The land of promise finds its realization in Jesus: not in types and shadows
This plan of salvation finds its conclusion and fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is this aspect of Scripture—this story of salvation—that makes the Bible distinct from all other “bibles” of pagan religions. These reveal no order or plan. They embody no historical revelation of God working out His saving purposes. The Bible, by contrast, is a unity because it is the record of a progressive revelation of the will of God for humankind’s salvation. The Bible is, in short, a “gospel” in the fullest sense of the word. (David S. Dockery, ed., Holman Bible Handbook (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 1992), 26–27.) The theology of land, then, provides a basis for the NT doctrine of adoption; It was as God’s sons that the people of Israel received their inheritance. The link is most explicit in Romans 8:14–25, which also links the theology of the land with the theology of creation. Both the creation mandate to “fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 1:28...