Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

INTRODUCTION
we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). “The conflict of
Christianity with Rome was thus political from the
Roman perspective, although religious from the
Christian perspective. The Christians were never asked
to worship Rome’s pagan gods; they were merely asked
to recognize the religious primacy of the state. As
Francis Legge observed, ‘The officials of the Roman
Empire in time of persecution sought to force the
Christians to sacrifice, not to any heathen gods, but to
the Genius of the Emperor and the Fortune of the City
of Rome; and at all times the Christians’ refusal was
looked upon not as a religious but as a political offense
. . .’ The issue, then, was this: should the emperor’s law,
state law, govern both the state and the church, or were
both state and church, emperor and bishop alike, under
God’s law? Who represented true and ultimate order,
God or Rome, eternity or time? The Roman answer was
Rome and time, and hence Christianity constituted a
treasonable faith and a menace to political order.” 26
The charge brought by the Jewish prosecution in one
first-century trial of Christians was that “they are all
defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another
king, one called Jesus” (Acts 17:7). This was the
fundamental accusation against all the Christians of
the Empire. The captain of police pleaded with the
aged Bishop of Smyrna, St. Polycarp, to renounce this
extreme position: “What harm is there in saying Caesar
is Lord?” St. Polycarp refused, and was burned at the
stake. Thousands suffered martyrdom on just this issue.
For them, Jesus was not “God” in some upper-story,
irrelevant sense; He was the only God, complete
Sovereign in every area. No aspect of reality could be
exempt from His demands. Nothing was neutral. The
Church confronted Rome with the inflexible claim of
Christ’s imperial authority: Jesus is the only-begotten
Son; Jesus is God; Jesus is King; Jesus is Savior; Jesus is
Lord. Here were two Empires, both attempting absolute
world domination; and they were implacably at war. 27
It was necessary for the churches of Asia to recognize
this fully, with all its implications. Faith in Jesus Christ
requires absolute submission to His Lordship, at every
point, with no compromise. The confession of Christ
meant conflict with statism, particularly in the
provinces where official worship of Caesar was required
for the transaction of everyday affairs. Failure to
acknowledge the claims of the State would result in
economic hardship and ruin, and often imprisonment,
torture, and death.
Some Christians attempted to compromise by drawing
an unbiblical distinction between heart and conduct, as
if one could have faith without works. But Christ’s
Kingdom is universal: Jesus is Lord of all. To
acknowledge Him truly as Lord, we must serve Him
everywhere. This was the primary message of the
Revelation to the Christians in Asia, and one they
desperately needed to hear. They lived in the very heart
of Satan’s throne, the seat of Emperor-worship; St. John
wrote to remind them of their true King, of their
position with Him as kings and priests, and of the
necessity to persevere in terms of His sovereign Word.
Revelation and the Covenant
The Book of Revelation is part of the Bible. At first
glance this may not seem to be a brilliant insight, but it
is a point that is both crucially important and almost
universally neglected in the actual practice of
exposition. For as soon as we recognize that Revelation
is a Biblical document, we are forced to ask a central
question: What sort of book is the Bible? And the
answer is this: The Bible is a book (The Book) about the
Covenant. The Bible is not an Encyclopedia of
Religious Knowledge. Nor is it a collection of Moral
Tales, or a series of personal-psychology studies of Great
Heroes of Long Ago. The Bible is God’s written
revelation of Himself, the story of His coming to us in
the Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ; and it is the story
of the Church’s relationship to Him through the
Covenant He has established with her.
The Covenant is the meaning of Biblical history
(Biblical history is not primarily adventure stories).
The Covenant is the meaning of Biblical law (the Bible
is not primarily a political treatise about how to set up
a Christian Republic). And the Covenant is the
meaning of Biblical prophecy as well (thus, Biblical
prophecy is not “prediction” in the occult sense of
Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, and Jean Dixon). To a man,
the prophets were God’s legal emissaries to Israel and
the nations, acting as prosecuting attorneys bringing
what has become known among recent scholars as the
“Covenant Lawsuit.”
That Biblical prophecy is not simply “prediction” is
indicated, for example, by God’s statement through
Jeremiah:
At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or
concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy
it; if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its
evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring
on it.
Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation
or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it; if it does
evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will repent
of the good with which 1 had promised to bless it. (Jer. 18:7-
10)
The purpose of prophecy is not “prediction,” but
evaluation of man’s ethical response to God’s Word of
command and promise. This is why Jonah’s prophecy
about Nineveh did not “come true”: Nineveh repented
of its wickedness, and the calamity was averted. Like
the other Biblical writings, the Book of Revelation is a
prophecy, with a specific covenantal orientation and
reference. When the covenantal context of the
prophecy is ignored, the message St. John sought to
communicate is lost, and Revelation becomes nothing
more than a vehicle for advancing the alleged
expositor’s eschatological theories.
26. Ibid., p. 93. Rushdoony cites Francis Legge, Forerunners and Rivals of
Christianity.’ From 330 B.C. to 330 A.D. (New Hyde Park, NY: University
Books, [1915], 1964), vol. I, pp. xxivf.
27. Cf. Swete, p. lxxxi.
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