Systematic Theology – The Land

Salvation And The Land

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: 15-19

Genre: Speech

Track: 15 of 19

Dictation Name: 15 Salvation And The Land

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let’s bow our heads in prayer now. Our Lord and our God we thank Thee that Thou who dost rule heaven and earth are mindful of all things great and small. That Thou are mindful of us and our needs and our battles as we face the powers of statism, of unbelief and of evil. Give us boldness, give us courage, give us patience that we may fight a good fight, be more than conquerors through Christ our Lord. In His name we pray, Amen.

Our scripture this morning is from Isaiah 45:8-10 and our subject: Salvation And The Land. Isaiah 45:8-10.

“Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the Lord have created it.

9 Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?

10 Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou? or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth?”

Salvation is so commonly used in the church as a term that we forget that the word is not that common in the bible. As a matter of fact it is only used four times in the gospels. Other words are very often used which are synonyms of salvation. The purpose the bible has in using a variety of synonyms for salvation is to show the breadth of the meaning of salvation because too often people restrict its meaning and make it very narrow.

Two scholars, [unknown] have said and I quote:

“In Hebrew there are many synonyms for salvation. The word salvation itself is little used, other words express this concept more powerfully. Righteousness is one of the synonyms for salvation. Zionists call it the city of righteousness, the branch of David is called the Lord is our righteousness.” Unquote.

Our salvation is made possible by God’s grace and God’s righteousness. Christ is the grace of God unto us, He is our substitute, He assumed the death penalty among sin for all of us and so through Him we have an imputed righteousness. We are acquitted, we are justified before God. Salvation is the satisfaction of God’s justice or righteousness. It is an act of God’s grace and the rendering of due justice through Christ’s death as our substitute. Now the word commonly translated as righteousness means in Hebrew justice, virtue, victory, prosperity and salvation. It is used in this sense in part in our scripture. Righteousness for example in verse eight means the word of God which brings about salvation and the triumph of justice in all creation. Both heaven and earth have a responsive part in God’s great work of recreation and so the text begins by summoning heaven and earth to take part in this great work. The righteousness of God we are told by Isaiah is poured out by God from heaven. Now this is a surprising choice of words. We would think that perhaps grace should have been used or mercy and had we written this passage we would say God poured out His mercy or His grace from heaven but Isaiah says God pours out His justice or righteousness. But when we look at scripture we must realize that judgment, God’s justice applied, always precedes and accompanies salvation.

If God had not chosen to redeem man’s kind he would have left Adam and Eve in the Garden. But His judgment upon them was the first step towards their salvation. The judgment of the flood was the beginning of the salvation of the world, the judgment upon Egypt was the redemption of Israel and the judgment upon sin in the person of Christ who was made sin for us was the great work of redemption for the people of God. So our text says justice is poured down on the earth like rain and the earth becomes fertile and sprouts salvation and righteousness or justice. The word used here for salvation, [unknown], means liberty, deliverance, prosperity, safety or salvation. In other words what this text tells us is that the result of salvation is salvation, the result of justice is justice. If the earth has received salvation and justice it will bring them forth. Now what Isaiah here says our Lord says in different words applying these to the matter of sanctification, the consequence of salvation. He says in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7:16-20:

“Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”

Just as a good tree brings forth good fruit so too a saved and righteous person brings forth salvation and justice and the earth he possesses, every area of life he exercises dominion over does also. Salvation is the total concept, a total thing.

It embraces all creation, heaven and earth respond in joy to the universal freedom under God from sin and death. Now in verses nine and ten Isaiah goes on to speak of the insanity of rebellion against God. The earthen vessel cannot argue against the potter, the potter has made it. The vessel is totally his creature. Neither can a child argue about his forthcoming birth, the idea is ridiculous. The whole of creation must respond to God’s salvation, it cannot negate it, criticize it, argue with its timing or complain about the way it has been made. E.J. Young, one of the great Old Testament scholars, says of these verses and I quote:

“The entirety of nature must together bring forth the blessings commanded. If the earth does not open her bosom to receive the rain then heaven and earth have not been successful in bringing forth salvation.” Unquote.

But men choose to argue with God their maker. They insist that his word must be taken poetically, figuratively and they are unwilling to believe that when God uses the language he does for example in verse eight that He means exactly what He says. When God pours down salvation upon the earth salvation then wells forth, springs forth , buds forth and produces fruit throughout the length and breadth of the earth. And so Young says to quote him again:

“To strive to God is to contend with Him in argument with a purpose of showing that what He has promised will not come to pass.” Unquote.

It is absurd for God’s creation to tell God what He is able to do or what He cannot do or what He should not do. This is the absurdity of doubt and unbelief. When we doubt God we are saying well Lord, really don’t you know that you cannot do this? When God tells us that the whole earth shall show forth his glory in due time and we try to explain that away we’re really saying God, really, this is too much for you to hope for. Why don’t you set a more modest goal for yourself. You save me, save a few of my friends and let’s call it quits there.

Salvation however is not something received and kept but something which when received causes the very earth to burst forth into bloom. Isaiah uses very exuberant language here because the truth exceeds the capacity of language. What Isaiah is saying is that when God saves man that salvation creates something that bursts forth like flowers, grass, trees as they bud in the spring. We find it very easy to believe in judgment. God’s judgment or disaster or man creating a mess out of the earth. The reason for this is very simple: we have many scenarios of the future today with vivid intimations of hell on earth and they are very much in the modern mood. They are believable forecasts because we believe in man’s capacity to make a hell of earth, but forecasts about the future glory of the earth tend to be unbelievable to us because we don’t believe in the power of God. We’ll come back to that in a moment but first let us look at a definition of righteousness as one of the great biblical scholars of the last century, Robert Baker Girdlestone, gave it, and I quote:

“It is unfortunate the English language should have grafted the Latin word justice which is used in somewhat of a forensic sense into the vocabulary which was already possessed of the good word righteousness as it tends to create a distinction which has no existence in scripture.”

Let me say parenthetically justice and righteousness are exactly the same words. To continue:

“This quality may be viewed according to scripture in two lights, in its relative aspect it implies conformity with a line or rule of God’s law, in its absolute aspect it is the exhibition of love to God and to one’s neighbor because love is the fulfilling of the law but in neither of these senses does the word convey what we usually mean by justice. No distinction between the claims of justice and the claims of love is recognized in scripture. To act in opposition to the principles of love to God and one’s neighbor is to commit an injustice because it is a departure from the course marked by God in His law.”

We have a very critical problem in all definition in our age. The reason for it is that since Hagel, if not earlier, our thinking has been dominated by the doctrine of evolutionary development and certainly since Darwin this has dominated our perspective. Such a view posits as we have pointed out before of a conflict of interests as essential to the very nature of being. Chance and conflict govern the universe, it is a struggle for survival, there is no overall design or purpose and it is only a chaos out of which certain things survive. There can be thus no underlying unity. As a result in such a perspective it is impossible for there to be any unity between concepts, between love, grace, mercy, justice, judgment, there can be no unity. Everything in an evolutionary perspective is of necessity in conflict with everything else, so love has to be in conflict with law. Love has to be in conflict with justice, everything has to be at odds. The same is true of matter and spirit in terms of this perspective so that we insist on seeing body and mind in conflict. Given this premise which is basic to the modern mind man’s salvation has a very limited effectiveness, his soul may be saved but not much else.

But if the universe is a unity made by God what happens in one place affects all things else. If the universe is a seamless garment so to speak made by God there cannot be the entrance of God’s righteousness unto salvation at one point without repercussions for all things. Given God’s sovereignty, given the fact of creation, given the harmony of interests which then ensues Isaiah 45:8 then is not poetry but fact. Salvation pours down from God and the consequences spring forth, they burst forth in man and in all the earth and all things then are progressively made new. The early church believed this. Let me cite from a couple of sentences from the liturgy of the very early church and I quote:

“As the joy of all things Christ the truth, the light, the life, the resurrection of the world, is manifested to those in earth and his goodness and has become a type of the resurrection to all granting divine forgiveness. On a throne in heaven, on a foal upon earth, born of Christ the God thou didst accept the praise of the angels and the hymn of the children crying out to Thee. Blessed is He that cometh to recall Adam.”

Note the implications of the language. Christ is come to recall Adam to righteousness, to make him a whole man again so that in Christ we are renewed. He reestablishes God’s covenant and He is the first fruits of them that sleep so that with Him we have the beginning of the resurrection of all creation and we ourselves are a part of that resurrection when we are saved by Christ. We are told He is a restorer of all things to their original purpose, that he is a type of the resurrection, the general resurrection at the end.

Thus the early church believed that all things were in process of being made new because Christ had come. What Isaiah 45:8 tells us is that salvation is not a dead end road. In too much preaching today that’s all salvation amounts to, a dead end road, your soul is saved and you sit back in the pew and you indulge in some pious gush and that’s the end of it. But not so according to this scripture. Instead of being a dead end road the power of God unto salvation does not come to us to stop with us but to go through us to all the earth, to all men and to the whole of the natural world. Girdlestone said that the weakness of our word justice was its Latin origin and because of its origin it had a forensic quality, he said. Forensic means it has a relationship to a court of law and to formal disputation or debate. But biblical justice, biblical righteousness is a way of life in conformity to the nature of the triune God. It is a life lived which is expressive of the renewed image of God in us. It is the life lived in Christ who is the way, the truth and the life. Let us pray.

Almighty God our Heavenly Father we thank Thee that Thy so great salvation has been poured out upon us and we pray our Father that it may burst forth through us to make all things new and to make us mighty and effectual unto the ends of the earth for our name’s sake. Bless us to this purpose in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] No. Adam was the first man and Christ was the second man as head of a new humanity. Christ has two natures. In His human nature He is the second Adam, in His divine nature He is the Son of God, very God of very God.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Adam was sinless but he was not perfect because the word perfect in the scripture and originally in English means fully mature. So he was created and he was not mature yet, he had to learn. He was like a child in some respects although created a full grown man. Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes, that’s in the last chapter of the gospel of John and its Peter. The whole point of it is of course Peter had before the crucifixion said that he was able to make a stand and be faithful to our Lord in the trial that was coming and so on and our Lord said that before the cock crows thrice you will have denied me three times which he did. So of course in this meeting Peter was very much abashed and so having prophesied so great a love ready to lay down his life for the Lord, the Lord now asks him, Simon son of John, lovest thou me more than these? And the word that our Lord there uses is agape which means a love that is self-less, a love that is like the grace of God and Peter’s answer is Lord thou knowest that I love Thee and the word that Peter uses is phileo, p-h-i-l-e-o, which refers to ordinary human love. The Greek language has three words for love and our language only has one so this creates a problem.

Then He says the second time, Simon son of Jonas, lovest thou me? This time He uses the word phileo and Peter answers ‘yea Lord thou knowest that I love thee’, phileo, with a weak, frail human love but love none the less. So the third time He said Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was greaved because He said unto him the third time lovest thou me, and he said unto Him Lord Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus said unto him feed my sheep. So first the emphasis is a recognition that your love is not the super human kind of thing you imagined it to be but if you love me then show it. Feed my sheep. Now this is related to our text because what happens when salvation pours out upon us, it is to burst forth. So here is Simon feeling very low about the fact that he had betrayed Christ, and sworn up and down that he didn’t know the man, and our Lord says alright, now you can prove your love to me, feed my sheep. Take care of the flock, go out as my servant, thereby you will manifest that you’ve received the salvation, you have received the love because it’s going forth from you.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] He used phileo again.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] The first time and the second and third time…yes.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] I may be wrong, I know the third time it’s phileo, the first time He said lovest thou me more than these, it could be that He simply said lovest thou me, agape, the second time, I’ll check that, I haven’t looked at it for a while. But what happens is between the first and the third use He moves from agape, a-g-a-p-e, to phileo, p-h-i-l-e-o which is the word we have in Philadelphia and philately, love of stamps.

Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] The answer to that is the bible does not tell us and it’s none of our business [laughter].

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Again we don’t have the answer to that, yes. The bible never speaks to satisfy our curiosity. Never. And that’s one of the marks of all false books that purport to be revelations. They speak essentially to satisfy curiosity. Any other questions or comments?

Well if not let us bow our heads now in prayer.

Lord it has been good for us to be here, Thy word is truth and Thy word is a lamp unto our feet. We give thanks unto Thee that Thy hand is ever upon us for good and now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, now and forever more, Amen.