The Fulfillment of the Land Promise in The Epistle to the Hebrews: A Critique of Dispensationalism
Matthew H. Emadi
Matthew H. Emadi (Ph.D.) is the pastor of Crossroads Church in Sandy, Utah and an adjunct professor for Gateway Seminary at the Salt Lake School of Theology Teaching Site in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Abstract: Dispensationalism argues that the New Testament does not overturn the unconditional land promise made to Abraham and his offspring, therefore the land promise must be fulfilled to national Israel in the millennium. This paper argues that the dispensational view of the fulfillment of the land promise is inconsistent with the theology of the epistle to the Hebrews. Hebrews indicates that the land promise to Abraham is fulfilled typologically in the heavenly realm that Christ entered at his ascension but awaits consummation in the new creation when heaven and earth are united forever. Now that Christ has entered the heavenly realm, if he were to restore the territorial land to national Israel, it would be a move backwards from substance to shadow and from a superior inheritance to inferior inheritance.
Introduction
Among the disagreements between dispensational and covenant theological systems,[1] the fulfillment of the land promise stands out as one of the most prominent points of contention.[2] How we interpret the fulfillment of the land promise within the scope of redemptive history depends on our fundamental hermeneutical assumptions. While covenant theology (and its varieties) and progressive dispensationalists both affirm that the Bible presents a unified story of redemption where God redeems his people in one way—by grace alone through faith alone—dispensationalism in all of its forms is a theological system characterized by the belief that the unfulfilled Old Testament promises to Israel must still be fulfilled to Israel.[3] According to John Feinberg, even if the New Testament applies an Old Testament unconditional prophecy to the church, it must be still be fulfilled to national Israel at some point yet future.[4]
The land promise in the Abrahamic covenant is, according to dispensationalism, one of the unconditional promises that awaits a future fulfillment. Since the New Testament does not explicitly or implicitly overturn the unconditional promises to Israel, we should expect a historical and territorial fulfillment of the land promise to Israel in the future.[5] God unconditionally promised Abraham and his offspring the land of Canaan, therefore, God will give this territory to Israel in the millennial kingdom. Even if some dispensationalists were to grant that the land promise has a spiritual fulfillment with Christ’s ascension to heaven and a typological fulfillment in the new creation, the land promise, they argue, must also be literally fulfilled to national Israel.[6] Bruce Ware’s position, however, seems representative of the dispensational perspective on the land promise when he writes that it is incorrect to say that the political and territorial aspects of the new covenant are “fulfilled in some spiritual manner in the church.”[7] While some Old Testament promises have a double fulfillment—first to the church then to ethnic Israel in the future—the land promise, according to Ware, is not one of them. The future fulfillment of the land promise to a restored national Israel is essential to dispensationalism.
Argument
The purpose of this paper is to critique dispensationalism’s belief that the land promise made to Abraham still awaits a historical future fulfillment to national Israel. Granted, a thorough critique would require an exhaustive analysis of the land theme in the canon of Scripture while also addressing the hermeneutical issues involved in the debate. Oren Martin’s book Bound for the Promised Land is an excellent example of such a study.[8] The aim of this paper is smaller in scope and more nuanced. Using Hebrews 11:8–10 as a launching point into the theology of the rest of the epistle, I will argue that dispensationalism’s belief that national Israel will receive the biblical land of Canaan in fulfillment of the unconditional promise made to Abraham is inconsistent with the argument of Hebrews.[9]
To defend this thesis, I will first evaluate Hebrews’ inheritance motif and use οἰκουμένη as they pertain to the land promise. Second, I will consider the epistle’s cosmological argument to demonstrate that Christ’s heavenly session is not merely a spiritual fulfillment of the land promise while we still await the literal fulfillment to national Israel. Instead, Christ’s heavenly session in the “world to come” is the typological fulfillment of the land promise that awaits the not-yet consummation in a new creation. Third, I will demonstrate that the exhortation to enter God’s rest in Hebrews 3:1–4:16 precludes the possibility of a future restoration of national Israel to the land because the exhortation is built on the typological connection between Jesus and Joshua and the land and the heavenly realm of God’s rest. To restore Israel to the land not only makes Jesus repeat the work of the first Joshua, but it also requires him to leave the true heavenly homeland and ultimate place of rest to return the land where rest was only temporarily typified.
Inheritance and οἰκουμένη in the Argument of Hebrews
Inheritance of a Better Country
Hebrews 11:8 says that Abraham obeyed when God called him to go out to a “place” (τόπος) that he would soon receive as an “inheritance” (κληρονομία). That place of Abraham’s inheritance was the “land of promise” (Heb. 11:9), a clear reference to Canaan. These indirect references to Canaan—“place” and Land of promise”—do not, however, imply that Abraham must still receive this particular land as an inheritance during the millennium. Abraham lived in Canaan as in a “foreign land” (Heb. 11:9), wandering around in tents because he was looking for a city with foundations whose designer and builder is God (Heb. 11:10). Abraham and the rest of the patriarchs did not want Canaan, but a “better country, that is a heavenly one” (Heb. 11:16).
Dispensationalists affirm that the object of Abraham’s hope in Hebrews 11:9–10 is the heavenly Jerusalem that will one day come from heaven to earth—a “city which is to come” (Heb. 13:14; compare with Heb. 2:5). In his book, The Case for Progressive Dispensationalism,Robert Saucy writes, “To describe Jerusalem and the country as heavenly is simply to speak of them in their final eternal state, which is a result of God’s salvation.”[10] For Saucy, this final eternal state is his way of referring to the new creation.[11] He believes that the “city” and “heavenly” country of Hebrews 11:8–16 corresponds to the eternal state of a new heavens and new earth in the prophetic literature.[12] Saucy, however, argues that the “final goal of such a ‘heavenly’ land … does not negate the prophecies of a historical restoration of the nation of Israel to the land before the final regenerative action.”[13] In what follows in this section, I will argue that Saucy’s claim about the heavenly land not negating the possibility of a historical restoration of Israel to the land is inconsistent with Hebrews’ inheritance motif and its relationship to the “world to come” that Christ entered at his ascension. In other words, taken together, these two themes—inheritance and “world to come”—are best understood as an inaugurated fulfillment of the land promise that awaits consummation in the new creation as the next stage of God’s plan of redemption.
Through an extensive analysis of the inheritance theme in Hebrews, Dana Harris has demonstrated that Hebrews uses inheritance language to connect the believer’s future salvation to the promises of the Abrahamic covenant. In her words,
The inheritance motif in Hebrews must be understood in terms of the Abrahamic promises, which became interwoven with a rich cluster of related themes, such as covenant, the tabernacle, and God’s holy mountain . . . . Moreover, inheritance is an inherently future-oriented concept, which is indicated by the several typological trajectories, such as the Sabbath rest and God’s presence in Zion, that are developed significantly with the OT.[14]
Harris rightly understands Hebrews’ inheritance motif against the backdrop of the promises of the Abrahamic Covenant. God promised to give Abraham and his offspring the inheritance of the land of Canaan (Gen. 12:7; 13:5; 17:8). The Old Testament frequently refers to the land of Canaan as Israel’s “inheritance” (Exod. 32:13; Num. 33:54; 34:2, 13; Deut. 4:21, 38; 12:9–10; 15:4; 19:10, 14; 21:23; 24:4; 26:1; 1 Chron. 16:18). The author of Hebrews certainly has the land promise in mind as one of the “rich cluster of themes” related to his inheritance motif because he specifically referred to the land of promise as Abraham’s “inheritance” (κληρονομία) in Hebrews 11:8.
As already noted, the author’s point in Hebrews 11:8–10 is not to suggest that the biblical land promise awaits a future fulfillment to national Israel. Instead, Abraham looked beyond the land of Canaan to a city with foundations. This city with foundations is the better country (Heb. 11:16), the heavenly homeland (Heb. 11:14–16), the world to come (Heb. 2:5), and the unshakeable kingdom where God’s people experience lasting rest (Heb. 12:28, compare with Heb. 4:11). Each of these images depicts the believer’s inheritance as permanent and enduring—what Hebrews 9:15 refers to as the “promised eternal inheritance.” The land that God promised to Abraham and his offspring forever (Gen. 13:15; Exod. 32:13) pointed beyond itself to a better possession and an abiding one (Heb. 10:34).
Craig Blaising brings together the permanent nature of the inheritance motif in Hebrews and the dispensational belief in the restoration of ethnic Israel to the land by arguing that the permanent “city to come” in Hebrews descends to the land of promise (after the millennium) and thus secures for Israel the territorial land as an “everlasting possession.”[15] Blaising’s interpretation of Abraham’s hope in a heavenly city implies that Israel’s identity and possession of the land during the millennium carries forward into the new creation since they secure the land as an everlasting inheritance. Darrell Bock also seems to suggest that the eternal consummate state retains the millennial distinction between the restored Israel in the land and the gentile nations:
In fact, consummation ultimately unifies heaven and earth, so that the fulfillment occurs throughout the entire creation . . . . Days are coming when Jesus will consummate the promise with earthly rule and vindication. Both of the hopes of present believers and the promises made to Israel come to fruition then.[16]
The problem with limiting the heavenly city to the geographical borders of the biblical land of Canaan in order to preserve the land promise for national Israel is that the permanent heavenly city is an inheritance that belongs to all of God’s people, not just national Israel. Hebrews will simply not allow us to associate the fulfillment of the land promise with the restoration of Israel because the inheritance of the Abrahamic promises (including the land promise) is for every believer in Christ—the “offspring of Abraham” (Heb. 2:16).
Even if some would counter that the prophets anticipated a day when gentiles would worship with restored Israel from an earthly Zion, Hebrews clearly does not limit the hope of gentiles to participation in Israel’s worship in Israel’s land. Abraham’s inheritance actually belongs to all of God’s people (including gentiles) as their inheritance. (Heb. 1:14; 2:5; 9:15; 13:14).[17] The author of Hebrews carefully crafted his description of Abraham’s understanding of the land promise in order to draw his readers into Abraham’s experience. He wanted his readers to identify with Abraham’s hope in a future city to encourage them to remain faithful to the end. The term μέλλω used to describe Abraham’s inheritance in Hebrews 11:8 appears often in Hebrews in contexts pertaining to eschatological salvation. Jesus presently reigns from the world “to come” (μέλλω, Heb. 2:5); new covenant Christians have tasted the powers of the age “to come” (μέλλω, Heb. 6:5); the law is a shadow of the good things “to come” (μέλλω, Heb. 10:1); God’s eschatological wrath is “about to” (μέλλω) consume God’s adversaries (Heb. 10:27); the city that believers will receive is the “city that is to come” (μέλλω, Heb. 13:14). Hebrews 11:8 most closely parallels Hebrews 1:14 where the author describes angels as those sent out to serve “those who are about to inherit salvation” (τοὺς μέλλοντας κληρονομεῖν σωτηρίαν).
The point is that Abraham desired the same eschatological salvation that new covenant believers stand to inherit. The author holds up Abraham not just as an exemplar of persevering faith, but as an example of an Old Testament saint who persevered while waiting for the same inheritance that new covenant believers will receive. Bockmuehl says that Hebrews presents “a continuous narrative timeline along which God’s one pilgrim people undertake the same journey to the same goal by the same faith in the same life-giving God.”[18] If the original readers of Hebrews were on the verge of going back to old covenant forms of worship, then Abraham’s example reminds them that even Old Testament saints were patiently waiting for the same inheritance that has now been secured by Christ.[19] The paraenetic function of Hebrews 11, and indeed the epistle as a whole, loses its theological force if there are territorial aspects of the new covenant promises that are applicable only to Israel and not the church.[20] Hebrews will not allow us to make such distinctions.
Every member of the new covenant should expect to receive the fullness of every blessing of the new covenant when Christ returns because Christ has already been appointed “heir of all things” (κληρονόμον πάντων) in fulfillment of Psalm 2:8. The nations are his heritage and the ends of the earth his possession (Ps. 2:8).[21] Jesus’s present reign from heaven in fulfillment of the Davidic covenant and messianic psalms is not a spiritual fulfillment awaiting a national fulfillment in the millennial kingdom. His appointment as Davidic king is the inaugurated fulfillment that has ushered in the last days before the final consummation (Heb. 1:2).[22] Jesus’s reign has already begun, and, as a result, the blessing of Abraham already extends to the ends of the earth apart from a national restoration of ethnic Israel. If Jesus has already been appointed the heir of all things including the ends of the earth, why should some of his new covenant people expect an inheritance that is smaller than what he has already won for all his people? Abraham’s offspring (all believers) are “about to inherit” (τοὺς μέλλοντας κληρονομεῖν) everything Christ secured for them when he took his seat at the right hand of God (Heb. 1:13–14). All members of the new covenant will receive Abraham’s inheritance of a better country and unshakeable kingdom when heaven and earth are rolled up like a scroll to make way for the new creation (Heb. 1:10–14, compare with Heb. 12:28).
Dispensationalism claims that no New Testament material negates the fulfillment of the land promise to national Israel in the future. This paper has tried to demonstrate otherwise by appealing to the theology of Hebrews.
The οἰκουμένη as Eschatological Inheritance
The salvation that believers are about to inherit must be understood in relation to the meaning of οἰκουμένη in Hebrews 1:6 and 2:5. Ardel Caneday has persuasively argued that the οἰκουμένη of Hebrews 1:6 refers to “the habitable realm yet to come” where Christ has been enthroned at God’s right hand.[23] The οἰκουμένη in Hebrews 1:6 is the same οἰκουμένην τὴν μέλλουσαν (“world to come”) that has already been subjected to the reign of Christ (Heb. 2:5). The οἰκουμένη in Hebrews is not the earth that Christ entered as his incarnation nor the present world that will receive him at his Parousia.The οἰκουμένη over which Christ presently reigns is an eschatological world—a world already inhabited by Christ in heaven and coming to earth when Christ returns (compare with Heb. 9:28).
The author of Hebrews closely ties the οἰκουμένη to his theme of eschatological inheritance. The inheritance believers are “about to” (μέλλω, Heb. 1:14) receive is, in part, the world that is “about to come” (μέλλω, Heb. 2:5). This eschatological world belongs to the offspring of Abraham. The sentence structure of Hebrews 2:5 and 2:16 and their shared references to angels tethers the οἰκουμένη to the promises of the Abrahamic covenant:
Hebrews 2:5a: Οὐ γὰρ ἀγγέλοις ὑπέταξεν τὴν οἰκουμένην τὴν μέλλουσαν
For he did not subject the world to come to angels
Hebrews 2:16: οὐ γὰρ δήπου ἀγγέλων ἐπιλαμβάνεται ἀλλὰ σπέρματος Ἀβραὰμ
ἐπιλαμβάνεται
For surely, he did not come to help angels but the seed of Abraham he came to help
Abraham’s offspring will inherit this habitable eschatological world because God subjected it to human beings, not angels (Heb. 2:5), and Christ came to help the human offspring of Abraham, not angels (Heb. 2:16). Though believers wait for the fullness of their inheritance, they already participate in the world to come as those who have already come to the heavenly Jerusalem and share in Christ’s reign (Heb. 12:22–24; compare with Eph. 2:5–6). David Moffit suggests that the οἰκουμένη in Hebrews is the “ultimate inheritance that God’s people stand to gain if they hold fast to the word they heard about the Son.”[24] The οἰκουμένη is, in his words, “the inheritance of the promised land par excellence.”[25]
What it means for the οἰκουμένη to be the “promised land par excellence” will receive further clarification in the next section. For now, if Hebrews perceives Christ’s heavenly session into the οἰκουμένη as the inaugurated fulfillment of the land promise, then we should not view the territorial aspect of the land promise as a future-future reality—restoration of Israel to the land (historical fulfillment) that carries forward into the new creation after the descent of the heavenly city to come (consummate fulfillment). Instead, the fulfillment of the land promise in Hebrews is an already-not yet reality. Christ has already entered the earthly land’s true and heavenly counterpart when he entered the world to come. He has already begun his work of new creation (compare with 2 Cor. 5:17) and has obtained the rest intended for humanity at the beginning of creation (Heb. 4:3–4; compare with Gen. 2:1–3). Now that Christ has secured the “ultimate inheritance that God’s people stand to gain,” and has even already, in some sense, brought them to it to share in its new covenant blessings (Heb. 12:22; compare with Eph. 2:5–6), it makes no sense for him to give the less than ultimate inheritance to Israel—a land that Abraham himself did not want. In the logic of Hebrews, to return Israel to the land is a step backwards in redemptive history.
Turning now to a consideration of Hebrews cosmology, we must further clarify two related issues: First, does Hebrews present Christ’s heavenly session as merely a spiritual fulfillment of the land promise without negating the physical fulfillment to national Israel? Second, does Hebrews leave open the possibility that Christ will leave the heavenly city in heaven to return to earth during the millennium before ushering in the new creation.
The Land Promise and the Cosmological Argument of Hebrews
Christ’s Heavenly Session: Spiritual or Typological Fulfillment?
Cosmology, eschatology, and soteriology are all interconnected in the epistle’s argument of the supremacy of Christ’s salvation. Hebrews operates within an eschatological framework of two ages (this age and age to come) that correspond to two covenants (old and new),[26] which relate to two realms (earthly and heavenly).[27] The epistle’s spatial dualism between heaven and earth is not a platonic or antithetical dualism,[28] but, as Edward Adams argues, a hierarchical one. That is, heaven is the better country, earth is the inferior realm. The heaven-earth duality is not oppositional because the earth is the place of Christ’s incarnation (Heb. 2:5–10; 5:7–10), the location of his second coming (Heb. 9:28), and the final destination of God’s people when the earth is transformed under the reign of Christ (Heb. 1:10–12; 12:28).[29] Even though Hebrews never explicitly mentions a new creation that will follow the destruction of the present heavens and earth (Heb. 1:10–12), we can infer that Hebrews envisions the final state to be an unshakeable new creation where heaven and earth are united forever.[30]
How does Hebrew’s cosmology inform the debate over the fulfillment of the land promise? Could one argue that Christ’s entry into the heavenly realm is a spiritual fulfillment of the land promise that does not negate a historical fulfillment to national Israel?[31] Hebrews will not allow us to speak of Christ’s heavenly session as merely a spiritual fulfillment of Old Testament promises. Jesus entered into heaven with a resurrected body. The world to come over which Christ presently reigns is a world not subjected to angels, but to Christ as the one who has restored dominion to humanity in himself as the incarnate Son (compare with Heb. 2:5–9; Ps. 8). Upon his resurrection and ascension, the eternal Son of God was enthroned in heaven as the messianic incarnate Son in fulfillment of God’s original intent for Adam, Israel, and the Davidic messiah.[32] Dominion has been restored to a human Son who mediates God’s rule as the perfect expression of the image of God in man. Though deceased saints presently dwell in the heavenly realm as “spirits” (Heb. 12:23), Hebrews 2:5–9 implies that they will inhabit the world to come in the new creation when the “present” (νῦν, Heb. 2:8) age gives way to the eternal state. Christ is at present crowned with the “glory and honor” (δόξῃ καὶ τιμῇ) that belonged to humanity at creation (Heb. 2:7; compare with LXX Ps. 8:6) because he tasted death for everyone. Through Christ, God brings many sons to “glory” (δόξα, Heb. 2:10), conforming them to Christ’s image. One day death will be subjected to them as they share in Christ’s reign over a new creation (compare with Heb. 2:8–9).[33]
The οἰκουμένη, as the location of the incarnate and risen Son’s enthronement, is not merely a spiritual realm in contrast to a material world, but, as Moffit argues, a habitable world fit for human beings.[34] Based on his analysis of οἰκουμένη in the Greek Psalter and its influence on Hebrews, Moffit rejects a material-spiritual dualism in Hebrews:
In these psalms the references to the οἰκουμένη well accord with a cosmology that views the earth as the realm of humanity and the heavens as the realm of God. A vertical and spatial cosmological stratification is evident, but this does not necessarily imply a material/spiritual dualism . . . . The evidence from these psalms suggests that the realm where God dwells is to be understood as the realm that God promised to give to his people. As such, this is a place intended for human habitation (compare with Heb 2:5).[35]
Moffit is correct that the cosmological dualism in Hebrews is not a material/spiritual dualism. It is, rather, hierarchical and typological. Caneday has demonstrated that biblical typology has both a temporal-historical axis and a revelatory-spatial axis.[36] Biblical types are revelatory because they are earthly copies and shadows of heavenly realities.[37] For example, the heavenly tabernacle is superior to the earthly tabernacle because the heavenly tabernacle is the “model” (τύπος, Heb. 8:5) while the earthly tabernacle is the “copy” (ἀντίτυπος, Heb. 9:24) of its heavenly counterpart. Christ’s entry into heaven is not an entry into a spiritual tabernacle, but into the “true” (ἀληθινός, Heb. 8:2; 9:24) tabernacle. Heavenly realities are “true,” “greater” (μέγας), and “more perfect” (τέλειος, Heb. 9:11) than their earthly “copies” (ὑπόδειγμα, Heb. 8:5; 9:23) and “shadows” (σκιά, Heb. 8:5) because heavenly realities are original and enduring.[38]
The land of promise, as a biblical type, has both a temporal-historical axis and a revelatory-spatial axis. The land of Canaan is a type of Eden and the new creation (temporal-historical) because it is a type of the heavenly country where God dwells (revelatory-spatial). Under the administration of the old covenant, the land promised to Abraham and Israel is prophetic and predictive of the enduring new creation precisely because it is patterned after God’s purpose in creation (Eden as God’s abode on earth) and functions as an Old Testament shadow of a heavenly homeland (God’s abode in heaven). Like the earthly tabernacle, the land of Canaan was a shadow of something greater; it was an earthly copy of the better heavenly country (Heb. 11:16). As a better priest, Jesus entered the true tabernacle, and as a better Joshua, Jesus passed through the heavens into the better promised land.[39]
Christ’s heavenly session is, thus, not merely a spiritual fulfillment of the land promise, but, for the author of Hebrews, a historical, typological, and inaugurated fulfillment. The land of promise was a type of the world to come. Abraham seems to have known that the land he was to receive as his inheritance pointed beyond itself to the heavenly realm of God’s habitation that would one day come to earth (Heb. 11:8–10). Canaan was, after all, the place where Abraham built altars and where God met with Abraham and the patriarchs on earth (Gen. 12:7–8; 13:4; 13:18; 22:9; 26:25; 33:20; 35:1, 3, 7). In the storyline of Scripture, Canaan looks back to Eden and forward to the new creation because the land of Canaan was type of the realm that God inhabits, namely heaven itself. O. Palmer Robertson’s comments on this point are worth quoting at length,
According to the writer to the Hebrews, Abraham and the patriarchs longed for a ‘better country – a heavenly one’ (11:16, my emphasis). They understood, though only dimly, that the land promised them actually had its origins in the heavenly, eternal reality that yet remained before them. As a consequence, it is unthinkable that once the people of God have tasted of these eternal, heavenly realities they should somehow be thrust back into living with the old-covenant forms that could only foreshadow the realities of new-covenant fulfilments. Instead of moving toward a worship centre localized in modern-day Jerusalem, the new-covenant believer joins with the angels to worship at the ‘heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God’ (12:22).[40]
If the land promise had its origin in the heavenly reality, then it is not accurate to suggest that the land promise has no inaugurated fulfillment in Christ’s heavenly session, nor is it accurate to speak of Christ’s entry into the οἰκουμένη as a spiritual fulfillment of the land promise. The οἰκουμένη is the heavenly original; the earthly land is the shadow. The οἰκουμένη is a world fit for embodied human beings and indeed a world where the creation mandate has been fulfilled (Heb. 2:5–9).
“If He Were on Earth, He Would Not Be a Priest at All”
The discussion above challenges the belief in a millennial kingdom that is historically prior to the descent of the heavenly city in the new creation. As mentioned above, Saucy and Blaising both agree that the “city to come” in Hebrews is the heavenly city that descends to the new earth for an everlasting possession in the new creation.[41] Before the descent of the heavenly city and the inauguration of the new creation, Jesus will first return to earth to reign for a thousand years from Jerusalem. Separating the return of Christ from the descent of the heavenly city raises a question for dispensational and other premillennial views: Can Jesus leave heaven to return to earth without bringing heaven with him? More specifically, is it consistent with the argument of Hebrews to divide Christ’s new covenant priestly mediation from his location in heavenly realm and true tabernacle? If we suggest that Jesus will leave the heavenly tabernacle in heaven to return to an earthly Jerusalem, have we torn asunder what God has joined together?
Hebrews closely ties Jesus’s heavenly session to his priestly work of new covenant mediation. Hebrews 8:1–2 summarizes the argument of the entire epistle:
Now this is the main point concerning the things we have been saying: We have such a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places and the true tent which the Lord built, not man.
Christ’s priestly work in the new covenant is superior, in part, because he has entered the true sanctuary in heaven. Hebrews 8:4 builds on the logic of 8:1–2 arguing that if Christ “were on earth, he would not be a priest at all because there are those who offer gifts according to the law.” In other words, the old covenant law established the Levites as priests to minister in the earthly sanctuary. The Levites served in the copy and shadow of the heavenly things because God instructed Moses to make the earthly sanctuary after the model of the heavenly tabernacle (Heb. 8:4–5).[42] Now that Christ has ascended to the true tent, he has been vindicated as a better priest mediating the better blessings of a better covenant which is enacted on better promises (Heb. 8:6, compare with Heb. 7:20–27). Adams comments, “It is only in heaven that he can perform his role as high priest. In this regard, the earthly sphere is inferior to the heavenly realm.”[43] Jesus did not qualify to serve as a priest of the old covenant because he was from the tribe of Levi. He has qualified for a better priesthood, however, on the basis of his perfect sacrifice and resurrection from the dead—what Hebrews calls an “indestructible life” (Heb. 7:16). He has entered the better tent making the old covenant and its priesthood obsolete. If he were dwelling in the earthly realm of impermanent shadows under the administration of the old covenant, he would not be a priest at all.[44]
In Hebrews, the earth is associated with the old covenant, while heaven is associated with the new covenant. According to Caneday, “The first covenant entails the world of earthly shadows or copies. The New Covenant entails the world of heavenly things or true things, that is, original things, things unshakeable.”[45] The copies and earthly shadows are, like the earth, passing away (Heb. 8:13). Hebrews 8:13 twice refers to the old covenant as παλαιόω (obsolete). The term παλαιόω is the same word the author used in Hebrews 1 to describe the temporariness of the present earth in comparison to the eternality of the Son, “They will perish, but you remain; they all will wear out (παλαιόω) like a garment” (Heb. 1:11). The heavenly realm, however, is associated with the new covenant and what is permanent and lasting. The people of God are “strangers and exiles on the earth” (Heb. 11:13) because their true and abiding abode is the habitable world to come (οἰκουμένη) where Christ took his seat in fulfillment of Psalm 110:1 and Psalm 8.[46] The “things that cannot be shaken” are new covenant blessings and heavenly realities. The “things that have been made” (Heb. 12:27), on the other hand, will be shaken and removed (Heb. 12:27). The earth will be rolled up like a scroll, it will perish and change (Heb. 1:11–12). Only the heavenly world to come associated with the new covenant blessings and Christ’s permanent priesthood will endure forever.
To suggest that Christ will come a second time without bringing heaven with him seems to tear apart what God has inseparably bound together. If the land must be given to national Israel before heaven comes to earth, then Jesus leaves behind the true tent, the archetypal sanctuary, the heavenly Jerusalem, and city of the living God to come to an earthly Jerusalem where he would continue to mediate the blessings of the new covenant to sinful people without occupying the sacred space of the heavenly tabernacle. Contrary to dispensational and other premillennial views, Hebrews implies that Christ’s return to earth will coincide with the descent of the heavenly city and the new creation. “Yet once more” God will shake the heavens and the earth (Heb. 12:26–27) because the next stage of God’s redemptive plan is to give his people the unshakeable kingdom in a new creation. Hebrews 10:12–13 indicates that Christ’s second coming will coincide with the eschatological judgment. Jesus took his seat in heaven “waiting from then on until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet” (Heb. 10:13). Jesus will remain in heaven until the final judgment when his enemies are all finally made his footstool. At his coming, he will not continue to call people to himself and mediate the blessings of the new covenant during an earthly millennial “intermediate transitional stage” of his kingdom while sinful people continue to rebel against his commands and the heavenly tabernacle remains in heaven.[47] Instead, he will make all of his enemies his footstool and save those who are eagerly waiting for him (Heb. 9:28). At his coming, they will receive the salvation they stand to inherit, which is nothing less than life in a heavenly country, the city of the living God, the promised eternal inheritance. To leave heaven behind to return to the earthly Jerusalem is to move from better to worse, from superior to inferior, from substance to shadow. When Christ returns a second time, the “world to come,” in which believers presently participate, will come with him in the fullness of the new creation.
The Land Promise and Entering God’s Rest
David Allen and Matthew Thiessen have both demonstrated that Hebrews uses descriptions of Israel’s wilderness wandering to portray its audience as on the verge of entering the promised land.[48] Like Israel at Kadesh Barnea, believers now find themselves on the edge of their heavenly homeland about to enter God’s rest. Allen likens the sermonic style of Hebrews to the paraenetic purpose of Deuteronomy. Both biblical books spur their audiences on to action and faithfulness and warn them of the dangers of rejecting God’s covenant at a time when they are poised to enter their respective promised lands (Canaan and the heavenly realm).[49]
Hebrews 3:7-11 consists of a long quotation from Psalm 95:7–11 which describes Israel’s perpetual unbelief and disobedience in the wilderness. While in the wilderness, they refused to enter the land of Canaan in obedience to God’s command (Num. 13–14). As a result of their disobedience, God swore in his wrath that they would not enter his rest (Ps. 95:11; compare with Num. 14:30; Heb. 3:11). Hebrews, thus, warns its readers not to fall by the same sort of disobedience as the people of Israel (Heb. 4:11). As believers in Christ waiting to receive their inheritance, they must persevere in faith to enter the place of ultimate rest, namely heaven itself (4:1, 11, 14).
Even the Israelites that entered the land of Canaan under Joshua did not obtain ultimate rest: “For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken of another day after these things” (Heb. 4:8). There remains, then, a sabbath rest for the people of God (Heb. 4:9). In Hebrews 4:8–14, the author makes a typological connection between Joshua and Jesus—both Joshua and Jesus are translations of the Greek Ἰησοῦς (Heb. 4:8; 14). The typological connection between Joshua and Jesus is more apparent in the flow of the argument if we juxtapose 4:8 with 4:14:
For if Ἰησοῦς (Joshua) had given them rest, he would not have spoken of another day after these things . . . Therefore (οὖν) having a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Ἰησοῦν (Jesus) the Son of God, let us hold fast the confession.” (4:8, 14)[50]
Joshua led the people over the border of the promised land but failed to give them lasting rest. Jesus, however, has “passed through” (διέρχομαι) heaven’s borders obtaining rest for God’s people in the realm that God inhabits.[51] The logic of the argument of Hebrews 4 depends, in part, on the typology between Joshua and Jesus and the typology between the promised land and heaven. The land that Joshua entered was not the true place of lasting rest. Though Psalm 132:13–14 identifies Jerusalem as the place of God’s rest, the earthly Jerusalem (Zion) is a place of rest only because of its relationship to the heavenly Zion. The land and its earthly Jerusalem are a revelatory-spatial type of heaven and the heavenly Zion, the true realm of God’s rest (compare with Isa. 66:1). Under the administration of the Old Covenant, the first Joshua led the people into the shadowy type of rest in the land of Canaan. Thus, the people of Israel never obtained permanent rest. The second Joshua, however, leads his people into the true promised land, the realm of permanent rest, namely heaven itself. As a better ἀρχηγός than Joshua (compare with Num. 13:2–3; Heb. 2:10; 12:2), Jesus completed the conquest of heaven on the basis of his cross, resurrection, and cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary (Heb. 9:12–14; 23–24).[52] He is the ἀρχηγός for his people—their “founder” (ESV), their “pioneer” (NRSV), their “captain” (KJV).[53] He has not only blazed a trail for them to follow but guarantees their safe arrival (compare with Heb. 4:14–16; 6:9). Even now he dispenses the blessings of the age to come, including rest, to those who have already come to Mount Zion and already participate in heavenly worship (Heb. 2:4; 4:14–16; 6:4–5; 12:22).[54] To abandon Christ for old covenant forms of worship is to forsake rest both now and into eternity.
If Jesus has already blazed a trail into the place of consummate rest, then why leave that world behind to restore Israel to the place where they did not receive lasting rest. Why would the second Joshua give Israel the same land the first Joshua already gave them if he has obtained a better and more permanent promised land? Why leave heaven to retrace his steps back to the land that Joshua already conquered in fulfillment of God’s promises (Josh. 21:43–45)? If the land promise still awaits a territorial fulfillment to national Israel, then we must conclude that Jesus, in a real sense, will repeat the work of the first Joshua all over again. In the progress of redemptive history, we cannot move backwards from substance of the second Joshua’s heavenly realm and rest to its earthly shadow. Entrance into God’s rest is, as Gareth Cockerill observes, a present experience for God’s people.[55] “By persevering in faithful obedience ‘We’ (inclusive of author and hearers) are in the process of entering that ultimate rest.”[56] Hebrews will not allow us to interrupt the journey of those who are entering permanent and ultimate rest to detour back through the land where rest is fleeting.
Conclusion
The lack of any mention of a restored Israel to the land is striking given the parenetic purpose of Hebrews. If the epistle to the Hebrews is written to Hebrew Christians, why not encourage them with the fact that God still has a plan for restoring national Israel? Why not remind them that God will give them the land of promise yet again? At the critical point where the author appeals to Abraham’s faith in the land promise (Heb. 11:8–10), why does he dismiss the biblical land of Canaan entirely and instead point them to the heavenly city that belongs to all of God’s people? Why is the entire epistle entirely void of a single reference to God’s plan to restore his people back to the land under the reign of the Messiah? Is it not because in these last days, the next stage of fulfillment is not the restoration of Israel to the land, but the descent of the heavenly Zion to earth so that the city with foundations might be the believer’s eternal rest forever? Is it not because the biblical land of Canaan was part of the shadow of the Old Testament era pointing to a greater and more permanent resting place for the people of God? Is it not because Israel and the church do not retain two separate and distinct identities under the new covenant, but are all the offspring of Abraham (Heb. 2:16) that will receive the fullness of the same inheritance? Hebrews simply never encourages Jewish believers to persevere by grounding their hope in a restoration of national Israel.[57]
Dispensationalism claims that no New Testament material negates the fulfillment of the land promise to national Israel in the future. This paper has tried to demonstrate otherwise by appealing to the theology of Hebrews. Cockerill’s statement that “Hebrews has no interest in ethnic Israel inhabiting Palestine,” resonates with the evidence presented here.[58] Yet I have gone a step further arguing that not only does Hebrews have “no interest” in ethnic Israel inhabiting Palestine, but that it is actually contrary to the theology of Hebrews to suggest that Israel must be restored to the land in a millennial kingdom in fulfillment of Old Testament promises. To be biblical is not to adopt a hermeneutic that neither Abraham nor the apostles were able to bear. Hebrews envisions God’s one pilgrim people on the border of their heavenly country. They have already come in Christ to the city of the living God and tasted the powers of the age to come. They must, nevertheless, persevere in faith like Abraham and the saints of old as they journey towards Abraham’s inheritance and theirs in the city with foundations. When Christ entered the world to come, he secured the guarantee of their inheritance until they obtain possession of it. He acquired the better and more permanent promised land for his people. There is now no going back to the shadow. He has obtained the true realm of God’s abode as the place where God’s people will experience rest forever. When he comes again, he will bring heaven with him to unite heaven and earth in a new creation. The church now stands on the edge of the promised land that they will obtain as an eternal inheritance. We have every reason to persevere in faith knowing that here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.[59]
[1] By “covenant theological systems,” I intend to include classic covenantal theology associated with the Westminster Confession, 1689 Federalism, Progressive Covenantalism, and New Covenant Theology.
[2] Cockerill notes the importance of the land promise as it relates to the Abrahamic covenant: The land-theme in Scripture gives, as Cockerill says, “substance and shape to the entire complex of Abrahamic promises.” It is like a “basket that holds the other promises until final fulfillment.” Gareth Lee Cockerill, “From Deuteronomy to Hebrews: The Promised Land and the Unity of Scripture,” The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 24, no. 1 (2020): 84.
[3] According to John Feinberg, “If an OT prophecy or promise is made unconditionally to a given people and is still unfulfilled to them even in the NT era, then the prophecy must still be fulfilled to them.” Feinberg, “Systems of Discontinuity,” in Continuity and Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship Between the Old and New Testaments, ed. John S. Feinberg (Wheaton, 1988), 76. Darrell Bock similarly writes, “It is crucial to understand that promises made to Israel are to be fulfilled by Israel and not in something reconstituted to take its place.” Bock, “The Reign of The Lord Christ,” in Dispensationalism, Israel and the Church: The Search for Definition, ed. Craig A. Blaising and Darrell L. Bock (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 392.
[4] Feinberg writes, “While a prophecy given unconditionally to Israel has a fulfillment for the church if the NT applies it to the church, it must also be fulfilled to Israel. Progress of revelation cannot cancel unconditional promises.” Feinberg, “Systems of Discontinuity,” 76.
[5] Feinberg, “Systems of Discontinuity,” 76.
[6] Feinberg suggests in “Systems of Discontinuity” that Scripture uses four different senses when referring to terms to describe Israel: (1) biological, ethnic, national; (2) political; (3) spiritual; and (4) typological (76). A distinctive of dispensational thinking, according to Feinberg, is that all of these senses are “operative in both Testaments” and “no sense (spiritual especially) is more important than any other, and no sense cancels out the meaning and implications of the other senses” (73).
[7] Bruce A. Ware, “The New Covenant and the People(s) of God,” in Dispensationalism, Israel and the Church: The Search for Definition (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 93. He also writes, “Only the spiritual aspects of the new-covenant promise are now inaugurated in this age; the territorial and political aspects, though part of God’s new-covenant promise, await future fulfillment” (94–95).
[8] Oren Martin, Bound for the Promised Land: The Land Promise in God’s Redemptive Plan, New Studies in Biblical Theology, ed. D. A. Carson, vol. 34 (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2015). For Martin’s shorter treatment of the land promise in redemptive history, see Oren R. Martin, “The Land Promise Biblically and Theologically Understood,” in Progressive Covenantalism: Charting a Course Between Dispensational and Covenantal Theologies, ed. Stephen J. Wellum and Brent E. Parker (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2016), 255–74.
[9] Nelson Hsieh admits that Hebrews 11:8–16 (among others) is a text that dispensationalists “have largely ignored.” Nelson S. Hsieh, “Matthew 5:5 and the Old Testament Land Promises: An Inheritance of the Earth, or the Land of Israel?” The Master’s Seminary Journal 28, no. 1 (2017): 74.
[10] Robert L. Saucy, The Case for Progressive Dispensationalism: The Interface Between Dispensational and Non-Dispensational Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993), 55.
[11] Saucy quotes Edward Lohse who says, “On the one hand Jerusalem at the end of the days is the city of David built again with glory and magnificence. On the other the new Jerusalem is thought of as a pre-existent city which is built by God in heaven and which comes down to earth with the dawn of a new world.” The dawn of the new world when heaven and earth meet is what Saucy refers to as the final state. See Saucy, Case for Progressive Dispensationalism, 54. Blaising takes the same view arguing that “Abraham’s search for a heavenly city is to be understood as his seeking not a heavenly land as opposed to an earthly one, but a city that will come from heaven to the land of promise.” Craig Blaising, “Biblical Hermeneutics: How Are We to Interpret the Relation Between the Tanak and the New Testament on This Question?” in The New Christian Zionism: Fresh Perspectives on Israel and The Land, ed. Gerald R. McDermott (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2016), 86. When this city comes from heaven to earth, the land is, according to Blaising, “secured as an everlasting possession!” Blaising, “Biblical Hermeneutics,” 87.
[12] Saucy, Case for Progressive Dispensationalism, 55–56.
[13] Saucy, Case for Progressive Dispensationalism, 55. Saucy also says that the references to the final country and city in the book of Hebrews, “do not negate the reality of the historical before their ultimate arrival” (56).
[14] Dana M. Harris, “The Eternal Inheritance in Hebrews: The Appropriation of the Old Testament Inheritance Motif by the Author of Hebrews” (PhD diss. Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2009), iv–v.
[15] Blaising, “Biblical Hermeneutics” 86–87.
[16] Bock, “Reign of The Lord Christ,” 63. I am interpreting Bock’s statement about a unified heaven and earth in the consummation as referring to the new creation. If Bock’s distinction between the hopes of present believers and the promises made to Israel come to fruition in the consummate state, then these distinctions would remain in the new creation.
[17] Gary M. Burge, Whose Land? Whose Promise? What Christians Are Not Being Told about Israel and the Palestinians (Cleveland: OH: The Pilgrim Press, 2013), 180.
[18] Markus Bockmuehl, “Abraham’s Faith in Hebrews 11,” in The Epistle to the Hebrews and Christian Theology, ed. Richard Bauckham, Trevor A. Hart, and Nathan MacDonald (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2009), 369. Bockmuehl also writes, “Old and New Covenant saints alike are believers in an anticipatory sense; neither reaches their destination without the other just as both are equally part of the people of God (3:1; 11:40; 12:22–24; 13:14). The heavenly city and homeland which Abraham sees and greets from afar is clearly not just analogous but identical with the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem in 12:22” (369).
[19] According to Ardel Caneday, “Thus, from the vantage point of fulfillment we, ‘on whom the ends of the ages have come,’ see more clearly than OT saints did concerning how all the heavenly good things to come with Messiah were shadowed on earth among the patriarchs while prophetically presaging those good things ‘so that only together with us would they be made perfect’ (Heb 11:40 NIV).” Caneday, “God’s Parabolic Design for Israel’s Tabernacle: A Cluster of Earthly Shadows of Heavenly Realities,” The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 24, no. 1 (2020): 106.
[20] As already noted, Bruce Ware argues that even though Israel and the church both participate in the new covenant, their identities remain separate and distinct. Thus, “Israel is given territorial and political aspects of the new-covenant promise not applicable to the church.” Ware, “New Covenant,” 96–97.
[21] The Pentateuch regularly referred to the land of Canaan as Israel’s “inheritance” (Exod. 32:13; Num. 33:54; 34:2, 13; Deut. 4:21, 38; 12:9–10; 15:4; 19:10, 14; 21:23; 24:4; 26:1) and “possession” (Gen. 17:8; 48:4; Lev. 14:34; Numb. 32:32; Deut. 32:49), but in Psalm 2:8 the inheritance and possession of the land promise gets expanded to the ends of the earth. In Psalm 2, the Messiah rules from Zion, but his inheritance is not limited to the land of Israel. The nations are his “heritage” and the ends of the earth on his “possession.” Dispensationalists argue that Old Testament passages like Psalm 2 indicate that the universal rule of the Messiah will coincide with Israel’s restoration to the land. Saucy says that the universal blessing of the Abrahamic covenant is “concomitant and vitally related to the restoration of Israel according to the prophets.” Saucy, Case for Progressive Dispensationalism, 52–53.
[22] Hebrews 1 presents Jesus’s enthronement in heaven as the fulfillment of multiple Davidic Old Testament passages. Jesus is presently seated at God’s right hand in fulfillment of Psalm 110:1 (Heb. 1:3, 13). He is the Davidic “firstborn,” the highest of the kings of the earth in fulfillment of Psalm 89:27 (Heb. 1:6). He is the Davidic Son promised in 2 Samuel 7:14 (Heb. 1:5) and the righteous king of Psalm 45 (Heb. 1:8–9).
[23] Ardel B. Caneday, “The Eschatological World Already Subjected to The Son: The Οἰκουμένη of Hebrews 1:6 and The Son’s Enthronement,” in A Cloud of Witnesses: The Theology of Hebrews in Its Ancient Contexts, Library of New Testament Studies (New York: Clark, 2008), 29.
[24] David M. Moffitt, “A New and Living Way: Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in the Epistle to the Hebrews” (Duke University, 2010), 100.
[25] Moffitt, “New and Living Way,” 101. Moffit has also demonstrated that the Greek Psalter occasionally uses οἰκουμένη to refer to heaven, the temple, and the promised land and how these same themes converge around the term οἰκουμένη in Hebrews. See pages 90–105.
[26] This does not deny that the author of Hebrews alludes to or assumes the other biblical covenants in the development of his argument.
[27] See the discussions by Kenneth Schenck, Understanding the Book of Hebrews: The Story Behind the Sermon (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), 8–12; Caneday, “Eschatological World,” 37. For a thorough treatment of eschatology and cosmology, see Kenneth L. Schenck, Cosmology and Eschatology in Hebrews: The Settings of the Sacrifice, Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series 143 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). We should not limit Hebrews’ use of “heavenly” language to spatial realities. The author’s use of “heavenly” language has a spatial component but is also eschatological. God’s rule has come in Christ and the powers of the age to come are presently at work through Christ’s reign from heaven.
[28] James W. Thompson argued that Hebrews presented a platonic worldview. See Thompson, The Beginnings of Christian Philosophy: The Epistle to the Hebrews, Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series 13 (Washington: The Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1982). For studies that refute a platonic interpretation of Hebrews, see Edward Adams, “The Cosmology of Hebrews,” in The Epistle to the Hebrews and Christian Theology, ed. Richard Bauckham et al. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans , 2009), 122–39; Lincoln D. Hurst, “Eschatology and ‘Platonism’ in the Epistle to the Hebrews,” Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers 23 (1984): 41–74; Lincoln D. Hurst, “How ‘Platonic’ Are Heb 8:5 and Heb 9:23f,” The Journal of Theological Studies 34, no. 1 (1983): 156–68.
[29] Adams, “Cosmology of Hebrews,” 134.
[30] Adams, “Cosmology of Hebrews,” 135–38.
[31] As mentioned earlier, Ware argues that the territorial aspects of the new covenant have not been inaugurated in a spiritual manner but await a future fulfillment. Nevertheless, it is important to address the spiritual versus literal distinction that is often used by dispensationalists to articulate their view of the fulfillment of Old Testament promises as they pertain to Israel and the Church.
[32] See R. B. Jamieson, The Paradox of Sonship: Christology in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2021).
[33] Caneday says the world to come “will be subject to humans but only because the Son will restore its dominion to humans.” Ardel B. Caneday, “Eschatological World,” 34. Caneday also writes, “Thus, there is an implied continuity between the present world and the world to come. The present world, in which not all things have been put into subjection to humans, will yet be brought into subjection to them but not through their own labors but through Jesus’ triumph over death, but not yet” (36).
[34] Moffitt, “New and Living Way,” 90.
[35] Moffitt, “New and Living Way,” 104. Moffit similarly writes, “Before turning to examine notions of the world to come in other Second Temple texts, I note further that while these Greek Psalter texts allow for a dichotomy between the shakable earth and the unshakable οἰκουμένη, the implicit cosmology seems to suggest that the earth is to be viewed as the realm of humanity, while the heavens are the realm of God and his hosts. The earth and its inhabitants are the things able to be shaken, while heaven remains stable. This plainly implies a distinction between heaven and earth, but the nature of that distinction is not obviously spiritual” (103).
[36] Caneday, “God’s Parabolic Design.” 103–123.
[37] Caneday, “God’s Parabolic Design.”119.
[38] Caneday writes, “Thus, it is the spatial axis that has priority over the temporal axis because the heavenly original imbues the earthly copy or shadow with symbolic representation which serves as God’s earthly habitation both for the Israelites to whom the earthly tabernacle was given but also for the instruction of all on whom the ends of the ages have come with the presence of Messiah. So, it is the revelatory spatial axis that infuses the temporal axis with meaningful significance of prophetic anticipation to foreshadow the latter days of fulfillment when Messiah would emerge from the heavenly tabernacle and come to the earthly one to put an end to sacrifices and open fully the way of access to God.” Caneday, “God’s Parabolic Design.” 109.
[39] See my discussion below of the typological connection between Joshua and Jesus.
[40] O. Palmer Robertson, “A New-Covenant Perspective on the Land,” in The Land of Promise: Biblical, Theological and Contemporary Perspectives (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 123.
[41] Blaising, “Biblical Hermeneutics,” 86. He also writes, “Since this is the city ‘that is to come’ (Heb. 13:14), it is better to interpret Abraham’s sojourn as anticipating the establishment in the land of that permanent city. That would certainly establish his hope for an everlasting in heritance ‘in the land he had been promised’ (Heb. 11:9)” (86n11).
[42] Tom Schreiner suggests that the NIV most clearly captures the meaning of Hebrews 8:5: “They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven.” The word “sanctuary” is absent in the Greek, but, according to Schreiner, “It is clearly implied by the reference to Exod 25:40 and by the flow of the argument.” Thomas R. Schreiner, Commentary on Hebrews, Biblical Theology for Christian Proclamation (Nashville: B&H, 2015), 244.
[43] Adams, “Cosmology of Hebrews,” 133.
[44] Against Moffit, I am not suggesting that Jesus had no priestly ministry during his earthly career. David M. Moffitt, Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in the Epistle to the Hebrews, Supplements to Novum Testamentum 141 (Boston: Brill, 2011), 198–99. I favor the view that Hebrews presents Jesus’s earthly ministry as a priestly ministry, but he is formally installed into the office of the permanent Melchizedekian priesthood after his resurrection and ascension. Christopher Richardson writes, “The epistle carefully distinguishes Jesus’ high priesthood on earth from his eternal service in heaven; and, while he recapitulates the actions of the Day of Atonement, insofar as the slaying of the victim was followed by the high priest’s entrance into the Most Holy Place . . . his actions are both distinct and analogous to those performed by former high priests, revealing the author’s concern to illustrate continuity and discontinuity in redemptive history.” Richardson, Pioneer and Perfecter of Faith: Jesus’ Faith as the Climax of Israel’s History in the Epistle to the Hebrews, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament II 338 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 32–33. Koester thinks that there is no clear indication in Hebrews on when Christ became a high priest. Craig R. Koester, Hebrews: A New Translation with Commentary, Anchor Bible 36 (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 109–10.
[45] Caneday, “Eschatological World,” 37.
[46] Caneday, “Eschatological World,” 35.
[47] David Turner refers to the millennium as an “intermediate transitional stage” characterized by the continuing presence of sinners who form the rebellion described in Revelation 20:7–9. David L. Turner, “The New Jerusalem in Revelation 21:1–22:5: Consummation of a Biblical Continuum,” in Dispensationalism, Israel and the Church: The Search for Definition (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 291.
[48] David M. Allen, Deuteronomy and Exhortation in Hebrews: A Study in Narrative Re-Presentation, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament II 238 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008); Matthew Thiessen, “Hebrews and the End of the Exodus,” Novum Testamentum 49, no. 4 (2007): 353–69.
[49] Allen, Deuteronomy and Exhortation, 156–98.
[50] On the typology between Joshua and Jesus, see Richard Ounsworth, Joshua Typology in the New Testament, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament 328 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012); Bryan J. Whitfield, “A Cloud of Witnesses: The Theology of Hebrews in Its Ancient Contexts,” in Pioneer and Perfecter: Joshua Traditions and the Christology of Hebrews, ed. Richard Bauckham et al., Library of New Testament Studies 387 (New York: T & T Clark, 2008), 80–87; Bryan J. Whitfield, Joshua Traditions and the Argument of Hebrews 3 and 4 (Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2013).
[51] The verb διέρχομαι appears 13 times in Joshua almost always in contexts describing the boundaries of the Promised Land. It also appears in Psalm 66:6 [LXX 65:6], which references Israel’s passage through the Jordan River before occupying the land (compare with Josh. 3:14–17).
[52] Joshua is among the ἀρχηγοί sent out to spy the land in Numbers 13.
[53] See George Johnston, “Christ as Archegos,” New Testament Studies 27, no. 3 (April 1981): 381–85.
[54] Moffitt, “New and Living Way,” 104n80.
[55] Note the present tense of εἰσέρχομαι in Hebrews 4:3.
[56] Cockerill, “Deuteronomy to Hebrews,” 89.
[57] Under intense persecution, the original readers joyfully accepted the plundering of their property because they knew they were on the verge of obtaining a “better possession” (κρείττονα ὕπαρξιν) and “abiding” (μένω) one (Heb. 10:34). Therefore, the author exhorted them to endure knowing the coming one will not delay, and they will receive what was promised (Heb. 10:36–37).
[58] Cockerill, “Deuteronomy to Hebrews,” 88.
[59] I am grateful to Steve Wellum for reading this paper. He provided insightful and challenging feedback and meaningful suggestions.