John 14:1-27: The Comfort Of God’s Presence

By J. Lanier Burns

[J. Lanier Burns is Senior Professor of Systematic Theology and Research Professor of Theological Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas.]

Abstract

Believers may easily become distracted by empty definitions of success or feel abandoned to the harsh realities of life. These same emotions confronted the disciples as they struggled with the announcement of Jesus’s departure. Jesus reassured his disciples in John 14 that their greatest comfort in the world would be the presence of God. Through rabbinic-style dialogues, Jesus promised that God’s presence through the indwelling Spirit carries obedient believers through trying circumstances with a gifted love, joy, and peace.

* * *

Jesus’s farewell to his disciples included an intriguing promise, “I will not leave you as orphans.” What did this mean for them, and what does it mean for us? One of the most difficult problems for most people has been loneliness that is hard to define and therefore hard to deal with. In Frederick Buechner’s words, “Loneliness is awareness of an emptiness which takes more than people to fill.”[1] In general it can come from a situation as trivial as being ignored in a store where we intend to spend our hard-earned money. We want eye contact, a smile, and the assurance that we will be helped as quickly as possible. In the rush or boredom of today’s world, we want some indication of our significance, even if most of our “friends” will not bother to read our obituary. The feelings of anxiety and fear become more intense with severe illness, imminent danger, or a feeling of abandonment in difficult circumstances. An acquaintance wrote to me in appreciation for a kind word, “When I needed love the most, I felt that no one was there to provide it. It fostered a sense of not being valued, worthlessness, depression, neglect, and bitterness.” The problem can cause poor choices in relationships and daily decisions. It is universal, and, in its extreme form, becomes athazagoraphobia. When we feel abandoned, we crave supportive companionship or the familiar surroundings of “home.”

Loneliness frequently surfaces in the Bible, and lack of attention to its characters’ needs leads to shallow interpretations of narratives. Causes and characteristics of loneliness emerge in John 14: abandonment (or being orphaned), fear, anxiety, a desire for wisdom in inexplicable circumstances, the comforts of home, and, supremely, a sense of the presence of God. The chapter presents an approach to this need in a way that bypasses pious platitudes; it mandates brotherly love “with skin on it,” where hearts can rest in God’s presence (1 John 3:16-19). Buechner counsels biblical love as an antidote to the fear that is associated with a sense of abandonment: “Jesus tells us to love our neighbors in the sense of working for their well-being even if it means sacrificing our own well-being to that end.”[2]

According to the church fathers, John wrote during the last decade of the first century, when Domitian sought worship and persecuted the church.[3] John was the last of the generation that personally experienced the earthly ministry of the Lord. John 14 promises a Trinitarian presence, through the indwelling Spirit, that carries obedient believers through trying circumstances with a gifted love, joy, and peace. This article expounds a portion of the chapter, where Jesus’s announcement of his departure had prompted in his disciples fear that they would be abandoned. Its governing theme is that believers’ greatest comfort in the world is the presence of God. Also it seeks to clarify the chapter’s dialogical structure that is marked by Jesus’s response to his disciples’ inquiries about his identity, the Godhead’s presence, and the looming hostility of the world. The aim is to more fully understand conceptual and theological issues from John’s perspective: agapeic love, the Way-Truth-Life, Trinitarian relationships, the role of the Paraclete, and the gift of peace. A result should be a gain of insight about how to enjoy a greater measure of comfort in God’s indwelling Spirit, so often taken for granted.

The Background Of The Discourse

The turning point in John’s Gospel occurs after chapter 12, when Jesus turned from his public appeal for faith in the Son to his private preparation of his followers for his departure. “It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. . . . He now showed them the full extent of his love” (13:1). He prepared them for his atonement with his characteristic emphasis on humility. He rose from the evening meal and washed his disciples’ feet, which vividly illustrated servant leadership (cf. Matt. 20:20, 18; Mark 7:33-10:35). “ ‘Do you understand what I have done for you?’ he asked them . . . ‘Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you’ ” (John 13:12-15). He then gave them “a new command” that was based on the great commands to love God and neighbors: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (vv. 34-35).[4] The distinctive newness of the command is in the example of Jesus (cf. 1 John 3:16-24; 4:7-12).

John 14:1-27 then concerns the comfort of God’s abiding presence after the glorification of the Son. Obviously, the disciples were troubled by the thought of Jesus’s departure, and the passage is bracketed by an emphasis on their anxiety: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. . . . Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid.”[5] Their fear is identified in verse 18 as abandonment in a hostile world: “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”[6] They certainly knew about the growing hostility of his enemies, for in 11:8 they responded to his resolve to return to Judea by saying, “A short while ago the Jews were trying to stone you, and yet you are going back there?” They knew that the miracle of Lazarus’s resurrection was followed by the Sanhedrin’s plots to kill both Jesus and Lazarus (11:53; 12:10). The disciples were aware of the rejection of the Jews, even if they did not fully comprehend it (12:37-43). And Jesus acknowledged that they were “full of grief” when he promised persecution, a message that he had delayed because “I was with you” (16:1-6). In brief, they did not expect a comforting presence, because he was “with them” and yet would somehow leave. In the anxieties of the moment, Jesus promised to give them his peace: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives” (14:27). The promised peace was a personal contentment in the presence of the indwelling Spirit. His departure would be “for their good” (16:7), because the Spirit would “indwell” them to enable their abiding in him (15:1-17) in view of the persistent hatred of the world for him and his followers (15:18-16:33).[7] In accord with the new covenantal promise in Ezekiel 36:26-27, “You know him for he lives with you and will be in you” (John 14:17), on the last and climactic day of the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus had promised that streams of living water would flow from within believers. “By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified” (7:37-39). The world could only wish for even the faintest facsimile of the blessing of God’s gift (Gal. 5:20 versus v. 22).

Jesus’s departure to be with the Father and the procession of the Spirit (cf. John 15:26) form one of the most complete biblical descriptions of the Trinity, and the expositor is the Son of God himself! John 14-16 is usually titled “The Upper Room Discourse” or Jesus’s “Farewell Discourse,” which is followed by the Son’s lengthy prayer to the Father in chapter 17. Chapter 1414 may be described more precisely as a rabbinic dialogue, with Jesus responding to questions by Thomas (v. 5), Philip (v. 8), and Judas (not Iscariot) (v. 22). There is ample precedent for this dialogical style in the Gospel: the discussion of rebirth with Nicodemus in chapter 3, an explanation of the bread and water of life in 6-7, the debate about family and fatherhood in 8, the narrative on faith and sight in 9, and the demonstration of resurrection and life in 11. Each stage of the dialogue in John 14 is themed by terms that are explained in the passages that follow: way (v. 4), Father (v. 7), and family versus world (v. 17).[8]

The initial verses of John 14 keynote the need for the disciples’ faith—an abiding faith in the Father and the Son—to experience comfort in trials before their future inheritance in Jesus’s presence.[9] His emphatic claim was “I and the Father are one,” a statement of deity that solidified the Jews’ charge of “blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God” (10:30-33; cf. him to receive his peace in the world (14:1). He was going to the Father’s house to prepare dwelling places for believers.[10]

The Dialogue About The Way, The Truth, And The Life

The Lord provoked the initial exchange by saying, “You know the way to the place where I am going” (14:4), a topographical reference to which he had already alluded as their later destination (13:36).[11] Thomas responded, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way” (14:5), underscoring their curiosity about a spacial destination.[12] In light of the Gospel as a whole, Jesus’s “departure” is a “return” from a mission; he was on a journey as a divine emissary who came into the world with full awareness that he would be returning to his Father (cf. 1:18; 17:5).[13]Jesus answered with a characteristic identifier in John, an “I am” claim, personalizing the question, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (14:6). “Trusting in Christ” through the Spirit meant following him according to his time and calling, a “way” that became synonymous with followers of Christ in the early church (cf. Acts 9:2; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22).[14] Hence, “way” does not refer to directions for a journey, but rather a commitment to follow Jesus in the Spirit as in John 12:26.[15] As chapter 15 will make abundantly clear, “abiding in the vine” is the way to experience the presence of God until he returns.[16] He added “the truth and the life” to his identifier, meaning that as God he is life.[17] Stevick writes, “Jesus is not saying that he knows and points others to the way; he is the way. . . . The johannine sense of ‘truth’ derives from the Hebraic sense of truth as characteristic of persons and of relationships . . . In the johannine view, humanity only truly lives in relation to God” (cf. 1:4; 1 John 5:20).[18] The claims would have been stunning in their juxtaposition at this stage of Jesus’s earthly ministry: “the Way” was about to be glorified through the despised cross; “the Truth” was about to be condemned by his own people and family; and “the Life” was about to be a battered corpse in a dark tomb. In the “Way” of Christ, the “way” of the church will follow with persecution, hostility, martyrdom, and complete victory in him.[19]

The Dialogue About Trinitarian Presence

“From now on, you do know him and have seen him,” Jesus continued and so provoked a second part of the dialogue, because the disciples would behold the Father’s glory through the indwelling Spirit (cf. John 1:14).[20] Philip initiated the second exchange with a request “to show us the Father and that will be enough” (14:8). Jesus’s response extends to verse 22 and contains some of our most profound revelation about the Trinity. In a wounded way Jesus observed that Philip had not really come to know his oneness with the Father, even though the Son had been among them for a long time. In so far as the disciples had not recognized the Father in him, they still had not truly known him. “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?” He added that they should “believe on the evidence of the works themselves” (v. 11).[21]

The church has traditionally explained the Trinity with the categories of essence (ontology), persons, and roles. The meaning of Jesus’s explanation hinged on his use of “in.” When he affirmed that “I and the Father are one,” he was saying that they are fully God in essence, which the Jews understood, as evidenced by their charge of blasphemy. However, “I and the Father” and “I and the Father are mutually ‘in’ one another” indicate a personal distinction at the same time. Jesus never said, “I am the Father.” When he stated that the Father speaks and works through him (14:10-11), distinctive roles were affirmed as well. Jesus attributed his roles as Savior and Judge as gifts from the Father (3:22, 26), and he asserted that “the Father is greater than I” (14:28; cf. 10:29). Biblical doctrine will not permit a confusion of essence and person with the clear, voluntary subordination of roles, which Jesus revealed as our model for ministry.[22] Thus, we accomplish the will and work of God without being divine; our good works are the result of our obedience to the indwelling Spirit. John 17, Jesus’s lengthy prayer to the Father, states that his filial obedience to the Father serves as the supreme example for our submission to God as we continue his ministry in (yet not of) the world (17:18-23).[23]

The same emphasis on believers’ continuation of his ministry until Jesus returns is evident in 14:12-21. The incarnate ministry of his followers will conform to the pattern of the Son under the Father as in chapters 1-121-12, involving faith (14:1) so that they can preach the Word and do the works of God (vv. 10-12; cf. 17:18). They will be able to do even more than this, because Jesus will go to the Father and pray for the indwelling presence of the Spirit in their lives. We must realize that the discourse is for people who are serious about their beliefs and their relationships with their fellow believers. This is not material for superficial faith or shallow commitment, even if we find ourselves among Jesus’s questioning disciples. Jesus stated, “The person who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (12:25). The intimacy of the Spirit will align the obedient believer with the character and will of the Son under the Father with global outreach (14:13-14). All of this will bring glory to the Father by contributing to his creational will on earth (cf. 17:1-5). “In my name” means “ask as if I were asking,” an expression that undergirds believers’ intimate access to the Trinity’s ministry on earth. The blind man expressed the theological point in 9:31: “If any man is a worshipper of God, and does his will, God hears him.” Ministry in this perspective will prioritize prayer, because the believer must love God in ministry in order to obey the definitive mandate to love other believers in this hostile world (14:15; cf. 15:9-17). Service is to be in the strength of the Lord in light of his presence, and this requires constant communication, as the Son exemplified in communion with his Father.[24] It is to be a ministry of joyous fellowship with the Father and the Son in spite of encounters with enemies along the way (cf. 1 John 1:3-4).

In his glorification Jesus will pray to the Father for the Spirit, surely one of the greatest prayer requests in all of history (John 14:16).

Prayers in his name are to be motivated by the Son’s example of seeking the glory of the Father. These prayers will assuredly be answered. This is not a “grocery list of needs” that the name of Christ will magically meet; however, it may be a list that expresses dependence on the Trinity for the needs in his family. It also requires a life of prayer in the Spirit as we serve by “washing feet” until he returns. Life in the flesh is filled with daily pressures and temptations in a self-centered culture. Life in the Spirit is humble, long-suffering involvement among believers, even while pressured by the ceaseless clamor of a sinful world all around.

The Son would pray for the procession of “another Paraclete” like himself who will be with the family of believers “unto the age,”[25] when Jesus will personally rule over the world that he has overcome (16:33; cf. Matt. 28:20). The notion of παράκλητος is central to the John 14 discourse, with nuances of one called alongside to help, an advocate, a comforter, and an encourager among other nuances.[26] It has a forensic implication in 1 John 2:1, but scholars agree that it is much broader in the discourse. Brown concluded, “By way of summary we find that no one translation of παράκλητος captures the complexity of the functions, forensic and otherwise, that this figure has. . . . We would probably be wise also in modern times to settle for ‘Paraclete,’ a near-transliteration that preserves the uniqueness of the title and does not emphasize one of the functions to the detriment of others.”[27] John clearly presents the paraclete Spirit as the personal representative of the paraclete Son after Jesus’s departure to be with the Father. This has two important implications for the Trinity and biblical interpretation.

First, it means that the Spirit is a Person in the Godhead who is equivalent to the Father and the Son. His role parallels the early ministry of Jesus, so they are “equally personal.” Brown noted, “John’s interest is not that of later Trinitarian theology where the main problem will be to show the distinction between Jesus and the Spirit; John is interested in the similarity between the two.”[28]

Second, the Son and the Spirit become another example of tandem relationships in which one biblical figure died and left another to continue his ministry: Moses/Joshua, Elijah/Elisha, and the Baptist/Jesus. The second figure is closely patterned on the first. Joshua and Elisha received a full enablement of God’s gift of the Spirit, and the Baptist inaugurated the coming of the Spirit upon Messiah. Now, God himself will indwell his people until the Lord’s return. John identified his “proxy” presence as “the Spirit of the Truth” (14:17).[29] The Spirit will not only be with them, as Christ had been, but he will be “in them” according to the new covenantal promise noted above (v. 17; cf. 7:37-39).

This kind of ministry by believers will be incomprehensible to the world: “The world cannot accept the Spirit, because it neither sees him nor knows him. . . . Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me” (vv. 17, 19). In the same sense that the Father can be seen in the words and works of the Son, so believers will be able to see the abiding presence of the Son in the Spirit who indwells them. Jesus characterized the world as hating the family of God, even as it hated him (15:18), persecuting the servants of the Savior because their continuation of his ministry will expose its willful unbelief (cf. 15:18-25; 17:14). In John’s characteristic antitheses, “earth below” stands in contrast to “heaven above.” Carson explains, “The ‘world’ in John is a symbol for all that is in rebellion against God, all that is loveless and disobedient, all that is selfish and sinful. . . . This ugly, sinful, rebellious world, this sewer of infidelity, this glut of endless selfishness, this habitation of cruelty, this lover of violence, this promoter of greed, this maker of idols—this world God loved, and loved so much that he sent his Son.”[30] Indeed the Spirit will convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment, and ungodly enemies will respond by killing believers as a “service to God” (16:1-11; cf. Acts 12). “In the world,” Jesus concluded, “you will have trouble” (John 16:33), and he later prayed for believers’ protection, since they are not to be of the world (17:14-18).

Jesus will give believers his life in this world of death, life flowing from his resurrected presence in their lives: “because I live, you will live also” (14:19). “Before long . . . On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you (vv. 21-22; 17:21).[31] The resurrection would radically affect the disciples’ thinking, as Acts displays. In a word, it was better for Jesus to depart, so that believers could enter into Trinitarian life and ministry. The present tense communicates that “in a little while” they would know him in a way that they had not known him before. They will “see” the resurrected Lord and will possess the promise of his life for their future (cf. John 11:25-26). These verses are unmistakably Christological in emphasis. Jesus will depart from the world, but he departs to be with the Father—and with them as Life. For then his going will also be his coming, for now his disciples are included in the indwelling that existed between the Son and the Father. As noted earlier, this is not a oneness of essence or personhood, for only the Trinity is God. It is a Spirit-enabled oneness of mission that will continue Christ’s exemplary earthly sojourn.

One must add, because of modern individualism, that the “in” terminology applies to the fellowship of the church as well (cf. 1 John 1:3-4).[32] This means that we, as individuals, are called to sacrificially serve the “indwelt” believers around us, simply because we are all in him. John thought of the church as the family of God, beginning in 1:12, where “to all who received him . . . he gave the right to become children of God.” His language for salvation was “rebirth” into the family of God in John 3. In 1 John he usually identifies believers as “children,” with τεκνιον referring to a child in the family of God (1 John 3:1-2), while παιδεια (2:14) refers to infancy in the faith in need of training for maturity. Köstenberger states, “Thus ‘in’ terminology culminates in Jesus’s prayer for his disciples’ unity, not as an end in itself, but for the sake of his followers’ mission to the world. . . . The Father, Jesus, and the Spirit are said to indwell the disciples, and the result is to be the disciples’ unity (and love) among each other, in keeping with the unity (and love) characteristic of the persons of the Godhead.”[33]

The ones who abide in Trinitarian life are believers “who have my commands and obey them” (John 14:21).[34] Love in the family expresses obedience and is rewarded by the love of the Father—“and I too will love such a person and manifest (ἐμφανίσω) myself to him.” Christianity was designed by God to be a covenantal family—an interpersonal, reciprocal bonding of Jesus, the Father, and their people.

The Dialogue About Revelation In The Family

In the third part of the dialogue, Judas (not Iscariot) asks, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?” (v. 22). The disciples had not comprehended the blindness of the world, and they were apparently confused by the Lord’s departure, the world being the only conceivable place for his kingdom. Ἐμφανíζω was used in Exodus 33:13-18 (LXX) when Moses prayed, “Show yourself to me,” and Yahweh granted his request. The verb and its cognates were used later in conjunction with Jesus’s resurrection appearances. Beasley-Murray proposed that Judas expected a startling theophany akin to Moses at Sinai. In his words, “The theophany that Judas expects, however, is that of the greater Exodus of the Messiah when he manifests his power in the judgment of the nations and the glory of his kingdom.”[35] Jesus answered with a repetition of the obedience-as-love guideline of verse 21. Here, however, the Father is the focus. He will love “obedient lovers,” and he and the Son will make their “home” (cf. μονήν and in 14:2) with the believer (v. 23). According to Stevick, “The Father will come and dwell where he is loved and his word is kept.”[36] The negative corollary was true as well, “He who does not love me will not obey my teaching” (v. 24). In other words, the world will not receive revelation because its unbelief blinds it to knowing God. These seemingly harsh judgments “belong to the Father who sent me,” reflecting the point of verse 10. Jesus grounded his authority in his faithfulness to Trinitarian relationships, even as believers’ authority should be based on their fidelity to God’s Word.

Jesus had faithfully “exegeted” God (1:18) and had spoken about the Truth “while still with you” (14:25). He would continue to “show himself” through “the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name.” As before, Jesus is the model for the coming Paraclete. This second reference to the Paraclete/Spirit contains the only reference to the “Holy Spirit” in the Gospel. The continuities between the Son and Spirit are reaffirmed; he will be sent from the Father in Jesus’s name to remind them of everything Jesus had taught them (v. 26). Both the procession and the teaching depend on proper Trinitarian roles. Yet he is not Jesus. He is a distinct Person like the Son, and his ministry will maintain the memory of the unique Son and Savior of the world for future generations. Ramsey Michaels describes this pivotally important relationship as follows:

What Jesus does for them now, ‘another advocate’ will continue to do after his departure, for in spite of all he has said about mutual indwelling, his departure is real. With this, the ‘other advocate’ takes on a definite identity, and with it a title, along with a job description . . . The effect of the ‘he’ is to highlight the personality of ‘the Advocate,’ corresponding to the personal ‘I’ who speaks. The Advocate, moreover, will do things only a person can do, the very things Jesus has done from the start.[37]

The culmination of the passage is a benediction of peace, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you” (v. 27). The promise of peace is stunning and must be analyzed carefully, since it answers the need of the disciples who were troubled and fearful. First, this is the first use of peace in the Gospel and is a blessing rather than a greeting, the latter being apropos in 20:19, 21, and 26. In 20:21, however, “peace with you” is coupled with “as the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (cf. 17:18), which is a part of John’s argument in John 14.

Second, it is “my peace,” which is not mere absence of conflict or trials for Jesus and his followers. Peace for Christ meant his oneness with the Father in bringing eternal life to the family of God in this world of death.

Third, it is a gift of God (“I give you”) rather than a quest for one of the deepest human ideals. The promise is made immediately after the promise of the Paraclete, who will bestow his “fruit” of peace (Gal. 5:22) on those who “serve one another in love” (v. 13). Similarly, 2 Corinthians begins with “praise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God” (1:3-4). Paul highlights the gifting of peace in Philippians 4:6-7, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer . . . and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” We have “seen” believers who have endured difficult relationships at home and work, have suffered severe illnesses, or have experienced incredible losses peacefully in the Lord. We have “seen” believers enjoy amazing blessing and success without self-congratulatory displays. This is the extraordinary testimony of the apostolic church in Acts 9:31, “Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace and was strengthened. Living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged (παρακλήσει) by the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers.”

Fourth, God’s peace is associated with a right relationship with God and his people, a way of trust that carries us through circumstances without loss of commitment to the Way.

Negatively regarding peace, Isaiah 59:8 includes among consequences of unbelief that “the way of peace they do not know; there is no justice in their paths. They have turned them into crooked roads; no one who walks in them will know peace.” Paul quotes this in Romans 3:27 as part of a catena about the human condition. He answered the need for salvation with “the righteousness from God that comes through faith in Jesus Christ.” Peace, therefore, is a gift of the Paraclete, who promotes loving obedience to “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” The Spirit, the presence of God in the believer, constantly reminds us that our glorification in Christ is the answer to our deepest need regardless of temporal circumstances. God’s presence in the believer overcomes fear (16:33).

On the other hand, “I do not give to you as the world gives.” The world promotes the comforts of might and power but not God’s Spirit (Zech. 4:6); they are transitory mirages that amount to mere wishes rather than trustworthy promises. We have “seen” rebellion in a loveless world with its infidelities, self-promotions, cruelties, violence, and idolatries. We have “seen” its denial of evil and blindness to its own judgments under God. Augustus erected an altar of peace (the Ara Pacis) in Rome to himself to celebrate his establishment of an “age of peace.” It became a monument to the skill of its artisans rather than to the “messianic” pretensions of its imperial sponsor.[38] There has been no respite from war from pre-Roman times to modernity. “While people are saying, ‘Peace and safety,’ destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape” (1 Thess. 5:3).

Conclusion

The primary question that confronts us in John 14 is Where do we find God’s peace in the anxieties of life? These anxieties can breed loneliness that leads to feelings of abandonment. Most of us in the modern world confuse the encouragement of our successes and accomplishments with “God’s peace.” We enjoy our culture’s excitement over competition and victories more than “godliness with contentment.” We celebrate large meetings and conferences, the esteem of our peers, or the advantages of a prosperous lifestyle. Such celebrations flow from our awareness that God wants us to serve well. He wants us to live significantly. But John 14 clearly teaches that God’s best for us is his presence in our lives. Quests for prestige and pleasure, a desire for fortune, and a drive for worldly power will ultimately leave life empty. John was emphatic, “God is love!” as exemplified by the incarnation and glorification of the Son. He used a small band of well-intentioned followers to spread a message of the sufficiency of God’s presence through Christ’s accomplishment and the Spirit’s constant encouragement. In the upper room in a rabbinical-dialogue format, Jesus riveted the disciples’ attention on his identity as he left the world to prepare a home for his followers before returning triumphantly, a way that all believers share. The foundation of God’s peace is the Trinitarian presence in believer’s lives. Throughout the Gospel the Son and the Father are “in” one another, and upon Jesus’s departure the Paraclete/Spirit will bring believers into the Trinity’s mission on earth. This ministry is to be a continuation of the Son’s earthly sojourn and should be characterized by love and prayer as his was. Such devotion to the ministry of the Word gives life its purpose, even if we have to die for it. We should not be surprised by the hostility of the world, because it has hated Christ and his family for their exposure of its sin. God will love believers who lovingly “wash feet,” and he will show his peace to them in spite of circumstances. The world has tried to offer its answers in behalf of peaceful ideals, but throughout history it has only manifested war—and will do so until the return of the Lord. We must constantly ask ourselves if we are living prayerfully with a profound awareness of his loving presence. This is the biblical antidote for the inevitable trials of this life. We have not been “orphaned,” and we have been invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Notes

1. Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark: ABC Theologized (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), 75-76.
2. Frederick Buechner, Listening to Your Life (San Francisco: Harper, 1992), 242. This emphasis on agapeic love in God’s family parallels Paul’s argument in Philippians 2:1-5.
3. The Roman background accounts in part for John’s view of “the world.” See Henry Bettenson, ed., Documents of the Christian Church, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), 27. He records that Papias (ca. 130, from Eusebius according to Irenaeus) was a student (“hearer”) of John (=apostle, elder). The Muratorian Canon (second century) stated, “The fourth gospel is that of John, one of the disciples. . . . When his fellow disciples and bishops exhorted him, he said, ‘Fast with me for three days, and then let us relate to each other whatever may be revealed to each of us.’ On the same night it was revealed to Andrew, one of the Apostles, that John should narrate all things in his own name as they remembered them . . .,” ibid., 28. One can note the martyrdom of Antipas in Pergamum, a center of imperial worship in Asia, in this regard (Rev 2:13).
4. The word group for “love” occurs twelve times in John 1-12 and forty-five times in John 13-21, underscoring the transition in the Gospel at this juncture. Daniel Stevick captures the distinctive emphasis on agapeic love: “The convincing sign of love is crucial. Love among believers constitutes Jesus’s credentials before the world” (Jesus and His Own: A Commentary on John 13-17 [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011], 105). Agapeic love is not only John’s clarion call (cf. 15:9-10), but it is also “the greatest of abiding values” in Paul’s priorities (1 Cor. 13:13).
5. The verb ταράσσω (“trouble”) was used earlier to describe his response to the grief of Mary and others at the tomb of Lazarus and is used synonymously with “groaned” and “deeply moved.” The verb is used in 12:27, “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.” In 13:21 Jesus uses the verb in connection with the declaration of his betrayal. In Ezekiel 32:2 (LXX) the word is used metaphorically of a stormy sea (cf. John 6:19-20).
6. The metaphor of “orphans” was not unusual in John’s setting; the disciples of the rabbis were said to be orphaned at their mentor’s death (H. L. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, 6 vols. [Munich: Beck, 1922-1961], 2:562). Ὀρφανός is one of two terms that John uses in contrast to ἀγάπη. It refers to the loneliness of abandonment or loss (that is, a feeling of being “unloved”). The other term is μισέω (“to hate, regard with ill-will, or detest”), which is used of the world’s view of Jesus and his followers (15:18-25) and even of intra-family conflict (1 John 2:9, 11; 3:13-15; 4:20). Hatred within the family seems to have been illustrated by Diotrephes in 3 John 9. In a similar vein, Paul stringently warned against ἐριθεíα in Galatians 5:20 and Philippians 2:3.
7. Barnabas Lindars arranges the chapters of the discourse according to 13:31-38 in reverse order. Chapter 1414, in his view, answers the question of Peter, “Where are you going?” (13:16). Jesus goes to the Father, and his departure entails a new relationship between him and the disciples. His earthly mission will be continued through them with the aid of the Spirit. Chapter 1515 expounds the command to love one another (13:34-35), followed by a warning about martyrdom (). Chapter 1616 expounds the “little while” mentioned in 13:33 (The Gospel of John, New Century Bible Commentaries [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972], 466-67).
8. Jesus had been primarily revealed as Son of God and Son of Man, but his contemporaries seem to have thought of him as a rabbi/teacher. Nicodemus, for example, addressed him as “Israel’s teacher” (John 3:10). On occasion, like the foot washing (ch. 13) and his preparation of breakfast.
9. Trusting the Father and the Son in 14:1 involves an exegetical problem as to whether one or both of the verbs should be understood as indicative or imperative. In view of the oneness of Father and Son in John, it seems best to understand both verbs as imperatives, demonstrating the importance of faith in days to come. The imperatives cohere with the Gospel’s purpose, “That you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name”.
10. The term sometimes translated “rooms” is μοναί (a single dwelling). The only other use of this word in the New Testament is in verse 23, where Jesus tells the disciples that he and the Father will make their “home” (μονήν) with obedient believers.
11. Jesus initiates the first two parts of the dialogue with an assurance of knowledge that the disciples did not possess at this point: “you know the way” (v. 4) and “you know the Father” (v. 7). The third part, initiated by Judas (not Iscariot), clarifies a misunderstanding; namely, you will know what the world does not know (v. 22).
12. Thomas’s question may be paired with Peter’s in 13:36, “Lord, where are you going?”
13. Cf. John Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), 451. Additionally, “Jesus Christ is the ‘place’ where men of any time or place can at last be free of ‘place’ in true worship of God” (John Marsh, Saint John [Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1968], 501).
14. Raymond Brown suggests that “the Way” reflects a “chain of usage” originating in the Old Testament and continuing through the Baptist’s “way of the Lord” to its focus on the Lord Jesus in Johannine Christology (The Gospel according to John, XIII—XXI, Anchor Bible [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970], 628-30). For levels of understanding in “the way” of temple imagery from Jerusalem through discipleship to the eternal temple, the reader may consult James McCaffrey, The House with Many Rooms: The Temple Theme of John 14, 2-3, Analecta Biblica (Rome: Pontificio Instituto, 1988).
15. John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress illustrates 14:6. Christian encounters Formalist and Hypocrisy who join him by jumping over a wall rather than coming in by the Gate. Christian calls them thieves for not following the way of the Master. They responded that the Gate was too far and that their custom was to find a shortcut to go from the Land of Boasting to Mount Zion for their praise (The Pilgrim’s Progress, ed. Roger Sharrock [London: Penguin, 1987], 83-84).
16. Jesus had taught that he would be the “resurrected temple,” a person instead of a place, where the presence of God was to be experienced. Insightfully, John had noted, “His disciples recalled what he had said” after he was resurrected, meaning that they were still confused in the upper room (2:18-22). B. F. Westcott added to the notion of destination, “The pronoun is emphatic, and at once turned the thoughts of the apostles from a method to a Person” (The Gospel according to St. John, reprint ed. [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967], 202).
17. Some scholars have argued that way, truth, and life should be merged as “the true way of life” or its equivalent. However, a comparison with other uses of three terms linked by “and” in the Gospel indicates that John meant for them to be distinct. For example, in 16:8, “righteousness and judgment” should not be viewed as blended expansions of “sin.”
18. Stevick, Jesus and His Own, 126-28.
19. Carson states, “It is first and foremost an exposition of Jesus’s ‘going away’ to his Father via the cross. It is elemental theology; and only as such does it offer encouragement and consolation” (Farewell Discourse, 19).
20. There are two verbs for knowing in John 14. Οἶδα seems to suggest an expected comprehension of information, while γινώσκω points to an interpersonal knowing of another person (14:7, 9; 17:3). Scholars have cautioned that the verbs can be virtually interchangeable. The profoundest knowing in this context, however, is revelational rather than intellectual. For John a “believer” is an indwelt “knower.”
21. Jesus’s reference here is probably to the seven signs with which he authenticated his earthly ministry: the changing of water into wine; the healings of the nobleman’s son, the lame man, and the blind man; the feeding of the multitude, the walking on water, and the raising of Lazarus from death. The emphasis on sight in the Gospel continues in chapter 1414: “we have seen his glory” (1:14), “you have seen him” (14:8-9), “you will see me” (vv. 17-18). This language points to the preservation of eyewitness testimony as the apostolic generation passed away. The imminent death of the “beloved disciple” around the end of the first century would have been traumatic for the nascent church. The juxtaposition of “know” and “seen” is noteworthy in this regard. John was the eyewitness par excellence and the last living link to the earthly ministry of Jesus. John seems to have written for later generations of the church as well, who would “see” the living Father and Spirit through biblical truths as illumined by the Spirit.
22. “We are now very close to the sublime mystery of the Trinity. That the word Trinity is not found in the Scripture should occasion no alarm. The word itself is nothing more than a convenient way of referring to God as he has revealed himself: as one, unique, yet eternally existing in three persons all equally God, of one substance yet distinct in role” (Carson, The Farewell Discourse, 49).
23. For an extended treatment of John’s “Trinitarian community,” see Royce Gordon Gruenler, The Trinity in the Gospel of John: A Thematic Commentary on the Fourth Gospel (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986).
24. Jesus was so utterly dependent on his Father’s direction that whatever he said or did was nothing less than what his Father said or did. “This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did” (1 John 2:5-6).
25. In English we have one word for “another.” Greek has at least two common terms. Ἓτερος refers to another of a different kind; ἄλλος, which is used here, means another of the same kind.
26. J. N. Sanders even translated Paraclete as “Champion” (The Gospel according to St. John, ed. B. A. Mastin, Harper Commentaries [New York: Harper & Son, 1968], 325-26).
27. Brown, John, 1137; and Raymond Brown, “The Paraclete in the Fourth Gospel,” New Testament Studies 13 (1966-67): 113-32. Hans Windisch referred to the Spirit as Jesus’s “Doppelgänger,” or alter ego (“Die fünf johanneische Parakletsprüche,” in Festgabe für Adolf Jülicher zum 70. Geburtstag [Tübingen: Mohr, 1927], 129).
28. Brown, John, 1141.
29. “Truth” is unexplained in this context along with other concepts that beg for full explanation. It may refer to the deity of the third person of the Trinity, who will reveal truths of the Word of God after the Son’s glorification, as in 16:13-15. Or, it may serve as a marker of true worship, as in 4:24, “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.” In John 14, where the issue is the comfort of God’s abiding presence, the best translation may be “the Spirit of the Truth” (14:17; cf. 14:6), understanding a multi-nuanced richness of meaning to include finality and fullness of revelation along with a continuity between Christ and the Spirit. That is, he will be one “like” Christ. Köstenberger presents a helpful summary: “While the term ‘Trinity’ is not yet used, the Trinitarian framework is firmly in place: the Father, Jesus, and the Spirit are said to indwell the disciples, and the result is to be the disciples’ unity (and love) among each other characteristic of the persons of the Godhead. . . . In a very real sense, the covenant phrase ‘I will be their God and they will be my people’ has now been expanded to the formulation ‘I in them and you in me’ (17:23)” (Encountering John, 155). Paul makes this connection with the theme of Trinitarian presence in Romans 8:9-11: “You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.
30. Carson, Farewell Discourse, 58.
31. The Fourth Gospel contains at least fifty-three theologically significant “in” phrases describing the mutual “in” dwelling of the Father, Son, Spirit, and believers. This characteristic of Johannine thought becomes even more pronounced in 1 John, where persons are described as being “in” one another almost fifty times in five chapters. John 14:20-23 led the church fathers to interpret these promises as the indwelling of the Trinity in the believer.
32. Fellowship with God and other believers, Brodie reminds, is both individual and communitarian. The impulse of the Spirit brings “the individual further and further into community. . . . An orientation to other people is basic to the text” (Thomas Brodie, The Gospel according to John [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993], 431). This application to corporate realities is indicated by the fact that Jesus was addressing the disciples with the credential of agapeic love, which is an important theme in the epistles.
33. Köstenberger, Encountering John, 155.
34. “The plural commandments refers to the manifold application of the one command to love one another” (Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel, 458).
35. George R. Beasley-Murray, John, 2nd ed., Word Biblical Commentaries, vol. 36 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1999), 259.
36. Stevick, Jesus and His Own, 161.
37. J. Ramsey Michaels, The Gospel of John, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 791.
38. An inscription from Asia (9 BC), where John served, celebrated Augustus on his birthday: “Whereas the providence which divinely ordered our lives created with zeal and munificence the most perfect good for our lives by producing Augustus and filling him with virtue for the benefaction of mankind, sending us and those after us a savior who put an end to war and established all things” (cited in S. R. F. Price, Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984], 54).

From Deuteronomy To Hebrews: The Promised Land And The Unity Of Scripture

By Gareth Lee Cockerill

[Gareth Lee Cockerill has taught New Testament at Wesley Biblical Seminary, Jackson, Mississippi since 1984, where he also served as the Academic Dean and Professor of Biblical Interpretation and Theology. He earned his PhD from Union Theological Seminary. Dr. Cockerill has served with his wife, Rosa, for nine years as a missionary in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Dr. Cockerill has written numerous articles and book reviews for such journals as Tyndale Bulletin, Bulletin for Biblical Research, Journal of Biblical Literature, The Evangelical Quarterly, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Interpretation, and Missiology. He is also the author of The Epistle to the Hebrews (NICNT, Eerdmans, 2012) and A Guidebook for Pilgrims to the Heavenly City (William Carey, 2013).]

Introduction

“The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land” (Gen 12:7a). With these words God brought his promises to a climax. He had already promised to bless Abraham, to make him a great nation, and to bless the world through him (Gen 12:2–3). The land would be the place that gave concrete shape to fulfillment.

These promises to Abraham address the degenerate state of the human race depicted in Genesis 1–11. Through distrust and disobedience Adam and Eve have usurped God’s lordship over their lives and thus forfeited the divine presence, disrupted the harmony of human community derived from that presence, and suffered exile from Eden the place of blessing. They have become inhabitants of a world under God’s curse. Through faithful Abraham God begins the process of redemption. He promises to restore his presence, to establish a new community of people whose life and character reflect that presence, and through that community to offer blessing to an accursed world. He also promises to provide a blessed land as the locus for the fulfillment of these promises.

When we think of the unity of Scripture our minds turn to such concepts as divine presence, salvation history, promise, covenant, and kingdom.[1] The Promised Land, of course, is closely related to these themes: it is the place of God’s promised presence, as the context for covenant obedience it is an integral part of salvation history, and it is the locus for the initiation of restored divine rule. With the establishing of Davidic dynasty and the City of Jerusalem, the Temple becomes the focus of divine presence in the Land and thus together Temple and Land become the physical embodiment of God’s dwelling among his people. Recently N. T. Wright has argued for the Temple as a microcosm that anticipates “the Glory of the Lord” filling the entire cosmos. The God who dwelt in Eden as his Temple will fill a renewed heaven and earth with his presence. Thus the Temple and the Land become an anticipation of the New Jerusalem/Temple within a renewed creation.[2] While acknowledging this connection with city and Temple this study focuses more narrowly on the Land motif.

Perhaps the Land has received less attention in relationship to the unity of Scripture because it is more prominent in the Old Testament (OT) than in the New Testament (NT). However, the Land-theme is important because it gives substance and shape to the entire complex of Abrahamic promises. We might think of it as the basket that holds the other promises until final fulfillment. It is a bucket without which the promises leak through our fingers. And thus, without denying the importance of presence, covenant, salvation history, or kingdom, we offer this exploration of the Land’s contribution to the unity of Scripture as a stimulus for further discussion.

God begins to fulfill his promise in Exodus through Numbers by delivering Abraham’s now numerous descendants from slavery in Egypt and establishing a covenant with them at Sinai. His presence dwells in the Tabernacle at the center of their “camp.”[3] They have become the new community of the people of God who acknowledge his lordship. But the generation delivered from Egypt fails to enter the Promised Land due to persistent unbelief and rebellion against their Sovereign. Their behavior set a pattern too-often followed by succeeding generations. It is their children, however, that Moses addresses on the Plains of Moab in Deuteronomy as they are preparing to enter the Land. Arie C. Leder has suggested that the storyline of the Pentateuch sets the tone for the rest of the Bible by ending here in Deuteronomy with God’s people in the wilderness “waiting for the Land.”[4]

“Waiting For The Land:” From Deuteronomy To Hebrews

The Letter to the Hebrews is the NT book that most self-consciously adopts this approach to the Land. In order to understand Hebrews’ Land-perspective, however, we must grasp Hebrews’ understanding of the continuity of the people of God based on the continuity of God’s self-revelation.

In the opening chapters its author lays the foundation for the entire Book of Hebrews when he asserts that the God who spoke to “the fathers in the prophets” has now “spoken to us” in the incarnate, now exalted, eternal Son seated at his right hand (Heb 1:1–2). The author uses the term “prophets” with deliberate care for two reasons. First, it is general enough to encompass the entire OT, to include all of the “various times and various ways” God had spoken “of old.”[5] Second, the term “prophets” implies fulfillment of what is prophesied. All of God’s ancient word finds fulfillment in “one who is Son.” We, then, who have heard God speak in his Son are the heirs of those who received his ancient word. The people of God has always been constituted by, and called to respond to, the word of God.

God’s Covenant at Sinai, however, is the heart of his ancient self-revelation. Thus it is not surprising that the author of Hebrews focuses on the relationships (1) between the revelations mediated by the Son and at Sinai (Heb 1:5–2:18), (2) the resulting situations of those who received these revelations (Heb 3:1–6), and (3) their ultimate destinies (Heb 3:7–4:13).

First, in Hebrews 1:5–2:18 the author assumes that God’s word spoken “in one who is Son” fulfills the angel-mediated Sinai revelation (Heb 2:2) and establishes a relationship between those who have received these revelations.[6] That is why the consequences suffered by those who neglect the fulfillment are more certain than for those who disobeyed its anticipation under which “every violation and disobedience received its just punishment” (Heb 2:2).

Second, Hebrews 3:1–6 clarifies this assumed relationship between the recipients of the Sinai and Son-mediated revelations. Both “we” and the Sinai/wilderness generation are part of the one “household” of God. This identification of present believers as the continuation of those who stood around Sinai and then journeyed through the wilderness is fundamental not only to the author’s use of the wilderness generation as a warning in Hebrews 3:7–4:13, but also to his development of the fully-sufficient Priesthood of the eternal Son in Hebrews 4:14–10:18. Moses, the “steward” within that one household, “bore witness to the things that would be spoken” in “the Son” who rules over that household. The word that God spoke through his “steward” at Sinai established the Tabernacle with its priesthood, sacrifice, and covenant as means of approaching God. The word spoken in “one who is Son” fulfills all that those institutions anticipated.[7] Through his “once-for-all” sacrifice the Son has become both the fully-sufficient High Priest who ushers the faithful into God’s heavenly sanctuary during the course of their pilgrimage (Heb 4:14–10:18, but especially 10:19–25), and the “Pioneer” (Heb 2:10, 12:1–3) who, at his return (Heb 9:28), will bring God’s people into the final “rest” that is their true promised “homeland.”[8]

Third, the way in which the author uses the OT Promised-Land terminology of “rest” in Hebrews 3:7–4:13 confirms this unity between the present people of God with the wilderness generation by affirming that the ultimate goal of the people of God has always been the same. The “rest” that they forfeited, and that we their descendants must gain, was never simply the Promised Land that was entered under Joshua, but has always been the “Sabbath rest” into which God entered at the culmination of creation. The “my rest” of Psalm 95 is the rest forfeited by the wilderness generation through rebellion (Heb 4:6; cf. 4:3; 3:11, 18), the rest offered in the time of David (Heb 4:7–8), and the “rest” that “remains” for those addressed by Hebrews (Heb 4:9–11) and thus for the people of God “today.”[9] The Promised-Land imagery and the use of “rest” in contemporary sources indicate that this is not merely a blessed state but also a place where God’s people dwell in his presence.[10]

By a careful study of Hebrews hortatory style and use of Deuteronomy, David Allen has suggested that Hebrews is a re-presentation of that book.[11] There is continuity between those addressed by Deuteronomy and Hebrews. Moses addresses the children of the disobedient wilderness generation. Hebrews addresses its hearers as the children of that same generation. Both Moses and Hebrews remind their hearers of the consequences that ensued from that fateful refusal to enter the Land at Kadesh Barnea.[12] Both urge faithful obedience. Both anticipate entrance into the Land.

However, this continuity is a continuity of fulfillment. Moses addressed Israel on the plains of Moab as the children of the wilderness generation not merely because of physical descent but because they, too, had stood before Sinai (Deut 4:10, 15; 5:2).[13] Hebrews addresses its hearers as the heirs of the wilderness generation because they have received the fulfillment of Sinai in the Son. The Aaronic sacrificial system through which that generation approached God while traveling to the Promised Land has been fulfilled by the all-sufficient Great High Priest through whom God’s people persevere until entrance into the eternal “rest” foreshadowed by the earthly Promised Land.

This fulfillment brings the exponentially greater privilege of “such a great salvation” and the correspondingly greater responsibility of “how shall we escape” (Heb 2:3). It also confirms the continuity of the people of God throughout history as heirs of the same promise and bound for the same eternal “rest.”

By addressing the original children of the wilderness generation Moses addressed future generations of God’s people as those who stood before God’s revelation at Sinai in anticipation of the Promised Land.[14] So Hebrews addresses every generation of God’s people as those who have received God’s final revelation in the eternal, incarnate, now exalted High Priest who sits perpetually at the Father’s right hand ever ready to aid those who “draw near to God” through him in route to the rest that “remains for the people of God” (Heb 4:9).[15] In this profound way “we” join the generation Moses addressed “waiting for the Land.”

Our understanding of the Land motif in Hebrews, however, would be incomplete if we did not examine the author’s exhortation to join the history of the faithful in Heb 11:1–40. This exhortation is the appropriate balance and counterweight to the warning against association with the unbelieving wilderness generation in Hebrews 3:7–4:13. By beginning with the wilderness generation the author is able to establish the “Promised Land” as the ultimate destiny of the people of God. However, the faithful who heard God speak “at various times and in various ways” before, and in anticipation of, Sinai are also part of God’s one “household.” The author has ordered these passages with consummate rhetorical skill. He would turn his hearers away from disobedience (Heb 3:1–4:13) to faithfulness (Heb 11:1–40). He would arouse their fear of sharing the loss of the disobedient (Heb 3:1–4:13) so that they would embrace their all-sufficient High Priest (Heb 4:14–10:18) in order to persevere with the faithful (Heb 11:1–40).[16] This close parallel relationship between the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11:1–40 and the wilderness generation in Hebrews 3:7–4:13 confirms our interpretation of the “Sabbath rest” as the ultimate destiny of the people of God by identifying it with the “place” (τόπος) that God promised Abraham (Heb 11:8). It is the “homeland” (Heb 11:14) and “city with foundations whose architect and builder is God” (Heb 11:10) pursued by the faithful of the ages. There can be no doubt that the “Promised Land” has become the ultimate destiny of the people of God throughout history, the concrete place where the faithful will dwell with God forever.[17]

By this time it has become obvious that Hebrews has no interest in ethnic Israel inhabiting Palestine. The people of God throughout history have always been constituted by the word of God and the response of faith. Its destiny has always been “the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” Hebrews knows nothing of the Pauline Jew/Gentile conflict. The author of Hebrews is not concerned with Jewish identity markers, such as circumcision, dietary laws, or Sabbath.[18] The heroes of chapter eleven are not distinguished, as were the Maccabean martyrs, by their loyalty to such markers but by their trust in God’s promises and power.[19] There is no replacement of one people of God with another. The whole point of Hebrews is that the all-sufficient Son of God brings the faithful of all time into their “inheritance.”[20]

Some, however, have suggested that the “rest” lost by the unfaithful wilderness generation in Hebrews 3:1–4:13 might represent a present spiritual reality or experience rather than the ultimate destiny of the people of God.[21] Hebrews 3:1–4:13 has an immediacy that is lacking in Hebrews 11:1–40. It urgently addresses the hearers lest they harden their hearts “today.” It envisions the people of God at Kadesh-Barnea about to enter the Promised Land. Hebrews 11:1–40, on the other hand, envisions the people of God in need of perseverance for a possibly long journey to the eternal “homeland.” And yet, in my judgment, the author does not intend for this immediacy to suggest that the “rest” was a present spiritual state. In Hebrews 3:7–4:13 the author is warning his hearers against ultimate loss. Therefore, he takes them to what should have been the end of the wilderness generations journey in order to make them face the ultimate fate to which their indifference, laxity, and drifting might lead. We might draw a parallel with the way in which the immanence of Christ’s return is meant to keep believers alert so that they will persevere until he does return. Furthermore, a sense of immediacy is characteristic of the warnings throughout Hebrews. Hebrews’ description of its hearers in the present tense as “we who have believed are entering that rest” (Heb 4:3, my translation, emphasis added) is perfectly compatible with this interpretation. By persevering in faithful obedience “We” (inclusive of author and hearers) are in the process of entering that ultimate rest. In my judgment, when we grasp the fact that Hebrews uses the language of priesthood to describe our present approach to and experience of God through Christ and the language of Promised Land when speaking of our ultimate entrance into his dwelling place, the entire book makes sense.[22] Every passage fits within this perspective without remainder.

And yet the “Most Holy Place” into which the Great High Priest provides access during our journey and the “homeland” which is its goal both describe the same reality, as evidenced in Hebrews 12:18–24. I have argued elsewhere that the first “mountain” in this passage confronts the hearers with the ultimate destiny of the apostate and the second, with their own ultimate destiny as the faithful people of God.[23] Thus the author can say that, in some sense, those who have been “drawing near” through their Great High Priest “have come” to and tasted their ultimate destiny—”Mount Zion, . . . the City of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem.” In this way he climaxes with the same immediacy that we found in Hebrews 3:1–4:13 in order to underscore the need for perseverance!

The Promised Land, then, is the ultimate destiny of the people of God, “the City of the living God” where his redeemed people live in the “Most Holy Place” of his presence and join the angels in joyful worship through the mediation of Jesus. There is nothing ethereal about this concrete reality. The author underscores its eternal permanence when he calls it the “Unshakeable Kingdom” (Heb 12:29).

The only question is whether this reality is the renewal/culmination of the present creation, or its replacement. Hebrews has already supported the Son’s deity by affirming that he is the one who will “roll up” the creation as if it were a garment (Heb 1:12). The way in which the author uses Haggai 2:6 in Hebrews 12:26–27 also suggests replacement: the God who “shook” the earth when he spoke at Sinai will “once more” shake “the heavens and the earth” when he speaks at the Judgment. Furthermore, that shaking will be “the removal of things that can be shaken as things that have been made, in order that the things that cannot be shaken might remain” (my translation). The NIV translates “things that have been made” as “created things.” And yet there are features of Hebrews that suggest that this “Unshakeable Kingdom” is the fulfillment rather than the replacement of creation. First, as noted above, this ultimate reality is identified with the “rest” entered by God at the culmination of creation (Heb 4:4, 9). Second, the opening verses of Hebrews suggest that as the Heir of all things the Son, through his incarnation and exaltation, will bring creation to its God-intended goal.[24] Third, bodily resurrection is a close corollary with the renewal of creation. I’ve argued elsewhere that belief in the bodily resurrection of the faithful and in a “God who raises the dead” is central to the faith recommended in Hebrews 11:1–40. The descriptions of Abraham’s resurrection faith in Hebrews 11:17–19 and of the “better resurrection” in 11:35 are the chiastic center and heart of Hebrews 11:1–31 and 11:32–40 respectively.[25] In my judgment the author is not as concerned with the removal of the physical world as with the demise of the present world order that is hostile to believers because it is characterized by temptation, persecution, and the danger of apostasy.[26] We might think of Paul’s description of living “according to this age” and “according to the prince of the power of the air” (Eph 2:2). It is certain that this order will pass away. The destiny established for the people of God on the seventh day of creation is the goal of creation.

Both Deuteronomy and Hebrews, then, envision the people of God in the wilderness “waiting for the Land.” However, there are two major differences brought about by fulfillment in the Son. First, Hebrews does not share Deuteronomy’s pessimism. Moses predicts persistent disobedience resulting in ultimate loss of the Land (Deut 31:14–29, 32:1–43). The author of Hebrews has no hesitation about warning his hearers, but he is confident that “we are not of those who shrink back to destruction” (Heb 10:39). He tells them, “You have come to Mount Zion” (Heb 12:22). He can be confident of their perseverance because of the sufficiency of Christ!

Second, in Hebrews the Promised Land is no longer Canaan. The true destiny of the people of God is, and always has been, the “rest” God entered at the culmination of creation, the heavenly “homeland” pursued by Abraham and the faithful, “Mount Zion, the City of the Living God, a heavenly Jerusalem.” It is the “Unshakable Kingdom” the faithful will receive at the return of Christ (Heb 9:28) and the ultimate “shaking” of all things (Heb 12:25–29).

The OT: The Expansion Of The Promise

With these two differences in mind we return to the OT. When we do we discover, first, that the perennial disobedience of God’s people predicted by Moses repeatedly frustrated the fulfillment of the Land promise. But, second, this very frustration also led to an expanded understanding of the Land promise from settlement under Joshua, to Solomonic empire, to New Heaven and Earth. And so the promise reaches the proportions set for it from the beginning by Genesis 1–11.[27]

First, the generation that stood on the Plains of Moab did enter and possess Canaan so that Joshua could say “not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed” (Josh 23:24, cf. 21:45). This was Israel’s primary, foundational entrance into the Land. Each tribe and family had its own inheritance. All was well. And yet there was a certain elusiveness about this land possession. The person who began reading from Genesis one might think, “life” in the Land is good, but not as good as the “life” lost in Eden. And how has blessing spread to the nations? Furthermore, there are still enemies within the possessed Land.

On the surface the declaration that Israel served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and the elders who outlived Joshua is reassuring (Josh 24:31). But at a subtler level it forebodes the disobedience and loss of Land predicted by Moses. For, according to Judges 2:10–11, the next generation did what was “displeasing in the eyes of the Lord” because they did not know the Lord or the great things he had done. Judges narrates the subsequent story of degeneration. All of the promises begin to unravel—the knowledge of God, life in the covenant community, and possession of the Land. Instead of being a blessing to the nations, God’s people are oppressed by the surrounding nations, resulting in loss of the Land: in Gideon’s day the peoples of the east “did not spare a living thing for Israel.” They covered the land “like swarms of locusts” (Judges 6:4–5).

God will not leave his promise in such disarray. He addresses the sinful condition of Israel by making his covenant with the house of David, whose mission is to “plant” Israel (2 Sam 7:10, 1 Chron 17:9, cf. 1 Kings 2:3) in the Land by leading them to obey the Law of Moses. As God’s regent David is to restore God’s rule inaugurated at Sinai but rejected by his sinful people. The institutions of Davidic Dynasty and Jerusalem/Temple are meant to secure the promise by ensuring obedience to God’s rule. These institutions bring the Land-promise to a previously unimagined glorious fulfillment. And yet the “weight” of this fulfillment and the foreign entanglements inherent in its magnitude led to the idolatry and oppression that was its undoing. This undoing began with the division of the Land at Solomon’s death but climaxed in exile from the Land in the days of Jeremiah. Something more than institutions would be necessary to secure the obedience of the people of God. The final fulfillment could not be a mere repetition of the Davidic Monarchy. After all, if the Messiah were simply David’s son why would David call him “Lord” (Mark 12:35–37)? Meanwhile, the exile has replaced the wilderness as the place of “waiting for the Land.”

Ezra and Nehemiah tell the story of how God used Cyrus King of Persia to bring his people back from exile and once again establish them in the Land. This third “possession,” however, is as diminutive as the previous one was glorious. The returned exiles occupy little more than the area surrounding Jerusalem. They remain the servants of a foreign king who, as Nehemiah confesses, receives the bounty of the land that once went to the people of God (Neh 9:36–37). God’s promise must mean more than this! The Chronicler encourages the returned exiles by retelling Israel’s history with an emphasis on the mighty way in which God fulfilled his promise in the time of David and Solomon. The problem of disobedience still persists, as indicated by Nehemiah’s final prayer (see Neh 13:1–31). And yet there is hope that the God who so wondrously fulfilled his promise in David and Solomon’s time will do so again. More than ever, God’s people, though returned from exile, are “waiting for the Land.” They desperately need someone who will “save his people from their sins” and restore God’s rule.

What, then, will this fulfillment be for which the exiles so fervently yearn? Will it be possession of the earthly Canaan as in Joshua’s day? Or will it be entrance into the “Unshakeable Kingdom” envisioned by Hebrews? The two share many similarities. Both are the dwelling place of a holy God. That is what makes them unique. Both are God’s gift to his people. Both are the place where God’s people dwell with him as a holy community. Both are the place of blessing. Both are concrete realities. And yet one vision of the Land is temporal, the other, eternal.

As already suggested, there are indications within Genesis that the ultimate meaning of the Land surpasses Canaan real estate. Abraham’s obedience contrasts with Adam’s failure. God’s promise to Abraham is a promise to restore blessing to the sinful, scattered nations of Genesis 1–11. The land is the new place of fellowship with God that replaces Eden. In fact, this land of blessing contrasts with the earth cursed through sin. Is it, then, intended to be merely the home of one nation or the beginning of a new creation?

The great prophets of Israel looked beyond exile to a far greater fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise based on their confidence in the character of God. All that God had done before established a pattern for the vision of what he would yet do. Thus, they could describe this fulfillment in terms of a new Eden, a new creation, a new exodus, a new covenant, a new entrance into the Land, a new Jerusalem/Zion, even a new Temple. This fulfillment would be brought in by a new Moses, a new priest, and especially by a new David, who, as the Servant of the Lord would make atonement for sin and establish God’s people is obedience to God’s rule. The prophets envision a fulfillment that reaches beyond Israel and the earthly Promised Land to encompass the nations of the world and a new creation.[28] Oren Martin, who discusses the development of these themes in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, summarizes his findings thus:

This eschatological resolution will be accomplished by the work of the future Messiah, the Davidic king who comes as the Servant of the Lord, whose death will inaugurate a new covenant and usher in the age of the Spirit, extend his kingdom to the ends of the earth and finally bring about a new creation.[29]

The NT: A Fulfilled Promise

When come to the NT, we discover that Christ fulfills this prophetic vision. We turn, again, to Hebrews, the book that has the most to say about the Land: through his incarnation, suffering, and self-offering for sin in obedience to the Father the eternal Son fulfills all that the prophets have spoken. According to Hebrews he offered a once-for-all sacrifice for sin, thus becoming the all-sufficient High Priest able to bring us into God’s presence, establishing the new covenant of obedience, and taking his seat in fulfillment of God’s promise to David at God’s right hand, the place of all authority.[30] God’s people are still in “the wilderness,” but they enjoy unhindered access to God in order to receive all that they need to persevere in obedience until they enter the “heavenly Jerusalem,” that “Unshakable Kingdom” at Christ’s return when his enemies become his footstool (Heb 1:13) and all that is not eternal is removed (Heb 9:26–27). We are reminded of the New Heaven and Earth in Revelation 21 and of the “holy city New Jerusalem” coming down from heaven.

Two further observations before leaving Hebrews. (You thought we’d never get beyond Hebrews!). Hebrews is the only NT book that so consistently envisions God’s people as in the wilderness. Several employ the related imagery of being in exile (James 1:1; 1 Peter 1:1–2, 2:11). After all, Israel “waited for the Land,” in the way we are using that term, under a variety of circumstances in the OT. Second, as noted above, there is nothing ethnic about Hebrews: the people of God are and always have been those who heard the word of God and responded in faith. Since there is nothing distinctly Jewish about the way Hebrews describes the people of God it has no need to contrast Israel with the nations.

Paul, on the other hand, echoes the prophets with his concern for the nations. The offer of salvation by faith to the nations is the fulfillment of both the promise to bless the nations through Abraham (Gal 3:8) and the promise to make him the father of many nations (Rom 4:17). Through faith the nations experience God’s promised presence and become part of the people of God. They receive the gift of God’s Spirit (Gal 3:14, 4:6–7) and adoption as children of God (Gal 3:26). They were once “aliens to the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise” but have now become “fellow heirs with the saints and members of the household of God” (Eph 2:12, 19). Just as Abraham received God’s promise with obedient faith (Rom 4:1–25), so those who now embrace its fulfillment in Christ with obedient faith become children of Abraham and heirs of the promise.

All of this has been made possible through Christ, who is the “seed” to which the promise pointed (Gal 3:16). By his death on the cross he has taken upon himself the curse of disobedience that was exposed and exacerbated by the law (Gal 3:13). Thus, he has addressed the perpetual unfaithfulness that so plagued God’s people of old. And the nations who were so far from God have been “brought near by the blood of Christ” (Eph 2:13).

But what does Paul say about the promise of land? In 1 Corinthians 10:1–12 Paul joins Hebrews by associating his hearers with the disobedient wilderness generation. He warns them against the sins of that generation—lust, idolatry, fornication, murmuring, and tempting “Christ.” He doesn’t focus as narrowly on unbelief at Kadesh Barnea, but is concerned lest they be “overthrown in the wilderness” through divine displeasure. This at least suggests that the final goal of believers is the ultimate “Promised Land.” Furthermore, the gift of the Spirit (Gal 3:14, 4:6–7) to all believers is, according to Paul, the “earnest” of their ultimate “inheritance” at the time of their final redemption (Eph 1:14; 2 Cor 1:22, 5:5). OT usage of “inheritance” language suggests that Paul is referring to the ultimate Promised Land, “a possession and heritage given by God.”[31]

Finally, Romans 4:13 is one of our best indications of Paul’s thinking concerning the Land promise: “It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith” (italics added). The promise of “inheriting” Canaan has become a promise of inheriting the world. This “expansion” of the promise fits well both with the prophets’ emphasis on the universal nature of the Abrahamic promise (e.g. Isa 11:10–14, 55:3–5)[32] and the original purpose of the promise in Genesis as God’s antidote for a fallen world. As the new place of fellowship with God the Promised Land becomes the place of blessing in a cursed world. If the conversion of the nations is the way that God “blesses the world” through Abraham and makes him “the father of many nations,” then it is reasonable that the Land where the faithful would enjoy this blessing expand so that the curse be removed from the entire world. When Isaac Watts wrote “He comes to make his blessing known far as the curse is found” he was referring to Christ’s second coming. Paul anticipates a new creation, the New Heavens and Earth which will become a reality at Christ’s return (see 2 Cor 5:17, Gal 6:15, cf. Rev 21:1–5). Hebrews is burdened for the perseverance of the faithful while Paul’s primary concern when referring to the Abrahamic promises is the inclusion of the nations. Yet Paul’s vision of the Land as New Creation is not irreconcilable with Hebrews’ “heavenly Jerusalem” and “Unshakable Kingdom.”

The Land is, of course, the place of restored divine rule. However, when we turn to the Gospels, the restoration of God’s kingdom becomes dominant. Christ’s fulfillment of the Abrahamic promises is fundamental to Matthew’s thinking.[33] He begins by linking the “book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” with the “book of the genealogy of heaven and earth” (Gen 2:4) and “the book of the genealogy of Adam” (Gen 5:1). Matthew divides Jesus’ genealogy into equal segments: from Abraham to David “the King,” from David “the King” to the “deportation to Babylon,” and from the “deportation to Babylon” to Jesus, “who is called the Messiah.”[34] The initial fulfillment of the Abrahamic Promises that was achieved under David the King, but lost in the exile, will be brought to final fulfillment in Jesus, the Messiah. By overcoming the exile he will bring God’s people into the ultimate Promised Land. This is the “earth” that the meek will inherit (Matt 5:5), the “new world” where the twelve will sit on thrones representing the new people of God (Matt 19:28). Thus it is imperative that Jesus’ followers “make disciples” of all nations (Matt 28:16–20). There is no space in this study for a proper consideration of Luke-Acts. Gary Burge, however, has made the interesting suggestion that Acts 1:8 is Jesus’ answer to the disciples question concerning the restoration of the kingdom to Israel.[35] The kingdom is restored through preaching the Gospel to the entire world.[36]

Only Hebrews reserves Promised-Land language exclusively for the ultimate destiny of God’s people.[37] The Gospel of John, on the other hand, uses the language of Temple and Promised Land to describe present fulfillment more than any other NT writer. Jesus, as the place where God dwells with us, is not only the new Tabernacle (John 1:14) but the new Bethel (John 1:50–51) and the new Temple (John 2:20–22). Through the gift of the Spirit he is present with his followers everywhere effectively making the entire world a Temple (John 4:21–23). Just as the faithful of old were to enjoy “life” in the Promised Land, so believers now enjoy “eternal life” (John 3:16, etc.). Sometimes other NT writers use Promised-Land language in this way as well. Jesus’ offer of “rest” in Matthew may be more closely related to wisdom terminology than to the “rest” of the Promised Land (Matt 11:28–29).[38] Even though, according to Paul, the Spirit is the “earnest” of future inheritance his presence in the church makes it even now a Temple (1 Cor 3:16, Eph 2:21–22).

Nevertheless, our study agrees with Oren Martin when he says, “[T]he New Testament presents the land promised to Abraham and his offspring as finally fulfilled in the (physical) new creation, as a result of the person and work of Christ.”[39]

Conclusion

The way in which the manifold development of the Land promise in the OT foreshadows, pictures, and typifies the ultimate destiny of the people of God provides a rich resource for understanding the purposes of God. Its fulfillment in the New Creation through Christ prevents the “spiritualization” of the ultimate destiny of God’s people. Despite sin, Creation, through Resurrection, leads to New Creation. Thus, familiarity with the Bible’s development of this theme provides helpful insight whether one is preaching from the OT or the NT. Properly understood, the Land-promise is both motivation for our own faithful perseverance (Hebrews) and for carrying the Gospel to the nations of the world (Paul).

An understanding of the Biblical significance of the Land-promise has also helped me to understand some of the “harsher” laws pertaining to life in the Land, particularly those that required capital punishment for numerous offenses.[40] Ultimate blessing required the exclusion of all evil. Thus, it was necessary to exclude all covenant unfaithfulness if the Land was to be a true foreshadowing of the New Creation. Any breach diminished the blessing of the entire community. Of course, in the OT God forbore exacting punishment time and again offering forgiveness and calling his people to repentance.

Finally, it seems to me that current discussions about the ethics of the conquest need to begin with an understanding of the significance of the Land-promise for the entire Bible. If we peremptorily dismiss the conquest as a misunderstanding of God’s will or say that it did not happen,[41] do we not rend the fabric of Biblical theology?

Finally, we are all still “waiting for the Land.” The land-promise still provides motivation, as it did in the NT, for faithful perseverance and for carrying the Gospel to the nations of the world. We acknowledge our status as those “waiting for the Land” when we confess in the words of the Creed, “we await the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”

Notes

1. John H. Walton, Old Testament Theology for Christians: From Ancient Context to Enduring Belief (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2017), 7–8, 21–22, 26–28, 52–53 mentions these themes as the most common proposals for a Biblical unifying theme. He rejects “salvation history” in favor of “divine presence” because he claims that the Old and New Testaments have fundamentally different views of salvation—in the OT salvation is, according to Walton, primarily corporate physical deliverance, while in the New it is individual “forgiveness of sins.” This assertion does not take sufficient account of the problem caused by sin throughout the Old Testament. Neither does it adequately account for the NT doctrine of salvation which culminates in the renewal of heaven and earth.
2. N. T. Wright, History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology (The 2018 Gifford Lectures; Waco: Baylor University Press, 2019), 159–170, passim.
3. Exodus climaxes with God coming to dwell in Israel’s midst in the Tabernacle. Leviticus, then, is instructions for life in God’s presence. In Numbers, Israel is organized as an army around the God-indwelt Tabernacle. See Arie C. Leder, Waiting for the Land: The Story Line of the Pentateuch (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2010), 93–164, especially the chapter summaries on pages 93, 115, and 141.
4. Leder, Waiting for the Land, 181–212.
5. Thomas R. Schreiner, Commentary on Hebrews (BTCP; Nashville: Holman, 2015), 53.
6. In chapters one and two the author compares God’s Son-mediated revelation with the Sinai revelation understood as “the word spoken by angels” (Heb 2:2). See Schreiner, Commentary on Hebrews, 80, Harold W. Attridge, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989) 65, n. 28, and David M. Allen, Deuteronomy and Exhortation in Hebrews: A Study in Narrative Re-Presentation (WUNT 238; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 105–106.
7. In my judgment, Moses’ faithfulness as “a witness of things yet to be spoken” would be an odd way of referring to his prediction of a coming prophet in Deut 18:15, 18–19 (pace Schreiner, Commentary on Hebrews, 118). Within this context it makes much more sense to understand this as his being a “witness” to what would be “spoken” in God’s Son through his high priestly work in fulfillment of the old sacrificial system established by Moses. See, most recently, John W. Kleinig, Hebrews (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2017), 157, 164.
8. The NT warrants seeing the salvation brought through Christ’s death and resurrection as a new “exodus”: as Israel was delivered from a bondage to Pharaoh that prevented them from serving God in order to enter the Promised Land so the people of God today are delivered from bondage to sin and Satan in order to become part of a renewed creation (See R. E. Watts, “Exodus,” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology [Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2000]: 478–487, especially pages 482–48). “The exodus ... became the paradigm, a type, of the Lord’s redeeming love.” It “can be conceived of as the new creation of Israel, pointing toward the new creation in the future” (Thomas R. Schreiner, The King in His Beauty: A Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013], 30). Hebrews, of course, acknowledges that Moses led Israel out of Egypt “by faith” (Heb 11:29). However (pace Watts on page 486 of the article cited above) it focuses on God’s self-revelation and covenant at Sinai as the definitive act of salvation, on Moses as the “steward” of the Sinai revelation that is now fulfilled in Christ, and perhaps on Moses as the ἀρχηγός (“Pioneer” Heb 2:10, 12:1–3 NRSV/RSV) who led Israel through the wilderness as Christ now shepherds his people on their way to their ultimate “rest.” Without denying the importance of the Exodus, we would argue that this emphasis on Sinai has both OT warrant and is shaped by the author’s pastoral concern. First, let’s examine the OT warrant. Though the Exodus is important, it is preliminary to God’s establishing his presence among his people at Sinai. As note in note #3 above, the Book of Exodus begins with the necessary deliverance from Egypt, but climaxes at Sinai with God coming to dwell among his people in the Tabernacle. Leviticus, the heart of the Pentateuch, gives instruction on life in the divine presence. In Numbers God’s people are organized as a community centered on the presence of God. Yes, the Lord is the God “who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage,” but he brought them to Sinai. Sinai is the heart of the Pentateuch. Salvation that began with deliverance from Egypt finds its fullness in this provision for atonement necessary for life in his presence. Second, this emphasis is pastorally appropriate. The author of Hebrews is not concerned about bringing people to faith or converting the unconverted. He is concerned about the perseverance of his hearers who are suffering from discouragement, fatigue, doubt, ostracism, and potential if not actual persecution (Cockerill, Hebrews, 16–23). He would convince them that their access to God through the all-sufficient high priest is fully adequate for their journey to the promised “rest.” As a side note, one might suggest that contemporary evangelicalism take note of this emphasis. In my judgment we have too often been fixated on salvation as deliverance from God’s wrath and failed to see that the goal of such deliverance is loving God and living in joyful fellowship with him.
9. Although on page 143 Schreiner, Commentary on Hebrews, limits the “rest” that was lost by the wilderness generation in Heb 3:7–11 to the loss of Canaan, yet on p. 133 he more accurately reflects the logic of the text by writing as if the “rest” forfeited by the wilderness generation was the “rest” established by God at the culmination of creation. There is no basis in the text for differentiating between the “rest” lost by the wilderness generation and the “rest” offered to the recipients of Hebrews.
10. Jon Laansma, “I Will Give You Rest’: The Rest Motif in the New Testament with Special Reference to Mt 11 and Heb 3–4 (WUNT 98. Tübingen, Siebeck, 1997), 278–279, has shown conclusively that this “rest” is both future and refers to a “place.” See also Cockerill, Hebrews, 199–213.
11. David M. Allen, Deuteronomy and Exhortation in Hebrews: A Study in Narrative Re-Presentation (WUNT 238; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008).
12. Daniel Lynwood Smith, “Feet in the Wilderness, Eyes on the Promised Land” (Journal of Theological Interpretation, 12/2, 2018): 290–295.
13. The fact that “Deuteronomy forms a second and authoritative recitation of ‘this law’ (‘this torah’ ...)” (Leder, Waiting for the Land, 170) and that it is a document of covenant renewal (p. 175) reinforces this identity between the “second generation” and the generation that came out of Egypt and stood before Sinai.
14. Leder, Waiting for the Land, 178: “the second generation stands in for all the subsequent generations of God’s people.”
15. For a discussion of the eternal, incarnate, now exalted High Priest seated at God’s right hand as the basis for the contemporary relevance of Hebrews see Gareth Lee Cockerill, “The Truthfulness and Perennial Relevance of God’s Word in the Letter to the Hebrews,” BibSac 172 (April-June 2015) 190–202.
16. On the careful way in which the author has structured Hebrews in order to move his hearers to perseverance see Cockerill, Hebrews, 60–81.
17. The identification between the “rest” of Heb 3:7–4:13 and the “homeland” of 11:1–40 is supported both by the way the OT identifies “rest” with the Promised Land (Deut 12:10, also Exod 33:14; Deut 25:19; Josh 1:13, 15; 21:44; 22:4; and 23:1) and by the way in which both apocalyptic and rabbinic literature interpret “land” and “rest” as the ultimate place where God will dwell with his people (see Gareth Lee Cockerill, Hebrews [NICNT, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012], 199 n. 15). Pace Judith Hoch Wray, Rest as a Theological Metaphor in the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Gospel of Truth: Early Christian Homiletics of Rest (SBLDS 166; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998), 90, minimizes both the naturalness of this identification and the evidence from these parallels. Contrary to her contention, 91 the limitation of “rest” language to Heb 3:7–4:11 is no hindrance to its identification with the “homeland” and “city” of 11:1–40 (p. 91). Hebrews regularly uses the specific language of an OT text, here Ps 95, only when explaining that text. Her attempts to find some support for “rests” as present entrance only expose the weakness of the evidence (see pages 73–78, cf. 34, 47).
18. Heb 13:9–10 is the only possible reference to Jewish ritual practice. For comment on this verse see Cockerill, Hebrews, 692–693.
19. Pamela Eisenbaum, The Jewish Heroes of Christian History: Hebrews 11 in Literary Context (SBLDS 156 Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997), 187–188 passim.
20. Thus, “faith” is and always has been living as if God’s promises for the future are certain and his power for present perseverance is real. The all-sufficient Son-High Priest, who was part of the promise for OT believers, has now become the source of divine power for perseverance. See commentary on Heb 11:1 in Cockerill, Hebrews, 520–22.
21. My own Wesleyan-Holiness tradition has often understood the “rest” as an experience of sanctification available for the believer in the present (see, for instance, Andrew Murray, The Holiest of All, [Springdale, PA: Whitaker House, ND], 155–158). Others appear to interpret it as a present experience out of concern for the possible theological implications of admitting that the wilderness generation suffered eternal loss (Randall C. Gleason, “A Moderate Reformed View” Four Views on the Warning Passages in Hebrews. Ed. Herbert W. Bateman IV [Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2007]: 350–352). The context of Hebrews provides no basis for understanding this “rest” as loss of rewards or of participation in a millennial kingdom (see David A. deSilva, Perseverance in Gratitude: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on the Epistle “to the Hebrews.” [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000], 156–163).
22. Cockerill, Hebrews, 197, 63–67.
23. Gareth Lee Cockerill, “Hebrews 12:18–24: Apocalyptic Typology or Platonic Dualism?” TynBul (69 no 2 2018): 225–239.
24. See the discussion of “whom he made heir of all things” in Cockerill, Hebrews, 91–93.
25. Gareth Lee Cockerill, “The Better Resurrection (Heb 11:35): a Key to the Structure and Rhetorical Purpose of Hebrews 11, ” TynBul (51.2, 2000): 216–234.
26. Note Paul Ellingworth’s comment: “total annihilation probably lies beyond the author’s horizon” in The Epistle to the Hebrews: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993), 688.
27. The article by Chris Wright, “A Christian Approach to Old Testament Prophecy Concerning Israel” (in Jerusalem Past and Present in the Purposes of God [ed., P. W. L. Walker; Cambridge: Tyndale House, 1992), 1–19 deserves more attention than it has received. He argues that OT prophecies should be interpreted within the “Universal Context of God’s Promises to Israel” (1) established by Gen 1–11 and in accord with the “Universal Thrust of Old Testament Eschatology” (2–3). Although prophecies of the future were inevitably in terms of the meaningful realities of Israel’s life, such as “the land, the law, Jerusalem, temple, sacrifices and priesthood” (3), there was, even within the OT, an expectation that fulfillment would go beyond these realities (3–4). According to Wright, it is important to distinguish between “prediction” and “promise.” Although there are specific OT predictions, promise is the larger category that allows for fulfillment beyond the wording of the promise at the time it was given (4–6). It is also clear that the OT does not see two separate futures for Israel and for the Nations, but that the Nations will be incorporated with Israel as the people of God (7–8). Jewish hopes in Jesus’ time looked forward to an ingathering of the nations (8–9). Furthermore, Jesus and the entire NT see his coming as a renewal of Israel that includes the nations within the people of God (9–19).
28. This paragraph is heavily dependent on Oren R. Martin, Bound for the Promised Land: the Land Promise in God’s Redemptive Plan (NSBT 34, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015), 95–114.
29. Ibid., 96–97.
30. See Gareth Lee Cockerill, “Structure and Interpretation in Hebrews 8:1–10:18: A Symphony in Three Movements,” (BBR, 11.2, 2001: 179–201, in which I argue that because Christ’s death atoned for sin in fulfillment of the Day of Atonement sacrifice, and indeed the entire sacrificial system (8:3–6; 9:11–15; 9:25–10:14), it was also the sacrifice through which he was consecrated High Priest (8:1–2; 9:1–10; 9:23–24)) and by which he established the New Covenant (8:7–13; 9:16–22; 10:15–18). According to the crucial passage, Heb 10:5–10, the eternal Son accomplished this atonement through his earthly obedience.
31. NIDNTTE, 2, 696.
32. As do some writings from the Second Temple period (Sirach 44:21; Jubilees 19:21; 2 Baruch 14:13, 51:3).
33. This section on Matthew draws heavily from Oren Martin, Bound for the Promised Land, 119–126.
34. Most commentators attribute significance to this arrangement of Jesus’ genealogy in Matt 1:1–18. See, for instance, R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew (NICNT; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), 26–33, though opinions differ as to the nature of that significance.
35. Burge, Gary M. Burge, Jesus and the Land: The New Testament Challenge to “Holy Land” Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010) 60–62.
36. If Luke sees Jesus’ death and resurrection as the new exodus, and Pentecost as the new Sinai, then it takes little to imagine the spread of the Gospel throughout the world as an anticipation of the new Promised Land.
37. As noted above, in Heb 12:18–24 the writer shows us that the heavenly Most Holy Place into which we now enter through Christ and the ultimate “Rest” of the people of God at his return are the same reality. Nevertheless, he consistently describes our present access to God’s presence in terms of the one and our final entrance in terms of the other.
38. See France, The Gospel of Matthew, 447–451.
39. Martin, Bound for the Promised Land, 119.
40. Such as murder (Exod 21:12–14, Lev 24:17, 21), idolatry (Deut 13:6), adultery (Lev 20:10), kidnapping (Exod 21:16), blasphemy (Lev 24:6), Sabbath breaking (Exod 31:14), rebellion of a son (Deut 21:18–21), etc.
41. As does Peter Enns, The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture has Made Us Unable to Read It (New York: Harper One, 2014), 58 or, on a more popular level, Adam Hamilton, Making Sense of the Bible: Rediscovering the Power of Scripture Today (New York: Harper One, 2014), 210–217.