What does Canaan, the land of promise, the land of "milk and honey," the "rest" of God, portray? Of what is Canaan a type? Specifically what does Canaan represent?

What is the goal, the end result, the "Heaven" of the Christian salvation?

We know that Canaan is not a type of Heaven because we do not (as far as we know) have to fight our way from city to city after we get to Heaven.

Our destiny is the Sabbath rest of God. When we enter God's rest we shall seek the Lord's pleasure, speak the Lord's words, and walk in the Lord's ways for eternity (compare Isaiah 58:13,14).

Our destiny includes change into the moral image of the Lord Jesus, and union with God through Christ.

We are being created the eternal Temple of God, a place where God can find rest. We shall have attained the goal of our existence when all sin and self-seeking have been removed from our personality and God and Jesus have settled down to rest in us. God and we enter rest at the same time.

Why have we become confused concerning our destiny in Christ?

One reason for our blindness is the teaching of the so-called "rapture" of the "Gentile Christians." One of the teachings that attends the doctrine of the "rapture" is that a "Gentile Church" will be carried off to Heaven to do we know not what, while the saints who were physically born Jews will inherit the earth.

As long as this concept is held, the Christian people never will understand the goal of their redemption. They will remain ignorant of the fact that when the Hebrew Prophets speak of the Kingdom of God, they are referring to the coming of the Christian Church to the earth to govern the nations.

Is there a difference between Jewish saints and Gentile saints? Once an individual becomes a Christian the distinction between Jew and Gentile disappears. There only is the new creation, and the new creation is neither Jewish nor Gentile.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ. (Galatians 3:28)

The Kingdom of God always is for God's Israel, and God's Israel includes all who are in Christ. We Gentiles have been grafted on the one true Vine, Christ. There is no such thing as a "Gentile Church." It cannot be found in the Scriptures. There is but one fold, one Shepherd.

The Kingdom of God began among the physical Jews and will end among the physical Jews. All the Apostles of the Lamb were Jews. The Body of Christ originally consisted of physical Jews, and God will turn again to physical Israel in the last days. Those to whom God turns will become part of Christ, the Olive Tree, the one true Vine of which the believing Gentiles are an eternal part.

And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; (Romans 11:17)

If we are not part of the one Israel of God, we have no place in the Kingdom of God.

To be continued.