Eschatology

The New Creation

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: The New Creation

Genre: Sermon Series

Lesson: 4 of 4

Track:

Year:

Dictation Name: SUN22B

[Rushdoony] Let us begin with prayer. We praise Thee oh God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit who has made us Thy people, has crowned us with Thy loving kindness, and has assured us of victory through Jesus Christ. Make us ever the people of victory, bold and confident in Thy word and by Thy spirit that in all things we may be more than conquerors through Him that loved us, even Jesus Christ our Lord. In His name we pray, amen.

Our scripture is from Revelation 22 verses 1-5. Revelation 22:1-5 and our subject “The New Creation”. “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 for ever and ever.”

In Adam’s fall the whole of God’s creation fell in that its covenant head had introduced sin and death into the world. All things now were separated from God by sin, all things were made by Him, but now their direction was away from Him. Jesus Christ came as the last, or second Adam, the head of the humanity. Hence as in Adam all day, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. In Christ the whole creation is to be made alive except for those who remain in the old humanity. All things were made by Him and for His purpose, and how full and total that recreation is we have a glimpse of in Romans 8:19-23 where we read:

“19 For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

20 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,

21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”

Here Paul tells us that implicit in our being, written into every atom of our being, is the recognition that we have ultimately a greater physical life, the fullness of life in God, and this is to be realized in the resurrection of the body. The potentiality of life we barely apprehend in this world because we are in bondage to sin and death. And that even though we have been redeemed in Christ we are not perfectly sanctified, we still live in a world where these things prevail, and therefore the full freedom that is to come at the resurrection has not yet been realized.

Moreover, Paul says, the whole of creation groans and travails looking for that event because they are to participate in it. Now it’s sad that this verse is not more often stressed in our time, it was once commonly accepted for what it means. John-Calvin pointed out for example, centuries ago, that this meant the resurrection of the whole of the natural world, its recreation into the fullness of its potential so that in the world to come, the animals, the trees, everything shall have in that new creation their fullness of life and even as gravity governs all things, even more so this yearning, this longing for that realization, the glorious liberty of the sons of God governs all creation.

But this is called attention to more than once in scripture. For example in Isaiah 55 verses 11 & 12 we read “ So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. 12 For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” Isaiah here is speaking, not about the new creation, but the glory of the earth before the second coming, the glory of the earth as it is brought under the dominion of Christ. He assures the people of this victory because he says “God says that His word shall not return unto Him void and He has decreed these things and they shall come to pass.” And as they come to pass, as we see the progressive fulfillment of these prophesies of Isaiah, which mean that nation shall not war anymore against nation, they shall beat their swords into plow shares, and the sinner dying at a hundred shall be accounted to have died young. We shall see remarkable conditions in the world of nature, the greater longevity of man, and all this before the new creation.

And yet in Isaiah we see the joy of nature as it begins to realize itself in these things, portrayed in very eloquent language. The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” Thus we have a glorious future, we have an assured future, we have a victorious future in time and in eternity. We are not in this war to lose. I don’t fly all over the country, and abroad as I shall soon, to take part in these battles to lose, but because of the assurance of victory. The essence of this new creation is, we are told, righteousness which is the old fashioned word, as I’ve said again and again, for justice, God’s justice. We saw last week in II Peter 3:13 that we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. Righteousness or justice is totally at home in the new creation, so that we have the assurance that in that new creation there’s not a hint of injustice, not a hint of evil, full justice, perfect justice. At the new creation sin and death are abolished, all things are made new and Revelation 21 tells us that God dwells in the midst of His people. There shall be no more tears, nor sorrows, nor pain, nor regrets, these things are forever abolished and covenant man inherits the whole of the new creation in Christ, the purpose of this inheritance is the eternal service of God in the new creation with no curse, only work, joy, freedom, and rest.

It is sad that the fact of service in work in the new creation, in the eternal order, is commonly neglected. But this should not surprise us, do-nothing people up in heaven and people who see life as fulfilled in retirement long for an eternity of retirement. But the Bible says that perfect service is perfect rest, in fact Dr. Schilder, a most remarkable man and one of the heroes of WW II and Europe, said concerning Revelation 22 verse 2, and I quote “When the tree of life gives it fruit from month to month, scripture means that all living things will enjoy such regularity, promise and fulfillment will have become one. Indeed the very words “promise” and “fulfillment” will fall away. There’s no longer a possibility of promise when fulfillment is rich and full. Thus the glory of the fulfilled covenant with nature is one of the foundation stones upon which heaven rests. All that which was created blossoms full in the son of God’s righteousness. There is no more change.”

What Schilder is saying is potentiality and actuality are one and the same. All of us have unrealized potentialities, talents, abilities, which here and now we have never had the time to develop. We have interests that we cannot take time to consider and to say “I’ll develop this interest, I’ll do these things that I feel an urge to do” then all our potentiality and actuality will be one and the same and we will be able to give full expression to these things and the full expression will be both service, work, and at the same time rest. Because then all things will be totally sanctified and under God, therefore man will rest in God’s service. The Sabbath is in God’s rest, and we rest in God’s perfect work, we take hands off our lives on the Sabbath, knowing that our future depends not on what we do but on what God has done for us, so that our salvation is His doing, and we have the peace of that Sabbath all through the weak because we know that we have a glorious future because of Him. In the new creation we become fully, perfectly, a part of God’s finished work, his mature, perfected work. We know then the identity of work and rest and therefore we are always in perfect rest, and yet in perfect service.

Schilder said further of the eternal city of God, and I quote “The city lies in the midst of the cosmos, its gates wide open to all creation, its length and breadth and height are equal, the cube is the emblem of great peace. The sun standing still also speaks of rest, all rest and all work are identical, desire and fulfillment are one.” The new creation is the perfect community and the perfect society. It is perfect in terms of God’s word, God’s law, not mans’. Man’s idea of the perfect society is creating the ruin around us. Mans’ idea of a perfect society is a society of equality, but that’s a contradiction in terms, you cannot have equality and society. But man because he believes man to be his own God, logically is drive to the doctrine of equality, even though it contradicts our spirits. There must be equality in the God-head in any faith, and if man is God then all men have to be equal because the God-head has to be equal.

Moreover we find that the doctrine of equality is commonly read into scripture in terms of Galatians 3:26-29, and before we consider the implications and the falsity of that concept let us look at that text. Galatians 3:26-29 says “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.29 And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.” This is the text that is used to assert the doctrine of equality of all men. But Paul is here speaking of salvation, not the human situation. What Paul is saying is that no man has by birth any special privilege which makes unnecessary Christ’s atonement, or gives him a special status before God. All men are sinners in Adam; salvation for all is only through Christ and His grace. There is no racial, sexual, social, or economic status that makes any difference in the sight of God. Thus Paul says that all men are on an equal status in that only Christ can save them. None have any special advantage by reason of birth, race, status, or sex. It does not follow that after salvation there is any loss of status humanly speaking. There is status and authority in the church, in the family, and in the world around us. So that to assume that because with respect to salvation there is an equality of status, then it follows that there is the same in life is ridiculous. None of us have any claim on God, we do have claims one upon another.

In fact in the parable of the talents our Lord in Matthew 25:14-30 and Luke 19:20-27 says to the faithful servant, who having received one talent multiplies it into 10; “Well done Thou good and faithful servant, be Thou ruler over 10 cities.” And to the one who takes the 1 talent that is given to him and multiplies it into five “Well doe thou good and faithful servant, be thou ruler over five cities.” And the one who takes the one talent and only returns one talent to his Lord, the talent was a sum of money, a weight of gold or silver, then he is to be cast out into the utter darkness. Very obviously then there is a difference in status not only in this world, we need only to look around to see it, but in the world to come. In this world it often creates tension because of envy and because of sin. In the world to come it is our blessing.

Now because the myth of equality is so often projected in terms of these words of Galatians, on to the new creation, the idea of service and community in the new creation is destroyed. Equality makes both impossible. What follows if all men are equal? It means we all have equal abilities, equal talents, equal status. It means then I don’t need anyone because I can do everything that anyone else can do, and I’m as good as anyone else. I can use other people then, but I don’t need them. But because of the fact of inequality I need other people. I excel in one or two things within a very limited sphere in a vast area I am not equal to other people. Therefore I need them, I have to pick up the phone and call on them, I need them in my personal life, it creates an interdependence. When you have the concept of equality promoted you have in every area of history that you’ve had it a communications problem, which you have today. And why not? If everyone thinks they’re as good as anyone else they will not be ready to express their need for others. Even though they may in their heart know they need such and such a person, to acknowledge that need is to deny their equality. And so they will try to use the other person rather than to admit their inequality at that point. All of us represent a multiplicity of abilities or inabilities so that we need people at a hundred and one points where we can serve them at two or three points. This is what makes community possible, this is what requires interdependence.

But in every era of history when people then taught to believe “I’m as good as anybody else” then there is a communications problem. The communications problem becomes prevalent in all circles, it leads to insubordination in every area also, and of course today on of the problems that once was minimal, is most considerable, insubordination in schools, and it is going to take a couple of generations or more of the prevalence of Christian schools to root out that mentality, insubordination. But we all need to be subordinate at a hundred and one points, we do not go to a doctor to tell him what to do, but to find out what’s wrong with us and then he prescribes to us. At a hundred and one points day by day we have to depend upon the prescription, the work, the superior abilities of other people. Without this, which is called in economics the division of labor, life would collapse, it would become exceedingly primitive.

The doctrine of equality is thus very dangerous. But in the new creation we have community because we know our total need and dependence on God, and there we depend upon Him totally, and therefore without sin, and we are interdependent one upon another and so there is perfect community because of that interdependence. Each of us knows that we cannot stand alone, that we need other people, and that community is necessary for true life. And so we have what we call, in the doctrine, or in the Apostles’ Creed it is spelled out, the doctrine of the communion of saints, the communion of saints. The communion of saints thus is an article of faith. It means, as Paul says in Ephesians 4:25, that we are members one of another.

Now in this world we have problems with that membership, we have problems because we are sinners, and as sinners we find other peoples sins intolerable, and ours lovable, and so we are annoyed by everybody else’s sins, and very indulgent of our own. We want people to meet our expectations, not the Lords, and hence there are divisions and disharmonies, even amongst Christians. But let us remember in hell we have no community, no communion. Hell is a place where there is perfect equality, it is the equality of many gods, all who have carried to its logical conclusion the principle of the tempter “ye shall be as God, knowing, determining for yourself what is good and what is evil. Hence total isolation, no community, and no service because there is no interdependence; every man is his own God. And men who will not serve God cannot serve one another, and this is the logic of hell, the ultimate rejection of the service of God and membership one with another. Men who believe themselves to be God will insist on their ultimate self-sufficiency and will serve neither God nor man and are finally served by none.

But the new creation is the fulfillment of the covenant. The covenant is of grace and law, of works and grace. Works belong to the covenant irrevocably, belong to it fundamentally, because the new creation is the place where the covenant in all its fullness is the total fact of life and there shall be no more curse but the throne of God and of the lamb shall be in it, and its servants shall serve Him. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God we thank Thee that Thou hast called us to be members of Thy new creation, that all the longings, the hidden hunger of the human heart will be fulfilled, will be reality in Thine eternal kingdom. Grant oh Lord that day by day we live in terms of that glorious victory, ever mindful that we have been called to bring every area of life and thought into captivity to Jesus Christ. Make us strong, valiant, and ever confident in that struggle. In Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now concerning our lesson?

[Audience member] If you had to make a very, very simple argument to some very, very simple minds, what is the kind of approach that you would take, because I’ve had people call me over the last several weeks and everything else, and I just sit down and tell them “this is what I believe scripture teaches” the post-mil perspective I’m talking about, and they keep saying “well John where is the thing” and they just don’t understand Revelations has already happened in the first century, the majority of it, and so the prophesies concerning the millennium we are now bringing forth as people secure the will of God in their own minds and hearts then the millennium becomes more and more manifest. And they say “well where is it in scripture that it says that?” Well I say “all the stuff you’re reserving for the future is what I’m talking about now, and I’ve been of this particular perspective for years now and I’ve never, I’ve just never sit down and figured out a way, because it’s never come up before this. I usually tell people the whole last third of Isaiah is practically I prophesy of the millennium which we’re now living in, that’s usually my only answer for them.

[Rushdoony] Yes, now Hebrews 1:2 tells us that we are now living in these last days. That expression appears repeatedly in the New Testament, describe the era from Christ’s first coming to His second. And we are told in Isaiah 2:2 that it shall come to pass in the last days that certain things shall happen and that it is in the last days that they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. So we are told that it is sometime in between the first and the second coming that these things happen. There is no way they can project that into the future in any way, nor is there anything in Isaiah to indicate that there are several raptures intervening. As a result they cannot, without going to Scofield’s notes, make sense of any of this. They are forcing a pattern on to it. We live in the last days because as the Bible speaks of history this is the last age, from first to the second coming, we’re not told how many thousands of years it is, but this is the last hour and it is in this hour that these things are going to be accomplished.

[Audience member] {?} A lot of them nostalgia for the past, they idolize the past and they don’t just go {?} and realize what progress has been made and appreciate what progress has been made.

[Rushdoony] Yes, that’s very true. Also they want history to end in their own time and this has been a chronic fact as they saw last week, that has bedeviled the church. This is the end time, people have been saying that for almost two thousand years and as a result they have not done the work they should because they’ve been sitting around waiting for the rapture or sewing rapture clothes, as for a while a group of people were doing in the south bay area in southern California.

[Audience Member] {?}

[Rushdoony] What was that?

[Audience member] Define millennium

[Rushdoony] Literally millennium means, it’s “myriad” is the word in Greek, it is the word for “thousand” but it also can mean, as Myriad does in the English, a vast number. So very literally the millennium means a great span of time. Now it has come to mean special things to various groups and some see the millennium as that era when Christ will physically return to earth and create a special Jewish kingdom centered in Jerusalem, and rule the world. And there may be one or two raptures of the saints being taken up into heaven and the unbelievers left here, and so on.

Now that is the premillennial meaning of millennium and we don’t agree with that. From our perspective the millennium covers the span of time during which the triumph of Christ is manifested, progressively, upon earth. So that we live here and now, you and I, as members of Christ’s new creation, we are a little installment of the new creation and wherever there are two or three gathered in my name, He says, there I am in the midst of them. So the new creation is here in part, in each of us, and we are to spread that until it covers the earth from pole to pole, all things then are under Christ.

This is the new creation in part, and you can also use the term millennium for it. The fullness of it is in the world to come after the second coming when the last enemy, death, is destroyed.

Yes?

[Audience Member] {?} equate with the more fundamentalist identity and {?} quote unquote “thousands years peace” or is that the millennium in their minds?

[Rushdoony] Yes, that’s the millennium in their minds, the premill reading, yes.

[Audience member] The second coming occurs and then there is the millennium defined as a thousand years of peace.

[Rushdoony] Yes, and then with some problems in it also. And then the second coming.

[Audience member] Oh the second coming is after the thousand years?

[Rushdoony] Well, for them there are a couple of second comings and some groups of premillennials have several raptures, it’s a very difficult position to understand and to define and each group has its own variations of it. But the basic thing is they believe there is a first second coming, if I may use the term, and a partial rapture, and then the physical kingdom on earth, and then the great end of the world that follows a thousand years later.

Now it’s difficult to find that in the Bible as far as I’m concerned.

[Audience member] Where do they put the tribulation {?}

[Rushdoony] Well, here they differ too. Some of them put it before the end of the world and others put it just before the first rapture.

Yes?

[Audience Member] With our postmillennial perspective of seeing the world, of being taken under dominion by the church I’ve had a hard time struggling with Revelations 20 with the section where it speaks of that Satan shall be loosed out of his prison. Seems that there’s a differing of opinion even among postmillennials as to just what that means, I wonder if you could comment on that.

[Rushdoony] Well I’d rather not because I think basically discussions of that tend to be futile and lead to a great deal of speculation and I think while I have very definite opinions on the subject we are called to go out and to conquer in Christ’s name and to bring everything into captivity to Christ. If we concentrate on what is going to happen in the way of problems ahead, then we tend to deflect our interest from the job at hand and I’m afraid all too many Christians are so caught up in speculation about the tribulation that they’re no earthly good for the present battle.

Now let me just throw out something and you can pursue this, the works of Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield, one of the great scholars of American Christianity, have been reprinted recently in, I believe, ten or twelve volumes, they’re excellent reading. And Warfield’s position, very powerfully argued, is that the tribulation is past, so relax. [Laughter]

[Audience member] {?} The last five and six minutes has been almost entirely first century and second century literature about the Roman and Greek perspective as well as, which I’ve talked to you about before, and you read Josephus, Wars, the Jews, things of that nature and as far as I’m concerned the three and a half years Vespasian and his son Titus laid to and siege to and destroyed Judea and Jerusalem manifested all the major tenants and statements in Revelation including the mark of the Beast, which was Nero’s name in Hebrew consonants which was put on the right wrist of all slaves. The Roman division put its name on the forehead of all its prisoners, the bodies were piled up outside the city so high you couldn’t ride a horse of them, and from the northernmost sea of Israel to the southernmost city is a distance of 200 miles, and you just go through history in that three and a half year period and you find virtually seventy five of Revelation is just historical, and that’s why I believe, based on internal arguments of the book itself, that Revelations was written prior to the siege and destruction of Jerusalem, probably the reign of Nero, and that it was written specifically to comfort particular individuals through them, {?} tribulation would be given, but it was fulfilled in probably 90% of its text in actual history, and there’s a massive amount of historical information to substantiate that, and the Lord tells us that those tribulations are only going to happen once, in Matthew 24.

[Rushdoony] Yes, well put. Well our time is about up, let’s bow our heads now for the benediction.

Our Lord and our God we rejoice in Thy word and in the glory that it’s ours in Christ Jesus. Dismiss us now with Thy blessing. Give us a blessed rest this day and always in Thee, in Thy finished work, and in Thy victory.