Promise to the Fathers

THERE can but one objection be raised against the future fulfillment of the promise of the land to Abraham and to his seed, which has any degree of plausibility. That objection is based on Josh. 21:43-45.

"And the LORD gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers; and they possessed it, and dwelt therein. And the LORD gave them rest round about, according to all that he sware unto their fathers: and there stood not a man of all their enemies before them; the LORD delivered all their enemies into their hand. There failed not ought of any good thing which the LORD had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass." Josh. 21:43-45

Now, while it is admitted that all that was promised to them as a separate people when the Lord brought them out of Egypt, or that was promised to them as the natural descendants of Abraham, was fulfilled, we cannot admit that the promise to Abraham was fulfilled. To claim that, is to deny the promise itself, as well as a number of the plainest declarations of the New Testament. Let us bear in mind that the promise looked to two parties: (1) To Abraham; (2) To his seed. If it can be shown that it was fulfilled to one party, and yet was not fulfilled to the other, then, as God's word is truth, it awaits a future fulfillment. Notice the passage in Joshua; it says, "The Lord gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers." And if it can be shown only that it was not given unto their fathers, then it remains to be fulfilled, or it must fail entirely. That it cannot fail, we refer the reader again to Paul's words in Heb. 6, on the immutability of God's promise to Abraham.

But first we notice Paul's quotation of, and argument on, Ps. 95. "So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest." Heb. 3:11. The term "rest" is here applied to the peaceable possession of the land.* This is plainly referred to in the quotation from Joshua. The points of the averment are these:—The Lord gave them the land; he gave them rest round about; and there stood not a man of their enemies before them. The same is referred to by Jacob in his blessing of Issachar, Gen. 49:15: "And he saw that rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant." And by Moses, in his charge to the two tribes and a half which took their possession on the east of Jordan:—

"The LORD your God hath given you this land to possess it: ye shall pass over armed before your brethren the children of Israel, all that are meet for the war. But your wives, and your little ones, and your cattle, (for I know that ye have much cattle,) shall abide in your cities which I have given you; Until the LORD have given rest unto your brethren, as well as unto you, and until they also possess the land which the LORD your God hath given them beyond Jordan: and then shall ye return every man unto his possession, which I have given you." Deut. 3:18-20

Again, Moses said to Israel, before they passed over Jordan:—

"For ye are not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance, which the LORD your God giveth you. But when ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the LORD your God giveth you to inherit, and when he giveth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety; Then there shall be a place which the LORD your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there." Deut. 12:9-11

Joshua reiterated the same thing in his address "to the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to half the tribe of Manasseh," as follows:—

"Remember the word which Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, saying, The LORD your God hath given you rest, and hath given you this land. Your wives, your little ones, and your cattle, shall remain in the land which Moses gave you on this side Jordan; but ye shall pass before your brethren armed, all the mighty men of valour, and help them; Until the LORD have given your brethren rest, as he hath given you, and they also have possessed the land which the LORD your God giveth them: then ye shall return unto the land of your possession, and enjoy it, which Moses the LORD'S servant gave you on this side Jordan toward the sunrising." Josh. 1:13-15

Thus it is made plain beyond the chance of doubt, that the rest which was promised and given to the children of Israel, was the peaceable possession of the land. Moses refers to it as "the rest and the inheritance." To this David refers in Ps. 95:7-11:—

"To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work. Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways: Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest." Ps. 95:7-11

Paul's comment in Heb. 4:1-9, is to this effect: That the Holy Spirit appeals to Israel, in the days of David, not to harden their hearts, as their fathers did, to whom the Lord sware they should not enter into his rest. And, accordingly, their "carcasses fell in the wilderness." They were not permitted to see "the rest and the inheritance." But Paul argues that the same hope that was set before Israel in the wilderness was held out to their children in the day of David, from which he concludes that Joshua aid not give them the rest contemplated in the promise; that "there remains a rest to the people of God;" and that this rest bears the same relation to that given to Israel that Moses and Joshua bore to Christ, and that Israel, the literal descendants of Abraham, bore to the church of Christ, the members of which are children of Abraham by faith in Christ.*

From this argument, it is quite evident that the apostle did not consider that the children of Israel had received the rest—the inheritance—which was the subject of the promise; for, as he well says, "If Joshua had given them the rest "(so Whiting's translation), "then would he not afterward have spoken of another day;" that is to say, that, although the children of Israel were then in the land which Joshua gave to their fathers, they were yet warned to beware of the example of their fathers whose provocation kept them out of the inheritance. His conclusion is, that the true rest is remaining to be possessed. And this establishes our declaration that the land of Canaan bears the same relation to the true rest and inheritance that Joshua bears to Christ. One is the figure or type of the other.

But we are not left to mere deductions on this subject. We have the plainest and most positive statements to the effect that the promise to Abraham was not fulfilled. The reader will bear in mind that the promise was to two parties: to Abraham, and to his seed. The argument in Heb. 4 goes to show that it was not fulfilled to the descendants of Abraham. We will now consider the positive statements of the New Testament in regard to Abraham and his seed, as related to the fulfillment of this promise. Said Stephen:—

"Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran, And said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and dwelt in Charran: and from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell. And he gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on: yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child." Act 7:2-5

This testimony of Stephen is decisive so far as Abraham is concerned. But Paul confirms it, thus:—

"By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: ... These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." Heb 11:8-9, 13

In these verses, Paul denies that the promise of the land was fulfilled to Abraham, or to Isaac and Jacob; and, though he should "after receive it for inheritance," he did not, for he "died in faith, not having received the promises." And that the promise of the land was a part of "the promises" which were not fulfilled to him, is still further shown in that he and others to whom the same promise was made, lived as "strangers and pilgrims on the earth." This language certainly does not apply to those who lived in the possession of an inheritance which was said to continue forever; to be to them for "an everlasting possession."

But Paul goes much farther. After enumerating the most faithful of Abraham's descendants, including Moses, Joshua, David, Samuel, and the prophets, and many others who dwelt in the land of Canaan after the time of Joshua, he says:—

"And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect." Heb. 11:39, 40.

This does not mean that God has provided some better thing for us than was promised to them; but that he has provided some better thing for us than they received before their death. For they are perfected, not without us, but with us; and our hope is inseparably connected with theirs, for we are constantly referred, in the Scriptures, to the promises given to them, as the basis of our hope.

But it has been objected that "the promise" which they did not receive was not the promise of the land, but the promise of Christ; that they did receive the former, but not the latter.

The first part of this objection has been sufficiently answered by the words quoted from Stephen and Paul. The second part is answered with equal certainty in Gal. 3:16.

"Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises [plural] made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ."

And thus it appears that the promises were not so much OF CHRIST as TO CHRIST. And as Abraham, to whom the promise was first made, dwelt in the land as a stranger and pilgrim, not having conferred upon him a title to land enough to "set his foot on," so Christ, the seed, the heir of the same promise, dwelt in that same land, not having "where to lay his head."

Thus it is expressly declared that Christ is heir to the promises made to Abraham; and if we are his, we must share in his blessings; as it is said: "We are the children of God. And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." Rom. 8:16, 17.

That this heirship with Christ takes hold of the inheritance promised to Abraham is proved by a text before quoted:—

"And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Gal. 3:29.

*The word rendered rest in Ps. 95 is menoohhah, and is defined by Gesenius, "a resting, quiet, place of rest, resting-place." It differs in this from Sabbath, the latter having no relation to locality.

*'In Heb, 3 and 4, Paul uses, katapausin, of which Greenfield says, "in the Heb., a fixed station, place of rest;" and also sabbatismos, which comes from the Hebrew Sabbath. As both contain the idea of rest, either or both may be properly used in this argument. But that the former is specially the subject of this discourse is evident from the relation which Paul shows to exist between this rest and that given by Joshua; but Joshua did not give them the weekly Sabbath. Therefore the rest that remains is the antitype of the inheritance given to Israel by Joshua, and not of the weekly Sabbath.

*This was urged by Pres. Mahan, of Oberlin, O., in discussion with Charles Fitch.