Christians today are asking serious questions in response to the 7 October attack by Hamas, to Israel’s ensuing war in Gaza, and to the huge anti-Israel protests around the world:
Why are the Jewish people and their state hated so much? Why is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict so long-lasting and traumatic? How does modern Israel relate to biblical Israel? Are we witnessing fulfilment of biblical prophecy in any way? How should we relate to the Jewish people now, given that our Saviour is for ever Jewish (Luke 1:32-33; Rev 22:16)?
Simplistic Bible-based responses by some church leaders treat this conflict as if it were just a personal disagreement – ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ (Matt 5:9); ‘Never take your own revenge’ (Rom 12:19); ‘Love your enemies’ (Luke 6:35). Of course these principles are godly, and modelled by Jesus Himself. But until we have forgiven a neighbour for torturing, raping and then slaughtering our own little sister or grandmother, we Christians have no right to lecture the grieving citizens of Israel.
Even if we were to treat this like any other international war, the Bible has far more to teach us. God has entrusted governments with ‘the sword’ to avenge evil and enforce justice (Rom 13:1-7; Luke 14:31-32), and although individuals should not resort to violence (Matt 26:52), soldiers serving their government can use force justly (Luke 3:14; Matt 5:41). ‘Just war theory’ is a robust Christian concept based on biblical patterns found throughout the history and laws of Israel. At the same time, the Bible recognises the tragic justice of collective punishment for the offences of leaders (Luke 19:41-44; 20:15-19; 23:27-31), provided there is due warning given (Luke 11:49-51) and opportunity for innocent individuals to escape (Luke 21:20-22). If Jesus decreed this for His own beloved nation, others cannot expect different standards of justice.
Applied to the current war in Gaza, Israel has taken pains to conduct its warfare against Hamas (not a war against Palestinians) strictly according to international law, as it always does. After all, the idea of human rights originated in Israel’s own teaching that every human is equally made in the image of God (Gen 1:27; Amos 9:7). Israel fully recognises its unique ‘chosen’ status as a nation is not because they are better than any other people (Deut 7:7-8; 9:4-7). This is why Israel has consistently welcomed Gazans for urgent medical treatment, even Hamas leaders and their families, and feel they must justify any change of policy even during wartime. Israel’s efforts to spare Palestinian civilian lives during war surpass any other army in the world. So it is utterly immoral to equate Israel’s collateral damage of civilian deaths in Gaza with Hamas’ sadistic targeting of defenceless civilians in southern Israel.
However, we must not treat this conflict as if it were ‘any other war’. Regardless of Israel’s response to Messiah Yeshua/Jesus, they remain chosen and loved by God, with irrevocable ‘gifts and calling’ (Rom 11:28-29). The entire Bible is centred around this one ethnic group, so how can we ignore their ongoing identification with God as a major factor in this war? I propose to explore this significance in three areas: the underlying excuse for attacking Israel at home and abroad, the tactics of Israel’s enemy, and the proper reaction of Christians toward the Jewish people.
First, the Bible speaks clearly about the ‘gift’ of the land. When pro-Palestinians echo the demands of Hamas that ‘… Palestine will be free’, they are tacitly approving the designation of Israel as an illegitimate coloniser of indigenous Palestinian land. So Christians need to become better informed about modern international law. In 1922, the community of nations unanimously recognised Jews to be indigenous alongside Arabs. They legally granted the land ‘from the river to the sea’ to the Jewish people as a national home in 1922, next door to an Arab state in (Trans)Jordan, implementing Churchill’s original two-state solution for all ‘Palestine’. Neither was expected to expel its ethnic minorities, however sadly from 1948 onwards there were equivalent numbers of Arabs and Jews who did flee, as often happens.
The history and legality of the State of Israel did not begin in 1948. But neither did it begin in 1922 or 1917. The Bible records that Israel inherited from father Abraham God’s ‘gift’ of the land as an eternal covenant (Gen 15:17-21; 17:7-8; etc.; Exod 6:5-8; 32:13). Even within their future ‘new covenant’, God again promised to ‘plant them in this land with all My heart and with all My soul’ (Jer 31:31-37; 32:36-42). The condition of possessing this inherited land that was ‘given for all time’ was that Israel keep God’s commandments (Deut 4:40), hence Israel’s repeated exiles from the land. But as Paul affirmed, Israel’s ‘gifts’ are not revoked despite sin or exile (Rom 9:4; 11:28-29). We also note that the land was never Israel’s exclusive possession. The law repeatedly affirms that ethnic minorities have equal legal status (Exod 12:43-49; Lev 24:10-22; Num 15:11-16, 29-31), provided they too worship Israel’s God (Jer 12:14-17).
Surprisingly, the prophet Ezekiel discerned that God would regather the Jewish people to the land even before their repentance and spiritual transformation, to prove His own unmerited faithfulness (Ezek 20:39-44; 36:16-32). And the prophet Isaiah made Israel’s hope dependent upon the nations. When nations have been drawn to Israel’s Messiah, they will then assist the Jewish people to return to their ancestral land (Isa 11:10-12; 49:5-7, 22-23; 60:4-9).
Therefore, Jesus Himself testified to an ongoing longing to regather Jerusalem’s exiled ‘children’ from the Diaspora (Matt 23:37-39; see Isa 49:14-22), such as Greek-speaking Jewish pilgrims (John 7:35-36; 12:20-32). He understood His mission as being the son of David who would gather both Judah and the ‘lost’ northern tribes of Israel, to be one flock with one shepherd (John 10:15; 11:51-52; echoing Ezek 37:21-24, also Isa 56:6-8). He also prophesied that at some point after the Roman exile, when salvation has been offered to all nations, Jerusalem would again be restored to Jewish sovereignty or ‘kingship’ (Luke 21:24; Acts 1:6-8). When He returns to reign on earth, His Jewish apostles will then govern the twelve tribes of Israel, and likewise His servants from the nations will inherit ‘kingship’ over their nations (Matt 19:28; 25:31-40; Rev 2:26-27; 7:3-10).
The entire Bible, from beginning to end, testifies that God will surely bring His Jewish people back into their land from the ends of the earth. And this promise will be accomplished only by Israel’s Messiah Jesus (Rom 15:8; 2Cor 1:20), through those nations who rally to His standard. This clear biblical teaching was celebrated and pursued by mainstream evangelical Christianity in Britain for 300 years, recognised by scholars as a primary influence on our 1917 Balfour Declaration. This included some of our greatest spiritual forebears such as Watts and the Wesleys, Simeon and Spurgeon, Müller and M’Cheyne, and even leading intellects like Milton, Locke and Newton.
Biblical literacy has plummeted in the British church during the last century, so it is little wonder that the convictions of our esteemed ancestors are so rarely reflected today. Had they been alive now, they would be eagerly awaiting and interceding for the imminent spiritual outpouring upon the regathered Jewish nation, prophesied in Ezekiel 36 and 37.
Second, the Bible alerts us to the tactics of Israel’s enemy. Israel’s primary opponent throughout history has been Satan, the Father of Lies (John 8:44) and the Accuser of the Brethren (Rev 12:7-12; Luke 10:17-20), whose greatest challenger is Israel’s angelic prince Michael (Dan 10:20-21; 12:1). Satan hates the Messiah who will destroy him, and therefore he hates the nation of Israel who gave birth to Messiah (Rev 12:1-6, 13-17; Gen 37:9-10).
Antisemitism is the most persistent racial hatred in humanity’s history. It arises not only from the unjustified jealousy of nations towards the one chosen to bless them (Gen 18:17-33; 27:29; Isa 19:24-25), but also simply because darkness hates and fears the light (Isa 60:1-3, 14). The Jewish people still carry God’s special revelation and glory (Rom 3:1-2; 9:4-5), so Satan is determined to slander and slaughter the nation who mediates God’s blessing on earth (Est 3:8-9; Rom 11:12, 15; 15:8-12).
All of Scripture bears witness to the common human failures of the Jewish people, but Satan goes further, stirring up the world he controls in unending false accusations out of all proportion to Israel’s faults. In the current war, Israel is unfairly blamed for every death in Gaza, whether combatants, human shields of Hamas, or victims of Gazan terror rockets, even for simply retaliating to Hamas’ sickening aggression. And on our streets and social media, selective sympathy for only these specific Palestinians (abused for decades by their own people) often masks violent spiritual hatred of the one and only Jewish state.
Sometimes criticism is justified, yet when Satan prosecuted the leader of the Jewish nation in Zechariah 3:1-7, the pre-incarnate Angel of the LORD rebuked the accuser by interceding for the guilty on the basis of God’s election. He still does the same for us (Rom 8:34), so let us not be found imitating Satan’s work when it comes to Israel.
Third, the Bible defines right attitudes and actions towards Jewish people. Just as children are to honour their parents and wives their husbands for God’s sake (Eph 6:1-4; 5:22-33), without necessarily implying that the authority figure is morally superior (1Pet 3:5-6), so also the nations should honour the Jewish people as God’s chosen leader nation (Rom 1:16; 2:9-11; 11:28-29).
The centurions and the Canaanite woman who demonstrated proper humility as non-Jews, received blessings associated with ‘salvation’ which Jesus said ‘is from the Jews’ (Luke 7:2-10; Acts 10:1-6; Matt 15:21-28; John 4:22; see Isa 35:4-6). He also taught that He will judge nations based on how we have treated ‘the least of these brothers of Mine’ (Matt 25:40), which must at least include Jesus’ ethnic kinsmen.
So Paul warned non-Jewish believers against arrogance and ignorance about God’s ongoing and especially end-time purposes for His ‘beloved’ Israel, even in their unbelief (Rom 11:17-28). Instead, he taught that we who have shared in their spiritual blessings ought to minister to them in practical ways (Rom 15:26-27).
In these troubled times for Jewish people worldwide, the least we can do is stand up publicly against all who hate and slander them, for Jesus’ sake.
Many of my friends have said that “the silence on the land is deafening in the New Testament”. Perhaps the truth is rather that the deafness of Western Christians to land in the New Testament makes it silent? Most tribes and language groups around the world value land much more highly than we do. I suggest that one important reason the nations are so determined to deny to Israel its promised land, is our lack of awareness that Israel’s God has promised lands to our nations also.
This article traces the theme of ‘promised land’ through Scripture from beginning to end. First, Israel and all nations are given promised lands by God, after the pattern of the Garden of Eden. Second, the exile/death of Israel and their return/resurrection assisted by all nations, is promised by Moses and the prophets. Third, Messiah Jesus came at the appointed time spoken of by Daniel, to proclaim the final exile of Israel and to begin gathering all nations. They will help Israel to return, as the prophets said, ready for His own return to reign as emperor in Jerusalem. Fourth, the nations can learn from the patriarchs and from Israel’s example how to live now, in the power of the Holy Spirit, preparing for our promised inheritance in Messiah.
1. God’s original plan for nations to inherit their promised lands by faith
Before Adam and Eve sinned, the creation was “very good”. We can see in Genesis 1–2 the original plan of God for the world. God told Adam and Eve to “multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” (1:28). He began by planting a garden in Eden, small enough for Adam and Eve to rule over with God’s help. He also spoke of their children leaving them and creating new families (2:24), which presupposes that they will also leave the Garden of Eden and plant new gardens. A river flowed out from its source in Eden in all four directions to water other lands, so every other garden would still receive its life from Eden. Thus, God’s original purpose for creation includes nations each ruling over their own lands, all of them blessed by Eden. This is why we see that nations will still exist after Jesus returns, all of them blessed by Jerusalem (Revelation 5:9-10; 21:24-26; 22:2).
After the Flood, God planted humanity again in the land with Noah and his three sons. He repeated His command to “multiply and fill the earth”, but to start with, the seventy nations refused to fill the earth. Instead, they built the city and tower of Babylon (Genesis 11:1-9). So God gave them each different languages to force them to separate and fill the earth. Even before this happened, though, Noah had already passed a law that Canaan’s descendants in their future land would serve Shem and his descendants (9:26; 10:15-19). This is why Abram’s father Terah, direct descendant of Shem, chose to leave Ur to go to the land of Canaan (11:31). When Abram finally came to Canaan, trusting God’s promise, he found that the city of (Jeru)Salem had already been built, and was ruled by the ‘King of Righteousness’ who gave him a blessing (14:17-20). We therefore see the beginning of the age-old contest between man’s city of Babylon and God’s city of Jerusalem. It is not a coincidence that the ziggurat-temple of Babylon was shaped like a mountain, and Jerusalem is also a mountain city. Even the New Jerusalem will be a square-based pyramid or mountain (Revelation 21:16). The first Garden of Eden was a mountain (Ezekiel 28:13-16), which is why its river could flow in four directions. Babylon was a man-made Eden, but God had instead chosen the land of Canaan and city of Jerusalem to be his new Eden, the source of life for the whole world (Isaiah 51:3; Ezekiel 36:35).
From the very beginning, God has prepared lands for people to live in, but they can only possess what legally belongs to them if they trust God. Adam was made outside the Garden and brought into it (Genesis 2:7-8, 15). Noah was brought back into the re-created earth by faith and obedience. Abram was given a covenant promise of the land of Canaan because he trusted God and did not take the land for himself (13:10-17; 14:21–15:21). Lot was also a legal heir of Shem, but lacking faith, he did not inherit. God also confirmed Abraham’s land covenant to Isaac (26:1-6, 23-25) and then to Jacob (28:13-22; 35:1-15) only after they chose to obey His commands in faith. Their brothers were legal heirs too, but they did not inherit by faith. The whole nation of Israel after leaving Egypt could not possess Canaan until they were willing to trust and obey God (Numbers 13–14; Joshua 2–4), even though it was promised to them. This also applied to each tribe of Israel (Joshua 14; 17:14-18).
God told Israel that “the land is Mine; for you are aliens and sojourners with Me” (Leviticus 25:23), but the Bible also says that “The earth is the Lord’s, and all its fulness” (Psalm 24:1). He owns all the earth, and so He gives territories to every tribe and people group (Acts 17:26). In Deuteronomy 2, Israel was warned not to try to take any territory from Edom, Moab or Ammon, because God had given land to these nations (each also descended from Shem). In Amos 9:7, God says He led both the Philistines and Arameans in their own Exodus and Conquest, just like Israel. This is why He also punishes other nations for their sins, even if these are not against Israel (Amos 1-2; Jonah; Isaiah 13–21; 23; etc.). “When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of man, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel. For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance.” (Deuteronomy 32:8-9) Every nation therefore has its own promised land, with Israel and its land as the prototype for every other nation. But this legal inheritance can only be possessed permanently in peace if they trust in God.
2. Nations that enter the death of exile can be resurrected by God’s Spirit
So far, we have seen how God’s original plan was for every nation to inherit its own land by trusting Him, across the whole earth. But Adam and Eve were exiled from their Garden of Eden when they disobeyed God. Just as God warned Adam, they died on the day they sinned, by being separated from the source of both spiritual and physical life (Genesis 2:17; 3:22-24). Nations are also exiled from their lands when they disobey God, and being outside of their lands and cut off from God, they will inevitably die. Sodom was the first kingdom to die for its sin (Genesis 14:1-17; 18:16–19:29), but at that time Abraham negotiated a legal principle with the Judge of All the Earth. God agreed that any people group will be spared judgement if it has a minimum of ten righteous men (18:32; see Zechariah 8:23). The Canaanites were expelled by Israel at the time of Joshua for their sins against God (Genesis 15:16; Deuteronomy 9:1-6). But God warned Israel that this would happen to them too if they broke God’s laws (Leviticus 18:24-28). Eventually Israel did break the covenant of Moses, and their bones were scattered among the nations in exile, first exiled to Assyria and then to Babylon.
Yet God promised, even as early as Moses, to resurrect the nation of Israel from death. He would bring them back from exile in both a physical restoration to the land and a spiritual restoration to Himself (Deuteronomy 30:1-6). This is the same image used in Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones (chapter 37): The exiled tribes of Israel/Ephraim and Judah will be resurrected, by the Spirit of God breathed into them like Adam, and will be placed back into their own land. The prophets speak about all nations suffering in great darkness and under the shroud of death (Isaiah 60:1-3; 25:6-8), so they need God’s light to shine on them and save them and give them life (Isaiah 49:5-7; Joel 2:28-29).
Israel is described as God’s “firstborn son” (Exodus 4:22; Psalm 89:27). This recognises all nations as brothers in the same human family, all descended from one man, Noah (Genesis 10; Acts 17:26). At a smaller scale, God also made Jacob/Israel a nation by giving him twelve sons who became twelve tribes (Genesis 49). The ‘many tribes but one nation’ of Israel can therefore be a pattern for us to understand how the many nations should function as one human family. For any nation to possess its whole land, each of its tribes must receive their portion of the land by faith. For all humanity to “fill the earth and subdue it”, each nation must likewise receive its apportioned land by faith. This is why Abraham is described as the “heir of the world” in Romans 4:13. All lands are inherited by faith.
In Numbers 32 and the book of Joshua, we see how the two-and-a-half tribes east of the River Jordan could not inherit their land until they had helped the other tribes to conquer their territory. Even so, after Joshua, the tribes of Israel still had many Canaanite cities within their territories that they could not conquer (Judges 1:19–3:7). The conquest was only completed by King David, and the last Canaanite city to be conquered was the ancient holy city of Jerusalem (1Samuel 17:54; 2Samuel 5:1-12; 7:8-13). As Moses had prophesied, the temple built by Solomon was the sign that God’s land was finally inherited in its entirety (Exodus 15:13-18). That is why Jerusalem became the focus of Israel’s political and spiritual unity, where all the tribes went up to worship the Lord (Psalm 122).
After David and Solomon, however, the tribes of Israel broke apart into two nations, Israel/Ephraim and Judah, and both eventually went into exile for the sins of a specific king (Jeroboam I – 2Kings 17:21-23; Manasseh – 2Kings 21:10-15; 23:24-27). How then could they be resurrected as a nation in their land? The prophets realised that the sins of a king can bring exile/death to a nation, just like Adam, but in that case the faithful obedience of a king can resurrect a nation. Isaiah taught that the future son of David, God’s Servant, would pay for the sins of His people Israel (God’s blind Servant – Isaiah 42:19), credit them with His righteousness, and lead them back from exile into their land to reign over them for ever (Isaiah 49; 53–54). Those returning would not be just the southern tribes in Babylon, but also the northern ‘ten lost tribes’ (Ezekiel 37:15-28), who never returned during biblical times (Zechariah 10:3-12). Israel as God’s Servant, fully restored by their King, will only then finally be able to bless all nations (Isaiah 55).
This even greater promise was already taught by Moses, who said that God would turn His favour to the nations instead of His own unfaithful people, to make Israel jealous (Deuteronomy 32:21, 43). Isaiah saw further that just as David had ruled over nations surrounding Israel, so the future Son of David would be raised like a banner to summon the nations, and become their rescuer and saviour too. Then with the help of these newly obedient nations, this anointed Servant would finally bring the tribes of Israel back into their land (Isaiah 11:10-12; 49:22-23; 55:1-5; 60–61). In this way, all nations will receive their promised inheritance together, just like all the tribes of Israel had to help each other possess their appointed territories together. At the end of this age, Jerusalem will again be the final city for the Prince of Peace to conquer (Zechariah 12 and 14). When David’s Son builds His permanent temple-palace there, then all nations will gather to it to worship the Lord (Micah 4:1-8). That holy city will become the focus of unity for the world, the new Garden of Eden.
3. Messiah began the process of resurrection and “restoration of all things”
Inspired by Isaiah’s prophecy about Tyre in chapter 23, Jeremiah prophesied that Judah would also remain in Babylonian exile for only 70 years. Then God would restore them physically to their land and spiritually to Himself (Jeremiah 29:1-14). Near the end of the 70 years in Babylon, Daniel read this prophecy of Jeremiah and prayed fervently that God would fulfil His promise (Daniel 9). [Soon after that, God did bring a small group of faithful obedient exiles back from Babylon exactly 70 years after they left (Ezra 1–2). However, most of Judah and all of the northern tribes remained in exile.] While Daniel was praying, the angel Gabriel was sent to explain to him why the prophecy would not be completely fulfilled after just 70 years. Gabriel identified the 70 years as 70 sabbatical years, referring to the seventh year of rest after six years of agriculture (Leviticus 25). So after 490 years, Israel would be completely restored – ending sin, bringing in everlasting righteousness, and anointing the final sanctuary in Jerusalem (Daniel 9:24). Gabriel said that the Messiah would arrive in Israel after 483 years (7×7 + 7×62), but He would then “be cut off and have nothing”. This would be followed by Jerusalem and its rebuilt temple being destroyed again, with war and exile (9:26). Then after an undetermined period of time, the “prince who is to come” will begin the final seven-year period. Half-way through it, he will stop temple sacrifices to God and set up an abomination of desolation, but at the end of the seven years he himself will be completely destroyed (9:27).
Jesus appeared publicly to Israel precisely when Daniel had prophesied, and He urged His followers to read and understand this prophecy of Daniel (Matthew 24:15), as Paul did also (2Thessalonians 2:1-5). Jesus knew, therefore, that He would “be cut off and have nothing”, and soon afterwards the city and temple of Jerusalem would be destroyed. So He clearly prophesied His own death, and also the future destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans (Luke 18:31-34; 19:11-28, 41-44; 21:5-24).
But Jesus also knew what the prophets said must happen before the end of the age, before that final seven years that leads into the “restoration of all things” (Acts 3:18-26). For one generation, Israel would be given a last chance to repent (AD 30 to AD 70 was a 40-year generation, in the pattern of Numbers 14:26-35). Then Israel would be scattered again through all nations, as a full and final payment for all the righteous blood that was shed from creation onwards (Matthew 23:34-39). At the same time, those Jews who had believed Messiah’s good news of salvation must carry it out to all nations (Matthew 28:18-20). When all nations had become “disciples” of redeemed Israel, then the “end of the age” would come, when the kingdom of God would finally be “restored to Israel”, as a blessing to “all the families of the earth” (Matthew 24:14-15; Acts 1:3, 6-8; 3:25; Genesis 12:3; 26:4; 28:14). The “times of the nations” would be fulfilled, when all nations obey Israel’s Messiah by helping the Jews return to govern Jerusalem (Luke 21:24). In that way, as Paul said, all Israel will be saved through mercy shown to the nations (Romans 11:25-27).
But the Messiah’s mission to gather all nations had to start with Him regathering the scattered sheep of Israel. “The Lord God, who gathers the dispersed of Israel, declares, ‘Yet others I will gather to them, to those already gathered’.” (Isaiah 56:8) Jesus echoed this passage when He said, “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice, and they will become one flock with one shepherd” (John 10:16). The “other sheep” refers to both the Jewish Diaspora – the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” such as the Greek-speaking Jews who asked to see Him (John 12:20-24, 32; 7:33-36; Matthew 10:6; 15:24) – and also the nations (John 11:49-52). Jews living in the Diaspora throughout all nations usually tried to return to Jerusalem to celebrate the three annual feasts whenever they could, as Paul later did (Acts 20:16). This is why there were Jews in Jerusalem at Pentecost “from every nation [and language] under heaven” (Acts 2:5-11). Jesus had ascended to God’s right hand in heaven, and from heaven He poured out His Spirit on the scattered sheep of Israel in Jerusalem (or scattered bones, as Ezekiel 37 pictures them). Soon He would lead them through the wilderness of the nations by His Spirit, as the “church in the wilderness”, and gather to them other lost sheep of the nations, to make them all one flock with one shepherd (Ezekiel 20:33-44; Isaiah 63:7-14; Acts 7:38 – this is what the word “church” originally referred to).
But wandering in the wilderness is only a preparation for being brought back into the promised land. Israel would not be able to possess their promised land fully until all other nations had received their inheritance too. They must also be restored to a right relationship with God through the Messiah, to be able to live in their own lands in peace with God and with each other. So Jesus blessed His Jewish followers to “multiply and fill the earth”, going out from Jerusalem as far as the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). When they did not go, like Noah’s family after the Flood, Jesus scattered them with persecution (Acts 8:1-4; James 1:1; 1Peter 1:1, 17). But He also confronted the Jew who began this persecution, and appointed him as His special messenger to the nations. Paul became part of the first generation of Israel to receive the promised Holy Spirit as a pledge of their future inheritance – dwelling with God in their promised land (Ezekiel 37:24-27). But he turns from “we who were the first to hope in Messiah” to “you also”, that is, the other nations who were also “sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance” (Ephesians 1:11-14; see also 2:11-13; 3:6). It was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon Gentiles, just like He had filled the Jews at Pentecost, which persuaded the apostles that Jesus did want to bless every nation with their own promised land and relationship with God through Messiah (Acts 10:44-48; 15:7-9; Galatians 3:2-5).
Jesus described Jerusalem as “the city of the great king” (Matthew 5:35), quoting from Psalm 48:2. Psalm 47 explains even more clearly that “great king” means an emperor, the “king of all the earth” who “reigns over the nations”. So Jesus looked forward to the time when He would reign as King of kings (Psalm 2; Revelation 11:15; 19:16), from His imperial city of Jerusalem. He therefore rode into Jerusalem on a donkey – the prophetic sign of the King who will “speak peace to the nations; and His dominion will be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth” (Zechariah 9:9-10), while also restoring all twelve tribes of Israel from exile “because of the blood of My covenant with you” (9:11–10:12). Jesus then chose to ascend to heaven from the Mount of Olives opposite Jerusalem, rather than from the mountain in Galilee (Matthew 28:16), because Scripture promises His return in the same way to the same place (Acts 1:9-12; Zechariah 14:1-7; Daniel 7:13-14). When He comes, He will rescue Jerusalem from invading international armies, and then reign as “king over all the earth”. At that time, “living waters will flow out of Jerusalem” in different directions, just as they did from the Garden of Eden (Zechariah 14:8-9). From then on, the survivors of all nations will “go up from year to year to worship the King” in Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles. Every nation that does so will receive a blessing in their own promised land (Zechariah 14:16-19; Isaiah 19:18-25).
4. Our response now, as nations carrying the promise of inheritance in Messiah
If this is our “living hope” (1Peter 1:3-12), how should we in the nations behave while we wait for Messiah’s return? Like Israel, we have been enlightened by the truth of Messiah, and have been allowed to take part in Israel’s promise of the Holy Spirit, who guarantees a future inheritance for us too. But we face the same temptation as did the first generation of Israel’s believers in Messiah. They remained in Jerusalem and built a big, powerful and respected congregation. But Jesus had told them that when they received power through the Holy Spirit, they must “go and make disciples of all nations”. Only in that way would the kingdom ultimately be restored to their nation.
Like that first generation, we will be tempted to inherit now by trying to hold on to property and good reputation in our lands, rather than trusting Messiah to give us a permanent inheritance when he returns to grant us a “sabbath rest” after our labours (Hebrews 10:32-39; 13:13-14; 3:7-4:11). As followers of Messiah among the nations, we long to see the kingdom of God established in our own nation, and so we start to build good congregations in which God lives by His Spirit. Like the twelve apostles, we carry conditional promises that in the resurrection we will be granted real authority to rule with Messiah over our cities and tribes (Matthew 19:27-30; Luke 19:11-28; Revelation 2:26-27; 3:21; 5:9-10). But we must be careful not to try to take our inheritance before the appointed time.
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are good examples for us. They all lived in the actual land God had promised to them as an inheritance, but they were treated as foreigners in their own land. They chose to live in tents rather than to build cities for themselves, because they were waiting for permanent dwellings in the land, built by God Himself at the appointed time (Hebrews 11:8-16). They knew that their country would be a gift from heaven – a “heavenly country” rather than a man-made country, Jerusalem rather than Babylon. Even when they died, they made sure that their bones were buried in the land promised to them, awaiting bodily resurrection and inheritance (Genesis 46:4 + 49:29–50:13; 48:21-22 + 50:24-26 + Exodus 13:19 + Joshua 24:32; Luke 13:22-30 + 20:37-38). But any who tried to take their inheritance early, actually lost it in the future (Genesis 34; 49:5-7; Joshua 13:32–14:5; 19:1-9). The Church must not seek to take secular power in our nations before the appointed time when Messiah returns to reign (1Corinthians 5:12–6:9a). However, it is not enough to “live in tents” within our promised land. We will never inherit our own lands fully until every other nation is ready to inherit. Until we have made disciples of “all the nations”, from all “tribes and peoples and languages” as well as Israel (Matthew 24:14; 28:18-20; Revelation 7:3-10), the end of the age will certainly not come. Even ten believers are enough to save their whole people group from destruction. So the Lord Jesus, who will return to judge the world and punish unbelievers, is “patient toward you, not wanting any [nation] to perish but for all [nations] to come to repentance” (2Peter 3:9; 2Thessalonians 1:5-10). If we do not go to the ends of the earth as we have been commanded, like workers sent into the ripe harvest fields, we will surely be scattered through persecution as other generations have been. But when all nations are ready, our great Joshua/Jesus will bring us back in to inherit our own promised lands. Then we will receive all blessings flowing out to us from Israel, from Jerusalem, where our “Great King” will reign for ever.
Genealogies are very important for revealing the purpose of texts in traditional societies, and in Chronicles this is particularly the case as they are drawn mostly from records not preserved elsewhere (unlike many of the narratives), and are therefore more obviously distinctive to Chronicler’s purpose. Genealogies reveal lines of descent and inheritance of authority over one’s brothers, and the last person in the genealogy is usually the one about whom it is written (for example, Phinehas in Exodus 6 – cf. Numbers 25). In this post we will look first at the message of the genealogical section, then at the narrative section, and finally draw these together with an explanation of the purpose of the book as a whole.
Genealogies
1Chr 1 introduces the following genealogies by gleaning from Genesis all the relevant passages that show Israel’s inheritance from Adam. Then 1Chr 2-7 lists the genealogies of the tribes of Israel in order to establish which tribe has rightful authority over the others. Judah is first (the leader is from him – 5:2) [2:3-4:23]. Simeon is listed next to show that his territory is mostly outside Judah’s now, at least since the time of David [4:24-43]. The two-and-a-half tribes (Reuben, Gad, 1/2 Manasseh) do not have the birthright despite Reuben being firstborn, because they were idolatrous and have been exiled up to the present [ch 5]. Levi is described in two halves, the first [6:1-53] designed to show that the distinction between the Aaronic high priesthood and the three Levitical divisions was actually officially recognised by David himself (note that the line of Zadokite high priests extends no further than the exile [6:15], unlike the line of Davidic heirs [3:17-24]), and the second to establish Levitical claim to certain cities in the land during this resettlement after exile [6:54-81]. Then the remaining tribes are listed (apart from Zebulun and Dan, who had perhaps not returned from exile?) – Issachar, Benjamin, Naphtali, Manasseh, Ephraim and Asher [ch 7]. Note that Ephraim’s inheritance of Joseph’s birthright is traced no further than Joshua [7:27], although evidently leaders of the Joseph tribes felt it their duty to live in the capitol even after the Return [9:3], in apparently very small numbers.
1Chr 8 then rehearses the genealogy of Benjamin again, this time mentioning their claim on the leadership of Israel (Ehud [8:6], Saul [8:33]), but also especially their claim over Jerusalem [8:28, 32], the city on the border of Judah and Benjamin. Apparently Benjamin was insisting too on sharing territorial rights over the capitol along with Judah and Joseph [9:3-9] in the years following the return. 1Chr 9:2-34 considers on the other hand the justification for Levitical rights over Jerusalem, not only of priests but even of Levitical gatekeepers, and to support this, appeal is made to the appointments of Samuel and David [9:22] and the records of Nehemiah [Neh 11:3-19]. 1Chr 9:35-44 is then a shortened recapitulation of Saul’s genealogy, as an introduction to the brief summary of his failed reign in chapter 10, apparently to reinforce the Davidic claim to leadership in Jerusalem.
Narratives
After the crowning of David, the first event described is the capture of Jerusalem [11:4-9], followed by an extended list of all the warriors of every tribe in Israel who supported David’s claim to the leadership [11:10-12:40], and who also agreed with David’s plans to re-establish worship of the LORD in Jerusalem [13:1-17:27]. This was done despite opposition from Israel’s enemies [14:8-17; 18:1-20:8] and despite even David’s own fallibility, shown by his sin in taking the census [21:1-22:1]. David himself established the Levitical responsibilities and priestly/Levitical divisions at the same time as establishing secular authorities over the kingdom [26:29-27:34], and he himself was entirely responsible for the plans and resources of the Temple even though Solomon built it [chs 22-29]. The message here is that the true son of David will fulfil all that was in David’s heart for the Temple and for priestly/Levitical worship in Jerusalem.
The account of Solomon brackets his building and dedication of the Temple (including the priests and Levites at their posts [2Chr 5:12-14; 7:1-11; 8:14-15]) with an emphasis on his wisdom [chs 1; 8-9] and the wealth and fame that followed the Temple building. The warning to Solomon in 2Chr 7:12-22 is effectively a warning to all of Solomon’s heirs that failure to worship the LORD properly at the Temple in Jerusalem would eventually result in exile and the destruction of the Temple. The following history of the Divided Monarchy [chs 10-36] describes the successes and failures of the various Davidic kings consistently as a direct consequence of their attitude and behaviour towards prescribed worship of the LORD at the Temple in Jerusalem. It particularly emphasises those times when all the tribes assembled, even from the northern kingdom, to worship at Jerusalem (e.g. Rehoboam [11:13-17], Asa [15:8-15], Hezekiah [chs 29-31], Josiah [chs 34-35]; cf. also Jehoshaphat [17:7-9; 19:4-11; 20:4-28] and Jehoiada / Joash [23:1-24:14]). Even the sins of Manasseh were forgiven because of his renewed piety and devotion to true worship in Jerusalem [ch 33].
Explanation
Significantly, the beginning genealogy of Judah appears to be focused on defending the Davidic claim (of Elioenai and his seven sons [3:24]) over against others who were claiming authority over Judah and Jerusalem through descent from Perez’s firstborn son Hezron. We would not have expected there to be a need in post-exilic Yehud [Judah] to defend the claim of the David to authority over Judah, let alone Israel, but the fact that his claim is defended has implications for our interpretation of subsequent narratives. The Chronicler includes much material not found elsewhere about the links between David and the Temple, and many have suggested that he invented them simply to reinforce the importance of the Temple by appealing to David’s authority. If in fact David’s claim was also not uncontestable, however, it is more likely that this material was drawn from actual records that would not be disputed; in a sense, the claims of both David and the Temple are being defended, so the historical evidence for their connection is meant to be mutually reinforcing.
Looking at the genealogy of Judah, the focus of the claim to leadership of this tribe is on the first of Judah’s twin sons, Perez, who in fact received the rights of the firstborn because his mother was Tamar, the wife of Judah’s firstborn son Er [Gen 38], and therefore Judah had effectively ‘raised up seed’ for his deceased firstborn [Deut 25:5-10]. The sons of Chelubai/Caleb, Perez’s third son, are traced to various towns and regions of Judah, and the only individuals highlighted are from ancient history (e.g. Hur and Bezalel [2:20], Othniel and Caleb son of Jephunneh [4:13, 15]). The firstborn son of Perez, Jerahmeel, is traced through a second wife, several sons who had no sons of their own, and worst of all through an Egyptian servant who married into the family – all this seems to be deliberately disproving any claim that Elishama [2:41] might have made to the inheritance of the tribe of Judah. (This Elishama is probably the same as the ‘royal’ grandfather of Ishmael who murdered Gedaliah at the time of Jeremiah and then fled to Ammon, and whose descendants probably returned from there to Jerusalem after the exile.) Therefore David’s claim stands, even though he was descended from Perez’s second son Ram, because David’s ancestor Nahshon had been ‘leader of the sons of Judah’ under Moses [2:10].
Evidently the book of Chronicles is contributing to a debate in his time about who had the right to live in Jerusalem, the capitol of the restored community of Israel after the exile, and especially about which tribe and clan could claim the authority over their brothers. The Davidic claim was obviously under attack from various sides (Elishamites, Benjamites, Ephraimites), most probably because there was no immediate likelihood of a restoration to kingship under Persian rule, and people must have been questioning whether the tribes should revert to traditional tribal inheritance based on the rights of the firstborn instead. Jerusalem was evidently seen as the capitol, but David’s claim to have conquered it was opposed by the Benjamite claim to have been apportioned it as tribal inheritance by Joshua [Jos 18:28; cf. Jdg 1:5-8, 21; Jos 15:63]. The approach of the Chronicler was therefore to allow for Benjamite claims to live in it, but nevertheless to reinforce the Davidic claim to the throne that had been acknowledged by all the tribes, and therefore the right of Judahites also to live in the capitol.
Furthermore, the Chronicler not only defended the Davidic claim to the leadership of the tribes (if not to the birthright [5:2]), but then also tied this leadership as tightly as possible to the responsibility for leading the tribes in correct worship of the LORD in the Jerusalem temple according to the Law and the regulations of Samuel and David especially. In fact, the suggestion was made in the accounts of Manasseh and others that if the Davidic leader repented and humbled himself by honouring the LORD’s temple, He would restore them from exile and deliver them from their enemies, and thus establish their kingship over the tribes of Israel.
Thus the purpose of Chronicles is to reinforce temple-focused Davidic messianism. Working out how many generations had passed between the return from Exile under Zerubbabel and the Davidic claimant at the time this book was written (Elioenai [1Chr 3:19-24]) gives us a probable date of around 400BC, a generation or so after the last of Nehemiah’s reforms [cf. Neh 13:6-7].
One of the possible ways of reading the numerous Old Testament prophecies about a Jewish return from exile is to see it all as having happened already in the return from exile in Babylon [see the first post in this series]. Jesus arrived over five hundred years after that return, so His teaching and the teaching of His apostles, contained in the New Testament, should reveal to us whether or not they considered those prophecies of return to have already been fulfilled. As will be clear below, they actually not only believed the nation of Israel to be still in a condition of spiritual ‘exile’ that denied them secure and permanent dwelling in the land, but they also knew that the Jewish people would again be cast into exile. This exile to all nations (not just Assyria, or Babylon) would be a far greater exile than the first one, but even this one would eventually be finished. To fulfil His promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, God would finally bring the Jewish people back to the land of promise very shortly before the return of Jesus.
1. The conquest of the land under Joshua was not the ultimate fulfilment of the inheritance promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Paul clearly taught that the Law of Moses had actually made the Jewish people ‘slaves’ to sin, and as slaves rather than sons they were not permitted to inherit (Rom 7:1‑25; Gal 3:23–4:7; 4:21‑31). Hebrews taught further that if Joshua had given the Israelites ‘rest’ in their land, David would hardly have written to a later generation warning them that rebellion would disqualify them from entering God’s ‘rest’ (Heb 4:1‑11).
2. Even in Jesus’ generation the nation was considered to be in an ongoing condition of exile.
Jesus taught His people using parables in order to fulfil the prophecy of Isaiah that the nation would “keep on hearing and will not understand… keep on seeing and will not perceive” (Mat 13:13‑15; cf. 11:5). Isaiah was told that his prophetic task was to harden the eyes, ears and hearts of the Jewish nation until the fulfilment of the curse of exile (Isa 6:9‑13; cf. 32:1‑4; 34:16–35:6).
3. Jesus decreed another greater exile on the Jewish nation, a final one that would complete God’s judgement against the sins of all previous generations of Israel.
In fulfilment of Malachi’s prophecy to the Levites of his generation after the Babylonian Exile (Mal 3:1‑6), Jesus arrived four hundred years later as the appointed judge of the nation. In response to their sin and hard-heartedness He delivered the verdict that the nation was unforgivable (Mat 12:31‑45; 23:1‑28). To prove that they were more wicked than any previous generation, He would send them further messengers whom they would persecute, and therefore God would be justified in bringing on that generation the complete punishment for the sins of both them and all their fathers (Mat 23:29‑36; Luke 11:49‑51; cf. Isa 65:1‑7; Jer 16:10‑18; Rom 10:20-21). When there is a complete judgement visited on the nation for all the blood of the prophets shed from the foundation of the world, there can never be another such punishment meted out again (Isa 51:17‑22).
4. Evangelism amongst Jewish communities will not be completed until Jesus’ return.
Although seventy disciples were sent out in pairs to prepare for Jesus’ arrival in a town during His ministry (Luke 10:1‑17), Jesus also sent out the Twelve with a specific commission to the Jews (Luke 9:1‑10; Mat 10:11‑42), because they will be given authority over the twelve tribes of Israel when Jesus returns (Luke 22:28‑30). Their commission, therefore, while similar to that of the seventy, concerned specifically Jewish communities (Mat 10:5‑6, 23), within and presumably beyond the land of Israel also. They were told that this specific focus for preaching the Gospel would not finish “until the Son of Man comes”, a phrase Matthew linked closely to the Second Coming (24:3, 27‑44; 25:31‑46). This was also explained as being the result of Jewish hard-heartedness and persecution in city after city of Israel, and Jesus’ intention was to clarify to His followers that the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” in exile (cf. Eze 34:11‑16) would not all be ‘found’ until the time of His own return.
5. Gentile control over Jerusalem will come to an end when the “times of the Gentiles” are fulfilled.
Whereas Matthew recorded Jesus’ teachings about the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70 and the Second Coming without differentiating them (Matthew 24:1–25:46; esp. 24:3), Luke recorded them separately, the Second Coming in 17:20‑37, and the imminent destruction of Jerusalem and exile in 21:5‑36. Therefore Jesus’ prophecy about the destruction of Jerusalem and captivity and exile of the Jewish people (Luke 21:20‑24) has already happened and evidently continued until modern times. Despite the obvious severity of the judgement Jesus decreed, He did explicitly declare that at a certain point Gentiles would no longer ‘trample under foot’ the city of Jerusalem (21:24; cf. Isa 63:17‑19), which must indicate that Jews will eventually regain control over Jerusalem. The “times of the Gentiles” may be a reference to that period during which Gentiles control Jerusalem, but it would be better to understand it as the times in which Gentiles are the focus of God’s commission to His Church, which is suggested by the word “fulfilled”. In the latter case, Jesus would be teaching that Jewish repossession of Jerusalem will coincide with the culmination of mission to the Gentiles.
6. Israel’s national repentance will be prompted specifically by the reception of the gospel by all other nations.
Jesus taught that “the end will come” at the point when His witnesses have brought “this gospel of the kingdom” throughout “the whole inhabited earth” and “to all the nations” (Mat 24:14), which could be said to be the ‘fulfilment’ of the “times of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24). He then instructed His witnesses to go from Jerusalem “even to the remotest part of the earth”, making “disciples of all the nations… even to the end of the age”, and in the context He was implying that only then would the kingdom be restored to Israel (Acts 1:6‑8; Mat 28:19‑20). Paul explained this further, writing that Israel has been hardened temporarily “until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in”; then because of jealousy at the mercy shown to all nations, Israel would soften and “thus all Israel will be saved” (Rom 11:11‑15, 25‑27, 30‑31). Jesus indicated that this would be brought about particularly through the ministry of another prophet like Elijah at whose word the nation would turn back to God, ‘restoring all things’ (Mat 17:10‑11; cf. Mal 4:5‑6). It is unlikely that this prophet is described in Revelation 11, where the two witnesses prophesy judgement against the nations, not salvation to Israel. Although imagery is used from the ministries of Elijah and Moses, both prophets of judgement against unbelieving Gentiles and Jews, it is more likely that these two prophetic ‘olive branches’ are the Jewish and Gentile portions of the Church who are then resurrected as Jesus returns (Rev 11:4, 11‑13; cf. 13:7; Rom 11:17; Zec 3:8–4:6).
7. Israel will be living in Judaea and Jerusalem when as a nation they welcome Jesus’ return as their Messiah.
Jesus regularly used the ‘fig tree’ as an image of the nation of Israel (represented by its leadership), to describe its fruitlessness (Luke 13:6‑9), its withering (Mark 11:12‑27), its destruction when dry (Luke 23:27‑31), and finally its softening and fresh leaves indicating His imminent return (Mat 24:32‑33). ‘Sitting under one’s own fig tree’ was a common metaphor for being permanently at ‘rest’ in the land, particularly after exile (Mic 4:1‑4; Zec 3:8‑10; John 1:47‑51), so the images of softening and leaves coming out imply the beginnings of repentance and dwelling in the land respectively. However Jesus also prophesied this explicitly: In the ‘great tribulation’ immediately before His return, Jesus said that the believers living in Judaea would find travel on the Sabbath particularly difficult (Mat 24:15‑20, 29‑30). Not only that, but He prophesied to ‘Jerusalem’ (both the city and symbol for the nation) at the very end of His public ministry that “from now on you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’” (Mat 23:39; cf. Luke 13:33-35). Following the exile of the Jewish nation, the ‘desolation’ of Jerusalem’s ‘house’ (Mat 23:38; cf. Lev 26:31‑35; Isa 49:14‑21; 62:4), the nation would again see Jesus when as a nation they could welcome Him as their Messiah (cf. Mat 21:9). In fact, for the sake of these ‘elect’, He will shorten the days of their ‘great tribulation’ (Mark 13:14‑20). Peter also taught that national repentance was a condition for Jesus’ return (Acts 3:19‑21).
8. Nevertheless, secure and permanent inheritance of the land for Israel will not be possible until Jesus returns, initiating the resurrection and restoration of all things.
Using a parable, Jesus taught His disciples that only on His return as King would He distribute territories within His kingdom to them in reward for faithful service (Luke 19:11‑28; cf. 22:28‑30). When asked about the timing of the kingdom being restored to Israel, He acknowledged His Father’s plan to do this, but instructed His disciples to focus first on mission to all nations (Acts 1:6‑8). Jews in the Early Church, including Barnabas, Stephen and the writer to the Hebrews, modelled and taught that in this age they must not expect to be able to hold on to their property within the land of Israel (Acts 4:32‑37; 7:4‑6; Heb 4:1‑11; 10:34). Rather, they were to live by faith, whether they left their land to bring the good news of salvation inheritance to other nations also, or whether they chose to remain in their ‘promised land’ but live as if they were foreigners, ‘strangers and exiles’. Choosing to return to other countries for the sake of security was not a valid option (Heb 11:15), but rather they needed to persevere by looking forward to their ‘better, permanent possession’ in that very land, in the form of a city and country being prepared by God and soon to be delivered from heaven (Heb 11:8‑16; Rev 21:10, 24‑27). Paul associated the fulfilment of Israel’s promised gift of land with the salvation of all nations (Rom 9:4; 11:26‑29; cf. Zec 2:6-12). He therefore recognised that Jewish and Gentile believers, as both natural and adopted ‘sons of God’, would inherit their apportioned lands at the same time, freeing all of creation from its slavery to corruption (Gal 3:23–4:8; Rom 4:11‑17; 8:14‑22). This inheritance by every nation of lands bestowed from heaven by God is a large-scale fulfilment of what will happen at the same time on a small scale with each of us inheriting ‘heavenly’ resurrection bodies (Acts 17:26 with Deut 32:8‑9; Rom 8:18‑25; 1 Cor 15:42‑49; 2 Cor 5:1‑5). Thus ‘all things’ will be restored (Acts 3:21; Mat 17:11).
In summary of New Testament teaching, the promise of land inheritance made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and spoken about by the prophets has not yet ever been properly fulfilled. This was because God chose to use the Law of Moses to harden the Israelites in their sin, making them unable with uncircumcised hearts to inherit as ‘sons of Abraham’. Moses taught that God would personally atone for Israel, and reconcile them to Himself by making them jealous of His favour on the nations. Jesus then came as the ‘seed of Abraham’ bringing blessing: fulfilling the powerless Law by becoming a curse for Israel, and dying to atone for the sin of Jew and Gentile alike, reversing the disobedience and death of Adam. His resurrection is both the object of faith, by which all can be declared righteous, and the content of our hope. Jesus declared the Jewish nation of His own generation to be unforgivable, decreeing that within a generation they would enter into an exile that would complete God’s punishment for all previous rejection of His messengers. Witness to scattered Jews must continue, but their full repentance and inheritance would not happen before every nation on earth had also received the good news of salvation (resurrection, deliverance and inheritance). At the end of the age God will begin restoring Israel to her land and softening her heart towards Him, using a prophet like Elijah, and even more importantly the jealousy provoked by seeing all nations accept her Messiah. In the midst of the ‘great tribulation’ that follows the fulfilment of the times of the Gentiles, Jewish believers in the land will undergo persecution, but will be delivered by their returning King whom they will welcome as a whole nation. The faithful from previous generations will return with Jesus, met by surviving believers joining them from the earth in a visible imitation of Jesus’ own ascension, and all will receive their resurrection bodies with Jesus. After destroying the enemies of His people, Jesus will establish His kingdom on earth from Jerusalem. Within this worldwide kingdom, the Twelve disciples will rule over Israel in their land, and Gentile believers will rule over every nation across the earth, each in its own territory as apportioned by Jesus [the new ‘Joshua’]. In this way all creation will be released into the glorious freedom of the ‘sons of God’.
In this final exegetical post on the subject of the Promised Land in the New Testament, we will consider the book of Hebrews. As we would expect, a book of the New Testament written specifically to Jewish believers does not neglect the subject of land inheritance. However, as with all the other passages we have looked at in the Gospels, Acts, and Romans, the writer to the Hebrews situates the time of the inheritance in the future rather than the present. There is a task of world evangelisation to finish before Jewish believers can finally receive the promise of the ultimate Sabbath rest in their land. They must learn to live by faith as their ancestors did, welcoming the promise from a distance, because perfection will be attained only together with the full number of nations descended from Abraham by faith.
Hebrews 3:1–4:11 – After demonstrating that Jesus was not an ‘angel’ but flesh and blood like us (chapters 1–2), but before explaining three ways in which Jesus had made the Law obsolete (priesthood, Temple and sacrifices; chapters 5–10) the writer to the Hebrews first dealt with the question of the promised land. He showed that trusting in Jesus is more reliable than trusting in Moses, who bore witness to future things (3:5), but whose generation died in the wilderness through unbelief. Clearly Joshua’s generation had not fulfilled the prophetic promise of a permanent ‘rest’ in the promised land (4:8), because David and later prophets still spoke of a future time of restoration (4:7). Furthermore, even in the present generation there was still ‘work’ to do (4:10), and the future ‘Sabbath rest’ for Jewish believers [as for those from every nation] was a promise that would only be inherited by trusting in Jesus [‘Joshua’ in Greek] ‘until the end’ (3:14; 4:3, 11). Believers might still ‘today’ be disqualified from inheriting the promise through unbelief and disobedience (3:19–4:2), as had the generation of Moses who died in the wilderness even after being ‘saved’ from slavery.
Obviously the writer here is not saying that the promise of ‘rest’ has been withdrawn since the Mosaic Law has been abolished, nor even that it has been ‘spiritualised’. On the contrary, the entrance into the land under Joshua is treated as the best example so far of a fulfilment of the promised ‘rest’, and if even Joshua’s inheritance of the land was not the fulfilment, how much less could Jewish believers in the mid-first century AD think that their generation was the final fulfilment. The writer reminds his listeners that in earlier times they endured great persecution from fellow Jews, but “accepted joyfully the seizure of your property”. The implication is that they should again be willing to give up their land in the present age, knowing that they will inherit “a better, lasting possession” (10:34‑35). What makes the inheritance of land in the future ‘better’ is its permanence.
Hebrews 11:8-16 – Our writer has explained how Jesus has made the Mosaic sacrificial system obsolete, and furthermore how continued reliance on it is now actually evidence instead of unfaithfulness towards God’s new covenant, deserving of terrifying judgement. He then returns to his earlier theme of future inheritance of the promised land, inheritance that is only ensured by faithful endurance in the present (10:32‑39; cf. 3:5–4:11). This may involve accepting present seizure of property within the land of Israel, but we can be joyful in this because we have a greater birthright (12:16‑17), a permanent inheritance in the future. With this, our writer recalls that the ages of creation were “prepared” by God’s promise, which made them without having to use pre-existent materials (11:3; cf. Isa 66:8). What is more, not a single one among the righteous heroes of the past actually received their promised inheritance, because their ‘perfection’ will happen at the same time as ours (11:39‑40; cf. Luke 13:28‑29). Instead they wandered homeless and persecuted, condemning the rest of the earth’s inhabitants by their faith, and looking forward to the resurrection (11:7, 13, 27, 35‑38). In fact, such was their righteousness that this present world was not even a worthy inheritance for them (11:7, 16, 38). The question is, then, what is the inheritance of which the faithful are worthy?
In 11:8‑16, our writer focuses attention on the physical territory in which Abraham wandered, the country in which his listeners were now living (cf. Acts 7:4). If he had wanted, this would have been the ideal time to tell Jewish believers that the land was no longer important, that they should hope for a ‘different’ country, or perhaps ‘living in heaven for ever’. However he says quite the opposite. That territory is “the land of promise”, the place “he was to receive for an inheritance”. If none of these people of God in this chapter have yet received what was promised (11:13, 39‑40), this means that Abraham will still receive this territory at some future point. He then writes that Isaac and Jacob lived in tents also, as “fellow heirs of the same promise”, meaning that they too will receive this territory along with Abraham (cf. Luke 13:28).
What made their behaviour unusual was that they did not actually own any of the land in their own day (cf. Acts 7:5), choosing to live in it as if they were foreigners rather than heirs. They “confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the land”, and yet chose to remain there rather than return to the land from which they had left. Clearly, they were wanting an inheritance, but they believed they were already in the right place. Even so, it was not quite what they were looking for; they wanted a ‘better’ country, that is, a more permanent one (cf. 10:34), and they were prepared to wait right there until it was delivered (cf. Gen 26:1-6). True to His word, God has been preparing a city for them, even a country, built not by their own hands but by God Himself (i.e. ‘heavenly’ – 11:10, 16; 12:22; 1 Cor 15:47‑53; 2 Cor 5:1‑4).
This is our own hope also, in every land on earth that we ourselves have been called to: When we choose not to abandon the mission God has given us by returning to the country from which we left, it is because we are looking forward to God’s promised, prepared inheritance for us in the age to come – the very lands in which we presently live as strangers (cf. Gen 13:14-17). On the other hand, we might choose to leave the land of our inheritance in order to help other nations receive their inheritance, just like the tribes of Reuben, Gad and Manasseh chose not to receive their own territories until the rest of the tribes had conquered theirs (Num 32:16-24). They did not give up the hope of inheriting their land, but they postponed it for the sake of the rest of God’s people. Heaven itself is not our inheritance; rather it is God’s workshop where He is preparing our earthly inheritance for us, “a better possession and a lasting one”.
In summary, therefore, we have seen how the Gospels, Acts, and the Epistles all teach clearly that Israel will indeed permanently possess the territory promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the resurrection age to come. This will happen after the Messiah returns, as a result of the whole nation of Israel being reconciled to their God when they see God’s mercy shown to the full number of Gentile nations. Israel is not alone, therefore, in inheriting a promised land. Paul saw that just as Adam’s sin affected all humanity and all creation, so Jesus’ obedience will bring restoration to all humanity and to every land on earth (cf. Acts 17:26), because by faith they too can become adopted ‘sons of God’ and the ‘seed of Abraham’. The hope for every nation, and for every believer, is that as they move in faith to the place to which God has called them, God will grant them a permanent inheritance there in the time of resurrection and ‘restoration of all things’. Thus ‘the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord’, for Jesus will be ‘the king of all the earth’, ruling from Mount Zion, the ‘city of the great king’ (Num 14:21; Psa 47; 48:1‑8; Mat 5:35; Rev 20:4‑9; 21:10, 22‑27).
The next post will offer a summary of the New Testament teaching concerning the promised land.
The three chapters of Romans 9-11 deal with the biggest objection Gentile believers might have to his ‘gospel’ of first Jews and also Gentiles receiving the inheritance of salvation. They explain why Paul can be so confident that his own nation will experience ‘salvation’, despite all present evidence to the contrary. Within these chapters, the verses at the beginning and end of his explanation offer the clearest evidence of Paul’s conviction that the covenant of land remains in effect for Israel.
Romans 9:4 – So far Paul has presented thoroughly the gospel message that both Jews and Gentiles are equally slaves to sin, but to show His love God sent His Son to pay the penalty of death on behalf of both Gentile and Jew, so that both alike could put their trust solely in His resurrection and thereby receive the Spirit now and inherit ‘salvation’ in the age to come. This promise of ‘salvation’ inheritance, for the Jew first and also for the Gentile, is undermined however by Israel’s apparent failure as a nation to confess their Messiah and so inherit their promises. Paul’s solution to this problem is to demonstrate how God has purposely delayed the inheritance of Israel so that the spiritual descendants of Abraham might be first gathered from all nations, and only then will Israel, along with the elect of every nation, together inherit their promised lands.
Paul is very open about his ‘unceasing grief’ about the hardness of his own Jewish nation toward their Messiah, quite the opposite of those who presume unwisely that God has simply moved on to bigger things (11:25). Although he is the Apostle to the Gentiles, he would prefer to be personally cast out from the Messiah’s people in order that they as a nation might receive their inheritance of salvation (9:3). Not only is this what the Messiah Himself chose to do, but Paul is surely recalling the plea of Moses to this effect in Exodus 32:32 (cf. Deut 9:14). Twice God gave Moses the option of allowing Him to destroy Israel completely and instead make a great nation of Moses himself, once when the people made the golden calf before they received the Ten Commandments (Exod 32:9‑10), and a second time when they refused to go in and possess their promised land (Num 14:11‑12; cf. Deut 9:13‑14, 22‑23). In both cases, Moses appealed directly to God’s promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that He would multiply their descendants and allow them to inherit the promised land for ever (Exod 32:11-13; Num 14:15‑16; Deut 9:27‑29); if God didn’t do this, the nations would question God’s own power to fulfil His promises. Such is again the situation in Paul’s time.
In response to the threat of destruction on Israel, therefore, Paul likewise appeals to God’s choice of the nation, listing a series of nine ‘advantages’ of the Jews (9:4‑5; cf. 3:1‑2). Paul appears to have deliberately ordered this list according to the story of the Exodus of the Israelites from slavery. Thus he starts with their descent from ‘Israel’ (Exod 1:1‑7), followed by six specific gifts: their ‘adoption as sons’ (Exod 4:22‑26), the ‘glory’ (Exod 13:21‑22; 16:10; cf. 24:16‑18; Num 14:10), the ‘covenants’ (Exod 19:3‑6; 20:1–23:33; 24:3‑8), the ‘giving of the Law’ (Exod 24:1‑2, 12; 31:18; 34:1‑4, 27‑29), the [tabernacle] ‘service’ (Exod 25:1–31:11), and the ‘promises’ (Exod 32:13, 32:31–33:3, 12‑17). He then appeals, as Moses did within the section on promises, to ‘the fathers’ (Exod 32:13; 33:1), but takes it even further than Moses did, appealing to the Jewish descent of ‘the Messiah… who is over all” (cf. Exod 33:2, 12; 23:20‑23). The precise order of these nine elements according to the book of Exodus, concluding with the very passage where Moses asks, like Paul here, that he be blotted out in place of the nation, is strong evidence of Paul’s meaning. The ‘promises’ that were given to ‘the fathers’ are spoken of in this passage (Exod 32:13 etc.) specifically as the multiplication of Israel ‘as the stars of the heavens’ and their inheritance ‘for ever’ of ‘all this land of which I have spoken’. The blessings on the nations are not referred to here, apart perhaps from the way the nations will doubt God’s love and power if He fails to fulfil His promises.
Therefore we have in Romans 9:4 a clear reference by Paul to God’s enduring covenant promises of multiplication of the Jewish nation ‘as the stars of the heavens’ and their eternal possession of the specific territory promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Sequence of Paul’s argument in Romans 9-11
Paul’s first argument against the idea that God’s promises have failed for Israel is that God is entirely at liberty to choose some and harden others. Ever since Abraham, God has deliberately and consistently ordained that the most unlikely child will be the ‘seed’ of promise, independent of the actions of this chosen ‘seed’, simply to prove that it is all about God’s mercy rather than man’s effort (9:6-13). Paul therefore has to address two objections to the idea that God has hardened the majority of the nation of Israel entirely of His own choice (9:14‑22; cf. Isa 64:6‑9). The only reason he gives for this hardening is that God uses it to demonstrate His glory to those on whom He shows mercy, both Gentiles and the remnant of Jews (9:23‑29).
His second argument raises the question of why Israel who pursued righteousness according to the Law of Moses did not arrive at their goal. His answer is that however zealous they were for God, they were trying to accomplish their own righteousness and so they stumbled over their own Messiah, who demanded that they put their trust solely in His resurrection (9:30–10:13). Even the Law itself was meant to be observed by faith (9:32), because Moses himself wrote that the commands he was giving were not a matter of hard work; rather, people could only accomplish these commands by allowing the Lord their God to circumcise their hearts so they could love Him and live (Deut 30:6‑14).
His third argument concerns whether Israel has actually been told about this good news of the Messiah, as the Gentiles had. His response was, ‘Of course!’ Many apostles had gone to Jerusalem and the Jews announcing the ‘good news’ that not only has redemption come for Israel, but the Gentiles can now also rejoice in the ‘salvation’ of the Jewish God (Isa 52:7‑10). Gentiles have been told of God’s glory (Psa 19), and because they found the God they weren’t even seeking (Isa 65:1‑2), He would use them to make His own people jealous, the very people who had made Him jealous by worshiping idols (Deut 32:16‑21).
His fourth argument applies the first argument more specifically to the present day; God has not completely rejected His people, because there is still a believing remnant [and by implication, there will always be such a remnant]. Paul himself is Jewish (11:1), and not only him, but as in Elijah’s time so at this time God has chosen thousands of Jews, entirely according to His own grace (11:2‑6). As in the time of Moses, David, and Isaiah, God Himself had decreed a hardening over the majority of the Jewish nation, choosing a small selection to obtain righteousness (11:7-10).
Finally Paul comes to his fifth and greatest argument, that the nation has not stumbled so badly that they will not rise again (11:11-32). Moses had prophesied that Gentiles would become believers precisely so that His own people might be made jealous and return to Him (Deut 32:21, 36, 43). For this reason Paul, an apostle to the Gentiles, boasted to the Jews about Gentile conversion to try to make them jealous and perhaps save some of them (11:13‑14); he saw his own Gentile mission as a method of reaching out to Jews. What Paul recognised was that God had enslaved Israel to sin in order to redeem Gentile sinners, and was now redeeming Gentile sinners in order to redeem Israel also; God has made all nations slaves to sin so that by His choice and power alone He can redeem them all (11:30‑32). What is more, if God’s anger towards Israel was a blessing for all nations, His favour towards Israel will certainly bring even more blessing to all nations, in the form of “life from the dead” (11:12, 15). Israel is promised not just ‘reconciliation’ when they return to their own God (11:24), but ‘life from the dead’ also – thus we can conclude that their national restoration will result in the return of Jesus and resurrection of all believers.
Romans 11:29 – Paul’s Gentile listeners were rebuked for being ‘arrogant’ towards the Jewish nation, whether believers or unbelievers (11:17‑18). Gentiles must not forget that although they are now able to inherit the promises as adopted ‘sons of God’ and the ‘seed of Abraham’, the Jews are ‘sons of God’ and ‘seed of Abraham’ by birth, and will all the more naturally be restored to their own covenant promises (11:24). The ‘mystery’ of the gospel (11:25‑27; cf. 16:25‑26) is that Israel has been temporarily hardened to allow all nations to enter into the covenant also, but when the full number of nations are present, this will cause the whole nation of Israel to be ‘saved’, both from sin and into their inheritance.
Although Israel as a whole is presently far from God so that Gentiles can be saved, nevertheless, within the purposes of God the nation is still “beloved for the sake of the fathers” (11:28). The reason for this is that God cannot and will not revoke either His gifts or His calling. What are the gifts and calling of Israel? The calling of Israel is to be a blessing to all nations, and the gifts are a multitude of faithful Jewish descendants and an eternal inheritance of their promised land [see discussion of 9:4 above].
I am convinced that Paul believed the promises to the Patriarchs of multiplication and territorial inheritance to have endured into the new covenant. Although in writing to Gentiles he usually had no reason to defend the promise of land to the Jews, the letter to the Romans was a clear and important exception. Even so, he certainly never claimed that Jewish believers such as himself had a claim to the promised land in this age, before every nation had received the good news. Jews in the land, and probably even Jewish believers, did make such a claim, which was something even Jesus had to address (cf. Acts 1:6‑8).
If Paul were to write to a Jewish majority church, therefore, he would almost certainly have urged them to trust God for the future inheritance of the land rather than trusting the obsolete Temple system of Moses to qualify for inheritance in this age. Enduring persecution from fellow Jews for rejecting the Temple was preferable to risking divine judgement for despising the Messiah’s greater sacrifice and priesthood, even if it meant the seizure of one’s family inheritance of land (Heb 10:34). In every generation of Israel there had been the faithful remnant who had longed for the fulfilment of the promised inheritance, but had instead chosen suffering for the sake of the rest of God’s people. God would certainly fulfil His promises, but not yet. This is precisely the message written to the Hebrew believers in Israel probably just a few years after the letter to the Romans, as we shall see in the next post.
The three chapters in Romans where Paul wrestles with the general unbelief of his own generation of Jews is actually a marvellous explanation of God’s sovereign purposes in this hardening. Like the book of Acts, Paul recognises the Gentile mission as the reason why Israel has not yet inherited her covenant promises, but nevertheless he triumphantly reaffirms the certainty of fulfilment, because this fulfilment for Israel will itself signify the greater fulfilment of Christ’s inheritance of every nation for the Church. In order to understand the flow of Paul’s argument, it is worth explaining briefly the situation that prompted the letter, and giving a summary of Paul’s reasoning up to the start of chapter 9:
Background to Romans
In the nine years since writing to the Galatians, Paul noticed that the massive growth of Gentile churches meant that the main theological question within churches comprised of both Jews and Gentiles had changed. The decree of the Jerusalem Council confirmed that Gentile believers did not need to be circumcised (Acts 15:22‑31). Instead, Jewish believers were quickly becoming a minority everywhere apart from the land of Israel, and as this religion became less recognisably Jewish, the question naturally arose whether Jews had any remaining significance at all in God’s purposes. This question is still very common today.
The issue was most noticeable in the church in Rome, because Jewish disputes about the Messiah had led to the Emperor Claudius expelling all Jews in AD49 (cf. Acts 18:2), leaving an entirely Gentile church there. Although Jewish believers did begin to return over the next few years (cf. Rom 16:2-4), the church there had changed unalterably, and tensions were introduced. Jews boasted about their superior knowledge of God’s righteous Law, insisting on being teachers (1:17–3:20; 12:3), but Gentile believers criticised Jews for their weak faith when they continued to believe that eating certain foods or failing to observe Sabbath laws was sinful (14:1–15:4).
Paul wanted to visit Rome to teach into these tensions, but first he had to carry the gifts of the Gentile churches to their poorer brothers in Jerusalem (15:22-29). He knew that this issue would only become more of a problem the longer he left it, but also that Rome, being the centre of wisdom and culture (1:14‑15), could positively affect the rest of the Gentile mission if they understood the truth (1:8‑13; 16:19). He already knew a number of the Roman believers personally, both Jews and Gentiles, and he knew that there were some on whom he could rely to explain his arguments in more detail (Priscilla and Aquila – 16:3‑15; cf. Acts 18:2‑3, 26). Therefore he decided to use his authority and well-known successes as the Apostle to the Gentiles to write boldly to the church in Rome and explain in detail the theological ‘mystery’ of Jews and Gentiles within God’s purposes (15:15‑19; 16:25‑26).
Paul knew that understanding this ‘good news’ was the solution to the unity problems; it would help the Gentiles to give due respect to God’s choice of the Jews first (1:16; 2:9‑10; 3:1‑2; 15:8‑9; cf. 11:16; Eph 1:12‑13; Jas 1:18; Rev 14:1‑5), but also help the Jews to stop boasting in the obsolete Law of Moses and walk in the freedom of the Spirit. But how could Paul defend the ‘good news’ that God is able to bring ‘salvation’ first to the Jews (1:16), when the nation of Israel had obviously rejected their promised Messiah? Perhaps He had passed over the Jews now that He had bigger plans; perhaps His commitment to them had failed (3:1‑4; 9:6; 11:1)? Paul had no choice, therefore, but to tackle head on the question of God’s purposes for Israel as a nation. If God couldn’t even reconcile His own Jewish nation to Himself, and so fulfil His promises of a permanent land inheritance, Paul could hardly presume to teach other nations about their glorious hope of inheriting the rest of the world in the Messiah (4:13; 8:18‑25).
Brief summary of Paul’s reasoning in Romans
What follows is a summary of the ‘mystery’ as Paul explained it to the church in Rome. Israel’s inheritance of the promises made to Jacob is at the foundation of Paul’s entire argument:
The God of Jacob promised His people an eternal inheritance, but the holy Law He gave them through Moses before they entered the promised land instead made them slaves to sin just like the Gentiles, unable to inherit as ‘sons’. God’s own Son therefore came as a Jew, so that by His obedient death He could legally free Israel from the Law’s power, dying in place of both Jews and Gentiles to pay for their sin. Jesus was then resurrected, so that both Jew and Gentile alike could trust in God’s ability to raise the dead, and thus become righteous ‘sons of God’ just like Abraham, able to inherit his promised ‘blessing for all nations’. The life of the Spirit that Jesus received began to spread, first to the Jews, and then, because of the temporary hardness of Israel, to nation after nation. Eventually this life will ‘overwhelmingly conquer’ the death that Adam brought to all humanity and all creation. Provoked by the mercy shown to all nations, Israel will finally return to God, bringing life from the dead and thereby inheriting her promises alongside every other nation, right across the earth. For this reason, in the Church we should live out the ‘obedience of faith’, avoiding sin by the power of the Spirit, and showing love to others who are different from us, because this will demonstrate to worldly authorities and unbelievers the truth of God’s promises in Christ of harmony and ‘salvation’ for all nations together in the resurrection age to come.
Flow of Paul’s argument in Romans 1-8
Paul begins his argument by demonstrating to Gentiles that the Law of Moses is self-evidently accurate in its assessment of what is bad, and therefore comes from the Creator God (1:18‑32). Gentiles are hypocrites, judging others for sins they commit themselves (2:1‑8, 14‑16), as Jews do also (2:17–3:20), meaning that Jews and Gentiles are equally sinners before God (2:9-13; 3:23). The good news, however, is that God has displayed in Jesus’ death and resurrection a way of being right before God that does not depend on Law but rather on trust (1:17; 3:21‑22, 24‑30).
This doesn’t mean, however, that there is no longer any ‘law’ by which we must live (3:31). Instead the ‘law’ we have to follow is the command to trust that God can do what He has promised and raise the dead (3:27; 4:3‑5, 22‑25). The Jews’ own ethnic father Abraham proved that being in right relationship with God did not actually depend on following Law, but rather on believing that God could raise the dead (4:1‑25), something Gentiles can now do as well as Jews. Being right with God means Gentiles can share the Jewish hope of future resurrection inheritance, and the deposit of the Holy Spirit helps us make it through present tribulations while we wait (5:1‑11). In fact, to prove His love for Gentiles and intention to include them in the Jewish hope of ‘salvation’, the Messiah died for them before they even knew about Him, while they were still ‘sinners’ (cf. Gal 2:15).
God’s plan to ‘reconcile’ every nation to Himself, using Gentiles themselves to spread the good news of life to others (5:11), was actually just like the way death had initially spread to all humans starting with one man, in fact, with just one action (5:12-19). But compared with Adam’s sin, Jesus’ obedience accomplished even more, overcoming even the punishments that started to accumulate for Jews when Moses brought in the Law (5:13‑14, 20‑21; cf. 2:12; 3:25; Acts 17:30). If His grace is powerful enough to atone for breaking the Laws of Moses, that still doesn’t mean Jews are free to keep breaking it (6:1-14; cf. 3:8, 31), because belonging to Messiah means recognising that His crucifixion was a payment for Jews breaking the Law, and we Jews are now made alive with Him in this new age of laws on our hearts (cf. Gal 2:19-20; 3:13; Heb 10:19-26; Isa 59:12-21; Jer 31:31-34). Equally, Gentiles who were never under ‘Law’ in the first place, are also not free to presume on His death-defeating grace (6:15-23), because they used to be obedient slaves to sin but now have a new master, One who can give them far better promises than the ‘wages’ of death they used to get.
Paul then realised that the Gentile illustration of slavery to sin could be linked to the Jewish illustration of sharing in the curse-bearing death of Messiah which did away with the former age of habitual Law-breaking. Therefore he turns back to his Jewish listeners (7:1), who knew well the illustration of the nation being ‘married’ to her God (e.g. Isa 54:1-8). The Law of Moses had actually bound her to the husband of Sin, producing the offspring (‘fruit’) of death; the only way she could become married to Messiah would be for the old marriage covenant (Law) to be ended through her own death (sharing the shameful curse of a crucified Messiah in baptism), freeing her then to wed her Messiah (7:1-6). The marriage Law wasn’t what produced death, but it was the husband Sin who used the Law to produce deadly offspring. Therefore the nation of Israel (habitually unfaithful even beforehand) had been given in marriage by God to her chosen husband Sin, but God wed them using a holy covenant of Law. This resulted in the situation where the nation realised she desperately desired another husband in order to produce righteousness, but having been married to Sin she was ‘sold in slavery’ to this husband because of the Law (7:7-25). Even the individual Jew under the Law [or Christian without a true experience of grace] can testify to this desire for freedom from Sin and joining to Messiah.
That is why there is no longer any condemnation for the Jewish believer who does not obey the Mosaic Law – the new marriage covenant ‘Law’ of the Holy Spirit (cf. Jer 31:31‑34), in whom we are now ‘married’ to the Messiah, is evidence that we are no longer in our former marriage, bound by the Law of Moses to Sin and its offspring Death. The holy Law could not change the Jewish nation’s uncircumcised, fleshly heart, by enslaving her to Sin and showing her the results of her rebellion. Instead God’s own Son entered that marriage by becoming Jewish in the ‘likeness’ of that fleshly nation that was bound to Sin (8:3; cf. 1:3; 15:8; Gal 4:4‑5), and because He obeyed the different Law of the Spirit even to the point of crucifixion, the fleshly Law of Moses condemned Him (as an ‘adulterer’ breaking Israel’s marriage covenant with Sin – cf. Num 5:19-28) using the curse against ‘anyone who is hung on a tree’ (Gal 3:13). As the representative head of the Jewish nation (i.e. the Davidic Messiah) He Himself suffered the holy Law’s curse on behalf of the whole nation (Gal 3:10, 13) and suffered the ‘exile’ of death as a penalty (cf. Heb 13:12-14). However, although He was a Jew according to the flesh, He had never consummated Israel’s marriage with Sin to produce Death despite being faultless according to that covenant, and when He was still punished for breaking the covenant, He condemned Sin as the false husband, and His own representative death ended the old marriage covenant of the Law of Moses joining Israel to Sin (8:1-3).
The nation of Israel can therefore be faithful to her holy marriage ‘Law’, not the Law of Moses with Sin but the Law of the Spirit with her Messiah, and produce life. Marriage ‘faithfulness’ (i.e. righteousness) is now found not through the Law of Moses, obeying Sin because of fleshly uncircumcision of heart, but rather through the Law of the Spirit, obeying Messiah because His Spirit has circumcised our heart and we are no longer ‘in the flesh’ (8:4‑10). Believers, not unbelieving Jews, are those who truly observe the new ‘Law’ that has been given to Israel in Messiah (cf. Gal 5:13-26; 6:15-16). We must therefore live according to the commands of the Spirit, who will ultimately cause us to inherit resurrection life as the true ‘sons of God’ and heirs of God, unlike unbelieving Jews (8:11‑14; cf. Gal 3:24‑26; 4:1‑2, 4‑5, 29‑30). Not only are Jews truly ‘sons of God’ if they are led by the Spirit, but also Gentiles who were ‘slaves’ can be adopted as ‘sons of God’ and ‘co-heirs’, if they are led by the Spirit (8:14‑15; cf. Gal 3:26-29; 4:3, 5-8; 5:1-6).
Having returned now to his earlier focus on what ‘salvation’ means – the resurrection life that Gentiles and Jews will both inherit (cf. 5:2-10), Paul expands on this hope of inheritance. The coming ‘restoration of all things’ will happen at the time we are all alike ‘adopted’ as fully mature heirs of God and receive resurrection (8:23; cf. Gal 4:1‑2), and it will include all of creation, not just our own physical bodies. In the meantime we must rely on the Spirit to endure our temporary present persecution, being confident that no persecution can prevent us from eventually receiving “all things” as our inheritance (8:17‑39).
Paul quotes here from Psalm 44, a psalm which recalls how ‘in the days of old’ God Himself ‘planted’ Israel in her land without her help. Now, though, He has apparently rejected His people, scattering them into exile so that the Gentiles mock and revile them. The psalmist protests that the righteous within Israel have not turned away from God, but calls on Him to redeem the nation for His own sake. Evidently Paul is conscious of His own nation’s wickedness and imminent judgement, even though there is a suffering righteous remnant who have accepted their Messiah’s new covenant. In the face of Israel’s hardness of heart, however, Paul is for some reason still able to rejoice (8:37) in hope that God will again redeem Israel and plant them in the land of their inheritance, for His own sake, at that time when the rest of creation too is freed from slavery to corruption and all the ‘sons of God’ are revealed in glory.
The next three chapters of Romans, therefore, explain why Paul can be so confident that his own nation will experience ‘salvation’, despite all present evidence to the contrary. Within these chapters, the verses at the beginning and end of his explanation offer the clearest evidence of Paul’s conviction that the covenant of land remains in effect for Israel.
Acts 7:2-53 – Stephen’s long speech to the Sanhedrin before his martyrdom might appear to some readers to be a vain attempt by a condemned man to delay the inevitable and prove that he was actually a good Jew who knew his Bible stories. By no means! In this sermon Stephen was expertly retelling the story of God’s people to religious leaders accustomed to putting themselves in the shoes of their ancestors. By recounting certain features of their history rather than others, he was making a series of uncomfortable theological points, getting his hearers so increasingly riled that they finally covered their ears and shouted to drown him out, and stoned him into silence. Perhaps it was the points made in this sermon that Paul [Saul] couldn’t get out of his head (Acts 7:58–8:3) as he sought to purge the land from the followers of this false prophet Jesus, one who taught that the Temple and the commands of Moses were to be done away with (Acts 6:11-14; cf. Deut 13:1‑15). Here we will ‘listen’ to Stephen’s speech through the ears of first century Jews, by applying each story to ‘our’ own time:
7:2-8 is the story of the father of the ‘circumcision’ (the Jewish nation), Abraham “our father”, who was directed by God to move to “this country in which you are now living”. However, despite the promise of this land as “a possession, and to his descendants after him”, ‘our father’ was given “not even a foot of ground”. The first implication is therefore that although ‘we’ also, like our father, are living in our promised land, we will be given ‘not even a foot of ground’ to inherit, perhaps not for hundreds of years yet. The second, subsidiary implication is that there will indeed be judgement on “whatever nation to which they will be in bondage”, after which the nation will be brought back in to worship God in their promised land. This assurance of eventual vindication against the Greeks and Romans would hardly, however, make up for the clear warning that ‘our’ nation will soon become “aliens in a foreign land … enslaved and mistreated for [hundreds of] years”.
7:9-35 continues with the story “as the time of the promise was approaching” for fulfilment of the covenant of land for the descendants of Abraham. First of all, ‘our fathers’ “became jealous of Joseph and sold him”, but “God was with him”, not only rescuing him from all his afflictions, but making him governor over the nations. In a similar way, Moses, who was “lovely to God”, a “man of power in words and deeds” who was “approaching the age of forty”, was still “disowned” by his own brothers who objected to the idea that God might make him “a ruler and judge over us”. Nevertheless, God “has sent” this same disowned wonder-worker to be “both a ruler and a deliverer” for his oppressed people. The third implication is unmistakeable – this was a time when the Jewish people were expectantly looking for the fulfilment of Daniel’s prophecies and the arrival of the Messiah (Dan 9:24-25), the One who would restore Jewish authority over the land. However, despite being beloved of God and powerful in words and deeds, Jesus was disowned by His brothers who were jealous of the authority God had given Him to be their ruler and deliverer. Even so, God delivered Him from all His afflictions and made Him ruler over both His own people and the nations.
7:36-40 focuses in on the reaction of the Israelite nation to their deliverer Moses while he was among them, as the time approached for the covenant of promised land to be fulfilled. Moses performed “wonders and signs” not only at the beginning of his ministry but throughout the time of their journey through the wilderness, as a pattern for the “prophet like me” he foresaw whom God would raise up “from your brethren”. Moses was not only among the congregation in the wilderness, but also received revelation directly from God through the ‘angel of the Lord’ who travelled with ‘our fathers’; thus he received not just the written laws recorded in the books of the Pentateuch, but also “living oracles to pass on to you”. Even so, “our fathers were unwilling to be obedient to him, but repudiated him” and in their hearts chose slavery and idolatry instead, particularly after he was no longer visibly among them. The fourth implication is a powerful denunciation of the way the Jewish nation had treated Jesus during His ministry and even afterwards, despite their expectation of an imminent fulfilment of the Messianic age. Although Jesus proved Himself to be the ‘prophet like Moses’ with both His miracles and His remarkable ‘living oracles’, explaining and superseding the written Law of Moses, even so ‘you’ were disobedient to the voice of God revealed through Him. ‘You’ denounced Him as your deliverer, and in your hearts instead you chose slavery (to the Roman authorities) and idolatry (of the Temple system), and all the more now that Jesus is no longer visible among you.
7:41-50 shifts attention onto the significance of the sanctuary and later Temple in God’s purposes for Israel. In the days of Israel’s rebellion against Moses, they chose to make sacrifices to “the works of their hands” in which they rejoiced. In response, God turned away from them also, and “delivered them up to serve the host of heaven”, because the sacrificial worship they made in the tabernacle was in reality made not to God but to the images that they themselves had made. As a result, God promised to send the nation into exile in Babylon. ‘Our fathers’ did actually bring that tabernacle with them into the land, but when David who had “found favour in God’s sight” asked if he could find a permanent “dwelling place for the house of Jacob”, God’s response was to deny any need for either a Temple or a permanent physical location for His presence (cf. 2 Sam 7:6‑7). His son Solomon did build the Temple, but God repeated through later prophets His continued rejection of a need for Temple and holy place. The fifth implication explains why Stephen was accused of speaking against “this holy place”, just as the fourth implication touched on how Jesus’ ‘living oracles’ superseded the Law of Moses and “the customs which Moses handed down to us” (Acts 6:11-14). More important than the sanctuary itself is the object of the nation’s worship, and just like ‘your fathers’, in your rebellion against God you are actually making sacrifices not to Him but to the glorious ‘works of your hands’, the impressive Temple full of your own self-honouring adornments in which you rejoice (cf. Luke 21:5-6). God has no special attachment either to this building or to this place when it is not honouring Him, and He will remove you, like your fathers, into exile from the land.
In 7:51-53 Stephen has finished his retelling of Israel’s history and made his points loud and clear, and now in conclusion he makes explicit what had been implied, and condemns his hearers in language as vehement as any of the Old Testament prophets. The reference to his hearers receiving “the law as ordained by angels” but not keeping it (7:53) may be a straightforward accusation of not observing the Law of Moses, which was traditionally said to have been delivered to Moses via angels, but it is also possible that the reference is equally an accusation of disobedience against the ‘living oracles’ that Jesus Himself brought to the people (7:38). It appears that the Early Church recognised that the ‘angel of the Lord’, who interacted with Moses and led Israel through the wilderness (Exod 3:2‑6, 13‑17; 13:21; 14:19; 23:20‑23; 24:9-11; 33:1-3, 12-20; Isa 63:8-14; Heb 1:4–2:9; Jude :5; cf. 1 Cor 10:4; Rev 14:14‑16), was Jesus Himself in a pre-incarnate form.
In this sermon He had effectively accused the Jewish leaders of rejecting their appointed deliverer despite God’s vindication of Him, ignoring His miracles and ‘living oracles’ that superseded those of Moses, and worshiping the works of their hands rather than the God in whose Temple they trusted. As a result God had decided they would be taken into exile and be mistreated in foreign lands for hundreds of years, not inheriting even a foot of ground in the land that God had promised to give to Abraham and to his descendants after him. God did not need a building or physical location in which to dwell, and neither did He have to fulfil His covenant promise of land with that particular generation that rejected His Servant (cf. 7:45). Stephen’s speech clearly teaches the covenant of land made with Abraham and his physical descendants, and despite prophesying judgement and exile on his own generation, he also implies an eventual return of the nation from exile to “serve me in this place” (7:7).
Having looked at Jesus’ prophecies of the coming exile of Israel and her return at the end of the age, we now turn to consider His prophecies about the beginning of the next age, when Israel is dwelling permanently and securely in her land.
Luke 13:23-30 – Luke 13 is a chapter which speaks much about the judgement on Israel and her future restoration, but in this passage there is a closer focus on what ‘salvation’ really means. Just before our passage, in Luke 13:18-21, Jesus told two parables about the ‘kingdom of God’, but readers today are often deaf to the resonances of Israel’s promised physical territory for Jesus’ Jewish audience (cf. ‘the kingdom’ in Acts 1:6, for which see below). Before rejecting and spiritualising this common term, we must allow it to space to speak to the subject of the land covenant and see how Jesus addressed the expectations of His own nation. For example, describing it as the ‘kingdom of God’ [or ‘kingdom of heaven’ in Matthew 13:31-33; for explanation of the ‘heavenly’ origin of the promised land, see discussion of Galatians 4:26 above] rather than the ‘kingdom of Israel’ was deliberate, because God will be Israel’s king in the restoration, and the territory belongs to Him and is granted by Him. It is highly instructive to read Jesus’ ‘kingdom’ teachings as being addressed to the national anticipation of inheriting territory in the age of restoration.
Both parables are included here before our passage to describe the period leading up to the restoration of the land to Israel. The believing ‘remnant’ of the Jewish nation is taken and ‘thrown’ into the world, God’s garden, or ‘hidden’ in a vast quantity of flour, but it grows to leaven the whole world, or becomes a ‘tree’ planted in the land of Israel (Eze 17:22-24) grown large enough for the ‘birds of the air’, that is, Gentiles, to nest in it (cf. Dan 4:10‑12, 20‑22, 26). The background of this image in both Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and Ezekiel’s vision was probably meant to be recognised by Jesus’ hearers, and similarities of both with Isaiah 6:11‑13 would imply that despite exile, the Messianic ‘shoot’ (Mat 2:23) from the cut down stump would grow during exile and ultimately be planted back in the land.
In a suitable response to these parables, someone then asks Jesus, “Are there just a few who are being saved?” Jesus responded appropriately by understanding ‘salvation’ as the age of restoration to come, as Paul and others clearly do also (cf. Rom 5:9-11; 1 Cor 15:51-57; 1 Thes 1:10; 1 Pet 1:3-13). Jesus warns that unbelievers, even if they are Jews who shared food with Jesus and heard Him teach in their streets, will not be welcomed by Him into His kingdom. In the following chapter Luke records more teaching about this common Jewish expectation of eating meals in the ‘kingdom of God’, the ‘resurrection of the righteous’ (14:14-17; cf. 16:8‑9). Here the warning is that the Jewish nation that has been invited will not taste any of the blessings of the coming resurrection kingdom because they were so focused on their own personal inheritance of land that they ignored and insulted the host who was inviting them (14:16-24).
However back in 13:28-29, Jesus gives even more clarity to where this ‘feast’ will happen at the beginning of the age to come (cf. Luke 22:14-18; 22:28-30; Rev 3:20; 19:6-9). ‘Reclining [at the table] in the kingdom of God’ will for many require travelling first “from east and west and from north and south” to where one finds “Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God”. Those who travel from the four corners of the world are probably Gentiles, rather than dispersed Jews (Mat 8:5-13; Gen 28:14; Psa 107:1-3; Isa 60:10-22), and they come to where Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are, the land of Israel “in the midst of the earth” (Isa 19:24-25), in fulfilment of the covenant promises to these Patriarchs of both land and blessing on the nations (Gen 28:13-15; 12:1-3; 17:4-8; 26:3-5; Lev 26:40-45).
Matthew 19:28-29 – As is his custom, Matthew has here apparently grouped together two teachings that Luke recognises were spoken on two different occasions (Luke 18:28‑30; 22:28‑30). However Matthew recognises that there is a general principle of being rewarded in kind in the age to come for what we leave in this present age in order to follow Jesus, but also that this general principle will be fulfilled specifically for the twelve Jewish disciples and the Jewish nation in the age to come. Matthew’s ‘inheritance’ of eternal, undisturbed ‘living’ in houses and farms is identified as being in ‘the age to come’ in Mark 10:29-30 and Luke 18:28-30, because although we might receive ‘one hundred times as much’ in this age, we still will not get to inherit it permanently yet. However, “in the regeneration”, which is when Jesus is sitting on His glorious throne (clearly understood literally a few verses later in 20:20-23), each follower of Jesus will receive their promised inheritance in the worldwide heaven-built ‘kingdom of God’ (19:23-28). We sacrifice present fulfilment and inheritance “for the sake of the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:29).
Within this general inheritance for all those who are ‘saved’ from every nation, each inheriting their promised lands, Jesus has promised that the twelve disciples who followed Him and “stood by me in my trials” (Luke 22:28; cf. Mat 20:21-23) will be granted a ‘kingdom’ of their own, made up of the twelve tribes of Israel. The reason Jesus can assign territories to specific followers is because His Father granted Him the whole earth as His kingdom (Luke 22:29; Psa 2:8-12; Exod 19:5-6; Deut 10:11-15), although the status of His followers within His kingdom is determined by His Father alone (Mat 20:23).
The actual distribution of the territories of the earth by Jesus at His coming (like His namesake ‘Joshua’ – Jos 13:6‑7; 14:1‑2; 21:1‑3, 43‑45; Heb 4:8‑9) was described in a parable by Jesus in Jericho (Luke 19:11‑27). Luke says that because Jesus’ followers “supposed that the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately”, Jesus told them a story that they could easily interpret. If we hear it from their perspective, it is remarkable that Jesus in no way tried to ‘spiritualise’ their assumptions about territory and destruction of enemies; rather, He deliberately reinforced these ideas. Jesus describes Himself as a nobleman, promised a kingdom but rejected by some of ‘His’ citizens whom He will personally execute upon His return. This nobleman does not get given the kingdom straight away, but has to travel to a distant country and receive His authority before He returns. In the meantime, His servants are each given the equivalent of three months’ wages and told to get on with business while He is away. Jesus was clearly warning His followers that He would be away for some time, but His return would be the time of apportioning territory within His kingdom on the basis of each servant’s diligence. Although the precise amounts and proportions of rewards are part of the story alone, we must still recognise here the principle of Jesus’ followers inheriting physical territory in the ‘kingdom of God’ that will eventually ‘appear’ at His return.
With that principle in mind, we return to Matthew 19:28 and Luke 22:28-30. Jesus first clarifies to the disciples that their ‘kingdom’ is just a portion within His own kingdom (Luke 22:30). However He also speaks of the twelve disciples being allowed to “eat and drink at My table”. Typically in biblical times the king’s ‘table’ was where He Himself ate in His capitol city, and to certain highly favoured officials and territorial leaders He would give the privilege of dining in the same room as himself (2 Sam 9:7-13; 19:31-40; 1 Kgs 2:7; 2 Kgs 25:29‑30; cf. Mark 6:21‑26). Here Jesus is informing the twelve disciples that not only will they sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel, but they will also live in the same place as Him and dine in His presence. This only makes sense if they are ruling over Israel from Jesus’ own capitol city, Jerusalem (cf. Mat 5:35; 23:39; Rev 20:9 with 21:22-27 and Psa 87:2). Thus we again have evidence of the literal fulfilment of Israel dwelling permanently in their promised land, but under the authority of the twelve disciples of Jesus who are local rulers in Jerusalem, a city that is also Jesus’ capitol city for governing His wider ‘kingdom’ of the whole earth.
With deep conviction and great joy I announce to you that revival is about to sweep through the Church in this nation. The sign of this will be that Peter Andre will take back Katie Price to be his wife, just as Hosea took back his beloved yet adulterous wife Gomer as a sign to the people of Israel (Hosea chapters 1 and 3). God will turn the heart of Jesus’ Bride back to Him, and there will be joy such as this nation has never seen in its history.
Ginny Burgin announced to her local church in Sheffield back in May 1997 that God was doing an unseen work in the heart of the nation of England. As a sign of this, she prophesied that the nation would suddenly turn to mourning, and the whole nation would put flowers in their cities. On the morning that Princess Diana died, Ginny received the second part of the prophecy: “as fast as that mourning went through the nation, joy will go through this nation”. [For further information, see Terry Virgo’s blog <<www.janga.biz/terryvirgoblog/?p=66>>; Andy Moyle’s blog <<www.adventuresofachurchplanter.com/blog/index.php?blogId=1&op=Default&postCategoryId=4>> (16 Oct 2008, 09:52); and a collection of prophetic words from many sources <<propheticanointing.tripod.com/id13.html>>.]
Within days, there will be an outpouring of the Holy Spirit across this land, and wives will turn back to their husbands in churches up and down the country as evidence that the Bride of Messiah is turning back to her betrothed Husband, Jesus. The name of Jesus will again be spoken with honour, and churches will be filled to overflowing – prepare for standing room only. Church leaders will need to work closely together so that those who are unable to fit into one church can be directed to another church down the road. Just as when Jesus commanded Peter and Andrew to let down their nets for a catch (Luke 5:1-11), the catch of people will be so large that our nets will break if we do not look to our neighbouring churches for help. This is not a time to look out for our own interests; the time has come to stand shoulder to shoulder as believers in this nation and across the nations, calling on the name of Jesus our Lord with purified lips (Zephaniah 3:9).
This revival will spill over to many nations, and is the time of ‘latter rains’ of the Holy Spirit spoken of by the prophet Joel (Joel 2:23-29). This is the great final revival of this age, and will bring the ‘fulness of the nations’ into God’s storehouse (Romans 11:25; Luke 21:24), completing the great commission Jesus gave to His apostles (Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 1:7-8). Just as the Church’s first experience of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost with the sign of tongues was in order that they might go to all nations with the good news, so we must recognise that this last outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Church is given to equip her with the resources needed to go to all nations. This calls for wisdom, determination and sacrifice on the part of every believer and every church in this nation.
Finally, this revival should be understood as the cry going out across the earth to awaken the sleeping Church – “Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet Him.” (Matthew 25:6) The return of Jesus to the earth is imminent, and like Israel in Egypt, the Church will rise up with power and confidence to proclaim the judgements of the Almighty God over the whole earth. It is time for God’s people of every nation to come into their inheritance, so He is raising up a prophetic people, made up of Jews and Gentiles, as a testimony to rulers and authorities that His anointed Messiah Jesus has been seated as King over all the world (Psalm 2; Ephesians 3:4-12). Jesus is coming for His Bride, and He will let nothing and no-one stand in His way. May the Word of the Lord be fulfilled quickly in our day.
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