The Future Inheritance of Land in the Pauline Epistles

The Apostle Paul’s vision of eternity is centered on the inheritance theme. Although Paul rarely unpacks this concept, he employs the inheritance in a manner that encompasses the hope of a renewed cosmos promised to Abraham and his descendants. Thus, the apostle does not redefine a theme grounded in the Old Testament and Second Temple literature—as if it now referred to heaven or some other spiritualized existence. He expects what every pious Jew expected—the tangible fulfillment of the promise, when at last God’s people will dwell in a land where they will experience rest under the rule of Messiah. What Paul clarifies is that those who are “in Christ” are the beneficiaries of the inheritance. Although believers do not currently possess what has been promised to them, they have the hope that the Spirit will lead them on a new exodus through the wilderness of the present sinful age until they inherit the coming world.