Systematic Theology – Eschatology

Eschatology and Man’s Priestly Office

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 31 of 32

Track: #31

Year:

Dictation Name: 31 Eschatology and Man’s Priestly Office

[Rushdoony] Let us begin with prayer.

Oh Lord our God unto whom judgment belongs we come unto Thee who art the only wise judge, beseeching Thee to deliver us from the evils of our time, to judge the nations righteously, and to bring forth Thy truth, Thy freedom, and Thy righteousness that the ends of the earth might know that Thou art God, that Thy kingdom may prevail in our hearts, in all our institutions, and in our daily lives. Bless us oh Lord to this purpose and arm us by Thy word and by Thy Spirit, that we may serve Thee with all our heart, mind, and being in righteousness and in truth. In Jesus name, amen.

Our scripture is from Revelation 22 verse 1-5, our subject Eschatology and Man’s Priestly Office; eschatology - the doctrine of the conclusion, the goal, the end of all things,- and Man’s Priestly office.

“And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.

2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

3 And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him:

4 And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.

5 And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign forever and ever.”

We come today to a very different kind of subject, an area that we have not often thought about because our modern outlook as people living in a modern age makes the priestly office somewhat obsolete. Modern man is not geared to thinking in terms of the priestly office, as a result he does not give consideration to its meaning and its implications. Our concern, since it has to do with eschatology, is not with every aspect of the priestly office, but certain aspects that are of importance to us.

The priest was one whose function in Old Testament law was mediation and intercession. Moreover there was the aspect of dedication and of the representation of the people to God. The priest was duty bound by his office to manifest the holiness, the separateness of God in order to be God’s priest. His way of life had to be governed by the every word of God, he had to be a separated, a dedicated man whose calling was then to dedicate men and nations, things, land, everything, to the service of God. It was his calling to anoint kings and prophets, to baptize, to dedicate peoples and buildings, furnishings, and lands. His name in the Old Testament was a kohen, priest; and the word kohen comes from the Hebrew which almost certainly means “to stand” thus the kohen was one who stood before the Lord. This was basic to his office. One who stands before another is a servant. The priest stood before the Lord and did the Lord’s bidding before the altar of God, before the ark. In other words, in the throne precinct of God he stood before the Lord, the king, as His particular servant.

Now let’s drop for a moment considerations of the priest, to look at something very different. In Isaiah 6 verses 2 & 3 we see the seraphim in the same position, in attendance upon God, waiting for His commandments. Then in Ezekiel 1 verses 22, and Revelations 4 verse 6, we see the cherubim in similar position of standing before God in attendance upon Him. In Isaiah 6:3 we see the seraphim crying out “holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory” and as they cry out the one to the other their singing, their chanting, is antiphonal, responsive. The same is true of the cherubim in Revelation 4 verse 6. They cry out “holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty which was and is and is to come. Again the text makes clear this is antiphonal.

Antiphonal singing therefore, the singing of God’s praise, was basic to the life, the Old Testament tells us, of the Seraphim and Cherubim.

Now very early we see that the priests and Levites in the temple and in the synagogue subsequently had a like calling, antiphonal singing. In fact there is evidence that the entire Psalter represented antiphonal singing. We see it very openly in Psalm 88 in the Hebrew superscription, which calls for antiphonal singing. We also see antiphonal singing in Psalm 24 where it is very clearly present; “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein, for He hath founded it upon the seas and established it upon the floods. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his heart, his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.” In other words, one part of the priestly and Levitical attendance would sing part of the sentence, and the others would respond. It is very obvious in the later part of this Psalm “who is the King of glory?” and then the response, “the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.” “Who is this king of glory?” “The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory.”

The Psalms were normally sung antiphonally. Indeed they were sometimes written with antiphony in mind and perhaps the clearest example of that is Psalm 136 in which every verse is obviously given to antiphony. “Oh give thanks unto the Lord for He is good,” “for His mercy endureth forever” “Oh give thanks unto the God of gods” “for His mercy endureth forever.” “Oh give thanks to the Lord of lords” “for His mercy endureth forever.” “To him who alone doeth great wonders” “for His mercy endureth forever.” Every one of the 26 sentences of this Psalm has after the initial proclamation the antiphonal response “for His mercy endureth forever.” A most majestic Psalm and one which gives us a particularly vivid example of antiphonal singing, of antiphonal response.

Moreover the use of antiphony was not limited to the Psalms. Verses from the Bible were taken and used in the temple worship, and then in the synagogue worship, antiphonally. For example, from the morning service of the synagogue verse from the prophets “for the kingdom is the Lord’s, and He is ruler over the nations, and Savior shall come up on mount Zion to judge the Mount of Esau, and the kingdom shall be the Lord’s. And the Lord shall be king over all the earth, on that day shall the Lord be one and His name one.” Antiphony thus is deeply embedded in the fabric of Biblical worship. Moreover the church very early embodied antiphony, and in the early church we find antiphonal responses as a part of the chanting and of the singing of the church. This is why when we look at the liturgies of the early church, whether in the Eastern rites or in the Latin rites, they are antiphonal because antiphony was seen as basic to the life of the church.

Now we’re not dealing simply with music here, antiphony is responsive and it tells us that what comes from the throne of God is to find a response, an echo, in the life of the people. So that antiphony represents a basic aspect of worship. Hence we are told in some of the Psalms “and all the people shall say amen” and hence very early the amen to the pastoral prayer, the amen to the words proclaimed in the preaching, the amen to the reading of scripture, was a basic part to the life of the church because antiphony was at the heart of worship. There had to be a response, a response in word, in song, and a response in life. The priest as the servant stood before the Lord to serve Him. This service, this dedication, included praise and basic to that praise, as we see in the song of the seraphim, the whole earth is full of His glory. Hence the work of the priest was to proclaim this fact, that all heaven and earth are to manifest the glory of God. The people are to echo this in word and in song and in life. So the antiphony continues then in daily life, and our lives are to be a response, an antiphonal response to what God from the throne has declared.

Thus there has to be the sanctification of persons, of things, and their baptism into the Lord’s service. We have to, as one priest once observed a few generations back, the baptism of pocket books, the baptism of all things. The priests thus stood in the temple of God before God to represent humanity. To say that what came from the throne would be echoed in the life of man and in the totality of creation. The priestly calling thus is to sanctify all creation and to separate it to the Lord, and to His service, to dedicate all things and to act as mediator for all things, in the service, and in the praise of God. The needs of creation go to God through the priests, and therefore both the word goes out, and the response, the antiphony, and the word goes back in praise, in a submission, and in the offering of gifts, of thanks, and of needs. Because even when we offer our needs to God we acknowledge that He is the Lord, He is sovereign.

The great high priest, the one true high priest, is Jesus Christ the last Adam; He who came to replace the first Adam who fell. And all of us as redeemed people are priests in Christ, and we are called to dedicate ourselves, our families, our vocations, the totality of our beings and our possessions to God. We are called to sanctify them by God’s law word, to bring all things unto the righteousness or justice of God; and this calling continues in eternity. Because when we have the vision of the throne, now instead of the seraphim and the cherubim we see, with the curse removed, His covenant people stand before Him.

Verse 3 of Revelation 22 says “and there shall be no more curse.” That can also be translated “there shall be no more accursed person.” Creation now is purged of the curse and of the cursed persons. They are separated from all of creation into hell, and so there shall be no more curse or cursed person, it reads equally accurately. But the throne of God and of lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. Now the redeemed humanity replaces the cherubim and the seraphim and the antiphony becomes an eternal harmony. There is now the perfect service of God through all eternity, the curse is abolished and the antiphony of the covenant mankind prevails, and the whole creation is full of the glory of God, and the redeemed see God’s face as was the case in the Garden of Eden before the fall.

Fallen man cannot see God’s face and life. As Robert H. Bounce has written with regard to this verse, and I quote: “in the ancient world criminals were banished from the presence of kings, and not allowed to look upon His face. Jesus taught that only the pure in heart shall seek God, and John in his first epistle speaks of the great transformation to take place at the return of Christ when we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” To see God was the privilege of man in Eden. Throughout history to see the face of the monarch, of the ruler, was a privilege of grace which extended only to those who were faithful to him. Do you recall in the book of Esther when Haman fell out of favor because of his offense with Ahasuerus, what the servants of Ahasuerus did immediately? They covered his face, they covered the face of Haman because by having offended the king, having transgressed, having taken advantage of his position, he was no longer fit to see the face of the king, and that meant death, and the servants knew it; and Haman’s execution now is only a question of “how was it to be done?”

The priest is one who stands before the king and can see him face to face because he is now a part of that antiphony. There is now in him a perfect response, there is no longer the curse, and because he obeys God totally, manifests the righteousness, the justice of God, in all his ways, therefore he shall see His face. Now as we work to create and to establish God’s kingdom on earth, as we work to teach and to train, and this is what our purpose here at Chalcedon is, to establish a center, a training place, where the antiphony can resound in all creation, where men can learn the righteousness of God and its implications, what we are doing is to say that the antiphony must resound in all of creation. That the word must go forth. When God speaks the word and says “Thou shalt have no other gods before me; honor thy father and thy mother; thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not commit adultery, and all the every word of God, and all the people shall say amen. And the antiphony means to go out and to obey, so that there is the antiphony in the service and then the antiphony of action into all the world so that what we see in Revelation, the cherubim and seraphim doing, becomes a part of the totality of life, until that antiphony even reaches Washington and Moscow.

Because the response begins in us and is transmitted to others to answer to God with a great amen, amen and amen, so be it. God speaks the word, and the people obey.

In II Corinthians 3:18 Paul speaks of this great transmission in all of us. That on the forehead of God’s servants will be stamped the name of God, God’s name represents His character, so that the character of God is in all His people, because they are now a part of the antiphony they answer by obedience, by faithfulness, to the every word of God.

The priests bring tithes and offerings, the first fruits to God. And all men as priests offer themselves in the totality of their lives, to the Lord. The first fruits are the symbolic presentation of all, and all of us are priests in Christ and in fullness, in totality, in the new creation. His servants serve Him joyfully. Music is associated with heaven. It is often caricatured and reduced to a lack of anything to do but to strum harps. But the reason for the association of music with heaven is the fact of the antiphony. In so many of the visions of God from Isaiah to Revelation, the antiphony prevails and the essence of the antiphony is that the whole of the earth is to praise God by their faithfulness, by their obedience. His servants serve Him joyfully. Music is associated with the new creation as the great expression of joy and peace. In the Old Testament at the conclusion of the antiphony there was the benediction, the blessing, which was chanted. There was the expression thereby of the overwhelming sense of joy in giving and joy in receiving.

One of the sad facts is that we have ceased to associate priests and priestly callings with joy. But this is the great fact about our priestly vocation. It is associated in scripture with joy. We tend to look at one side of it and hence have clouded it throughout much of church history. The worshiper brought to the sanctuary and to the priest his sacrifices for atonement for sin, and so a part of the calling of the priests was to hear that confession of sin as he laid his hands upon that sacrifice; and then in the early church the confessional, first public and then private, and then with the reformation in many churches, public. And so the calling become associated with hearing sins and dealing with problems of sins, and forgetting that the conclusion is absolution and forgiveness, and the joy and the peace that come with that; so that the conclusion of the calling is peace and a joyful song.

Both with regard to the priestly and the royal calling we are told “and there shall be no night there, and they need no candle neither light of the sun for the Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign forever and ever.” The problems are over, there is only now the joyful service and the eternal reign; the joyful yielding of ourselves and of our member to God in our antiphony. Christ above all else made Himself the great gift to God. We, as we give ourselves are only acceptable in Christ, and in the new creation we ourselves to Him joyfully forever and praise in service and in rejoicing. This tells us of a place of music and of the arts in the great antiphony of creation. They are to be expressive of the joy of creation for the grace and forgiveness of God, the joy of obeying His every law word and finding therein our peace. And so it is that we must return to this sense of a priestly calling.

It is a sad fact that as Greek asceticism crept into the church very early, a false view of the priest began to prevail and in very synods priests were, for some centuries, barred from staying for a wedding celebration. Levity was beneath them, they were to be serious and somber and laughter was beneath them. This was a perversion of the priestly office, it is to be expressive of joy, And hence it is that the arts are to be expressive of joy so that when we see the arts expressed in architecture we are to feel lifted up, we are to feel this is trule a part of the antiphony . When we listen to the music we are to feel this too is a part of the antiphony. When we the other arts we are to see them as a part of the antiphony whose beginning is in heaven, and we are to see our daily lives in the work that God gives us as a part of the antiphony, as a part of God’s calling of our lives and our being into the song; “Holy, holy, holy, the whole earth is full of Thy glory.” His servants shall serve Him because the glory of the life of man is the service of God, and it is to this that we are called. In this life because the fact of sin is real, that antiphony has still its burdens and its problems, and the full expression of joy is not there. But as we resound in the great amen to the every word of God, and to the every calling of God, we then begin to have a taste of the antiphony as it is in the new creation when throughout all eternity we are a part of that perfect response, the antiphony of a joyful, a redeemed, and a restored humanity and creation. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God who of Thy mercy and grace has redeemed us and made us a part of the great antiphony. We come to Thee confessing that so often we have fretted over the duties of our calling. That to often we have wanted the joy without the calling. Lord give us joy in the antiphony of service, and the antiphony of praise, that with all our heart, mind, and being we may serve Thee all the days of our life, and throughout all eternity, ever rejoicing that we are a part of the great amen. In Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now, first of all with respect to our lesson?

Yes?

[Audience member] {?} Believers in Christ hold the office of a priest, or was that reserved to Christ alone being our mediator?

[Rushdoony] Every believer has the office of priest in Christ. So that the essence of the priesthood of believer is that whatever we are, we are priests. If we’re a carpenter, if we’re a lawyer, if we’re a doctor, a judge, whatever we are, were priests and therefore have that responsibility of recognizing that our calling is a part of God’s antiphony.

Over the years I’ve often cited the little illustration of the English housewife who had type a little note and put it over her kitchen sink. It read “divine services celebrated here three times daily.” [chuckles from audience] Now she had an understanding of the antiphony, she may have not known the word but she understood.

Yes?

[Audience member] In viewing our talents, our responsibilities, and all these things antiphonally, are we to look at heart as only being legitimate viewed antiphonally, or is that a primary way we should view it? Or is it the only way we should view it?

[Rushdoony] I believe we have to recognize that from our perspective the only legitimate art is the art which redowns {?} to the glory of God. Now, very often the non-Christian art in spite of himself will be Godly because he’s using the basic materials.

We have now of course pushed that to the limits in that what we have, as Nicanor Parra termed his volume “anti-poems”. In some musicians like John Cage we have anti-music. I do believe that rock-in-roll is an effort to create an anti-music on the popular level. On the other hand let us take a composer of the last century whose music was in essence, or two of them because we have the Romantic Movement framed in them, and much of what we have today comes out of them. Beethoven and Barlioz, both very great composers but the emphasis was essentially on a personal and an emotional experience. But they were dealing with the elements of order, of structure, that came out of God’s world, so they were witnessing against themselves.

Of course what happened in that progression was that in Berlioz, a very appealing figure in his person and in his abilities, nonetheless what he was doing was pushing what began earlier, the exaltation of feeling and experience to a higher degree. So what you had was a further step away from God although still using God’s materials. And so as in the requiem mass, which is a remarkable piece of work, it exploits every musical trick to create a response. It’s an ostensibly Christian production but it’s also very much dedicated to creating a feeling, to creating a reaction, a response. And it probably uses more musical instruments and more sound effects than any other thing ever composed, just to put the emphasis on the human side of the experience, you see. Well of course that’s been pushed to the nth degree in Rock-and-Roll, it’s an anarchistic experientialism.

Now, what I’m saying is that the materials, the only materials available for man are God-given. Inescapably they’ve go to assert a pattern. To deny any kind of pattern is finally to forsake art, or experience. I’ve often cited the example of Marcel Duchamp, how Marcel Duchamp finally decided his anti-art could no longer even involve going to a junk and bringing, as he did, a broken urinal and exhibiting it as a work of art. That was to purposive. So he dropped out entirely, dedicated the rest of his life to trying to create a language which would not witness to God, because there would be no meaning, no pattern to it. And he found you couldn’t, it was an impossibility to create such a language, and he withdrew from the world to play chess with a few friends.

Now, everything witnesses to God in spite of ourselves, so all our music and art witness to God in some sense, but there is a distinction between that which self-consciously, honestly, and faithfully does so, and that which is in spite of itself witnessing to God, but trying to point in another direction.

Yes?

[Audience member] Would you say then that an artistic effort to control, to us art as a means [baby sounds blocking audio] would be to substitute from an “amen” to God to an “amen” to the artist?

[Rushdoony] Very good, you’ve said it beautifully Otto, that is superb. Yes, the modern artist is trying to create exactly the kind of antiphony you cited. They’re trying to create a humanistic response, they’re the propagandist to the nth degree, because when we respond antiphonally to God, it is something in which our whole being is involved. God has created us, and we respond most naturally to him. But when an artist tries to compel me to respond to him, that’s creating an artificial, a coercive relationship so his art suffers, and I do too as I look at it or listen to it.

Yes, Howard?

[Audience member] Do I detect a lot of this, this attitude {?} in television today?

[Rushdoony] Yes. A lot of so-called Christian art and Christian television and Christian music today is artificial also, because it’s humanistic. And Arminianism, because it is related to humanism, tend to create this kind of thing, an artificial one because they’re not thinking of glorifying God, but of controlling other people; which is to say that their ability to influence people with their art or their music is more powerful than the grace of God. There’s an arrogance about humanistic art, even when it bears the name of Christian.

Yes?

[Audience member] Well the idea of Christian music as such conjures up this concept of just what you, what we’ve been talking about with regard to what’s popular Christian music now, and if I understand you what you’re saying, even though we should view all music antiphonally, that certainly isn’t a narrow concept of what can be composed and what can be expressed as part of creation, we’re really arguing for a Christian base in pointing to God in everything we do as being the emphasis.

[Rushdoony] Yes. A portrait may not have anything about God in it, no cross on the wall behind it, but it can be totally Christian because you see something of God’s image in the person, you see something of the glory and dignity of God’s creation.

After all we have an example of that in the Bible in that one of the most theologically profound book never mentions God once, the book of Esther. Here you have a book about predestination, about God, about God’s providence, and the book deliberately avoids mentioning God as though to say “here is God at work ,you don’t have to label it, but it is emphatically the case.

Well our time is really about up now, so let us conclude now with a word of prayer.

Our Lord and our God it has been good for us to be here, Thy word is truth, and Thy grace is life. Give us, Oh Lord, ever the joy of thine antiphony, that with all our heart, mind, and being, in all our doings, we may respond to the song of creation. In Jesus name, amen.