The gift of the land in the Holy Bible
Dear reader,
In the Old Testament of the Holy Bible it is clear that the land in which any person lives is a gift from God.
All the world is God’s, it is his creation made in the six days of creation as recorded in Genesis chapter one. Adam and Eve’s sin caused all the land to be cursed so that it would no longer grow food easily as it did before their sin (Genesis 3:17). So it is clear that Adam and Eve’s sin affected all the land of the Earth. Through painful toil Adam and his ancestors would now grow food.
When Cain murdered his brother Abel in Genesis chapter 4, and Cain denied responsibility for this, God announced to Cain that his brother’s blood was crying to him from the ground. There were serious consequences for this murder related to the ground: “When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength” (Genesis 4:12, E.S.V.). In many other places in the Old and New Testament we see that a people or a nation who commit murder or who willingly allow murder to happen and are unrepentant have the very ground or land of their nation cursed until the nation repents, asks God for forgiveness and also seeks to reconcile with the relatives/ancestors of those whom they wronged. This is called the curse of innocent blood.
In the context of God telling Jacob’s descendants coming out of slavery in Egypt not to act like the people who lived in the land of Canaan before them, who sacrificed their children to Molech, a false god powered by demons, God states to Moses their leader, “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you became unclean, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you (for the people of the land who were before you, did all these abominations, so that the land became unclean), lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.” (Leviticus 18:24-28, E.S.V.)
What God is teaching Moses and Jacob’s descendants here is the land is his and he gives the land to whomever he chooses. But receiving the gift of living in a particular land is a conditional gift, that is, you live there but the land is never yours-it always remains God’s-you just rent it so to speak. And God is very equitable in dealing with the land. When the Canaanites committed gross idolatry and worshipped false gods and committed infanticide in their worship, God said this made the Canaanites and the land unclean and God forced them to leave, using Jacob’s descendants through war to force the Canaanites out. But when Jacob’s descendants, also called the people of Israel, later worshipped false gods and committed infanticide and other sins in their worship of false gods, they themselves became unclean and God used the Babylonian Empire by war to remove the Israelites from the land and take them into exile. But when a remnant of the people of Israel in exile repented, God forgave their sins and brought them back to the land of Canaan.
God gave many promises to the land of Canaan which he gave to Jacob’s descendants. God promised his people if they worshipped him and him alone and followed his various rules for right worship, then he would bless the land and give the Israelites bountiful crops, peace, protection from invading enemies, and bless them with great fertility. In essence God promised he would bless the land greatly if they worshipped him and him alone and did not adopt the worship practices of the pagan nations all around the land of Canaan but followed his rules for worship alone.
This might lead you to think that only this one part of the land of Canaan was blessed but you’d be wrong. Any place, any land which worships the true and living God, the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, alone will have their land blessed. Why? Because all the promises of the land which God gave to Jacob’s descendants are ultimately fulfilled in God’s promise to Jacob’s descendants and to the world that God would save the world from sin and death through a Saviour, who would be born in the line of Jacob. That Saviour was Jesus Christ, the Son of God from eternity yet born in history of the virgin Mary, and Israelite woman, and of the line of King David the royal line in the nation of Israel. Jesus Christ, the God-man, lived a sinless life and only worshipped his Heavenly Father. Jesus never committed gross idolatry or infanticide or any sin. He was clean and holy and it was God’s plan from eternity that his son Jesus Christ, take on humanity and die as a sin offering for the sin of the world. All sinners who trust in Jesus as their Lord and Saviour are forgiven all sin. And all the promises God gave to Jacob’s descendants living in Canaan now come to anyone who trusts in Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. After Jesus was crucified and die on a cross outside Jerusalem, he rose to new life three days after he died. After teaching his disciples for some days after his resurrection Jesus ascended back to heaven from whence he came and promised all his followers, whether descendants of Jacob or not, that by trusting in him as Lord he will one day return to Earth and completely change the Earth. Jesus will return and he will eliminate all sin and death and he will give his followers a bodily resurrection and renew the Earth. Jesus will remove Adam’s curse from the Earth and all the promises God gave to the land of Canaan for the Israelites: peace, security, abundance, joy-they will all be given continually and forever.
So this means you don’t have to be a Jew or living in the land of Canaan as to receive God’s blessing on the land. In fact, those Jews who today live in what was called the ancient land of Canaan who presently reject Jesus as their Messiah and Saviour don’t receive a blessing as God is clear that his blessing on the land after Jesus’ birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension now come only through faith in Jesus as Lord. Merely living in the land of Canaan does not give a blessing anymore. It is through faith in Jesus that God’s blessing on the land is personally received. Thus God’s promise of the gift of the land is very difficult to receive in this world as it would necessitate living in a land that rejects murder in all its forms and is collectively repentant for all forms of murder committed in its midst and is collectively committed to only worshipping God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I do not know of a Christian nation that would match all of these characteristics: if there was one God would bless it abundantly, but it seems like the promise of the gift of the land mentioned in the Old and New Testament is now almost exclusively for the life to come.
Rev. Rob Korsch, S.T.M.
Pastor
Grace Lutheran Church, (Lutheran Church-Canada) Kitchener, ON
All quotations from the Holy Bible are from the English Standard Version (E.S.V.), Copyright 2001 by Crossways Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.
