The Land Of Promises

[Práxedes Jamal]

Ina recent comment here at Expository Thoughts, a reader named Joe took issue with the dispensational teaching that the land promises to Israel have yet to be fulfilled. Joe made several arguments in his refutation, one of which was the often repeated claim that the land promises of the Old Testament were completely fulfilled in the book of Joshua according to Joshua 21:43-45, and therefore we have no reason to expect that there will be a future fulfillment of this promise. As I once wrote on another blog:

Frankly, when people use Joshua 21:43-45 as a proof-text to say that God will not restore the nation of Israel to the promised land, it makes me wonder how they interpret Deuteronomy 30:1-10. In this passage, God says that one day after Israel is dispersed, He will bring her back into the very same land from which she was dispersed. Which land is that, and if the restoration to this land is not future, when did it happen?

Was Israel not restored to the land after the Babylonian captivity? Did Abraham not look for a spiritual fulfillment to the promises made to him by God? Did Jesus not tell the leaders of Israel that the scriptures speak of him? Are these Scriptures not authoritative toward the way we should see prophecy fulfilled [1) Malachi 4:5-6 / Matthew 11:7-15; 17:10-13; Mark 9:11-13, 2) Joel 2:27-Joel 3:2 / Acts 2:16-21, 3) Deuteronomy 18:15-22 / Acts 3: 17-26, 4) Isaiah 61:1-3 / Luke 4:16-21]? Did the leaders and teachers of Israel look for a literal fulfillment in the flesh concerning a fleshly, earthly restoration of the national government of Israel? Did Jesus oblige them? Did they receive their King and Saviour (Messiah)? Was Exodus 23:20-23 partially fulfilled when

Joshua led Israel across the Jordan, and will Jesus fulfill this scripture completely when he leads all his people, the expanded Israel complete with believing Jews and Gentiles from all the nations, into the heavenly Jerusalem?

The fact that God fully intends to fulfill His promises to Israel is in fact a celebration of the centrality and magnificience of a gracious God who has not rejected his people the Israelites whom he foreknew (Rom. 11:1-2) and to whom His gifts and calling of are irrevocable (Rom. 11:29).

Respectfully, you have missed the point of Eph. 2. One could infer from your comment(s) that the Lord has dropped Israel from the picture and that you now believe Eph. 2 supports this. Actually, this passage shows that the covenants/promises toward Israel have not changed but that what has changed is the fact of Gentile inclusion. Because of the death of Christ, those who were strangers to the covenants of promise have now been brought near by the blood of Christ.

I once asked a Jehovah Witness to read a section from his own Bible. As he read, he began to argue. I merely pointed out that he was not arguing with me, but with the words he was reading. This is a similar case, my friends.

Its difficult to see what in Ephesians 2:11-22 says about the negation (or fulfillment) of the promises to national Israel in the NT church. Ephesians 2 addresses the soteriological unity of Jew and Gentile in Christ. In a soteriological sense, Jew and Gentile are on common ground and part of the people of God. However, nothing in this text rules out or prevents a functional role for national Israel in the future, as promised by the OT (and reiterated in Acts 1:5-6!!).

The reason why you are getting feedback is that you cut and paste Eph. 2:11-22 (KJV) as if that settles some argument that you have been having with someone who has yet to show up here in the comments. The problem is that this has little to do with what has been discussed here in this post.

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.

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)

However, the Old Testament itself declares that the promises concerning the land were fulfilled. Who is in a better position to understand the nature of those promises, us or the inspired authors of Scripture?

Like I said in the last post, Solomon might be referring to the Mosaic Covenant. They fulfilled their obligation to God up to that point, and God fulfilled His. The last guy who posted that promise in Ezekiel made an important point. That prophecy was written after the so called fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant in I Kings.

I am not an expert on Israel, but I can see no purpose in God nullifying the work of Jesus Christ for a future return to animal sacrifices. That is my biggest objection to this whole idea of a restored Israel and temple worship.

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These allegedly divine promises were given prior to the birth of Abraham's sons. Abraham's family tree includes both the Ishmaelite tribes (the claimed ancestry of Arabs and of the Islamic prophet Muhammad) through Abraham's first son Ishmael and the Israelite tribes (the claimed ancestry of Jews and Samaritans) through Abraham's second son Isaac.

The Torah's subsequent Book of Exodus describes it as "land flowing with milk and honey" (Exodus 3:17) and gives verses on how to treat the prior occupants and marks the borders in terms of the Red Sea, the "Sea of the Philistines", and the "River", which a modern English Bible translates to:

Mainstream Jewish tradition regards the promise made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as having been given to anyone considered a Jew, including proselytes and in turn their descendants[3] and is signified through the brit milah (rite of circumcision).

In the New Testament, the descent and promise is reinterpreted along religious lines.[4] In the Epistle to the Galatians, Paul the Apostle draws attention to the formulation of the promise, avoiding the term "seeds" in the plural (meaning many people), choosing instead "seed," meaning one person, who, he understands to be Jesus (and those united with him). For example, in Galatians 3:16 he notes:

Many European colonists saw America as the "Promised Land", representing a haven from religious conflicts and persecution. For instance, Puritan minister John Cotton's 1630 sermon God's Promise to His Plantation gave colonizers departing England to Massachusetts repeated references to the Exodus story, and later German immigrants sang: "America ... is a beautiful land that God promised to Abraham."[8]

In a sermon celebrating independence in 1783, Yale president Ezra Stiles implied Americans were chosen and delivered from bondage to a Promised Land: "the Lord shall have made his American Israel 'high above all nations which he hath made',"[9] reflecting language from Deuteronomy of the promise.

Shawnee/Lenape scholar Steven Newcomb argued in his 2008 book Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery[10] that Christendom's discovery doctrine was also the same claim of "the right to kill and plunder non-Christians" found in this covenant tradition, whereby "the Lord" in Deuteronomy told his chosen people how they were to "utterly destroy" the "many nations before thee" when "He" brought them into the land "He" had discovered and promised to "His" "Chosen People" to "possess", and that this "right" was woven into US law through the 1823 Johnson v. McIntosh Supreme Court ruling.[11]

African-American spirituals invoke the imagery of the "Promised Land" as heaven or paradise[14] and as an escape from slavery, which could often only be reached by death.[citation needed] The imagery and term also appear elsewhere in popular culture, in sermons, and in speeches such as Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1968 "I've Been to the Mountaintop", in which he said:

I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.[15]

Under the name Palestine, we comprehend the small country formerly inhabited by the Israelites, and which is today part of Acre and Damascus pachalics. It stretched between 31 and 33 N. latitude and between 32 and 35 degrees E. longitude, an area of about 1300 French: lieues carres. Some zealous writers, to give the land of the Hebrews some political importance, have exaggerated the extent of Palestine; but we have an authority for us that one can not reject. St. Jerome, who had long traveled in this country, said in his letter to Dardanus (ep. 129) that the northern boundary to that of the southern, was a distance of 160 Roman miles, which is about 55 French: lieues. He paid homage to the truth despite his fears, as he said himself, of availing the Promised Land to pagan mockery, "Pudet dicere latitudinem terrae repromissionis, ne ethnicis occasionem blasphemandi dedisse uideamur" (Latin: "I am embarrassed to say the breadth of the promised land, lest we seem to have given the heathen an opportunity of blaspheming").[20][21]

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