Systematic Theology – Eschatology

The Eschatology in ‘Nature’

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 6 of 32

Track: #6

Year:

Dictation Name: 06 The Eschatology in ‘Nature’

[Rushdoony] Let us begin with prayer.

We praise Thee oh God for Thy goodness unto us and Thy unfailing mercies, and we gather together again to rejoice in Thee, to look to Thy word for council and guidance, and to hear and obey Thine every commandment. Bless us in our faithfulness, and in our service. In Jesus name, Amen.

We have been studying the doctrine of eschatology, the doctrine of last things and we have seen that eschatology is an everyday fact. Man lives in terms of a purpose, a meaning, a goal, and man cannot live without that purpose or goal. Man was created by God for His purposes and man only finds himself in terms of God’s meaning and God’s purpose. Dostoyevsky called attention to the fact that without meaning men are destroyed, and his illustration of that came from his own days in a Siberian prison camp. And he said the way that the most hardened men were broken was very simple, they were assigned a meaningless tasks; taking rocks from one end of a prison yard to the other. Then when they were through they had to move them back to the original site. They were not pressed in their work, they were just made to do it, and it was the sheer meaninglessness of it that broke them, whereas hard labor for a purpose could not.

We need a purpose, we need a goal, and God has set up his end point rewards and blessings for purposive action. But eschatology cannot be limited merely to man, it applies also to the material world, to the world of nature. At this point we have to take a little time to deal with the idea of nature, which is a false concept. The word “nature” comes from the Latin. The idea is Greek and Roman. For the Greek philosophers, and for the Roman ones, the world of nature was a self-contained realm. It functioned precisely as God functions for us as Christians. The only use of the term “God” with the Greek and Romans was as a first cause who somehow started things and then retired from the scene; and a self contained nature has its own laws, and its own guidance and direction. As a result nature as a concept came into the Western world from Greek and Roman thinking, it stands for an independent realm which apart from God governs the whole of the universe, and man and nature are held in antithesis one to another, whereas for us it is God verses the natural realm, which includes man and all creation; the Creator verse the creation.

Now, nature as a concept leads inevitably to either pantheism or evolutionary thinking, because if you begin with the premise of nature as an independent realm, and as an entity, it has its own inner being; and since it substitutes for God, pantheistic thought is a logical conclusion. Or it has to be self-generating, and evolution becomes a logical conclusion. But there is no such thing as nature, there is a created order in which there planets, sun, moon, stars, there is the ground beneath our feet, there are trees, grass, animals, and men. These are all creatures under God, they belong to the realm of God’s creation, not to a mythical nature, there is no such thing as “nature”; we personified the world of creation as though it were an entity in and of itself, an independent realm and an independent power. But the Bible tells us that God has a continuing relationship with all creation; but God is not an absentee Landlord. In Habakkuk 3 verses 1-19 for example, the prophet makes it clear that there is no distinction between God’s dealing with men, or with nations, or the physical universe; He governs all of them without exception.

Moreover in Psalm 18 verse 6-17 the Bible assumes that same unity, and the whole earth is often involved when God moves against His enemies. God uses the weather, He uses everything, He uses the heart of man. For example we read in Judges 5 verses 4 & 5 “4 Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou marchedst out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped water. 5 The mountains melted from before the Lord, even that Sinai from before the Lord God of Israel.” So we are told God uses nature, earthquake, volcanoes, storms, when He marches against His enemies. The great example of the eschatology of “nature”, using the word “nature” with quotes around it, is of course the flood. In the flood God used the physical universe, and the earth which He created, to judge mankind and to destroy all save one family. God then promised that there would be no such total judgment by water, but He did not say there would not be further judgments in the physical realm. He did not say “I will never again use water to judge you” but, “I will never again have such a total judgment by water.” He has since used floods, storms, earthquakes, and many other things to judge men and nations. The Flood is a type of all these judgments.

Of course we can go back to the garden of Eden, God used the earth to curse Adam and Eve, and the entire physical earth, because of their sin; and God uses combinations, sometimes, of human enemies, storms, floods, and other disasters to judge a people. As witness, Amos 9:1-6; in Amos 9:1-6 we read: “I saw the Lord standing upon the altar: and he said, Smite the lintel of the door, that the posts may shake: and cut them in the head, all of them; and I will slay the last of them with the sword: he that fleeth of them shall not flee away, and he that escapeth of them shall not be delivered. 2 Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down: 3 And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them: 4 And though they go into captivity before their enemies, thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them: and I will set mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good. 5 And the Lord God of hosts is he that toucheth the land, and it shall melt, and all that dwell therein shall mourn: and it shall rise up wholly like a flood; and shall be drowned, as by the flood of Egypt. 6 It is he that buildeth his stories in the heaven, and hath founded his troop in the earth; he that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name.”

God says that He’s going to use the physical universe, He’s going to use everything to pursue His enemies; and though they go into hell, or try to climb into heaven, He will deal with them; and “though they go to the bottom, thence will I command the serpent, and shall bite them.” The serpent is here used symbolically for God’s omnipresent power of judgment. It is so used again in Isaiah 27 verse 1 when God symbolizes the nations which oppose him as leviathan, that crooked serpent, whom He shall destroy. And God uses His created forces to destroy all His enemies, and like animals He again and again in scriptures compare the sinner, the ungodly nation to a animal that needs destruction and says “This is what they are in my site.” There’s a telling verse about judgment again in Amos, Amos 5:19, this is an important verse to remember, it’s a good verse to memorize. Here we see how God describes the inescapability of judgment against all who transgress, “as if a man did flee a lion, and a bear met him; or went into a house and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.” Isn’t that a powerful verse? You flee from a lion, you just barely get away; you tangle with a bear, you get away; you get into the house, you slam the door and you lean against the wall, and a serpent bites you. No escaping God’s judgment, the whole world of nature will cooperate with God to judge the sinner.

Moreover we are told that at times God also destroys the animals, the fish and the birds, in order to disposes man. In Zephaniah 1 verse 2-3 we have a good example of that; “‘I will utterly consume all things from off the land’ saith the Lord ‘I will consume man and beast, I will consume the fowls of the heaven and the fishes of the sea, and the stumbling blocks with the wicked; and I will cut off man from off the land saith the Lord.’” Zephaniah calls this the great day of the Lord, and it is obvious he is talking about the forthcoming judgment upon Judah and upon Assyria. So that the great day of the Lord does not refer exclusively to the second coming, it refers to every great judgment of God in history.

Again in Nahum 1 verse 2-8 we are told that God’s judgments affect the physical realm around us, as well as men and nations, because Nahum says, chapter 1 verses 2-8: “2 God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; the Lord revengeth, and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.3 The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.4 He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers: Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth.5 The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein.6 Who can stand before his indignation? And who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by Him.7 The Lord is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in Him.8 But with an overrunning flood He will make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue His enemies.”

Now this should make it very clear that the idea of nature as an independent realm is radically unbiblical, the order of the physical universe as well as disorder, is entirely the handiwork of God; and as a result we have to see that God works in everything that He created to bring about His purposes. When I say everything, I mean everything, because the Bible means everything.

God’s endpoint eschatology is operative also in the psychological and economic realms, as witness Haggai 1 verse 5 & 6 “5 Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways. 6 Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.” That’s Haggai 1:5&6, a telling account of inflation in the economic realm, and the psychological distress that hits man.

So God declares there is a unity of life, and of consequences, and of judgment in God’s creation. Also that there is a proportion between sin and judgment, this is what the Bible says must follow sin. An eye for an eye, life for life, tooth for tooth; in other words the punishment must fit the crime, there must be a proportion between the two of them, there has to be a correspondence between sin and the penalty for sin. And in Leviticus 26, a great chapter, verses 21-37 we have a magnificent stamen of that correlation. Leviticus 26 beginning with the 21 verse:

“21 And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins.

22 I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your high ways shall be desolate.

23 And if ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me;

24 Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins.

25 And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant: and when ye are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

26 And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied.

27 And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me;

28 Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.

29 And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.

30 And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you.

31 And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savor of your sweet sacrifices.

32 And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it.

33 And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.

34 Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her Sabbaths.

35 As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your Sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.

36 And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth.

37 And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth: and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies.

38 And ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.”

All this, God emphasizes, is according to your sins. The whole of the world around us will judge us; the weather, economics, our own nature, everything. Now men find any judgment from God oppressive. But their own sins they always see as trifling, and this is why they refuse to believe that judgment is very near.

Now this unity in eschatology applies also to His blessings. In the same chapter of Leviticus look at verses 3-9: “3 If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; 4 Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5 And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.6 And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land. 7 And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. 8 And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. 9 For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you.” Five shall put a hundred to flight, a hundred ten thousand. Whereas when we are in sin and the judgment of God is upon us, the sound of a falling leaf will put us to flight, and men shall flee when none pursueth; and history gives us abundant evidences of this kind of judgment and of blessing. Of course Deuteronomy 28 is another great chapter which deals with the same thing.

God makes it clear that there is a unity in His eschatology, and there is no escaping this; and yet we have here a totally different view of the world around us, the world of so-called “nature” and most Christians have. Because their view is derived from paganism, and it is a view that is taught all around us and assumed; and if you tell them about these things in the Bible they will cite one or two verses saying “oh but that can’t be true, because God says He sends His rain upon the just and the unjust, our Lord says it in the sermon on the mount.” Yes He does, but does He say thereby that God will not use the sun to judge us? No. All He is doing is to say that when God makes the sun to shine, and the rain to fall, He doesn’t go down the street, or the road, and say “The Johnsons are good people, alright shine here sun, and fall here rain; but the Johnstans next to them are bad people so it’s not going to rain on them or shine on them.” That’s what God is saying, He is saying that, up to a point, “I give my blessing on all, the blessing of life” beyond that, no. But even more what He is saying is this “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.” Why? Because within limits God does this to all men, He gives them all the gift of life and of the weather, equally, up to a point. So since judgment is not in your hands, but the Lord’s, deal with things with prayer, do not take the law into your hands, and let your grace and light be manifest to all. Keep the law ‘Thou shalt not kill, commit adultery, bear false witness, or covet’ in relationship to all. Pray for them and be a blessing to them.”

Now as men are faithful to the Lord, the more they grow in grace the further they are removed from the curse that struck all creation. And as time passes we are emphatically told that the world will be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea, the righteousness of God shall cover the earth. Moreover when we become Christians, when we are made a new creation, we become members of that new creation; so that as we grow in grace, the new creation grows wherever we are. And we are told that before the end, in Isaiah 65:17-25, that God will greatly extend the lifespan so that a person will be considered to have an infant when he dies at a hundred. That men will plant vineyards, and another shall not posses them, that there will be peace, and there will be a world of blessings. It is not talking about the world beyond the grave, because it talks about death still being in the world, it talks about sinners still being around; and it talks about planting and sewing and reaping and so on. It has reference to time and to history, and we are told that in such an era in the world’s history dust shall be the serpent’s meat; the tempter will have no-one to tempt, or to harm.

History’s end points are tied to history’s end-time. The curse is progressively removed from man and the earth, and then as the end time comes the fullness of the new creation is ushered in. The body is resurrected, death is destroyed, and we are told in Revelation 22 verse 3 “There shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and the Lamb shall be in it; and His servants shall serve Him.” There’s a continuity between life in Christ here, and the new creation. His servants shall serve Him; there are two words that are very interesting there. “Servants”, now we’re called the sons of God by grace, but here, in about the last reference to the redeemed, we are called servants, or literally bondmen, bondservants. We’re reminded that we are eternally in God’s service, created to glorify Him, to serve Him, and we shall serve Him and the service that is required, the word “serve” is “work for hire.” It is someone how cannot say “I’m doing this for the glory of God, and therefore this is above and beyond what is required of me.” We’re just doing work for something we’ve already been paid for, and can never re-pay. So His servants, His bondsmen, His bondservants, shall serve Him eternally; and we are thus told we shall reign forever and ever.

At the same time we’re reminded that we are bondservants of the Lord, we’re also reminded that we are kings in Him. This seems a startling contradiction, and yet we can understand it if we understand what our Lord said on this subject when He told His disciples in Luke 22:25-27 “25 And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors.26 But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve.27 For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? Is not he that sitteth at meat? But I am among you as he that serveth.” So we are told our reigning forever in Christ is tied with this concept of greatness. We serve God throughout all eternity in the perfection of the kind of ministry that Christ gave to us. It is thus necessary for us to make it an endpoint in history to be members one of another, and to serve one another. The greatest is He that is minister of all. And to remember that the whole earth is God’s creation, the whole universe, and it fulfills His function in and through all things. The eschatology in the world of creation is a very real fact according to scripture. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we thank Thee that Thou hast made all things, and that all things serve Thy purpose; and therefore though the heathen rage and take council against Thee, their work shall come to naught. For every atom of their being, and the whole universe around, wages war against them; and even as of old when the stars in their courses fought against Cisera, so today the stars in their course, and the ground beneath our feet, wage unceasing warfare against Thine enemies. Oh Lord our God great and marvelous are Thy ways, and we praise Thee. In Jesus name, amen.

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

Yes?

[Audience member] Dealing with the totality of the way history has moved, in a postmillennial perspective, would you say, that to some degree anyway, the curse is being lifted as a result of, let’s say technological increases, and so on and so forth, even by the hands of Godless men though they don’t know what they’re doing?

[Rushdoony] Very good, yes, emphatically so. The Bible again and again makes it clear that the very riches of the Gentiles shall be fed into the kingdom, so that they amass and we inherit. Thus every advance is to be seen as a part of the exercise of dominion and subduing the earth, and we the people of God, are the ones who shall inherit. So the next time you go say, to Berkeley, or to the University of Florida to Gainesville, or any place like that, look the buildings over and say “this is our inheritance in Christ. It may not be in our life time, but one of these days we’re going to inherit all those things. Christ’s kingdom shall have them.”

Any other questions or comments, yes?

[Audience member] The typical evangelical Christian may, on the one hand recognize that Mount Saint Helen’s, for example, was God’s judgment, the instantaneous version. They have the great difficulty in saying that the Sahara desert, however, is God’s judgment because it takes a longer time.

[Rushdoony] Yes, a very good question. Because we have to look at the long-term things, not the little particulars, because then we can misinterpret it. Why is the Sahara a judgment? Well the Sahara was once a fertile area, it was an area of farms and of ranches and what not. There are portions of the great plains area that get less precipitation then the Sahara; and yet the Sahara is growing steadily because of the destruction that has been wrought there. Now we have followed some practices in the past few years which may, if we do not mend our ways, turn a great deal of this country into a Sahara. We came close to it in the dustbowl years, and windbreaks and other things were built and various practices begun to develop that area. Now even the federal government has encouraged them to take down the wind breaks and the like, and they’re beginning to suffer, they’ve had some dry years lately. So through our sin and our confidence that bureaucracy has answers to all those problems, we have laid the ground work for possible future disaster.

But the Sahara is a disaster area, it was a disaster area created by men. It was once the center of civilization, a very rich and fertile area. Now it is true that the total rainfall in that area declined, but it is also declined because of man’s destructiveness. There is an area in Mexico which a few years ago had rainforests, and men went in and stripped that totally, to develop it; and now the rain passes over that area and it is bone dry, because men had no respect for nature and they thought they knew everything and they did not study the ecology of that area. It’s now a totally useless area. Portions of Brazil have been turned into like areas.

Any other questions or comments?

Well if not let us conclude with prayer.

Unto Thee oh Lord do we give thanks because Thou hast made us, and Thou hast redeemed us, and Thou dost care for us, and Thou hast given us a work to do in Thy kingdom. Make us joyful oh Lord in our calling, and ever mindful that we serve the King of kings, in His name we pray, amen.