geographical land of Canaan is a type of "heaven" to be gained at
death. However, this New Testament passage specifically says that Abraham
actually lived in the place designated as his future inheritance. "He made
his home in the promised land" (Hebrews 11:9, NIV) and this was on the
earth! "Heaven," therefore, in the Bible is to be a place on this
planet, our own earth renewed and restored. The promised land in this
New Testament comment on the Old is still the geographical Canaan and it is
precisely that territory which Abraham died without receiving. Resurrection in
the future is the only path by which the Patriarch can achieve his goal and
possess the land which he has never owned. Indeed, as Hebrews emphasizes, none
of the distinguished faithful "received what had been promised"-the
inheritance of the promised land (Hebrews 11:13, 39). They died in faith fully
expecting later to receive their promised possession of the land. This is a
very far cry from the idea, which so many have accepted under the pressure of
post-biblical tradition, that the Patriarchs have already gone to their reward
in heaven. Such a theory invites the rebuke of Paul who complained that some
had "wandered away from the truth" by saying that "the
resurrection has taken place already" (2 Timothy 2:18). The loss of
faith in the future resurrection destroys the fabric of biblical faith.
Paul and
Abraham
Paul treats the story of Abraham as the model of
Christian faith with no hint that Abraham's inheritance is different from that
of every Christian believer. In fact, the very opposite is true: Abraham is
"the father of all who believe" (Romans 4:11) Abraham demonstrated
Christian faith by believing in God's plan to grant him land, progeny, and
blessing forever. Abraham's faith was demonstrated in his willingness to
respond to the divine initiative; to believe God's declaration of His plan to give
Abraham and his descendants the land forever. This is the essence of biblical
faith. Justification means believing like Abraham in what God has promised to
do (Romans 4:3, 13). This entails more than the death and resurrection of
Jesus. Apostolic faith requires belief in the ongoing divine plan in history,
including the divinely revealed future. Grasping what God is doing
in world history enables a man to attune his life to God in the Messiah. A
Christian according to Paul is one who "follows in the footsteps of the
faith of our father Abraham" (Romans 3:12). Abraham's faith "was
characterized by (or based on) a hope which was determined solely by the
promise of God... Abraham's faith was firm confidence in God as the one who
determines the future according to what he has promised." So Jesus
summons us to faith, first of all, in the Gospel of the Kingdom of God (Mark
1:14, 15; cp. Acts 8:12) which is to be nothing less than the final fulfillment
of the covenant made with Abraham and his (spiritual) offspring. Paul defines
the promise. It was that Abraham should be "heir of the world" (Romans
4:13). As James Dunn says:
"The idea of 'inheritance' was a fundamental
part of the Jewish understanding of their covenant relationship with God, above
all, indeed almost exclusively, in connection with the land; the
land of Canaan theirs by right of inheritance as promised to Abraham... [This
is] one of the most emotive themes in Jewish national self-identity.... Central
to Jewish self-understanding was the conviction that Israel was Yehovah's inheritance…
Integral to the national faith was the conviction that God had given Israel
the inheritance of Palestine, the promised land. It is this axiom, which Paul
evokes and refers to the new Christian movement as a whole,
Gentiles as well as Jews. They are the heirs of God. Israel's
special relationship with God has been extended to all in the Messiah. And the
promise of the land has been transformed into the promise of the Kingdom...
That inheritance of the Kingdom, full citizenship under the rule of God alone,
is something still awaited by believers.
Paul links the Christian faith
directly to the promise made to Abraham. As Dunn says:
"The degree to which Paul's argument is
determined by the current self-understanding of his own people is clearly
indicated by his careful wording which picks up four key elements in that
self-understanding: the covenant promise to Abraham and his seed, the
inheritance of the land as its central element.... It had become
almost a commonplace of Jewish teaching that the covenant promised that
Abraham's seed would inherit the earth.... The promise thus interpreted was
fundamental to Israel's self-consciousness as God's covenant people: It was the
reason why God had chosen them in the first place from among all the nations of
the earth, the justification for holding themselves distinct from other
nations, and the comforting hope that made their current national humiliation
endurable...."
Dunn goes on:
"...Paul's case...reveals the strong
continuity he saw between his faith and the fundamental promise of his people's
Scriptures... Paul had no doubt that the Gospel he proclaimed was a
continuation and fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham. But he was
equally clear that the heirs of Abraham's promise were no longer to be
identified in terms of the law. Genesis 15:6 showed with sufficient clarity
that the promise was given and accepted through faith, quite apart from the law
in whole or in part."
The point to be grasped is that Paul does not
question the content of the promise. How could he without overthrowing the
whole revelation given by the Bible? The territorial promise was clearly and
repeatedly spelled out in the Genesis account and was his people's most
cherished national treasure: To faithful Israel, represented first by Abraham,
God had given assurance that they would inherit the land. Paul
introduces a revolutionary new fact- that this grand promise is open to all who
believe in the Messiah as the seed of Abraham. For it was to Messiah, as Abraham's
seed, that the promises were made, as well as to Abraham himself. Gentile
Christians, if they believe the promise of the Messiah, may claim a full share in
the same promised inheritance. Paul reaches a triumphant moment in his argument
when he declares to his Gentile readers that "if you are in the
Messiah then you count as Abraham's descendants and are heirs [of the world,
Romans 4:13] according to the promise [made to Abraham]" (Genesis 3:29).
The promises, however, are certain only, as Paul says,
to "those who are of the faith of Abraham" (Romans 4:16), i.e., those
whose faith is of the same type as his, resting on the same promises. Hence
Paul speaks of the need for Christians to be "sons of Abraham" (Galatians
3:7), "seed of Abraham" (Galatians 3:29, Romans 4:16), and to reckon
Abraham as their father (Romans 4:11), to walk in his steps (Romans 4:12) and
consider him the model of Christian faith (Galatians 3:9), because the Gospel
had been preached to him in advance (Galatians 3:8). But how much do we now
hear about the Gospel about the coming Kingdom of God as defined by the
promises made to Abraham? The "blessing given to Abraham" (Galatians
3:14) which is now available to both Jews and Gentiles in the Messiah is
described by Genesis 28:4. It is to "take possession of the land, where
you now live as an alien, the land God gave to Abraham." Speaking
to Gentile Christians, Paul states that "the blessing given to
Abraham" (exactly the phrase found in Genesis 28:4) has now come to the
believers in the Messiah (Galatians 3:14).
We mustn't add alien material
to Paul's exposition of God's salvation plan. The promise to Abraham and to his
offspring is that he and they are to be "heir of the world" (Romans
4:13). Paul has not abandoned the account in Genesis from which he quotes
explicitly (Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6 from Genesis 15:9). Since the promised
land of Canaan would be the center of the Messianic government it was obvious
that inheritance of the land implied inheritance of the world. But the
promise remains geographical and territorial corresponding exactly with Jesus'
promise to the meek that they would "inherit the land/earth" (Matthew
5:5), His belief that Jerusalem would be the city of the Great King (Matthew
5:35), and that believers would administer a New World Order with Him (Matthew
19:28; Luke 22:28-30; Revelation 2:26, 3:21, 5:10, 20:1-6). In short,
the promise of the land, which is fundamental to the Christian Gospel, is now
the promise of the Kingdom of God; the renewed "inhabited earth of the
future" (Hebrews 2:5), which is not to be subject to angels but to the
Messiah and the saints, the "Israel of God" (Galatians 6:16) who are
heirs of the covenant. Such a hope corresponds exactly with the hope
of the Hebrew prophets. J. Skinner observes that "the main point [of
Jeremiah's hope for the future] is that in some sense a restoration of the
Israelite nationality was the form in which he conceived the Kingdom of
God." Paul in Romans 11:25, 26 expected a collective conversion of the
nation of Israel at the Second Coming. The Church, however, in Paul's thinking,
would be leaders in the Messianic Kingdom (I Corinthians 6:2, 2 Timothy 2:12).
In this way the Abrahamic Covenant guarantees a part in the Messianic Kingdom
for all who now believe the Gospel and it assures us that there will be a
collective return to the Messiah on the part of a remnant of the nation of
Israel (Romans 11:25-27). This hope is seen clearly in Acts 1:6, where the
Apostles asked when the promised restoration of Israel might be expected. Since
they were hoping to be kings in the Kingdom, and the holy spirit (Acts 1:5) was
the special endowment of kings, they naturally expected an immediate advent of
the Kingdom. In His mercy, God has extended the period of repentance.
Worldwide
Inheritance
It was common to Jewish thinking and Paul, as well
as to the whole New Testament that the whole world was involved in the promise
made to Abraham that he would inherit "the land of the promise." This
is seen in biblical and extra-biblical texts:
Psalm 2:6: "I have installed my King on
Zion... Ask of Me [God] and I will make the nations your [Messiah's]
inheritance and the ends of the earth your possession. You will rule then with
an iron scepter; you will dash them to pieces like pottery" (See Revelation
12:5 and 2:26, 27-the latter passage includes the Christians in the same
promise).
Jubilees 22:14: "May [God] strengthen you, and
may you inherit all the earth."
Jubilees 32:19: "And there will be kings from
you [Jacob]. They will rule everywhere that the tracks of mankind have
been trod. And I will give your seed all the land under heaven, and
they will rule in all nations as they have desired."
I Enoch 5:7: "But to the elect, there shall be
light, joy, and peace, and they shall inherit the earth."
4 Ezra 6:59: "If the world has indeed
been created for us, why do we not possess our world as an inheritance. How
long will this be so?"
2 Baruch 14:12, 13: "The righteous...are
confident of the world which you have promised to them with an expectation full
of joy."
2 Baruch 51:3: "[The righteous] will receive
the world which is promised to them."
Paul's definition of the promise to Abraham that he
"would be heir to the world" (Romans 4:13) fits naturally into texts
such as these and is implied by the covenant made with Abraham. Henry Alford
comments on the connection between Paul's view of the future and Jewish hopes:
"The Rabbis already had seen, and Paul who had
been brought up in their learning, held fast to the truth, that much more was
intended in the words 'in you, or in your seed shall all the families of the
earth be blessed,' than the mere possession of Canaan. They distinctly trace the
gift of the world to this promise. The inheritance of the world... is
that ultimate lordship over the whole world which Abraham, as the father of the
faithful in all peoples, and Christ, as the Seed of promise, shall possess...."
H.A.W. Meyer notes that to be the "seed of
Abraham" meant that one was destined to have "dominion over
the world," based on Genesis 22:17ff: "Your descendants
shall gain possession of the gates [i.e., towns] of their enemies." With
this promise in mind, Jesus envisages the faithful assuming authority over
urban populations (Luke 19:17, 19).
The International Critical Commentary on
Romans 4:13 speaks of the promise that Abraham's seed [in Christ]
should "enjoy worldwide dominion” "the right to universal
dominion which will belong to the Messiah and His people," and "the
promise made to Abraham and his descendants of worldwide Messianic rule." Something
of the fervor of Israel for the land may be seen in the 14th and 18th
Benedictions repeated in the Synagogue since AD 70:
"Be merciful, O Lord our God, in your great
mercy towards Israel Your people and towards Jerusalem, and towards Zion the
abiding place of your glory, and towards your temple and your habitation, and
towards the kingdom of the house of David, thy righteous anointed one. Blessed
are you, O lord God of David, the builder of Jerusalem your city."
"Bestow your peace upon Israel your people and upon Thy city and upon your
inheritance, and bless us, all of us together. Blessed are you, O Lord, who makes
peace."
Even where the land is not mentioned directly, the
land is implied in the city and the Temple which became the quintessence of the
hope for salvation. Exactly the same hope is reflected in the New
Testament:
"The Lord [Yehovah] God will give [Jesus] the
throne of His father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his
Kingdom will never end" (Luke 1:32)
"[God] has helped His servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as He
said to our fathers" (Luke 1:55).
"[God] has raised up a horn [political
dominion] in the house of His servant David...to show mercy to our fathers and
to remember his holy covenant, the oath He swore to our father Abraham"
(Luke 1:69, 72, 73).
"[Simeon] was waiting for the consolation of
Israel" (Luke 2:25).
"[Anna] gave thanks to God and spoke about the
child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem"
(Luke 2:38).
"Blessed is the coming Kingdom of our father
David" (Mark 11:10).
"Joseph of Arimathea [a disciple of Jesus
i.e., a follower of Jesus, Matthew 27:57], a prominent member of the
Council..., was himself waiting for the Kingdom of God" (Mark 15:43).
"We [disciples of Jesus] had hoped that
[Jesus] was the one who was going to redeem Israel" (Luke 24:21).
The Apostles asked: "Is this the time that you
are going to restore the Kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6.)
"It is because of my hope in what God
has promised our fathers that I am on trial today. This is the promise our
twelve tribes are hoping to see fulfilled as they earnestly serve God day and
night" (Acts 26:6,7).
The Bible does not for a moment
abandon or replace these hopes based on the great covenant made with Abraham. The
disciples closest to Jesus, who were the products of his careful tuition over
several years and for six weeks after the resurrection (Acts 1:3), obviously
look forward the "restoration of the Kingdom to Israel" (Acts 1:6).
It had not entered their heads to abandon the territorial hopes of the prophets.
Paul insists that he is on trial "because of my hope in what God
has promised our fathers. This is the promise our twelve tribes are hoping
to see fulfilled as they earnestly serve God day and night" (Acts 26:6).
The nature of this hope is expressed in a Rabbinical saying of the third
century reflecting the ancient expectation of life in the land held in common
with the New Testament:
"Why did the patriarchs
long for burial in the land of Israel? Because the dead of the land of Israel
will be the first to be resurrected in the days of Messiah and to enjoy the
years of Messiah" (Gen. Rabbah, 96:5)
Paul's statement in Acts 26:6,7 (above) expressly
defines the Apostolic Christian hope as the same as the hope held by the
ancient synagogue -- the prospect of worldwide dominion for the faithful in the
Messiah's kingdom. New Testament Christianity confirms this interest in the
unfulfilled promises to the patriarchs with its expectation of a restoration of
the Kingdom to Israel. Jesus promises the land to the meek (Matthew 5:5) and
locates the Kingdom of the future "on the earth" or perhaps "in
the land" (Revelation 5:10). It makes little difference whether we render
"epi tes gys" "in the land" or "on the
earth," because the Kingdom is destined to extend to the "uttermost
parts of the earth" (Psalm 2:8). The promise to Abraham is to be fulfilled
in the Messiah when the latter is invited to "Ask of me [God] and I will
make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession"
(Psalm 2:7, 8). All these blessings are contained in Paul's phrase
"inheritance of the world" (Romans 4:13) which he sees as the essence
of the promise made to Abraham-the promise to which Gentile believers should
cling since in Christ they are equally entitled to it:
"If you are the Messiah's, then you are
Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise" (Galatians 3:29).
"Heaven"
References in the New Testament to
"heaven" are limited to contexts in which the future reward of
believers is said to be preserved now as treasure with God in heaven.
"Heaven" as a place removed from the earth is, however, never the destination
of the believer in the Bible; neither at death nor at the resurrection.
Christians must now identify with their reward, at present stored up in heaven
for them, so that they may receive it when Jesus brings it to the earth at His
Second Coming (Colossians 1:5, I Peter 1;4, 5). That reward was made known to
the converts when the Christian Gospel of the Kingdom of God was preached to
them (Matthew 1:14, 15; Luke 4:43; Acts 8:12, 19:8, 20:25, 28:23,31). Belief
in the Gospel in Apostolic times was not confined to belief in the death and
resurrection of Jesus but included the whole invitation to prepare for a place
in Messiah's worldwide dominion to be realized on earth.
The situation is very different today when little
or nothing is preached about inheriting the earth with Jesus. There is an
urgent need for believers to heed Paul's warning not to be "moved away
from the hope held out in the Gospel" (Colossians 1:23). The loss of the
Kingdom in the Gospel is symptomatic of the loss of the roots of Christianity in
the Old Testament.
Faith in
God's World Plan
Nonsense is made of the New Testament scheme, and
God's plan in world history, when it is proposed that the Christian destiny is
to be enjoyed in a location removed from the earth. This destroys at a blow the
promises made to Abraham and his descendants (i.e., the Messiah and the
faithful) that they are to inherit the land and the world. The
substitution of "heaven" at death for the reward of inheriting the
earth nullifies the covenant made with Abraham. That covenant is the foundation
of the New Testament faith. The repeated offer of "heaven" in popular
preaching renders meaningless the whole hope of the prophets (based on the
Abrahamic promise) that the world is going to enjoy an unparalleled era of
blessing and peace under the just rule of the Messiah and the resurrected
faithful-those who believe in "the Kingdom of God and the name [i.e., the
Messiahship and all that this entails] of Jesus," and who are baptized in
response to that early creed in Acts 8:12:
"When they believed Philip
as he proclaimed the Gospel about the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus the
Messiah, they were being baptized both men and women."
This text remains a model for evangelism and calls
the contemporary church back to its roots in the Covenant made with "the
father of the faithful" which can be fulfilled only in Messiah Jesus. For
the fulfillment of that plan, we are to pray, "Your Kingdom come,"
and strive to conduct ourselves "worthy of God who is calling us into His
Kingdom and glory" (I Thessalonians 2:12). The truth about our Christian
destiny will be reinstated when we return to the biblical language about
"entering the Kingdom," "inheriting the earth" (Matthew
5:5), and ruling on earth (Revelation 5:10 The way will then be open for us to
understand that Christianity is a call to Kingship and that a saint – holy one
is one appointed to rule on the earth in the coming Kingdom of the Messiah, as
a co-ruler with him. (Daniel 7:18, 22, 27).
"The general tenor of prophecy and the analogy
of the divine dealings point unmistakably to this earth, purified and
renewed, and not to the heavens in any ordinary sense of the term, as
the eternal habitation of the blessed."
"May God give you the blessing of Abraham my
father, to you and to your seed with you-the inheritance of the land in which
you now reside as a foreigner, the land which God gave to Abraham"
(Jacob).
"The blessing of Abraham [will come] to the
Gentiles in the Messiah."
The above article was taken from:
http://focusonthekingdom.org/articles/christianhope.htm
(This article appeared in A Journal from the
Radical Reformation,
Vol. 2, No. 4.)
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