Israel and the Promise of Land

In an interview last week, Mike Huckabee told Tucker Carlson that the Jewish people possess a “biblical right” to the land of Israel. He argued that when biblical, historical, and ethnic claims are taken together, they form a “very strong case” that modern Israel represents an indigenous and God-appointed inheritance. This kind of language isn’t unusual in contemporary political and religious discussions. Appeals to Scripture are frequently used in support of modern territorial claims, often with great confidence but little theological qualification.

Whether people are aware of it or not, this way of thinking reflects the influence of dispensational theology. Since the nineteenth century, dispensationalism — associated with early figures such as John Nelson Darby and popularized by C.I. Scofield — has insisted on a sharp distinction between Israel and the church and on the permanent, literal fulfillment of Old Testament promises to ethnic Israel.

In this framework, the land promise given to Abraham is understood as perpetually binding, awaiting their full realization in a restored Jewish nation. As a result, modern Israel is often viewed not merely as a historical or political entity, but as a direct heir of an ongoing divine land covenant. Dispensationalism has had a massive influence on evangelical theology. Many well-meaning Christians believe there’s a Christian duty to support the 1948 nation-state of Israel, and political leaders, such as Benjamin Netanyahu have leaned heavily into this idea to rally support for political gain.

Yet claims about the modern state of Israel having a “biblical right” to land raise a serious question: Does God’s promise to Abraham and his descendants actually establish a perpetual title to a geographical plot of land? After all, Scripture itself repeatedly affirms God’s promise of an inheritance to Abraham:

“Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I will give this land’” (Genesis 12:7).

“On the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: ‘To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates—the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim’” (Genesis 15:19-21).

“The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God” (Genesis 17:8).

To answer that question, we need to follow the promise as Scripture develops it — through its fulfillment in Jesus the Messiah and into the final hope of a new creation.

The promises God made to Abraham concerning the land weren’t symbolic. They referred to a real inheritance, located with real geographical boundaries and given to a real people in history. Israel’s entrance into Canaan under Joshua was a genuine fulfillment of what God had sworn to their fathers: “Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them—the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses” (Josh. 1:2-3).

But Scripture also makes clear that this wasn’t the final fulfillment. Even when Israel possessed the land, the Bible suggests that something greater was still to be had — it was real but incomplete. For example, we read: “The LORD gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their ancestors. Not one of their enemies withstood them; the LORD gave all their enemies into their hands. Not one of all the LORD’s good promises to Israel failed; every one was fulfilled” (Josh. 21:44-45). God kept his word. The promise was fulfilled.

Centuries later, however, the covenant people were taught to sing Psalm 95 which speaks of a rest that remains available, and warns against the hardening of hearts leading to a failure to enter that rest. The Apostle in Hebrews draws the conclusion: “If Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day” (Heb. 4:8). The Bible teaches that God fulfilled his promise of land under Joshua, but it wasn’t ultimate. It pointed beyond itself to a more enduring place of rest.

This reflects what we call typology. That is, God’s use of historical realities as shadows of greater redemptive fulfillment (see Heb. 10:1). The land of Canaan was not an end in itself, but a God-given object lesson directing God’s people toward permanent rest in his presence.

The roots of this typology go back further than Abraham. The importance of land didn’t begin with him. It began in the Garden of Eden when God took Adam and put him there to work and keep the garden — the place of man’s communion with God (Gen. 2:8-15). Through sin, Adam and Eve, and in them their posterity, were cast out of the Garden with expectation that through the promised seed a way would be opened for man to again fellowship with God.

It’s this that stands in the background of God’s promise to Abraham. As O Palmer Robertson wrote, “The patriarch’s hope of possessing a land arose out of the concept of restoration to the original state from which man had fallen […] the land of paradise became the goal toward which redeemed humanity was returning.”

Even Abraham understood this. Again, the Apostle says: “By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Heb. 11:9-10).

If the land promise was typological — historically real, but incomplete — then we need to ask: Where is its fulfillment? The biblical answer is unmistakable. The inheritance promised to Abraham finds its substance in Jesus Christ himself, “For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God” (2 Cor. 1:20).

The Apostle Paul makes this connection explicit when he writes, “Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as of many, but as of one, ‘And to your Seed,’ who is Christ” (Gal. 3:16). Christ is the Seed; he is the ultimate heir of the Abrahamic promises. And in him those promises are secured for those who believe: “And if you are Christ’s then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:29). As William Perkins rightly said, “The promises made to Abraham are first made to Christ, and then in Christ to all that believe in Him, be they Jews or Gentiles.”

This Christ-fulfillment reshapes how the land promise is understood. When Paul says that Abraham “would be heir of the world” (Rom. 4:13) he’s not abandoning or replacing the Old Testament promise. He’s identifying its true scope. In Christ, the inheritance promised is shown to be nothing less than the restoration of all things. John Calvin explained, Paul “includes generally under this word world, the restoration which was expected through Christ,” for the land of Canaan was a type of restoring “to us the possession of the inheritance which we lost in Adam.” What was once restricted to Canaan is expanded in Christ into a universal inheritance. An inheritance that belongs to him by right of his Messiahship: “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession” (Ps. 2:8, and also Matt. 28:19-20).



What was once concentrated in Canaan is therefore expanded in Christ into a universal inheritance. The promise is not narrowed, but enlarged; not displaced, but fulfilled.

If the promise of land is ultimately fulfilled in Christ, one more question remains: When will this inheritance be fully realized? When will the people of God openly possess what they now receive by faith?

The New Testament answer this by directing us beyond the present age to the renewal of all things. Our inheritance, though guaranteed to us in Christ, remains in important respects future. Jesus speaks of this when he says, “Blessed are the meek, For they shall inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5). The Abrahamic promise is no longer confined to a small geographical region, but embraces the whole created order. What Canaan foreshadowed — a secure dwelling in the presence of God — is realized only in the new heavens and new earth.

This consummate hope is revealed to the Apostle John. He sees a renewed creation in which God dwells permanently with his redeemed people, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God” (Rev. 21:3). Paradise isn’t only regained, it’s glorified. The curse is removed, death is abolished, the servants of God reign forever safe and secure in a promised land coextensive with the cosmos itself.

The claim that the modern state of Israel has an ongoing “biblical right” to the land cannot be sustained when the promise is interpreted by Scripture itself. To insist on that right is to mistake the shadow for the substance. God truly gave the land to Abraham’s descendants, and he faithfully fulfilled that promise under Joshua. But from the beginning, that inheritance was typological, pointing beyond itself. In the New Testament the promise isn’t revoked, it’s enlarged. It belongs first and foremost to Jesus as Messiah, and in him to all who are united to him by faith, whether Jew or Gentile. It will be eternally possessed when he makes all things new. Here the trajectory of the Bible reaches it goal: the land promised to Abraham, typified in Canaan and fulfilled in Christ, is consummated in the new creation.