Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

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APPENDIX C better arrangement culturally than they had lived under before the arrival of the Hebrews. They became the recipients of the cultural blessings given to the Hebrews, and perhaps some of them became faithful to God. In that case, what has been a curse on all of them – servitude – became a means of special grace. Their deception paid off (Josh. 9). Only the Hivites escaped destruction (Josh. 11:20). In the day that Adam and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge, they died spiritually. God had told them they would die on that very day. But they did not die physically. They may or may not have been individually regenerated by God’s Spirit. But they were the beneficiaries of a promise (Gen. 3:15). They were to be allowed to have children. Before time began, God had ordained the crucifixion. Christ was in this sense slain from the very beginning (Rev. 13:8). God granted them time on earth. He extended their lease on life; had they not sinned, they would have been able to own eternal life. God greatly blessed them and their murderous son Cain with a stay of execution. God respected Christ’s work on the cross. Christ became a savior to Cain – not a personal savior or regenerating savior, but a savior of his life. God granted Cain protection (Gen. 4:15), one of the tasks of a savior. Meaning in History Once again, we see that history has meaning. God has a purpose. He grants favors to rebels, but not because He is favorable to them. He respects His Son, and His Son died for the whole world (John 3:16). He died to save the world, meaning to give it time, life, and external blessings. He did not die to offer a hypothetical promise of regeneration to “vessels of wrath” (Rom. 9:22), but He died to become a savior in the same sense as that described in the first part of I Timothy 4:10 – not a special savior, but a sustaining, restraining savior. God dealt mercifully with Adam and Adam’s family because He had favor for His chosen people, those who receive the blessings of salvation. But this salvation is expressly historical in nature. Christ died in time and on earth for His people. They are regenerated in time and on earth. He therefore preserves the earth and gives all men, including rebels, time. With respect to God’s restraint of the total depravity of men, consider His curse of the ground (Gen. 3:17-19). Man must labor in the sweat of his brow in order to eat. The earth gives up her fruits, but only through labor. Still, this common curse also involves common grace. Men are compelled to cooperate with each other in a world of scarcity if they wish to increase their income. They may be murderers in their hearts, but they must restrain their emotions and cooperate. The division of labor makes possible the specialization of production. This, in turn, promotes increased wealth for all those who labor. Men are restrained by scarcity, which appears to be a one-sided curse. Not so; it is equally a blessing. This is the meaning of common grace; common curse and common grace go together. The cross is the best example of the fusion of grace and curse. Christ was totally cursed on the cross. At the same time, this was God’s act of incomparable grace. Justice and mercy are linked at the cross. Christ died, thereby experiencing the curse common to all men. Yet through that death, Christ propitiated God. That is the source of common grace on earth – life, law, order, power – as well as the source of special grace. The common curse of the cross – death – led to special grace for God’s elect, yet it also is the source of that common grace which makes history possible. Christ suffered the “first death,” not to save His people from the first death, and not to save the unregenerate from the second death of the lake of fire. He suffered the first death to satisfy the penalty of sin – the first death (which Adam did not immediately pay, since he did not die physically on the day that he sinned) and the second death (God’s elect will never perish). At some time in the future, God will cease to restrain men’s evil (II Thess. 2:6-12). As He gave up Israel to their lusts (Ps. 81:12; 106:15), so shall He give up on the unregenerate who are presently held back from part of the evil that they would do. This does not necessarily mean that the unregenerate will then crush the people of God. In fact, it means precisely the opposite. When God ceased to restrain Israel, Israel was scattered. (True, for a time things went badly for God’s prophets.) But the very act of releasing them from His restraint allowed God to let them fill up their own cup of iniquity. The end result of God’s releasing Israel was their fall into iniquity, rebellion, and impotence (Acts 7:42-43). They were scattered by the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and finally the Romans. The Christian church became the heir to God’s kingdom (Matt. 21:43). The Romans, too, were given up to their own lusts (Rom. 1:24, 26, 28). Though it took three centuries, they were finally replaced by the Christians. The empire collapsed. The Christians picked up the pieces. When God ceases to restrain men from the evil that they are capable of committing, it seals their doom. Separated from restraint, they violate the work of the law written in their hearts. Separated from God’s law, men lose God’s tool of cultural dominion. Men who see themselves as being under law can then use the law to achieve their ends. Antinomians rush headlong into impotence, for, denying that they are under law and law’s restraints, they throw away the crucial tool of external conquest and external blessings. They rebel and are destroyed. Wheat and Tares The parable of the tares is instructive in dealing with the question: Does history reveal a progressive separation between the saved and the lost? The parable begins with the field which is planted with wheat, but which is sown with tares by an enemy during the night (Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43). The parable refers to the kingdom of God, not to the institutional church. “The field is the world,” Christ explained (Matt. 13:38). The good 252
APPENDIX C wheat, the children of God, now must operate in a world in which the tares, the unregenerate, are operating. The servants (angels) instantly recognize the difference, but they are told not to yank up the tares yet. Such a violent act would destroy the wheat by plowing up the field. To preserve the growing wheat, the owner allows the tares to develop. What is preserved is historical development. Only at the end of the world is a final separation made. Until then, for the sake of the wheat, the tares are not ripped out. The rain falls on both the wheat and the tares. The sun shines on both. The blight hits both, and so do the locusts. Common grace and common curse: the law of God brings both in history. An important part of historical development is man’s fulfillment of the dominion covenant. New productive techniques can be implemented through the common grace of God, once the care of the field is entrusted to men. The regularities of nature still play a role, but increasingly fertilizers, irrigation systems, regular care, scientific management, and even satellite surveys are part of the life of the field. Men exercise increasing dominion over the world. A question then arises: If the devil’s followers rule, will they care tenderly for the needs of the godly? Will they exercise dominion for the benefit of the wheat, so to speak? On the other hand, will the tares be cared for by the Christians? If Christians rule, what happens to the unrighteous? This is the problem of differentiation in history. Men are not passive. They are commanded to be active, to seek dominion over nature (Gen. 1:28; 9:1-7). They are to manage the field. As both the good and the bad work out their God-ordained destinies, what kind of development can be expected? Who prospers most, the saved or the lost? Who becomes dominant? The final separation comes at the end of time. Until then, the two groups must share the same world. If wheat and tares imply slow growth to maturity, then we have to conclude that the radically discontinuous event of separation will not mark the time of historical development. It is an event of the last day: the final judgment. It is a discontinuous event that is the capstone of historical continuity. The death and resurrection of Christ was the last historically significant event that properly can be said to be discontinuous (possibly the day of Pentecost could serve as the last earth-shaking, kingdom-shaking event). The next major eschatological discontinuity is the day of judgment. So we should expect growth in our era, the kind of growth indicated by the agricultural parables. 5 What must be stressed is the element of continuous development. “The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field: Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof” (Matt. 13:31-32). As this kingdom comes into maturity, there is no physical separation between saved and lost. That total separation will come only at the end of time. There can be major changes, even as the seasons speed up or retard growth, but we should not expect a radical separation. While I do not have the space to demonstrate the point, this means that the separation spoken of by premillennialists – the Rapture – is not in accord with the parables of the kingdom. The Rapture comes at the end of time. The “wheat” cannot be removed from the field until that final day, when we are caught up to meet Christ in the clouds (I Thess. 4:17). There is indeed a Rapture, but it comes at the end of time – when the reapers (angels) harvest the wheat and the tares. There is a Rapture, but it is a postmillennial Rapture. Why a postmillennial Rapture, the amillennialist may say? Why not simply point out that the Rapture comes at the end of time and let matters drop? The answer is important: We must deal with the question of the development of the wheat and tares. We must see that this process of time leads to Christian victory on earth and in time. Knowledge and Dominion Isaiah 32 is a neglected portion of Scripture in our day. It informs us of a remarkable day that is coming. It is a day of “epistemological self-consciousness,” to use Cornelius Van Til’s phrase. It is a day when men will know God’s standards and apply them accurately to the historical situation. It is not a day beyond the final judgment, for it speaks of churls as well as liberal people. Yet it cannot be a day inaugurated by a radical separation between saved and lost (the Rapture), for such a separation comes only at the end of time. This day will come before Christ returns physically to earth in judgment. We read in the first eight verses: Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken. The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly. The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful. For the vile person will speak villany, and his heart will work iniquity, to practise hypocrisy, and to utter error against the Lord, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail. The instruments also of the churl are evil; he deviseth wicked devices to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy speaketh right. But the liberal deviseth liberal things: and by liberal things shall he stand. To repeat, “The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful” (v. 5). Churls persist in their churlishness; liberal men continue to be gracious. It does not say that all churls will be converted, but it also does not say that the liberals shall 5. Gary North, Moses and Pharaoh: Dominion Religion vs. Power Religion (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1985), ch. 12: “Continuity and Revolution.” 253
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But when you see Jerusalem surround
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Copyright @ 1987 by Dominion Press
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FOREWORD Foreword Readers of the Bo
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PUBLISHER’S PREFACE Publisher’s
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PUBLISHER’S PREFACE case for esch
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PUBLISHER’S PREFACE this book bec
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PUBLISHER’S PREFACE In contrast,
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INTRODUCTION St. Irenaeus is somewh
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INTRODUCTION we must be saved” (A
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INTRODUCTION previous relationship
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INTRODUCTION You have lain down as
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INTRODUCTION are only elaborating a
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INTRODUCTION early churches had suc
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INTRODUCTION actions mean more than
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INTRODUCTION Some will complain tha
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INTRODUCTION Outline of Revelation
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1:1-3 that must shortly take place.
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1:4-6 accomplishment. We probably h
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1:7-8 observe that a central aspect
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1:9 14 And His head and His hair we
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1:16 That all the peoples, nations,
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1:20 things that must shortly take
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INTRODUCTION TO PART TWO Part Two H
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INTRODUCTION TO PART TWO The confli
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2:4-6 endure evil men. . . . And yo
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2:9-10 dead, and has come to life:
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2:14-16 expression (none of which m
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2:18-23 and leads my servants astra
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2:26-29 end, to him I will give aut
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3:4-6 church, or even against a nat
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3:8-11 And I will clothe him with y
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3:14-16 sons disinherited and cast
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3:21-22 the elders of a church, and
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INTRODUCTION TO PART THREE The laws
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4:2-3 numerous names and descriptio
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4:5-8 superseded and transcended; t
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4:5-8 19) led Biblical writers to s
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5:1-4 family worship; it is radical
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5:5-7 St. John; and it seems as if
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5:8-10 have gained the victory for
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6:1-2 6 IN THE PATH OF THE WHITE HO
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6:3-4 forth conquering, and to conq
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6:9-10 And authority was given to h
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6:15-17 that Israel’s time has ru
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7:4-8 Though he flourishes among th
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7:4-8 they were listening to the Ap
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7:9 is presumably deliberate, for i
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7:10-14 inheriting the Kingdom (Mat
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7:15-17 They will not hunger or thi
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8:3-5 for that would be about the l
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8:6-7 rout the Midianites, in Judge
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8:12 13 And I looked, and I heard a
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9:13 The vegetation of the earth is
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9:20-21 lations advanced by some co
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9:20-21 men much more atheistical t
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10:2-4 beyond reasonable doubt that
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10:8-10 the Spirit at Pentecost was
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11:1-2 angelic priest measures the
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11:7 have the power to shut up the
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11:11-14 climax with the murder of
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11:16-18 month in the liturgical ye
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12:1-2 12 THE HOLY WAR The Book of
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12:1-2 birth to the Christ, to brin
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12:4 Daniel repeats the same idea i
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12:5-9 Chronologically, this explan
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12:12 And when we see the Lord warr
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12:17 for the action of Pharaoh, wh
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13:3-4 of the ten imperial province
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13:8-10 The Beast was given authori
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13:13-14 character and office (1 Co
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13:18 work throughout Revelation ar
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13:18 ✩ ✩✩ ✩★✩ ✩★
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14:1 14 THE KING ON MOUNT ZION St.
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14:6-7 have seen, the Church on ear
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14:9-13 understanding (Prov. 9:1-6)
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14:14-16 I may find them prompt; na
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14:19-20 And now, O inhabitants of
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their Chalices of wrath, one of the
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15:3-4 sacrifices; and the Glory of
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15:8 We should be reminded in this
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16:1-3 5 And I heard the Angel of t
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16:10-11 the heat of the sun by the
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16:15-16 established here, for the
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16:19 thereof, concerning which the
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17:1 17 THE FALSE BRIDE While some
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17:3 action throughout history in s
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17:8 Jerusalem’s whole history, i
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17:13-16 (v. 2), as the instruments
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18:1-2 priority over the kingdoms o
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18:6-8 His people to come out of Ba
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18:17-19 sanctuary two lampstands r
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18:20-21 They went down into the de
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19:1-2 19 THE FEASTS OF THE KINGDOM
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19:3-8 of vengeance, in order that
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19:10 Church admitted its members t
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19:12-15 Let the heavens be glad, a
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19:16-18 of wealth, or wasting dise
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20:1 20 THE MILLENNIUM AND THE JUDG
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20:1-3 Christ established His media
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20:1-3 The great fathers and teache
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Page 230 and 231: CONCLUSION the pure Bride-City, is
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Page 234 and 235: APPENDIX A it is reflected in “It
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Page 242 and 243: APPENDIX A B. CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 1.
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Page 248 and 249: APPENDIX C APPENDIX C Common Grace,
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Page 256 and 257: APPENDIX C universe. It is governed
Page 258 and 259: APPENDIX C completed, the world was
Page 260 and 261: APPENDIX C deceive the nations. The
Page 262 and 263: APPENDIX C creeds and theological u
Page 264 and 265: APPENDIX C coherence that at least
Page 266 and 267: APPENDIX C There is continuity in l
Page 268 and 269: Athanasius. On the Incarnation of t
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