God Dwelling with His Children in Paradise: A Biblical Theology of the Holy Land by Brelo Sam

Author:Brelo, Sam [Brelo, Sam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-07-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

Letters of Paul and Others

Paul used the key concepts of “heir,” “inherit,” and “inheritance” in connection with the idea of Holy Land. Moreover, Paul’s elaboration on Abraham, Abraham’s children, and the Temple of God also illumine this subject.

Paul the Apostle used the words for “heir,” “inherit,” and “inheritance” many times in his letters (a total of 22 times). This word group has kleros as its root. The word has ties to the allotment of the Holy Land to the various clans of Israel in the Old Testament.[78] Especially important to a discussion of the Holy Land is Paul’s use of this word in Romans 4:13. Paul stated, “For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.” It is likely Paul had Genesis 15:1-7 in mind when he wrote this verse. In Romans 4:13, Paul alluded to prominent terms and phrases used in the Genesis 15 text—“heir,” “offspring,” “believe,” and “counted as righteousness”. In Genesis 15:7, Yahweh told Abraham that He brought him out of Ur to possess (LXX – kleronomeo, to receive as an inheritance) the land of Canaan. In Romans 4:13, Paul expanded Abraham’s inheritance of Canaan to the entire earth. This is significant for developing a biblical theology of the Holy Land. Along with God’s promise to make Abraham the father of many nations, noted in 4:18, Paul viewed Abraham and his descendants’ inheritance as the entire earth. All those of faith are the children of Abraham, whether Jew or Gentile, and, therefore, eligible to receive the inheritance of the Holy Land, now expanded. This will have ultimate fulfillment in the New Heaven and New Earth.[79]

Paul demonstrated that the inheritance of God’s people is gained through righteousness that is by faith. He emphasized this in all of his letters and thereby vouchsafed this inheritance to Gentile believers in Jesus as well as Jewish believers. Religious Judaism of Paul’s day denied an equal inheritance to Gentiles, including those who believed in the God of Abraham. Even Gentile proselytes to Judaism could not refer to Abraham as “our father.” They had to substitute “your father” for “our father” in the liturgy of the synagogue.[80] Burge makes an insightful observation on this:

As Paul’s Gentile mission grew, this is perhaps one of the apostle’s earliest, fundamental complaints against the ancestral faith. If Abraham is the great ancestor of faith, if Abraham is the man in whom religious identity is secured, to exclude Gentiles from the promises that accrue to those who share this faith, indeed to exclude Gentiles from all that God promised to Abraham, was an unwarranted ethnic discrimination. One either shares the covenant blessings of God or one does not.[81]

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