New Covenant

OT Israel was mainly wicked unbelievers, with few circumcised in the heart believers. The New Covenant removed the wicked unbelievers leaving only the circumcised in heart believers in tact. To these thousands more became circumcised in heart believers on the Day of Pentecost and thousands later. But God also added billions of circumcised in heart believing gentiles in the place of the wicked he removed.

 

Most of the physically circumcised were wicked unbelievers. This is why God gave them the Ten Commandments. But we know Abraham and those of like faith were circumcised in heart. Their faith being the result of it.

 

God gave the Law to both saved/unsaved. as way to regulate their behaviors!

 

he was a lost sinner before jesus saved him!

 

Paul did not have biblical faith. Believing in your idea of God is not believing in God.

 

It had everything to do with what scripture says. If Abraham had faith, he had the Holy Spirit because faith is one of the fruits. Circumcised heart = new birth = Holy Spirit = faith.

 

No ticket right to heaven, no approaching God directly, no Jesus as High Priest!

 

If Canaan represented Heaven, they all received the promises over there.

 

They had the types & shadows - promised land, tabernacle as a sign of God's presence, earthly Jerusalem & a place of worship, a priesthood & animal sacrificial system. We have the full revelation of the Incarnation & saving work of our LORD Jesus Christ, and the indwelling Holy Spirit by whom we worship our Saviour God without priests, sacrifices or temple.

The patriarchs didn't even possess the promised land they were living in.

Heb. 11:8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
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Paul explains it like this -

Eph. 2:19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.​

We have to understand that there is a spiritual reality that is explained so clearly by the Apostles.

The "Psalms/Songs of ascent" show the eagerness of worshippers physically heading for Jerusalem. Their absence during exile was a cause of great lament. We have no such problem. We cannot be exiled from the heavenly Jerusalem. And we know that Jesus has risen from the dead to open the way to heaven for us.

 

Read Hebrews 10 for a full answer to your question.

 

“These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things make it manifest that they are seeking after a country of their own. And if indeed they had been mindful of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city.” (Hebrews 11:13–16)

 

I think Hebrews makes it clear that Heaven is the promise Canaan only symbolized. Think of it this way. How can Canaan be forever on a cursed earth to end in fire? How can the untold billions of people who fulfill God's promise to Abraham fit in the Middle East, let alone Canaan? The spiritual saw Canaan as a symbol of the heavenly. The carnal still think the symbol is all they get.