The Earth Made New

For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Hebrews 11:10.

Abraham had no possession in the earth, “no, not so much as to set his foot on.” He possessed great substance, and he used it to the glory of God and good of his fellow-men; but he did not look upon this world as his home. The Lord had called him to leave his idolatrous countrymen, with the promise of the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession; yet neither he nor his son nor his son’s son received it.

When Abraham desired a burial-place for his dead, he had to buy it of the Canaanites. His sole possession in the land of promise was that rock-hewn tomb in the cave of Machpelah.

But the word of God had not failed; neither did it meet its final accomplishment in the occupation of Canaan by the Jewish people…. Abraham himself was to share the inheritance…. And the Bible plainly teaches that the promises made to Abraham are to be fulfilled through Christ…. God gave to Abraham a view of this immortal inheritance, and with this hope he was content. “By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”

Of the posterity of Abraham it is written, “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” We must dwell as pilgrims and strangers here if we would gain “a better country, that is, a heavenly.”—Patriarchs and Prophets, 169, 170.