The Land of Christ by Yohanna Katanacho

Ever since I visited The Holy Land a few years ago I have been fascinated with the theology, history and politics of the place. Having been brought up in a Brethren church and hearing a fair amount of Christian Zionist teaching about the present state of Israel being a clear fulfilment of biblical prophecy, I have been on a journey of trying to assess what the Bible actually says about the land and its relationship to the Jewish people.

I heard the author speak at a conference recently and heard his fascinating story of growing up in a Christian Palestinian family on the Via Dolorosa, and becoming a prominent atheist university lecturer until a profound experience one night led him to faith in Jesus. His subsequent attempts to live out the message of the Sermon on the Mount in the land of Jesus are both harrowing and challenging. This story makes up the first chapter of this short but dense book.

The author then launches into his argument with three questions: what are the borders of the land? Who is Israel? And how did God give Israel the land? The key question of all is does the land belong to Israel or to Christ? The title of the book gives a strong hint about where the argument is heading! He then looks in details at how the scriptures describe the land in three time periods: before Abraham, the time from Abraham to Christ, and after the coming of Christ.

One interesting observation from Genesis 12-22 is his idea that 'it seems that the land of Abraham is not going to have strict borders... (It) will continue to extend until it is equal to the whole earth'. So Abraham's seed will ultimately unite the whole earth.  Then he argues that 'The New Testament demonstrates that Christ is the Abrahamic seed in which and through which the promises are fulfilled. Through him, the Abrahamic land extends to the whole earth'. 'The promise to Abraham was not to have a land with fixed borders, but to inherit the whole earth'.

I found this book really interesting and challenging, both theologically and to my own comfortable lifestyle. I would recommend it to anyone whatever your perspective on the Holy Land as a perspective which is not just developed in an ivory tower but lived out and experienced on a day to day basis. As such it has real integrity.