There Remains a Sabbath Rest: The Promised Land Then and Now

Those who seek a land seek a home. Many go to a new country intending to depart after a time. But those who seek a land leave one soil to make a new soil their own.

Seeking a land is what God called Abraham to do. In Genesis 12, God commanded Abraham, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Gen. 12:1). Abraham was to leave the soil of his fathers and make a new home in a new land. Yet, though he sought a new home, Abraham lived in the promised land as a foreigner. As the author of Hebrews explains,

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 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. (Heb. 11:8-9)

Abraham sought a new home but lived in mobile tents. Abraham sought a new land but lived as a sojourner. The promised land was a foreign land to Abraham. Why does the author of Hebrews highlight this fact? What does Abraham’s example reveal about the promised land? We find answers in understanding the nature of God’s promise to Abraham.

The Promise of Land

The God of Scripture relates to his people using covenants, formal relationships that he initiates. Central to God’s plan of redemption is the covenant that he made with Abraham, and key to that formal relationship was God’s promise that Abraham’s offspring would inherit the land of Canaan (Gen. 12:5-7; 15:18-21; 17:8). With the Abrahamic covenant, a plot of dirt becomes a divine inheritance.

In time, the offspring of Abraham would depart from Canaan and come under slavery in Egypt. God, though, had not forgotten his promise to Abraham. God declared to his people while they were still in bondage to the Egyptians,

I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. (Ex. 6:7-8)

As long as the people were in bondage, the promise of land lay unfulfilled. God demonstrated his faithfulness by freeing the children of Abraham from slavery and leading them to their promised inheritance. In the Exodus, God sought not only to free his people from bondage but also to bring them to the land he promised Abraham.

Traversing further in Scripture, past the wilderness wanderings, past the death of Moses, we come to the conquests of Joshua. God led his people by the hand of Joshua to take possession of the land he had promised them. Then, in Joshua 21, following the conquest of Canaan, the author delivers an assessment of God’s covenant faithfulness.

Thus the Lord gave to Israel all the land that he swore to give to their fathers. And they took possession of it, and they settled there. And the Lord gave them rest on every side just as he had sworn to their fathers. Not one of all their enemies had withstood them, for the Lord had given all their enemies into their hands. Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass. (Josh. 21:43-45)

By Joshua 21, God had fulfilled his promise to Abraham of an earthly land. He had given Abraham’s children rest in Canaan. The literal interpretation of this passage is just what the author says: “Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.” No aspect of the earthly land promise remained unfulfilled.

Yet, Canaan was a land that could be lost. Israel’s tenure in the land depended on their faithfulness to another covenant: the covenant made with Moses on Sinai (Deut. 28:58-59, 63). In the course of time, Israel failed to uphold the Law, and because of their sin, they were exiled from the land. But, in Jeremiah, God declared that he would not cast out his people from the promised land forever.

In Jeremiah 31, God promised to make a new covenant with his people that would not be like the Mosaic Covenant.

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke… (Jer. 31:31-32)

Note that the New Covenant is new compared to the covenant God made after the Exodus, the Mosaic covenant. The New Covenant is new because it will do away with everything unique to the Mosaic Covenant. Yet, it does not do away with the whole Old Testament.

Indeed, the promises made to Abraham echo once more in the New Covenant. God will renew them, including the promise of land. Indeed, there will be a day “when the city shall be rebuilt for the Lord,” and the people of God will dwell peacefully in the land with King David ruling over them forever (Jer. 31:38, Ezek. 37:24-28).

The inauguration of the New Covenant arrives in the New Testament. In the New Testament, we see Jesus Christ, the Son of David, descend, conquering sin and the grave by his death and resurrection. And we see Jesus ascend to the right of God to rule on his throne as the exalted God-Man. But what about the promised land? Where do we read of Canaan in the New Testament?

Search the New Testament for every reference to Abraham. No author teaches that God’s promise to Abraham of an earthly land remains unfulfilled. Not a single divinely inspired writer, commissioned by Christ to deliver the final word from God, mentions a return to the land of Canaan. In the New Testament, there is no anticipation of a future earthly land for God’s people.

What has happened? Did the Apostles ignore the promise of land made to Abraham? Or maybe the land promise is more than a strip of earth in Palestine.

The Greater Promised Land

In Hebrews, God reveals the true nature of the promised land. Throughout Hebrews, the author shows how the New Covenant is better than the Old Mosaic Covenant and how Jesus Christ is the better mediator of a better covenant. With this context in mind, the author speaks in chapters 3 and 4 of a future rest held out before God’s people. What is this rest?

Remember again the history of Israel. Because of their sin, a whole generation of Israelites, including Moses, were not allowed to enter into the promised land but instead died in the wilderness. They failed to enter the earthly rest found in the land of Canaan. It was the following generation that entered the rest that God secured in the promised land by the hand of Joshua. The author of Hebrews picks up on the language of rest but reveals that the promised rest is far more than peace in the land of Canaan.

For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. (Heb. 4:8-10)

The author states that Joshua did not lead the people into the ultimate rest. But remember what we read in Joshua 21: “Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.” If all the promises came to pass, in what sense did Joshua fail to bring rest?

Notice that in Hebrews 4, the author does not mention a future earthly land for the people of God. Rather, as with all of the promises in the Old Testament, the promise of land finds fulfillment in Jesus Christ and his work. For Jesus is the one who leads us to our Sabbath rest in our true promised land: Heaven.

Hebrews reveals that Canaan was never the ultimate goal. Rather, it was merely a type, a temporary picture pointing to a greater reality (Col. 2:17, Heb. 10:1). With Christ, the greater has come. Joshua the son of Nun, could only bring temporary rest in the earthly land. But Joshua the son of Mary, has brought us the ultimate rest, for it is Jesus Christ who has secured Sabbath rest for us in Heaven by his blood.

Now look again at Hebrews 11.

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. 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. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. 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.

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. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 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. (Heb. 11:8-16)

Abraham was called to leave his people for Canaan, yet he lived as a sojourner in the land. Why? Because he sought a more excellent country. He did not seek a city made by the hands of men but by the hands of God. He sought Heaven above.

Not only Abraham but all the saints of old sought their true heavenly homeland as they sojourned on Earth. Even while in the earthly promised land, they lived as strangers and exiles. Their true homeland is in Heaven, in the city that God prepared for them and opened to them through the sacrifice of Christ.

Jerusalem on Earth is not the goal. Canaan on Earth is not the goal. Just as returning to animal sacrifices would be an affront to Christ’s sacrificial death, seeking the old land of promise would be an affront to Christ’s work in attaining for us Sabbath rest in Heaven. Canaan and animal sacrifices were but shadows. Christ and his benefits are the substance.

In Christ, all the earthly types found in the Old Testament are fulfilled. Jeremiah and Ezekiel used the language of an earthly promise familiar to the people at the time. However, the entire Apostolic witness reveals that the land promise made to Abraham and renewed in the New Covenant is ultimately about Heaven, not an earthly city. And unlike Canaan, Heaven is a land that can never be lost. For unlike Canaan below, tenure in Heaven above depends not on our righteousness in this life. It is secured forever by the perfect righteous work of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Jesus, who has led us out of bondage to sin, who now leads us through our wilderness wanderings on Earth, shall lead us to our final rest in the promised land. For even now, we, along with those saints who have departed before us, await the coming day when there shall be a new heavens and a new earth. And in that new heavens and new earth we, the bride of Christ, shall dwell forever in the New Jerusalem for we shall be that heavenly city (Rev. 21:1-2). We shall live in eternal peace under the consummated rule of Jesus the son of David. All of God’s people shall be gathered there to dwell incorruptible in their resurrected bodies fit to worship the Triune God, world without end.

Heaven is what God promised to Abraham and his offspring. Heaven is what Abraham sought, and Heaven is what we, the offspring of Abraham, seek as well. There we shall find our Sabbath rest.