God’s covenant – The Christian Exile

Now that we’ve established a clearer biblical understanding of holiness – that to be holy means being set apart by God’s presence and for God’s purposes – and clarified that Israel is not merely an ethnic group but a covenant people set apart by faith, let’s now turn our attention to the land God promised to Israel. What made that particular plot of land – the land of Canaan – holy in the first place?

A Land Promised by God

The idea of a “promised land” is rooted in God’s covenant with Abraham. In Genesis 12:7, God says, “To your offspring I will give this land,” referring to the land then occupied by the Canaanites.

Later, in Genesis 13:15-16, God broadens the scope of this promise:

For all the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted.

Already, there’s a hint that Abraham’s descendants would extend beyond his physical lineage – anticipating the broader definition of Israel as a people who share Abraham’s faith (cf. Romans 4:16-17). While God’s promise to Abraham centered geographically on the land of Canaan (Genesis 12:1-7; 15:18-21), the full scope of the promise would ultimately extend to a people as numerous as the dust of the earth itself.

God’s Land, God’s Sanctuary

As the Israelites prepared to enter the land, God spoke through Moses in Exodus 15:17:

You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain,
the place, O LORD, which you have made for your abode,
the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established.

Here, the land God was giving to Israel is described as God’s own dwelling place – His sanctuary. Leviticus 25:23 reinforces this point clearly:

The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me.

This is key: what made the land holy was not that it belonged to Israel, but that it belonged to God. Israel’s role was that of a guest. They were sojourners, even in the promised land. The land was holy – not because of who lived there, but because of the One who claimed it for His purposes.

Spiritual Geography

This concept of a geographical plot of land belonging to God himself can be traced back to Moses’s song in Deuteronomy 32, which we looked at briefly in the previous part of this study.

When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
when he divided mankind,
he fixed the borders of the peoples
according to the number of the sons of God.
But the LORD’s portion is his people,
Jacob his allotted heritage.
Deuteronomy 32:8-9

Here we see that God assigned each nation its own allotted land, and with it, its own spiritual association. That is, the land was allotted according to the number of the “sons of God,” a phrase used in the Old Testament to refer to lesser spiritual beings (Job 1:6; 38:7; cf. Psalm 29:1; 89:6).

This divine allotment is the Bible’s explanation for why the surrounding nations came to serve other “gods” – it was part of God’s sovereign division of the land. From that vantage point, each geographical location had its own spiritual identity. Land is either holy, meaning the territory has been claimed by the one true God, where His presence dwelt and His covenant people loved, or the land was unholy, meaning the region was under the dominion of other spiritual powers.

This isn’t a denial of God’s omnipresence, but it underscores that geography itself has spiritual significance. The promised land was set apart by God’s claim on it. To live in the promised land was to dwell in the domain of the LORD; to leave it was to cross into the dominion of another spiritual power. (For a deeper dive, read “The Principalities and Powers” here.)

The Significance of Spiritual Geography

Clearly, David understood this. Have you ever noticed his lament when he fled from Saul into a foreign territory?

They have driven me out this day that I should have no share in the heritage of the LORD, saying, “Go serve other gods.”
1 Samuel 26:19

David wasn’t switching religions. He knew God was present everywhere (cf. Psalm 139:7-12). But he also knew that leaving God’s land meant stepping into regions associated with the domain of other “gods.” David understood that there was something special about the promised land. It was the place where the LORD had chosen to dwell. Meanwhile the land where he was driven was under the influence of other rebellious spiritual powers.

A similar awareness appears in the story of Naaman, the Syrian military commander healed of leprosy. After his healing, he offered a gift to Elisha. When Elisha refused payment, Naaman made what may at first sound like a very strange request:

Then Naaman said, “If not, please let there be given to your servant two mule loads of earth, for from now on your servant will not offer burnt offering or sacrifice to any god but the LORD.”
2 Kings 5:17

Two loads of earth? Dirt? Why would Naaman want to carry loads of dirt?

It wasn’t because Israel’s physical dirt was somehow superior to dirt in the surrounding region. It was because Naaman recognized the holiness of the land. He wanted to take a part of that sacred ground back with him, because he recognized that the land of Israel had spiritual significance. It was the land that belonged to the true God as opposed to all the other gods who were served among the nations.

The Conditional Nature of the Land Promise

Although God did give the land of Canaan to Israel, it was never theirs unconditionally. We read in Joshua 21:43 that God gave Israel the land, just as he had promised:

Thus the LORD gave to Israel all the land that he swore to give to their fathers. And they took possession of it and settled there.

But the land remained God’s possession. Israel’s right to dwell there was based solely on their faithfulness to the LORD. In Exodus 19:5-6, God makes this crystal clear:

Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

Their inheritance was never automatic. In Leviticus 20:22, God warns,

You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out.

The prophets repeatedly echoed this truth. If Israel ceased to be faithful to God’s covenant, they would be expelled (cf. Amos 7:7; Hosea 9:2-3; Jeremiah 3:19-20). Perhaps the most sobering warning comes in Jeremiah 17:3-4:

Your wealth and all your treasures I will give for spoil as the price of your high places for sin throughout all your territory. You shall loosen your hand from your heritage that I give you, and I will make you serve your enemies in a land that you do not know, for in my anger a fire is kindled that shall burn forever.

To live in the land was to fully embrace loyalty to God’s covenant. Security in the land was never about national strength – it was about faithfulness to the LORD.

The land was a gift, but a conditional one. It was never given to Israel as a piece of real estate to own apart from submission to God’s rule. It was Holy Land because it was God’s land – and He alone determined who could dwell there.

With this, we’ve now explored what it means for something to be holy (Part 1), the true identity of Israel as God’s covenant people (Part 2), and why the promised land was holy (Part 3). This groundwork prepares us to examine how the land promise finds its fulfillment in light of the gospel.

But before we do, we must address a common concern: the charge of “replacement theology” – the claim that the church has replaced Israel in a way that nullifies God’s promises to Israel. To be clear, I do not believe in replacement theology, as it lacks critically important nuance regarding the significance of Israel in the Bible. In the next part of this study, we’ll take that objection seriously with careful biblical reflection.

The term “Holy Land” is frequently used today to describe the modern nation of Israel.

In the first part of this study we asked the question, “What does it mean to be holy?” Throughout the Bible, holiness is about being set apart for God’s presence and for God’s purpose. With that foundation in place, we now turn to a second essential question: “Who – or what – is “Israel”?

Many people today refer to the modern land of Israel as the “Holy Land.” But in doing so, they often assume a definition of “Israel” that doesn’t line up with the way the Bible itself uses the term. If we’re going to come to grips with what the Bible teaches about a holy land, we must also understand who or what “Israel” is.

A People, Not a Place

The word “Israel” in the Bible never refers to a piece of land. Yes, God gave the people of Israel a land to dwell in, and yes, that land had deep spiritual significance. But the term “Israel” itself always refers to a people – a special group of people who were in a covenant relationship with God, set apart for His purposes.

The name “Israel” comes from Genesis 32, when Jacob wrestled with a mysterious man, who was later revealed to be the angel of the LORD. It was this Angel who gave Jacob a new name: Israel, meaning “He who strives with God” (Genesis 32:28). Jacob’s twelve sons would become the patriarchs of the twelve tribes of Israel. From that moment forward “Israel” referred to the descendants of Jacob – not a geographical area, but a people in a covenant with the LORD.

Not Defined by Race

A common misconception, not only during the time of Christ, but extending even to today throughout much of modern evangelicalism, is that “Israel” refers to the ethnic Jewish people. Since “Israel” was used to refer to the descendants of Jacob, it is easy to see how many would easily draw this conclusion. However, a careful reading of Scripture quite clearly reveals that from the very beginning, the people of Israel included those from other nations who had chosen to align themselves with the LORD.

Here’s a few examples:

Exodus 12:38 says that a “mixed multitude” left Egypt along with the Israelites
Numbers 12:1 describes Moses’ wife as a Cushite
Rahab, the woman who protected the spies in Jericho, was a Canaanite from Jericho (Joshua 2:1; 6:25)
Ruth, the great-grandmother of King David, was a Moabite (Ruth 1:4)
Uriah the Hittite, one of David’s mighty men, wasn’t ethnically Jewish (2 Samuel 11:3)
Esther 8:17 tells us that “many from the peoples of the country declared themselves Jews” out of fear and reverence

In Zechariah’s prophetic vision where God promises to restore and dwell in Jerusalem after Israel’s exile, an Angel proclaims that the time is coming when God’s covenant family will expand far beyond ethnic Israel to include people of all nations.

And many nations shall join themselves to the LORD in that day, and shall be my people. And I will dwell in your midst, and you shall know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you.
Zechariah 2:11

Clearly, the biblical category of “Israel” was never tied exclusively to ethnicity. Instead, Israel has always included anyone who turns to the LORD in faithful obedience. This is exactly the point that the apostle Paul makes in Romans 2:28-29, when he says,

For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

According to Paul, being an Israelite, a true Jew, is a matter of faithfulness. Rather than being marked out by a physical feature such as circumcision, they are marked out by the Spirit. The same God who welcomed foreigners in the Exodus, and welcomed Ruth and Rahab into the family of Israel, welcomes all those who turn to Him in faithful obedience today.

A Family Bound by Faith

In the first century, this non-ethnic definition of Israel stirred up controversy. Many Jewish people feared that including the Gentiles among God’s people would mean that God had abandoned His promises to Abraham. This concern stands behind much of what Paul said throughout his letter to the Romans. For instance, consider Paul’s words in Romans 9:6-8

But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of promise are counted as offspring.

Here, Paul draws a sharp line between ethnic descent and those to whom God has promised an inheritance. God’s promises were never about bloodlines; they were about faithfulness. The true children of Abraham are those who act out of trust in God’s promises.

Jesus made this same point when speaking to a group of Jews:

They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did.”
John 8:39

Then, just a few verses later, He declares that their true father is not Abraham, but the devil (John 8:44). Why? Because they rejected the truth of God’s Word.

And let’s not forget John the Baptist’s bold statement to the Pharisees:

And do not presume to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our father,” for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.
Matthew 3:9

In other words, physical descent means nothing without faithfulness to God.

Not the Modern Nation-State

Since Israel is not defined as the land itself, and not defined by an ethnic group of people, it should also be plain to see that the biblical definition of “Israel” does not apply to the modern nation-state of Israel. While some may contend that today’s Israel (founded in 1948) may have some distant cultural and genealogical connections to the people of the Bible, it is fundamentally a secular political entity, not a “holy nation” in the biblical sense.

The modern state of Israel does not function as a covenant people living under God’s law. Its borders are not defined by faithfulness to God. For this reason, it is a serious error to equate modern Israel with biblical Israel, or to take what the Bible says about Israel and apply it to modern Israel.

A Holy Nation

Peter calls the church, Jew and Gentile alike, “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” (1 Peter 2:9). This echoes the very language used by God for Israel at Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:6).

So yes, we may rightly speak of Israel as a “holy nation.” But only if we are using the term the way the Bible does – to describe a people, not a plot of land; and to describe a people who are set apart by the Spirit through their faithfulness to God.

Having carefully defined the term “holy,” and now having a biblical understanding of the term “Israel,” we can now return to the study of the land itself. In the next article we’ll ask the question “Why was Israel’s land considered holy?”