Dr. Meredith Kline, Prologue, Lecture 18
© 2012, Dr. Meredith Kline and Ted Hildebrandt
Now, in terms of covering ground, let’s see if I can do a little more about keeping my promises here than has been done so far tonight. … There you are! We’ll stay until midnight! All right.
Genesis 3: Imitation of God as Covenantal duty
Chapter
three, chapter one and two established God’s claims on the covenant devotion of
man. Now chapter three tells us what God required under the covenant, were the covenant
stipulations that are a major section to remember in ancient treaties, the
stipulations. Now the subject is going to be divided here primarily in terms
of the functions that man was given to perform as a king, and the functions he
was given to perform as a priest, and his cultural task and also his cultic
task, we have suggested some of these things already. By way of introduction, I
want to make a couple of points which we can hit very fast. Just the general
principles of covenantal behavior, man was made, we’ve seen, as the image of
God. Image and son are very much the same idea. So he’s an image and a son. Both
of these things imply a likeness. The image is the likeness of the original,
the son is the likeness of the father. If you’re the likeness of the original,
then you should be imitating God. So the imitation of God, the ways of God
especially, as God revealed his ways in creation, and his providential control
of things, this pattern must be imitated by man. So the principle of the
imitation of God is a general principle that describes covenantal duty.
Man as servant rendering service of love and obedience
Then
secondly, these two features of image and son both describe things which are
secondary and subordinate, the image is subordinate to the archetype and the
son to the authority of the father. So a second general principle of man as the
image-bearer and the son is that he has this under authority, in subordinate
position. He’s in the position of a servant, and he should be rendering the
service of love to his God and Father. This comes to expression in general,
things like “thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve”
or “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and mind and
with all thy strength.” These are formations of some general principles, the
imitation of God and the service of love, and emphasizing then especially the
idea of love. This general principle is of love is not one then that you
substitute for specific commandments, that’s not the biblical idea of the love
of God. But love for God comes to expression precisely in your obeying the
several, indeed the many specific commandments that are spelled out. “If you
love me, you will keep my commandments,” Jesus said. Likewise, Moses, who
expresses the idea that they should love the Lord spells out the way they show
that love in terms of submission through the many specific covenant requirements
that exist. So those are a couple of general comments.
Theocratic Kingdom Commission
We’ll
be picking up on the idea of the imitation of God principle and showing how that
works itself out in some detail when we come to a look at the cultural task and
so on. Page 42 now and following we go on from the general principles to
analyze the, I call it here, the theocratic kingdom commission. Man was placed
in a theocracy and a kind of holy kingdom with a task to perform with a
commission. Part of that will be the very specific task having to do with his
probationary role which will be the way in which he earns the right ultimately
to glorification in heaven. Other requirements anticipate what his historical
role will be beyond probation and before glorification and so on. So there are
a variety of things involved here--the theocratic kingdom commission.
Cult and Culture: everything is religious
We
will be dealing as I said then with three tasks, with royal tasks and with the cult.
I keep using the word “cult,” and I guess by now you see the way I’m using it,
not in terms of little insolated groups that have strange ideas and most of
them live in southern California. We’re talking simply about that aspect of
our life which is our vertical relationship to God where we express worship and
love and devotion directly to God. That’s what I’m talking about as cult. Then
culture is the way in which at the horizontal level we relate to the rest of
creation, subhuman as well as our own peers as human beings. The point I make
here, and by way of introduction, is that both cult and cultural activities are
all religious. Everything you do is religious. Now a moment ago we were saying
that within a theocracy, cult and culture, everything is holy. So obviously
they would be religious, everything is holy there.
It’s when you get outside of the theocracy situation after the fall
when you’re in this common grace situation where, of course, cultic activity is
engaged in by God’s holy people in what we would think of as religious. But now,
what about that non-holy cultural activity that you engage in in common grace?
My point here is that too is religious. It’s not holy, but it is religious. It’s
religious because it is the Lord who tells us to engage in these cultural
vocations and these non-holy vocations. They’re not evil, they’re just
non-holy. It’s the Lord who tells us to engage in those things just as he is
the one who tells us to engage in worship. It is “unto the Lord” that we
perform those cultural functions, those secular, non-holy cultural things.
Everything we do we do as unto the Lord. So we never get away from
that connection. We always have that relationship. We live before the eyes of
God and unto his glory no matter what we do. So everything is religious. We
don’t divide our life into our religious and our non-religious areas where part
of it is where God’s involved and part where God’s not involved. We have to deal
with God in every part so that’s the simple point to make. I’m misunderstood I
think sometimes when I talk about culture being non-holy leaving the suggestion
that it’s not religious. That’s not my position, everything is religious.
Pre-redemptive Special Revelation
Then
the second introductory thing is just reminding us about when we talk about
special revelation and natural revelation. Do we sometimes think that you have
special revelation only after there’s a need for redemption. That, of course,
is not the case. There’s a need for special revelation even from the beginning.
So pre-redemptive special revelation is something that we should be aware of.
So along with natural revelation of the power and the wisdom and the divinity
of God that you have in creation out there, and then in conscious and so on, a
sense of deity along with the natural revelation that was there right from the
beginning, there was special revelation. The thing we’ve been talking about is
the presence of God on the holy mountain. It was a special revelation in theophanic
form right there.
But in addition to that we said that the garden of Eden was the
place of oracular words coming, God’s special revelation. There was a
particular need for that because although man would know who God is, and
therefore basically what he himself must be like, as he must imitate this God, nevertheless,
there were certain things that he would not just know by having the law written
on his heart, there were certain institutions that God would have to tell him
about. Marriage, how are men and women to relate to one another, God sets up
this institution of marriage and defines that, that took special revelation.
How is man to observe time? Here are the ordinances, the institution of family,
the ordinance of the Sabbath, the Sabbath weekly structuring of time. These are
things that required special revelation that wouldn’t have been written just on
man’s heart from the beginning.
It is the whole cultural task precisely that we’re talking about.
How does man know what his historical role is? What’s he supposed to do in
this big wide world? Well, he has to be told what is to be done there. What’s
to come of it all? What’s the goal of it all? Prophecy, right? What are the
ultimate sanctions? That’s the next chapter we’ll be coming to. What’s the
reward for obedience? The punishment for disobedience? The sanctions of the
covenant would have taken special revelation.
Most especially I guess that probationary prohibition: here’s a
tree, don’t eat of it. You wouldn’t have known anything about that from the law
written on his heart. This seemed to contradict everything, in fact, written on
his heart, or even spoken of God beforehand. God had said “all these plants
you can eat.” Now comes this special one, this one you can’t. So there’s a
whole variety of things that required special revelation even before redemption
or confessions. When they are speaking about anything like this it seems to demonstrate
the necessity for Scripture and why scriptural revelation was needed. Of
course, that’s only talking about redemptive period afterwards, but this other
subject of the necessity for special revelation in general, not just inscripturated,
but orally spoken. The need for that before the fall is not recognized or even
the fact of such revelation is not always recognized but we should be aware of
these things.
Man’s duties as king: the cultural mandate
All
right, so there is this special revelation then, and it communicates to man his
various duties. The first one, and this is his duty as a king, and let’s see if
we can just hit the high spots on this one. I call it his cultural mandate. We
all hear about that as a term trying to describe how even today Christians
should be concerned, not just with things that are ecclesiastical, but with a
broader world and life view. So far we’ve talked about the cultural mandate. Well,
there’s certainly was here at the beginning a cultural mandate, a commission.
What was the task? I suggest here that the task was one of
building the city of God. So that they were established right from the
beginning in this holy sanctuary, this theocracy, which was to use another
figure then. It was God’s city, it was his house, it was his kingdom. It was
his. It was the city of God and this city then was to be expanded. It was to be
built up, and it would be built up in terms of several cultural functions, filling
the earth and subduing it. Filling it is this function of procreation. Subduing
it is the whole area of human labor and so on. So the construction of the holy
kingdom city, and I remind you it was a holy kingdom city. After the fall you
still have the city, but it’s now part of the common grace line. It’s not the
holy city anymore.
So there is a cultural mandate after the fall under common
grace. There is a cultural mandate, but here’s where I object to the
common use of speaking of the cultural mandate as if there’s the same
one today as it was before the fall. That’s simply not the case. What we are
doing today in terms of our cultural functioning as we work together with
unbelievers in this world is not building the holy city of God. But the
original cultural mandate was to build the city of God, the holy city. So this
is done through the procreation function and that as we move along is the one
that is placed within the context of marriage as the proper place for that to
happen. Then along with that there is the function of the labor throughout the
historical genealogical process, human life would continue to be of the earth.
Filling the earth
I
jumped ahead a little too fast here, when we talk about the filling of the
earth as a cultural task. I’d like to just emphasize that one point that is
the main cultural product in this whole cultural task. What is the main
cultural product? We tend to think in terms of things external to man, but
actually man himself, the family of Adam, they are to be produced as part of
this cultural procreation, marriage-family function. Man himself is the chief
product of this whole cultural history. He is the chief end or product of human
cultural genealogy. Genealogy is the primary genre of human history, historiography.
We looked at genealogies in the Bible, as a sort of grumble, not all that interesting
sections here, here and there. Actually the central story of the whole thing is
the production of this mankind because it is this mankind who is going to be
the holy temple, the holy city of God.
Subduing the earth
All
right, and along with procreation there is the fact that the earth has to be,
here’s the problem with what language to use because there’s so much debate
over just what’s going on here, whether the biblical view is the problem of all
kinds of bad exploitation of the world and the poisoning of the springs and all
this kind of thing. But there is then the way in which humans are king over the
world. The resources of the world are put at his disposal so that working with
them he can enhance his kingship, he can enhance his kingly dignity and
enjoyment of the world and so on. You know, he’s not yet glorified, his
dominion over the world isn’t at that stage where it will be when he is
glorified, when he won’t need external cultural instruments anymore but just in
the integrity of his own glorified human body he will have this kind of
dominion.
Meanwhile, we are of the earth. We have to get for ourselves the life
support system from the earth. Although there would be the blessing of God on
all this effort, it still requires work. So man is set to work within the world
that is lying there, ready to be exploited, if that’s not too strong a term. To
be utilized in order to bring forth things for man’s benefit, as we said,
everything is being consecrated ultimately to man.
So besides the availing himself of the earth’s hospitality, man
would have to protect himself from earth’s inhospitable elements and moments. We
argue that there were threatening things out there. Southern California has not
only weird cults but it also has beautiful weather. But the whole planet earth didn’t
necessarily have southern California weather from the outset. It might have had
north and south poles with all kinds of ice caps and so on, which when man
ventured into he better have a fur coat on. So he would have to protect himself
from the otherwise inhospitable threatening features of the world, but always
under the blessing of God, and things would have gone fine. He wouldn’t have
gotten frostbite. What was necessary would have been provided for him.
Now, when the Bible is describing that, one word that he uses, as I
suggested here, is the word Kavash, which we often translate as “to
subdue” or to mean “to take possession of” or “to occupy.” So here’s a term
that God uses. You are to exercise dominion over the world and to subdue it. That’s
the particular word that is seized upon by critics of the biblical world view
in saying: “Look! Here is this biblical Christian view of this things. It’s
because we are going about trying to subdue the world that we are cutting down
all of the rain forests and doing everything else that poisons the atmosphere
and so on. It’s the fault of the biblical concept of subduing the world.”
Well, of course, when these poisoning of the springs, the
atmosphere and all this is not following the biblical mandate. What’s going on
here? What’s the basic idea? What is the cultural mandate all about? It’s for
the enhancement of man’s dignity and enjoyment as a king over all the world. When
you destroy your very environment around you, that is not enhancing your
enjoyment of the world, quite to the contrary.
So the mandates that are given to subdue the earth have to be
understood compatibly with the purpose of it all which is for the ultimate, benefit
of man. This balance of things is suggestive somewhat of that along with cavash,
to subdue. You get the other Hebrew term, avad, which means “to serve.”
Now, the earth is serving man and yes, man must serve the earth, he must make
use of it in such a way that he is cultivating the earth at the same time that
he is serving his own interests. It is in the balance of those two things that
we have the biblical view of it.
City of God
So
fulfillment of man’s cultural stewardship would thus begin with man functioning
as a princely gardener in Eden. But the goal, although he begins there with
this thing, but the goal of his kingdom commission was not some minimal local
life support system. The goal was rather a maximal global mastery. The cultural
mandate put all the capacity of human brain and brawn to work in a challenging
and rewarding world to develop the original paradise home into a universal city.
Now that’s the goal of this original, whatever the size of Eden was, the
limited area they were to expand that into the global city of God, the kingdom
city. Such is the picture that emerges when the design of all that was
envisioned in the various assignments of procreation and royal labor are pieced
together.
So what are the elements of a city? This is oversimplifying, no
doubt, you have citizens, you have some sort of fashioning of the materials of
the earth into some sort of architectural form that provides a roof and a
shelter and other things. Then the third ingredient would be that you have some
form of government. Now the citizens of the city are provided by the
procreation--fill the earth. The architectural aspect of the city of man, so
far as that’s material cultural form of it, is an expression of the laboring to
subdue the world and to make it manageable and to protect your possession from
inhospitable moments and so on.
Government: Family
Then
the third ingredient will be then the one dealt within the next paragraph which
is that from the beginning there was a form of government, the city form of
government, which was the family structure because there was no difference, the
holy family were the citizens of the city. There was no distinction between
them. So it’s as the one holy covenant community grew, and then the city grew,
and then the family authority structure would be just carried over and
developed into the quality of the city.
So right
from the outset, you do have the family institution. On page 45 I’m pointing
out that, Adam and Eve are created, not just man and women, they are husband
and wife right from the outset. The names that they are given after creation
names relate them in terms of marriage or relations. So there is this legal
covenantal bond, oneness that’s between them, which is this institutional
family bond that God ordains. I discuss a little bit of the evidence for the
covenantal nature of marriage.
It was within this marital relationship of legal trust, of the procreation
function of the cultural commission was to be fulfilled. The cultural
commission then was a family mandate. It was a family mandate, not alone in the
sense that it was to be performed by mankind acting as a family. This was not
about some lone rangers off on their own doing their thing, this cultural
kingdom. But it was a family, as a family, expanding and fulfilling their
cultural mandate. But also it was a family mandate in the sense that the goal
of the whole thing was the production of the kingdom family.
So we may now refine what we said before as the goal. It was the
city of the royal human family, not just the royal human race, but the royal
human family, filling and ruling the earth. That’s the goal of the cultural
commission. That family identification of the covenant community remains with
us throughout the rest of the Scripture. The original covenant family was not
without its divinely appointed government. So there is an authority structure here
within in the family, and that authority comes to expression in the
parent-child relationship. So at this point the later requirement for children
to honor their parents would have had a proper place right from the beginning.
There was an authority structure there in paradise.
The husband-wife relationship: authority structure
Then
also in the middle of page 46, we launch into the thorny, and today especially thorny,
subject of the authority structure in the husband-wife relationship, and you
can read that. I take the traditional position that there to, the care of the
wife as a sign to the husband in a marriage relationship was attended by the
appropriate marital authority. I give then the biblical evidence why that is
so. So right within the family authority structure, within the family community
you do have such an authority structure and that would have structured and that
would have characterized the whole city of God as it moved out.
So each family unit then of the branching covenant family would
exhibit the marital and the parental authority pattern. The covenant institution
as a whole would be the complex of these individual family authority
structures. This is a principle of polity that is proven to be a constant in
the determination of form of the covenant. Total covenant forms is made up of
individual family units, that’s what I’m saying, okay? I’m also taking the
Presbyterian view over the Baptist way here, that always within the covenantal organization
the covenant is made up of family units. That has been the case right from the
beginning. Throughout the Old and New Testament ages, the parental authority established
in the covenant of creation has continued to be honored, so that those who own
the covenant have the privilege and duty of exercising their parental authority
to bring their children with them under the institutional role of their Lord in
his covenant.
So here are the polity features that have direct relevance for
other questions that we’re concerned about, we are talking about circumcision,
baptism, and their proper recipients later on. The question is who then belongs
to the covenant. Right from square one it has always been in terms of families.
As I think we’ve pointed out, that’s the way the history of the covenant from Adam
to Noah in Genesis 5 is developed, and the history of the covenant from Noah to
Abraham in Genesis 11. That’s why these histories of the covenant are cast in
the form of genealogies, because they are family histories, because the
covenantal community is organized in this genealogical form. That salvation is
not guaranteed within these things, but the outward organization of the covenant
community is in terms that God honors the family authority structure when he
comes to structuring the redemptive community.
Adam’s federal headship position
Then,
of course, along with these other things there’s this peculiar feature in the
original covenant of Adam’s representative headship position. So here is a
feature of that original theocratic city and covenant community where you have
the one who is in his probationary activity representative of the many and of the
king.
The Authority Structure
So
under the covenant of creation, summing up the top of page 47, the covenant
family with the universal cultural authority structure are the royal family
with proprietorship and dominion over the whole world environment. This
governmental order was headed up in the patriarchal authority of Adam as we
noted above in chapter two. Such governmental structure at the human level was
consistent with the theocratic nature of the covenant kingdom, that is to say,
it’s consistent with the ultimate rule of God himself. It’s consistent with
that because the human government was a vassal authority that acknowledged the supreme
authority of God as its absolute head. Man’s kingly proprietorship of the earth
was a stewardship then, for which he was accountable to the Lord God. This was
ultimately a theocracy, man has the dignity of a king under God, and so on, but
it is under God. So this authority structure here is one which is recognizing
the rule of the Lord God was in truth the ruler and the protector of the family
kingdom of mankind. He was their ultimate father. They bore his surname, for
he had created them in his image as his son.
By the way, in the ancient treaty diplomacy, where they would use
the language of the great king and the vassal king, that political model which
makes a valid point as an analogy to God’s relationship to his people that he
is king and they are the servant. But even in Near-East treaties the suzerain
was called a father, and so the family model as well as the political model
informed the covenantal model even in ancient marriage and diplomacy. Of course,
it certainly does that within the Bible. So there’s no conflict or tension
between God as king and God as father there. They both belong to the covenantal
concept.
Imitation of God and the cultural task
Now
we come to take the general principle that we started out with, the principle,
the imitation of God, and to glance at how that principle applies in working
out what we were just talking about, this cultural task of subduing the earth,
building it, and subduing it, and building the holy city of God. So page 47 and
following is a whole series of areas I think are helpful to us in developing
sort of a Christian philosophy of culture, what’s going on, how should we think
of it. We’re all involved in it even if we have ecclesiastical callings. So
we’re very much involved with that holy redemptive line. We’re all still
involved even after the fall, with this common cultural line and how to think
about it. Here we’re suggesting we should think about it as work, work as
having dignity because it is part of the imitation of God. This is part of our
God likeness that we are engaged in work and moreover in the particular kinds
of work that we have to do. It is all imitation of God. Let’s see. Man‘s offices
and functions in relation to the structure of the kingdom city, were designed
to be a human reflection of the authority and the activity of the Lord God as creator
and governor of the world.
Imitation of God as Worker
Now one
expression of the imitation of God principle is found in very fact that man was
called upon to be a worker, like the Worker, capital W, of the six creation
days. God is revealed in the very account of creation as the one who works at
building the cosmic temple. He is the great architect, artisan, builder,
worker, who takes delight in his work and so on. So God’s a worker. We are made
in his image to imitate him. Therefore we are working. There’s the dignity of work.
Now that is the message that is needed to teach many menial, seemingly
meaningless tasks that people are called upon to perform, but they can still
see that somehow all of this is part of the imitation of God that will add some
meaning and zest to their work hopefully. So man was commissioned to enter into
and carry forward the work of God, furthering God’s ultimate purpose of
glorifying himself, by developing the kingdom city as a reflector of the divine
glory. Invited to be a fellow laborer with God, that’s was what it’s all about.
We are invited to be a fellow laborer with God, that’s the dignity of man the
worker.
Jesus, the second Adam, affirmed his own adherence to the imitation
of God principle in this particular respect when he said: “My Father works
until now, and I work.” See, that’s part of Jesus imitating the Father.
Now you break it down, what’s the nature of that work? God’s work was
creative and beyond that, the God of province was sustaining and governing. You
can take each of those and see how there is something corresponding to them in
this cultural task that was a sign to man that God is creative and we’re called
upon to be creative. Genesis 5:1, brings this out quite specifically in terms
of the procreation function, the bringing forth of children, when it immediately
compares the fact that God created a man-son in his own image and then Adam
fathers a son in his own image. So this procreation activity of man is
immediately described as analogous to reflective of God’s creative work. Then
there’s the inventive genius of the inventor, and there’s the artistic
creativity of the artists. There are different aspects of God, and the wisdom
and the beauty that he brings forth are all, part of what we’re up to. I know if
you were thinking of again as I say of a Christian philosophy of art or
anything else like that, here is a foundational thing to keep in mind. It is
basically part of the imitation of God who is creative.
In man’s cultivation of the earth, in his nourishing and nurturing
of his own young, his caring for and using, taming and domesticating the
animals, and all the variety of cultural laboring to subdue the earth, man was
imitating what God did in his providential preserving and governing of the
world and so on.
All right? Then again, along with the biological and technological
aspects, there’s the social dimension. Here there’s the love of God, which he
shows them. The fact that God is a covenant-making, and especially God as a
covenant-keeping God. These are things for us to imitate in our cultural life
in relating to all kinds of people showing love to them and all our social
relationships and so forth in being covenant-keepers, and so on.
Man’s interpretative vocation—naming things
Then
there is the whole area of the cultural enterprise. It’s not just a matter of brawn,
but it’s a lot more increasingly as time goes on it’s a matter of brain and
information, manipulation and so on. There’s the whole interpretive process and
that becomes part of the cultural advance. Here too, we are imitating God,
naming things, interpreting them. God is the original namer. He said “Let
there be...” and he gives it a name. “Adam, come along, do this thing here” name
the animals. Be God-like here, assign names to them and so on, involve yourself
in the interpretive naming process. So then there’s much to be said along that
line.
Wisdom as part of our kingship
Stated
in terms of our cultural office is man’s interpretive vocation. Here he is, he’s
a wise man, that’s what we are called upon to be, the wise one. Man’s
interpretive vocation was a call to the post of the wise man philosopher
scientist. This was not so much an office in itself, as it was an adjunct of
man’s kingship as he exercises kingship not just as a matter of power, but we
said it’s a matter of having wisdom and knowledge of how to do things. The
wisdom and the wise man is the wise man in the court of the king. So when I
think of offices of Adam from the beginning or mankind from the beginning, he’s
a king, he’s a priest. A wise man is not a third option, wise man is an aspect
of the kingship. I think a reflection of this is found right within the
biblical cannon itself, because you look at the wisdom literature itself. It’s
so much of it is under the aegis, and offices if not the authorship of kings
like king Solomon and so on. So wisdom is an aspect, you see, of our kingship.
Now summing up the top of page 49, you’d draw me then, the cultural
commission was a program to actualize that dominion which was central to man’s
image-likeness to the glory spirit. Man’s culture was to provide a human
replica of the divine kingship manifested in the glory archetype. Man was
invested with a God-like authority and majesty, and he was charged in imitation
of God to perfect the consecration of the world to his own royal use and honor.
Of course, in doing so he would be building the holy city of God which was to
be to the honor of the Lord.
Sabbath form of culture
Now
we come to one other aspect of it, which we’ll deal with at a little more
length here, because it is, once again, a topic that is much discussed and all
kinds of different opinions. It is debated and a thorny subject and, perhaps
along with the creation days, this subject of the Sabbath form of culture that
we’re going to be talking about is maybe the second-most debated topic. So
let’s look at it here, and it’s point four page 49. Here are various ways
we’ve suggested in which man’s cultural life imitates God, but now the most conspicuous
thing in the whole picture is the way in which the temporal structuring of our
cultural life is said to be an imitation of God. Here the whole thing is very
explicit. Maybe some of these other points you’ve made you see are there, but
not as explicit. But here, it’s absolutely explicit, God’s cultural activity, if
you will, is his kingdom-creating activity, all unfolded as he describes it in Genesis
1 and a sabbatical pattern of six days work and crowned by the seventh day of
rest, that day of consummation and consecration to the Lord. God now takes his
way and he imposes it as an ordinance on human beings. “Build the earth, subdue
it, it’s going to take a long time, generations are going to go by before all
of this is accomplished before the earth is filled, before you come to the day
of glorification. As you make your journey from here to there, your life, your
time is to be structured sabbatically. So here is an ordinance that will bring
that out, that will be an expression of the imitation of God. So that’s the
point we’re making now.
The imitation of God: Eschatological direction
The
imitation of God principle was to find embodiment, first of all, in the overall
pattern of history of man’s kingdom labor. Now here I’m not just talking about
the weekly ordinance yet, but I’m taking about the total structure of human
history as a envisioned from the beginning, fall or no fall. The way it was to
be from the beginning that mankind was not created in some state that was to be
static and unchanged, but eschatology is there right from the word go. God
created the world as an eschatological situation in eschatological movement to
consummation. His own creation activity also already had that eschatological
direction. It was moving towards the Sabbath, and man is made in the imitation
of God. Therefore human history will be like creation history. It will be an eschatological
movement. It isn’t that you have a certain situation created first, then later
on you get some eschatology tacked on. No. No. Right from the outset it has
this eschatological direction to it. It has the glorification goal there, which
has to be won, therefore there has to be a probation, a works covenant that
will be fulfilled, and earn heaven at last.
So the overall history of mankind from the beginning with his being
the image of God was one that would be sabbatical in the sense that it was on
its way toward a Sabbath goal from the beginning, the consummation of paradise
and so on. So mankind’s cultural endeavors were to move forward to an issue in
a sabbatical rest. In fact, man was to come by way of his works at last into
God’s own royal rest as we studied in Hebrews 4.
Now as human history has turned out, it is through Jesus, the
second Adam, that God’s people actually find their way into the realm of this
Sabbath rest. It is he who leads them into the true and eternal Canaan, the new
Eden. But this redemptive accomplishment of the second Adam illumines the design
of the program originally assigned to the first Adam. Like redemptive history,
the history of the covenant of creation was to be characterized by an
eschatological thrust in it and direction. It was supposed to have a sabbatical
structure. This eschatological sabbatical nature, which the history of man had
from the beginning, was a consequence of the very fact that man was created in
the image of a Sabbatarian creator. Entering into the kingdom program as God’s
servant-son, man was to reflect the divine glory, advancing through his six
days of work as it were, to the seventh day of completion. He was to advance
from kingdom development to a Sabbath of joyous shalom, peace.
Pattern of human history: Sabbath ordinance
Now,
here’s the overall pattern of human history. It’s going to be in the general sense,
one of work, completing the cultural task, build the earth and subdue it, work
issuing in the Sabbath rest. Now, what God does is he takes this whole big
pattern and he stamps it across the days of man’s earthly existence in the form
of the Sabbath ordinance, so that the overall pattern is repeated and
symbolically prophetically set before man’s eyes, so that he may make his
journey through his long history, and the trail is blazed all along the way by
the Sabbath sign. Every seventh day, pointing to the ultimate Sabbath rest, so
there is now the ordinance of the Sabbath. It is appointed by the Lord from the
beginning, and man’s cultural life is structured temporally by this pattern. So
we now have to do then with the Sabbath ordinance. What is its origin? Who are
the proper observers of it? How was it to be observed? On some of these positions,
my own position is the traditional one, on other points it is not so
traditional, and so here is the place where you all become Bereans and search
the scriptures whether these things be so or not. If they are you follow them,
and if you don’t find them there, you don’t follow them. But here’s how the
professor of this occasion sees these issues.
On the first point, as to the origin of the Sabbath, I follow the
traditional view that it is a creation ordinance. It is not some ordinance that
comes along later, let’s say when God’s dealing with Israel for the first time
he appoints the Sabbath there. What we find Genesis 1 is really looking ahead
to that. No, no. I think the biblical evidence is indeed that the Sabbath ordinance
was one that God appointed to Adam right there at the beginning and I try to
make something of a case for it.
Transcribed
by Ashley Hayden
Rough edited by Ted Hildebrandt