Eschatology and Anticipation, Part Two
Eschatology and Then Some • Sermon • Submitted
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Introduction and Review
Introduction and Review
Talk about review and talk about anticipation, how the OT prophets were anticipating a coming savior who would redeem the world, a coming king who would reign over the world, and a messiah who would reconcile all things to himself. Today we’re going to talk about the Promised Land, finishing up our study of Abraham and the promises given to him, as well as both the Psalms and the Prophets for more evidence that the Messiah would be a victorious king ruling over the world through the gospel, bringing a time of prosperity and peace in history, and not just in a distant eternal future.
The Promises of Israel
The Promises of Israel
Genesis 13:14
14 The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward,
15 for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever.
16 I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted.
17 Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.”
1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless,
2 that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.”
3 Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him,
4 “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations.
5 No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.
6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you.
7 And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.
8 And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”
Genesis 17:
As we looked at last week, we understand that these promises had a literal fulfillment in the history of Israel. Abraham had many descendants, his descendants possessed the Land, and a promised messiah came through Abraham, a king. But that’s not all that the promises accomplished. Many Christians argue for continued future fulfillments of these promises, not just postmillenalists. Dispensationalists argue that there must be a literal future fulfillment of these promises based on the fact that God will give Abraham the land “forever” and so they come up with this horribly bad and weird theology of a future literal and ethnic Israel that continues to sacrifice animals and practice OT worship and priesthood.
This is wrong on a lot of levels. Ask them.
One of the problems with the view that Israel must have the Land in the future because of the word forever is that that word is not actually a word that should be translated as “forever” in a literal sense. The Hebrew word here, olam, frequently applies to long-term temporal situations rather than eternal ones.
This word is used of the Passover
14 “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast.
Is this literally forever?
Or the priesthood
28 It shall be for Aaron and his sons as a perpetual due from the people of Israel, for it is a contribution. It shall be a contribution from the people of Israel from their peace offerings, their contribution to the Lord.
Or offerings
18 Every male among the children of Aaron may eat of it, as decreed forever throughout your generations, from the Lord’s food offerings. Whatever touches them shall become holy.”
36 The Lord commanded this to be given them by the people of Israel, from the day that he anointed them. It is a perpetual due throughout their generations.”
The temple
16 For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that my name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time.
Do slaves forever attach themselves to their masters?
6 then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.
We know these things have passed away, because of the NT’s witness of the Old Covenant being done away with.
Another reason why this can’t be literal is that last week we discovered that the promise rested on obedience.
17 The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do,
18 seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?
19 For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.”
This is still a bit of review, but we know because of last week that Israel failed to keep these covenant obligations and so forfeited the right to the land. But does that mean that the promises are gone? They were meant just for Israel and are now abandoned?
Historic premillenalists and amillenialists will often claim that these promises have no real future fulfillment, they were promises for Israel and nothing more, but we will see later as we go through Scripture that, just like most of the OT, the Promised Land, the promise of a messiah, and the promise of descendants are all typological, that is, they point to something else, they are an example of something to come, something bigger, a spiritual reality that was foreshadowed by a physical truth.
The Promised Land Belongs to God
The Promised Land Belongs to God
What is the Promised Land? First of all, we must understand that the Land is not Israel’s land. It is God’s Land. It was given to Israel as delegate authorities, regents that were supposed to keep it for the Lord.
23 “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me.
54 And he brought them to his holy land, to the mountain which his right hand had won.
Israel continuing in the Land was dependent upon their obedience to Him and His favor with them.
3 They shall not remain in the land of the Lord, but Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat unclean food in Assyria.
7 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.
40 Therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for all time.”
The Promised Land is a Type of the Whole Earth
The Promised Land is a Type of the Whole Earth
What do I mean by this? Well, the entire world is the Lord’s, because He is the sovereign ruler of the universe
1 The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein,
1 The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein,
1 The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein,
Now, we’ve already talked about how Satan was given dominion over the earth after the Fall, and how Adam was supposed to have rulership over it before Satan tempted him and Eve, but the world is still ultimately the Lord’s. He only delegates authority to those on earth to use it. So why do I say The Promised Land is a tithe?
Even though Satan had power over it after Adam’s fall, the Lord still ruled over it ultimately. But the Promised Land was special, because it typified, or foreshadowed, what it would be like for God to be intimately and presently king over the people. It foreshadowed the day when every nation would be brought under the dominion of Christ, and what that would look like.
We could even say the Promised Land was a tithe of the whole earth. Just like technically everything we own is the Lord’s, but we give back a percentage to him because he is the king. Just like peasants would give back a portion of what the crops they produced on the king’s land, because he enabled them to use it, so we do a similar thing. While the whole earth was the Lord’s, even during the time of Israel, Israel had a special place, it was an offering to the Lord, set aside for him. Where the rest of the world was far from Him, Israel was his special possession.
30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Think about it this way. The whole earth is the Lord’s, just like technically everything we own is the Lord’s. The Israelites gave back ten percent of whatever they made back to God like peasants on a king’s land would give a portion of their crops. They used the King’s Land to get it. In a similar way
In the days of Israel, God overlooked the unrepentance of humanity because of the tithe that was given to him of the world. But now he is coming to claim everything for himself, finally and completely. Yet this is a slow process, as we will see.
8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.
9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.
10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
11 By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.
12 Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.
13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.
15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.
16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
Although Abraham received the physical land of Canaan, he was looking forward to the eternal city and Kingdom of God, which was brought when the Messiah, Jesus Christ, died, rose again, and ascended to be seated at the right hand of the father. Now where the promised land of Israel only hinted at God’s plans, Jesus Christ, as the better Abraham, promises an even greater promised land—the whole Earth. Why do I say this? Let’s explore it.
11 But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.
This verse here is speaking of God’s promise to Israel—that if they will be meek before, humble themselves, they shall inherit the Land, and continue to inherit it, and delight themselves in abundant peace. But Jesus takes this promise and he extends it over the entire earth in
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
This verse absolutely means what it says. Those who are part of the kingdom of God, who follow the beautitudes, who are meek before the Lord, God’s chosen people, will inherit the earth. Why inherit? Why that word specifically? It makes sense for the Jews, they would continue to inherit it from their forefathers. But what about us? How and why do we inherit the earth?
2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
Christ is the heir of all things, why? Because He is the firstborn of all creation, the begotten son of the Father, and when he lived, died, and rose again, he inherited all things, including a chosen people and the world itself. We also are sons and daughters of God, though adopted ones:
17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
So if Christ inherits all things (and this promise includes the whole earth, as we looked at before and will continue to look at), that means we also inherit all things through him.
The seed of Abraham was primarily designed to produce the savior; the Land promise was primarily designed to be typological, a foreshadowing, of this savior’s dominion over the whole earth.
13 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.
Ephesians
Abraham also understood that the land promise was a down payment representing the inheritance of the entire world.
We see the progression of the Promised Land and what it means throughout Scripture. First Adam is given a garden:
8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.
Abraham’s seed was given a country:
1 After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant,
2 “Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel.
3 Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses.
4 From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory.
5 No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you.
6 Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them.
7 Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go.
8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
10 And Joshua commanded the officers of the people,
11 “Pass through the midst of the camp and command the people, ‘Prepare your provisions, for within three days you are to pass over this Jordan to go in to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.’ ”
12 And to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh Joshua said,
13 “Remember the word that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, saying, ‘The Lord your God is providing you a place of rest and will give you this land.’
14 Your wives, your little ones, and your livestock shall remain in the land that Moses gave you beyond the Jordan, but all the men of valor among you shall pass over armed before your brothers and shall help them,
15 until the Lord gives rest to your brothers as he has to you, and they also take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving them. Then you shall return to the land of your possession and shall possess it, the land that Moses the servant of the Lord gave you beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise.”
16 And they answered Joshua, “All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go.
17 Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you. Only may the Lord your God be with you, as he was with Moses!
18 Whoever rebels against your commandment and disobeys your words, whatever you command him, shall be put to death. Only be strong and courageous.”
11 “Pass through the midst of the camp and command the people, ‘Prepare your provisions, for within three days you are to pass over this Jordan to go in to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.’ ”
What does he promises us? The church? The world:
18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Redemptive, Not Political
Redemptive, Not Political
Remember though: This inheritance, this dominion is more redemptive than it is political. The seed of Abraham, the Messiah, Christ, would be a savior, and the whole earth would be blessed through him. That which is most important in God’s plan is the spiritual relation, rather than the blood relation. He makes this clear in Romans particularly.
28 For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical.
29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.
The ultimate purpose of all of this, of the Abrahamic covenant, of the Promised Land, is nothing less than world conversion. God wants the world, and He used Abraham to do it, bringing the incarnated Christ into the world, who then was given a people, a remnant, chosen by God, to carry out this mission on the earth. We’ll discuss this more later.
Abraham is a Blessing to the Nations
Abraham is a Blessing to the Nations
To conclude our study of Abraham, let’s discuss a few more things about the promises and what they mean for us as Christians.
2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
First off, we have
This promise is tremendous. Not only will God bless Abraham, but through him all the families of the earth shall be blessed. The Hebrew Word for families here is mispachah, which includes nations. This is meant to include all nations, all groups of people, all ethnicities. This is a grand scope. Where the Abrahamic promise begins with Abraham and his physical descendants, it ends with nothing less but every family, every nation, blessed through the Savior that came through Abraham’s seed.
I want to make something clear—this does not just mean that because of Abraham’s blessing, some other people will be peripherally blessed, though this is certainly true about Abraham and his descendants. Let’s look closely at what the covenant promises—it promises blessing. What do all the families of the earth get? Blessing, the same as Abraham. God’s promise here was always meant to broaden out to include every nation—not just the nation from Abraham’s seed. We’ve already seen the promise of this fulfillment when we looked briefly at the great comission, but here is another direct line of evidence for this interpretation. Remember, we must look to the NT to interpret these OT promises, and examine carefully how they were considered by the apostles.
12 and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.
13 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.
14 For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.
15 For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.
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,
First we have this reminder that we are the offspring of Abraham. This is the spiritual implication of the seed—the fact that not all who are in Abraham are actually in Abraham. Being a true descendant is about faith, not lineage. But then we get even deeper, and more mindblowing.
7 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.
8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”
29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
Galatians 3:
From the very beginning of this promise given to Abraham, the world was in view. The gospel proclamation of the world was planned and foreshadowed. We will continue to see that this gospel proclamation to the world and the fact that the Messiah will reign as king and will submit all things to himself, including the world and all of the nations, go hand in hand. They are not different promises, but rather the same one.
Victory is Anticipated
Victory is Anticipated
Because of this redemptive work God is doing through the Gospel, God is working to reverse or nullify the curse that was proclaimed upon men in . The expectation of this victory is so strong that we find repeated casual references to it based on confident expectation. In other words, it’s a given in Scripture. It almost goes without being said that victory is inevitable.
Let’s examine some evidence:
17 I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies,
We have this reference to gates. Now, the NT often makes references back to the OT and its language, and these are not just accidental or just put there by the NT authors to make their message seem cooler. God is very intentional about His Word. And so it was very intentional when Christ paralleled this exact language in
18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
God’s chosen people are meant to have victory through Christ.
8 “Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down before you.
9 Judah is a lion’s cub; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down; he crouched as a lion and as a lioness; who dares rouse him?
10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
Judah in this illustration is of course Israel, as was often the case, but let’s focus on verse 10—it says in this translation “until tribute comes to him” but this is honestly not the best translation, because in this section the subject of the sentence changes without letting us know. In Hebrew, it references a person or title by the name of Shiloh (the “him” in “until tribute comes to him”. So the verse is really better translated as meaning: “Judah will maintain the scepter of rule until Shiloh shall come — and then to him shall be the obedience of all the peoples. The reason it is translated tribute there is because it just continuing the verbage of this Shiloh person getting what belongs to him. The tribute that is owed him is the obedience of the peoples.
Shiloh was another term for the Messiah, though rarely used, and so basically this verse is saying that Israel will continue to rule until Christ comes, and then he shall rule over all people. Not just a people, like he would come and take over Israel, but he would have the obedience of the “peoples” plural.
This is the first mention in all of Scripture of a personal redeemer, one who will rule over all peoples. Ezekiel and Paul later both allude to this with confidence.
Ezekiel in anticipation:
27 A ruin, ruin, ruin I will make it. This also shall not be, until he comes, the one to whom judgment belongs, and I will give it to him.
and Paul in realization
19 Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.
A few last proofs of this victorious expectation in these early stages of anticipation come in
21 But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord,
17 I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near: a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel; it shall crush the forehead of Moab and break down all the sons of Sheth.
18 Edom shall be dispossessed; Seir also, his enemies, shall be dispossessed. Israel is doing valiantly.
19 And one from Jacob shall exercise dominion and destroy the survivors of cities!”
Balaam here harkens back to Jacob’s prophecy in
10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
He foresees an all-powerful, world wide dominion for the messiah.
To close, promises that
10 The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces; against them he will thunder in heaven. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed.”
And promises
Then we
13 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.
Conclusion
Conclusion
We saw that The Promised Land was just a foreshadowing of what God would do in the world,