Revelation

The New Creation

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Prerequisite/Law

Lesson: 26-30

Genre: Talk

Track: 194

Dictation Name: RR129N26

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Revelation 21:1-8, the New Creation.

21 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

5 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.

7 He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.

8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”

Very commonly, in fact unfortunately almost universally, as these verses are interpreted today the reference is to the end of the world and the new creation. That it does refer in part to the end of the world and to the new creation is unmistakable, but it is a serious misreading of this passage to interpret it exclusively in that sense. Indeed, as we go through the history of the interpretation of this passage as it was understood by the early church and as it has been understood through the centuries, we find that they clearly understood it not only in terms of the future but of the past and the present. The interpretation from the days of the apostles has been that the creation of a new heaven and a new earth began with the resurrection; that Jesus Christ was the first fruits as Saint Paul declared, of the new humanity and the new creation; he was the new man, and all who are born again in him are members of the new creation. The new creation involves the shaking and recreating of the old world. The first shaking of the earth took place at Sinai, when the holiness of God and His law was death against a world in sin and rebellion. The second and last shaking began with the resurrection, as Saint Paul declared: “God said, yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.”

The Puritan divine, the Reverend John Owen in speaking on Hebrews 12:25-27 said and I quote: “It is therefore the heavens of Mosaic worship, and the Judaical church-state with the earth of their political state belonging thereunto that are here intended.”

Again, years ago, M.S. Terry said: “The New Jerusalem then is the apocalyptic portraiture of the New Testament church and kingdom of God. Its symbolism exhibits the heavenly nature of the communion and fellowship of God and His people, which is entered here by faith, but which opens into unspeakable fullness of glory through ages of ages. Thus there is a double reference here. It is a reference to the present and it is a reference to the future. Everyone who is born again in Jesus Christ is in the new creation, he is a new man; the new creation therefore began with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The restitution of all things began as He began the creation of a new humanity and a new world.

A new heaven and a new earth therefore has reference first of all to the work of Jesus Christ, and then to the glorious end when he comes again and recreates all things. So that we must very definitely say there is a present fulfillment as well as a fulfillment to come.

Now Calvin’s comment helps to clarify the meaning here, and I quote from Calvin: “To make things clearer, let us suppose two worlds. The first, the old, corrupted by Adams sin; the other later in time as renewed by Christ. It hence now appears that here the world to come is not that which we hope for after the resurrection, but that which began at the beginning of Christ’s kingdom. But it will no doubt have its full accomplishment in our final redemption.”

This is an important point. If we are not in the new creation now, if we are not in the New Jerusalem now as members of Jesus Christ, members of His body, there is no new creation we can look forward to in eternity or at the end of the world. If we are outside the new creation now, we shall be outside of it then. The kingdom is and is to come, the new heavens and the new earth are, and they are to come. The fullness is at the end of time, but it is here today. Therefore it is wrong for believers to see this passage only in terms of the future; Christians are neglecting their inheritance, neglecting to understand scripture when they postpone all the fulfillment to the future. We are not to live in terms of victory tomorrow, but in terms of victory today and tomorrow.

The vision as John sees it is this: “I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea.” Now as we have seen, the sea refers to the world of apostate nations, and even as God summoned the church to rejoice before Babylon is fallen, and to proclaim the message: “Babylon is fallen, is fallen, and will rise no more.” So we are even now to move in terms of this proclamation, that there is no more sea. Christ by His death and resurrection has sentenced the world of apostate nations and Babylon to death, and we are to move not in terms of their power, but in terms of the power of Christ.

But some will argue, as they try to reduce this only to a future meaning, “It says God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more sorrow nor death nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away. But we still have death with us. How can we see this as a present fulfillment as well as a future one?” We have only to remember the words of our Lord when He said: “Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” Why? Because He said: “I am the resurrection and the life.”

Now, when we believe in Jesus Christ, when we accept Him as our Lord and savior, when we are born again, this is the first resurrection, it is the resurrection from sin and death. So that when we pass away from this world, instead of dying it is our second resurrection. We enter into the eternal world, and we fulfill that second resurrection with our resurrection body at the end of the world. So that death as Saint Paul declared, has no more power over us. So he could say to death and the grave: “Where is thy victory, where is thy sting?” We have already, because we are members now of Jesus Christ, passed from the world of sin and death, into the world of righteousness and everlasting life. We have passed from citizenship in the old humanity of Adam, into citizenship in the new creation, the new Jerusalem. So that Saint Paul could write to the believers: “Ye are now come unto the Heavenly Jerusalem.”

Ye are now come unto the heavenly Jerusalem, not in the future, but already. The fullness is to come, but you are already citizens of the New Jerusalem. And so you have the rights and the protection thereof.

This can be illustrated by a very simple example, which unfortunately has lost some of its force in recent days. There was a time when it still had meaning. But, if your parents as American citizens had been, let us say, somewhere in Asia working when you were born, even though you perhaps were born in a foreign court, in Asia or Africa or elsewhere, you would be, because of your parentage an American citizen; and you would be subject to all the rights and protections of an American citizen.

This has tremendous meaning. Today we don’t realize it, because today our government is abandoning our citizens everywhere, at home and abroad. But during World War 1 for example, people in the Middle East, whose parents had come here and had returned after becoming citizens and settled somewhere in the old country, and the horrors of World War 1 and the massacres began, and the parents had died, what happened? In those days the American government moved heaven and earth to move in there and rescue that child, a child who had never seen the United States. So that they served notice on whatever power it was, whether it was Turkey or any other power, that if a hair of that child’s head was harmed, an American battleship would be in their port. Why? The child was a citizen of the United States, and was entitled to all the protection and safety of an American citizen. In one case, an American President even earlier served notice on a foreign government, that either the citizen that had been captured should be surrendered alive or the people who captured him dead.

Now this is what it means for us to be citizens of the New Jerusalem, you are now come to the heavenly Jerusalem. Because of Jesus Christ, because of your membership in Him, you are citizens of the new Jerusalem. You have not seen it, you have not walked its streets, but you are citizens thereof; and the Lord declares that you are members therefore of His kingdom, and the vengeance of the Lord will fall upon all who harm you.

This then is the significance of this passage, it declares that we are members here and now of the new creation. The book of Revelation was written to suffering and troubled Christians, and this was the good news it had to offer. Indeed you are going through hell, indeed the wrath of Rome is really going to rise up against you; but the vengeance of God shall be upon those who harm you, and if they harm you their judgement shall be a fearful one.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I control all things. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be my son.

But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”

With them the end of their lives brings eternal damnation. The first death is to be born in Adam into sin and death, the second death is having rejected Christ, having worked against the Lord to die and to suffer eternal condemnation.

As a result, we are summoned by Revelation to walk in confidence, as citizens of the new Jerusalem. Because how can we enjoy heaven if we refuse to enjoy the earth; if we do not walk in the confidence that the Lord is our king, that we have a glorious citizenship, and that if God be for us, who can be against us? Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we give thanks unto Thee for this Thy word. We thank Thee our God that Thou hast summoned us to victory in Jesus Christ, and hast given us so glorious a citizenship. We thank thee that we live and move and have our being in Thee; and we pray our Father that by Thy grace we may be ever kept in Thy protecting care, guided through the maze of the enemies plans, and made rich by Thy care and by Thine inheritance. Our God we look unto Thee, in Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now, first of all with regard to this passage? Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] No you had the Trinity in the Old Testament as well, you had God the Father, you had the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is He who worked through the prophets to give us the Old Testament Scripture, and the prophets again and again speak of the Spirit. Then you had the second person of the Trinity called variously the Angel of the Lord, who appears repeatedly in human form and is identified as God, and also called Wisdom. The Wisdom of God, which is the same as in Greek, the word: “Word” or “Logos” in the prologue of Johns Gospel, so you definitely had the Trinity. It was only after the fall of Jerusalem that Judaism became Unitarian and anti-Trinitarian.

Because here the apostles were telling them: “All these things are in fulfillment of your scriptures, of the Old Testament, and Jesus Christ is the Wisdom of God, He is the Angel of the Lord, He is the fulfillment of the prophecies concerning Emmanuel, God with us.” And so their only recourse was to deny their own scriptures.

Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] No, no.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] The first death is sin.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, ye are dead in your trespasses and sins, and Saint Paul said.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, baptism is valid as long as it is in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, so that Baptism in a Catholic church is valid, in any Protestant church, except a Baptist church where they believe in immersion, but Protestant baptisms are recognized by Catholics too. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] From the time of Christ.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] If you were to have a Christian writing of history, what you would see is this: the coming of Christ, in a sense was a declaration of war, so that you had an all-out warfare break between the church and the world, the church and Rome. And this lasted for 2-3 centuries, and you had the intense, savage persecutions of the church, the attempt to wipe out Christianity. You had the nations turning here or there to find some answer to Christianity, their old pagan religions crumbled. They looked to Judaism, and some adopted that. Others looked to Islam when it arose later, others looked to a kind of Unitarianism, which was Arianism. They looked to one thing after another in order to destroy this new faith. They lost the battle, and of course the pagan empires began to crumble, and Rome finally fell. Then you had very definitely a reconstruction towards a Christian world; it was a decentralized type of civilization, it was not big, centralized governments, but a decentralized order. Now, this is called Feudalism, but the Feudal aspects were basically inherited from Rome, the matter of serfdom is not a product of the Christian era, that was an inheritance from Rome which began gradually to wane. You had Feudalism which is the same as our word, basically, Federalism. Feudalism and Federalism are essentially the same words and same concepts.

Then you had the subversive forces of the old paganism, and statism, working underground; with the Renaissance they come to the fore again, Scholasticism in the Catholic church was their triumph within the church, then with the Renaissance it broke out. Then you had the Reformation as a kind of a counter move against all of this. But then the enlightenment, the forces of this paganism, this humanism again coming to the fore, and after enlightenment arose, at the beginning of the 18th century, at the latter part of the 17th century, it began to build up, and today we are in the last days of the Enlightenment or of Humanism, it is trying to fulfill itself and at the same time showing signs of crumbling totally all around us. It is going to seed, it is breaking down. So that we are in the midst of a breakdown of this humanism and at the same time its attempt to achieve its absolute goal.

Now, at the same time, you are beginning to see a revival of genuine Christian thinking. This seems hard for most of you to understand when you see the churches virtually captured. This is true institutionally, the church is captured. But, there is more real Christian thinking going on now than there has been for the past century. There are more genuinely orthodox books being published, serious works, than for the past century. In the United States since the Civil War until a few years back, there was no serious work on the deity of Christ. That was how barren it had become. So that now again the Christian forces are reviving, are struggling, and are coming to a self-realization, but not institutionally, only in groups like this everywhere across the country, individuals and groups. So that the very definite build-up is there. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Exactly, you do not think of these successes in terms of numbers, quality. Right. Now let us take the old imperialist Russia as a good example. We have to posit of course that there was perversion there, organized, professional, paid subversion. But you had that in every age in history. Sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn’t.

Now, why did it work? The Czars of old Russia very definitely had a Christian purpose. It was their desire, it was their goal to have a Christian country. They believed very strongly, very intensely. They were good friends of America, because they believed that America as a Christian country and Russia as a Christian country ought to have a common cause. And the instances of imperialist Russia’s assistance to America are tremendous, their help to us in the Civil war was notable, and it was their move that helped block the attempt of the great powers of Europe to take the North American continent and the United States through Mexico with Maximilian and his army which was an army of the five great powers of Europe.

Again, they practically gave us Alaska, and although there were people who for political reasons criticized the whole thing here in the United States as Seward’s Folly, it was a giveaway, and everybody who had any sense knew it. It was a gift to the United States, and as Old Imperial Russia figured, “for various reasons we may not be able to hold onto it, and it is best for it to go into the right hands, and let’s get some money out of it.” It was virtually a gift.

Yet, theologically, the old Russia was not sound. The theology of the Russian Orthodox church was saturated with Neo-Platonism, which is humanism. As a result, a handful of conspirators were able to overturn the whole situation; simply because there was no one there who had clear-cut realization of issues. Most of the people were sheep, they were easily led and misled, they were easily able to go in and exploit the various groups, because they did not have roots. And when the war continued and the Allies formed a blockade, so that supplies and materials; or rather, the Axis had a blockade against the old Russia, the economy internally crumbled, and then the people were ready to listen to anyone.

In other words, they didn’t have the faith or the substance to stand up when the going got rough, so they crumbled; and a handful of conspirators were then able to exploit the situation and destroy an empire. They didn’t have enough men to fight. Doctor Schwartz is right when he says that it was 17 men. It was basically that. They worked on the Kronstadt Naval Fleet, and they had them start the rebellion; and when it was over, what did they do? They liquidated the Kronstadt sailors to the last man. And this is the way they did. The people, you see, didn’t have the roots, so they crumbled under difficulty. When the war began, as a matter of fact, Lloyd George of England who was a very shrewd politician, and he recognized that the people of the Western world everywhere lacked roots, lacked any faith to make them stand up under any trouble, and he said: “The losers in this war will all face revolution.”

Now you can say that today in any situation. The losers will face revolution. Why? Because the people do not have roots, and they will turn blindly to destroy anyone who fails to deliver. Now this is going to happen to the humanists, isn’t it? To the socialists, to the Marxists; they have reached the point where they can no longer deliver, and their whole world is going to crumble.

It is going to go down in ruins, and those who have something to deliver, and can stand in terms of their faith will be the ones who can pick up the pieces. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] The same thing, the same thing; they are surviving today, as I have said more than once, they have survived only on foreign help. They would have crumbled at the very beginning in the twenties without our help, Hoover and the food administration. Millions were dying of famine. They would have crumbled in the 30’s, they admitted finally that 6 million died, and foreign observers said that it was at least 13 million. They would have died, they would have disappeared from history if we had not recognized them and extended credit; and this is still the picture. They will crumble without foreign assistance or imperialism, one or the other. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Instead of Revolution it will be blind destruction and anarchy, this is the most likely thing.

I am now reading a very interesting work by a scholar in the Netherlands on the changing nature of man, and he has written a two volume work which has not been translated, but someone in the Netherlands has very graciously written to me giving a brief summary of his thesis, I have referred to it a time or two before. And what Vandenberg has to say is this: that man has in each age a different conception of himself. When that conception of himself crumbles, man crumbles also, and then at the end of an age, he dies. His culture dies and he dies. And he said, the evidence of this is the history of plague, you have plague in every period, it is present.

For example, the bubonic plague is here in California, all around us. The wild animals have it. You have it present in most of the country. Why doesn’t it break out and kill? It can be handled if you have only a few hundred cases, but if it suddenly should take hold of tens of thousands every day, at that point medicine cannot cope with it.

Now, why isn’t it flourishing? And why hasn’t it flourished through the centuries? Some periods it has been the people, because of sanitary reasons have been more prone to it than at other times, but it didn’t take them. And it has taken them very often at a time when they have been taking most precautions.

It comes when man’s conception of himself collapses. And so Vandenberg traces the history of culture, and he says: “Man has at a particular time a conception of himself, and when that religious conception of himself is suddenly deflated, then his word collapses.”

Now man has been thriving very amazingly of late, because he has believed the humanist dream that he can realize Utopia on earth, that it is just a little ways away, that before too long he is going to have sickness and even death abolished, that he is going to have prosperity so that every man will have everything his heart desires.

Now this has done remarkable things for man, for one thing, it stepped up his fertility rate; for another it has made him expect politicians to deliver more than politicians to deliver, and what is beginning to happen? Disillusionment is beginning to set in, and with the Negro’s you can see what has happened. You can say: “Oh yes, there are professional agitators there.” That is true. But the professional agitators have been working there among the Negro’s for years. The first target when the Soviet Revolution was accomplished in the United States was the American Negro, at the beginning of the twenties they began an all-out campaign among the American Negro’s, it didn’t work. Why did it take hold now?

Well, because we through our schools and through our movies, through every kind of media have been telling the Negro’s that there is instant Utopia ahead. So now they believe it, and so now it is easier to exploit the Negro. Now we have created the condition whereby the professional agitator can come in and set fire. And so the Negro, as a basically simple, not too intelligent, not too educated man, has taken the dream literally and he has expected everything, he has believed that he is entitled to everything and that if he can’t get it he is going to burn the country down.

Now this is the kind of situation which Vandenberg says, when it reaches a certain point, leads to death. Death of a culture, death of a people, wholesale death.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] He says it actually produces a change in the body so that certain resistances are totally gone. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, right. Yes, this is a theological principle. Now, in theology one of the basic principles is the unity of the Godhead. You can’t have your God schizophrenic. And that is why one of the fundamental principles of theology always is the unity of the Godhead, and as we saw when we were studying the creeds and the councils, all the heretics were trying inject humanism into the picture by destroying the concept of the unity of the trinity, three persons, one God.

Now, if you are a Socialist or a Marxist, or a Fabian, or any brand of Humanist that you can imagine, a liberal, man is your god. You have got to have a unity of your godhead. This means that you have got to have all nations one, all religions one, all peoples one, you have got to have total integration, of men, of races, of religions, of peoples. Everything. You cannot have your godhead divided. This is a religious principle.

Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, they will, of course. And there is already continual tension at the top between these people for control, very definitely. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, at the very beginning, imperial Russia was unwilling to recognize America because as they had it interpreted in the 1770’s at Saint Petersburg, these Americans were rebelling against a king. Well, the Czar said: “I am a king, I don’t believe in anyone rebelling against a king, I don’t like them.” But when it was all over you see, and they had a better assessment of the picture, their attitude towards America became markedly more congenial. But this was the initial reaction. “What is going on over there? Well, it is a rebellion against a monarch. Well, we don’t believe in that.” But subsequently their feeling was, “It is a Christian country, we are Christians, we have a common cause.”

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] That is fantastic.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Exactly. The Czars were hostile to revolutionary activity, and they were more isolated at that time then they were a century later, so their initial reaction to the American War of Independence was very different from what it became somewhat later.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Who survives the plagues. That is a good question. Well, the first go-around of the plagues, for example the black death at the end of the Middle Ages. The first time it went around it took the able-bodied. It left the aged and the crippled. And the reason for it was very obvious. The crippled and the aged weren’t interested in what was going on in the world around them, so they weren’t caught up in all the subversion and all the new humanism, and all the radical thinking of the day. But those who were healthy and were involved in all these things were the ones who went quickest. Now, the next time it came around, by this time the cripples and the aged, because of everything happening had been jolted into an awareness of issues, so they went. So you see, those who are involved in the temper of the age go more readily. In other words, the hippies would be the first to go; those who are the furthest out, the revolutionists. Those most involved in the thinking of the age die with the age first, without any exception, almost. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, that is really an absurdity. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] An age is an era dominated by a basically common faith, although there will be variations within the faith.

One more note before we finish on this matter of an era, I pointed out before that adolescence as we know it today is a phenomenon that belongs to our culture only. We think of adolescence as a period when teenagers get rebellious and emotionally immature, and so on. And we think of this as a time of natural reaction against parents, and against parental control and so on, as though this were biological. Well, ours is an unusual situation, in that normally in every other period of history what we call adolescence is a period where children have most followed their parents. It has been a time when they most thoroughly adopt the ways of their parents.

You see, adolescence today, because of our humanistic conception which is evolutionary, says that in order to become a real man you have to kick over the traces, you have to outgrow the past. Therefore, rebel against your parents. This is so bred into our thinking, and into our education, into our culture, that it is a natural reaction.

Then, as Vandenberg points out, and as I have confirmed in the past in my studies, children were not children in our sense of the word, for example at the time of the Reformation and earlier. Children began to learn to read for example in the colonies in this country between the ages of 2-4, after four they got an education. They didn’t go to school to learn how to read. And so, children by the time they were 5-6 were reading Greek and Hebrew, and were translating from the Greek, and were very mature. They never went through what we think of as childhood, after the age of say about 4. And consider how many of the great composers in that period were composing by the time they were 5-6. In other words, they were mature by the time children start kindergarten today. And by the time they reached their teens they were getting married and having children.

Now were they biologically different, or was there a totally different conception of man that made man different from the very beginning? You see how this does get back to the fact that there is almost, you have to say, a different chemistry to the body as a result of the change of faith. You not only have immunities that you suddenly lose, but you also have an entirely different kind of maturity. And our culture creates a perpetual childhood almost, and today of course the essence of dress is to accentuate perpetual childhood. After all the real point in the mini skirt is to emphasize the pre-school little girl look, because the whole point of the very short dress on the little girls is that you can change their diapers readily and easily. That is why they were devised.

Now, this was a practical type of clothing, it was originally designed, several generations ago for that reason, and when it was designed, both boys and girls wore dresses when they were babies as long as they were in diapers, and some of you can perhaps remember baby pictures as they once were, little boys, some of the men here when they were in diapers, when they were in diapers they wore these mini skirts, mini dresses, because they were designed to make it easy for a mother to change diapers.

Now, it is precisely that diaper stage look that they have gone to, to emphasize perpetual childhood, and so you see women walking down the street who are 75 years old with a mini skirt, as though they were still in diapers, and they belong in them at that stage.

Well, with that we will adjourn.