It’s estimated that Abraham travelled around 1000 miles before he settled in “the promised land.” That’s almost a 2 week trip by foot!
When he got there God told him to “walk through the land in every direction.” (Gen 13:11 NLT) And imagine how excited he was when God reassured him:
“I will give this land to you and your family.”
Yet, later in the NT, we’re told that Abraham still looked forward to another city, that was yet to come:
Heb 11:8 By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed and went out to a place he was going to receive as an inheritance. He went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he stayed as a foreigner in the land of promise, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, coheirs of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations [i.e., firm, permanent], whose architect and builder is God.
And even though our foundations today are made out of wood, cement and steel they nonetheless remain weak, temporal and….fleeting! Just like the cloth of the tents of Abraham and his family.
I think our respective ethnic and national identities are likewise momentary….short-lived. For the NT calls those who belong to Christ “the Israel of God” of the spirit and not of the flesh, i.e., according to race (Gal 6:16). So that we are no longer foreigners and resident aliens but citizens of that future city. The church is now, together with those OT patriarchs, prophets and kings the holy nation of God!
In John 18 Jesus says to governor Pilate that his kingdom is not from any of the current world nations. For if the kingdom of God were like them, the servants of Jesus would have fought those who were trying to arrest him.
In Eph 2 Paul reminds us that before we became followers of Christ we were “alienated [estranged] from the commonwealth of Israel.” And as a result “strangers to the covenants” including of course Abraham’s land “promise.” We were “without hope, without God in the world.” But now we’re no longer people without a country because “in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.”
