THE CHRISTIAN AFRIKANERS - The Works of F. N. Lee

11:14 says that the patriarchs sought a city. Hebrews 11:16 declares they were not thinking of thefatherland which they had left. But now, they were longing for a better country, i.e. a heavenly one."Here, we do not read that they longed for heaven as a fatherland. Instead, we read that they longedfor a heavenly fatherland -- namely a fatherland determined by, and given from, heaven: an earthlyfatherland given from heaven; an earthly fatherland of heavenly character!"In addition, the contrast is not between Ur the deserted fatherland plus Canaan as the lesserpromised land -- versus heaven as a better fatherland. No! The contrast is rather between leaving Uras a lesser fatherland deserving to be deserted, versus the promised land of Canaan here on earth.That latter in turn was of course a picture of the new heaven and the new earth of the thenmessianicfuture -- the fulfilment of Canaan, when heaven comes down to earth and when theearthly Canaan and the heavenly Canaan will be one!"Now we are only threatened by a horizontalisation of Canaan -- if it is described as a fatherlandbetter than the one to come after death, or if one stops only at the earthly Canaan. Then, of course,there will [quite rightly] be an immediate reaction -- to refer to heaven as being a still betterfatherland than the earthly Canaan."But we are also threatened by a pietistic distortion of the Gospel -- which practically denies God asCreator, and denies the goodness of the earthly Canaan. As a result of this kind of distorted pietisticspiritualisation -- which ignores the history of salvation -- the Old Testament is obscured. Peoplethen know no better than to use terms like 'external' and 'earthly' and 'national' to characterise theunderestimated gift of the earthly Canaan."Here in the Bible, however -- as too in respect of Jerusalem -- we should never docetically pictureCanaan as simply being earthly. For heaven is included in the gift of the earthly Canaan -- just asthe vine and the fig-tree are included when spoken of in regard to the Messiah and His comingkingdom in Micah 4."The geographical Jerusalem and the geographical Canaan were on the same line as the newJerusalem and the new earth which we are still expecting. Precisely because we have our rights, wealso have our duties -- politics in respect of our nations, and culture too in the broadest sense of theword. We must not play down 'the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee' of Exodus 20 andEphesians 6 -- as if it were merely an earthly blessing!"After Christ's ascension, no change has occurred in the attitude of the Church to earthly life. Itregards earthly life as being the same blessing it was in Old Testament times. There is, at least, nochange in the sense that the outlook of the New Testament Church is now -- after Christ's ascension-- more directed towards that [pie-in-the-sky by-and-by] misinterpretation of Colossians 3:1-2's'Seek the things above where Jesus is.' For such a 'Platonic' misinterpretation conveniently ignoresverse 18, which describes the things that are above -- namely: 'husbands love your wives,' etc."Even under the Old Covenant, the outlook was directed also toward the Messianic Age. Evenunder the New Covenant one must still live according to the words of the great Christian theologianHondius: 'Look downward and think upward!' Even under the New Covenant, the land has beengiven to the children of men. But the citizens of God's kingdom must fulfil their tasks consciously-- and fully!"They are to do so "not with the attitude that they are living at the end of the ages -- but to do sorather by executing the mandates of Genesis 1:28 and Matthew 28:19 (the mandates of theirheavenly Lord and Saviour)." As van der Waal's mentor Klaas Schilder said in Holland during