Systematic Theology – Eschatology

Law as Eschatology

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 3 of 32

Track: #3

Year:

Dictation Name: 03 Law as Eschatology.

[Rushdoony] Let us begin with prayer.

Glory be to Thee oh God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We praise Thee Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, who out of nothing didst create all things, hast made us for Thy purpose, and Thy purpose shall not fail. And so our God we come into Thy presence with joy and with Thanksgiving, knowing that our labor is not in vain in Thee, and that what Thou hast begun Thou wilt accomplish, and the ends of the earth shall see Thy purpose fulfilled, Thy glory manifested, and Thy so-great salvation extended to every tribe, tongue, race, and person. We thank Thee that Thou art God, and we gather together again to rejoice in Thy word, and to surrender ourselves afresh unto Thee. Bless us to Thy purpose in Jesus name, amen.

Our scripture this morning is from the ninth chapter of Genesis, verses1-11, and our subject is Law as Eschatology. Two weeks ago we began our study of eschatology, eschatology is the doctrine of last things as it is commonly defined; and as we saw the common era with regard to eschatology is that it means the last times, end times events; the resurrection of the dead, the end of the world, the last judgment, and so on. Whereas in the Bible it means not only the end time, but the end point whenever God’s judgment takes place in history, so that the judgment upon the world before the flood was an end point. The judgment upon Babylon, Assyria, and so on, constituted end points. This morning we shall study Law as eschatology, and our scripture Genesis 9:1-11.

“And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.

2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.

3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man.

6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made He man.

7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.

8 And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying,

9 And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;

10 And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.

11 And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there anymore be a flood to destroy the earth.”

In the encyclopedia of religion and ethics the section on eschatology was written by J.A. MacCulloch. According to MacCulloch eschatology is concerned with the end time. Thus his perspective is seriously defective in that he limits it only to those things at the end of the world, and not to God’s judgment throughout history. We encounter the endpoint again and again as in the Old Testament the prophets speak of the day of the Lord, his judgment upon men and nations. The fall of Jerusalem was an end point; the fall of Rome was an end-point, and so on down to the present time. However in spite of this weakness MacCulloch in his study sees in his study as a central aspect of eschatology retribution. We can add that perhaps it is the central aspect, not a central aspect. Retribution means judgment, it means blessings and reprobation. Now in some non-Christian eschatologies there are non-moral elements present. But in all eschatologies of all religions around the world there is still at the center a moral factor.

In some this moral factor, retribution, takes over so totally that it obliterates everything else. A very important example of this is the doctrine of karma. Karma says that there is only retribution in the world, unrelenting, inescapable retribution, no grace, only retribution. There are many other variations of this doctrine of retribution. In Psychostasia, which is the weighing of works or deeds, as in the Egyptian book of the dead, again you have retribution as the essence of their eschatology, and of their religion. But these are of course non-Biblical forms. At the heart of Biblical eschatology there is retribution, justice in other words; or to use the Biblical word, righteousness. Because the Biblical word righteousness is the same as our modern English word, justice. Now for an eschatology to postpone justice to the end time means to strip time and history of justice. This means surrendering the world to the devil. The sad fact is in every form of eschatology this kind of fallacious thinking has entered in. The amillennial position says the world is going to get worse and worse, and there will be no justice until the end of the world, and there are too many people who share that perspective. The premillennial perspective says that until the rapture and the second coming; however their chronology of the raptures and the second coming, there will be no justice. And wherever you have had, as sometimes you have had, an antinomian postmillennialism, again justice is deferred until an end time.

But this means surrendering the world to the devil. It means then man has no hope of justice in history, only at the end of history, and it leads to a very pessimistic outlook, to a withdrawal into a kind of fortress church to await the end. But Abraham knew better, hence as we saw last time he talked with God in terms of a simple, fundamental, presupposition. “Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?” When Abraham raised that question he did not say “Shall not the judge of all the earth do right at the end of time?” No, here and now in history, in the processes of time, shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Again, Paul tells us that retribution is constant, a constant force in history. He says in Galatians 6:7 “Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man seweth, that shall he also reap. It’s an ongoing process, there is justice in history, the whole of history is moving to establish God’s justice, so that on the one hand we have the work of evangelization, converting men to Christ, and on the other hand the use of converted men to effect righteousness, justice upon earth.

When God’s eschaton, his end, came to the antediluvian world, the world before the flood, it did not end history, nor did it end retribution in history. God only promised that there would not be another flood. He did not say there will be no more judgment, only that there would not be another flood. Retribution was to continue in another form. Moreover God charged man with moral responsibility for applied eschatology. Who so sheddeth mans blood, by man shall his blood be shed; and the animal that kills a man must be killed. Of everyone this blood guiltiness shall be required. Now this is eschatology, it is retribution, and eschatology is in its essence retribution. Take applied eschatology, justice or retribution, out of the world and you turn the world into hell. In fact you turn it into something worse than hell, because you leave the righteous surrounded by hellions, with no justice, and the sad fact is there are all too many churchmen today who are working to do precisely that. They tell us that to work for justice is not Godly, it is the social gospel. They tell us that to work for righteousness is to work for something that is hopeless in this world; it can only come after history is over.

But we have here very clearly stated the law of retribution, or eschatology, in history. We have it throughout history. We have spelled out in the details in Exodus 21, as in verse 28 and 31 where we are told that every man for every offense must make restitution. If he steals a hundred he must restore the hundred and be penalized another hundred, and retribution, restitution, can be as much as fourfold and fivefold, depending upon the kind of crime. Capital punishment for murder is retribution.

Stigers in his commentary on Genesis said, and I quote “it would appear that the murder has assaulted the government of God, and so lies beyond the protection of the divine will.” All men have a responsibility for justice; all men have responsibility where murder is concerned. Moffat renders the phrase with regard to restitution or retribution in Genesis 9:5&6 in these words “I will avenge man’s life on man, upon his brother man.” Unavenged blood places blood guilt on all living members of society. Thus what God required of Noah and all men is the execution of justice, or God will bring retribution of justice on them. We either apply eschatology to our world, or God applies His eschatology to us.

That’s what God says here, why doesn’t the church hear? Justice is retribution and God’s law is applied eschatology. That’s what the whole of the law is about, as God gives it in His scripture. The soul that sinneth, it shall die; do this and live; do this and die. The law is applied eschatology, but today think eschatology is a lot of charts on the wall which show you the end time only, and not very accurately. They key fact of the Bible is eschatology, retribution, justice, righteousness. If we deny God’s law we have only an end time justice, and we deny that there is any justice then in history.

Now Genesis 9 verses 5&6 among other things sets forth two basic facts. First, that all life is God created, it is to regarded as God’s property, it is subject to God’s laws, as is made clear in verse 2-4, man’s life is especially valued because man is created in God’s image. Any transgression against God’s image is a violation of God’s sovereign law, God’s right. Murder presupposes man’s right to govern and take human life apart from God. Then second, man has a responsibility as a creature made by God to uphold God’s order, and God’s end, retribution, justice, righteousness, must be man’s end. God’s eschaton and law must be man’s also. Moreover in Genesis 9:2-6 we have another fact as set forth by Basil F.C. Atkinson in his commentary, and I quote “This is the requirement of a judge, and we have here one of the earliest of the many emphatic passages in the Bible, which represent God as the supreme judge and lawgiver. Man as a moral being is responsible to God as judge, and it is an erroneous idea of the gospel to suppose that this responsibility and relationship are ever suppressed. The gospel does not tell us that God has ceased to be judge, it tells us that as just requirement as judge have been met on our behalf by the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Not only is the law applied eschatology, but so is the judge, if he is a Godly judge. Why have judges if we don’t believe in eschatology in time and history? Why have a church session, or a board that sits in judgment on anyone who transgresses and who rules if there is no applied eschatology? We have a duty to work for justice in history, to expect justice in history, and to say with Abraham “shall not the judge of all the earth do right?” Any who will not believe in applied eschatology are sinning against God. They are denying that He is the righteous judge. In Christ we are turned from outlaws into friends of the law, workers for the law, workers for righteousness. Our Judge is also our Lord and Redeemer, and we work to uphold His law order.

Loophole {?} The Lutheran scholar in his comment on Genesis 9:5&6 said, and I quote: “the publishing of this word is to induce man to act.” Luther said that the state was established here, we may differ, but civil government still has justice as its legitimate purpose. As such, the state is an eschatological institution. It has a purpose, namely to bring forth retribution and justice, that’s eschatological. Our problem is that the modern state has seen itself as a Messiah, not the servant of the Messiah, and there’s a world of difference. And the sad fact is that to many orthodox Jews and orthodox Christians have turned into pietist and they fold their hands and say “only when the Messiah comes will there be justice.” Why then did God institute the state? Why then did God create the church if it were not to further the bringing men and women into a saving knowledge of Christ, and to make them instruments of righteousness, of justice, of retribution.

When our Lord in the great commission says “go ye therefore unto all nations, and make disciples of them” He is giving an eschatological command, an end point command, as well as an end time command. The word require in Genesis 9:5 is a judicial term. God as our supreme judge requires us to live and to work for His eschaton, His end point as well as His end time. Hence eschatology means justice, and it means that justice must be our endpoint in history as well as our end time triumph. Eschatology is inseparable from law. The antinomians have surrendered justice as an end point in history. They deny righteousness as a valid goal for man in time. But Amos says in Amos 5:24 “Let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.” And Isaiah 29:6 says “when Thy judgments are in the earth the inhabits of the world will learn righteousness.” We have an obligation to learn righteousness, justice.

We cannot apply God’s judgments if we surrender the world to the devil. And who are the blessed of the Lord? They who hunger and thirst after righteousness; to hunger and thirst after righteousness is to hunger and thirst and to work for applied eschatology. The law is eschatology, applied eschatology. False eschatologies see disasters only in history, not justice. And they see disasters as indicative of the end time, and they pervert scripture to that end; so that they see God’s eschaton as nothing but trouble and grief and misery, not justice. Recently Sign of the Times had an issue on the second coming which was circulated freely in neighborhood after neighborhood. It was reprinted by different churches than the Adventists, and used by Christians of all theological stripes. It gave a number of vague signs as indicative that the world was coming to an end.

All those signs could have been true of almost any age in history, and then it went on to say, and I quote “the last days are to be characterized by (I won’t list all the verses they site, their exegesis leaves a lot to be desired) 1.) Accumulation of wealth”; that’s happened in every age hasn’t it? “ 2.) Labor troubles”; well when have their not be labor troubles in history? “3) War preparations” [laughter]; that has been a constant fact in history “4) Disarmament talk”; well ever since the days of the bow and arrow men have been talking about disarmament. “5) Awakening of the East, 6) Increase of knowledge”; knowledge has been increasing since day one. “7) Unrest and upheaval”, what else do you expect in a world of sin? “8) Craze for pleasure”, so what else is new? “9) Religious skepticism”; was that born in our day? “10.) Intemperance and physical degeneracy”; did men wait until the 20th century to get drunk and degenerate? “11) Falling away from Bible truth”, well “12.) Moral degeneracy and decline in spirituality. The last days,” Moore goes on to say, “are to be a time of 13) Unparalleled travel.” Well men have been traveling since Cain moved away from the family. “14) Destructive earthquakes, cyclones, etc.”; Cyclones and earthquakes again were not born yesterday. “15) Destructive insects, pests, etc.”; we’ve seen worse than in our day. “16) Abounding lawlessness”, nothing new. 17) “Bloody crimes”, I’ll take the crimes of our day to those of a few centuries back. “18) Breaking of marriage ties”; well then world should of ended any number of times in history. “19.) Scoffing at the Lord’s coming”; they were scoffing in the days of the apostles “20.) Turning to spiritism”; well we can encounter that way back in Old Testament times. “21) Deceptive miracles”, ancient Egypt had them. “22) Rise of many false religions”, when have they not arisen? “23) Giving of special message of Revelation 14:6-14 to all the world, to prepare the way for the coming of Christ.”

Now, most of these reasons, if not all, are valid for any age of history, and in most ages more so than today. Most of these texts which are cited represent misrepresentations of scripture. In almost every case the texts are irrelevant to Moore’s thesis, namely that they apply to the second coming. His thinking really represents wishful thinking, not exegesis, and people have regularly been prone to wishful thinking; and it’s sad when the Bible is reinterpreted in terms of wishful thinking. Much modern day Protestantism with its fanciful concern with prophesy represents theological senility, not common sense. Paul however gives us a vision of total victory, total victory proceeding the end times. He says in 1st Corinthians 15:24-26 “24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. 25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”

Eschatology means retribution in time and in history, and to make it mean anything else is to wrong the word of God and to sin against the Lord. Let us pray.

Thy word is truth oh Lord, and Thy word requires us to work for righteousness, for justice, for retribution against evildoers in our time. Make us therefore men of Thy law, men of Thy purpose, that we may apply Thy law word to every area of life and thought, that righteousness may flow through the veins of our society, through the church and through the state, through us as individuals and through our schools, to the end that the kingdoms of this world might become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. Bless us to this purpose in Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now, first of all about our lesson?

[Audience member] You just quoted Paul, where was that from?

[Rushdoony] Yes, I Corinthians 15:24-26.

Yes?

[Audience member] {?} What would be something in the modern age that we could relate to that would be like the end time? Would the world wars fit into that at all?

[Rushdoony] Yes, the World Wars have seen the end, the beginning of the end of statism, and the economic catastrophe which is coming upon us now is a judgment upon our time, it’s an eschatology. We live in an eschatological time.

Yes?

[Audience member] Then on the other hand with the modern churchman view of the end times, of eschatology, would they have told the pilgrims “why bother to colonize the New World and to start a new government, why bother?”

[Rushdoony] Exactly, if the current eschatologies had prevailed then they would have just sat still and said “let’s wait for the rapture” Or “let’s wait for the end.”

[Audience member] Because the pilgrims went through an awful lot to do what they did.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience member] They might have even called Cromwell the anti-Christ.

[Rushdoony] Yes. What Cromwell did was to apply eschatology, this was the attitude of the Puritans, and many of them were post-millennial. You see what we have done with our antinomianism is a monstrous thing, we have separated law from God, and turned to a humanistic law; and we have separated law from its eschatological purpose. When you do that you begin the destruction of a society.

[Audience member] {?} The huge numbers of people have been killed through the wars, various wars in the 20th century. Does that have anything to do with our particular passage about if man kills another man by man shall his blood be shed? Do you think God is bringing judgment on a nation for not executing murders? Or executing large numbers of innocents in their population?

[Rushdoony] Well, no. You see there’s a difference between our attitudes towards righteous men and God’s attitude. We tend to think if someone has not bothered anyone then he’s righteous. He hasn’t murdered or robbed, or perjured himself, or done a few other things. He may of transgressed with his neighbor’s wife once or twice, but you know it was just a little harmless fun; so he’s basically a good man. That’s the way the modern world views them, good citizens.

But in God’s sight we are righteous, we are just, we are innocent of the blood of our neighbor if we have worked positively for righteousness, for justice. And what Ezekiel was told was this “you are innocent of the blood of these men only if you witness to my law. Only if you make known to them, then you are innocent of their blood. Make known to them what they are and what my word is.” So today we view somebody who’s a do-nothing as innocent, and we feel sorry because the judgment of history has overwhelmed them. But the do-nothings are not righteous in God’s site. They paid a price for their silence.

Yes?

[Audience member] With a good number of the evangelical church subscribing to some form of premillennial eschatology how do you explain the fact that those same numbers are deeply involved in the growth of Christian education, which is a decidedly positive activity?

[Rushdoony] We are seeing is an awakening in many circles, and many fundamentalists are waking up to the need to make a stand, and to apply eschatology. Many of them who are going to court are calling themselves pre-mill and are, but they are beginning to break with that because they are seeing the need for a stand. So we are seeing an awakening and an application of eschatology, when you fight for God’s righteousness, for the integrity of God’s church and the integrity of the Christian school, that is righteousness.

Yes?

[Audience member] Aren’t a lot of them just trying to escape from the world though too, and go into their own little world?

[Rushdoony] Many are trying to pull in further into their own little cell and say, “I want to forget about the world” yes. What we often forget is that the retreat early in church history of monks to the desert was not in origin a Christian movement. Before you ever had the Christian desert monks you had the pagan hermits, men who sickened of the world and said “there’s no hope in the world, I’m giving it up.” it is comparable to the new celibacy that struck Hollywood a couple of years back, where everybody who joined this movement swore off all sex because they were tired of guilt feelings, and they said “no more guilt trips, and I’m swearing off sex” and quite a few did. There are articles about it, a book was written about it, I heard several prominent television and film personalities speak on one program or another saying how wonderful it was, they had no guilt trips because they’d gone in for the new celibacy.

Now Rome had the same kind of thing, it was a running away from the world and from sin, not an overcoming of it; and some of these people were converted, or thought they were, many were. But their thinking was essentially, in terms of a neo-platonic flight from history. It was only much later that some of the leaders of monasticism, like Saint Benedict, gave it a practical turn and said “We are not going to retreat, we are going to labor.” And what happened as a result was that one of the great pioneers, both in the world of farming and commerce in the Middle Ages was the Monastic order. The monks of Cluny, for example, did remarkable things in this area.

Well our time is over so let us conclude now with prayer.

We thank Thee our Father that Thou hast called us to be Thy people, that Thou hast given us a commission to apply Thy purpose, Thy end point to history. Make us strong therein and more than conquerors through Christ Jesus our Lord, in His name we pray, amen.