" Hence the promise to Abraham
has its complete fulfillment in New Testament salvation.
In Romans 4, Paul again dips deep into the promise of God to Abraham and
brings forth beautiful teaching which shows that, to him, God's promise
to Abraham was spiritual as well as material, that there was to be a
spiritual seed as well as literal seed, and that "faith" is as potent
as natural birth in making men children of Abraham. Also in these verses
Abraham is made the "father of us all," even of Gentiles, which of course
could not be true except in a spiritual sense.
The same subject is treated again in chapter 4 of Hebrews. Here the
figure is "rest." The rest of the Israelites was their settling in Canaan,
and in verse 6, speaking of the fact that some did not enter rest because
of unbelief, allusion is made to the failure to enter Canaan from
Kadesh-barnea. Then ten spies brought back such a bad report that the
whole camp wept, and would not go over. For forty years these rebels
wandered in the wilderness, until all were dead except Caleb and Joshua,
the two faithful spies.
There is a beautiful analogy between the events of the Israelites in
their journey out of Egypt into Canaan and the fundamental experiences
of the Christian.
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