Progressive Covenantalists claim that the land promised to Israel in the Old Testament is a type of the new creation that will be received by all of God’s people (see more here).

There are two important problems with this claim.

First, the land is not a type in and of itself but only at certain periods of Israel’s history. Thus one cannot conclude on the basis of typology that the land of Israel is only a shadow with no future significance. The shadow would be the land in the time of Joshua or in the time of Solomon. The substance would be the Davidic Messiah ruling from that land over the nations in the new earth. Thus there is no logical contradiction in the land being a type at certain periods of history and Israel receiving the land in fulfillment of the promises (see more here).

The second difficulty with the Progressive Covenantalist argument from typology is the identification of the land promise as a type. Perhaps this is simply an imprecise statement or a mistaken statement since more commonly they identify the land as the type. Be that as it may, the identification of the promise as a type is problematic. As Craig Blaising notes,

“A promise entails an obligation. When somebody makes a promise, they’re not just stating something, they are doing something. They are forming a relationship and creating an expectation that carries moral obligation. Failure to complete a promise is a violation of one’s word. It is a serious matter.” [Craig A. Blaising, “Israel and Hermeneutics,” in The People, the Land, and the Future of Israel, 160.]

Indeed, “the promise and the oath are referred to as ‘two unchangeable things’ (Heb. 6:18)” (Ibid., 161). Blaising also points out that promises of the Abrahamic covenant is tied to the central storyline of Scripture. “God’s promise, covenant and oath to Abraham is not a peripheral element in the story of the Bible. It is a key structural component in the central plot line” (Ibid.). He concludes, “To posit a ‘fulfillment’ of these covenant promises by means of a reality shift in the thing promised overlooks the performative nature of the word of promise, violates the legitimate expectations of the recipients, and brings the integrity of God into question” (Ibid.).

Certain statements of Wellum’s would seem to be in agreement with Blaising. In distinguishing their approach to canonical interpretation from “most proponents of sensus plenior,” Wellum writes, “God says more than the individual authors may have known, yet he does not contravene what the authors wrote and intended” (Kingdom through Covenant, 85, bn. 11). If by this he means that that the promise to Israel of the land would be expanded (as even the Old Testament indicated) to include the nations dwelling in the world earth—without denying that Israel, as one of these nations, receives the particular land promised―then all would be well. The integrity of the promise would be maintained alongside the expansion of the promise.

But Wellum, and other Progressive Covenantalists, do deny that Israel, as one of these nations, receives the particular land promised to it. The reason they do not see this denial as contradicting Wellum’s statement in the previous paragraph or as violating the integrity of God’s promise is likely due to the fact that Progressive Covenantalists see Israel as typological. For Progressive Covenantalists Christ is the antitype of Israel. As the church is in Christ, it can receive the promises made to Israel (Brent E. Parker, “The Israel-Christ-Church Relationship,” in Progressive Covenantalism, 63-64. 67-68). Making the argument that Israel cannot be reduced to a type is far beyond the scope of these posts, and yet something must be said for argument I’m making to cohere.

Perhaps all that needs to be noted is what Brent Parker says about the ways in which Israel is and is not a type in the Progressive Covenantal view:

[I]t is important to recognize that when a person or entity is identified as typological, this does not include every aspect of the person or entity. . . . Israel as an ethnic group is not a type, but our claim is that national Israel in terms of its role, vocation, calling, and identity is typological of Christ and thus rules out the notion of a future national role of Israel in the plan of God. Ethnic Jews and Gentiles in Christ are co-heirs and fellow partakers of promise.” [Ibid., 52.]

The distinction Parker draws between Israel as an ethnic group and Israel as typological of Christ is necessary since the New Testament continues to recognize the Israel as an ethnic group. For instance, one must be able to continue to speak of Israel as an ethnic group to speak of them as branches that will be grafted back into the olive tree (Rom. 11).

For the premise of these posts to hold, one does not need to ascribe to ethnic Israel a special role, vocation, or calling. The simple acknowledgement of that Israel as an ethnic group continues and could receive land in the eternal state is all that needs to be acknowledged.

 

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This is part of a series of posts on Progressive Covenantalism and the land promise in Scripture:

Progressive Covenantalism and the Land: Making Land Relevant (Part 1)

Progressive Covenantalism and the Land: Progressive Covenantalism’s View (Part 2)

The Theological Importance of the Physical World

Eden and the Land Promise

Eden, the New Jerusalem, Temples, and Land

Rest, Land, and the New Creation

Distinguishing the Kingdom Jesus Announced and the Sovereign Reign of God over All

Land and the Kingdom of God

Land, the Kingdom of God, and the Davidic Covenant

Progressive Covenantalism, Typology, and the Land Promise

Was the Promised Land a Type of the New Creation?

 

In reviewing Progressive Covenantalism’s arguments regarding the expansion of the land promise, I have registered substantive agreement on several points. First, the land promises are connected to Eden and to the temple, rest, and kingdom themes. Second, that the land theme, in its fulfillment, will encompass the entire new creation and the entire people of God. Though there has been some disagreement on details, these agreements are significant.

However, there are some significant differences from Progressive Covenantalism as well. First, the inclusion of the entire new creation and all the people of God in the fulfillment of the land theme does not negate the specific promises made to the nation of Israel. Related to this, it has been argued that the expansion of the land theme from Israel to the entire new creation and to all the people of God comes through the Messiah, who remains the Davidic king over Israel as well as the king over all nations. Finally, the expansion of the land promise is based not primarily in typology but in explicit and implicit promises found in the Old Testament.

Progressive Covenantalists rest their argument for the expansion of the land promise primarily on typology. Before reviewing that argument, it must first be presented.

Typology and Land in Progressive Covenantalism

Progressive Covenantalism presents itself as a mediating system between Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology, and Wellum describes the difference between the two systems on the land promise in terms of a different understanding of the typology:

In the case of dispensational theology, if they viewed as typological both the land of Israel and the nation itself, then their view, at its core, would no longer be valid. Why? For the reason that the land promise would not require a future, ‘literal’ fulfillment in the millennial age; the land itself is a type and pattern of Eden and thus the entire creation, which reaches its fulfillment in the dawning of a new creation. Christ, then, as the antitype of Israel, receives the land promise and fulfills it by his inauguration of a new covenant which is organically locked to new creation. [Kingdom through Covenant, 122.]

Wellum says “the New Testament helps us understand that the land promise is . . . typological of the new creation” (Ibid., 86). He concedes that dispensationalists would be correct “as long as one can demonstrate that the land promise, in the Abrahamic covenant and throughout the biblical covenants, is not better viewed as typological of the creation” (Ibid., 609). (Though Progressive Covenantalism is a mediating position, on the matter of land typology, Wellum notes that it is in agreement with covenant theology. Ibid., 114, n. 75.)

Martin summarizes how this typology works:

The Promised Land in the Old Testament—when situated within the kingdom and covenantal framework of Scripture as it progressively unfolds—was designed by God to serve as a type or pattern of a greater future reality. Every fulfillment is followed by failure and, although the promise is fulfilled at various points, it anticipates a greater and final fulfillment. . . . Therefore the promise of land to the nation of Israel is understood within the broader context of God’s programmatic agenda that begins with Adam, progresses from Abraham to Israel, and culminates in an international community living in a new creation. In other words, the national dimension involving the geographical territory of Israel should be viewed as a transitional stage in the outworking of God’s redemptive plan, a plan that spans from creation to new creation and ultimately includes people from every nation filling the entire earth. [Bound for the Promised Land, 115.]

Wellum argues the same point: “Thus the ‘land promise’ associated with the Abrahamic covenant cannot be understood apart from a backward and forward look: backward to the archetype reality of Eden and the entire creation, and forward, though the covenants, to its antitypical fulfillment in the new creation that Jesus has inaugurated in the new covenant” (Kingdom through Covenant, 607).

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The initial statement of the Davidic covenant also contains an indication that the Davidic Messiah would reign over more than Israel alone. In reflecting on God’s promises, David said, “This is instruction for mankind, O Lord GOD!” (2 Sam. 7:19). Dumbrell summarizes Walter Kaiser’s seminal study:

W. C. Kaiser has shown clearly that v. 19b must be taken as a statement, and that the Heb. phrase concerned serves to introduce or to summarize (as here) a set of instructions. Under ‘this’ the promises of the first half of the chapter are being referred to, while under ‘law of man’ their implications as David understood them are contained. . . . With more than some probability Kaiser suggests that the sense given to 2 Sam. 7:19b is, ‘This is the charter by which humanity will be directed.’ That is to say, in the oracle delivered to him, David rightly sees the future and destiny of the human race involved. [Creation and Covenant, 151-52.]

Gentry notes the significance: “Since the God whom the Davidic king represented was not limited to a local region or territory, but was the creator God and Sovereign of the whole world, the rule of the Davidic king would have repercussions for all the nations, not just for Israel” [Kingdom through Covenant, 400].

The same expansion of the territory Messiah’s kingdom can be seen in the Psalms. The Father says to the Son in Psalm 2, “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession” (2:8). Psalm 72:8 says of the Messianic king, “May he have dominion from sea to sea, and from the River,” one of the boundaries of the promised land, “to the ends of the earth!” Less explicitly, but still in keeping with these promises, David speaks of the Messiah’s rule over Moab, Edom, and Philistia in addition to Israel (Ps. 108:7-9). Psalm 110 reveals that Lord seated at the right hand of Yhwh will one day “shatter kings on the day of wrath” (110:5) and will “execute judgment among the nations” (Ps. 110:6). [For an recent argument for seeing the Messiah in several of these Psalms, see Gordon Wenham, The Psalter Reclaimed, 163-64.]

Examples of the Davidic Messiah ruling over the nations can be found elsewhere in Scripture. (For instance, Gentry argues that the “sure mercies of David” [Isa. 55:3, NKJV] refers to the steadfast love shown by the Davidic Messiah. In context, these mercies would be shown to the peoples or nations [Isa. 55:4][Kingdom through Covenant, 406-21].) But these passages sufficiently establish was is needed for the argument: when Paul said that God promised that Abraham “would be heir of the world” (Rom. 4:13), he has firm exegetical basis in the Old Testament for seeing the extension of the land promise to the entire world (see Martin, Bound for the Promised Land, 134-36).*

Conclusions

A number of conclusions should be drawn from these explicit promises of the extension of the land promise noted in this and in the previous post.

First, it is important to see that the Messiah is the key person through whom the land promise is expanded. It is through his reign that this expansion takes place. There would be no argument from Progressive Covenantalists on this point. But this claim has an entailment that they do not seem to reckon with, namely, that the Messiah is a Davidic king who rules from Zion over Israel and from there to the ends of the earth (Ps. 2:6; 72:8). Thus the expansion of the land promise to encompass the world does not negate the promises to Israel in particular about the land.

Second, the fact that these expansive promises sit alongside more specific promises to Israel about its particular land means that the two should not be pitted against each other. The reality of the expansion of the land promise to encompass the world is not the negation of the center from which the expansion takes place. The enjoyment by the nations of lands that are caught up in the land promise in the new creation does not negate Israel’s enjoyment of the land promise in its own nation.

Third, the expansion of the land promise rests primarily on these implicit and explicit promises rather than primarily on typology. Though Progressive Covenantalists recognize the promises, they place the weight of their argument on typology.

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*Nelson Hsieh argues that contextually Paul defines the promise that Abraham would be “heir of the world” (Rom. 4:13) “in terms of Abraham becoming the father of many nations and having innumerable descendants (vv. 17-18).” To be heir of the world thus means that Abraham is heir of a seed from many nations who have faith in God as he did. Hsieh argues that not only does this reading make better sense of the context, but it is also a promise that Abraham believed. Abraham knew of the promise that he would be the father of many nations. Abraham did not know (and thus could not believe) in an expanded land promise. Hsieh closes his article by making the case that κόσμος and κληρονόμος can refer to seed and need not point to the land promise. Nelson S. Hsieh, “Abraham as ‘Heir of the World’: Does Romans 4:13 Expand the Old Testament Abrahamic Land Promises?” Master’s Seminary Journal 26, no. 1 (Spring 2015): 95-110. Whether or not Oren Martin or Hsieh is correct regarding Romans 4, the expansion of the land promise to the world is found in numerous Old Testament texts.

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This is part of a serise of posts on Progressive Covenantalism and the land theme in Scripture.

Progressive Covenantalism and the Land: Making Land Relevant (Part 1)

Progressive Covenantalism and the Land: Progressive Covenantalism’s View (Part 2)

The Theological Importance of the Physical World

Eden and the Land Promise

Eden, the New Jerusalem, Temples, and Land

Rest, Land, and the New Creation

Distinguishing the Kingdom Jesus Announced and the Sovereign Reign of God over All

Land and the Kingdom of God

Adam’s sin had three major effects: (1) death in the inner and outer man, (2) the cursing of the creation blessing, and (3) the exile of mankind from Eden, the place of God’s presence. The last of these three judgments connects the land theme to the temple theme. Exile, an aspect of the land theme, is connected to removal from God’s presence, an aspect of the temple theme.

Wellum presents this argument in full:

[T]hink of the theme of the garden of Eden as a temple sanctuary. . . . [Greg] Beale convincingly demonstrates that the land of Eden is presented as the archetypal temple, the place where God uniquely dwelt with Adam and Eve as they served God as priest-kings and sons in obedient devotion and worship of God. Adam and Eve’s task was to subdue and rule over the entire earth, which suggests that they were ‘to extend the geographical boundaries of the garden until Eden covered the whole earth,’ which, as Psalm 8 makes clear, was a role that the entire human race was to carry out. . . . [W]hat is significant for our purposes is the close connection between land and temple, and how Eden serves as the archetype which both the land of Israel and the later tabernacle/temple are patterned after.

When we combine all of these points and set the land promise in the context of creation, we have biblical warrant to view the ‘land’ as a type and pattern of creation. In this reading, the archetype is the land of Eden, whose borders are to be extended to the entire creation. [Kingdom through Covenant, 710-11.]

Martin makes this the thesis of his book:

The aim of the present study is to demonstrate that the land promised to Abraham advances the place of the kingdom that was lost in Eden and serves as a type throughout Israel’s history that anticipates the even greater land—prepared for all of God’s people throughout history—that will come as a result of the person and work of Christ. In other words, the land and its blessings find their fulfillment in the new heaven and new earth won by Christ. [Bound for the Promised Land, 17.]

He also draws a tight connection between temple and the new creation by following G. K. Beale in identifying the New Jerusalem, spoken of in Revelation in temple terminology, with the entire new creation:

Instead of the temple being the exclusive place of God’s presence, John declares that the entire ‘paradisal city-temple of Revelation 21:1-22:5 encompasses the entirety of the newly created earth.’ The most evident sign of this city-temple is its perfectly cubic shape (21:16). This glorious description is like no other previous place on earth, but is more akin to the holy of holies (1 Kgs 6:20). Thus the new earth now serves as the place of God’s presence. [Martin 135 citing Beale, “Revelation (book),” NDBT, 358.]

Leaving aside the issue of typology for now, I will here argue that the Progressive Covenantalist formulations on the connection between Eden, land, temple, and new creation must receive a mixed verdict. There are some insightful connections made but also some mis-steps.

Was Eden a Temple?

I have previously argued that when looked at in detail Beale’s arguments that Eden was a temple fail to hold up. This does not mean that there is no Eden-temple connection. I would agree with Daniel Block’s assessment:

In my response to reading Gn 1-3 as temple-building texts, I have hinted at the fundamental hermeneutical problem involved in this approach. The question is, should we read Gn 1-3 in the light of later texts, or should we read later texts in light of these? If we read the accounts of the order given, then the creation account provides essential background to primeval history, which provides background for the patriarchal, exodus, and tabernacle narratives. By themselves and by this reading the accounts of Gn 1-3 offer no clues that a cosmic or Edenic temple might be involved. However, as noted above, the Edenic features of the tabernacle, the Jerusalem temple, and the temple envisioned by Ezekiel are obvious. Apparently their design and function intended to capture something of the original environment in which human beings were placed. However, the fact that Israel’s sanctuaries were Edenic does not make Eden into a sacred shrine. At best this is a nonreciprocating equation.

[Daniel I. Block, “Eden: A Temple? A Reassessment of the Biblical Evidence,” in From Creation to New Creation: Biblical Theology and Exegesis: Essays in Honor of G. K. Beale, eds. Daniel M. Gurtner and Benjamin L. Gladd (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2013), 20-21.]

In sum, though the tabernacle and temple looked back to the garden of Eden and the loss of the presence of God that occurred with humanity’s exile from the garden, the garden itself was not a temple.The reality was present in the garden so the symbol (tabernacle/temple) did not need to be present.

However, I do agree with Wellum that mankind was to spread the geographical boundaries of the garden, as it were, by subduing the entire world. Thus there is a close connection between the initiation of the land theme in the Creation Blessing of Genesis 1:26-29 and the fulfillment of that theme in the new creation.

Is the New Jerusalem the New Creation?

The argument that the New Jerusalem is the new creation is also problematic.

In justifying this interpretation Beale says that it is “an interpretive and theological problem” for John to see the new creation in Revelation 21:1 and the New Jerusalem in 21:2, 10-21. He asks, “How can we explain the apparent discrepancy that he saw a new heaven and earth in verse 1 and then saw only a city in the shape and structure of the temple in the remainder of the vision” (The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 365-66).

However, it is not clear that there is a discrepancy. As Beale himself notes, “It is possible, of course, that he merely first sees the new world and then sees a city-temple in that world.” Beale rejects that solution because he says John “seems to equate” the two. As evidence he notes that no uncleanness will be permitted in the city, when it is well-established that there will be no uncleanness permitted in the entire new creation. He also claims that Revelation has a pattern in which what is seen is later interpreted by what is heard or vice versa, giving as an example the time when John hears of the Lion of the tribe of Judah but sees a Lamb (Rev. 5:5-6) (Ibid., 366-67).

Response:

First, that no uncleaness is permitted in both the new creation and the New Jerusalem does not necessarily mean the two are the same.

Second, the parallel with Revelation 5 is inexact. In Revelation 21 John sees both the new creation and the New Jerusalem before hearing about the New Jerusalem. It is not that he sees the New Creation and then hears about the New Jerusalem. He sees the New Jerusalem and then hears about it.

Finally, there are indications in the text that the new creation and the New Jerusalem are distinct. In the first place, the New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven (21:2, 10). By saying that he “saw a new heaven and a new earth” directly before saying that he saw the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, John seems to imply that he saw the city coming out of the new heaven to the new earth. In addition, for the nations to walk by the light of the city and for kings to bring their glory in through its gates (21:24-26) implies that there are nations and kingdoms in the new creation outside of the New Jerusalem. This thesis is strengthened by the fact that in Isaiah 60, a passage alluded to here, verses 3, 10, 16 refer simply to kings. John adds “of the earth.” Thus John’s  vision seems to affirm that all of God’s people dwell in New Jerusalem (21:12-13) wile also envisioning the people of God filling the entire new creation as nations with kings who reign under the King of kings.

The interpretation presented here are, I believe, more exegetically defensible than those proposed by Beale and adopted by Progressive Covenantalists. But they require no major alteration to the Progressive Covenantalists’ argument. For them the New Jerusalem symbolizes the whole new creation. Presumably this new creation is not just one large city, and presumably people live all over the new earth. But also presumably the Messiah reigns from a city. We might as well call it the New Jerusalem. And now we are back to a situation fairly close to what Revelation 21 describes.

The New Jerusalem and the Temple Theme

In addition to identifying the New Jerusalem as the new creation, Progressive Covenantalists identify the New Jerusalem with the temple. The connection between New Jerusalem and temple is made on the basis of its cubic shape, which was the shape of the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle/temple (Martin, 155).

Though the symbol of tabernacle/temple is replaced by the reality of God’s presence in the new creation (21:22), an allusion back to the symbol in the shape of the city is reasonable. An explicit connection to the temple theme is the identification of the New Jerusalem as “the dwelling place [σκηνή] of God . . . with man” (21:3; cf. Ex. 25:8). Another reason to connect temple and New Jerusalem is that the city is identified as the “Bride, the wife of the Lamb” (Rev. 21:9; cf. Eph. 2:22).

Nonetheless, a refinement of the Progressive Covenatalist view is in order. Based on the cubic shape of the city, it seems best to identify the New Jerusalem not simply with the temple imagery in general but with the Holy of Holies in particular. The Holy of Holies was the place where God was symbolically enthroned between the cherubim (1 Sam. 4:4; 2 Sam 6:2; 2 Kings 19:14-15), and the New Jerusalem is the place where God and the Lamb is enthroned (Rev. 22:1). If the symbolism of the Holy of Holies is fulfilled in the New Jerusalem, then it remains plausible for the symbolism of the temple as a whole to be fulfilled in the new creation as a whole.

Conclusion

Much of the Progressive Covenantalist viewpoint remains intact with the above analysis. The land theme and the temple theme remain related, the temple theme is seen as fulfilled in the new creation, and the land theme is also fulfilled in the new creation.

However, there are some differences.

First, there is no direct connection between the Abrahamic covenant’s land promises and the temple/New Jerusalem theme. On this understanding when Abraham is looking for a better country than the Canaan he sojourned in, the city he receives is not the entire new creation but Jerusalem, the chief city of the land promised to him (Heb. 11:16). This is not to deny that a connection exists between the Abrahamic covenant and the new earth nor is it to deny that Abraham is “heir of the world” (Rom. 4:13). It is to say that such connections cannot be directly based on the unpacking of this theme.

The second difference between the analysis proposed here and Progressive Covenantalism is the greater weight given here to the reality of nations in the new creation.

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This is part of a series of posts on Progressive Covenantalism and the land theme in Scripture.

The Theological Importance of the Physical World

Progressive Covenantalism and the Land: Progressive Covenantalism’s View (Part 2)

The Theological Importance of the Physical World

Eden and the Land Promise