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.
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).
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).
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]