SEVEN POINTS TO UNDERSTANDING ISRAEL, CONT.

            - Land Inheritance Through Christ

Perhaps the largest missing piece in the Middle East land debate is that of any literal relationship between the New Covenant and the Abrahamic land inheritance. This is because men do not recognize the existence of a transcendent Eternal Israel and because no one belonging to Eternal Israel has yet received their inheritance on earth. So all teaching regarding eternal inheritance and reward under the New Covenant has been relegated to “heaven.”

In actuality though, inheriting eternal life embraces inheritance of a permanent place on the earth. This is the thrust of the Lord’s Prayer, which invokes the coming of the kingdom of heaven to earth. From the Sermon on the Mount to the parables of Christ (Lk. 19:11-27) to the elders of Revelation 5, the New Testament teaches the eventual connecting of the kingdom of heaven with the inheriting of the earth by the glorified immortal saints. This necessarily includes the Land promised to Abraham.

This promise of earth inheritance through eternal life is directly tied to the land inheritance of the Abrahamic promise. The connect already seen between the Abrahamic and New Covenant heirships extends to the Promised Land. As Abraham’s imperishable seed, it is Eternal Israel—not Israel in the flesh—that inherits life forever, thus all the promises of earth ownership and dominion that come with eternal life as an “everlasting possession.”

But the New Testament makes no direct statement about inheriting the Promised Land. This silence has allowed for the misperception that New Covenant inheritance is relegated strictly to a heavenly reward in the clouds somewhere. To dispel this misperception and see that the Promised Land is Eternal Israel’s literal inheritance through the New Covenant, we have to bring in an understanding of the kingdom of God.

·        The Kingdom of God (Heaven) and the Promised Land

The Abrahamic promise was not only about a seed and a land, but also a kingdom. The concept of an “Abrahamic kingdom” is lost in modern debate over the Land. But Abraham was promised to be a father of kings. (Gen 17:6, 16 and 35:11 ties kingship to Abraham’s seed and land.)

Kingship was first introduced in Israel during the days of Samuel. It was an illegitimate introduction at that time, but still used by God as a foretype of Messiah’s kingship to come. The premier foretype of the Messiah king was David. (In the eternal picture, Christ was before David, being the “root of Jesse,” even as He was before Abraham.)

David’s foretypical kingship existed under the Mosaic Covenant. So like everything under that covenant, it had an end. Most of Israel’s kings were wicked and doomed to everlasting destruction in the pit. Zedekiah was the last mortal king of Israel, and would be until the coming of Messiah—the eternal, immortal, divine One— “whose right it is” (Ezk. 21). 

As Messiah, Jesus came both as Son of David and Son of Abraham (Mt. 1:1), fulfilling the promise that Abraham would be the father of kings—whose right it is to rule Abraham’s seed, and so the Land promised to Abraham. Everyone understood that whoever the Son of David was, He was also the Son of Abraham. So His right to rule was predicated on the Abrahamic Covenant, which obviously meant rulership over the Promised Land.

The Jews didn’t contest that Abraham is a presider in the Kingdom of God (cf. Lk.13:28; 16:23). They also expected the Kingdom of God to come to earth, specifically to them (Lk. 17:20; 19:11). They understood that inheritance by Abraham’s seed, the kingship of Israel and the Kingdom of God to come were all integrally related.

This is important in light of Messiah’s cornerstone prayer which was for the kingdom of heaven (which includes Abraham) to come to earth. By this, Messiah agreed and made clear that inheriting Abraham’s land and inheriting the kingdom of God / Israel were of one force and effect. Yet Messiah’s kingdom was of a different order. This connection is vital to relating the New Covenant to literal inheritance in the Promised Land.

Being rejected by the Jewish nation, Messiah died and rose again, birthing His New Covenant and Eternal Israel bride from before time. From here He added the promise that He would return to rule the land of Israel, and He would do so with His immortal saints. Abraham is one of those saints! The fulfillment of this promise then automatically embraces the promise of the literal fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant—when, as God of the Living, the Lord will give to Abraham “this land as an everlasting possession.”

Thus, by the Lord’s return with His immortal saints, the kingdom of heaven comes to earth, the Lord’s Prayer is fulfilled, and with it the Abrahamic Covenant with respect to Land Inheritance. But if so, then whoever these saints are, they are the ones who inherit the Promised Land with Abraham as his seed. What are we to find in this regard?

Reflecting Daniel’s predictions of “the saints” taking the kingdom, the New Covenant offers many promises of inheritance in God’s kingdom and joint rulership with Christ to “the saints.” But, these promises are not made with regard to natural lineage in Abraham. They are made to the saints of the Eternal Israel—the people of the One New Man and body of Christ, a body comprised of and separated out from all natural peoples in the earth, including natural Israel.

Putting together the concepts of Abrahamic inheritance, kingdom inheritance by the New Covenant saints, and the fact that Messiah returns to rule the Promised Land with them, we easily see it is Eternal Israel that inherits and rules the Promised Land with Christ at His return. Though unseen now, Eternal Israel’s kingdom inheritance is not just some by-and-by possession in the clouds somewhere.

·        Inheritance and Occupancy by a Transnational Eternal Israel

The transnationality (or “supra-nationality”) of Eternal Israel’s identity and rule needs special note. Within the bounds of the Abrahamic Kingdom under Messiah, Isaiah 19 refers to the Egyptian and Assyrian people as “my people” together with remnant natural Israelis. He calls them all My People because in that day they are all born anew of the Spirit as part of Eternal Israel, laboring together to prove their pure transnational discipleship as One New Man without respect to their original lineage. (The glory of this is impossible to imagine at this time.)

As immortals, all people of Eternal Israel have put off their original racial identities after this world. This includes natural Jewish identity. As no flesh and blood can inherit the kingdom of God, so no one of mere natural Jewish identity or any other national identity can inherit the kingdom of God—nor therefore the Promised Land at the heart of that kingdom on earth.

Meanwhile, all who still labor toward immortality (both now and later) and to inherit a kingdom share in the Promised Land must yield their original identities to the cross. The fundamental proponent and testimony of this reality as it applied to the Jews was the Apostle Paul.

·        Land Inheritance By “the Meek”

The foregoing discussion of transnational land inheritance is embraced under Yeshua’s promise that the “meek will inherit the earth.” Consistent with all He taught about surpassing physical Abrahamic lineage, the “meek” to whom Yeshua refers are a people that are linked directly to Him in the Spirit, not necessarily physically linked to Abraham.

The direct connect to Yeshua through the term meek is seen where He refers to Himself as the “meek and lowly” One. But its significance is its attachment to the concept of transnationality. This is because the opposite of meekness is pride, and, when it comes to land, the root of pride is racial lineage. All land wars are ultimately racial wars rooted in pride of natural heritage.

It is apparent Yeshua is not saying meek Jews only will inherit the earth (otherwise only Jews could inherit anything on earth in Christ). But if so, it is equally apparent that the Promised Land is included by the term “earth.” Thus inheritance in the Promised Land is not limited to those of natural Jewish origin.