# Are the Land Promises Conditional?



## Justified (May 25, 2014)

Are the land promises, in any sense, conditional. I understand they are promised by God, and that God gave the land originally unconditionally to his people as promised to Abraham. Is there some sense that the promise is conditional? Were not the people of Israel exiled from the land for their sin? Ultimately the land promises will be fulfilled; however, the temporary exile of Israel is a result of judgment for their sins. God was able to take them out of the land because they breached his covenant. Am I understanding this correctly?


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## Peairtach (May 25, 2014)

Justified said:


> Are the land promises, in any sense, conditional. I understand they are promised by God, and that God gave the land originally unconditionally to his people as promised to Abraham. Is there some sense that the promise is conditional? Were not the people of Israel exiled from the land for their sin? Ultimately the land promises will be fulfilled; however, the temporary exile of Israel is a result of judgment for their sins. God was able to take them out of the land because they breached his covenant. Am I understanding this correctly?



Of course they're conditional, otherwise God could not have put His people out of the Land for their neglect of His grace and their sin.

The Land promises are also ezpansionary, when you compare them through the OT; at one time referring to a more limited region being promised, and then a greater.

In the NT, God's people, the Israel of God, His Church, which consist of a rump of believing Jews, in accordance with His faithfulness to that nation (See Romans 9-11) and many ingrafted Gentiles, inherit the Land together with all the rest of the Earth (e.g. Matthew 5:5).

If in His providence God wishes some of the believing Jews among His international Israel to live - alongside believing Gentiles - in that part of the world which is of historical significance in that it is the Land which God gave to His OT people, was once typological of the whole Earth, and where our Lord lived and died, that's God's good providential will, but I don't think it is biblically or redemptively significant.

What is happening in this age is that the whole Earth, including the (former) Land of Israel is being inherited by the international Israel of God. 

If in God's providence believing Jews - being part of the Israel of God - get to live in and inherit part of their ancient land that's an added bonus.

What would be really significant is if and when world Jewry , whether they are living in Israel or not. turns generally to Christ.

Meanwhile the relationship between Jews and Palestinians in that part of the world, is one needing a political solution, as we had one in Northern Ireland. Not an easy thing for anyone to swallow.

The final and full inheritance of the Earth by the Israel of God won't happen until the Eschaton.

Sent from my HTC Wildfire using Tapatalk 2


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## Justified (May 25, 2014)

Thank you brother.


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## clark thompson (May 28, 2014)

Justified said:


> Are the land promises, in any sense, conditional. I understand they are promised by God, and that God gave the land originally unconditionally to his people as promised to Abraham. Is there some sense that the promise is conditional? Were not the people of Israel exiled from the land for their sin? Ultimately the land promises will be fulfilled; however, the temporary exile of Israel is a result of judgment for their sins. God was able to take them out of the land because they breached his covenant. Am I understanding this correctly?



They had to keep their fellowship with which was done by them following His laws.


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## PuritanCovenanter (May 28, 2014)

Is there not conditions laid even upon the Church to remain? For example

Rev 2:5    Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. 

and...

1Co 11:26    For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come.
1Co 11:27    Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
1Co 11:28    But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.
1Co 11:29    For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.
1Co 11:30    For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.
1Co 11:31    For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.
1Co 11:32    But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.



Conditions are nothing to be winked at. The problem arises when we want to attach merit to them. Does a believer merit something by his obedience or is it by grace that he receives anything from The Lord. Most likely this is what our attitude should be. Luk 17:10    So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.


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## Semper Fidelis (May 28, 2014)

I think another important question to ask is whether the land promises are typical (that is a Type) of some larger Kingdom reality. The land is treated as a type of heaven in Hebrews when Paul talks about the fact that the Israelites never achieved the Promised rest that still remains. Paul, in Ephesians 5, uses the promise of living long in the land, as a promise to covenant children everywhere.


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