The land of promise finds its realization in Jesus: not in types and shadows
Covenant theology saw redemptive history in terms of one overarching covenant of grace—with the various biblical covenants as administrations of the one covenant,
The church “replaces” Old Testament Israel, inheriting her promises of land and rest from enemies as the spiritual blessings of peace, forgiveness of sins, the indwelling Holy Spirit, and eternity in heaven.
(Russell D. Moore, “Personal and Cosmic Eschatology,” in A Theology for the Church (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2014),689)
The Bible, by contrast, is a unity because it is the record of a progressive revelation of the will of God for humankind’s salvation. The Bible is, in short, a “gospel” in the fullest sense of the word.
The theology of land, then, provides a basis for the NT doctrine of adoption; It was as God’s sons that the people of Israel received their inheritance. The link is most explicit in Romans 8:14–25, which also links the theology of the land with the theology of creation. Both the creation mandate to “fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 1:28), and the theology of the land in the OT find their ultimate fulfillment in the new creation brought together under Christ.
This is an important point. The flow of redemptive history as traced through the biblical covenants reaches its telos in Christ.
What our Lord has inaugurated does not go back to the types and patterns of old; it transforms and fulfills them.
This is especially crucial to note in regard to the land. When it comes to the future, dispensational theology, at least on the land issue, tends to go backward in redemptive history instead of forward. But as Robertson states well, in the new creation
“The old covenant’s promise of land finds its new covenant realization.”
Rather, the entire New Testament announces that in Jesus, the last Adam and true Israel, our inheritance is nothing less than the new creation, which has already arrived in the dawning of the new covenant in individual Christians (2 Cor. 5:17; Eph. 2:8–10) and in the church (Eph. 2:11–21) and will yet be consummated when Christ returns and ushers in the new creation in its fullness (Rev.21: 21–22).
This makes perfect sense if we place the entire land discussion in the flow of redemptive history as viewed through the biblical covenants. Christ, who is Lord over the whole world, inherits as a result of his work the entire world.
“He is the Messiah of Israel, but his rule also extends far beyond the borders of the original promised land (e.g., Phil. 2:10; cf. 1 Cor. 3:22–23; Eph. 1:10).”
The gulf of sin separates creation from redemption. The relationship also exhibits harmony. Redemption is not against creation. It is against sin. Furthermore, there is progress and advancement. Creation was “very good.” Redemption is superior to very good.
The restoration achieved in redemption is not retrogressive. It doesn’t take man back to pre-fall Eden. It produces something better than Eden.
God restores sinless hearts, but not pre-fall innocence. The end result of redemption is greater than original creation minus sin. In sum, the relation between creation and redemption displays harmony and improvement. (Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants, Second Edition. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 677,836,837.)
William Farel: “We are restored to a state more noble than what was ever before the sin of Adam in Paradise; not that which is terrestrial, but celestial; not to a life corporeal, corruptible, and that can be lost, but spiritual, without corruption, and which can never be lost.” In Dennison Jr., ed., Reformed Confessions, 1:57.(Curt Daniel, The History and Theology of Calvinism (Darlington, Co Durham: EP Books, 2019), 263–268.)
It was God’s plan for extending his redemptive designs to all believers, from all nations. In extending his grace to Abraham, God was establishing the beginnings of the church, the community of grace.
Beyond the benefits of grace accorded to individuals such as Abraham, David, the prophets, and later the apostles by virtue of their call, loomed the potential of their contributions to the fulfillment of the covenant of God on behalf of the community of those who share the faith of Abraham, the church.
In the gracious dealings of God with Israel, with its patriarchs and its leaders, God was laying the basis for his outreach of grace to the church universal.
God’s gracious interventions in the old covenant were intended to manifest the ultimacy of the church in his redemptive purposes. In the exercise of their ministries, the prophets of the old covenant knew that they were serving not themselves but the church (1 Pt 1:10–12). (Gilbert Bilezikian, “Grace,” Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 899.)
The objective action of God was for the patriarchs interlinked with the three great promises. These were first, the chosen family would be made into a great nation; secondly, that the land of Canaan would be their possession; thirdly, that they were to become a blessing for all people
Next to the objectivity of these three things promised, we notice as the third important feature of the revelation, that it emphasizes most strongly, both in word and act, the absolute monergism of the divine power in accomplishing the things promised; otherwise expressed, the strict supernaturalism of the procedure towards fulfilling the promises.
Abraham was not permitted to do anything through his own strength or resources to realize what the promise set before him.
Abraham was not allowed to acquire any possession in the land of promise. Yet he was rich and might easily have done so. But God Himself intended to fulfil this promise also without the co-operation of the patriarch; and Abraham seems to have had some apprehension of this, for he explains his refusal to accept any of the spoils from the king of Sodom by the fear lest the latter should say, ‘I have made Abram rich’ [Gen. 14:21–23].(Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2003), 80,81.)
The often repeated description of the land as ‘flowing with milk and honey’ reveals that the land which the Israelites are about to enter is a new paradise (see Deut. 6:3; 11:9–12; 26:9, 15; 27:3; 31:20; cf. Exod. 3:8, 17; 13:5; 33:3; Lev. 20:24; Num. 13:27; 14:8; 16:13–14;). This is a theological rather than an agricultural point; Israel’s land is so good because it is the long-awaited gift of God in fulfilment of his promise. The promise of land guarantees the restoration of intimacy with God in terms which recall the description of Eden.
Jesus draws explicitly on a promise of land from Psalm. 37 (Matt. 5:5). A similar idea, this time couched in terms of inheritance, appears in Matthew 25:34. Gary Burge has argued that the imagery in John. 15, and Jesus’ injunctions to ‘abide in me’, point to the fulfilment of the land motif in the OT in the person of Jesus himself (G. M. Burge, ‘Territorial Religion, Johannine Christology, and the Vineyard in John 15’, in J. B. Green and M. Turner (eds.), Jesus of Nazareth, Lord and Christ [Carlisle and Grand Rapids, 1994], pp. 384–396).
It is not only Jesus who uses such ideas. Paul’s understanding of the church as a community of both Jews and Gentiles is based on his reading of the OT teaching on land. He too draws on the inheritance theme, in Colossians 1:13–14, in explaining the nature of salvation in Christ, as does Peter in 1 Peter 1:3–5.
The inheritance in Christ is no doubt different from the land received and lost by Israel, but it is greater, not less, than that land.
J. G. Millar, “Land,” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, ed. T. Desmond Alexander and Brian S. Rosner, electronic ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 623,627.
The escape from Egypt is a faith event. It is the crucial event of the whole Hebrew tradition. It is also the source of all the biblical language about salvation and liberation, including the theology of the Cross. Its importance for Christians, as well as for Jews, cannot be exaggerated.
Since its importance is chiefly theological, we should begin not with its historicity but with its theology. To take this approach is not to imply that the actual historical facts, if they can indeed be verified, should be ignored, but to recognize that in the eyes of Hebrew faith the escape from Egypt happened just as it is recorded in the Torah. From this point certain themes emerge:
The escape from Egypt is the responsibility and initiative of the God of the Hebrews. In this event, Yahweh keeps his promises to the patriarchs, creates a people for himself, and punishes Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt.
All Hebrew ancestry leads up to it, and all subsequent Hebrew history flows from it.
The Hebrews do not fight in their own cause; they are not allowed to do so. They do little physically to help themselves and nothing by way of aggression or even self-defense. God does the fighting, and nature is his ally—water, fire, cloud, the plagues, the whole cosmic panoply.
This signals the beginning of a theology of nonviolence that reaches its culmination in the Old Testament in the Servant Songs of Isaiah 40–55 and that dominates all other theologies of human action when it reaches the New Testament.
God will fight for his people, not they for themselves. Eventually that fight will culminate in the Cross of Christ.
(G. W. Ashby, Go out and Meet God: A Commentary on the Book of Exodus, International Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Edinburgh: Wm. B. Eerdmans; Handsel Press, 1998), 62–64.)
Justification is always and everywhere in Scripture a declaration of God, not on the basis of an actually existing condition of our being righteous, but on the basis of a gracious imputation of God that is contradicted by our condition.
Geerhardus Vos, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr., trans. Richard B. Gaffin Jr., vol. 4 (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012–2016), 22.
As the miracles were to be revelatory of his own nature and the glory of God when he himself performed them, so were they to be revelatory of the glory of God already in the Old Testament. Then Elijah on Mount Carmel prayed for fire to come down to devour his sacrifice, he not only prayed that God would corroborate the truth of his words, but he also prayed that by the miracle it might appear that God was great, that he was the only God that could cause the fire to burn … “Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel …” (1 Kgs 18:36) This glory of God had been primarily displayed in the fact that God had with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm redeemed his people.
When God speaks we must accept the truth at his word. When God acts, we must see the fact that he acts in these acts themselves.
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