“But now, to apply all this to the subject under consideration—the earthly inheritance : If that inheritance was promised in a way which, from the very first, implied a resurrection from the dead, before it could be rightly enjoyed; and if all along, even when Canaan was possessed by the seed of Abraham, the men of faith still looked forward to another inheritance, when the curse should be utterly abolished, the blessing fully received, and death finally swallowed up in victory,—then a twofold boon must have been conveyed to Abraham and his seed, under the promise of the land of Canaan; one to be realized in the natural, and the other in the resurrection state, —a mingled and temporary good before, and a complete and permanent one after, the restitution of all things by the Messiah. So that, in regard to the ultimate designs of God, the land of Canaan would serve much the same purpose as the garden of Eden, with its tree of life and cherubim of glory—the same, and yet more; for it not only presented to the eye of faith a type, but also gave in its possession an earnest, of the inheritance of a paradisiacal world. The difference, however, is not essential, and only indicates an advance in God’s revelations and purposes of grace, making what was ultimately designed for the faithful more sure to them by an instalment, through a singular train of providential arrangements, in a present inheritance of good. They thus enjoyed a real and substantial pledge of the better things to come, which were to be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”
Patrick Fairbairn, The Typology of Scripture
West Port Experiment 