The epistle to the Hebrews is known for its rich Christological themes. Hebrews celebrates the deity of Christ and his messianic enthronement in heaven. It describes in detail the sufficiency of Christ’s atonement and his ongoing priestly mediation. It proclaims his supremacy over all old covenant persons and institutions and champions the superior salvation that he has obtained. With so many major Christological theological themes, why consider what Hebrews teaches us about the fulfillment of the land promise?
First, the land promise is a key component of the Abrahamic covenant and a major part of Old Testament theology. How we understand the land promise and its fulfillment depends on our fundamental assumptions about how the Bible fits together. The fulfillment of the land promise remains one of the most prominent points of contention between dispensationalists and covenant theologians. Hebrews clarifies how we are to think about the land promise now that Christ has ushered in the last days of redemptive history (Heb. 1:2). Second, by grasping what Hebrews says about the fulfillment of the land promise, we will better understand the “great salvation” that Jesus has obtained for us (Heb. 2:3). The land promise is not just a matter for theological debate, but a promise that has found an escalated fulfillment in Christ who has won an inheritance for his people that far surpasses the geographical boundaries of the biblical land of Canaan.
The argument of this short essay is that Hebrews presents the biblical land of Canaan as an earthly type of the heavenly realm of God’s rest and as a type of the coming new creation, thus speaking against the possibility of a future historical fulfillment of the land promise to national Israel. To defend this argument, I will consider Hebrews’ use of “inheritance” language, the typological relationship between the land and heaven and the new creation, and the permanent rest Jesus has obtained as a better Joshua. An examination of the fulfillment of the land promise in Hebrews has the double benefit of fortifying our faith to persevere toward our final heavenly homeland and clarifying our interpretive assumptions. In other words, a study of the land promise in Hebrews feeds our souls and sharpens our theological frameworks.
Abraham’s Inheritance and Ours
Dana Harris has persuasively argued that Hebrews uses the language of “inheritance” to connect the believer’s salvation to the promises of the Abrahamic covenant: “The inheritance motif in Hebrews must be understood in terms of the Abrahamic promises, which became interwoven with a rich cluster of related themes, such as covenant, the tabernacle, and God’s holy mountain.”[1] The land promise is one of the “rich cluster of themes” related to Hebrew’s inheritance motif because Hebrews 11:8 refers to the “land of promise” as Abraham’s “inheritance.”[2] The “inheritance of salvation” that believers are about to receive is the same inheritance that Abraham desired—not Canaan, but a “city with foundations whose designer and builder is God” (Heb. 11:9–10).
1. Dana M. Harris, “The Eternal Inheritance in Hebrews: The Appropriation of the Old Testament Inheritance Motif by the Author of Hebrews” (Deerfield: IL, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2009), iv–v.
2. The Old Testament often refers to the land of Canaan as Israel’s “inheritance” (Exod. 32:13; Num. 33:54; 34:2, 13; Deut. 4:21, 38; 12:9–10; 15:4; 19:10, 14; 21:23; 24:4; 26:1; 1 Chron. 16:18).
The city with foundations is the same eschatological inheritance that Hebrews elsewhere refers to as a “better country” (Heb. 11:16), a heavenly homeland (Heb. 11:14–16), the “city to come” (Heb. 13:14), and the “world to come” (Heb. 2:5; cf. Heb. 1:6). The “world to come” (Heb. 2:5) is the heavenly realm that Christ entered at his ascension.[3] It is an eschatological world subjected to the incarnate Christ, not angels (Heb. 2:5–9). It is a world fit for human habitation and functions as the heavenly archetype of the biblical land of Canaan, the earthly type (more on this below). The heavenly realm already subjected to the reign of Christ will one day come from heaven to earth when Christ returns. The “promised eternal inheritance” that belongs to Abraham’s offspring is life in the permanent new creation when heaven comes to earth (Heb. 1:10–14; 2:5; 11:9–10; 13:14).
3. Ardel B. Caneday, “The Eschatological World Already Subjected to The Son: The Οἰκουμένη of Hebrews 1:6 and The Son’s Enthronement,” in A Cloud of Witnesses: The Theology of Hebrews in Its Ancient Contexts, Library of New Testament Studies (New York: Clark, 2008).
The author of Hebrews wanted his readers to emulate Abraham’s faith because Abraham desired the same eschatological salvation that now belongs to new covenant believers.[4] Bockmuehl says that Hebrews presents “a continuous narrative timeline along which God’s one pilgrim people undertake the same journey to the same goal by the same faith in the same life-giving God.”[5] Every member of the new covenant can expect to receive every blessing of the new covenant because Christ has been appointed “heir of all things” in fulfillment of Psalm 2:8 (Heb. 1:3). The nations and the ends of the earth belong to the risen and reigning Christ (cf. Ps. 2:8; Ps. 110:1). The expansion of the land promise anticipated by Psalm 2:8 has become a reality in Christ’s messianic enthronement in heaven. He now “lays hold” of the “offspring of Abraham” apart from a restoration of national Israel to Jerusalem. Believers already participate in the enduring and abiding world to come as those who have come to the heavenly Jerusalem (Heb. 12:22). Yet they await the fullness of their inheritance in the new creation.
4. The verb mellō in Hebrews 11:8 often appears in Hebrews to describe eschatological blessings (Heb. 2:5; 6:5; 10:1; 10:27; 13:14). Hebrews 1:14 describes believers as “those who are about (mellō) to inherit salvation,” which parallels the description of Abraham’s faith when he went to the place that he was “about (mellō) to receive as an inheritance.”
5. Markus Bockmuehl, “Abraham’s Faith in Hebrews 11,” in The Epistle to the Hebrews and Christian Theology, ed. Richard Bauckham, Trevor A. Hart, and Nathan MacDonald (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 369.
The Land and Typological Fulfillment
In the storyline of Scripture, the land of Canaan is a type of Eden and the new creation. It was the place where God dwelt with his people and the place where God’s people were to experience rest under God’s rule and blessing (Josh. 21:43–45). The land of Canaan is also an earthly type of the heavenly realm where God dwells. Old covenant realities like the tabernacle are merely earthly “copies” (Heb. 8:5) and “shadows” (Heb. 8:5) of their “true” (Heb. 9:24), “greater,” and “more perfect” heavenly counterparts (Heb. 9:11). The heavenly realm is the archetype; Eden is the earthly prototype; the land of Canaan with its tabernacle and temple is the type. Heaven is the better country. Heaven is the substance; Canaan was the shadow.
Christ’s entrance into the heavenly realm is the inaugurated fulfillment of the land promise made to Abraham. His heavenly session in the “world to come” is not a spiritual fulfillment of the land promise, but a typological fulfillment. Now that the true, greater, and more perfect heavenly realm has been subjected to the incarnate Christ, to restore the biblical land of Canaan to Israel is a move from better to worse, from superior to inferior, from substance to shadow. O. Palmer Robertson puts it this way:
According to the writer to the Hebrews, Abraham and the patriarchs longed for a ‘better country – a heavenly one’ (11:16, my emphasis). They understood, though only dimly, that the land promised them actually had its origins in the heavenly, eternal reality that yet remained before them. As a consequence, it is unthinkable that once the people of God have tasted of these eternal, heavenly realities they should somehow be thrust back into living with the old-covenant forms that could only foreshadow the realities of new-covenant fulfilments. Instead of moving toward a worship centre localized in modern-day Jerusalem, the new-covenant believer joins with the angels to worship at the ‘heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God’ (12:22).[6]
6. O. Palmer Robertson, “A New-Covenant Perspective on the Land,” in The Land of Promise: Biblical, Theological and Contemporary Perspectives (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 123.
A Better Joshua Gives a Better Rest
Hebrews likens its audience to the Israelites in the wilderness before they entered the promised land.[7] Like Israel at Kadesh Barnea, believers find themselves on the edge of their own promised land about to enter God’s rest. They must not be disobedient and fail to enter God’s rest like the unbelieving and disobedient Israelites in the wilderness (Heb. 3:7–11; cf. Ps. 95:7–11).
7. Matthew Thiessen, “Hebrews and the End of the Exodus,” Novum Testamentum 49, no. 4 (2007): 353–69.
Even the Israelites that entered the land under Joshua’s leadership did not obtain lasting rest (Heb. 4:8). The good news for believers is that Jesus is a better Joshua that has obtained eternal rest for his people. The logic of Hebrews 4:8–14 depends, in part, on a typological connection between Jesus and Joshua and between the biblical land of Canaan and the heavenly realm. The names Jesus and Joshua are translations of the same Greek name Iēsous. Joshua (Iēsous) failed to give the people permanent rest in the land (Heb. 4:8), but Jesus (Iēsous) has “passed through” the heavens obtaining everlasting rest for the people of God (Heb. 4:14). As already noted, the land of Canaan was merely an earthly shadow of the heavenly country. Jesus is a better “pioneer” than Joshua (archēgos, Heb. 2:10; cf. LXX Num. 13:2–3). Jesus completed the conquest of heaven; he entered into his rest by sitting down at the right hand of God (Heb. 10:11–12). Believers must persevere to enter their eternal rest, but they have already come to Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem. They already participate in heavenly worship, and already experience rest in Christ (Heb. 4:8–11; Heb. 12:22). Now that Christ has obtained a better and more permanent promised land, we should not expect that he will one day retrace the first Joshua’s steps back to the land where rest was only a shadow.
Conclusion
Gareth Cockerill has said that “Hebrews has no interest in ethnic Israel inhabiting Palestine.”[8] His statement is certainly right. Jesus is God’s final word in redemptive history (Heb. 1:2). He has fulfilled all Old Testament promises and expectations. We now await the consummation of his kingdom in the new creation. There’s no going back to the shadow of Canaan. Hebrews, instead, envisions God’s one pilgrim people on the verge of entering their final heavenly homeland. Like Abraham and other Old Testament saints, we are waiting for a city with foundations, whose designer and builder is God. “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Heb. 13:14). Unlike Abraham and the Old Testament saints, we already taste the powers of the age to come. Jesus has obtained the better and more permanent promised land on behalf of all of Abraham’s offspring (Heb. 2:16). Our inheritance is secure. When he comes again, he will roll up the world like a scroll to make way for the new creation. He will unite heaven and earth, and the ends of the earth will become our possession. Until then, we run with endurance the race set before us looking to Jesus who has already arrived at the finish line. As the hymn writer Samuel Stennett wrote:
8. Gareth Lee Cockerill, “From Deuteronomy to Hebrews: The Promised Land and the Unity of Scripture,” The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 24, no. 1 (2020): 88.
On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand,
and cast a wishful eye
to Canaan’s fair and happy land,
where my possessions lie.
O’er all those wide, extended plains
Shines one eternal day;
There God the Son forever reigns,
And scatters night away.
