Through our recent Sunday morning messages from the Book of Ezekiel, we have learned that the Lord promised the captive Israelites that He Himself would execute what we have come to know as a ‘new covenant.’  This very name for the covenant comes from Ezekiel’s fellow prophet Jeremiah, who was preaching in the city of Jerusalem during the time of Ezekiel’s exile in Babylon. In Jeremiah 31:31 he declares,

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.”

In Ezekiel 36:22-38 we find Ezekiel’s version of this same “new covenant.”

The catalog of the blessings promised to Israel in association with this new act of God on their behalf is truly amazing.  You will see in verse 24 that the very first of these blessed benefits is the fact that the Lord will regather His captive people, and place them back in their “own land.”  This promise is stated again in verse 28.

As we consider this special covenant, now removed from Ezekiel’s time by over 2600 years, we wonder how this promise is to be fulfilled.  Does this mean that, ultimately, the Israelite people, the ethnic Jews, are guaranteed to live in the actual land of Israel forever?  Or, is there something even bigger and better being promised that will encompass all nations and far exceed the boundaries of the Holy Land?  Even more so, we want to know how such a divine promise of a perpetual homeland for ancient Israel is good news to us today.  What does land have to do with the Gospel and our story of redemption in Christ our Lord?