Systematic Theology – Eschatology

Eschatology and the Covenant

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 4 of 32

Track: #4

Year:

Dictation Name: 04 Eschatology and the Covenant.

[Rushdoony] Let us begin with prayer.

Almighty God our heavenly Father great and marvelous are Thy ways, and Thou who didst make all things will accomplish Thy holy purpose in and through all things. Teach us therefore day by day to walk in sure and confident faith, knowing that that which Thou hast begun Thou wilt accomplish, that the ends of the earth shall praise Thee, and all things be in Thy kingdom serving and magnifying Thy holy name. Give us by Thy Spirit knowledge of Thy word, that we may serve Thee more faithfully, rejoice in Thee, and in all our ways be holy and acceptable of Thy site, through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.

Our scripture is Genesis 15, and our subject is eschatology and the covenant, Genesis 15.

“After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.

2 And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?

3 And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir.

4 And, behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, this shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.

5 And he brought him forth abroad, and said, look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, so shall thy seed be.

6 And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

7 And he said unto him, I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.

8 And he said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?

9 And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.

10 And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not.

11 And when the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

12 And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.

13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;

14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.

15 And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.

16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.

17 And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.

18 In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:

19 The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites,

20 And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims,

21 And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”

We have been studying for the past few weeks the doctrine of eschatology and its meaning, and we saw that eschatology, or eschatos/eschaton mean “the end things” it can mean, and we shall study both, God’s end point, His culminating judgment or blessing in history, and the end time and what comes with and after the end time. Naturally we shall first, as we go through scripture, deal with some of the end point references in scripture, and then the end time.

As we come to this chapter one thing in passing should be noted. Our modern view of visions is rather a strange one, I believe it is too extensively derived from paganism and medicine men whipping themselves up into trances and visions that are highly emotional and subnormal, I would say. But when we come to visions in scripture people do not have these experiences as a rule. By and large Abram, as in this chapter, is talking with God, he is experiencing a vision, he moves from vision to doing things physically with no break in continuity. In other words in scripture a vision is an extension of sight beyond what we can see, into things beyond our ken. All of us have, no doubt, had the experience at some time or another of seeing something through binoculars, and suddenly something far off that was beyond our ken, as far as any details were concerned, was clear and visible. And a few of us perhaps have looked through a great telescope, as I did once at Mount Wilson, and we suddenly find that our scope of vision is extended. Now, this is the essence of vision in the Bible. God suddenly extends the scope of vision, so it’s not what happens to the individual, but what God does to extend the vision. Now all humanistic non-Biblical version of visions, it’s what happens to the individual and what he does to himself that supposedly gives vision. But in the Bible it’s what God does suddenly to open up, to extend his depth of perception.

Now our subject is eschatology and the covenant. The doctrine of the covenant is basic to scripture; it is basic also to man’s relationship to God, or better God’s relationship to us. Men are either covenant keepers, or covenant breakers. When God makes a covenant with man, for God to enter into a treaty of law with man is an act of grace. So every covenant in the Bible is both a covenant of grace, because God deigns to enter into treaty with man, and a covenant of law. A covenant is predictive of the future, and therefore very thoroughly eschatological. It does deal with end points and end times. Covenants are accompanied always with cursings and blessings, which again are predictive; and covenant keeping is always accompanied with eschatological predictions, predictions about an end point and an end time; as in Genesis 2 verses 16 and 17, also in verse 9, when God says what the consequences of disobedience to Adam and Eve would be.

The same is true in every case of a covenant being made. It is not spelled out in detail in this chapter but the very fact that Abraham was commanded to cut a covenant, which is how it is literally in the Hebrew, you “cut” a covenant, to divide the animals in two and put them with a little distance to walk between the two of them. And Abraham walked between the two of them, and then it came to pass that when the sun went down and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between the two of them, which we are told elsewhere in scripture, indicated the presence of God; so that both God and Abraham passed through, passed through with these severed animals on either side. Now the significance there was this; that in the cutting of a covenant, and with both parties to a covenant walking between the severed halves, what they did was to say that if we are faith less to the covenant, then so may we be killed, and severed. May judgment fall upon us. And the alternative of course being, that if we are faithful then blessings are upon us, so that was the significance of the severed animals in this instant and in every case.

Now as we look at this covenant more closely with this covenant making between God and Abraham comes God’s declaration concerning the future. He promises Abram, who is still childless, that he will have a progeny so numerous that it will be as the starts in the heavens, in innumerable, “so shall thy seed be.” And so Abram believed in the Lord, and He counted it unto him for righteousness. The word “believe” here is an unusual one, we encounter it only a few times in the Bible in this sense, it is literally our word “amen”. So it says “Abram said amen to God”. Thy will be done, this is what amen means, so be it, Thy will be done. Abram said amen to God and God counted his faith unto Him for righteousness.

Moreover we see the eschatology here when God comes to Abraham and says “fear not Abram, I am Thy shield and Thy exceeding great reward.” So that here is the blessings, God tells Abram, “I will be with Thee, I will never leave Thee nor forsake Thee, so that we may boldly say the Lord is my helper, I shall not fear what man may do unto me.”

Now a covenant is eschatological because today and tomorrow are determined by God, and the future is a natural development of a supernatural fact. The future is always a natural development of a supernatural fact, because God who made all things governs and ordains all things. Abram at this point made a naturalistic prediction about the future, he said “Lord I am childless, and Eliezer, a servant born in my household, is mine heir. He is going to inherit.” Now that was a naturalistic prediction; humanly speaking, that was the case. Humanly speaking Sarah and Abraham were both much too old to have progeny, but God very specifically says “this shall not be.” And so God after Abram has called attention to a natural fact, makes a supernatural statement, “this shall not be, a child born of you shall be your heir.” God determines and He overrules in all history, and faith is supernatural grace, it is believing in God’s promises, it is seeing the future as God sees it, thus faith is also eschatological because by faith we walk in terms of a future that we cannot see, but which God declares shall be. So that Paul in Hebrews tells us that faith is the substance of things not seen, of things invisible, so that when we walk by faith we are walking eschatological, we are trusting that God’s endpoint and end time are true. And we believe this Paul says, even though we are persecuted we know that we are more than conquerors. But this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.

Now there is a passage here that is very important for us to understand, we are told that Abraham believed and God [I believe he meant Abram] said “amen” to God and it was counted unto him for righteousness. And God said “I am the Lord that brought thee out of the land of Ur, Ur of the Chaldees to give thee this land to inherit.” And then Abraham said “Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” Did Abraham suddenly turn doubter? Did Abraham suddenly prove to be weak of faith? I do not believe that is the meaning, because immediately after God orders him to cut the covenant. His question was like his other question a little later, “shall not the judge of all the earth do right?” When Abraham said “Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?” he knew that the judge of all the earth would do right, he wanted to know how he was going to do right, and so when he asks “whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” he has not saying “I do not believe, I do not believe that I will inherit, but I want to know how this shall be.” And so God orders him to cut the covenant. The animals are slaughtered in two; death comes upon the party who breaks the covenant.

This is a prediction concerning the future; God makes specific predictions. In due time your descendants will go into captivity in Egypt for 400 years because the iniquity of the Amorites, the Canaanites who possess the land is not yet full, but they shall return greatly enriched and they shall possess the land. But Abraham said “how shall I know that I shall inherit it?” Now the scripture doesn’t spell out the details, but it tells us that it was through the covenant. God orders him to cut the covenant, so the covenant is the answer. Now what does that mean? What is the fullness of the covenant? Why it is that while men sinned they broke the covenant and the penalty of death is upon all who break the covenant, and especially so a covenant with God. God in His mercy provides Himself the substitute for man who is to die; and so Christ comes to die for man. So that in this vision we have reason to believe that Abraham saw down the line how God would fulfill the promise, and how his seed would be as the stars innumerable. For as Paul says in Galatians 3:9 “So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham, and all of us who believe are children of Abraham, heirs of the promise, heirs of all creation.”

Now, I believe Abraham saw this, his first reaction was one of horror, to think of the Son of God dying for the sins of His people. And the reaction of Peter when our Lord told him that He was going to Jerusalem to give up His life as a ransom for many, “far be it from Thee Lord”, his reaction was horror; and later we are told that he gloried in the cross of Christ. Now our Lord Himself says, and we have it specifically stated in the gospel of John, “Abraham saw my day, and rejoiced.” So that the cross of Christ which filled Peter at first sight, so to speak, with horror, and Abraham also; came in due time, as they comprehended its meaning, to be something in which they rejoiced. The heart of the covenant is this, and God’s word to Abraham later and here again is “shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?” and so the covenant is eschatological, it deals with the end point and the end time in history. Because God says I will not hide from my covenant man that thing which I shall do, and this is told us again and again in scripture.

For example we read in Psalm 25:8-14 these words of David: “8 Good and upright is the Lord: therefore will he teach sinners in the way. 9 The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way. 10 All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies. 11 For thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity; for it is great. 12 What man is he that feareth the Lord? Him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose. 13 His soul shall dwell at ease; and his seed shall inherit the earth. 14 The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant.” So David says also that the covenant is an eschatological fact, those who are of the Lord will know the secret things of God, they will know those things which are in the future. The covenant opens up to us God’s end point, and God’s end time. The Lord does not hide from covenant keepers that thing which He shall do. The covenant therefore is very important in eschatology, as in all things in our faith. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we give thanks that Thou dost not hide from us those things which Thou shalt do, and that when we walk by faith Thou dost give sight to our faith, that we may walk as seeing the invisible. Bless us day by day, and give us grace oh Lord not to trust in ourselves, nor to lean upon our own understanding, but to trust in Thy word and in Thy promises. Bless us to this purpose we beseech Thee, in Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now concerning our lesson?

Yes?

[Audience member] {?} You mentioned the meaning of the word amen, I was wondering why some groups do not sing the amen at the end of the song {?}

[Rushdoony] Well it is sometimes sung, and it isn’t, and we usually do, but the amen is beautiful because it’s our way of adding our signature so to speak at the end of a prayer and a hymn, so be it.

Yes?

[Audience member] Why do some people say “amen and amen”?

[Rushdoony] Amen and amen? Yes, well we encounter that in scripture also, it’s a way of being emphatic, it means that you truly mean it. And of course in some doxology’s we have a triple amen for emphasis, a triune amen.

Yes?

[Audience member] The idea of the cutting of the covenant that you mentioned {?} that instituted by God, or is that a cultural practice of Israel that God has used for His purpose and/or…

[Rushdoony] We have that very clearly from the beginning of scripture, and certainly we find evidence of it all over the world, and why not, because Noah immediately after the flood cut a covenant. Now the difference that developed in time was this, and there isn’t scarcely no part of the world where you don’t find covenant practice, was that elsewhere outside of Biblical religion it became humanistic, and men made the covenant with God. But in the Bible God makes it with man, it’s His initiative. God lays down the terms, in humanistic covenants man says “God, I will do thus and so, and you should be happy with that, I’m doing you a favor.”

Yes?

[Audience member] I was wonder about that practice of cutting the animals in half, was that an Israelite practice that God had use that Abraham would understand the significance of it, or…?

[Rushdoony] I don’t recall how widespread that is in other parts of the world, but in many there was no cutting of the animals in half, and in time to make the covenant all the more impressive, by the way, in many cultures human beings were sacrificed to make a covenant; in effect to say “look God, or you Gods, this is how serious it is with us so you’ve got to keep faith with us now.”

[Audience member] And that’s the man centered covenant you mentioned.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience member] {?} Speculate that when God gave Adam and Eve the clothing made out of skin of animals, that that was the first sacrifice, God showed the way by sacrificing those animals and as a of the cutting of the covenant pointing to the blood of Christ. I mean clothing them in the righteousness of the substitute forgiveness in them that’s at least a widely held and ancient theory on it.

[Rushdoony] There’s another belief, which I think has a great deal of truth to it,that puts it even earlier than that. No, you are right, but that is the most common opinion. But it is held that at the very beginning of creation God explained to Adam what a covenant was, and that he was a covenant was, because there were covenant and curse, “walk Thou before me, and do not take of this tree,” and so on. So there was a treat there of law, so somehow there had to be a covenant but we’re not given any details or specifics.

Yes?

[Audience member] This is a question about the article you read earlier, the article from the paper. And I had heard, when I was in college, about the discovery of the cities and it irked my professors that archeological findings continually confirmed Biblical accounts. And I’ve also read, before I heard that, I’d read articles by liberal theologians on my own about Sodom and Gomorrah and how they, you know treated them as just allegory, or things like that, but I’ve never read anything about how they responded to the particular archeological findings. And I know this won’t prove the Bible for them, but I was wondering how they would, in their effort to drain the supernatural from scripture, how they would respond to something like that.

[Rushdoony] They simply do not consider the supernatural.

[Audience member] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, they discovered the cities of the plains, they were all liberal archeologists. They are interesting finds, nothing more. It simply confirms to them that behind the myth of Genesis there were some historical facts, and that’s how they view it.

[Audience member] So they would just put it in the context of other religious militancy and say “this is typical, there is no truth” {?}

[Rushdoony] yes, they have a presupposition which excludes the truth of scripture.

Any other questions, yes?

[Audience member] I don’t understand {?} the Old Testament times how many wives did a person have, and position or concubines, or were there any… it can come across as {?}

[Rushdoony] Well, in the Bible the basic institution is the family, it’s not the state, it’s not the church, it’s the family, so that this should be the basic institution for us. This is why in the Bible the death penalty is required of adultery, because this is treason to the basic institution of society. Whenever an institution becomes central, any faithlessness to it brings about a death penalty. The medieval church made itself central, and therefore it had the death penalty for disloyalty to the church. The modern state has said “we are the central, the key institute of society and therefore treason to us is punishable by death.” We can see in the early years of the modern era, when the state was in process of making itself central, treason did not exist in our sense; and you can find in the early years of the modern era that a general would sometimes switch sides three or four times, no one thought anything of it. It was not treason, it was just his choice.

So, the family was the basic institution, adultery was punishable by death, and in terms of scripture the polygamous family was a defective family, but still a valid family, so that it was tolerated. Now the ideal of course was that as in the Garden of Eden, and the law specifically says in 18:18, Leviticus 18:18 “Neither shalt Thou take a wife to her sister” but, more literally in the original “one wife to another.” So most people read that in the English as meaning you couldn’t marry two sisters, but you could marry two women. But the Hebrew means “one wife to another” so it forbade polygamy. So polygamy was regarded as a defective form of marriage.” Now, polygamy looms large in the modern mentality because it is so different from our practice, but the reality is that in no culture, according to specialists in this field, did it occur more commonly than in one out of 500 marriages; and that would be true today in Arab countries. So polygamy has been a very minor fact of history, contrary to the common opinion, a very minor fact even in the cultures which permitted it.

For one thing there are not many men who can afford more than one wife; that has been an economic restraint on it, because it’s not only affording a wife, but the children; so it’s been a relatively minor fact. But let me repeat, while it is forbidden in scripture, it is tolerated at times as a defective form of family life, but the standard is the family.

[Audience member] What about concubines?

[Rushdoony] Oh, concubines were wives with this difference, and in fact in the modern virtually every married world is a concubine in terms of the old legal definition; a concubine was a married woman who was not given a dowry by her husband. Now in scripture when a man married he was required to provide a dowry to his wife, it was her insurance policy against any unfaithfulness on his part. The Bible does not specify the amount of the dowry, but we know from ancient records it was normally equivalent the three years’ salary, or income; whether it was in cattle or sheep, or in gold and silver. Now that amounts to a sizable sum of money, a sizable wealth. This thereafter was the possession of the woman, if she were faithless she lost it, but it was hers to keep, an inheritance for her children. This meant that if the husband were faithless, or abusive, or mistreated her, he could forfeit that much; a considerable sum of wealth.

[Audience member] It was his gift to her, how could he forfeit it?

[Rushdoony] Well it meant that he lost it, it was the family capital. He could borrow it, but he had to pay interest on it. Now this is not specified in scripture, but this was the common practice. He couldn’t use it freely, it had to be with her permission. But consider the problem if he did prove faithless, she left and she had then that wealth, and it was not easy to accumulate that much again. So it was a tremendous break on marital instability. A man, after all if he had to accumulate three years income, whether in livestock or in gold and silver, before he married a woman, looked her over pretty well before he married her; because he had a lot of time to think about it.

Now, if he married a woman without a dowry, she was a concubine. She had less stability in her marriage, she could be more easily divorced if he were unstable; because a man would not readily throw away that capital, now that was the technical difference. This still prevailed in this country in the early days of this country, in that the man was expected to have a dowry. An interesting thing is that the first insurance company in this country was established by Calvinistic clergymen, who felt that, given their salaries, it was a little difficult to accumulate a dowry, so the insurance was taken out in her name and provided the dowry.

Yes?

[Audience member] In the Biblical times, in the case of a proposal of marriage, did the woman have the option of saying “no thanks”?

[Rushdoony] Oh yes.

[Audience member] Including these multiple concubines?

[Rushdoony] Well, in some instances of course they were purchased, slaves. Now that wasn’t to common in scripture, but they were sometimes. Most of the concubines…well, to give you an example, as in the case of Solomon.

[Audience member] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, in antiquity up until the time of the Persian empire the harem was the civil service to a great extent. Now that seems strange to us, but consider it this way; we know that one of the most remarkable marriages, and I’ve gone over this before and those of you who’ve heard it will bear with me, in the case of Solomon he married an Egyptian princess. That was almost without equal, I don’t believe we know of another case where Egypt allowed the daughter of a Pharaoh to marry a foreign king. They felt they were above everyone else. Now, with her came a large number of women. They could be elderly women; they could be the wives of diplomats, or trade experts, and so on. Their function would be to help cement relationships in trade and in commerce with Israel, and they would be working both for Israel and Egypt, while there is Solomon’s harem. This kind of civil service polygamy prevailed up until the late 1950’s in the Congo, where a new king in the Congo would go around and marry the widow’s of judges, or local tribal chiefs, and make them the ruler. And the woman would be three times his age in some cases; but having the prestige of being his wife gave them authority.

Well our time is up; let us bow our heads in prayer.

Our Lord and our God we thank Thee for Thy word, for the Joy of salvation, and for our fellowship one with another in Thee. Bless us always to Thy praise and glory, in Jesus name, amen.