God dwelling with His children in paradise : a biblical theology of the Holy Land

GOD DWELLING WITH HIS CHILDREN IN PARADISE: A BIBLICAL THEOLOGY OF THE HOLY LAND By Sam Brelo



Copyright © 2012 by Samuel L. Brelo All rights reserved



CONTENTS PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INTRODUCTION Chapter 1 - The Foundation: The Five Books of Moses Chapter 2 - The Old Testament Historical and Poetic Books Chapter 3 - The Old Testament Prophetic Books Chapter 4 - The Holy Land in the Gospels Chapter 5 - The Book of Acts Chapter 6 - Letters of Paul and Others Chapter 7 - The Books of Hebrews and the Revelation CONCLUSION IMPLICATIONS

PREFACE AND AGKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book is an adaptation of one of the chapters in my dissertation for my Doctor of Ministry. My doctoral project involved the development of a seminar on a biblical theology of the Holy Land that was presented to a number of pastors in 2011. This present volume is an effort to make available the essential contents of the seminar to a wider audience by way of a book. My interest in a theological understanding of the Holy Land began in the 1980’s when I was preparing to move with my family to the Middle East to do missionary work among Palestinian Arabs. Although I studied various topics connected to a theological understanding of the Holy Land through the years, I did not develop an over-arching biblical theology of the Holy Land until working on my doctorate in 2010/11. I traced the concept of the Holy Land and its function in the plan of God from Genesis through Revelation and then endeavored to describe the major ideas that I found. This present book is the fruit of that labor. This book has been very rewarding for me personally. Tracing a concept through the entire Bible and seeing how it unfolds is very enlightening and is the essence of doing biblical theology. I owe much of this emphasis in my personal studies to Dr. Doug Oss, a professor at the seminary where I attended.

I deeply thank my wife for her prayers and encouragement during my entire studies on this important subject. She is truly a great blessing in my life. It is to her that this book is dedicated. Most of all, I thank Jesus, the Messiah, who has made me a son of God and through whom and with whom I will live in the true Holy Land, forever.



Introduction The subject of the Holy Land is a topic of discussion investigated by biblical scholars, politicians, historians, sociologists, and others. This book will explore the topic of the Holy Land from a biblical perspective drawing from the Old Testament and the New Testament and offering a brief summary of the biblical record. Only a biblical-theological approach to the Holy Land will give a correct and authoritative understanding of this important subject. The purpose of this study is to provide such an understanding. An important presupposition in this book is that all sixty-six books of the Bible are divinely inspired and without error. Divine inspiration means that God is the ultimate author of Scripture; therefore, there should be an overall unity throughout the Bible as well as an unfolding of revelation through time. Because Jesus is the Word of God and “all the promises of God find their Yes in him” (2 Cor. 1:20), the clearest and most authoritative way to understand the Old Testament is through Jesus and the New Testament apostles and prophets as recorded in the New Testament. This is not because of greater inspiration, but because the unfolding revelation becomes clearer as salvation history unfolds through time and is brought into the clearest focus through the Christ event. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days [1] he has spoken to us by his Son...” (Heb. 1:1-2a).



Chapter 1 The Foundation: The Five Books of Moses [2] The Holy Land is first alluded to in Genesis 12:1. From this point, all of biblical history recorded in the Old Testament (with the possible exception of the book of Esther), is tied in some way to this land. Because of this, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of the Holy Land in the Old Testament. However, Genesis 12:1 is not the first place in the Pentateuch (the five Books of Moses) that the concept of “holy land” is seen. Actually, God’s promise to Abraham of a land must be understood in the context of the Creation account and the first eleven chapters of Genesis. After God created the heavens and the earth in six days,

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He rested. This rest of God had deep

[4] meaning to the original readers of Genesis. After the formlessness, void, and darkness described in Genesis 1:2, God brought forth all of life, order, and light in the material world. In this sense, God is overcoming darkness and void by His sovereign creative power. The entire universe of order and living creatures (including Adam and Eve) is His domain. The culmination of God’s creative acts is humankind. God created Adam in His image

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and as His son (Luke 3:38) to be both creature and

ruler. After everything was created and set in place, God pronounced it “very good” (Gen. 1:31). This signaled the end of God’s creative work and the beginning of His rule over creation through humankind. Upon reaching this point, God rested on the seventh day—He set it apart (making it holy), and blessed it. In the Ancient Near East, kings

would often build palaces of rest, especially after victory in conflict and the establishment of their [6] kingdoms. This Ancient Near East custom provides a cultural context from which to understand the Creation narrative. Also, the original readers would have readily seen this picture from the Genesis account. After overcoming darkness and void with light and everything living, God rested in His sanctuary. The Genesis account reveals where this sanctuary of God is located. The Garden of Eden itself is the garden paradise sanctuary of God—the place where heaven and earth intersect. According to Meredith Kline, “The Garden of Eden was not only the original land flowing with milk and honey; it was the original holy land. As such, paradise was a sanctuary, a temple-garden. Ezekiel called it ‘the garden of God’ (28:13; 31:8ff) and Isaiah, ‘the garden of the Lord’ (51:3).”

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This picture of the Garden of Eden being God’s sanctuary of rest sheds further light on Adam being in the image of God. Ancient kings would often build a temple for their gods and then put an [8] image of the god in the temple. Adam, as God’s image, is placed in the Garden of Eden, God’s sanctuary. Also, the day of rest was also a covenantal sign of God’s kingship over all of creation— [9] and covenant commitment that humankind would enter in to God’s rest. God placed His son Adam (Luke 3:38) in the symbol of His sovereign rule and rest—the Garden of Eden—“to work it and keep it” (Gen. 2:15). The Hebrew words for “work” and “keep” are ‘abad and shamar, respectively. They are individually used many times in the Old Testament. Many times in the Pentateuch ‘abad is used in connection with service in the tabernacle (Num. 4:23-24, 26, 30, 37, 41, 47; 7:5; 8:11, 15, 19, 22; 16:9; 18:6, 7, 21, 23). When ‘abad is coupled with shamar (as in Gen. 2:15), the context is either the service of the tabernacle (Num. 3:7-8; 8:26; 18:7) or loyalty to God by Israel (Deut. 11:16; 12:30; 13:4). It is highly likely that the words ‘abad and shamar, coupled together in Genesis 2:15, depict Adam as a priest in Eden to faithfully serve God. The context of Genesis chapters 1 and 2, then, portrays Adam as both a king and a priest to serve God in His temple [10] —the Garden of Eden.

Adam, as God’s son, lived in Eden and therefore enjoyed the rest of God, symbolizing God’s sovereign rule. This rest of God that Adam enjoyed was not only real; it was also anticipatory of a larger, universal rest. The command to multiply, and subdue the earth (Gen. 1:28), was to extend God’s rule and God’s rest to all of creation. God’s garden sanctuary was to be extended to the entire world where humankind and Creation would enjoy the glorious presence of God. David reflected on this purpose later in Psalm 8 when he wrote: God’s name is majestic in all the earth (vv. 1, 9) and God [11] has crowned man with glory and honor (v. 5). As God’s priest in His temple, Adam was to serve God and protect the sanctity of God’s garden temple. Adam failed to do this, not only by his own disobedience to God’s command, but also by tolerating the unclean serpent over which he had authority (Gen. 1:28) in the Garden. Adam, therefore, abrogated his kingly and priestly ministry. Not only did Adam and Eve not extend the boundaries of the Garden of Eden, they were barred from the Garden itself by the cherubim of God (3:24). In fact, the text states in Genesis 3:24 that the Lord God “drove out” Adam from the Garden of Eden. The expression “drove out” (Heb. garash) is often used in the Pentateuch in connection with [12] Israel driving out the inhabitants of Canaan. The important point of this story is that Adam and Eve lost the original holy land or God’s temple. By this occurrence, they lost the “rest” of God and their own inheritance as God’s children. The entire story and goal of the Bible is that humankind might experience the fullness for which he was created, all to the glory of God. This means the return of humankind to God’s rest, to live in His temple, and experience his sonship to God as a king-priest. This will ultimately be seen in the book of Revelation. Genesis chapters 3 through 11 describe the long and tragic road of humankind’s fall and the ramifications thereof. Story after story demonstrates that humankind is outside of the Garden of Eden and, hence, outside of God’s temple and His rest. The culmination of this emphasis is found in 11:1-9 with the story of the tower of Babel. Readers of this story may readily understand its main point. The

[13] entire human race was united (11:5) in disobedience and rebellion to God (Gen. 1:28; 9:7; 11:4). This is not an aberration of fallen human nature; it is the natural course of human nature outside of God’s intervening grace. All of this provides a context from which to understand the call of Abraham and the Holy Land. God intervened in this tragic tale of human history with His sovereign grace when He called [14] Abraham. God ultimately reestablished His Kingdom or rule, which will eventually encompass the entire earth. Abraham’s call is first recorded in Genesis 12:1-3. God’s covenant with Abraham is repeated and reinforced to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at various stages (Gen. 15, 17, 26, 28) and, indeed, throughout the rest of Old Testament history. In His covenant with Abraham, God promised [15] three things: (1) the King, (2) the Kingdom—People, and (3) the Kingdom—Land. In keeping with the scope of this book, I will only discuss the third aspect, the Promised Land. A careful reading of the relevant texts in the Pentateuch reveals a number of important points in developing a biblical theology of the Holy Land. Continuity exists between the original holy land (the Garden of Eden) and the land promised to Abraham and his descendants. This point cannot be overstated; it is vitally important to understand that the land promised to Abraham is part of God’s redemptive plan to restore humankind to Eden, but in a way far beyond the original paradise that God created (see Rev. 21-22). The Pentateuch describes the Promised Land many times in Edenic terms as a land “flowing with milk and honey” (Exod. 3:8,17; 13:5; 33:3; Lev. 20:24; Num. 13:27; 14:8; 16:13[16] 14; Deut. 6:3; 11:9; 26:9,15; 27:3; 31:20). This means that the Holy Land is to be another Garden of Eden, where people will dwell with God. The original Garden of Eden was God’s land—holy land—God’s dwelling place where Adam and Eve were invited to live as God’s children, to guard it and live as God’s vice-regents and priests. The Pentateuch presents the land promised to Abraham in similar fashion. Kline insightfully notes the divine ownership of this land: From the earliest intimations given at the call of Abraham it began to be apparent that this promised land was laid hold of by the Lord as peculiarly his own, as a holy land removed from the general common grace apportionment of the earth to mankind and set apart for a special

covenantal grant to a people of redemptive election. It was a land claimed by the Lord and at his disposal to bestow upon Abraham in a manner overriding his ordinary common grace [17] disposition of earthly affairs. Although the entire earth is the Lord’s and everything in it (Ps. 24:1), the Lord chose the land of [18] Canaan as His own in a special way (Lev. 25:23). Through Jeremiah, the Lord described the “plentiful land” as a place that is His heritage (Jer. 2:7). When God brought Israel through the Red Sea, Moses and all Israel sang a song to the Lord. In this song they proclaimed the Promised Land as God’s holy abode, His sanctuary (Exod. 15:13, 17). The thought of God’s holy abode reflects an Edenic picture, for the Garden of Eden was never really Adam’s as a sovereign tract of land. It was always God’s own—His special inheritance. This is the reason why the land must never be defiled; it is a land where God lives with His people (Num. 35:34). [19] This picture of the Promised Land as a type of God’s garden sanctuary is further demonstrated by God living with His people in the land. An extensive amount of space is given in Exodus to the finest details for building the tabernacle. The reason for this is that God would be dwelling in His own inheritance with His people. As Smith observes, “The sanctity of the Tabernacle was derived, not from the precious metals it contained, or the godly men who labored therein, but from the fact that God chose to dwell there (29:43–46).”

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The tabernacle distinguished Israel and the Promised Land

from all other peoples (Exod. 19:6). “As well as distinguishing the land of Canaan from all other lands, the construction of the tabernacle is clearly perceived as being a restoration, in part at least, of the conditions which originally existed in the Garden of Eden.”

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The important point is that the

seed of Abraham was to share in God’s own inheritance, like Adam did with God in the beginning. Because God would live with Israel in the land, they were invited to share in His rest—another [22] Edenic picture repeated in the Holy Land motif. In fact, God’s presence going with Israel along the way and into the Promised Land was the very thing that gave them rest (Exod. 33:14). The most explicit passage in the Pentateuch speaking of rest for Israel and connecting this idea to the Garden of

Eden is found in Deuteronomy 12:9-11a. The whole passage bears quoting, for it links rest with God’s sovereign rule over His enemies and God’s invitation for Israel to join Him in His dwelling place: … for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance that the LORD your God is giving you. But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies around, so that you live in safety, then to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you. The concept of rest will be repeated many times in the historical books of the Old Testament and also in Isaiah. Not only is the Holy Land God’s inheritance; it is a gracious gift of inheritance to the seed of Abraham (Gen. 13:15,17; 15:17-18; 17:8; 24:7; 26:3; 35:12; 48:4; Exod. 6:4; 33:1; Lev. 25:38; Deut. 1:8; 8:7-10; 11:9; 27:3). God’s inheritance must be seen in connection with what Adam had in the Garden of Eden. God created Adam in His image as His son (see esp. Luke 3:38). The Garden of Eden was God’s own inheritance, His garden sanctuary (Ezek. 28:13; 31:8-9) and Adam, as God’s son, received the Garden of Eden as a gracious inheritance from God. Israel is also called God’s firstborn son (Exod. 4:22),

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[24] who, like Adam, would have a kingly, priestly function (Exod. 19:6). As

God gave the Garden of Eden as an inheritance to Adam, He gave the Promised Land like another Garden of Eden, as an inheritance for His son, Israel. Only as a person sees this connection between Eden and the Promised Land can he or she understand the land of Canaan being given as an inheritance to the seed of Abraham. Adam’s enjoyment of God’s presence and the inheritance of the Garden of Eden were conditioned upon Adam’s obedience to God. When Adam disobeyed and sinned against God, he was cast out of his inheritance as a son of God. Obedience is the same condition upon which Israel, God’s son, may enjoy God’s presence and live forever in the Holy Land as a gracious inheritance. This truth is seen many times in the Pentateuch, especially in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Yahweh told Israel to [25] keep the LORD’ s rules and statutes, as found in the Law, lest the land vomit them out (Lev. 18:25). On the other hand, Yahweh promised them security if they keep His statutes and rules (Lev. 25:18). The threats of horrible judgment against Israel for disobedience are summed up in Deuteronomy

28:63, “And as the LORD took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the LORD will take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you. And you shall be plucked off the land that you are entering to take possession of it.” These passages show Israel that the land given to them as inheritance was never an unconditional possession, unconditional inheritance of Adam and Eve.

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any more than the Garden of Eden was an



Chapter Two The Old Testament Historical Books and Poetic Books The Historical Books of the Old Testament are concerned with the unfolding of God’s plan for [27] His people. A major part of this plan is God dwelling with His son Israel in the new Garden of Eden—the Holy Land. Thus, all of the major themes connected to the Holy Land developed in the Pentateuch are continued in the Historical Books. The writers of the Historical Books emphasize that the land of Canaan is a gift of inheritance to [28] Israel (Josh. 11:23; 13:6; 14:9; Judg. 2:6; 20:6; 1 Kings 8:36). By entering the Promised Land and controlling it, Israel accepted the promise of God’s inheritance. God’s gift of inheritance is the fulfillment of the covenant that God made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Josh. 1:6; 1 Chron. 16:1518). As such, it is the continuation of the history of salvation that the Lord began in Genesis. It is the restoration of God’s son (Israel) to the Garden of Eden. The restoration of God’s son to the Garden of Eden is further developed in the historical books by three important themes: · The Holy Land is actually the Lord’s land, and He was graciously inviting Israel to live in it (1 [29] Sam. 26:19; 2 Sam.14:16; 21:3; 1 Kings 8:36; 2 Chron. 6:27). Therefore, the Holy Land reflects the original Garden of Eden as the Lord’s garden sanctuary, where God graciously invited Adam to live with Him. · The Holy Land is the place of the Lord’s rest, where He established control over His enemies through Israel, and thus invited them to enjoy rest as well (Josh. 1:13; 21:44; 23:1). This rest is [30] especially connected to the monarchy and the building of God’s Temple. Near Eastern kings often built temples upon the firm establishment of their rule over their enemies. Through the Temple, God established His dwelling place with Israel and lived in the Holy Land with them. God’s Temple then became the visible symbol of His Presence, His ongoing covenant with Abraham, and the Divine rest He offered. The Davidic king became the vassal king of Yahweh and

was the human representative of Yahweh’s authority and righteousness in the Kingdom of Israel located in the Holy Land. The Davidic king would procure the rest of God for Israel through his rule. · Israel’s continued inheritance of the Holy Land, and rest in it, was conditioned upon her continued obedience to God through fidelity to the covenant (Josh. 23:16; 1 Kings 9:7-9; 14:15; 1 Chron. 28:8; 2 Chron. 6:31; 7:19-20; 33:8).These last two points, in particular, are seen also in the postexilic books of Ezra

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and Nehemiah (Ezra 9:11-12; Neh. 9:15-36).

The poetic-wisdom writers of Israel depict the Holy Land as a type of restoration of the Garden of Eden in the expression of their faith and worship of Yahweh. As such, they portray the Holy Land [32] as the Lord’s own possession (Ps. 10:16; 78:54; 85:1). Because the land is the Lord’s possession, it is His special inheritance, His special dwelling place. The psalmist declared in Psalm 79:1, “O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple.” In describing the defeat of Israel in the days of Eli, the high priest, the psalmist proclaimed in 78:60, “He forsook his dwelling at Shiloh, the tent where he dwelt among mankind.” The biblical writer truly understood that God dwelt among humankind in the Holy Land and writes in a way that reminds the reader of the Garden of Eden where God dwelt with Adam and Eve in Paradise. The psalmists understood the Holy Land to be the special heritage of God’s people (Ps. 37:18; [33] 47:4; 105:11). This inheritance was not earned by Israel; rather, it was a gracious gift from God to His people. Furthermore, it was through the power of God that the Holy Land became the inheritance of God’s people. This is explicitly stated in Psalm 44:3: “… for not by their own sword did they win the land, not did their own arm save them, but your right hand and your arm, and the light of your face, for you delighted in them.”

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This does not imply that Israel’s continuation in the land was unconditional. Repeatedly in the Psalms and Proverbs, the writers link blessing and life in the Holy Land to love for God and fidelity to the covenant He made with Israel (Ps. 25:13; 37:9-34; Prov. 2:21-22; 10:30). With prophetic insight,

the writer of Proverbs 2:21-22 summed up one of the main messages of wisdom literature to Israel: “For the upright will inhabit the land, and those with integrity will remain in it, but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.”

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Chapter Three The Old Testament Prophetic Books The Prophetic Books of the Old Testament are full of a rich theology of the Holy Land. Much of God’s prophetic word to Israel at the time of each prophet concerned the Holy Land; moreover, the future vision of the prophets expressing salvation for God’s people is in terms of life with God in the land of God’s and Israel’s inheritance. God’s fearful judgment upon Israel (and Judah) is understood against the backdrop of the Holy Land belonging to Yahweh (Isa. 14:2; Jer. 2:7; Hosea 1:2; Joel 1:6; 3:2). For this reason it is holy land [36] (Zech. 2:12). The land is set apart as His, and for His holy purposes and relationship with His people. The prophets witness from God to Israel that they had defiled Yahweh’s land. “And I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came in, you defiled my land and made my heritage an abomination” (Jer. 2:7). Ezekiel used a very graphic portrayal of Israel’s defiling the land: “Son of man, when the house of Israel lived in their own land, they defiled it by their ways and their deeds. Their ways before me were like the uncleanness of a woman in her menstrual impurity” (36:17). The great danger was that Israel might defile the land through her sinful actions. Much of the prophetic witness to Israel consisted of warnings: Israel has defiled the land and therefore must be removed from it (Jer. 3:9; 16:18; Ezek. 36:17

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). This is a return to the picture of the Garden of

Eden. Adam was cast out of the garden (God’s garden sanctuary) because of his sin and was barred from reentry to God’s holy place. Nevertheless, God proclaimed through His prophets that He would overcome Israel’s sinfulness and bring them back to His land and their inheritance. Baruch Maoz notes that the Holy Land is personified in the Old Testament prophets and both [38] judgment and salvation for Israel are expressed in connection with the land. It is as though the Holy Land is a distinct actor in the drama of Israel’s history. Because of this, it is apparent in the prophets that the land will be involved in the judgment and redemption of Israel. Ultimately, Israel’s

life with God is found in the land promised to her—the Holy Land. The other side of this truth is that, already in the Old Testament prophets, the foundation was being laid to convey the truth that Israel’s life is found in God and not in the land. In the paradoxical word of Jeremiah, in chapter 24, he proclaimed that it is the exiles who are the good figs, and those [39] who remain in the land are the bad figs! This analogy is true only because being on the land by itself does not determine the election of God. Israel’s life is in God Himself, and although Israel’s life will ultimately be in the land, it is Israel in life with God and in the land. One of the most important and yet controversial topics concerning a Holy Land theology is the relationship between form and meaning in prophetic literature. Old Testament prophets speak in detail about the redemption of Israel after punishment for her sins. Since this punishment ultimately involved Israel being exiled from the Holy Land, redemption necessarily involves the return of Israel to Yahweh’s land and her inheritance in it. Because of this, Israel’s redemption cannot be separated [40] from the Holy Land. The question at hand is whether the form in which Israel’s redemption is described (return to the land) must be fulfilled literally for the meanings of these prophecies (Israel’s redemption) to be [41] fulfilled. A good passage to demonstrate this question is found in Ezekiel, chapters 37-48. Repeatedly, throughout these chapters, Israel’s redemption is described in vivid detail as a return to the land and the reestablishment of the Davidic kingship and Levitical priesthood. The essence of the salvation of Israel is that they will live with God around His Temple in His (and their) inheritance— the Holy Land. Israel will have free and continual access to God through the bloody animal sacrifices offered by the Levitical priests. A few passages from Ezekiel illustrate how Israel's redemption (return to the land) and continued access to God (through the Temple) are described in language and pictures familiar to Old Testament theology: Ezek. 37:25-They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children's children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever. 26 I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be

an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. 27 My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Israel's everlasting dwelling in the land with God must be guaranteed through Israel's continued obedience and holiness. Without this, Israel would be expelled from the Holy Land again. This continual cleansing and holiness is portrayed through the Old Testament sacrificial system. In this system only the Levitical priests could approach God in behalf of the people and animal sacrifices make atonement for Israel. Note these passages from Ezekiel describing the picture of the Temple and Israel's everlasting dwelling with God: 40:46b, These are the sons of Zadok, who alone among the sons of Levi may come near to the Lord to minister to him (emphasis added). 44:15, But the Levitical priests, the sons of Zadok, who kept the charge of my sanctuary when the people of Israel went astray from me, shall come near to me to minister to me. And they shall stand before me to offer me the fat and the blood, declares the Lord GOD (emphasis added). 45:17, It shall be the prince's duty to furnish the burnt offerings, grain offerings, and drink offerings, at the feasts, the new moons, and the Sabbaths, all the appointed feasts of the house of Israel: he shall provide the sin offerings, grain offerings, burnt offerings, and peace offerings, to make atonement on behalf of the house of Israel (emphasis added). 45:22, On that day the prince shall provide for himself and all the people of the land a young bull for a sin offering (emphasis added). It is important to note that this prince in 45:22 is none other than the Davidic king of 37:24, “My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes.” So Israel’s redemption is described through a picture of her king and the people being cleansed and atoned for through animal sacrifices offered by Levitical priests. The writer of the New Testament Book of Hebrews makes clear that Jesus fulfills the animal sacrificial system by His supreme sacrifice and thus “abolishes” the old system of sacrifice (Heb. [42] 10:9-10). Also, the system of Levitical priests, “because of its weakness and uselessness” is set aside and replaced by the priesthood of Jesus (Heb. 7:18-19). Therefore, it seems that although the

prophecies of Levitical priests and animal sacrifices are given in graphic detail by Ezekiel, they must be fulfilled in a non-literal or deeper way. One may ask that if this is true of priests and sacrifices connected to the earthly Temple of God and the earthly Holy Land, why not the land itself? Might the land itself, and Israel’s return to live in it, have fulfillment in a way other than strictly literal, which is in a deeper Christocentric way? The full answer to the question above must await the light of the New Testament. However, Beale offers a good illustration that gives a preliminary way to understand the relationship between prophecies in the Old Testament and fulfillment in the New Testament. Beale suggests that the prophecies are: … comparable to a father ’s promise to his young son in 1900 that he will give his son a horse and buggy when he grows up and gets married. When the son marries thirty years later, the father gives him a car, which has since been invented and mass-produced. Does the father not literally fulfil [sic] his promise to the son? It is true that the precise form in which the promise of a mode of transportation was given has changed, but the essence of the promise has not changed: a convenient mode of personal transportation. Indeed, the progress of technology has [43] made the fulfilment [sic] of the promise even greater than initially conceived. Beale’s example illustrates how the many meanings of prophecies concerning the land in the Old Testament are fulfilled in new and greater forms in the New Testament, while still retaining the essential meanings of the prophecies. The following chapters sets forth these truths through an indepth study of this subject in the New Testament.



Chapter Four The Holy Land in the Gospels A brief survey of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) provides a foundation for a New Testament understanding concerning the Holy Land in God’s unfolding plan of redemption. The [44] focus of the ministry of Jesus was the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 10:6; 15:24). However, the Messiah was laying the foundation of His ministry to the entire world. What part does the Holy Land play in all of this? Gary M. Burge notes that territorial nationalism in Judea was boiling over during the time of [45] the writing of the Gospels. The Jewish religion was one that centered on Torah, Temple, and the Holy Land. Jews believed that the Holy Land was their ethnic and religious heritage; therefore, ownership and control of this land was extremely important. This idea is seen in the Gospels, even by those close to Jesus. For instance, the two on the way to Emmaus express this sentiment in connection with their dashed hopes to the unrecognized resurrected Jesus in Luke 24:21, “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” Burge notes, “‘Redeeming Israel’ does not refer to the salvation of souls, but to the restoration of the nation, the cleansing of the land, and a divinely endorsed inheritance of the Holy Land that was deeply woven into the fabric of Israel’s religious life.”

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This

same idea is expressed in the prophecy of Zechariah in Luke 1:68-75: Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our [47] days. In this prophecy, Luke notes all of the key points important to an Old Testament view of the Holy Land and the covenant of Abraham. The redemption of God’s people noted here is not primarily individual salvation, but the restoration of the nation of Israel through her Davidic King. God

provided deliverance from Israel’s enemies, so that she could serve God without fear (in rest). All of this would be a fulfillment of the prophets and the covenant God made with Abraham and would surely include the Holy Land as the place where all of this occurs. It may be expected that, as the Gospel of Luke and the other Synoptics unfold, one would see the fulfillment of this prophecy. This is especially true since Zechariah links the birth, life, and ministry of John the Baptist to its fulfillment (Luke 1:79). Instead, the “horn of salvation” in the house of David is eventually betrayed, rejected by Israel’s leadership, and handed over to the pagan occupying power of the land of Jewish inheritance! The Messiah is then brutally and shamefully crucified by the pagan power of Rome—and all of this took place in the Holy Land itself. Within a generation of Messiah’s death (and resurrection) these same Roman armies crushed Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple of God. An important and pertinent question is whether Zechariah’s prophecy, inspired by the Holy Spirit, was fulfilled or unfulfilled. One may ask whether the redemption of Israel that Zechariah spoke of was postponed or fulfilled in a way not fully envisioned by the Old Testament prophets. Lastly, a biblical theology of the Holy Land asks from this passage whether God has rejected His plans for the Holy Land, postponed His plans for the Holy Land, or fulfilled them in a way that opens up an everexpanding and universal vision. A number of instructive passages in the Synoptics touch on issues involving the Holy Land. In these passages Jesus used terms and pictures familiar to His Jewish audience; however, He laid a foundation of understanding the land in new and vital ways. In the familiar passage of Matthew 5:5, Jesus declared, “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.” The Greek word ge is [48] translated “earth” in the ESV. This Greek word is used 250 times in the New Testament and is [49] translated various ways. The original hearers of Jesus likely would have understood Jesus to mean “land”—that is, the land of inheritance. The immediate context bears this out. Jesus specifically uses the word “inherit” (Gk. kleronomeo) and seems to be referencing Psalm 37:11, which reads, “But the meek shall inherit (kleronomeo in LXX) the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.” The idea of inheritance would have been understood as Israel’s inheritance, the land promised to her by

Yahweh. By “meek” (Gk. praus), Jesus did not mean those who are weak; instead, He meant those dependent upon God in the face of oppression. In the Old Testament the meek are, “… those who in deep need and difficulty humbly seek help from Yahweh alone….”

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[51] In Jesus’ world, the powerful laid claim to the land, whether through politics or privilege. “Because most Jews expected a final war against Gentiles to culminate this age and inaugurate their redemption, many would have thought of the Kingdom as belonging to the justly violent.”

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In

saying that the meek—the oppressed and those who rely wholly on God—will inherit the land, Jesus is acting as the “rearranger of the land.”

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Jesus describes himself with the same Greek word

(praus) in Matthew 11:29, “I am gentle.” Jesus then is the principal heir of the land, and His followers (those who are the meek of Matthew 5:5) will inherit it along with Him. Jesus understood himself to be the heir of all that God promised to Israel, including the Holy Land. This is demonstrated in the well-known parable of the wicked tenants (Matt. 21:33-46; Mark 12:1-12; Luke 20:9-19). It is probable that this parable is patterned after the parable of the vineyard in Isaiah 5:1-7 in which the vineyard is explicitly identified as the house of Israel (v. 7), and the context of the parable is Israel in the Holy Land. In the parable of the tenants, the spiritual leaders are tenants, not owners. There is but one heir, one owner. Matthew 21:38 states, “But the husbandmen, when they saw the son, said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and take his inheritance.” God himself is the owner of the vineyard and the land that it is on. His son, Jesus, is the heir (Gk. kleronomos) and therefore receives the entire inheritance (Gk. kleronomian). The wicked tenants made the mistake of thinking that the inheritance could be theirs without a relationship with the Son of the Landowner. The relationship between Jesus, the Messiah, and the inheritance of God (which includes the Holy Land and all that it symbolizes) is further elaborated in the Gospel of John. Many times in his gospel, John shows that Jesus fulfills Old Testament pictures of God’s dwelling with His people and the inheritance they receive through this relationship.

John laid the foundation for the true unveiling of the Messiah in chapter 1, verse 14: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John used the Greek word eskenosen for the dwelling of the Son of God in Israel. This word is derived from skene,

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which means “tabernacle” and is used

repeatedly in the LXX to translate Yahweh’s dwelling place with Israel. By writing this way, John is [55] stating that Jesus, the Son of God, is now God’s dwelling place in Israel (and the entire world). Jesus now becomes the Temple of God—the place where God is experienced and worshiped. Jesus, as the true Temple of God, is further confirmed in other passages in John. In John 1:51, Jesus said to Nathanael, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” Jesus is referencing Jacob’s dream at Bethel in [56] Genesis 28. Jacob declared, after seeing the angels of God ascending and descending, “This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven” (v. 17b). By saying this to Nathanael, Jesus declared himself to be the house of God—where God meets with humankind. John 2:13-22 recounts the cleansing of the Temple in Jerusalem by Jesus. In the passage Jesus declared, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” John adds in verse 21 that Jesus, “… was speaking about the temple of his body.” Once again, Jesus asserted that He is now the Temple of God—the place where God dwells among His people. When Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman in John 4, He made the astounding statement in verse 21, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.” Later in verse 23 Jesus said, “But the hour is coming, and is now here.” Through the incarnation, God dwelt among His people through Jesus (see John 1:14), and would be approached such. The Temple in Jerusalem would no longer be the special holy place where the [57] worshipers of God would have to come to meet with Him. This has profound theological meaning concerning holy place—whether it be Holy Land, Holy City, or Holy Temple. Burge offers this incisive comment about Jesus and the Temple: John understands the deep

Jewish commitment to holy space. And the Temple was the premier example of this. However, this is where John’s own Christology enters the picture. In Christ, the Temple had been eclipsed. In Christ, [58] the holiest of all Judaism’s places had found their fulfillment. John seemed to write with a definite theological agenda or technique—one that Burge calls a “messianic replacement motif.”

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In this agenda, John demonstrated that Jesus fulfilled Old

Testament religious pictures and forms and, therefore, replaced them with the reality that He brought. A person can see this even in Jewish feasts, such as the Feast of Tabernacles. If Jesus is now the true tabernacle of God (John 1), this should be evident in John’s treatment of the Feast of Tabernacles in [60] John 7-9. Two great symbols emphasized in this feast were water and light. Light symbolized the glory of Yahweh’s presence when He lived with, and led, Israel in the wilderness while they lived in tents (Exod. 13:21). The water symbolized the life-giving sustenance that Yahweh gave supernaturally to Israel as she lived in tents in the wilderness (Exod. 17:6). Jesus fulfilled both of these symbols

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and, therefore, supplanted them. He is the light of the world (John 8:12) and He is the living water (John 7:37-39). Consequently, Jesus fulfills and essentially replaces the Feast of Tabernacles. Another important image John used to reveal the true nature of Jesus is the vineyard or vine. A common picture of Israel in the land in the Old Testament is a vineyard

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, which Yahweh has

planted (Ps. 80; Isa. 5:1-7; 27:2-6; Jer. 2:21; 5:10; 12:10; Ezek. 15; 17:1-10; 19:10-14; Hosea 10:1). Israel, planted in the Holy Land, was to bear abundant fruit, but she had failed to demonstrate the character of God as His firstborn son. Jesus often used the vineyard in parables to instruct on the kingdom of God (Matt. 20:1-8, 21:28; 33-40; Mark 12:1-9; Luke 13:6; 20:9-16). In chapter 15, John recorded a teaching of Jesus using vine imagery not recorded in the Synoptics, and it is a key text related to a theology of the Holy Land. Jesus proclaimed to His disciples [63] that He is the true (Gk. alethinos) vine, and they are branches in Him. This saying of Jesus has been variously interpreted, but rarely do commentators see the connection of this parable and holy space. God has only one vine—Jesus—and He is the source of fruitfulness for Israel. Jews cannot be

part of God’s vine in the Holy Land unless they are grafted into Jesus. John again used his replacement through fulfillment motif. Jesus is supplanting what attachment to the Holy Land once offered Israel—rootedness and (therefore) fruitfulness to God. Burge once again offers profound insight on the implications of this: The family of concepts that draws together John 15 and the land centers on Israel’s quest for life and fruitfulness under the watchful eye of God. John’s Christology urges that this quest will not be satisfied with religious territory, with the real estate of Judea, Samaria, or Galilee any more that it will be satisfied with religious ritual. In the messianic age, God’s vineyard has one vine, Christ, and all must be grafted into him. Those who pursue territory, religious turf, motivated by the expectation that it is theirs by privilege hoping that God will bless their endeavor, are sorely mistaken. Johannine Christology could not be clearer. Only one person, Jesus, is the way to such nearness to God. He alone is attached to God’s vineyard. He alone is the way to God’s Holy Space, to God’s Holy Land. “The way” is not territorial. It is spiritual. It is to be in the Father ’s presence (John 14:1-11). Just as the Samaritan woman of John 4 learned that Jerusalem was no longer a place of true worship (and that worship in Spirit is what the Father seeks), so [64] now the land as holy place cannot be an avenue to the blessings of God. Localizing the presence of God in Jesus and connecting all of the Abrahamic covenant blessings in relationship to Him is continued throughout the rest of the New Testament. A survey of relevant New Testament passages in Acts through Revelation demonstrates this.



Chapter Five

The Book of Acts Jesus declared to His disciples in Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to [65] the end of the earth.” This verse gives a broad outline to the book of Acts. Luke acknowledged that the gospel begins in Jerusalem and Judea. The Spirit-filled apostles of Jesus must begin the proclamation of the gospel in the holy city of God’s Old Testament people. Luke traces the gospel decree from Jerusalem throughout Judea (chapters 1-7), Samaria (chapter 8), and to the end of the earth (chapters 13-28). One of the most conspicuous points of Luke’s account of the gospel is not what he writes about the Holy Land, but what he doesn’t write. The gospel that the apostles present to Hebraic Jews, Hellenistic Jews, and Gentiles is totally void of a territorial theology. The authority and blessings of Christ’s Kingdom flows from the right hand of God and extends to the entire world. Jesus is David’s descendant and now sits on David’s throne as King (2:30) and from Him flow blessings to the entire human race (13:34). Paul, especially, is sent by Jesus as apostle to the Gentiles and in no context does he present the Holy Land as the special focal point of Messiah’s Kingdom. The Jewish disciples did ask Jesus if He was going to restore the kingdom to Israel (1:7). This question surely would have had connections to the Holy Land as the place where Israel would dwell in [66] the restored Kingdom. A widespread belief of Jews in Jesus’ day held that God would gather Jews to the Holy Land and refresh and restore Israel. God would then gather in Gentiles and many of them [67] would turn to God. In light of this, the disciples were asking Jesus if, through His resurrection power, He would restore Israel to its proper place in the Holy Land and reveal God’s unfolding plan of redemption, which would include the Gentiles. Most commentators take Jesus’ answer, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority,” as indication that the essence of their question was legitimate; only their timing was off. However, in light of the overall [68] context, Jesus’ answer deals more with the nature of Israel’s restoration rather than mere timing.

As stated previously, two great characteristics of Israel’s restoration in biblical thought are the coming of the Holy Spirit (Isa. 42:1; 44:3; 59:21; Ezek. 36:27-28—note the connection with the Holy Land—37:14; Joel 2:28-29) and the salvation (and judgment) of Gentiles (Isa. 2:4; 5:3-7; 42:1, 6; 49:6; 54:3; 55:5; 60:1-16; 61-66; Jer. 3:15-18; 16:19; Ezek. 36:23, 36; 39:7, 21; Amos 9:12; Mic. 4:2-3; Hag. 2:7; Zech. 8:22-23; 9:10; 14:16). Luke drew attention to both of these points. Jesus told His disciples about the coming of the Holy Spirit (1:5) and the consequent proclamation of the gospel to the nations (1:8). These are not coincidental; Luke was showing that the initial restoration of Israel had taken place through the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Messiah. Now the fulfillment of the coming of the Spirit and Israel’s light to the nations will begin. Later, Paul is saved, in place of unbelieving Israel, and sent to the nations as Christ’s apostle. His ministry fulfilled the well-known prophecy of [69] Isaiah 49:6 (see Acts 13:47). Luke’s point is that Israel’s restoration was initially fulfilled through the Messiah and did not require a return to the Holy Land. Christ sits on David’s throne at the right hand of God in heaven. His kingdom is worldwide—not confined to the geographical boundaries of Palestine. This has important significance for a biblical theology of the Holy Land. Jesus is the Temple of God, and He indwells His believers by the Spirit and brings God’s light to Israel and the Gentile world. This universal proclamation of God’s light is not confined to an earthly temple of stone, but its source is heavenly and proclaimed through Spirit-filled disciples to the ends of the earth. Luke used Stephen’s speech in Acts 7:2-53 to further address the issue of holy place in the [70] kingdom of God. Interestingly, this is the last speech given in Jerusalem as recorded in Acts. Luke was not merely recalling the last words of Stephen; he is also demonstrating the foundation of a theology that will propel the gospel throughout the world, mainly through Paul. Two of his main points are that: [71] 1. God appeared many times in Israel’s history outside the Holy Land (with Abraham in Mesopotamia, v. 2; with Joseph in Egypt, v. 9; with Moses in the wilderness, vv. 30-34). In fact, God appeared to Moses at the burning bush, saying, “Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place

where you are standing is holy ground.” The Greek word translated ‘ground’ is ge and is often translated as ‘land’ (42 times in ESV) in the New Testament. Stephen asserted that wherever God dwells is holy. If God were to dwell outside the Holy Land, that land would also be holy. 2. God does not dwell in earthly temples, which includes the Temple in Jerusalem. Stephen said this directly in v. 48, “Yet the most high does not dwell in houses made by hands.” He defends this statement by quoting from Isaiah 66:1-2, “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest? Did not my hand make all these things?” Stephen used a key phrase in v. 48—‘made by hands’ (Gk. cheiropoietois). Every place this phrase is used in the New Testament, it emphasizes the antithesis between the work of God and the [72] work of man. Notably, in Mark 14:58, it is claimed that Jesus said, “I will destroy this temple that is made with hands (Gk. cheiropoieton), and in three days I will build another, not made with hands (Gk. acheiropoieton).” Stephen’s point is that the Temple in Jerusalem is not the fullest expression of the dwelling place of God;

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this fullest expression is a temple made without human hands—by

God himself. The rest of the New Testament shows that this God-made temple is Christ and His body. Stephen’s theology cuts the restrictive ties of religion to land or human-made holy places. He effectively moves the life and community of the New Covenant from the ancient territorial religious expression of the Old Covenant to the worldwide scope of the New. Christ claims the entire world as His and His authority and life flow from God’s throne in heaven to all of His people, no matter where they live. Stephen’s speech laid the foundation of all of this. Burge reminds the reader, “Stephen has questioned the wedding of religion and land, or perhaps the synthesis of faith and nationalism. And it cost him his life.”

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At the martyrdom of Stephen, Luke introduced Saul of Tarsus, the great apostle to the Gentiles. Interestingly enough, Saul (or Paul, his Gentile name) exemplified both the ideas and feelings of the Jewish religious zealots who put Stephen to death and those of Stephen himself. Paul moved from a fervent nationalistic territorial religion (the Pharisaic Judaism of his day) to the theology of Stephen,

the very person he participated in killing. Luke shows that the only way this happened was a personal encounter with the risen Messiah. When Paul met Jesus, he realized that his nationalistic, territorial Messiah was not the Messiah at all. The true Messiah fulfills the purpose of God by bringing His light to the Gentiles (Acts 13:47) and grants them an equal inheritance with Jews who trust in Him (Acts 26:18). Paul’s speech before Agrippa, though recorded toward the end of book of Acts, actually recounts the words of Jesus given to Paul at his conversion. These words laid the foundation of Paul’s entire ministry. His words recall the prophecies about the Servant in Isaiah, chapters 42 and 49 and [75] also recall Isaiah 61. Paul’s ministry was to continue, in a foundational way, the ministry of the Servant. Jesus proclaimed the effect of Paul’s ministry concerning the Gentiles, “… that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified in me” (Acts 26:18). The Greek word for ‘place’ is kleros, which is used a total of fourteen times in the New Testament. The word is associated with, among other things, either the object used for casting lots or that which is [76] allotted through casting lots. It is used many times in the LXX, most notably to designate how the clans of Israel would receive the inheritance of the Holy Land, both before and after the Exile (Num. 26:55-56; 33:54; 34:13; Josh. 14:2, Ezek. 48:29). This inheritance in the Holy Land was to be given even to non-Israelites in the ideal state. Ezekiel 47:22 states, “You shall allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the sojourners who reside among you and have had children among you. They shall be to you as native-born children of Israel. With you they shall be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel.”

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Paul’s ministry was to initiate the fulfillment of this prophecy and, through the gospel, Gentile believers in Jesus could claim the full inheritance as children of Abraham. This truth is what Paul developed in his letters.



Chapter Six Letters of Paul and Others Paul used the key concepts of “heir,” “inherit,” and “inheritance” in connection with the idea of Holy Land. Moreover, Paul’s elaboration on Abraham, Abraham’s children, and the Temple of God also illumine this subject. Paul the Apostle used the words for “heir,” “inherit,” and “inheritance” many times in his letters (a total of 22 times). This word group has kleros as its root. The word has ties to the allotment of the [78] Holy Land to the various clans of Israel in the Old Testament. Especially important to a discussion of the Holy Land is Paul’s use of this word in Romans 4:13. Paul stated, “For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.” It is likely Paul had Genesis 15:1-7 in mind when he wrote this verse. In Romans 4:13, Paul alluded to prominent terms and phrases used in the Genesis 15 text —“heir,” “offspring,” “believe,” and “counted as righteousness”. In Genesis 15:7, Yahweh told Abraham that He brought him out of Ur to possess (LXX – kleronomeo, to receive as an inheritance) the land of Canaan. In Romans 4:13, Paul expanded Abraham’s inheritance of Canaan to the entire earth. This is significant for developing a biblical theology of the Holy Land. Along with God’s promise to make Abraham the father of many nations, noted in 4:18, Paul viewed Abraham and his descendants’ inheritance as the entire earth. All those of faith are the children of Abraham, whether Jew or Gentile, and, therefore, eligible to receive the inheritance of the Holy Land, now expanded. [79] This will have ultimate fulfillment in the New Heaven and New Earth. Paul demonstrated that the inheritance of God’s people is gained through righteousness that is by faith. He emphasized this in all of his letters and thereby vouchsafed this inheritance to Gentile believers in Jesus as well as Jewish believers. Religious Judaism of Paul’s day denied an equal inheritance to Gentiles, including those who believed in the God of Abraham. Even Gentile proselytes to Judaism could not refer to Abraham as “our father.” They had to substitute “your father” for “our

[80] father” in the liturgy of the synagogue. Burge makes an insightful observation on this: As Paul’s Gentile mission grew, this is perhaps one of the apostle’s earliest, fundamental complaints against the ancestral faith. If Abraham is the great ancestor of faith, if Abraham is the man in whom religious identity is secured, to exclude Gentiles from the promises that accrue to those who share this faith, indeed to exclude Gentiles from all that God promised to Abraham, was an unwarranted ethnic discrimination. One either shares the covenant blessings [81] of God or one does not. The Holy Land, where God would dwell with His people, was the unquestioned inheritance of Abraham’s children. The Apostle Paul would have strenuously denied that this land (or what it pictured or symbolized) was the inheritance only of Jews or Jewish believers and not Gentile believers. He contended for this more than once in his writings. In Galatians 3:7, Paul stated, “Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.” Since sonship to Abraham is the way of faith, and Christ is the focus of that faith, those who are in Christ are Abraham’s children. To be in Christ is to be a son of God (3:26) and, therefore, to inherit the place of God’s dwelling. Paul boldly proclaimed, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” [82] (3:29). It is inconceivable that inheritance for Gentile believers as well as Jewish ones would not include the place where God dwells with His children. When talking about the promise to Abraham and his offspring as heirs of the world, Paul wrote in Romans 4:16, “That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.” In writing about inheritance to the Ephesians, he encouraged them with, “This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (3:6). In Paul’s writings, the inheritance of believers is guaranteed, but not yet fully experienced. The Holy Spirit, Who unites believers to Christ, is a down payment of the inheritance (Eph. 1:11-14) to be fully revealed when Jesus returns in His glory. Many have pointed to Romans 11 to show that the children of Israel will be restored to their

Promised Land—the land that God promised them as an inheritance as His special people. The process of salvation for Jews has been variously interpreted from this passage. It is best to understand [83] Paul as teaching the eschatological salvation of ethnic Israel. However, there are three important points in connection with this: (1) unbelieving Jews have effectually been broken off from the olive tree—the tree of God’s people (vv. 19-20), (2) Gentile believers have been effectually grafted into the same olive tree from which unbelieving Jews have been broken off (vv.17, 19, 24). This means that Gentile believers in Jesus receive all of the blessings promised to Israel, and (3) unbelieving Jews will someday believe in Jesus and be grafted back into their own olive tree (vv. 12, 15, 26-27). This shows that receiving the promises made to Israel is not unconditional, even to Jews. It also shows that when unbelieving Jews turn to Jesus and again receive the promises made to Israel, they will have no more or no less than what Gentile believers already have as part of the olive tree. Finally, Paul wrote on an important subject in connection with a biblical view of the Holy Land —the Temple of God. In biblical revelation, what makes the Holy Land holy is the presence of God among His people. This thought is repeated many times in the Old Testament. God’s Temple is where the Holy Land is. In fact, it is impossible to biblically conceive of the Holy Land without God’s Temple. The writers of the Gospels transferred the true Temple of God from the temple made with [84] human hands in Jerusalem to the body of Jesus. He is the true dwelling place of God among His people. With the coming of the Holy Spirit as recorded in Acts 2, the body of Christ becomes the [85] temple of God. The Church, collectively, is the temple of God (1 Cor. 3:16, 17), and each believer is a temple of God (6:19). In 2 Corinthians 6, Paul stated that all believers are “the temple of the living God” and then cited a passage in Leviticus about God dwelling with His people in the Holy Land: “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (26:12). Finally, in Ephesians 2:21-22, Paul wrote that Jewish and Gentile believers in Christ are growing into “a holy temple in the Lord,” a “dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”

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It is

important to note that Paul does not say that the Church is like the temple of God; rather, the Church is

the temple of God. This must surely affect a biblical understanding of the Holy Land, for where is God’s temple, biblically, but in the Holy Land? An interesting passage concerning inheritance is found in 1 Peter. Peter wrote to a largely Gentile audience,

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but he used terms and promises from the Old Testament exclusively meant for

Israel (for example, 1 Pet. 2:9-10). He referred to his readers as “the elect exiles of the dispersion” (eklektois parepidemois diasporas), a term that would designate the exiled people of God awaiting [88] their return to the Promised Land. Peter stated in 1 Peter 1:4 that God brought Christians to an [89] inheritance (kleronomian) that is kept in heaven. This word for inheritance is used of the inheritance of the Holy Land that was given to Israel (Num. 26:54, 56; 34:2; Josh. 11:23 in the LXX). As used here, the holy place of peace, safety, plenty, and God’s presence awaits believers in Jesus. It is the ultimate fulfillment of the Holy Land for God’s people. This inheritance is in heaven—in the glorious spiritual realm—and will be fully revealed when Jesus Christ is revealed (1 Pet. 1:7). The concept of spiritual or heavenly realities fulfilling and, therefore, replacing earthly typical pictures is especially developed in the book of Hebrews.



Chapter 7 The Books of Hebrews and the Revelation The book of Hebrews is particularly relevant to a biblical theology of the Holy Land. The [90] reason for this is that scholars generally agree it was written to Jewish Christians. Moreover, the author of Hebrews specifically touched on the subject of the Holy Land as “rest.” For this reason, what the author of Hebrews wrote to Jewish Christians about their land of promise must inform a biblical theology of the Holy Land in a very important way. The author of Hebrews used the familiar Holy Land concept of “rest” extensively in 3:7–4:11. The Greek word he uses is katapausis, the same word used in the LXX of Psalm. 95:7-11, from which he quoted. God specifically stated that they shall not enter my rest because of unbelief. It is the divine dwelling of God that humankind was created to live in and which the Holy Land of the Old Testament was as picture or type. This is seen most clearly in Deuteronomy 12:9: “For you have not as yet come to the rest (LXX – katapausin) and to the inheritance that that the LORD is giving you.” Moses was clearly speaking of the land of Palestine—the Promised Land. However, Moses did not bring Israel into the Promised Land. Joshua was given that honor. The profound truth that the author of Hebrews reveals is that although Joshua brought Israel into the Holy Land and guided them toward possession of it, he did not give them the rest of God (Heb. 4:8). This statement in Hebrews must be compared with statements in the Book of Joshua. For example Joshua 21:44 states, “And the Lord gave them rest on every side just as he had sworn to their fathers. Not one of all their enemies had withstood them, for the Lord had given all their enemies into their hands.”

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And yet the writer of Hebrews states that Joshua did not give Israel rest. The reason

for this is that the Temple in the Holy Land is not the true dwelling place of God; it is only a “pattern” [92] of heavenly realities (8:1-5). Furthermore, the entire system of Levitical priests and sacrifices, though instituted by God, cannot truly take away sin and restore people to God. Through Christ and His sacrifice, believers are totally forgiven and restored to God the Father.

They now long for the rest of God, where they will live with Him forever. By faith, they have come to “the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Heb. 12:22) and yearn for its manifestation when Jesus comes again (v. 26-28). Even Abraham, the father of the faithful, longed for this heavenly [93] country (11:16). This is a significant statement, for Abraham and his descendants were the recipients of the promise of the Holy Land. The writer of Hebrews pointed out that Abraham did not view the land of Canaan as the true and ultimate fulfillment of the promise—only a “heavenly one” that would fulfill the true longings of God and humans. Abraham was “looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (v. 10). The author of Hebrews closed with an important word about the city (and therefore, Holy Land) for which true believers long: “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Heb. 13:14). Since God’s city is in the center of the Holy Land, one might say, “For here we have no lasting Holy Land, but we seek the Holy Land that is to come.” The last book of the New Testament makes an important contribution to a biblical theology of the Holy Land. Despite the terrible struggle that awaits the Church of Christ and the terrible persecutions against her, Revelation is essentially a book of hope. In it John warned Christians against apostasy and embracing the world system. But, he also encouraged them that, despite persecutions, Jesus would intervene in human history and “The kingdom of the world” would become “the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ” (Rev. 11:15). For that reason, Revelation’s focus, and the [94] hope of Christians, is always forward-looking—to the return of Jesus Christ. The entire flow of Revelation is to the New Heaven and New Earth and culminated in chapters 21 and 22. In discussing the vision of the New Heaven and New Earth, Beasley-Murray writes, “The vision therefore, may be viewed as the climax not only of the book of Revelation, but of the whole story of salvation embodied in the Bible.”

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In it, John saw “the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming

down out of heaven from God” (Rev. 21:2). This city is in the shape of a cube (v. 16) signifying that it is the Holy of Holies—God’s Holy Temple. The believers, the ones who overcome, are themselves

God’s holy temple (see 3:12). God will fill the New Heaven and New Earth with His holy presence: His sons and daughters will be glorified as His holy dwelling place. John saw a condition that is essentially a recreation of the Garden of Eden, the garden temple of God. Many parallels may be noted between the Garden of Eden and the New Creation. God dwells [96] with humankind (Rev. 21:3; see Gen. 3:8), humankind is the child of God (Rev. 21:7; see Gen. 5:13); there is the river of the water of life (Rev. 22:1; see Gen. 2:10); the tree of life is present (Rev. 22:2; see Gen. 2:9); there will be nothing accursed (Rev. 22:3; see Gen. 2:4-25 with 3:14-19). The prophetic revelation brings believers to the hope of a New Creation in which the ideal of the Garden of Eden will be fulfilled and not as an earthly Holy Land that was but a type of this new creation. Burge asserts, To fight for holy territory, to defend the land as a divinely appointed duty, is to regress utterly in the most miserable way. It is to misplace hope entirely. The kingdoms of this world will be judged. And this includes the kingdom of Judea. Hope in Revelation is for a ‘new heaven and [97] new earth’ (21.1) that reorders creation as it ought to be. With the creation of the New Heaven and New Earth, biblical revelation is completed. God will restore humankind and creation to a new garden sanctuary for God and people to dwell in forever. This sanctuary is the fulfillment, in a glorified state, of the initial stages of the Garden of Eden. It is the ultimate Holy Land—a New Creation where God will live with His children forever. All sin will be removed, Satan will be absent, and the fellowship between God and the redeemed will never have the possibility of being broken.



Conclusion The Holy Land (and its function) is one of the threads that runs through all of Scripture. The reason for this is that Scripture begins and ends with the concept of God living with His son (humankind) in secure, peaceful, sanctified space. In salvation history, God called Abraham out of Ur and gave Canaan to Abraham and his descendants as an inheritance where God would dwell with them (in an earthly temple). In actuality, the Holy Land belonged to God, and He was calling out the elect and providing the place where He would dwell with the redeemed. The possession of this typical form of Holy Land by Abraham’s descendants was conditioned upon their love for, and obedience to, God. In the fullness of time, God sent His Son into the world to reveal His glory and to tabernacle among humankind. The typical function of the Holy Land in the Old Testament received its fulfillment in Jesus. It is now in Jesus that God dwells, and therefore believers find peace and rest and become God’s Temple by being in Christ. This is all experienced through the Holy Spirit uniting believers to Jesus through faith, and will be fully manifested in the New Heaven and New Earth. When this takes place, believers will be like Christ and live unimpeded with God forever in the New Creation, the true Holy Land.



Implications The implications of this theology of the Holy Land are many. I will highlight the three that I see to be the most important. 1. The theological purpose and function of the Holy Land must be connected to a restoration of the Garden of Eden. Therefore, the idea of holy land and God dwelling with His people is tied to the redemption of humankind and the re-instatement of humans to be the children of God. Any treatment of the Holy Land as only a possession of Abraham and his physical descendants divorces the function of the Holy Land from this larger picture of God’s unfolding plan of redemption of humankind. Because the plan of redemption is accomplished through Jesus Christ, the function of the Holy Land must also find its consummation in Jesus and be claimed by all who believe in Him. New Testament believers are experiencing, in Christ, what the Old Testament Holy Land with the Temple portrayed. New Covenant believers have already begun to experience the blessings of the Garden of Eden (God dwelling with His children) through Christ and look forward to the day when this will be fully consummated. I believe that many Christians do not see their experience with God as tied in any way to the Old Testament Holy Land. For this reason, they fail to appreciate all of the wonderful promises given by God about the Holy Land in the Old Testament. 2. A biblical theology of the Holy Land has implications for Christian Zionism, especially a Christian Zionism that would grant the present day Holy Land as an unconditional land grant to the Jewish people. The entire body of the Old Testament (from which Christian Zionism claims its promises for the Jewish people) repeatedly and consistently shows that Israel’s claim to the Holy Land is conditioned by her faith in God and her obedience to Him. Christian Zionism misses the mark in two ways. First, it grants land as inheritance to Israel, even if Israel is living in rebellion against God. Surely, this is unbiblical. Second, it fails to see that the land granted to Israel in the Old Testament is but a type of the dwelling that God has for His people in the Messiah and that will ultimately be fulfilled in a New Heaven and New Earth.

This does not mean that Christian Zionism’s desire and belief that the Jewish people will once again come to God is off the mark. The biblical theology that I have expressed in this book does not diminish the importance of the eventual salvation of the Jewish people, as a people. In faithfulness to His promises, God will surely save ethnic Israel. This is most clearly seen in Romans 11. But it does mean that the salvation of Jewish people is on the same basis as Gentiles—faith in Jesus the Messiah. It also implies that the inheritance (God dwelling with His people in sanctified space) of “all Israel” is exactly the same as that of Gentile believers in Jesus. Although the salvation of Israel is seen in the Old Testament through the lens of God dwelling with Israel in a Temple in the Holy Land, this salvation of Israel must be seen through the New Testament lens of fulfillment in Christ and the common inheritance of all believers in Jesus. These Old Testament prophecies then proclaim the salvation of ethnic Jews, to which we say “amen,” but they do not necessitate the literal form of an earthly Temple on the literal land of Palestine, to which Jews (or Gentiles) must come. 3. God dwelling with His children in an eternal paradise is all centered around Jesus. New Testament evangelists must preach Jesus as the Messiah and the one through whom and in whom all the inheritance of God is experienced. The church’s message to Jews and Arabs in the Middle East is the same—God desires to live with His children forever; we become His children and live with Him through Jesus. In this way, the concept of holy land and its function is inseparably linked to Jesus and faith in Him. Outside of Jesus, there is no inheritance from God.



ENDNOTES [1] See William L. Lane, vol. 47A, Word Biblical Commentary: Hebrews 1-8, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002) and his comments on this verse for its implications for Old Testament and New Testament revelation. 2 Some assert, from the geographical description given in Genesis 2, that the Holy Land is the original Garden of Eden. For instance, see Matt Perman’s article “Science, the Bible, and the Promised Land,” http://www.desiringgod.org/resourcelibrary/articles/science-the-bible-and-the-promised-land (accessed October 25, 2011). This view is, however, unfounded. 3 There are many views on the days of creation. To me, the most plausible is the two register view put forth in Meredith Kline, “Space and Time in the Genesis Cosmogony,” Science and Perspectives on Christian Faith, 1996, http://www.meredithkline.com/files/articles/PSCF3-96Kline.html (accessed August 17, 2010). This two register view essentially postulates that the heavenly register is invisible and the earthly registry is the visible realm. These two registers are structured on two different realms of time. 4 It is my position that Moses is the primary author of the Pentateuch, and the original readers are the Israelites poised to enter the Promised Land. 5 There has been much written on what the image of God means. Among other things, I take it to emphasize the capacity to rule and have dominion. Of course, humankind ruling and having dominion over all of creation can only take place if humankind is like God in many ways. 6 G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God, vol. 17 of New Studies in Biblical Theology, ed. D. A. Carson (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 60. 7 Meredith G. Kline, Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview (Overland Park, KS: Two Age Press, 2000), 48. 8 Beale, The Temple, 89-90. 9 Kline, Kingdom Prologue,19. 10 G.K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 81. 11 Peter C. Craigie and Marvin E. Tate, Psalms 1-50, 2nd ed., vol. 19 of the Word Biblical Commentary, gen. eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn Barker (Nashville, TN: Nelson Reference & Electronic, 2004), 110. 12 Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, vol. 1 of the Word Biblical Commentary, gen. eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn Barker (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), 85. 13 John F. Walvoord, Roy B. Zuck and Dallas Theological Seminary, The Bible Knowledge Commentary : An Exposition of the Scriptures (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1983), Gen. 11:1–4. 14 James Muilenburg, “Abraham and the Nations: Blessing and World History,” http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=16&hid=125&sid=00add17b-30b6-4123-8b34351e5f158312%40sessionmgr115 (accessed October 31, 2011). 15 Kline, Kingdom Prologue, 332-336.

16 Ibid., 336. 17 Ibid., 336-337. 18 See Harley's excellent comment on Leviticus 25:23 in John E. Hartley, Leviticus, vol. 4 of the Word Biblical Commentary, gen. eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn Barker (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), 437-38.

19James E. Smith, The Pentateuch, 2nd ed. (Joplin, MO: College Press Pub., Co., 1993), Num. 35:1–34. 20 Ibid., Exod. 39:32–40:37. 21 T. Desmond Alexander, “Beyond Borders: the Wider Dimensions of Land,” in The Land of Promise: Biblical, Theological, and Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Philip Johnston and Peter Walker (Downers Grove, IL: 2000), 40. See the number of points by Alexander in which he traces the similarities between Eden and the Temple service in the Promised Land. 22 See particularly the passage in Deut. 12:9-11. 23 See commentary on this in John I. Durham, Exodus, vol. 3 of the Word Biblical Commentary, gen. eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn Barker (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), 56. 24 Ibid., 263. 25 John E. Hartley, Leviticus,vol. 4 of the Word Biblical Commentary, gen. eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn Barker (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), 298. 26 Chad Brand, Charles Draper, Archie England et al., Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2003), 950. 27 See Jamieson’s lengthy introduction to the Historical Books in Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and James Brown., A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997). 28 See especially Butler’s discussion of this in Trent C. Butler, Joshua, vol. 7 of the Word Biblical Commentary, gen. eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn Barker (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), 130-31. 29 In particular, see the discussion in A. A. Anderson, 2 Samuel, vol. 11 of the Word Biblical Commentary, gen. eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn Barker (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), 189. 30 See interesting points in Roddy L. Braun, 1 Chronicles, vol. 14 of the Word Biblical Commentary, gen. eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn Barker (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), 269-70. 31 H. G. M. Willamson, Ezra-Nehemiah, vol. 16 of the Word Biblical Commentary, gen. eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn Barker (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), 137. 32 See Tate’s comments on Psalm 85 in Marvin E. Tate, Psalms 51-100, vol. 20 of the Word Biblical Commentary, gen. eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn Barker (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), 369. 33 Leslie C. Allen, Psalm 101-150 (Revised), vol. 21 of the Word Biblical Commentary, gen. eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn Barker (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), 57-58. 34 See the excellent comment on this verse and its context in Peter C. Craigie and Marvin E. Tate, Psalms 1-50, 2nd ed., vol. 19 of the Word Biblical Commentary, gen. eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn Barker (Nashville, Tenn.: Nelson Reference & Electronic, 2004), 333. 35 Deane and Taylor-Taswell open up the implications of this verse in W.J. Deane and S. T. Taylor-Taswell, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, vol. 9 of the Pulpit Commentary, gen, eds. H.D. M. Spence and Joseph S. Exell (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1950), 42.

36 C. F. Keil, The Minor Prophets, vol. 10 of Commentary on the Old Testament, ed. C. F. Keil (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1991), 248-249. 37 Leslie C. Allen, Ezekeil 20-48,vol. 29 of the Word Biblical Commentary, gen. eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn Barker (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), 178. 38 Baruch Maoz, “People, Land and Torah: a Jewish Christian Perspective,” in The Land of Promise: Biblical, Theological and Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Philip Johnston and Peter Walker (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 188-200. 39 Peter C. Craigie, Jeremiah 1-25, vol. 26 of the Word Biblical Commentary, gen. eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn Barker (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), 358-59. 40 Ibid., 194. 41 Christopher Wright’s commentary on the first half of Ezekiel 37 is especially good in Christopher J. H. Wright, The Message of Ezekiel in The Bible Speaks Today, edited by J.A. Motyer, O. T. editor (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 2001), 309-311. 42 F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews in The New International Commentary on the New Testament, gen. ed. F.F. Bruce (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1964), 235-236. 43 Beale, 291. 44 Craig S. Keener, A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1999), 415-417. 45 Gary M. Burge, Jesus and the Land: The New Testament Challenge to the “Holy Land” Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010), 25. 46 Ibid., 26. 47 See comments in A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, 1997), Luke 1:68–73. 48 Gary Burge, Jesus and the Land, 34. 49 See H. Sasse,, “Ge,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, eds., abr. in one volume by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1985), 116-117. 50 W. Bauder, “Humility, Meekness,” The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, vol. 2, ed. Colin Brown (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Corporation, 1976), 257. 51 Burge, 35. 52 Craig S. Keener, A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, 168. 53 Walter Brueggemann, The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith, 2nd ed., Overtures to Biblical Theology (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2002), 162. 54 Marvin Richardson Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2002), John 1:14. 55 See comment in Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, A. R. Fausset et al., A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), John 1:14. 56 George R. Beasley-Murray, John, vol. 36 of the Word Biblical Commentary, gen. eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn

Barker (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), 28. 57 Ibid., 28. 58 Burge, Jesus and the Land, 52. 59 Ibid., 46. 60 See Frederic Godet, Commentary on John’s Gospel (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1978), 614. 61 Ibid., 636. 62 Allen C. Myers, The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1987), 1038 63 See comments on this passage in John F. Walvoord, Roy B. Zuck and Dallas Theological Seminary, The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1983), John 15:1-2. 64 Burge, Jesus and the Land, 55. 65 Burge, 55. 66 Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, A. R. Fausset et al., A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), Acts 1:8. 67 See F. F Bruce, Commentary on the Book of Acts, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. F. F. Bruce (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1968), 38. 68 Chris Wright, “A Christian Approach to Old Testament Prophecy,” Jerusalem Past and Present in the Purposes of God, 2nd ed., ed. P. W. L. Walker (Carlisle, UK: The Paternoster Press, 1994), 8. 69 The fullness of the Spirit was a characteristic of the eschatological age for Israel. 70 See Burge, Jesus and the Land, 61. 71 F.F. Bruce, The Book of Acts, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. F. F. Bruce (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1983), 283. 72 Dumbrell points out specifically the relation of Stephen’s speech to a temple theology and claims that it “constitutes a decisive break with the temple” in William J. Dumbrell, The End of the Beginning: Revelation 21-22 and the Old Testament (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2001), 68. 73 See commentary in John F. Walvoord, Roy B. Zuck and Dallas Theological Seminary, The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1983), Acts 7:2-53. 74 E. Lohse, “Cheiropoietos, Acheiropoietos,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Gerhard ittel and Gerhard Friedrich, eds., abr. in one volume by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1985), 1312. 75 Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, A. R. Fausset et al., A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), Acts 7:45. 76 Burge, 66. 77 Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, A. R. Fausset et al., A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), Acts 26:18. 78 W. Foerster, “Kleros,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, eds.abr. in one

volume by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1985), 442. 79 See the interesting comments on this verse in Leslie C. Allen, Ezekiel, vol. 29 of the Word Biblical Commentary, gen. eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn Barker (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), 281. 80 See earlier discussion on Acts 26:18. 81 See discussion by John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. F. F. Bruce (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1968), 142. 82 W. D. Davis, The Gospel and the Land (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1974), 177. 83 Burge, Jesus and the Land, 77. 84 Richard N. Longenecker, Galatians, vol. 41 of the Word Biblical Commentary, gen. eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn Barker (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), 158-59. 85 See Frederic Louis Godet, Commentary on Romans (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1977), 409-411; Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Gordon Fee (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996), 710-719; John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. F. F. Bruce (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1968), 91-96; Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Moises Silva, no. 6 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998), 614-619. 86 See discussion on the Gospels above. 87 Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, A. R. Fausset et al., A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 1 Cor. 3:16. 88 A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, 1997), Eph. 2:21-22. 89 Peter H. Davids, The First Epistle of Peter, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. F. F. Bruce (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1968), 8. 90 Because of this designation, some scholars feel that Peter was writing primarily to Jewish Christians. 91 See commentary in J. Ramsey Michaels, “1 Peter,” vol. 49 of the Word Biblical Commentary, gen. eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn Barker (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), 16-22. 92 See F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. F. F. Bruce (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1968), xxx; William L. Lane, Hebrews 1-8, Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 47A, gen. eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn W. Barker (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1991), liv; Brooke Foss Wescott, The Epistle to the Hebrews, (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1977), xii. 93 See Butler's comment on this verse in Joshua in Trent C. Butler, Joshua, vol. 7 of the Word Biblical Commentary, gen. eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn Barker (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), 235-36. 94 William L. Lane, Hebrews 1-8, vol. 47A of the Word Biblical Commentary, gen. eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn Barker (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), 204. 95 William L. Lane, Hebrews 9-13, vol. 47B of the Word Biblical Commentary, gen. eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn Barker (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), 358-60. 96 Mounce essentially acknowledges this, although he speaks in general terms of God triumphing over evil, and not specifically the return of Christ in Robert Mounce, The Book of Revelation, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. F. F. Bruce (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1977), 46. 97 G.B. Beasley-Murray, Revelation, The New Century Bible Commentary, eds. Ronald Clements and Matthew Black (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1974), 305.

98 See the excellent commentary by Beale on this verse in G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation, The New International Greek Testament Commentary, eds. I. Howard Marshall and Donald A. Hagner (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), 1046-1048. 99 Burge, 107.



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