Systematic Theology -- Salvation

Preservation

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: Government

Genre: Speech

Track: 15

Dictation Name: 15 Preservation

Year: 1970’s

Our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto thee as we face the battles of our time, that thou art on the throne. It is thou, not men, who shall prevail, and thou who sittest in the circle of the heavens shall laugh. Thou shalt have thine enemies in derision. O Lord, our God, grant that thy laughter, thy confidence, thy victory infect us so that, with a holy boldness, we may face the enemy and be more than conquerors through Jesus Christ our Lord. In his name we pray. Amen.

Our scripture this evening is, first of all, John 10:22-31, and our subject in the first session will be Preservation, the doctrine of preservation is an important aspect of our Christian faith, of the doctrine of salvation. John 10:22-31. “And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.”

Most theologians, when they deal with the doctrine of preservation, regard it simply as an aspect of the perseverance of the saints. In fact, in some cases, preservation will not be mentioned at all, just the perseverance of the saints. Very clearly, the two doctrines, preservation and perseverance, are closely related, but there is still an important difference. Some theologians, like Herman Hoeksema, do make a distinction to a degree. The Canons of Dort, one of the great Reformation doctrines, very clearly distinguishes between the two in its chapter 5.

In out text, our Lord speaks very specifically of preservation. He also alludes to perseverance. The context here is important. When our Lord was in the temple, a number of the prominent people of the nation surrounded him, and said, “How long dost though make us to doubt. If thou be the Christ tell us plainly.” Now, our Lord had more than once described himself in terms that left no doubt that he was indeed the Messiah.

Thus, when they demanded that he declare himself, they were asking him to state it in language such as would provide them grounds for going to court and trying him for blaspheme. This was, of course, the charge they finally did make against him.

Our Lord says, “I told you but you have not believed me. Moreover, the works I do, these two bear witness of me. So, in my words and in my works, I have left no doubt as to who I am and what I am.” But he goes on to say, “You will not believe because you are not of my flock, you are not my sheep. You make a profession of faith as a nation. You are the chosen people, but you will not believe, and therefore, you will not hear my voice.”

Then, our Lord goes on dealing with the same imagery as he does earlier in the chapter when he speaks of himself as the good Shepherd, and he declares, “I am the door of the sheep.” This is a very beautiful imagery, just to digress a moment, and I think we here, in the mountains, have the clearest illustration of how to understand that. How many of you have gone on 108 towards Modesto and then turned off on 59 to go to Merced? Yes, some of you have. Have you noticed the stone corrals, two of them on your way? Round stone corrals. Now, those are old sheepfolds. Those were made, apparently, by some early immigrant to this area in the days after the Forty-Niners, after the pattern common once to the whole Mediterranean world, to the people in Palestine, the people in the Greek mountains, and Spain, and in the Basks in the Pyrenees, and elsewhere. One of them has a second opening, but in the original form, these were round stone corrals with one narrow opening, and at night, wherever the sheep were in the mountains, they would be driven, by the shepherd into the nearest stone corral. The reason for this, of course is that sheep require 24-hour care. They are easily prey to predatory animals.

When I lived in northeastern Nevada and southern Idaho on an Indian reservation, there were sheepmen, northeast of us, and a continual problem was coyotes and mountain lion, and especially bears, and a bear would get into a sheepfold and very quickly kill 30 or 40, just to kill, and then go off carting one. Well, that’s very expensive. So, what used to be done in ancient times was to drive these sheep into a fold, into a stone corral. Then, the shepherd would simply lie across that little doorway. He’d unroll his bedroll and sleep there. He would be the door. No one could go in or out to the sheepfold except through him, and this protected them from all loss, because it’s at nighttime that the predatory animals go after the sheep.

So, when our Lord says, “I am the door,” he is saying, “I am the Good Shepherd who cares for his own. I prevent the sheep from being reached by these predatory animals.” So, our Lord speaks of himself as the Good Shepherd, as the door, as the one who cares for his sheep. But, he not only says that his flock includes other sheep, Gentiles, but he says to these people who demanded that he declare himself, “You are not of my flock or fold.” No one there missed the point. The language that he used was Old Testament language and what he was saying to them was, “You’re not God’s covenant people. You may claim you are, but you are not.” He had left them out of God’s flock. Hence, the hatred we see at the end when they took up stones to stone him. Their excuse was that he had declared himself to be one with God, which is exactly what they were demanding that he say, but behind it was this: they were doubly angry because he had cut them out of the covenant people.

Thus, before our Lord speaks to these people of preservation, he speaks to them of no preservation and judgment, and he says of them, these people who questioned them, “There is no preservation for you. Only judgment.”

Now, the doctrine of the preservation of believers is thus set in the context of a world at war. Christ versus Satan, false followers versus true followers. In that war, our Lord makes clear there is no neutrality. Those who hear his voice are his flock. Those who will not hear his voice are not his.

Now, these people, as they came to him, placed the burden on our Lord. They said, “Tell us plainly your problem, Jesus, is a failure to communicate,” and our Lord says, “No, it’s your refusal to hear. I have told you plainly by my word and by my works, but you will not hear, because you are not of my own.” Thus, they imply you cannot communicate properly because, of course, you’re not really the Christ.

Now, the doctrine of the preservation of believers is thus set in the context of conflict, of attempts by wolves to destroy the flock and the fold. Our Lord then defines preservation. First, he says, it is his sheep who are preserved. They are those who hear his voice. They hear and the follow. They manifest faith and obedience, and they have preservation. Then second, our Lord says that the privilege of being the shepherd’s sheep means, among other things, preservation. Eternal life. Perseverance. No man shall pluck them out of his hands. Thus, there is preservation from temporal defection, from strain, and preservation to eternal life and care, and third, our Lord goes on to say, “I and the Father are one.” In other words, “When I tell you that no man shall pluck you out of my hand, I speak as one with God, and so what I tell you is not a hopeful statement, ‘Well, boys, I’m going to try to take care of you.’ No, it’s the absolute assurance that, because “I am one with the Father, I am very God of very God, when I say something, it is so.” As a result, our Lord makes clear that what he does and promises, God the Father is fully party to, that he gives not a hopeful promise, but an absolute guarantee.

Now, man is not the author of his salvation, nor does man create the assurance of his salvation, nor more than our life is our own creation is our salvation and preservation our own doing. We no more define that preservation or create it than we do our salvation.

Moreover, we must not misunderstand the meaning of that preservation. When we think of preservation being sinners, we like to think, as one woman once told me, she felt the Lord had a duty to keep her from any trials and tribulations. After all, hadn’t she given up smoking to become a Christian? She was very serious about it.

Well, Abraham, Joseph, David, Elijah, Jeremiah, Stephen, and Paul, the great saints of God, that did not mean they were preserved from very great problems and martyrdom. The false notion of preservation is evoked by Satan in the temptation of our Lord, and he uses the Bible, or misuses it. We read in Matthew 4:5-6, “Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.” The Devil can post the scripture, too, and here he’s quoting Psalm 91:11-12. However, Psalm 91 loses its meaning if you don’t read it in terms of the first two verses. “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.”

Now, one Old Testament scholar, H. C. Loophold{?} has called attention to the fact that the Hebrew there very definitely evokes the Oriental custom of a host offering protection to his guests as the cost, if need be, of his own life. Now, what’s the meaning of that? Well, some years ago when Americans were trying very hard to get Arabian horses into this country, about 100 years ago it was, one American finally prevailed. He went over, and where everyone else failed, he succeeded. There was no way he could simply go and make a purchase. He had to come under the protection of an important Arab Czech, and this was not possible until the man invited him into his house and had a meal with him. In Bible times as well as in the Oriental world, in many areas to this day, the old custom still lingers. A meal is a communion. The man who asks you in either makes you his vassal and says, “I protect you,” or an ally, and it’s comparable to a blood brotherhood. Faithfulness to death is required. This is why one is not lightly invited, where there is an old fashioned Middle Eastern faith, to dinner. It takes a price.

Now, what our Lord is there saying is those who dwell in the secret place of the Most High, the secret place means the closed place from the world, the home, the sanctuary. You have the idea that once was common to this country; a man’s house is his castle, and you used to be immune from anybody, including the tax collector. There was no tax on property once. By the way, in 1774, the first Continental Congress met. They sent a letter to the Canadian colonies, asking them to join in the War of Independence, saying that those people back in England were so crazy, they would actually end up taxing property, so they were dangerous to be associated with. It’s ironic that that was one of the first documents of the Continental Congress, and of course, we all know what has happened to property since then. The secret place thus, used to mean where you could shut the door from the world, and where you were king in your own castle, to use that trite expression. So that all who “dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” They are there in his home, they are his guests. When the man who went to Arabia to get the Arabian horses was once taken in by an important Czech, then nobody dared lay a hand on him, because he was, whether he was out of that man’s house or anywhere in Arabia, under his protection. To do anything to him was to declare war on him. When someone did try to cheat him once, that Czech, the personal vengeance on the man who did.

Now, this is the meaning of this Psalm. So when the Psalmist says, “I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust,” what he is saying is that when we are members of the Lord, then we are under his protection, and to the degree that we walk in faithfulness to him and to the communion bond with him, to that degree we are under his care. Now, we are involved in his wars then. So, his enemies will strike at us. We’ve established a bond. We have the protection of the Almighty, but we also have the enmity of his enemies. So that to understand this Psalm, we have to understand that this aspect is very real, that our preservation is in terms with our relationship to the Lord and in terms of his purpose.

Now, Paul who speaks often about our security in the Lord, also does declare, just before he comes to a key statement of that security, as it is written, “For thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” He is there citing Psalm 44:22 in particular, but also verse 11. Those verses read, “Thou hast given us like sheep appointed for meat; and hast scattered us among the heathen.” “Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.” Our preservation thus, is not from trouble as such. We are now preserved unto the Lord for his purposes, in his war. It is a God-centered preservation. He is mindful of us, but in terms of his calling.

Thus, when our Lord faces Satan who cites this verse from Psalm 91, he says, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” The purpose of preservation is the kingdom of God and our place therein. In terms of that preservation, we are indeed secure. We must not view preservation from a humanistic perspective. We are preserved in terms of God’s sovereign calling. Apart from that preservation, there is only dereliction and reprobation. We have an eternal security in Jesus Christ, but that security is in terms of his calling.

Are there any questions now? Yes?

[Audience] Gary North has written on these issues recently related to our military status, and so on and so forth. What do you believe a Christian’s view should be in regards to self-preservation where you live, and many things like this?

[Rushdoony] Yes, I believe that the Christian’s responsibility is indeed to be provident. Now provident means to be mindful of our responsibilities to our family and to our own safety and security, but our providence has to be at all times subservient to our calling, to our obedience to the Lord. I believe many people are making a serious mistake, because out of alarm at present conditions the world over, they are thinking of only one thing: self-preservation. I don’t believe the Lord honors that, but he does honor those who move in terms of their faith, in terms of his calling.

Thus, I think we’re going to be preserved more in battle than in {?}, by far. We have a battle today. The battle against statism, trying to wipe our Christianity. I think the threat is as great from Washington and even greater, than it is from Moscow. I really do. Now, if we don’t stand up to that threat, then we’re in trouble with the Lord. It’s very easy for Washington to take reprisals on any church or any group. Who can afford to fight them? It costs, to take a case up to the U.S. Supreme Court, half a million to three-quarters of a million dollars in legal fees. Now, can you imagine how Chalcedon would cope with that? This is why we have to be in this battle together, and help one another and why we are now trying to help those who are under attack. Certainly, the Lord will not bless us if we think of preserving ourselves. So, our concern with our future must be, at all times, subservient to our concern for our calling and our responsibilities in Jesus Christ. Yes?

[Audience] Kind of following up on that, it seems to me, in another ten years, the way the government is going, if left unchecked, it’s going to be, or seem very little different between the Kremlin and Washington.

[Rushdoony] I agree with you. There will be no difference in another ten years, and I think we can turn it around in ten years, and I think there are signs we will do so. Certainly, since our last meeting, or about the time of our last meeting, I don’t recall specifically a date, a tremendous victory, when the IRS was handcuffed for a year, and of course, they’re working through the states, but nonetheless, that was a victory, and we need to continue that way and win more victories. Any other questions or comments?

Well, we’ll take a break for about five or ten minutes, and then resume.

End of tape