Is the Abrahamic covenant obsolete?

Over at Jamin Hubner’s blog, a guest blogger posted the following quote from Greg Nichols:

“One dimension of this impact calls for special attention. I refer to the perpetual possession of Canaan as a divine inheritance: ‘I will give unto thee and to they seed after thee the land of their sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God’ (Gen. 17:8) In light of this testimony of Scripture, the question arises: Is the land of Canaan the perpetual inheritance of God’s people? I offer five considerations in answer to this question.

 

First, God has already given to Hebrew Israel all the land that he promised to give them (1 Kings 4:21; Neh. 9:8).

 

Second, Hebrew Israel, as a society, is no longer God’s theocratic nation (Matt. 21:43). In Genesis 17:8, Scripture explicitly connects possessing Canaan with being God’s people. They possessed it as God’s people. Yet they are no longer the theocratic nation of God’s people. Possessing Canaan as divine inheritance lasted only as long as Hebrew Israel, as a society, remained God’s theocratic nation.

 

Third, the old covenant inheritance, Canaan, was inseparably joined to the book of the law (Lev. 25:10). Joshua allotted Canaan to Hebrew Israel by tribes. They were to retain their possession by genealogical records. The year of jubilee recognizes and perpetuates this allocation of Canaan (lev. 25:10). It is impossible to keep the year of Jubilee in Germany, or the United States, or in any other land. Canaan is the land of the book of the law. Conversely, the book fo the law is the law of the land of Canaan. Plainly, God’s people are no longer under the book of the law as their theocratic constitution. Therefore, the land of Canaan is no longer the divine inheritance of God’s people under the new covenant.

 

Fourth, God has already given his people the down payment of their better, new covenant inheritance (Eph. 1:13-14).

 

Fifth, its description as “everlasting” was also applied to other temporary institutions. The word translated “everlasting” in Genesis 17:8, literally means, “until the distant future.” Often it does signify forever and ever (Deut. 33:27; Ps. 90:2), but not always. Context must determine its duration. Scripture uses this very word to describe the duration of the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:34) and of the Aaronic priesthood (Exod. 29:28, 40:15). Scripture indicates explicitly that these other old covenant institutions terminate with the coming of Messiah. His coming is their vanishing point, the end of the age. Similarly, in Genesis 17:8, [this Hebrew word] signifies “until the distant future, throughout the entire era of Hebrew Israel’s theocracy.” That era lasted a very long time, some fifteen-hundred years, until the promised Messiah came to institute the new covenant.

 

In conclusion, Scripture does not teach that the land of Canaan is the perpetual inheritance of God’s people. I neither assert nor deny the right of Hebrew Israel to possess Canaan today. If they retain any right to Canaan, that right does not rest on theocracy, since they are no longer God’s theocratic society. Rather, any such right would grow out of the general principles of justice that apply to all territorial disputes among nations.”

The basic problem I have with this line of argument is that the land-promises in Gen 17 have reference to the Abrahamic covenant, not the Mosaic covenant. Now the “old”/“new” covenant distinction normally draws a contrast between the Mosaic covenant and the new covenant, not between the Abrahamic covenant and the new covenant.

What does it mean to say the new covenant terminates the Abrahamic covenant? Is the Abrahamic covenant phased out when the new covenant is phased in? Are Christians not heirs to the Abrahamic covenant?

If this argument disproves dispensationalism, then it simultaneously disproves the covenant theology of non-dispensationalists like Tom Schreiner and O. P. Robertson.