Understanding the Land Promise: Part 6

As is frequently the case, when publishing a series of posts on my blog, I encounter a lot of comments and counterpoints. This can sidetrack me and lead toward my leaving a series unfinished. Of course there are other reasons for my nack for leaving series unfinished…. I do want to interact with some of the comments under my little excursus post, but for now, I feel we need to continue from part 5, and make my position fully clear.  I do not claim perfection and I am open to being convinced otherwise, but for now I’d like to finish out my explanation of my current understanding of the land promise.

As you’ll remember from part 5, I am taking time to answer some objections, and by so doing, to rephrase my position and make it clear. So to review, I’m claiming that Joshua and 1 Kings, with Nehemiah, indicate that the OT understood the Jews to have possessed all the land God promised them at one time. None of God’s promises had failed all came to pass concerning the land, they said. We also showed that the recipients of the land promise specifically were the descendants of Abraham. Yet we should note that the New Testament indicates the Gentiles have been grafted in and are to be viewed as the descendants of Abraham. And very specifically Rom. 4 claims the very promise that Abraham would inherit the land is given to all of his children, Jew and Gentile. This understanding again jives with Eph. 6:1-3 where Gentile Christians are promised long life in the land of promise (cf. Exodus 20).

Obviously these concepts seem at first to fall short. How can Gentile Christians be inheriting the land promised to Israel? How can the land promises have already been fulfilled when there are specific “millennial” promises indicating a future reunification of Israel and possession of the land? We started to explore this by touching on the nature of land. It is integral to the relationship between a god and his people. Namaan brought earth back to his home in Syria because he wanted to serve Jehovah. He falsely thought Jehovah was bound to a local geography. Deuteronomy ties life in the land specifically to the commands and regulations Israel must obey. Abraham himself significantly only built altars within the borders of his promised land. So the idea of land is connected with fellowship and relationship, and as we’ve indicated before, with rest or confidence in God.

We begin to see a full-orbed picture of the land as we look at the idea of conditionality, and as we look at the land in perspective.

The Conditionality of the Land

As has been noted in some of the comments, Israel failed to keep covenant with God. This resulted in their expulsion from the land, and is why the totality of the land has not yet been attained by Israel. This then, makes it obvious the land promise was conditional.

Deuteronomy is the most important book for regulating the Jewish state, and it made much of the land. Obedience was to result in blessing in the land, and disobedience was to incur judgment on the land, and ultimately expulsion from it. As we look closely at the Biblical record in the first  6 books of the Bible, it is clear that while the land was promised and given as a gift to Abraham and his descendants, it nevertheless required them to believe, follow Jehovah, and obey His word in order both to possess the land, and to keep it.

Genesis 12 perhaps most clearly reveals this, as a promise of land is given to Abraham contingent (obviously) on his leaving his homeland and following Jehovah by faith. In Numbers 13 & 14, God refuses to give the land to the rebels who attempt to take it by fleshly, independent force. Let me quote a bit here, now from an article on “Land” in the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology (edited by T. Desmond Alexander & Brian Rosner, [IVP: Downers Grove, IL, 2003], pg. 624) written by J. G. Miller:

From the outset [of Deuteronomy], it is clear that only if Israel obeys will they be able to enjoy the fulfillment of the promise to the patriarchs. Only by reversing the failures of the past and faithfully negotiating the challenges of the future will the infant nation enjoy this divine reward (e.g. “Hear now, O Israel, the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you” [4:1], also 8:1; 11:8, etc.). But the relationship between the fulfilment of promise and obedience extends beyond the successful subjugation of Canaan; this is only a first step towards fulfilment of the promise. Entry into the land and longterm successful occupation are repeatedly linked (see e.g. 6:1-3; 8:1-3; 111:8-9; 12:1); obedience is the condition of both. Enjoyment of life with Yahweh in the land (in fulfilment of the covenant promise) is open-ended and dynamic. To realize it, Israel must continue to obey. This idea of a promised land, which is first to be occupied and then enjoyed by an obedient people, is a powerful incentive to make the right decisions. Deuteronomy treats the concept of the land as a powerful rhetorical device to press home the urgency and importance of the decision facing the nation on the plains of Moab. The land is not simply the reward for obedience; it is part of the motivation to obey.

Before moving on, let’s go back to the promises for Abraham. You may remember I said elsewhere that the promises seem unconditional. I stick by that. They are grand promises but there is a condition. Abraham must be loyal to Jehovah. He must trust him. Of course God works through Jesus ultimately to fulfill all such conditions, and He gives grace enough both to us and Abraham so that we all can “through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Heb. 6:12b).

Gen. 12 starts out with a condition. “Go… and I will make of you a great nation….” (12:1-2). This sets the stage that God’s relationship with Abraham, while sovereignly initiated and full of grace, nevertheless demands obedience from Abraham. We see this again when God adds a sign to his covenant with Abraham in ch. 17. Abraham must circumcise his sons (17:9-14), and he must also “walk before [God], and be blameless” (17:1b). Later, God points out that Abraham’s continued obedience is the reason God will surely keep his promise and establish his covenant with Abraham. In chapter 22 we read, “…because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you…. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”

All this conditionality should not make us think Abraham is working for his salvation. God goes out of his way to indicate Abraham’s faith, is the cause of his being counted righteous (15:6). And  God further illustrates how He will enable Abraham to obey so that God can give Abraham the promised blessings: “For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.” (18:19)

Keeping the Land in Perspective

Hopefully, the previous discussion has caused your spiritual antennae to be raised. There are many similarities between Abraham’s required life of faith, the Israelites duty to keep covenant and thereby enjoy the promised land and it’s rest, and our calling as Christians. We are given a great blessing of fellowship with God and an eternal inheritance, yet we must live a life of faith and endure to the end. We must fight the good fight of faith, and thus lay hold on eternal life (1 Tim. 6:12).

These obvious similarities, coupled with the New Testament’s direct claim that we believers also must enter a state of rest and peace through faith (see Heb. 3-4, and part 4), must make us pause. Earlier in our series, we highlighted how God throughout the Bible has related with his people by means of land. Adam and Eve enjoyed Eden, even as they were called to fill the whole earth. Abraham was given a land, strategically located in the center of the known world, that the Jews might bless the nations. The land was special because God dwelt there, in the Holy City, Jerusalem. He was their God, and Israel was His people. And we know from Revelation 21, that God will dwell with His people once again in a new earth — a place where a Heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, has come down to stay.

Obviously, the land promise is but one aspect of God’s promises to Abraham. And tracing the history of the land, and looking forward to the future new earth, is but one of the major themes of Scripture. Admitting this, doesn’t change our conclusions, however,  but strengthens them. Consider please, that: all the promises of Abraham are fulfilled through Christ, and are shared by Christ’s followers.

We can’t cut up Abraham’s promises and say some apply only to physical Jews, and others to Abraham’s children by faith. We can’t say some are conditional and others aren’t. This is a wholistic covenant. God obligates himself, conditioned on Abraham’s covenant loyalty (which God works to empower and enable). So when we see the New Testament clearly and repeatedly claim that the Gentile believers share in Abraham’s inheritance, that they too are recipients of the promise, and partakers of the covenant, we shouldn’t conclude it is talking about something besides the land. The world God made is a blend of spiritual and physical realities which cannot be separated. We are physio-spiritual beings. We can’t say some of God’s promises to Abraham are strictly physical and others strictly spiritual.

I’ve already shown Rom. 4 to clearly state that the Gentile believers are recipients of Abraham’s promise concerning the land. And I’ve mentioned Gal. 3 which claims that in Jesus singularly, all of Abraham’s promises are truly fulfilled. It seems I keep restating things in this series so I’m going to have to limit myself. Next time, I hope to focus on one NT passage we haven’t touched on, which draws out the typical nature of the land emphatically. Then, in another post  I hope to conclude  by showing the ramifications for understanding the land in this way. I’ll also try to fit in a discussion of the exilic promises concerning the land and how they fit into this. I guess I can’t promise only 2 more posts, but that’s my goal. And again, thanks for all the participation in discussing these things in the comments.