THE CHRISTIAN AFRIKANERS - The Works of F. N. Lee

Van der Waal is a very brilliant South African New Testamentician. He wrote a number of doctoraldissertations. One was on the Church Father Mileto of Sardis, who flourished round about 150 A.D.Another was on the priestly motive, in the book of Revelation.Van der Waal has written a massive two-volume commentary on the book of Revelation which stillneeds to be translated. He has also authored shorter works on the book of Revelation -- arguingstrenuously that the book was written before the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Some of hisworks are only now being translated into English by Paidia Press in Canada. These include: In theLatter Days (his work against Hal Lindsay); and his eight-volume series on Sola Scriptura (alias Bythe Scriptures Alone). A writing from his pen that urgently needs translating, is his work TheCultural Mandate in Discussion.This van der Waal is a fascinating person. He has a paradise-like home in Pretoria, which headorned with all kinds of palm-trees and mosses and ferns and desert plants -- both inside andoutside his house and further into his garden. It is all surrounded by a huge fence -- to keep out"snakes" (and other poisonous theological characters)! There he has tried to rebuild the garden ofEden -- or, perhaps, his vision of what the perfect combination of culture and nature will be like onthe new earth -- as reflected in Revelation 21 and 22.The most interesting thing of all -- if you visit the home of van der Waal as I have done -- is theway in which you walk out of his house into the garden. You are never quite sure where the gardenends and the house begins, and the other way round. The two melt into one another!He visited me in America several years ago, and I took him on a tour through my home. I askedhim for tips as to how to recreate the garden of Eden in my own home -- and he was very helpful.Van der Waal has written a number of important books, even over and above those titles I have justmentioned. A very fine book he wrote is entitled: What Exactly is Written There? It is a bookdealing with some of the most difficult and misunderstood texts in the Bible which the pietists loveto misinterpret. He straightens them out, with his painstaking exegesis. He deals, in this citation Iam about to read, particularly with Hebrews 11:13. This states that the patriarchs confessed theywere strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Van der Waal does not like the pietistic interpretation ofthe word "pilgrim" -- and sets out to straighten them out.Says van der Waal: "The translations have the writer saying in Hebrews 11:13 that the patriarchs'confessed they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.' Now it is very questionable to mewhether this translation 'on the earth' is justified. Instead of 'on the earth,' we would like to pleadfor the translation, 'in the land.' Compare the Hebrew word 'erets -- meaning 'land' or 'earth' or'country.'"So here, we should be thinking of the promised land. Then the meaning would be: 'Abrahamconfessed that he a stranger and a pilgrim in the land.' In verse 8, we read of a place whichAbraham received as an inheritance. Canaan was no halfway-house. No! It was his inheritance, hisplace. Hebrews 11:9 speaks of this place -- as the land of promise!"Woe unto Abraham -- if he thought that this 'land' was still not actually the true and the real thing!There would be no 'Platonic' land in the sweet by-and-by more real, which he would only one dayinherit. It is true on account of Abraham's situation, that he lived in that land as a sojourningstranger. Yet he was still the legal heir of that land."Of course, Abraham also expected the city which has foundations. Here, however, we should thinkof both Jerusalem and the New Jerusalem. For both are lineal fulfilments of the promise. Hebrews