Matt 2:15 speaking of Jesus coming out of Egypt after some time in his childhood, which reads:
When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols. How does Matthew maintain that a statement about Israel was fulfilled by Christ?.
Genesis 17 everlasting covenant.
Charles Ryrie, a Revised Dispensationalist, polemically declared “the church does not rob Israel of her blessings.” Is saying the church is Israel robbing Israel of her blessing? First, lets look at how Scripture talks about Israel and the church:
PAUL IN EPHESIANS 2
Saying the Church is Israel is not just a matter of inference. Paul writing to Gentiles in Ephesus wrote:
Ephesians 2:12 - Remember you were once without Christ, alienated from the citizenship of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. [author’s translation]
Paul then makes a pivot,
Eph 2:13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. [ESV]
The “near” and “far off” were a common Rabbinic way of referring to Jews and Gentiles. Peter uses the same terminology in speaking to a Jewish audience in Acts 2:38-39, saying the message of Christ is for “you” (Jews) and “those who are far off,” namely the Gentiles. Paul here uses the far off image to illustrate its elimination. Those who were far off, now are brought near - a term for Israel. Paul explains how this is accomplished:
Eph 2:14-15 For he [Christ] himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, [ESV]
The unique nature of the Mosaic Israelites has been taken away. As we saw, this unique quality was not ethnicity, but Paul explains it as the law of commandments, that most commentators see as the ceremonial law of Moses. This allows Paul to make a statement to the Gentiles that was implied in 2:13:
Ephesians 2:19 - You are no longer strangers and foreigners, but are fellow citizens with the other saints in God’s household. [Author’s translation]
Notice the language parallel to 2:12:
2:12 - Remember you were once without Christ, alienated from the citizenship of Israel,
2:19 - You are no longer strangers and foreigners (aliens), but are fellow citizens with the other saints in God's household.
The phrase in 2:12 is “τῆς πολιτείας τοῦ ᾿Ισραη`λ ” translated “the citizenship of Israel.” The root of the word “πολιτείας” or “politeias” (transliterated in English) is “polis,” where we get the English word politics. Compare that to 2:19’s word: “συμπολῖται” or “sumpolitai” translated “fellow citizens.” In the common Koine Greek usage, the term denotes individuals who share citizenry or are fellow citizens of a given nation or city. Paul teaches in Ephesians 2, once the Gentiles were alienated and separated from the citizenship of Israel by the Law, which was an offense to outsiders. Now that Christ has fulfilled the law and broken down that wall, now Gentiles are free, with ethnic Jews, without submitting to the Mosaic Law, to be fellow citizens of Israel. One way of describing the entrance into Christ’s church, for Paul, is citizenship in Israel.
The church as Israel explains the consistent application of the standing and appellations of Israel to the church, such as Peter telling Christians they are “a holy nation, a royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9) echoing the same description of OT Israel in Ex 19:6. Paul in Ephesians 5 calls the church the Bride of Christ, echoing the same description of Israel as Bride in Ezk 16:4-14 and Hosea. Rather than concluding that God is a polygomist, we see that the Bride is one and the same. Israel is the Bride, the Church is the Bride, because the Church is Israel.
ROBBING ISRAEL OF BLESSING?
Does this mean, as Ryrie declared, that the church is robbing Israel of the blessing promised to her? The truth is that every single Christian, dispensational, covenantal and those Christians that are totally clueless that this is even a debate, takes promises given to Israel and appropriates them as promises to them, Christians in the church.
A simple example exists in the practice of taking Old Testament promises as comfort to a Christian. If Israel is not the church, then a Christian has no business appropriating promises like:
Jer 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. [ESV]
Gen 15:1 After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. [KJV]
Jos 1:9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go." [ESV]
All of these are comforts to Israel. Do you appropriate these words as words of comfort? You should, for if you are a Christian, then you are of Israel.
Beyond merely taking devotional comfort from God’s promises, there is a very serious and grave reason for seeing the church as Israel. If we are not the house of Israel, we are lost and without hope. (I am not saying dispensationalists say this, but that their reading has the following conclusion if applied consistently) During the Last Supper Christ took the wine and offered it to the disciples saying: "This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” (Luke 22:20). When we partake of communion, we declare that we are recipients of God's forgiveness through Christ's blood and partakers of the new covenant. Where did this language of new covenant come from? Every Jew familiar with Scripture would have Jeremiah 31 ringing in their eyes when the words “new covenant” were spoken, the long awaited fulfillment of prophecy. But if we are not Israel, forgiveness offered in the cup is not for us, for Jeremiah 31 says, "Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” (Jer 31:31) The covenant is made with Israel, and if we are not Israel, then we are not partakers of Christ’s new covenant. The church then does not rob Israel of her blessings, for the church is Israel, and so cannot rob itself.
This is not to say dispensationalists deny the gospel or something, but that the implications of dispensationalism’s divorce of Israel and the church cannot be consistently maintained and applied without confusing their own distinction of Israel and the Church and clouding the clarity of Scripture’s presentation of the gospel. The ingrafting of Gentiles into Israel makes us all the more thankful that Christ has made provision by fulfilling the law and bringing us who were far off near, bringing us who were separated from the promise of the new covenant into the citizenship of Israel, heirs to the promise.
To clarify, this also does not mean that the church replaced Israel. Replacement theology is entirely different than covenant theology. Replacement theology does not see the church as Israel, instead it agrees with classic dispensationalism that Israel and the church are separate peoples, but sees one as discarded and one as replacement. The church is the story of a great number joining Israel, not replacing her. As Abraham’s covenant is an everlasting covenant, it cannot be discarded without invalidating the Word of God. As we have explored that Scripture does not present heredity as the essential element, but faith, then Israel is the people who share the faith of Abraham, not his genes. Indeed before Hebrews 11 lists the great saints of the Old Testament, it declares:
Heb 11:1-2 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. [ESV]
As was in the Old, so is in the New. By faith do people of the New receive their commendation, too. By faith, the People of God receive the promise of the covenant.
But does this mean that Christians have some sort of right to the land of Canaan? Isn't that the heart of the Abrahamic covenant? Next, we will look at the land promise in Part 4.
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The theme of Land in the Bible doesn’t begin in Genesis 15, but in the first few chapters of Genesis. Genesis 1 is the account of all that God created. Of all of creation God puts man in a portion of it:.
Gen 2:15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
When man falls, God takes what had been his gift, and curses it.
Gen 3:17 And to Adam he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
Gen 3:18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.
Though at first man was to eat of the tree of life, now his food comes by pain and is of a lower quality. But what does this have to do with Abraham? Understanding the promise of Abraham requires understanding the narrative flow of Scripture. Abraham is chapter 12, not 1, of Genesis. Abraham comes in after the story has commenced. Abraham is an element in the History of Redemption.
God has already begun his program of redemption in the promise of the seed, sometimes called the proto-evangelium (first gospel) in Genesis 3:15:
Gen 3:15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."
The seed of the woman (Christ) will crush the head of the serpent (Satan). As a result of this promise, Adam names his wife “Eve, because she was the mother of all living.” (Gen 3:20) From Eve, Christ will come to bring life, and “life to the fullest.”
Yet the story of redemption tells, not just a story of soul-saving, but the redemption of all creation. Paul tells us in Romans that “the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.” (Rom 8:22) Man not only awaits redemption, so does creation.
Back to Abraham. God’s promise to Abraham includes a large tract of land, larger than he would even have use of at that point:
“from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites." (Gen 15:18b-21)
Some people interpret the geography as similar to modern day Israel, while you can also find some maps of what some other people estimate that land to be. What is the meaning of this land promised to Israel? How do we interpret this? If we say it is something other than the literal land in the Middle East, are we not “spiritualizing” the text, and treating the Scriptures loosely?
Many of these questions go to the heart of how we read the Old Testament. Many want a very literal reading, so much so that Genesis 3:15, that the church has always interpreted as the proto-evangelium, is really just explaining why snakes and people don’t get along. So too, the land promise made by God finds full fulfillment in the political possession of the land mentioned in Genesis 15 by an entity with the name of Israel. If this is the way we are to read the Old Testament, this is a reasonable interpretation.
In reading the Bible, the only infallible guide to interpreting the Bible is the Bible itself. Many places in the Bible, it does exactly that: interprets itself. Sometimes in the same passage, such as the Gospel authors giving an interpretation to the parables of Jesus. Sometimes in different books, such as Malachi (1:3) or Romans (chapter 9) interpreting the story of Esau and Jacob. Indeed, to understand the Scriptures, the Scriptures themselves instruct us.
The New Testament tells us that many things in the Old Testament, such as festivals, “are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” (Col 2:17). What is written in the Old Testament is to be understood in the context of Christ. The writer of Hebrews concurs, writing:
Heb 10:1 For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities
The “true form” of the shadow in the Old is found in the New. The most “literal” and surest form of reality is what is revealed to us in Christ and the New Testament as God unfolds his plan in the narrative of the redemption of His creation. With this in mind, what was the land a shadow of? What part of redemption does this promise point to? The writer of Hebrews stops in the middle of his hall of fame of faith in Hebrews 11 to reflect on the land promise and explain it to us:
Heb 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
Heb 11:14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.
Heb 11:15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.
Heb 11:16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
The author of Hebrews writes of the hope of the land as a desire for a better country, a heavenly one, a city that God has prepared. The true form of the land is found in the story arch from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. The promise to Abraham is the restoration of the garden, and its improvement. The story begins with the lost Paradise of the Garden continues in the plan of restoration of God from Genesis 3 onward to Abraham's promise which looks to the restoration of all things in Revelation. When we look at Revelation, we see John describe to us:
Rev 21:10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and
showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God,
I don’t know of any more obvious referent the author of Hebrews could mean by “a heavenly city” that God prepared than a holy city coming down straight from heaven! The old Jerusalem was indeed a fulfillment, but according to Hebrews, the fullest fulfillment is the New Jerusalem.
My friend Matt Bradley has a wonderful exercise in Scripture (listen to his lesson introducing Historical Redemptive reading here). Open the first few chapters of Genesis and compare them to Revelation. The parallels are striking:
We find the tree of life:
Gen 2:9 And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Rev 22:2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life
A river:
Gen 2:10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden,
Rev 22:1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life,
And the light of Day:
Gen 1:5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.
Rev 22:5 And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.
But as you can see, the end is not only a restoration of the Garden, but there is improvement over the Garden. The Garden had two types of tree (good and bad), the city only has the tree of life. The Garden had night and day, but the city only has day. The Garden had a serpent, but the serpent is defeated and in the city: “nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.” (Rev 21:27)
God’s land promise, we see shadowed the promise of full restoration, a restoration and improvement over the lost Garden. Christ, in His covenant obedience, has been given all things (1 Cor 15:27), and in turn, Christ declares "Behold, I am making all things new." (Rev 21:5) The inheritance Christ receives is the whole earth, the land of promise and beyond, remade, so that:
Rev 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.
The history of redemption begins in Genesis 3:15, and in Abraham we are given a shadow of a true form, that lets us look forward to the ultimate fulfillment of the promise in the new creation when:
Rev 21:4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."
If one accepts the conclusions of this post on the Land of Israel, then one can sing this following hymn with hope. This hymn became especially popular among African-Americans who identified with the theme of exhile, while looking forward to a better day of the Promised Land. You can notice the similar themes to mine in my post such as longing for wher "those wide extended plains, Shines one eternal day" [Modern versions are found on Jars of Clay's Redemption Songs and Indelible Grace 2]
On Jordan's Stormy Banks by Samuel Stennett
On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand,
And cast a wishful eye
To Canaan’s fair and happy land,
Where my possessions lie.
Refrain
I am bound for the promised land,
I am bound for the promised land;
Oh who will come and go with me?
I am bound for the promised land.
O the transporting, rapturous scene,
That rises to my sight!
Sweet fields arrayed in living green,
And rivers of delight!
Refrain
There generous fruits that never fail,
On trees immortal grow;
There rocks and hills, and brooks and vales,
With milk and honey flow.
Refrain
O’er all those wide extended plains
Shines one eternal day;
There God the Son forever reigns,
And scatters night away.
Refrain
No chilling winds or poisonous breath
Can reach that healthful shore;
Sickness and sorrow, pain and death,
Are felt and feared no more.
Refrain
When I shall reach that happy place,
I’ll be forever blest,
For I shall see my Father’s face,
And in His bosom rest.
Refrain
Filled with delight my raptured soul
Would here no longer stay;
Though Jordan’s waves around me roll,
Fearless I’d launch away.
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Mark D. Roberts @
