The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, vol. 79
November 25, 1902
“The Real Land of Promise” The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 79, 47.
E. J. Waggoner
The record of the taking of Jericho teaches a lesson that ought to be studied by every one who is in danger of being led to accept the theories of “Anglo-Israelites,” and to expect the return of all Jews to Palestine before the coming of the Lord. ARSH November 25, 1902, page 8.1
That victory at the very door of the land of Canaan, showed how alone the land which God has promised could really be possessed, and consequently the character of the inheritance. “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down,” even as the children of Israel had crossed the Red Sea, and the Jordan by faith. The land which they were to inherit, in fulfillment of the promise of God, was one that could be inherited only by faith-by a people full of faith, and living and moving only by faith. ARSH November 25, 1902, page 8.2
But faith means righteousness. “The just shall live by his faith.” We are made righteous by faith. Therefore the inheritance was to be one in which only righteous people can dwell; and for that we, according to God’s promise, still look, “for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” 2 Peter 3:13. ARSH November 25, 1902, page 8.3
This was in the promise from the beginning. When God appeared to Abraham in Mesopotamia, and said, “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee,” (Genesis 12:1), He said, “I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing,” “and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” Blessing means the removal of the curse; so the blessing upon all the families of the earth means the removal of the curse from all the earth. The blessing promised to Abraham is forgiveness of sins, the turning away from iniquities (Acts 3:25, 26; Romans 4:6-9); it is also “life for evermore.” Psalm 133:3. Now the curse came upon the earth because of man’s sin, and therefore it follows that when all families of the earth are delivered from sin, the curse will be removed from it. Thus we have it that Abraham and his faithful descendants gladly confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth, even as King David at the height of his power did (1 Chronicles 29:15), desiring “a better country, that is, an heavenly.” Hebrews 11:16. ARSH November 25, 1902, page 8.4
And for this reason “God is not ashamed to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city.” The promise of God to the seed of Abraham, extending even to us, was, “I will be their God.” “I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.” Genesis 17:7, 8. Compare Hebrews 8:10. The possession of God himself-“heirs of God”-is the essential part of the promise, the sum and substance of it. “I am ... thy exceeding great reward.” Genesis 15:1. Having God, we have all things; “having no hope and without God in the world” we are “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise.” Ephesians 2:12. ARSH November 25, 1902, page 8.5
The Israelites crossed the Jordan, and captured Jericho, by faith-the faith of Jesus-the faith that means the receiving of God the Divine Word. Their abiding in God was their surety of the possession of the land; without Him, their being in the land, even as rulers, was as though they were in Egypt. In him we also obtain the same inheritance, and the Holy Spirit is the pledge of it. His abiding presence causes us to look with confidence and hope for the coming of Christ from heaven, at the time of the “restoration of all things, whereof God spake by the mouth of his holy prophets which have been since the world began.” Acts 3:20, 21. ARSH November 25, 1902, page 8.6