The Promise Remains to Be Fulfilled.

'By many it is supposed that all the promises of the possession of the land were fulfilled to the natural descendants of Abraham who dwelt in the land of Canaan. We have given to us in the Scriptures several lines of proof showing that the possession of the land of Canaan did not fulfill the promise; that that land, in the condition in which they received it, was not the true inheritance of Abraham’s seed, but only typical of it.

 1. The dwelling of the children of Israel in the land of Canaan was not a fulfillment of the promise that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob should possess it. It was not said merely that their children should inherit it, but that they and their seed should receive it for an everlasting possession.

Stephen said that Abraham had no inheritance in it, no not so much as to set his foot on. This is proved to be literally true, in that he had to buy of the inhabitants of the land a place to bury Sarah, his wife, in Hebron.

And Paul said that Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise, died without receiving it, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

This alone would be sufficient to prove that the promise remains to be fulfilled.

2. According to Paul’s testimony in Gal. 3:16, Christ was the seed to whom the promise was made; and he, as Abraham, was a sojourner in the same land. He had “not where to lay his head.” He was the world’s Maker, destined to be the world’s Redeemer, and yet spent a life of toil and suffering in the world without a resting-place or home upon the earth.

He purchased the redemption of the earth by bearing in his person the curse of the earth, even as he will redeem man because he bore the curse of man. When the ground was cursed the Lord said it should bring forth thorns because of man’s transgression; these it would never have produced if sin had not entered. And Jesus, when he was made an offering for sin; when he    

- 207 - J. H. Waggoner

was placed in the hands of the powers of earth, was crowned with thorns. The old purple robe and the crown of thorns were a mockery of his right as king, but they became a part of the means of his final triumph—a means of vindicating the justice of God before men and angels in the Judgment. He was “the heir” whom the men of the vineyard cast out and slew. But he will come again to claim his own, and they will be destroyed. Matt. 21:33-42.

Mat 21:33  Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country: 

Mat 21:34  And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it. 

Mat 21:35  And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. 

Mat 21:36  Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them likewise. 

Mat 21:37  But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. 

Mat 21:38  But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. 

Mat 21:39  And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him. 

Mat 21:40  When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen? 

Mat 21:41  They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons. 

Mat 21:42  Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes? '

(To be continued)

(Excerpt from-) THE ATONEMENT PART SECOND:

THE ATONEMENT AS REVEALED IN THE BIBLE

 (1884)

BY   ELDER J. H. WAGGONER