Systematic Theology – Eschatology

Judgment as Process and Event

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 22 of 32

Track: #22

Year:

Dictation Name: 22 Judgment as Process and Event

[Rushdoony] Let us bow our heads for a word of prayer.

Bless us oh Lord by Thy word and by Thy Spirit, and grant that we may behold wondrous things out of Thy law. Grant that Thy word, oh Lord, be a joy unto our hearts, a strength unto us day by day, a healing power in all our being. In Jesus name, amen.

Our scripture is from Romans the first chapter verse eighteen through twenty, and our subject Judgment as Process and Event. Judgment as Process and Event Romans 1:18-20.

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.

20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:”

Theologians speak of the last judgment as they should, because scripture speaks of it. The very terms implies that many judgments proceed it, it is not the first judgment but the last of many. As we go through scripture we find of course many, many notable judgments. The most outstanding being of course the fall, the flood, the conquest of Canaan, the captivity, and above all else the cross of Christ; a judgment upon the old humanity, a judgment upon all of us who are in Christ, and also our salvation. This is an important fact that we need to consider. Judgment and salvation are inseparable. There can be no salvation without judgment. It is because we are judged in Christ, and sentenced to death, and He dies for us and we accept His attending death as our death, our judgment, that we also have salvation.

Judgment as an event is common to history, both Biblical history and history throughout time. Spanking a child is an act of judgment, a very simple act, but it is judgment. We bring judgment to bear on a child for certain conducts, certain actions, and thereby make known that there is a standard, a law, something to which the child must conform. Sentencing a criminal is an act of judgment. All around us constantly judgment is in operation. These are acts, events, judgment events; but judgment is not only an event, but also a process. Because God created all things His law order is inherent in all creation. God having made all things, there is nothing that does not witness to Him and reveal His being, His purpose, His nature, and His law. So that God’s handiwork reveals God.

God’s law in other words is not something external to live, nor to creation, but more basic to creation than a man’s thoughts. Our thoughts can change, we can change, we can be converted or perverted. A man can wake up in the morning and think about doing certain things and change his mind. A man can be a murderer or a criminal and he can be converted, a man can imagine a great many things that he believes are basic to him, things that he cannot live without; and he finds subsequently that he can live without them. But God’s witness remains in all our being. Because we are God’s creation, because He made us in every fiber and our being His law is written, so that we can never escape it. This is what Paul is talking about in Romans 18-20 in the first chapter. God’s wrath, Paul says, is against all mans sin and lawlessness. Therefore mans conduct is inexcusable because God has manifested His law in them and to them. God not only gave His law in the scriptures, and by personal revelation of men in the beginning of history, but God has written it on the tables of our hearts. He has written it in the bones and blood and flesh of our being, it is inescapably there. As a result it is inherent to man to know God’s law.

But men choose death in preference to obedience. Paul says very plainly that men hold to the truth in unrighteousness. The word “hold” can be rendered as “hinder, suppress, push back, try to keep out of the light”, to prevent that witness of the law from resounding through all their being, because it is there, it is inescapable. And men in unrighteousness, in injustice and ungodliness, hinder and suppress that witness of God which is in them, because they are determined to prove that God is wrong, that God’s way is not necessarily the only way, that their way can prevail.

It used to be, when I was a child and when I was still a young man, that would stoves were very common place, and they’re beginning to come back of course with the high price of energy; and one of the most common things, when I was a boy, for a child, whether a toddler or a crawler, to get his fingers burnt on the stove. He would be told “don’t touch” when he’d go near it, his hands would be slapped. But as a sinner that child wanted to prove he could touch it when he was forbidden to do so, and would get his fingers burnt and would scream.

So we too, knowing the word of truth, God’s word, more compelling than the word of any parent, hinder it, hold it back, refuse to believe that it is true; and as a result even though that word is spoken to us and is written in us, we incur the wrath of God because we suppress it, because that which may be known of God, is known by all of us. Known by all men who have never heard the gospel preached, never encountered a Christian. Known in the depths of the jungles, and known in the depths of the cities.

Moreover there’s an interesting point here. Paul says “that which may be known of God is manifest in them” it’s open, it’s spread out, it’s in all their being. Now he limits what is known, “that which may be known” and here is a very interesting point because throughout history there have been people who have imagined they can know more about God than God reveals of Himself. We cannot know God exhaustively, although we can know Him truly. If we knew Him exhaustively we would have to be bigger than God to comprehend Him. We have trouble ourselves, our understanding our wives or our husbands, and yet men imagine that they can understand God exhaustively, that they can sit down and reason and understand God. Indeed there is a considerable school of theologians in the church who insist that they can know God exhaustively.

Calvin said very bluntly, and I quote that: “Insane then are all they who seek to know of themselves what God is.” Who seek to know God exhaustively, and who seek to know Him on rationalistic autonomous grounds. Paul then goes on to say in verse 20 that all creation witnesses to God’s power, to God’s nature, and God’s justice. When men deny this, or they despise it, a burning process begins; and the rest of the chapter goes on to describe that burning process. In verse 27 we read as Paul describes homosexuality and lesbianism: “And likewise also men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust one toward another” and the word there in the Greek is literally “burned out”. When men depart from the word of God, when they depart from God’s law they burn themselves out, now that’s judgment as process.

This is what Paul is talking about. There is judgment as event. When a child is spanked, a criminal sentenced, and when God brings judgment upon a nation or a person, or at the end upon all mankind, the last judgment. But there’s also judgment as process. If I drink heavily day by day I am creating judgment. Judgment as a process is underway. If I do that which God forbids day by day I am also in the very act of doing those things, entering into the process of judgment so that judgment is not only an event, it is a process. When men deny or despise the law of God a burning out process begins, Paul says. It is an inner disintegration, an outer crisis. Judgment as process is spoken of again and again in the law. When the law says the wages of sin is death it’s saying the minute we begin to sin the process begins. When God told Adam and Eve that “if you do this that I forbid you, and the day that you eat thereof, (literally dying) ye shall die” that is death will begin to work in you, the process of death will immediately set in.

Now Solomon speaks of the same thing in Ecclesiastes 10:8 when he says “he that diggeth a pit shall fall into it, and who so breaketh a hedge, a serpent shall bite him.” What was Solomon talking about? Not so much the literal thing, he used the literal thing as a symbol of what God does. “Who so diggeth a pit”, a pit to entrap a man, a pit put on a roadway and covered with brush and leaves so that someone walking in would fall into it. Who so seeks to entrap a man lawlessly shall himself in the process be judged and entrapped, and who so break the edge, a serpent shall smite him. The reference is to hedge fences. Hedge fences were of considerable depth, they were trees, they were shrubs, they were designed to keep cattle out of a field and if someone had cattle in one field and wanted his cows to graze into another man’s field he would go there at night to break that hedge-fence. But because the hedge fence would be full of birds and various small game, it would also attract poisonous serpents; and so anyone who tried to break a hedge fence at night was risking snake bite. But Solomon says it’s no risk when you do it with the hedge of God’s law. When you break God’s law out of that wall, that fence which is the law between justice and injustice there is a built in judgment; a serpent shall bite him, no escape, that’s judgment as process. Whenever we break the fence, the hedge of God’s law, there is judgment built into that wall, that fence, that hedge, like a serpent to bring judgment.

Thus judgment is process and it is event. John 3 verse 20 in the first epistle of John in verse 21 tells us that we know when we are breaking that hedge if our hearts condemn us not because God has a witness in us which tells us “this is the way, walk ye in it” and “this is not the way, this is a violation of God’s law.” But men refuse to see judgment as a process, they refuse to acknowledge judgment as an event, they blind themselves and they deny that anything has meaning, they simply say “that’s life” or “those are the odds”. Anything other than to say “I have sinned and brought this upon myself.” Is it any wonder that Malachi 2:17 reads, as the prophets indicts the people “ye have wearied the Lord with your words, yet ye say ‘wherein have we wearied Him?’ When ye say ‘everyone that doeth evil is good in the site of the Lord, and He delighteth in them’; or, ‘where is the God of judgment?” That was the cry of the people who claimed to be the faithful ones of the Lord “where is the God of judgment?” We hear that today in other words “we’re under grace, not under law, therefore we can break the law (as some go on to say) at will”.

The people of whom Malachi spoke were saying “well, God is not around, He was there for the flood, and He was there for the captivity, but those things happen once every few centuries, and in between we are free to go our own way. We can forget about the law because God doesn’t come into history very often to clobber us. So we have some freedom, we’ve got breathing space, we can relax.” Now this is the whole point of Judgment as process, and it’s what Malachi was talking about when he spoke about what happened because they were not tithing; it affected the weather, it affected everything around them. The world of God rejects those who reject God and His law. And Malachi said “Judgment as process is all around you, why is it that you have inflation? You try to fill your pockets with the proceeds of what you make, but it’s like having a pocket full of holes, or a money bag full of holes, you can’t keep up with it because you have sinned; and judgment as process is working against you.”

To affirm process and event judgment is to recognize God in all time and in all history, in al things. At the last of course we have the totality of judgment at the last judgment, and therefore the totality of salvation. So that with the last judgment our salvation is accomplished, the new creation is completed. Now let us consider the significance of neglecting process judgment. Too much of the church talks only about the last judgment, they neglect process judgment. Then you neglect law also because it is law, God’s law, that says the wages of sin are always death, there’s always a penalty for what you do. So if you neglect process judgment you are antinomian, you are anti-God’s law and you say “it doesn’t matter; the only reckoning is at the end.” But there’s a reckoning moment by moment every day and every moment of our lives because God is always there. And the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all, here and now, who transgress His law.

If you have only the last judgment you have an eschatology of defeat because you’re saying that sin can prevail here and now; that sin does not have its comeuppance because of the very nature of God’s universe. You’re saying that the wages of sin can be very profitable up until the last judgment, now that’s the implication of denying judgment as process in history. But when we affirm process and event judgment all through history, and culminating in the last judgment, then we indeed affirm the Lordship of Christ throughout all time, as well as all eternity. Then we say “indeed Christ reigns here and now” because the wages of sin are death, here and now; and we say that Christ reigns here and now because He blesses us. “Blessed are ye when ye hunger and thirst after righteousness, justice.” Blessed are they who feel their spiritual need and grow, because Christ as Lord blesses here and now, He judges here and now as well as at the end.

And so it is Christ reigns, and He shall reign, and He shall, Paul tells us in I Corinthians 15, “put all His enemies under His feet before the end.” And we are called to help Him do that by obeying Him, and when we obey Him we push back the dominion of Satan, we push back the dominion of sin and we say “sin shall not reign over us, but Jesus Christ.” And then comes the end when all rule and all authority and all power are in Christ, and all His enemies, Paul tells us, are trampled and destroyed, then comes the end and the destruction of the last enemy, death. We must believe in judgment through all history, as well as at the end of history. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we give thanks unto Thee that here and now we can know Thy blessings as well as Thy judgments, that they wicked shall not prosper nor triumph because it is Thy creation. We thank Thee that Thou hast called us to be the people of Thy kingdom, of Thy victory, and has declared that in due time the kingdom of this world shall become Thine, and all things shall serve Thee and praise Thee. Bless us in Thy service and in faithfulness to Thee so that day by day we may know Thy blessings, and not Thy judgments. In Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now concerning our lesson?

Yes?

[Audience Member] Isn’t His chastisement as believers another form of a judgmental process?

[Rushdoony] Yes, with a difference. Because we are believers His chastisement is both a blessing and a judgment. Just as Hebrews 12 makes clear the chastisement of God upon all His own, like our chastisement of our children, is a mark of love as well as a judgment. And of course that’s judgment in process.

It’s an interesting fact, the only time that judgment as process is discussed in theology, or virtually the only time, is when it is denied.

Yes?

[Audience member] Isn’t this more-or-less parallel with the neglect of the doctrine of providence?

[Rushdoony] Very good, yes. The doctrine of providence has been neglected, which means that means we have neglected the working of God day by day in history in and through all things. Providence was once the favored doctrine of the puritans, it was the name given to ships and to towns and a very popular doctrine. Men spoke of relying upon the providence of God, and by the providence of God they meant that; in terms of Romans 8:28 God works to make all things together for good to His saints. So in everything He’s at work to bless and to judge, so that we can be assured in and through all of history of His workings and His victory.

Now when you deny providence you’re also denying judgment as process, and you’re abstracting God from history. Well a good question there of course is “how did this happen?” Can anyone venture a guess what doctrine it was that did it, or what belief? Deism, Deism made God an absentee Landlord in the universe, and although Christians fought against Deism as a form of faith, they nonetheless adopted deism. Because once Deism was popularized, even though it was largely defeated after a century or more, the Christians in the processed had dropped the doctrine of providence and judgment as process, so they began to talk only about the end and in between everything belonged to the devil.

Now they had become Deist, and where you don’t find providence stressed, or judgment as process, you have a veiled, a disguised form of deism.

Yes?

[Audience member] Does that explain too why modern men in the modern church removes all curses to the end, and all blessings too the day after I pray for something and the next day I get money in the mail, something I need, or…

[Rushdoony] Yes, that’s antinomianism because antinomianism works to abolish one side of things, but the other side crumbles because the kind of blessing that they talk about is constantly trivialized in terms of little things that I get, not what God has done for me, and does for me, in every event. And that’s what blessing has become, you see, for many Christians. It’s been trivialized.

Any other questions or comments?

Yes?

[Audience member] I did want to see some of the judgments inherent in the created order in some of the effects of sexual sin, the fact that homosexuals, there is this disease which is incurable and unexplainable, but only attacks homosexuals. And also the fact that a H.E.W. {?} study found that sixty seven percent of girls who undergo abortions have subsequent problems ranging from sterility to emotional problems, none of these things we count their cost.

[Rushdoony] Yes, we do very definitely see all around us judgment as process. Even the ungodly have recognized and are afraid of sexual sin now, because they are seeing judgment in process. Why doesn’t the church talk about it? [General titter in the audience] It is sad isn’t it?

Yes John?

[John] It’s never ceased to amaze me how important it is not only to define the opposition, but to define your own position as well, and I think one of the things that happened, like when you were talking about deism there. It attack deism and dealt it a death blow but at the same time I don’t think they really, a firm grasp of who they were and what they were, and as a result they allowed themselves to become contaminated by it. I think lawlessness in general, well we call it lawlessness, but I think it has a very, very clear definition according to specific laws. In other words lawlessness adheres to certain laws, and all forms of judgment adhere to certain forms of law. I think one of the laws of judgment is the second of thermodynamics, for example, the law of entropy, a curve, the available energy in system. And we find that as the system progresses there’s less and available energy in the system, the whole universe is supposedly dying a neat {?} death for example.

But entropy enters into conversation. They found out entropy governs information theory in computers. And they found out now that, and that’s the reason why we of course can’t have a perpetual motion machine and things of that nature as long as a certain amount of energy lost as heat, and we never get a fully hundred percent transferred, but everything, whether we talk about laws or lawlessness, judgment or blessing, everything adheres to a set of predetermined laws, whichever side of the coin we’re on, and it’s just that whole aspect of law and lawlessness.

I think one of the most important things for Christians to learn, as well of their own position, so they distinguish effectively between judgment and blessing. And I think in the {?} and things of that nature that we’re doing now, I think that’s going to become a very powerful tool eventually.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Well to go back again to Deism where you started. One of the fallacies of the orthodox in the battle against Deism was to say “we won’t fight for the whole works, we’re just hit at the hard points.” Which meant that they themselves surrendered a sizable portion of the faith; because they said “we will fight for the doctrine of Christ against Deism” they surrendered much with respect to the doctrine of God. And you have the same thing in the neo-evangelicals today who say “well we want to save Jesus as Savior, and the born again experience, but we won’t battle over inerrancy and infallibility, we won’t get huffy about some of the things against homosexuality and the ordination of women, we’re going to concentrate on the essentials.” As those God gave them the right to say that something God says is less essential, or non-essential, and other things are essential.

Now at the time of the rise of Deism to many orthodox theologians made that kind of a judgment and ceased to be orthodox, they said instead of “we will defend the whole faith without any equivocation” they chose the battle line as a very limited one, and they surrendered everything.

Well…Yes?

[Audience member] Just a moment. You suppose that might be where the Lockian{?} school went wrong? Or that there might be some relationship there?

[Rushdoony] Oh yes, Locke and his whole group where going to save certain things, as Bishop Berkley, or Barkley, sought to do. He was going to salvage certain things philosophically by making certain concessions. The result was that someone else came along and undercut them. Locke was ready to affirm the reasonableness of Christianity. In other words, “man can determine it’s reasonable,” not “it is true whether you think it is reasonable or unreasonable. It is true because this is what God has done.” Now there was a major concession. So Locke while trying to preserve something lost a great deal more, because he went along also with the prevailing concept that man was not a sinner that he was neutral, and he was ready to say sin was environmental. So we’ll control the environment, and eliminate sin. Well that’s not scriptural.

So he prepared the way for the destruction of everything he himself may have prized.

[Audience member] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience member] It seems that that same process you’re speaking of, rather that concession you’re speaking of, happens over, and over, and over again and again. It wasn’t settled during Locke’s time, indeed it occurred during Fuller Seminary who was the leader at that time, made almost an identical statement.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Oh I’ve heard in the past few years a theologian say that it is a mistake to try to salvage everything. You deal with the center, and preserve that, and that will preserve everything; which is nonsense. “Let’s retreat into the city and leave the rest of the country go to the enemy, and that’s somehow going to salvage everything.”

Well our time is nearly up so let us bow our heads now in prayer.

Great and marvelous are Thy ways oh Lord, and altogether righteous. Give us grace to submit unto Thee rather than to judge Thee, to know that moment by moment, day by day, we are undergirded by Thine everlasting arms. Give us victory against the world and against ourselves and our sinful dispositions, and make us strong of Jesus Christ to the overthrowing of the powers of darkness, in Jesus name, amen.