Systematic Theology – Eschatology

The Eschatology of Bones

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 10 of 32

Track: #10

Year:

Dictation Name: 10 The Eschatology of Bones

[Rushdoony] Let us begin with prayer.

Oh Lord our God who art the author of all good, we come to Thee again mindful that our need of Thee is very great. The world lies in darkness, the darkness of sin, and the heathen rage against Thee and Thy kingdom. WE thank Thee our Father that Thou art He who dost prevail, and Thy kingdom shall overthrow the powers of darkness, and Thy righteousness be made manifest from pole to pole. Give us grace so to grow in Thy word and by Thy Spirit that in all things we may be more than conquerors, in His name we pray, amen.

Our Scripture is Psalm 32, our subject the Eschatology of bones. Psalm 32, The eschatology of bones.

“Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

2 Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.

3 When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.

4 For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.

5 I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah.

6 For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him.

7 Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah.

8 I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.

9 Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee.

10 Many sorrows shall be to the wicked: but he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about.

11 Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous: and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart.”

Psalm 32 is a penitential Psalm, and its subject is the blessedness of forgiveness, this is set forth very clearly in the first two verses. In verses 3 and 4 David describes his condition when he was not repentant, when he had sinned and when he had covered the fact of his sin and disguised it from men and from God; and he describes it in very vivid terms.

IN verse 5 we have a synopsis of the entire Psalm “I acknowledge my sin unto Thee, and my iniquity have I not hid. I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.” In verse 6 and 7 David appeals to the Godly to walk not in impenitence and guilt, but in grace and forgiveness. In verses 8&9 God summons all of us to repentance, to learn from Him. And then we are told in verses 10 & 11 those who have been forgiven are filled with joy, but there are many sorrows to the wicked, to the unrepentant.

The two telling lines of course concerning guilt and the torment of guilt are verses 3 and 4. David describes his experience when he was living with unconfessed sin, but his entire being confessed it with psychosomatic ailments. Since World War II psychosomatics has rather feebly grasped at what scripture more than once tells us about. David said when he kept silence, when he was impenitent about his sin his bones “waxed old through my roaring all the day long”. In other words, his whole being confessed what he himself was refusing to confess; and the confession was not whispered, but a roaring. His strength left him, his very bones felt old.

All men have their conscious created and controlled by God, and there is no escaping from God and His judgment. We have here set forth very plainly the eschatology of bones, of blood. God’s law word is written into every atom of our being, and every atom of man’s being will declare God’s truth and God’s judgment. WE can escape men, but we can never escape God. Everything in and around us will witness to and serve the Lord. We cannot retreat into our inner world and shut the door on God, because there is no escape; He is there also. In other words, what David is hear telling us is that God’s word is inescapable and inevitable. The eschatology of bones tells us that the whole creation serves God’s purpose.

I know that when I was very young I read a verse in the Bible which excited me tremendously. It was in the song of Deborah in Judges 5:20, where Deborah is singing the victory song after the defeat of the enemy. It was a defeat that was unexpected because the very leader, the general of the Israelite forces was afraid of the battle, and asked Deborah to take charge of it since she had summoned the men to stand up against the enemies of God. And Deborah said “Very well then, but the glory will be mine, and not yours.” And in the song Deborah sings with joy at the victory, and in the 20th verse she says, “They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera.” What a magnificent statement that is, it’s not merely poetry, it is fact. What Deborah is here saying, and she was a prophetess, was simply this; the whole creation is God’s handiwork so that the very stars, remote as they seem from us, have God’s purposes built into them so that the very stars move in terms of God’s purpose, to fulfill God’s kingdom, and against evil. The stars in their courses fought against Sisera.

Nothing in all creation is remote from our God, nothing is remote from His purpose, and nothing therefore is remote from us when we serve the Lord. When we walk in the faith and in faithfulness, the stars, the atoms, time, everything war against man in his sin, and for us in our righteousness. In other words, eschatology is written into the atoms of creation, and into every second and minute of time. But there is more, history has not only this, that the stars in their courses fight against the Sisera’s of this world, against the KGB, against evil, everywhere, whether in Washington or Moscow, but we are also told that there is a pattern of shaking. We read in Hebrews 12 verse 12-29 this remarkable statement:

“22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,

23 To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,

24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.

25 See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven:

26 Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.

27 And this word, yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.

28 Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:

29 For our God is a consuming fire.”

We have in this passage two mountains, mount Zion and Mount Sinai, they are not presented as contrasting or as contrary, but as stages in the eschatology of our God. God’s sovereignty is manifested on both mounts, from both God’s judgment goes forth; and, we are told, that if judgment went forth from Mount Zion when the word was proclaimed to men, mediated by Moses, how much more so when the word comes from heaven through our Lord Jesus Christ. At Sinai we are told people were separated from the mount; now angels and men are united in Christ’s kingdom which is the assembly of the firstborn, the heirs of the kingdom of God. And together we are to exercise eschatological power, to bring all things into captivity to Jesus Christ, and we are told that our names are written in heaven, or enrolled. Now this is a term we encounter repeatedly in the Bible. In the Old Testament repeatedly we are told, as well as in the New, that our names are written in heaven. This has reference to a very important fact in the Old Testament world. To have your name enrolled, and it was a technical term, meant that you were registered as a citizen.

Now today citizenship does not have the significance that it did in antiquity. In antiquity the citizens were the privileged elite of a country, they were a small and significant minority. This is why, when the Roman official - military officer who had arrested Paul, found that Paul was a citizen he was fearful immediately at having laid hands on a citizen, and he wanted to know “did you buy your citizenship?” And Paul said “No, I was born a citizen.” And the military man said “with a great price I gained mine.” In other words this singled out Paul as a privileged person, he was not only a citizen, but he was born one; his name was enrolled in the Roman register as a person of consequence. And hence his trial was a momentous affair because it was not a light thing to arrest a Roman, and those involved could suffer seriously.

So when we are told that our names are registered, enrolled, written in heaven, it means that we are in the sight of God a privileged people. We have the privileges of a kingdom, the protection of a kingdom, as long as we walk in faithfulness to the kingdom. So that we are people of importance, and how the world treats us is of consequence to God. So full justice is granted to the assembly of the citizens we are told, the assembly, the congregation of the first born. To them is granted this privilege. The world is to be theirs, and the things which are, are going to be shaken so that only those things which cannot be shaken may remain. So that all the turmoil of history is God’s process of shaking all things, so that only that which is unshakable may remain. We are in a time of shaking, I think it is very likely, as I have said on other occasions, that very few of the nations of our time will survive this century, that in the next 18 years we may see many of the powers collapse and broken up. I do believe that it is quite likely, unless our folly makes it otherwise, that before the end of this century the Soviet Union will be broken into as many pieces, or more, as the British empire of 1939 and 40.

Jesus in this passage in Hebrews is not contrasted to Moses, but connected to Moses and also with Abel. Abel’s blood cried out for justice, and Jesus blood speaks of greater things, it brings in justice, it brings in justification, it is the death of sin and of death for us, but it is also judgment upon the world of ungodliness. And so we are told we must not refuse Him who speaks, for He is God the Son, and we are called to responsibility by Him; He having called us, he declaring that we are the firstborn, that we are people whose names are registered in heaven. We must serve God acceptably, with reverence and Godly fear. Because we have received a kingdom which cannot be moved; but the kingdoms of this world shall be moved, they shall be shaken, they shall perish for our God is a consuming fire. Thus we live in the time of the shaking of the nations, and we should not be afraid as we see the problems of our time, the uncertainties of this world, and the crisis of nations, because a great shaking is underway.

We have a Psalm also that speaks of that shaking and calls us to be confident therein, Psalm 46 which reads:

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

2 Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;

3 Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.

4 There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.

5 God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.

6 The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted.

7 The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

8 Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth.

9 He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.

10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

11 The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.”

The Psalmist here tells us that history is like a gigantic earthquake that is so far reaching that the very great mountains are moved and buried into the sea, but the end of it is the desolations that God brings into history, that war shall cease unto the ends of the earth, and the weapons of war be destroyed. SO that in all these things we are to rejoice and say “the Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge. Because the powers that be that can be shaken, are being shaken, we who are unshakable in Jesus Christ shall remain, and shall be blessed.” Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we give thanks unto Thee for this Thy word. We thank Thee that Thy word is written into every atom of life, and every second of time, into our very bones. We thank Thee that all things witness to Thy victory. Grant oh Lord that as the things which cannot be shaken are subjected to the tests of time, we may be among those unshakable things, and that as we see the things which can be shaken moved and destroyed, we recognize oh Lord that this is Thy doing, and its purpose is our redemption. Make us therefore strong in faith, and patient unto victory. In Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now concerning our lesson?

Well if not let us conclude with prayer.

Our Lord and our God we thank Thee that Thy word is the word of hope and of victory. And grant oh Lord that we respond to Thy word always with faith and with joy, and thanksgiving. Bless us ever in Thy service, in Jesus name amen.