How Does Amillennialist Hank Hanegraaff Interpret the Fulfillment of the OT Covenants?

Hank Hanegraaff, in his book [amazon_textlink asin=’0849919916′ text=’The Apocalypse Code‘ template=’ProductLink’ store=’toughquest_plugin-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’6f035e02-a234-11e7-9fe5-8152548db201′], argues that the promises to Abraham and David were ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ.  Citing Galatians 3:16, Hanegraaff believes that the Abrahamic covenant is “spiritually grounded in one singular Seed [Christ].” In the words of Keith Mathison, as quoted by Hanegraaff, “The promises made to literal, physical Israelites were fulfilled by a literal, physical Israelite, Jesus the Messiah.  He is the Seed of Abraham.”

This is not to say that the land promises were never fulfilled.  Hanegraaff sees the fulfillment of Abraham’s covenant occurring in multiple phases.  In the first phase, the land promises actually were fulfilled under Joshua and Solomon.  “God’s plan becomes a tangible reality when Joshua leads the children of Israel into Palestine.”  Hanegraaff cites Joshua 23:14 as evidence of the Abrahamic covenant’s fulfillment.  “Now I am about to go the way of all the earth. You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed.”  Under Solomon’s rule, “the land promises reached their zenith” since his rule “encompassed all of the land from the Euphrates River in the north to the River of Egypt in the south (1 Kings 4:20-21; cf. Genesis 15:18).”

The first phase of fulfillment was only temporary.  Hanegraaff continues to explain that “the land promises are fulfilled in the far future through Jesus who provides true Israel with permanent rest from their wanderings in sin.” This is the second phase of fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant.  Hanegraaff argues that the land promises were never the primary concern of the covenant.  “The land was never the focus of our Lord; instead, our Lord is forever the locus of the land.” In Acts 1:6, when the disciples asked Jesus about restoring the land to Israel, “Jesus reoriented their thinking from a restored Jewish state to a kingdom that knows no borders or boundaries.” The physical rest, which the land promises were to provide to the Jews, is a type which is fulfilled in the antitype of the spiritual rest in Christ.  “The writer of Hebrews makes clear that the rest the descendants of Abraham experienced when they entered the land is but a type of the rest we experience when we enter an eternal relationship with the Lord.” Likewise, Jerusalem, the capital city of Israel, is also a type which is superseded by Christ, the ultimate antitype.  “Jesus is the antitype who fulfills all of the typology vested in Jerusalem.”

The third and final phase, which will occur in the future, takes place when Paradise is restored – when the New Jerusalem, the Holy City spoken of in Revelation 21, replaces the earth.  “The climax of the promise would not be Palestine regained but Paradise restored.” In Hanegraaff’s view, “The promise of the land will be fully and finally consummated when Paradise lost is reconstituted as Paradise restored.  Canaan is thus typological of a renewed cosmos.”

The Davidic covenant is also fulfilled by Christ.  “God’s promises to David that his descendants would sit on the throne forever . . . was fulfilled when Christ, the ‘Son of David’ . . . , ascended to the throne of the heavenly Jerusalem and established his rule and reign over all the earth.”  According to Hanegraaff, Peter makes clear in Acts 2 that “Jesus’s reign has already been inaugurated in his resurrection and ascension to the throne of God.” Jesus, therefore, completely fulfills the promise made to David that his descendants would forever rule on the throne of Jerusalem.  No messianic kingdom in the future is necessary to fulfill the Davidic covenant.  In comparing the fulfillment by Jesus to the original promise made to David, Hanegraaff observes that “the lesser is fulfilled and rendered obsolete by the greater.”

In summary, Hanegraaff believes that the promises made to Abraham and David were fulfilled in Christ.  Instead of just receiving the land of Canaan, Abraham’s spiritual descendants will receive the entire cosmos when God replaces the earth with the New Jerusalem.  Instead of just receiving a physical throne in Jerusalem, David’s descendant, Jesus, inherited the very throne of heaven where he reigns over the entire universe.  For Hanegraaff, “To now require that God must provide a literal throne in Jerusalem upon which Jesus will physically sit to rule over national Israel in a millennial semi-golden age is more than an anticlimactic step backward; it is an insult to the glory and grandeur of God’s throne.”