The 42^nd anniversary of the Kent State University shootings (May 4, 1970), immortalized by “John Filo’s iconic Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio, a fourteen-year-old runaway, kneeling in anguish over the body of Jeffrey Miller minutes after he was shot by the Ohio National Guard” and the Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young song “Ohio” brought to mind how much has changed in a generation.

Shifts in worldviews take time even though single events seem to mark their transition period. Seemingly unrelated events and thoughts work their wizardry to produce unfathomable results. Once the shift has taken place, only a retrospective look will reveal the philosophical ebbs and flows that erode worldview landscapes. The twentieth century began on an optimistic note but quickly lost its idealism as war engulfed the world. World War I “shattered much of Europe’s already fading optimism, and the advent of Nazis and fascists shook men’s confidence in their present and their past.”[1]

Confidence was regained after the Second World War. A form of secular optimism prevailed that even a police action in Korea in the 1950s could not dampen. America had never known defeat in war, and her countryside had not been ravaged by incendiary bombs or nuclear fallout. She was on a roll.

The post-war optimism continued with the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy in 1960 and dreams of “Camelot.”[2]

Modernism was running full throttle in the early 1960s with its great scientific advances — man was about to conquer the heavens and put a man on the moon — and official judicial statements of atheism with prayer and Bible reading removed from America’s public schools. The theistic house cleaning was now nearly complete. Since 1859, the year that Darwin’s Origin of Species was published, modern man had been trying to rid the universe of God and the supernatural. America was about to show the world what man could do without God.

On November 22, 1963, gunfire put an end to the euphoria. As one child of the 1960s put it, “When Kennedy was killed is when America changed.”[3] As if overnight, everything seemed to change. “Tennessee-born photographer Jim Smith, who describes his experience of the Sixties as ‘having my world view torn apart with nothing to replace it,’ says that ‘the Kennedy assassination really was the trigger.’”[4] The following social chaos was hardly encouraging to an idealistic generation:

Lyndon Johnson’s skillfully and ruthlessly imposed legislative substance — the final culmination of the old Progressive optimism — soon turned to dust in the mouths of his followers. The Vietnam war, race riots, and the deficit-induced price inflation broke the spirit of the age. Johnson could not be re-elected in 1968, just four years after he was elected President.[5]

A crisis of secular faith had emerged. The new generation questioned the orthodoxy of rational neutrality. The guardians of modernism had sent young men and women to the rice paddies and jungles of Vietnam, and more than 58,000 of them returned in coffins, 153,000 returned severely wounded, and an equal amount more lightly wounded. A break with the past was unavoidable. People were calling for “revolution.” They “wanted apocalypse, Utopia,”[6] a world transformed. Transformed by what? That was the question. Drugs, sexual experimentation, Eastern philosophy, and the occult were all viable options. The counter culture of the 1960s wanted something more than the impersonalism offered by rationalism. In fact, the best and the brightest of the rationalists had sent America’s youth to Southeast Asia to die.[7] For the first time in her history, America had lost a war.

Postmodernism is the logical outworking of modernism. Stephen Connor says that the “concept of postmodernism cannot be said to have crystallized until about the mid-1970′s. . . .”[8] Modernism had received some strong criticism, and it was becoming more and more tenable to assert that the postmodern had come to stay, but it took some time before scholarship really jumped on the bandwagon.[9]) Events, violent events, forced the hands of the academic community.

If May 4, 1970, was the day that the war between the generations and classes of white America became a war in earnest, in retrospect it was also the day that war began to end. It was as if the rising tensions had needed to climax in the taking of life. After the strikes in the wake of Kent, the energy of confrontation began to ebb.[10]

But little was resolved. The four protestors who were killed at Kent State University, through no will of their own, put an end to a misguided revolution. The worldview of modernism was buried with them. The campuses in the 1970s and 1980s remained eerily quiet. The silence, however, was not a sign of inaction. A new worldview was being developed without fanfare — a quiet revolution that is reshaping our nation today.

1. Gary North, Unholy Spirits: Occultism and New Age Humanism (Tyler, TX: Dominion Press, 1986), 22.
2. “The phenomenon we call ‘the Sixties’ did not begin at 12.01 A.M. on January 1, 1960. It is not a chronological entity so much as a cultural or mythic one. Even if we identify the myth with the decade, it would be more accurate to say that it began on November 8, 1960, with the election of John F. Kennedy, and ended May 4, 1970, on the campus of Kent State” when National Guardsmen killed four students as a crowd gathered to protest escalation of United States military policy in Vietnam. Annie Gottlieb, Do You Believe in Magic?: The Second Coming of the 60′s Generation (New York: Random House/Times Books, 1987), 17.
3. Quoted in Gottlieb, Do You Believe in Magic?, 18.
4. Gottlieb, Do You Believe in Magic?, 18.
5. North, Unholy Spirits, 23.)

   From visions of Camelot to chants of “Hey! Hey! LBJ! How many kids didja kill today?” America was abandoning what little faith it had in the secular faith of modernism. As if tens of thousands of dead young men were not enough to destroy the worldview of modernism, the murder of two cultural icons confirmed the disintegration of society. “With the assassinations of King and Robert Kennedy, we lost our last hope of combating racism or ending the war through the System, and the System lost our consent.” ((Gottlieb, Do You Believe in Magic?, 47.

6. Quoted in Gottlieb, Do You Believe in Magic?, 18.
7. David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York: Random House, 1972).
8. Stephen Connor, Postmodernist Culture: An Introduction to Theories of the Contemporary (Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 6. Postmodernism was becoming more and more concrete, but modernism was still flourishing. It was the fall of communism in 1989 that drove the nail into the coffin of modernism.
9. At this point it is important to distinguish between postmodern and postmodernism. Postmodern refers to a period of time, whereas postmodernism refers to a distinct ideology. As Veith points out, “If the modern era is over, we are all postmodern, even though we reject the tenets of postmodernism” (Veith, Postmodern Times, 42.
10. Gottlieb, Do You Believe in Magic?, 138.

Dr. Jim Denison, in his article “Will the World End in Your Lifetime?” published on the Christian Post web site, concludes with these words:

“The last recorded words of Jesus are, ‘Yes, I am coming soon’ (Revelation 22:20). Early believers lived every day in expectation of the imminent return of our Lord. Secular cultures discount such beliefs as outdated superstition, but each of us is one day closer to eternity than ever before.

“I have no idea if Jesus will return in my lifetime. But I do know that if he doesn’t, I will go to him at the end of mine. Jonathan Edwards, the greatest theologian America has ever produced, resolved: ‘never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.’

“How would such a resolution change our culture? How would it change your life?”

I’m glad to see more evangelicals distancing themselves from the belief that the world is in such disrepair that there is no hope for recovery. The only thing that will save us is our “rapture.” I just wish Dr. Denison had argued his case better.

Why did “early believers [live] every day in expectation of the imminent return of our Lord”? Because the NT writers, following what Jesus told them, made it clear that Jesus’ coming would take place in their lifetime (e.g., Matt. 24:34; James 5:1–8). There is no other way to read the NT on this point.

If the Bible is to be taken at face value, then “I am coming soon” is a definitive statement about the time frame of Jesus’ coming. The Greek word “soon” or “quickly” (ταχύς) is always used to designate what was on the horizon. It is never used by the NT writers to mean a prolonged period of, especially a period of time that is nearing two millennia. In Revelation 22:10, we also find the phrase “for the time is near [ἐγγύς].”

Popular prophecy writer John MacArthur writes the following in the Introduction to his book Because the Time is Near:

As noted on page 332, the book of Revelation deserves immediate proclamation because the end is near. As the angel told John in the final chapter of Revelation, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book for the time is near.” (22:10). And so we study Christ’s future return — a return Jesus Himself says is imminent (22:7, 12, 20).[1]

Does MacArthur’s “near” mean the same as the Bible’s “near”? Remember that John received the Revelation in the first century. MacArthur writes that “the coming of Christ has been imminent for every generation from John’s day until the present.”[2] Where does the Bible say this? It doesn’t!

First, the Bible never uses the word “imminent” (as in “any moment”) to describe Jesus’ coming. It’s always “near” or “at hand.”

 Second, when these time words are used in other contexts, they always mean an event or events on the horizon not “any moment in time” spread out over 2000 years! Don’t believe me? Search through your concordance and check out these words for yourself. That’s why it’s surprising that MacArthur can write about “the plain, normal understanding of the words of Revelation.”[3] I assume that this applies to the time words like “shortly” (Rev. 1:1), “near” (1:3; 22:10), and “quickly” (22:12). What was “the plain, normal understanding” of these words when they were revealed and written down by John and read by Christians in the first century?

Consider James 5:8–9, a passage that MacArthur uses to support his contention that Jesus could come “at any moment,” even though nearly 2000 years have passed.[4] “You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand” (v. 8). “At hand,” or “near,” cannot be made to mean “any moment.” “At hand” is defined for us by the Bible in the next verse: “Behold, the Judge is standing right at the door” (v. 9). “At hand” = “right at the door.” How far from the door is Jesus in Revelation 3:20? Being “right at the door” means being close enough to knock. Who is James telling to be patient? His first-century audience! The command to be patient has little relevance if a long-dead generation still hasn’t seen the reality of this promised coming after the passing of nearly 2000 years. If fathers are told not to “exasperate their children” (Eph. 6:4), why is it OK for God to do it?

Denison quotes Jonathan Edwards without a context. Edwards was a postmillennialist and believed that the “coming” mentioned in Matthew 24 refers to Jesus’ coming judgment against Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and was not a description of a distant end-time event.[1] Edwards writes:

’Tis evident that when Christ speaks of his coming; his being revealed; his coming in his Kingdom; or his Kingdom’s coming; He has respect to his appearing in those great works of his Power Justice and Grace, which should be in the Destruction of Jerusalem [in A.D. 70] and other extraordinary Providences which should attend it.[2]

* * * * *

The degree of their punishment is the uttermost degree. This may respect both a national and personal punishment. If we take it as a national punishment, a little after the time when the epistle was written, wrath came upon the nation of the Jews to the uttermost, in their terrible destruction by the Romans; when, as Christ said, “was great tribulation, such as never was since the beginning of the world to that time,” Mat. 24:21. That nation had before suffered many of the fruits of divine wrath for their sins; but this was beyond all, this was their highest degree of punishment as a nation.[3]

I’m glad to see Dr. Denison taking a positive prophetic stand, I just wished he had argued it a different way.

1. John MacArthur, Because the Time is Near: John MacArthur Explains the Book of Revelation (Chicago: Moody Press, 2007), 14.
2. MacArthur, Because the Time is Near, 332.
3. MacArthur, Because the Time is Near, 332.
4. John MacArthur, The Second Coming: Signs of Christ’s Return and the End of the Age (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999), 51.

I have been asked by a full preterist (FP) to discuss the relationship between the “earth and heaven” that flee in Revelation 20:11 and the “heaven and earth” that “pass away” in Revelation 21:1. Do these two “heavens and earths” have the same identity? Are these two passages referring to the same event?

The question may sound trivial but has great importance. The imagery appears, on the surface, to be the same in both cases, and thus we have the possibility—again, on the surface—of some relationship, even identity. And if this is the case, then the contextual events of each passage must bear a similar if not same relationship. This is where a big issue opens up:

Revelation 20:11 opens the Great White Throne Judgment, and Revelation 21:1 pertains to the “New Heavens and New Earth” that is “New Jerusalem.” Most “partial” preterists I know, including me, believe that Revelation 21 was at least initiated in the first century—AD 70, in fact—and describes an idealized perspective of the church. The old Jerusalem passed away and the New Jerusalem has come. But this now implies a great potential problem: if the “heaven and earth” “passings” of these two passages are the same, and the passing heaven and earth of Revelation 21:1 happened in AD 70, then the Great White Throne Judgment must also have occurred at AD 70.

Yet nearly all partial preterists believe this final judgment is yet in our future. So, either the partial preterists are wrong in this belief, or they are inconsistent in their hermeneutic. So goes the FP argument.

The argument sounds decent, but I think it fails. The “passings” of these two passages are not related in the way this FP argument assumes, and thus the argument built on that assumption is substantially weakened.

Jesus v. Jerusalem
Only $14.95

“Passing” references

First, is there a relationship between these two references to “passings” of “heaven and earth”?

Yes and no.

The passages do have some relationship in semantics and imagery.

The semantic relationship is both direct and indirect: both passages refer directly to “heaven” and “earth”, and both present these as a pair. Both passages also mention some form of “departure” of heaven and earth. Revelation 20:11 speaks of heaven and earth having “fled”; Revelation 21:1 refers to them having “passed away.” In this detail, the two passages thus have an indirect semantic similarity.

Likewise, both partake of the same imagery—that of of biblical creation. “Heaven and earth” obviously derives—as both a theme and a reality—from Genesis 1 (I have written more on this in relation to 2 Peter 3 and Revelation 21 elsewhere). In short, God is the creator, and the heaven and earth are His creation. The creation is subservient to its Creator, and subject to His will. It is also totally separate from Him in nature.

God revisits “creation” imagery quite often throughout Scripture to describe different events—notably, for example, the restoration of His people from captivity (Isa. 51:15–16). Its application throughout Scripture is broader than just that, but pertains mostly to great works of God for His covenant people. In these cases, the “making” of something new, restored, or more glorified than before is likened to the fundamental miracle of God’s original creation ex nihilo. There is the same Agent, same power, same progress. Always redemption and glorification are new creations of God, never the work of men’s hands.

Likewise, when God acts in judgment, He often uses language of decreation to describe it. He undoes His creation: He makes the stars fall, the sun and moon darken, gardens and paradises turn to wastelands and wildernesses, rivers dry up, or floods overwhelm the dry land from which they had formerly been separated. This type of imagery (and even actual event) is widespread in Scripture (Isa. 13:9–10; Jer. 4:23–6; Ezek. 32:7–8; Ezek. 34:4–5; Matt 24:29; just to name a few).

These ideas come into play in differing ways and degrees in both of the Revelation passages in question. To the extent that this is the case, we can say that there is a relationship between them: they both partake of the same “creation” language and imagery used many times in Scripture to denote monumental acts of God.

But the differences must also be noted.

To begin with, the language is simply not the same in regard to the actual passing away. Revelation 20:11 says earth and heaven “fled away” (ESV) from the face of the enthroned One. The verb here is ephugen (from pheugo). It means “run away” in the Monty Python sense: “retreat” or “flee” in the sense of seeking safety from an imminent threat. We get our word “fugitive” from pheugo.

Pheugo is a common word used some 279 times throughout the New Testament and Old Testament LXX, but almost always has the distinct meaning of running away out of fear or self-protection. For example, Genesis 39:12, 13 and 15 (LXX) use the word to describe Joseph fleeing from Potiphar’s wife who had him by the garment. The Exodus is described with this word (Ex. 14:5). So is David fleeing Saul who wants to murder him (1 Sam. 19:18), Ahaziah fleeing Jehu (2 Ki. 9:27), God’s enemies in general (Ps. 68:1; Prov. 28:1), Jonah fleeing God’s presence (Jon. 1:3), Baby Jesus’ family fleeing Herod (Matt. 2:13), persecuted disciples leaving town (Matt. 10:23; 24:16), fearful disciples scattering after Jesus’ crucifixion (Matt. 26:56). The list is long, and the word is consistent in this meaning.

The Last Days according to Jesus
Only $5.00

Revelation 21:1, on the other hand, says “the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.” The verb here is apelthan (an aorist of aperchomai). This word is used 346 times but doesn’t have anywhere near the pedigree of consistency. It generally means “pass” or “pass away,” but has various shades of meaning such as “pass by” (momentarily), “go out” or “leave” (to another place, or on a journey), or to pass away for good never to return, everything in between, and more (in Rev. 10:9, it even refers to John as he “went to the angel” instead of away from or passing by).

In Revelation 21:1, the emphasis is toward the meaning of passing away for good never to return. This is clear from the same usage of the word and the new heavens and new earth imagery in the subsequent verse 4: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away [apelthan].”

This dissimilarity does not in and of itself mean that the two verses are speaking of two different things. But it should at least be noted, if not thoroughly explored. This is important, for I have not seen a FP yet who makes a connection between Revelation 20:11 and 21:1 who has addressed this difference at all. Some I have seen simply sweep it under the rug: either saying without qualification that both instances are “passing away”, or by using that phrase but noting the actual words of Rev. 20:11 in parentheses (“fled”) while assuming identity. Even if it were the case that the difference is of no consequence (and it is not), it is still only right to note the obvious difference, explain it, and only then move on. I have not yet seen this done. (This does not mean no one has done it, it simply means I have not yet seen it. Links welcome in the comments.)

I personally think the semantic difference here is not just a diversity of synonyms. I think different words are used because the references to heaven and earth in these instances are present for different purposes. The different words carrying different emphases express and support these different purposes.

What are these different purposes?

The identity of the Creator and the Judge of creation

In Revelation 20:11, the purpose is merely to emphasize the nature and identity of the one sitting upon the throne in that same vision. Here’s why:

The verse reads, “Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them.” I don’t like the ESV here. For starters, there is no period. This is not supposed to be two sentences, and most other translations don’t make it so. I think Young’s literal is much better here: “And I saw a great white throne, and Him who is sitting upon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven did flee away, and place was not found for them” (Rev 20:11 YLT). This is about as literal, and I think correct, as you can get.

The importance brought out in the proper translation is that of emphasis. The phrase “from whose face the earth and heaven fled away” functions as a modifier of a subject, not as a descriptor of a separate event. The purpose is more to tell us something about the person sitting on the throne, not about this earth and heaven themselves.

So what is it telling us, specifically? What function does the inclusion of this phrase perform here? It informs us that this is no ordinary person sitting upon an ordinary throne. It tells us that this is the Person before whom heaven and earth are totally subservient and in fearful awe—the Creator God.

Two things here: First, the distinction is not unneeded considering the book of Revelation itself. The word for “throne” alone is used 47 times in the book. References are made to Jesus’ throne (1:4, et al), Satan’s throne (2:13), thrones for faithful believers (3:21; 20:4), twenty-four thrones for heavenly elders (4:4), the dragon’s throne which was given to the beast (13:2; 16:10), a throne within the temple (16:17). In short, there are many thrones mentioned. When we get to Revelation 20:11, it simply would have been confusing to mention “one sitting on the throne” with no designations.

This is even more important given the fact that the nearest proximate mentioning of throne is just a few verses prior and refers to different occupants: “Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed” (Rev. 20:4). These were the faithful martyred saints who reign with Christ in heaven during the millennium. Since the very next mention to a throne is to describe a different Ruler—the Head of those ruling, enthroned saints—an appropriate signifier is required.

Second, the particular distinction given in 20:11 provides that appropriate signifier quite well. This great white throne is inhabited by the One from before whose face all of fallen creation has no standing, and thus flees away. This is an expression of the total sovereignty, majesty, power and might of the enthroned one, the total vanity of all of creation in and of itself in comparison to Him.

But more importantly, it also announces the vital relationship between the two. This is not just any great and powerful enthroned One, but the One and Only One before whom creation is totally in awe: this is the Creator Himself. No higher credential can be given in heaven or on earth, and no part of heaven or earth can stand before Him with any claim to sufficiency or sovereignty—thus they have no place before Him.

In other words, this phrase in this passage is simply announcing and identifying the enthroned One as the God of Genesis 1:1.

The Handwriting on the Wall: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel
Only $39.95

Note in this regard especially some of the pedigree of this imagery throughout Scripture. The exact same ideas are expressed in Psalm 104 which celebrates God’s splendor and majesty as Creator and simultaneously as the One at whose word the earthly elements flee:

Bless the LORD, O my soul! O LORD my God, you are very great! You are clothed with splendor and majesty, 2 covering yourself with light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a tent. 3 He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters; he makes the clouds his chariot; he rides on the wings of the wind; 4 he makes his messengers winds, his ministers a flaming fire. 5 He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved. 6 You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. 7 At your rebuke they fled; at the sound of your thunder they took to flight. 8 The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them. 9 You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth (Ps. 104:1–9).

“Fled” in verse 7 is pheuxontai (from pheugo) in the Greek LXX, same root word as in Rev. 20:11.

The same language is used in Psalm 114 to express the crossing of the Red Sea and the Jordan River during the deliverance of Israel:

When Israel went out from Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language, 2 Judah became his sanctuary, Israel his dominion. 3 The sea looked and fled; Jordan turned back. 4 The mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs. 5 What ails you, O sea, that you flee? O Jordan, that you turn back? 6 O mountains, that you skip like rams? O hills, like lambs? 7 Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob, 8 who turns the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a spring of water (Ps. 114).

In both of these cases the ruling—indeed, absolute mastery—of creation is used to express the majesty and power of the God who brought these things to pass. In neither case is the “ruler of creation” language or imagery there for the purpose of signifying the nature of the event itself. This latter purpose could be argued to have some role in the case of Psalm 114, but that purpose would still not be primary.

This, then, is how we should understand the reference to a fleeing earth and heaven in Revelation 20:11: it serves the primary and perhaps even exclusive purpose of identifying the enthroned One as the awesome Creator God Himself. This is the same God who rules all of creation, before whom creation itself is powerless, in whose holy and powerful presence no part of creation, no man, can stand without His grace.

But this is most certainly not the case with the other reference, Revelation 21:1.

Transition from Old to New

In Revelation 21:1–5, the passing away of the former heaven and earth is a clear reference to the nature of a particular event, and less so to the identity of the Agent who brings it to pass. He is there and clearly identified again as the enthroned Creator God (21:5), but it is not the purpose of the “passing away” language to make that identity. The passage reads,

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true” (Rev. 21:1–5).

This passage is describing among other things the results of an historical event: namely, the passing away of the Old Covenant “heavens and earth” and the arrival of the New Covenant “new heavens and new earth.” The New Heavens and New Earth complex is also called New Jerusalem, which is the bride-city-dwelling place of God, or “the church” as we commonly say.

The passing away here refers to the passing away of the Old Covenant order. It is passed away for good never to return, and has been replaced by the New Covenant order. This replacement “event” began with the Incarnation of Christ, and culminated with his Ascension and Session at the right hand of God. The final expression of the demise of that old order was the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple in AD 70.

This connection is made clearer by considering Christ’s prediction of the temple’s destruction as well as Peter’s repetition of that prophecy. First, Jesus warned of the destruction in Matt 24:1–2:

Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”

He described the times and tribulations leading up to that event, and then added, “Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Matt. 24:34–5).

Last Days Madness: Obsession of the Modern Church
Only $19.95

Here we have a clear parallel. Jesus predicted the destruction of Jerusalem within the generation of His audience, and we know it occurred in AD 70. His phrase “heaven and earth will pass away” is in this instance only an allusion, but is an indicator of at least some interest in comparison to Revelation 21:1–4. Interestingly, He uses a very close Greek word—not pheugo as in Rev. 20:11, but a version of parerchomai, which is near cousin to the aperchomai of Rev. 21:1 (Cf. Mk. 13:31; Luke 21:32–3).

The is strengthened by 2 Peter 3:10, which I’ve covered elsewhere: “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away [from parerchomai] with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed” (2 Pet. 3:10). As I noted, “the event Peter is describing is not a destruction of the physical planet, but a transition from one type of world order to a new one.”

This same transition is what is mentioned in Revelation 21:1, except whereas Jesus and Peter speak of it as a purely near future event, John is speaking from a future perspective in which he can describe the transition as a past event.

Then Revelation 21 and part of 22 give us an idealized glimpse—a picture of the heavenly pattern, so to speak—of the New Covenant order and the perfections it holds for believers.

I have dealt with the issue of “new heaven and new earth” more here, although certainly not exhaustively. Part of what I wrote there bears repeating here for the purposes of this article:

[V]erse 1 [of Revelation 20] should better read, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the former heaven and the former earth had passed away.” This is perfectly allowable within the range of normal meanings for protos and fits better with what else we’ve learned so far. This interpretation also fits better with the common translation of protos in the following verse 4: “former [prota] things have passed away.” . . .

Second, we are introduced to another new creation theme, and that is the new Jerusalem. This is yet another reference to the church, for Paul tells us in Galatians 4:26, “But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.” This is in contrast to the earthly Jerusalem, which was in bondage to the Old Covenant, and which was soon to be destroyed, or “cast out” in Paul’s allegory (Gal. 4:21–31).

Indeed it is just this “Jerusalem above” which we meet again in Revelation 21, for this “new Jerusalem” was above, but descended “down out of heaven from God.”

This image is nowhere made more forcefully brilliant than in the book of Hebrews, where the author culminates his pro-Christian argument against the Old Covenant systems by telling the saints,

you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel (Heb. 12:22–24).

So it’s clear that this new Jerusalem is indeed the New Covenant church. We also have here reiterated the righteousness that dwells in this new creation which houses “the righteous made perfect.” . . .

Third, the connection between the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21 and the New Testament body of Christ/new Temple is seen in the language of the relevant passages:

the household of God, built on the foundation [themelio] of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone (Eph. 2:19–20).

And the wall of the city had twelve foundations [themelious], and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb (Rev. 21:14).

Unless this foundation that is the apostles has more than one superstructure erected upon it, we must assume some vital organic connection between the New Testament “temple in the Lord . . . dwelling place of God” of Ephesians 2 and the “new Jerusalem . . . dwelling place of God” of Revelation 21.

In short, the passing of the former heaven and earth in Revelation 21:1 refers to the covenantal judgment predicted by Jesus in Matthew 24, and expected by that generation of Christians (2 Pet. 3:10; Heb. 8:13).

Conclusion

Do, therefore, the “passings” of heaven and earth mentioned in Revelation 20:11 and 21:1 refer to the same event? No.

As we have seen, they have different semantic backgrounds and perform different functions in the different contexts in which they appear. While they do obviously partake of the same creation imagery, they do so for considerably different purposes.

The Book of Revelation Made Easy
Only $14.95

This does not necessarily preclude that the events described in the two passages occurred at the same time, however. But if they did there would have to be justification other than the surface similarity of the passing references to heaven and earth. Personally, I don’t see any further reasons that mandate the great white throne judgment occurred in AD 70 (as did the transition between Old and New Covenants).

Instead, I maintain there will be a final judgment day on which all the dead shall be resurrected and stand before the throne of our Creator, before Whose awesome judgment all fallen creation must flee and seek refuge, but outside of Whose grace no place will be found.

This is the same final judgment described by Jesus in John 5:

Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment (John 5:25–29).

And again in John 6:

And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. . . . Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:39–40, 43–44, 54).

These general judgments and resurrections take place at the last day (paralleled in Rev. 20:11–15), not at the transition event from Old Covenant to New (described in Rev. 21:1ff). Thus the two events are separated by a great gulf in time.

In summary, then, the two “passings” of heaven and earth described in Revelation 20:11 and 21:1 are different in nature, purpose, identity, and time.

“I think that you could define [Jesus] as a Utopian communist, where people would work together to solve our problems,” Modine told The Christian Post. I’m all for working together to solve our problems. But that’s not Communism. Communism is forcing people to work for the goals of the State, and the State is a bunch of elites who claim they know what’s best for all of us. In the end, it’s these leaders who get the utopian spoils while the masses suffer.

Modine offers this simplistic reading of the Gospel accounts:

“According to the Bible, Jesus and his followers chose to own nothing, and shared their belongings. There were no needy people among them. Those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales, put it at the Apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need. By this definition, Jesus and his followers were communists.”

The key word is “chose.” Being able to choose is not communism. In fact, Jesus’ disciples did not take a vow of poverty. Peter still owned a home in Capernaum (Matt. 8:14–17; Mark 1:29–31; Luke 4:38), and when he thought Jesus’ death ended it all for him, he returned to his family’s fishing business (John 21:1–14). Paul made his living as a tentmaker (Acts 18:1–3). Unlike Communists who covet what others have, Paul word with his own hands and used some of what he earned to help others (20:33–35). This can’t be done in a Communist system (Phil. 4:14–16). The list of attempts at failed Communist systems is a long one.[1]

Modine jumps outside the gospels and tries to make his case by an appeal to the actions of the early followers of Jesus in the book of Acts (2:44–45 and 4:32–37). R.J. Rushdoony puts the events in their proper historical context:

“The ‘communism’ of the early church, in Acts, was not economic in any sense, and should not be considered as an economic experiment. The church took seriously our Lord’s prophecy concerning the coming fall of Jerusalem (Matthew 24). They knew that they were living in a doomed city and country. The logical step of faith was to make liquid their assets for ready flight. Some who made liquid their assets dedicated their funds in part or whole to the church, for the evangelization of Judea before its destruction [Luke 21:20–24].

The relief money collected by Paul was not collected because an economic experiment had failed at Jerusalem and Judea. Men there continued in their vocations, simply living in rented properties, since their assets had been made liquid. The problem was a severe drought which had struck the entire area [Acts 11:28], creating a serious economic crisis and extreme shortages of food [Rom. 15:25–26; 1 Cor. 16:1–3]. This is a matter of historical record. Outside help was needed by virtually all in Judea, and the Christians were no exceptions. Thus, ‘communism’ had nothing to do with it, and did not exist in the early church. Because the Christians were prepared for ready flight by our Lord’s words, and by reason of having divested themselves of properties, none lost their lives in the fateful war with Rome, A.D. 66–70.”[2]

There would not have been the ability to help their fellow Christians who were suffering from the effects of famine (Acts 11:28) if Communism was operating since there wouldn’t have been any money to give. There wouldn’t have been any property to make available to those in need.

There was no government intervention, no command to sell everything, no directive for the people to give up all their possessions. In fact, Peter makes it clear that at every point in the sale of the property it was theirs to do with as they decided. This is made clear in the Ananias and Sapphira story: “While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control? . . .  (Acts 5:4). John R. Richardson writes:

No one was forced into giving up his goods and possessions. It was not socialism legislated either by church or state. It does not resemble modern communism in any respect. . . . Ananais was freed to keep or sell his property. When he sold it, he had the right to determine whether he would give all of it, or part of it, or none of it, into the treasury of the church for the alleviation of the needs of poor Christians. J. W. Lipscomb is certainly correct when he says, “The program was a voluntary expression of Christian concern for the needs of fellow Christians, and was not a program for compulsory collectivism such as we hear advocated all too often today.”[3]

God did not command these early Christians to sell all their possessions in the name of communal living and wealth redistribution. There is no directive in the rest of the book of Acts or the epistles

No one is stopping Modine from selling all his possessions and living the communal life. Will it happen? Don’t bet on it. He’s like the early John Lennon who imagined “no possessions” and left an estate of around $200 million.

Modine says that his short film isn’t really about Communism but cooperation. The only way people can cooperate is if they’re free. People don’t cooperate in communist countries. The free market is the biggest cooperative in the world. Billions of equal trades — I’ll give you this for that — are made every day. There’s no coercion. If you don’t want something, you don’t have to buy it. If you don’t like one price, you can shop around for a better price.

It’s only when governments get involved that cooperation is lost. People are forced to comply with rules and regulations that separate real consumers from actual sellers. Consider mortgages. The government got involved in the name of “fairness” (communism) and insured loans that a cooperative free market would not have made. The result? The most financially vulnerable consumers were hurt.

1. See Gary North, Puritan Economic Experiments.
2. From a personal letter written by R. J. Rushdoony sent to John R. Richardson and cited in Christian Economics: The Christian Message to the Market Place (Houston: St. Thomas Press, 1966), 60.
3. Richardson, Christian Economics, 61.

Joel Osteen, pastor of a 40,000 member congregation and 10 million TV viewers just gave sanction for American Christians to lay aside their faith as they consider politics.

“Lay aside” may be too moderate: perhaps I would even consider “trample.”

In a CNN interview, Wolf Blitzer asked Osteen a “what if”: what if a member of his congregation wanted to vote form Mitt Romney but had concerns that because he’s a Mormon, they’re not sure he’s a Christian.

Osteen replied, “When I hear Mitt Romney say that he believes that Jesus is the Son of God—that he’s the Christ, raised from the dead, that he’s his Savior—that’s good enough for me.”

CNN sums,

While Osteen described the Mormon faith as “not traditional Christianity,” he said he believes Mormons fall under the Christian tent.

“Mormonism is a little different, but I still see them as brothers in Christ,” the pastor argued.

We might have expected something like this to be said by Osteen. He has a history of softening, even compromising, Christian positions for a general public ear—in some cases only to be pressured into retracting later. But this instance is particularly troubling.

Mormonism is no more a Christian than is occultism, Jehovah’s Witness, Unification Church (Moonies), Scientology, Christian Science, or even Islam. For example:

• Mormons teach that God has a physical body and that Jesus was physically conceived.
• Mormons teach that Christ was not a god, but only became a god at later point.
• Mormons teach that we can all become such gods, as Jesus did.
• Mormons teach that the Trinity is actually three such separate gods.
• Mormons believe the highest potential of man is to become such a god and subsequently to populate and rule their own planet (or even universe).
• Mormons teach that a man needs a wife in order to achieve this status.
• Mormons place the Book of Mormon and others above the Bible as the ultimate authority.
• Mormons believe the Bible must be properly “translated”—as per Mormons, of course—before it can be appealed to as an authority.
• Mormons believe Jesus and Lucifer are “spirit” brothers.
• Mormons believe in salvation by works in addition to God’s grace.
• Mormons believe in a literal re-gathering of the lost ten tribes of Israel, yet in the future.
• Mormons believe that Zion (New Jerusalem) will be built on the American continent.
• Mormonism teaches that their “temple garment” underwear, “When properly worn,” protects them “from temptation and evil.” The rules for this underwear are unbelievably ridiculous (see footnote).[1]

Biblical Logic: In Theory & Practice
Only $19.95

There is a vast gulf between the Christian Church and Mormonism. The cult at least at one time acknowledged this: it disavowed all Christian churches and saw them as part of the adversary’s kingdom. The Mormon founder Joseph Smith wrote that the beings which appeared to him told him so:

My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong)—and which I should join.

I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were allwrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines thecommandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.”

He again forbade me to join with any of them; and many other things did he say unto me, which I cannot write at this time. When I came to myself again, I found myself lying on my back, looking up into heaven. When the light had departed, I had no strength; but soon recovering in some degree, I went home. And as I leaned up to the fireplace, mother inquired what the matter was. I replied, “Never mind, all is well—I am well enough off.” I then said to my mother, “I have learned for myself that Presbyterianism is not true.” It seems as though the adversary was aware, at a very early period of my life, that I was destined to prove a disturber and an annoyer of his kingdom; else why should the powers of darkness combine against me? Why the opposition and persecution that arose against me, almost in my infancy?[2]

There is, of course, much more. But hush: the official Mormon articles of faith do not mention the most objectionable of these beliefs and history.

Do you think these beliefs in godhood and superstition don’t affect 1) personal psychology, 2) political philosophy, or 3) views of public policy?

If you don’t, I’ve got a bridge in Independence, Missouri, to sell you.

But many Christians are largely unaware of these beliefs and history. Many are becoming more open to Mormonism as just another “Christian” group. This couldn’t make Mormons happier: they have been downplaying their distinctive beliefs and agenda for a long time, and spending what has to be millions on propaganda campaigns aimed at making Christians believe that Mormons are Christians.

Osteen’s smiling, welcoming, compromising comments do not help this situation one bit. Indeed, he is aiding and abetting an enemy of the Christian Church.

Rationalizing Political Compromise

Osteen’s answer more importantly gives us a window into the rationality of Christians who may be tempted to make compromises of their faith in the name of apparent political advances or victories.

For some Christians, this compromise will be simple uncritical voting. For others, it may be a nominal faith they’ve never thought through and exercised in the public square to begin with.

But for others yet, it will be a conscious rationalization for doing what they know is wrong. Upholding belief in a something like a “Christian nation” on the one hand, and calling for a non-Christian Mormon to lead it on the other. Touting beliefs such as “Our faith should inform our politics” on the one hand, while voting as if faith doesn’t matter on the other.

By This Standard: The Authority of God's Law
Only $9.50

To rationalize this, they will regard their compromise as a fight again evil: theirs is always the lesser of two evils. And only these two evils are ever considered in the equation.

And this may even be done against their conscience, which of course is a sin.

Let’s be clear: no political evil justifies a sin of any kind, let alone a sin of political convenience.

When pressed on the issue, these people may rationalize their already poor decision by saying something like, “Well, he’s a man of good values and character and good ability, and that’s all that really matters in the presidency.”

Christians are particularly susceptible to both the “lesser of two evils” and the “character is the main thing” arguments when it comes to politics and public offices.

In other words, too many Christians are willing to set aside the tenets of the Christian Faith and say “Yes” to a decidedly non-Christian civil ruler purely out of fear that the other guy is worse, or believing that the denial of Christ and belief in human divinity somehow fit the description “good values and character.”

Think again.

Further, consider the logical outworking of this compromise. Any Christian who trusts a non-Christian Mormon with civil rule has no argument against having other non-Christians in such offices either—for example, a Muslim or an atheist (as long as they have “good” character and ability).

Think I’m wrong? It has already been argued by Evangelicals.

Consider the responses from both Osteen and the recently late Chuck Colson.

Blitzer followed with Osteen: “Let’s say someone is a Muslim, someone is a Hindu, someone’s Jewish: do you have a problem with someone who is not a Christian being president of the United States?”

Osteen responded, “I wouldn’t have a problem with it because I love all people.” After all, “The Hindus are some of the nicest people you would ever meet.”

He added, “When we’re electing the president, we’re looking at their values, their leadership ability, and their faith is a big part as well”

“Faith is a big part”—but apparently not a big enough part for Osteen to have any problem with those who deny it.

Colson likewise said he would have no hesitation about appointing a Muslim or even an atheist as a federal judge. In one of his recent videos, he said, “We don’t look at a person’s faith. We look at their abilities, judgment, character, and the convictions they hold in terms of public policy.”

Apparently for these Christian leaders, one’s faith has nothing to say about the convictions they hold in terms of public policy.

Principles of Christian Politics
Only $14.95

Nonsense. These are not expressions of Christian faith in the public square. They are by default the suppression of Christian faith in the public square.

Too many Christians stand idly by, smiling widely, while rationalists, humanists, and cults take over in the name of good moral character.

Smiling while being robbed

In 1996, legal scholar and former federal judge Robert Bork published Slouching towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline. He decried the social effects of the liberal abandonment of rationality since the 1960s, including the degradation of moral integrity leading to the shrugging social acceptance of what would once have supplied a source of outrage.

But that was (and is) a liberal problem. Conservatives don’t suffer such declines.

Except that they do. Conservative standards for men holding public office have declined along with the general social mores, because we are constantly settling for someone who is just a little better than the bad guy on the other side. In other words, as the other side gets worse, “our guy” consistently gets worse as well, staying only good enough to be better than the opponent.

And Christians too often look only at the relative difference in the immediate comparison, not the whole difference in the big picture, and based on the short-sighted view think they’re being faithful to God and Christian morality. We thus no longer demand our politicians and leaders uphold dearest Christianity. We sell out the Christian foundations of social order for the pottage of immediate “success”: which false success requires for its advancement only facades of good character, ability, and popularity.

And with this program comes increasing demands for more conservative voters to be silent and to rest themselves content with the gradually declining establishment labeling them as “radical” and “fringe”.

Manifested in the Flesh: How the Original Jesus Refutes Modern Mystics and Atheists
Only $9.95

This has always been the effect of secular conservatism in the employ of Empire. Thus could the early Church writer Origen blast the Religious Right of his day—the Second and Third Centuries—for vaunting “the good” and moral integrity while engaging in the grossest of superstitions which ultimately undermined the very good at which they aimed:

Notwithstanding, those who have written in this manner regarding the “chief good” will go down to the Piraeus and offer prayer to Artemis, as if she were God, and will look (with approval) upon the solemn assembly held by ignorant men; and after giving utterance to philosophical remarks of such profundity regarding the soul . . . adopt mean and trifling thoughts, and offer a cock to Aesculapius!

The result of such confusion is ultimately one more form of humanism—the highest of idolatries:

And although they had been enabled to form representations both of the “invisible things” of God and . . . had no mean glimpses of His “eternal power and Godhead,” they nevertheless became “foolish in their imaginations,” and their “foolish heart” was involved in darkness and ignorance as to the (true) worship of God. Moreover, we may see those who greatly pride themselves upon their wisdom and theology worshipping the image of a corruptible man, in honor, they say, of Him, and sometimes even descending, with the Egyptians, to the worship of birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things![3]

And this is ultimately what Mormonism is as well: a humanism which says man can become a god, and which worships a god which they define in the form of a man.

To embrace this in the highest political office in a land in the name of good character is an abomination. It is to break the second and first commandments. And I am certain it invites God’s judgment every bit as much as the irrational leftist hippies and elitists from the 60s.

And to smile while warmly welcoming this abomination is worse than slouching towards Gomorrah: it is smiling along the same path. It is welcoming degeneracy in the name of god character and values.

1. Endowed members should wear the temple garment both day and night. They should not remove it, either entirely or partially, to work in the yard or for other activities that can reasonably be done with the garment worn properly beneath the clothing. Nor should they remove it to lounge around the home in swimwear or immodest clothing. When they must remove the garment, such as for swimming, they should put it back on as soon as possible. Members should not adjust the garment or wear it contrary to instructions in order to accommodate different styles of clothing. Nor should they alter the garment from its authorized design. When two-piece garments are used, both pieces should always be worn. The garment is sacred and should be treated with respect at all times. . . . Members who have made covenants in the temple should be guided by the Holy Spirit to answer for themselves personal questions about wearing the garment.
2. Joseph Smith, History of the Church, 1:1:18–20.
3. Origen, Against Celsus, 6.4, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, 1135-6, italics in original. Plutarch made a very similar critique of the Stoic philosophers to whom Paul argued that God does not dwell in temples made with hands. Plutarch comments, “The Stoics, while applauding this as correct, attend the mysteries in temples, go up to the Acropolis, do reverence to statues, a place wreaths upon the shrines, though these are the works of builders and mechanics.”  Quoted in Richard J. Gibson, “Paul and the Evangelization of the Stoics” in The Gospel to the Nations: Perspectives on Paul’s Mission. eds. Mark Thompson and Peter Bolt (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 320.

A few weeks ago I was asked to participate in a panel discussion on Bible prophecy. I had been on this program before. To my surprise, the audience reaction to the first show was very favorable. As a result, I was invited back. One of the participants is a behind-the-scenes producer who has been involved in a number of end-time film projects. He knew who I was, but it was obvious with our conversations between takes that he didn’t have a handle on what I actually believed. I asked him if he was interested in producing a documentary on competing views of Bible prophecy. He was polite in telling me that when he read the Bible, he read prophecy in a literal way. Here was my response: “I bet you that I interpret the Bible more literally than you do.” Silence. I then asked him the following questions:

1. Can you give me one verse that explicitly teaches a pretribulational rapture?
2. Can you point out one verse from the New Testament that teaches that the temple will be rebuilt?
3. Where in Revelation is the seven-year tribulation found?

He could not identify a single verse in support of any of these end-time beliefs that are very popular with Christians today.

A number of popular end-time prophecy writers are beginning to acknowledge that there are problems with their system. For example, Thomas Ice has admitted, in agreement with me, that the weapons in Ezekiel 38 and 39 have to be interpreted literally – bows and arrows are bows and arrows and not missile launchers and missile and horses are horse and not horse power.

“I have come to agree with DeMar who says: ‘A lot has to be read into the Bible in order to make Ezekiel 38 and 39 fit modern-day military realities that include jet planes, ‘missiles,’ and ‘atomic and explosive’ weaponry.’”[1]

This is a huge concession and goes against so much of what is written by many popular prophecy writers with whom Ice is associated with.

But there is more. Walid Shoebat is a popular end-time theorist who writes regularly for WND (WorldNet Daily) and hosts “End Times Today.” Shoebat wrote the following in an article titled “America in Bible Prophecy: Walid Shoebat explains why Antichrist won’t conquer the United States”:

For many years, it has been taught that in the Last Days literally every nation of the earth, including the United States, will be utterly dominated by the Antichrist; that there will be no place to escape from the dreaded Mark of the Beast; that every last nation of the world will come against Jerusalem. Zechariah 12 is usually used to validate the theory, as well as the Apostle John, since the Antichrist will be given “authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation” (Revelation 13:7). This would seem an ironclad case for the Antichrist ruling the globe, including the United States, which he uses in his march against Jerusalem. It is this dilemma that caused many to believe that America will be taken over by the Antichrist.

But before we solve this issue, it is necessary to clarify the dilemma. For this, we can ask a Jesus-style question: Does the usage of “the whole earth” and “every tribe, tongue and nation” in the Bible mean “the entire globe”? If so, then did Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4:1 send his letter to every nation, tribe and tongue in the “entire globe”?

Shoebat makes a number of good points. In fact, he gets so much right in his article that I have to wonder why he remains an end-time enthusiast. There are dozens of verses that seem to address global issues when they are really describing local events. Here are comments that I’ve included in my commentary on Zechariah 14 to be published sometime in the near future.

In addition to what we know from secular history, the Bible itself uses the phrases “all nations,” “all the nations,” and “every nation” to mean nations in proximity to Israel not necessarily nations from around the globe (2 Sam. 8:11; 1 Chron. 14:17; Jer. 28:11; Neh. 6:16; Ps. 118:10; Zech. 7:14; Acts 2:5; Rom. 16:24–26). In comments on Zechariah 14:2 from the Critical Commentary and Paraphrase on the Old and New Testament, we learn that “The Romans being lords of the known world, had the strength of all nations united in their forces.”[2]

Consider this description of the extent of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign: “Nebuchadnezzar the king to all the peoples, nations, and men of every language that live in all the earth: ‘May your peace abound!’” (Dan. 4:1; cf. 5:19). In a similar way, Persia, Greece, and Rome had become empires of nations made up of soldiers and armies from the kingdoms it had conquered. When any one of these empires attacked a nation, it was as if the entire world was against that nation.

The New Testament uses the Greek word oikoumene, most often translated as “the inhabited earth” or “Roman Empire” (Luke 2:1; Matt. 24:14; Acts 11:28), to describe this multi-national makeup of military forces. The Roman Empire “extended roughly two thousand miles from Scotland south to the headwaters of the Nile and about three thousand miles from the Pillars of Hercules eastward to the sands of Persia. Its citizens and subject peoples numbered perhaps eighty million.”[3] This certainly qualifies as “all the nations,” certainly more so than David’s use of the phrase (Psalm 118:10). Rome was raised up like Assyria to be the “rod of [God’s] anger” (Isa. 10:5). “So completely shall the city be taken that the enemy shall sit down in the midst of her to divide the spoil. All nations ([14:]2), generally speaking were represented in the invading army, for Rome was the mistress of many lands.”[4] Similar language is used of the nations that would serve Nebuchadnezzar: “And all the nations shall serve him, and his son, and his grandson, until the time of his own land comes; then many nations and great kings will make him their servant” (Jer. 27:7). Cyrus proclaimed that God had given him “all the kingdoms of the earth” (Ezra 1:2; cf. 2 Chron. 36:23; Jer. 34:1).

Edward J. Young writes that the “Assyrian and Babylonian kings regarded themselves as kings of all the earth, and in their inscriptions were accustomed thus to speak of themselves. This practice was also in vogue among Persian rulers.”[5] Consider that when a communiqué was sent out by the king that it had to be translated into “the scores of languages spoken throughout the empire.”[6] A variety of languages meant a variety of nations. “Herodotus says sixty nations were under Persian rule.”[7] The armies that came up against the Jews, and this would have included Jerusalem, came from “all the nations” under Persian rule at that time. Notice in the following examples how “all nations” is used describe nothing more than a kingdom-wide dominion:

•  Speaking of Nebuchadnezzar, “And all the nations shall serve him, and his son, and his grandson, until the time of his own land comes; then many nations and great kings will make him their servant” (Jer. 27:7).
• “And Hananiah spoke in the presence of all the people, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD, “Even so will I break within two full years, the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from the neck of all the nations”’”(Jer. 28:11).
• “I scattered them with a storm wind among all the nations whom they have not known. Thus the land is desolated behind them, so that no one went back and forth, for they made the pleasant land desolate” (Zech. 7:14).
• “Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men, from every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5).

As these examples show, “all nations” does not always refer to every single nation of what we know of the world today.[8]

The same is true about Zechariah 12:9 where most if not all modern-day prophecy speculators argue that this prophecy is yet to be fulfilled: “And in that day I will set about to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.” This is not a prophecy about a distant time and distant nations around the globe as we know it today. I agree with Shoebat when he writes that “Zechariah 12 in context only encompasses the surrounding nations: ‘I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves’ (Zechariah 12:2–3).”

Shoebat gets so much right that it’s a shame that he gets so much wrong. While he gets the “all nations” and “all the earth” language right, he fails to recognize the timing element. John tells his readers, or better, is told by Jesus, that “these things which must soon take place” (Rev. 1:1) for “the time is near” (1:3; cp. 3:11; 22:7, 10, 12). We’re told by John that antichrists are “deceivers” who “do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh” (2 John 7). It’s interesting that John does not use the word ‘antichrist’ in Revelation. There’s not just one antichrist; there are many antichrists that were alive in John’s day:

“Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us. . . . Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:18–19, 22).

“Even now,” not sometime in the future, John writes, “many antichrists have appeared,” not one day will appear. These antichrists were not political figures. They were most likely Jews who had first embraced Jesus as the Messiah and then apostatized. “They went out from us,” he tells his first-century readers. This is why John could write, “and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the [spirit] of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world” (1 John 4:3). There’s that important Greek word nun – ‘now’ – again. Not our now but John’s now.

Walid Shoebat’s article is worth reading. It shows that more prophecy writers are letting the Bible speak for itself. Hopefully he will devote similar attention to other prophetic passages that will move him away from end-time prophetic speculation.

1. Thomas Ice, “Ezekiel 38 and 39: Part 8.”
2. Patrick, Lowth, Arnald, Whitby, and Lowman, “Commentary on Zechariah” in A Critical Commentary and Paraphrase on the Old and New Testament and Apocrypha, 6 vols.(London: Richard Priestly [1694] 1822), 4:230.
3. Otto Friedrich, The End of the World: A History (New York: Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, 1982), 28.
4. G. N. M. Collins, “Zechariah,” The New Bible Commentary, F. Davidson, ed., 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1954), 761.
5. E. J. Young, The Prophecy of Daniel: A Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1949), 97.
6. John C. Whitcomb, Esther: Triumph of God’s Sovereignty (Chicago: Moody Press, 1979), 43.
7. F. B. Huey, Jr., “Esther,” The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, 12 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1988, 4:792.
8. [1]I’ve dealt with the issue of limited geography in biblical interpretation in my book 10 Popular Prophecy Myths Exposed and Answered.

Is American Vision contradicting itself?

If you read my article last Thursday, “Theonomy’s ‘Radical Libertarianism,’” but then read Dr. Talbot’s article from this

Wednesday night, “Libertarianism vs. Theocracy: Is Libertarianism a Christian Political Philosophy?,” you may be asking yourself (or us) questions like that.

Let me assure you there is no—or at most an insignificant—contradiction. This does not mean I don’t have any problems at all with Dr. Talbot’s article, which I will discuss in a moment.

What you’ve witnessed in the two articles is one of the tensions inherent in the work of advancing Christian civilization in the midst of a sinful society. There must be an ideal goal at which to aim. That is theonomy. Dr. Talbot elucidates this. But you must also address the question of how to get there from here, and the question of relationships to less pure theologies and ideologies along the way. This is the tougher assignment.

In short, Dr. Talbot was speaking in terms of theological foundations (with which I agree and also stated in my article), while I was emphasizing the working relationship between our theologically pure view and its parallels elsewhere in terms of political power and law. So in these respects, there is no contradiction, only differing emphases.

In fact, for the record, I am friends with Dr. Talbot. I know him, and I know he can be tenacious debater. And I know if there had been any specific point at which he intended to criticize my article, he would have quoted it and done so. But he didn’t, so I don’t think there are any problems there.

Before I make my critical remarks, let me say that I agree with about 90 percent or so of Dr. Talbot’s piece. Yes, we absolutely must make a distinction between humanistic and biblical foundations of liberty. As readers know, I did this in my article.

At their theological roots, secular and biblical libertarianism are antithetical: the former being based on human autonomy, and the latter on the rule of our Creator and Lawgiver Christ.

This being the case, there is no genuine liberty apart from Christ and His Law. Rushdoony wrote about this in a few places, occasionally criticizing the secular libertarians in the process.

So have I, and Bojidar:

Joel McDurmon:

Murray Rothbard on the Kingdom: A Response

Bojidar Marinov:

Can I be a Libertarian Without Christ?

Classical Liberalism Has No Place to Stand

The Only Possible Defense of Private Property

No Other Single Principle but God and His Image in Man

It might have been helpful of Talbot at least to recognize these before posting what several people have seen as a clear critical response to the views of my last article.

Even so, there is still no excuse for suppressing, ignoring, denying, or even not noticing Rushdoony’s working relationship with many of those very “humanistic” libertarians, as I documented in my article (even though he criticized some of them in other places). This must be explained.

Thus, my criticisms are: First, Dr. Talbot’s article detracts from the more important focus for the immediate time.

Second, it obfuscates the issue in the name of clarifying it.

Third, it poisons the well with unnecessary associations.

Fourth, it does not do justice to Rushdoony’s point about theocracy and “radical libertarianism.”

Fifth, in its criticism of Dr. Paul specifically (something I did not bring up), it is selective and thus unfair.

It is this final point which I find most egregious, and if you do not wish to read the entire article for its length (though I advise you should), you would probably be best enlightened by skipping to the information found in the section “Be Fair to Paul.”

Detraction from focus on substantial and acceptable progress

First, Dr. Talbot’s article detracts from what I consider to be the more important emphasis to be had at this time. Yes, the theological foundations are vital, necessary. They must be stated up front (and they have: thus, the articles linked above). But we must not—and Rushdoony did not—hold them as a litmus test for determining with whom and how we work in the course of history.

There are some people who had presented Rushdoony as holding such a standard of purity, and by that implying very strongly that by the word “libertarianism” he meant something entirely different than is understood in the common vernacular. He did not, and I thought it necessary to clear him of that charge and to clear those of us who had been implicated in “equivocation” of that as well. He worked with and sometimes promoted the works of libertarians, some of whom were even agnostics, and even called Nock’s book Our Enemy: the State one of the most important works of the last century.

Rushdoony’s view also reiterates the more important focus here: statism. Yes, humanistic libertarianism can be a problem and can lead to a Statism of its own down the line. But in our historical context, rolling back state power is our main political objective, and if a devout Christian who happens to lack in his Christian political philosophy in a couple of areas can seriously help us achieve this objective, it is enough. And if we have to be labeled “libertarian” in the process, big deal.

And I think it just as necessary that Christians at this juncture have the same emphasis as Rush often did: engaging practical measures that will strip the power of the state, decentralize political power, end unnecessary war, return to honest money, etc. These are vital practical areas in which we can agree with “libertarians” despite foundational differences. And we should work together in these areas now rather than hold out for . . . what? socially speaking.

Purists who hold out like this remind me of the guy whose neighborhood was flooded: he climbed to his roof and prayed for miracle. His neighbor came by in a crude jon boat, but the man refused the ride saying, “I am confident God will send me my miracle.” The next day the water rose and a boat came by again, only to be refused. On a final day the water was to the man’s still-praying chin and a helicopter flew in lowering a rope ladder, but the man held out for his miracle.

After the man drowned, he met God in heaven and asked why he never received his miracle. God replied, “I sent you two boats and a helicopter, what more did you want?”

And now, some theonomists are missing the lifeboat.

Do not mistake me for what I am saying. I am not advocating “lesser of two evils” voting. Some people say they’d rather have half a loaf than none at all. They miss an important truth: when the whole loaf is rotten to begin with, I think none is better.

So when is it OK to vote for a candidate with whom you may not fully agree? Rarely. But when he is obviously a Christian, his values and platform are obviously informed by the Bible, and his objectives and track record above all are clearly directed at the reduction of the pagan central state power—drastically—then there’s no question, even if he may differ on a few philosophical points.

I will work side-by-side politically with even “libertarians” who share that view—because that view is biblical, and their holding of it means they are borrowing my capital, not vice versa.

And at the end of the day, I would rather argue religion with a skeptic who respects my liberty than with the next Religious Right anointed who thinks the State can take it away whenever “necessary.”

Granted, Talbot would never vote for that latter guy either, thankfully. But there are many people reading his post who will take it as justification for just that.

Obfuscation

Second, in the name of clarifying, Dr. Talbot’s article has the effect of obfuscating the issue by introducing foreign definitions unassociated with Rushdoony’s (or my) context.

Talbot cites Webster’s 1828 dictionary for “libertarian”: “pertaining to liberty, or to the doctrine of free will, as opposed to the doctrine of necessity (or determinism).” This, as he would acknowledge, was a purely philosophical definition and did not denote a particular political theory at the time.

But then it gets questionable. First, check this out. Talbot writes:

The term libertarian as it represents a political theory was derived from the French cognate Libertarie [sic] meaning anarchist meaning “the absence of governmental authority or the state of lawlessness.”

Libertarian political philosophy as we know it today has its roots in the classical liberalism of the European political philosophers. . . .

Libertarianism originally was the term coined in 1857 by the Frenchman Joseph Déjacque (born December 27, 1821, in Paris, and died in 1864 in Paris) applying it to himself in defense against Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. The term itself was representative of his libertarian anarchical political philosophy.

Talbot’s version of the history is way too close to Wikipedia on “Libertarianism” (without attribution):

The use of the word “libertarian” to describe a set of political positions can be tracked to the French cognate, libertaire, which was coined in 1857 by French anarchist Joseph Déjacque who used the term to distinguish his libertarian communist approach from the mutualism advocated by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.^[37] Hence libertarian has been used by some as a synonym for left anarchism since the 1890s.^[38] The term libertarianism is commonly considered to be a synonym of anarchism in countries other than the US. . . . During the 18th century, classical liberal ideas flourished in Europe and North America.

Now I’ll be the first to admit Wikipedia is a great source for initial research, but, man!

Let’s be charitable: Dr. Talbot seems to have forgotten a footnote.

That aside, perhaps some usages of the idea did derive from the French cognate, but that hardly means the modern use of the word is tied to that, or that Rushdoony had this in mind when he used it. If cognates and etymology are so important here, why not go back to the original Latin: libertas? Probably because that would reveal that the word has a very broad range of meaning and application, and thus the “the historical context” begins to favor libertarianism as an acceptably Christian term in certain contexts.

In fact, according to the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, the first political usage of the word “libertarian” in English did not appear until 1878 and then meant only the general “One who approves of or advocates liberty.” It wasn’t even around in the political context when Webster wrote.

Yes, we know the words “liberty” and “libertarian” have been used by various miscreants, but this does not make everyone who uses the words a miscreant.

Besides, this is no way to argue in general. For example, Talbot believes, I assume, with the apostles’ creed, in the “holy catholic church.” Is he ready to apply this same tactic and say, “before we clarify this expression, we first need to understand the historical context and the development of ‘catholic’.” Would he be ready to load the entire history of the word “catholic” into his own belief? I hope not. Would he pick the most objectionable expression of it and use that? Again, I hope not.

And we shouldn’t treat “libertarianism” that way, either, especially when Rushdoony uses it.

Poisoning the well

Closely related to the last point, Dr. Talbot includes the observation that the French cognate for “libertarian” means “anarchism,” which the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines as “the absence of governmental authority or the state of lawlessness.”

Again, must we really drag this exigent association into Rushdoony’s and my context? No.

In fact, had Dr. Talbot stuck with Webster’s 1828, just a couple words down from where he was at “libertarian,” he would have noted that Webster included the anarchistic idea under “Libertine”—“not under the restraint of law or religion”—which he considered separately from “libertarianism.”

This whole section about “the historical context and the development of political libertarianism” is enlightening, but it doesn’t really touch on the main quotation from Rushdoony. Talbot says “before we clarify this expression, we first need to understand the historical context . . . ,” but if the theoretical and historical context in which Rushdoony was writing (favorably) about “radical libertarianism” is at all different than the repulsive contexts Talbot emphasizes, then the whole point is largely moot. We don’t really need to understand that context at all. In fact, if clarity is the goal, we should probably leave it out altogether.

A response might come something like, “So you think all historical context and development of worldviews is moot, huh?” Of course not. These things are very relevant, when and where they’re actually relevant. And the anarchistic expressions of libertarianism are largely irrelevant to Rushdoony’s and my points about cooperation with “libertarians” in regard to rolling back tyranny.

Rush’s own personal history, relationships, and citations are, however, highly relevant here. And if historical context of ideas and development are so important, Talbot might want to address Rushdoony’s own in this particular case. I outlined several of those connections in my article. He addressed not one of them.

Worse, since Talbot’s history—as correct as it may be—drags in mental associations like “anarchism” that are foreign and derogatory to Rushdoony’s point, then it is a classic case of poisoning the well. It’s a fallacy that was not necessary to bring into this argument.

Sadly, too many Christians today carry the false associations of “libertarianism” with “anarchy” or “libertinism” in their heads. Talbot’s article unfortunately reinforces that. And to reinforce that prejudice in today’s American churches is to reinforce by default also their widespread embrace of Statism, socialism, and war.

Please, don’t poison the well of liberty.

Rushdoony’s Point

Only after this context and much more does Dr. Talbot say “we can now understand the use of the term Libertarianism in Rushdoony’s language when he says ‘In reality, theocracy in Biblical law is the closest thing to a radical libertarianism that can be had.’” He continues,

It is not that theocracy as expressed in biblical law is libertarianism, not at all! Rather, a Christian theocracy in the context of applying biblical law, where God has, through Jesus Christ’s redemption, freed man from sin to serve God according to His Law-Word (self-government), and restricts the power of government as originally intended by Him. . . .

Note two things: first, Rushdoony doesn’t use the term “Libertarianism” with a capital “L”. This sounds pedantic but is important. A capitalized term denotes a particular philosophical position with all of its particular sets of assumptions. Rush used the little “l” which means he was speaking more casually. The meaning of the term was more general, then, and this is reinforced by the indefinite article: “a radical libertarianism.”

Second, Talbot’s “not at all!” is true only if we first assume all that he has loaded into the term “libertarianism.” But in light of what we’ve seen already, and the casual use of the term just argued, it is simply not justified to act as if such a great gulf exists between the political platform of Rushdoony’s theocracy and his “radical libertarianism” generally understood. In fact, Rushdoony was not contrasting but comparing, which Dr. Talbot acknowledges:

Now the opening statement by Dr. Rushdoony is in the context of what the meaning of “theocracy” is and he states that most people today do not understand what the term itself implies. They see it as a “dictatorial rule” of a few over the whole. Then he makes a comparison: “In reality, theocracy in Biblical law is the closest thing to a radical libertarianism that can be had.” It has a strong emphasis against an oppressive dictatorial rule by men. In this sense, it is just the opposite! The closest thing to compare a Biblical Theocracy would be a “radical libertarianism.” God’s Word clearly advocates a limited state power and authority. The Bible also speaks to the rights of the people to be self-governing, but only within the context of His Law-Word. What classical libertarianism lacks is “Biblical law” and that is why it is rejected by Dr. Rushdoony, and rightfully so.

Yes it was indeed a comparison, but it was hardly as qualified as Talbot presents. If Rush intended to say as compared to, or relative to “an oppressive dictatorial rule by men,” theocracy could be viewed as a radical libertarianism, he would have said something closer to that. But he did not. He did not say, “The closest thing to compare a Biblical Theocracy would be a ‘radical libertarianism,’” No. He said it is the closest thing to a radical libertarianism that can be had. He did not say, “In this sense,” he said, “In reality.”

Now I will be the first to agree that “What classical libertarianism lacks is ‘Biblical law,’” except I would qualify it to say that it does not lack Biblical Law entirely as political expression. Thus, Rush did not “reject” classical libertarianism wholesale in the way suggested. He rejected its philosophical foundations and excesses, usually sexual, to which some adherents take it. But otherwise he believed and practiced that their commonalities were borrowed biblical capital and thus parallel.

So I think we should at least stop being so afraid of the label libertarian, and just use it properly. Liberty is only the result of godly rule, biblical law; only We have it; and we should as Christians take dominion over and reclaim the proper right to the terms libertarian and liberty.

Be Fair to Paul

Let’s be clear, this article cannot be an endorsement or defense of Paul or his campaign. But since his name was brought up critically it is fair game, and I think this will provide an example of how we should treat fellow Christians especially—but even enemies—in representation and debate.

Paul is most often maligned by certain Christians for two main reasons: 1) his stance on homosexuality, and 2) some comments on personal religion and the presidency.

(He is also blasted by Christians on foreign policy for allegedly not “supporting” “Israel”, but I’ll leave that ignorance for another time.)

Take these in reverse order. Dr. Talbot references Paul on his personal view of religion influencing his federal office:

His answer was clearly humanistic. Paul stated: “Well, my religious beliefs wouldn’t affect [my presidency]. My religious beliefs affect my character in the way I treat people and the way I live. The only thing that would affect me in the way I operate as a president or a congressman is my oath of office and my promises that I’ve made to the people.”

Sounds a bit soft, honestly, but is this as “clearly humanistic” as Talbot claims? Consider this additional passage:

Why then is there, in the main, an absence of reference to Christianity in the Constitution? . . . There was an absence of reference because the framers of the Constitution did not believe that this was an area of jurisdiction for the federal government. It would not have occurred to them to attempt to re-establish that which the colonists had fought against, namely, religious control and establishment by the central government.

This is certainly correlative to Paul’s view. Is this clearly humanistic as well?

If so then R. J. Rushdoony is “clearly humanistic” in his view of the Constitution, for the quotation is from R. J. Rushdoony.[1] It was Rushdoony’s view of the Constitution that the Federal government had no jurisdiction in regard to religious matters. Ergo, by deduction, a federal official’s religion could only clearly come into play in his personal execution of his office, not in using the office to advance the distinctives of any particular faith, good or ill, beyond what is already expressed in the nature of the Constitution itself.

And that sounds an awful lot like Paul’s personal view of religion and the Presidency—a constitutional office, after all.

Rush goes on to explain that religious establishment by States, as a State’s Rights issue, is preserved by the Constitution, while it is simultaneously prohibited to the Federal government, and I suspect Paul would agree.

Are there important differences, still, between Rush and Paul? Of course, no doubt. But I think we should be a little less quick to build antinomies where they don’t necessarily exist, and a lot more contemplative as theonomists in our understanding of the Constitution.[2]

Besides, do you really think the oft-cited version Talbot implies is the most charitable interpretation of Paul’s statement (given impromptu during a debate)? Do you really think Paul meant his religion would have no influence at all on his presidency? He in fact said that it defines his character. Does that not of necessity mean it would also influence his presidency—at least in procedure and execution if not legal decision, too?

Of course it would. This is why he can write things like,

I am running to Restore America Now, and by that I mean that it’s time to protect and promote the basic God-given rights inherent in the promise of America. . . .

We must stand for life – not allow millions of innocent children to continue to be slaughtered with the government’s approval.

We must follow the Biblical mandate of using honest weights and measures – not printing money out of thin air in almost complete secrecy and then handing it over to oppressive dictators.

In light of this, obviously, his “not influence my presidency” comment has been misunderstood and/or mistreated.

Indeed, rarely searched, found, or reproduced in this context has been Paul speech at the Values Voters Summit, 2011, at which Paul won the straw poll. He placed his view of civil government clearly in terms of biblical law and biblical sanctions:

[S]o the people came and said to Samuel, what we need is a king. We need a king to take care of us. We want to be safe and secure.

And Samuel, although he knew he wasn’t going to be around long, he advised the people of Israel not to accept the king, because the king, he warned, would not be generous. He would undermine their liberties. There would be more wars. There would be more taxes. And besides, accepting the notion of a king would reject the notion that, up until that time, since they had left Egypt, their true king was their God and the guidance from their God.

But the governing body was the family. And they did not have kings, but they had judges. And that’s what Samuel was. But this was the time there was a shift away from the judges and the family into a king. And I think a lot of that has happened to us in this country. We have too often relied on our king in Washington, and we have to change that.

Now compare that view to Rushdoony’s view which I quoted in my last article:

The essential government comes from the self-government of the Christian man. The U.S. was best governed when it was least governed, not because less control from the state was the essential ingredient but because Christian self-government was central in the eras of good government. Without strong, self-governing Christians taking back self-government under Christ in health, welfare, education, and more, we cannot return by politics to less statism.[3]

Is Paul unconcerned about the role of morality in society in relation to government? He continued:

But he also said that if you depend on the king, the morality of the people will be rejected, the emphasis on the people themselves; the morality should come from the people and not from the king. . . .

You know, morality of the people or the lack of morality of the people can be reflected in the law. But the law never can change the morality of the people. And that is very important.

And again, hear this:

If people could be made moral by law, it would be a simple matter for the board of supervisors or for Congress to pass laws making all Americans moral. This would be salvation by law. Men and nations have often resorted to salvation by law, but the only consequence has been greater problems and social chaos.

We can agree, therefore, that people cannot be saved by law, but it is one thing to try to save people by law, another to have moral legislation, that is, laws concerned with morality.

Please note: this is the exact same teaching both times, the latter example not from Paul but from R. J. Rushdoony.[4]

But it is a couple of Paul’s comments on homosexuality that are most quoted in criticism. Many Christians have emailed and messaged me concerning Paul’s interview by John Lofton in 2007. In that interview Paul waffled on answering whether homosexuality is flatly a sin, stating he didn’t see the issue in such simplistic terms.

It sounds soft on homosexuality. It is soft, in this segment. I suspect it is not his whole view. First, is Paul soft on morality and sexual license in society in general? Second, how does his personal view relate to his view of the Constitution and the federal office president?

I simply cannot say fully on the first question, BUT, it is highly interesting that those who quote him from that Lofton interview never quote his general views of the Bible and social mores from earlier in the same interview. Lofton summarizes:

Paul agrees it is not the role of civil government, at any level — Federal, state or local — to feed, house, clothe or educate anybody and that this would also be un-Constitutional.

He believes Scripture is God’s Word and thus inerrant and infallible.

He says: “Defiance of God’s Law will eventually bring havoc to a society.”

He believes our country came together by God’s Providence “just as, Providentially, it may end, by God’s Will.”

Just consider that statement, theonomist: “Defiance of God’s Law will eventually bring havoc to a society.” And why have we not heard this about Paul until now?

Nevertheless, how does Paul’s personal view of homosexuality—should it be so depraved as some suggest—relate to his view of the presidency (again, a federal office)?

You could say that the guy is just terribly inconsistent in his views. Or, you could realize that he believes “If I leave it up to the States, then it’s up to the States,” which was closer to Rushdoony’s view, and was certainly Rushdoony’s view of the Constitution, too.

Rush believed not only in State’s rights, but County Rights—my focus!—and believed both civil and criminal law, as well as all police power, should reside ultimately at the county level.[5]

In other words, Paul’s personal view of homosexuality would not come into play as President, because he believes it shouldn’t be Federal government’s jurisdiction anyway.

Now, perhaps you disagree with that stance. But from the perspective of theonomy, God’s law and civil government, consider that this is not only Paul’s view, but that of most prominent theonomists, as well as that of the theonomic-founded Constitution Party itself (Mr. John Lofton the interviewer himself a close associate). The CP Platform says on its website under “Family”:

No government may legitimately authorize or define marriage or family relations. . . .

The law of our Creator defines marriage as the union between one man and one woman. The marriage covenant is the foundation of the family, and the family is fundamental in the maintenance of a stable, healthy and prosperous social order. No government may legitimately authorize or define marriage or family relations contrary to what God has instituted. We are opposed to amending the U.S. Constitution for the purpose of defining marriage.

Again, not an endorsement. Just note the dual aspects of 1) affirming the biblical doctrine and biblical law, while 2) denying the Federal government should be involved in it.

So tell me, again, why this view of the issue as a political issue is so bad?

1. The Nature of the American System, 1978, 3.
2. Personally, I have different views than Rushdoony on the Constitution, but that is a contemplative discussion for another time.
3. Systematic Theology, 2:1142; my emphasis.
4. Law & Liberty, 1984, 3.
5. See Nature of the American System, pp. 8–11, 158–166.

by Kenneth Gary Talbot, Ph.D.
President & Professor of Theology and Apologetics, Whitefield Theological Seminary
Board Member, American Vision, Inc.

The late Rev. R. J. Rushdoony once wrote, “Few things are more commonly misunderstood than the nature and meaning of theocracy. It is commonly assumed to be a dictatorial rule by self-appointed men who claim to rule for God. In reality, theocracy in Biblical law is the closest thing to a radical libertarianism that can be had.”[1] The term “theocracy” is, indeed, a misunderstood concept even among historic Orthodox and Evangelical Protestant Christianity. The misunderstanding is especially true in the 21^st Century with the rise of “radical fundamentalism” among various world religions. Such radical movements have always given rise to “dictatorial” rule.

Theocracy, however, as properly understood in terms of Biblical law within the context of Hebraic and Christian theology denies the right of the dictatorial rule by one or a few men. The context must be understood in light of the Old and New Testament, God alone, as Creator, has given His Law-Word to rule and judge all men and nations. The question might naturally occur to a thinking individual, why did Rev. Rushdoony make a comparison then of “theocracy” with “radical libertarianism?” If one reads his article carefully in which this comparison is given, it will become evident as to his meaning. However, before we clarify this expression, we first need to understand the historical context and the development of political libertarianism.

The Historical Development of Libertarianism

It is helpful to understand the etymological development of a term, its historic context in which it was coined, and the ideology which it represented at that particular time. Yet, it is important that we remember terms eventually come to mean a variety of things, some not so closely associated with their etymological beginning. According to Webster’s 1828 dictionary, the word libertarian is derived from the Latin term liber meaning free or libertas which means liberty.[2] The term means “pertaining to liberty, or to the doctrine of free will, as opposed to the doctrine of necessity (or determinism).”[3] The term libertarian as it represents a political theory was derived from the French cognate Libertarie meaning anarchist meaning “the absence of governmental authority or the state of lawlessness.”[4] Libertarian political philosophy as we know it today has its roots in the classical liberalism of the European political philosophers. Some of these philosophers inspired the post-revolutionary governments of the latter 18^th century in both the United States and France.

The basic tenets of this classical liberalism can be summed up as follows: Every individual person has a right to be left alone, to live out their lives independent of government and other individuals, just as long as they do not interfere or infringe on the rights of others so that they can legitimately pursue their lives independently of other individuals and the state. Thus, the only valid reason for the existence of government is to protect these rights of the individual citizens so that they can pursue, without interference or infringement, their desires and actions in an autonomous manner. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy defines ‘libertarianism’ as a philosophy that, “… advocate[s] the maximization of individual rights, especially those connected with the operation of a free market, and the minimizing of the role of the state.”[5]

The historical context in which this political-economic system is developed is critically important. What needs to be considered is that classical libertarianism must be considered in its historical context. Libertarianism originally was the term coined in 1857 by the Frenchman Joseph Déjacque (born December 27, 1821, in Paris, and died in 1864 in Paris) applying it to himself in defense against Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. The term itself was representative of his libertarian anarchical political philosophy.[6] However, this is not the first time the term libertarian was used. The term itself was used during the final years of the Enlightenment where the term was used philosophically to represent those who held to free will over-against determinism.

Classical Libertarianism: What does it teach?

In classical libertarianism, the main concept that is promoted is that of freedom of the individual over against any and all forms of determinism. Libertarianism, we maintain, contains the idea that man is free from all external constraints be it an over-powering individual or individuals (Dictatorial Rule) or an over-powering state (National Collectivism) or an over-powering church or God (Theocracy). Historically, the term libertarian is used in a variety of ways: first as representing classical liberalism; second as representing libertarian socialism or communism; third, a substitute for anarcho-communist; or as a synonym for anarchism.

The early libertarian movement represented a view that man had the absolute authority over his decisions. His decisions were an extension of his rights to be absolutely free from any form of infringement or constraint that would hinder him from choosing or determining for himself! Dagobert Runes in his Dictionary of Philosophy writes that freedom of the will meant, “The freedom of self-determination consisting in decisions independent of external constraint but in accordance with the inner motives of ideals of the agent.”[7] This type of ‘freedom of self-determination’ is nothing more than humanistic autonomy. It is individualism taken to the extreme. Even in matters pertaining to economics it is unbiblical. Dr. Rushdoony wrote:

Man without God seeks to expand his power exponentially, whereas, man under God seeks to place his entire being under the law of God. Statist power will increase and develop to the degree that the state and its peoples are not Christian. The non-Christian who wants to limit the power of the state will seek then to increase his own. Humanistic libertarianism is an exceptionally good critic of state power, especially in the economic realm, but it then warps its own position too commonly by replacing the power of the state with the power of the individual to be lawless sexually; homosexual freedom has become basic to all too many libertarians. The Marquis de Sade pursued the logic of libertarianism, or anarchism, relentlessly. Total freedom for the individual means total power to do anything; every man as his own god means every man as his own law and judge. Karl Marx understood that this anarchism undermined socialism and communism, which presupposes a common order, and hence his bitter attack on Max Stirner for his radical anarchism. Without God and His law man and the state will expand their powers ceaselessly. Total statism and total anarchy are the outcomes.”[8]

Dr. Rushdoony demonstrates that the classical usage of the term libertarianism is to be rejected because it views man as “god” and promotes “lawlessness.” In this same context he also states: “Thus, libertarian economics, which holds strictly to totally private property, leaves property as rootless as does socialistic economics: it divorces it from the past and the future. Property then becomes existential: its meaning is limited to the meaning the existentialist individual gives to it, and no more. Socialism, and also existentialism, ties property to the existence of the state.”[9]

The point is that libertarianism, in and of itself, which operates with the philosophical ideology that man is to be self-determining with absolute power and authority over his own life and choices (rights) is to be rejected by Christians as being just as horrific as an ungodly statism. Why? It is because both notions are antithetical to biblical law and fails to understand God’s absolute right of ownership and therefore to rule over His creation. Libertarianism in and of its self is not Christian! However, in the right context of a theocracy, that is, where God’s law is properly instituted in our society, there are libertarian concepts that are comparative in principle and if modified by the Word of God, do closely align with the Scripture.

Libertarianism is not Christian

It is in this context that we can now understand the use of the term Libertarianism in Rushdoony’s language when he says “In reality, theocracy in Biblical law is the closest thing to a radical libertarianism that can be had.” It is not that theocracy as expressed in biblical law is libertarianism, not at all! Rather, a Christian theocracy in the context of applying biblical law, where God has, through Jesus Christ’s redemption, freed man from sin to serve God according to His Law-Word (self-government), and restricts the power of government as originally intended by Him. St. Paul says in Romans 13 that all power and authority comes from God alone. Government is under the authority of God and His Law-Word.

The purpose of Government is to punish evil and promote and protect the good, not as the state defines evil and good, but as God defines them in the Holy Bible. In this way man is freed from unbiblical restraints of an oppressive state and yet is restricted from excessive individualism that seeks to free him from God’s rule. Dr. Rushdoony states:

There is another important aspect to God’s law. It may seem to a modern lawyer or judge that 613 laws are too few. The truth is even more radical. As we shall see, of the 613 laws, many are not enforceable by man, but only by God. This means that the jurisdictions of church and state are very limited. We have here a godly libertarianism which severely limits the powers of all human agencies. Biblical law seems oppressive only to those who want freedom to sin. God’s laws have as their purpose our good. In Deuteronomy 10:13, God orders us through Moses: “To keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good.”[10]

Now the opening statement by Dr. Rushdoony is in the context of what the meaning of “theocracy” is and he states that most people today do not understand what the term itself implies. They see it as a “dictatorial rule” of a few over the whole. Then he makes a comparison: “In reality, theocracy in Biblical law is the closest thing to a radical libertarianism that can be had.” It has a strong emphasis against an oppressive dictatorial rule by men. In this sense, it is just the opposite! The closest thing to compare a Biblical Theocracy would be a “radical libertarianism.” God’s Word clearly advocates a limited state power and authority. The Bible also speaks to the rights of the people to be self-governing, but only within the context of His Law-Word. What classical libertarianism lacks is “Biblical law” and that is why it is rejected by Dr. Rushdoony, and rightfully so.

Conclusion

Libertarianism today is not Christian. Modern libertarianism does seek “a form” of self-government and seeks “to limit” the power of the state or government, but it does not do so in terms of God’s law, but rather in the declaration of the absolute rights of men. Therefore, both authoritarian statism and authoritarian individualism always eventually leads to tyranny in one form or another; and in relation to God’s law they are both anarchist! Once example of this can be contextualized when Libertarian Ron Paul was asked – what influence would Christianity have on his political decision making? His answer was clearly humanistic. Paul stated: “Well, my religious beliefs wouldn’t affect [my presidency]. My religious beliefs affect my character in the way I treat people and the way I live. The only thing that would affect me in the way I operate as a president or a congressman is my oath of office and my promises that I’ve made to the people.”[11]

While I have a great deal of respect for Rep. Ron Paul, and hold too many of his recommendations about changes that need to be made in our country, his Methodist “semi-pelagian” theology is bankrupt as to how, as professed Christian, he should govern our nation if chosen to be President. This is the problem. This kind of libertarianism has no biblical world and life view which sees all things under the absolute power and authority of Jesus Christ our Supreme King. I doubt that Rep. Paul has any idea that he is promoting a humanistic political-economic theory. However, if he does, then he is simply advocating the “pretended autonomy” of man and while it is conservative, it is not Biblical. While much of his ideas would be pragmatically helpful, they are not the biblical solutions to solve our nation’s problems. For the Christian, the answers to America’s problems cannot be found in an unbiblical statism or individualism, but only from the Law-Word of God.

The warnings are given to us in Proverbs 14:34: Righteousness exalts a nation, But sin is a reproach to any people; and in Psalms 9:17: The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. The blessings of God cannot come when a nation refuses to follow the Law-Word of God. The blessings of God only come when those who honor Him and His Law-Word are being implemented into our society. The Wise King Solomon wrote in Proverbs 29:2: When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when a wicked man rules, the people groan. As Bible-believing Christian we desire neither a humanistic libertarianism nor humanistic statism. Rather, our desire is for a Christian Republic where true justice is rightfully understood in light of the “crown rights of King Jesus” that is, where all men stand equally before the Moral Law of God and where that Law is rightfully enforced.

Opinions have been exchanged over the relationship between Christianity and libertarianism. Some of these have had reference to the heritage of theonomy (or Christian Reconstruction) and the use of the term “libertarianism.” One writer criticizes “professing theonomists” who support the modern Liberty movement with appeal to R.J. Rushdoony’s works:

if Rushdoony ever used the term “libertarian” to describe himself, these professing theonomists commit the fallacy of equivocation. For if Rushdoony considered himself a libertarian, he certainly did not mean it in the sense Ron Paul does. Thus while Ron Paul and Rushdoony may have in common the word libertarianism, they surely do not have in common its meaning; they might as well use two different words.

While I would certainly acknowledge a particular foundational theological difference between the two overall philosophies,[1] the practical political platform of both is strikingly similar. They had much more than the mere word in common.

And we know that whatever is held in common here is ultimately borrowed theonomic capital.

More importantly, in most cases, it is this practical aspect—lower taxes, honest money, balanced budgets, minimal government, end to empire, etc.—to which both sides refer with the label “libertarian,” and thus the charge of equivocation does not hold up. For in the scope of political structure and law, the two in fact do have the same meaning.

This is clear from Rushdoony’s writings. Rushdoony (RJR) strongly compared his view of civil government (“theocracy”) to libertarianism—and not just libertarianism, but “the closest thing to radical libertarianism that can be had.” He wrote,

Few things are more commonly misunderstood than the nature and meaning of theocracy. It is commonly assumed to be a dictatorial rule by self-appointed men who claim to rule for God. In reality, theocracy in Biblical law is the closest thing to a radical libertarianism that can be had.[2]

American History to 1865 (Audio CDs)
Only $69.00

Let that sink in: “the closest thing to a radical libertarianism that can be had.”

This was not from some occasional article or passing thought. It was from a Chalcedon Foundation Position Paper, titled “The Meaning of Theocracy.” If this is not a definitive statement, nothing is.

In other words, just to be clear: in terms at least of political platform, Rushdoony’s theonomic theocracy was “the closest thing to a radical libertarianism that can be had.”

It is important to note here that RJR was not redefining “libertarian.” He was not defining “libertarian” in terms of his theocratic views, but just the opposite. He was defining theonomy in terms of the commonly understood libertarianism of his day—which would have been theoretically secular and humanistic at its foundation (though some Christians embraced it).

In other words, RJR he could praise this secular “radical libertarianism” for its political theory without personally accepting its theological foundations. The point was that anything which reduces the power of the state to its biblical proportions is an improvement toward a biblical society, and thus is to some degree welcome:

What we today fail to see, and must recapture, is the fact that the basic government is the self-government of covenant man; then the family is the central governing institution in Scripture. . . . Civil government must be one form of government among many, and a minor one.[3]

Indeed, “The state in Scripture is a minimal institution, and so too is the church as an institution. The rule of God’s law is essentially through the lives of men as they apply their faith, and as they create tithe agencies to govern various areas and needs. Where faith wanes, then theocracy wanes.[4]

Perhaps without irony, Rushdoony’s “minimal institution” finds a counterpart in the Libertarian Party’s own tagline: “Minimum government, Maximum freedom.” This is, of course, not to endorse the Libertarian Party, but only to show the basic goal in regard to political power is nearly identical.

Unconditional Surrender: God's Program for Victory (HB)
Only $14.50

None of this is to say RJR did not qualify his own view, or to ignore his critiques of the philosophical foundations of humanism. But it does mean that as far as the goal of minimizing statist power and political centralization—the two philosophies can work together to promote the common benefit of minimal government.

There is more that must be said in regard to this, and I will write about it in the near future, but for now, it is important to clear the air on this matter.

So let it be clear, Rushdoony did not necessarily, in all contexts, have a different definition of “libertarianism” from the political platform per se.

Nor did he find it necessary constantly to distant himself from secular or “humanistic” libertarians as if by working with them his own message would be compromised.

This latter point is important as the same critic from above has made it a point: he implies it is unacceptable even to recognize secular libertarians in a book, or to give “such libertarians as Rothbard, F. A. Hayek, and Ludwig Von Mises” public approbation.

But RJR was unabashed in his approbation for these very guys,[5] and many more. Consider the Introduction to his Roots of Inflation:

One of the encouraging facts of our time is the rise of many able economists who are calling attention to the economic fallacies of our time. These are men of the Austrian school in the main. My debt to them is great. . . . The writings of many men, such as Von Mises, Röpke, Hazlitt, Greaves, Reisman, and many, many more have taught me much.[6]

The same Intro acknowledges Gary North and other Christians, but also adds a hat tip to secular libertarian think tank, “The Foundation for Economic Education” (FEE). RJR actually did some of his early writing for FEE.

If there were ever a time to be concerned over equivocation, it would have using a libertarian publication to advance such a libertarian message, especially if you meant something different by “libertarian” than they did.

Rush apparently had no qualms about their relationship, or about using secular libertarians or libertarian organizations to advance his message.

Further, Rush footnoted their works as authorities on particular subjects: it appears he took part of his critique of meritocracy from Hayek’s Constitution of Liberty, as his footnote reveals.[7] He sourced that very Ludwig von Mises (Human Action) and Hayek again (this time Capitalism and the Historians) in order to support a claim about leftist revisionism.[8] Elsewhere, he cited Von Mises’ view of “a harmony of interests” within a free-market economy.[9]

Sometimes he went beyond mere footnote. On one notable occasion, RJR wrote, “One of the more important books of this century was Albert Jay Nock’s Our Enemy, The State (Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho, 1935ff.).”

Nock was a one-time Episcopal minister who had left the clergy and, it appears, the faith altogether. He spent his later years as something of a recluse bordering on misanthropy.

The Covenantal Tithe
Only $5.98

And it is not that RJR did not know these things: he acknowledged their differences. He went on to say of Nock:

Without agreeing with Nock in all things, it is necessary to agree with him that the modern state is man’s new church and saving institution. The state, however, is an anti-social institution, determined to suppress and destroy all the historic and religiously grounded powers of society. With F.D. Roosevelt and The New Deal, the goal of the statists became openly “the complete extinction of social power through absorption by the State.”[10]

Apparently, Rush had no problem with applauding the libertarian principles of people who did not fully share his Christian view of libertarianism—even if they were secular, agnostic libertarians.

Indeed, he thought Nock had written one of the most important books in the whole last century. Indeed, RJR said “it is necessary to agree with him.”

Sometimes, it is necessary to agree even with secular libertarians.

Not only did RJR footnote and uphold these guys himself, he published other people who did, too. He published Gary North’s articles in the appendices to his Institutes. In these appendices, North footnotes Mises three times[11] and later refers to F. A. Hayek’s “masterful book” The Road to Serfdom.[12] There was no outcry from Rushdoony as publisher.

Like I said, there is much more to say on this issue. In fact, it will be vital for me in the near future to make some important delineations. But for now, it is important to understand that the charge of equivocation against us theonomists who point to congruities between the political platforms of Rushdoony and representatives of the Liberty movement is absolutely unfounded.

There is no reason, then, for the sake of the advance of liberty, that we should distance ourselves from the vital contributions of the libertarian-minded in this regard.

This leaves open the question of to what extent a theonomist could support particular libertarians in office—which also raises important questions in turn. For example, if the choice for a president, or a nominee, were between a libertarian-ish Evangelical—who was not purely theonomic in his philosophical foundations—and any form of statist, wouldn’t this still technically be a “lesser of two evils” vote? Is there any difference in these types of cases at all? Are the differences in degree only, or also in principle? I hope to get to these questions before, say, late August.

In the meantime I think the liberty movement is vitally important in the sense that it is raising awareness, and more importantly, asking very candid and tough questions that have not been asked for centuries. This fervor and honesty must continue for future decades if real change is to come. And ultimately, the movement must grow foundationally Christian or it will fail.

The question now is about how best to proceed in the work of advancing liberty.

For the goals of the liberty movement, it will not be sufficient to achieve the presidency. It may, in fact, not even be necessary; but it certainly will not be sufficient. Liberty is not achieved through the mechanisms of tyranny—that is, the very offices of the central State that bred the tyranny to begin with.

Even if we, through the presidency, successfully stripped away all the tyranny that has grown up since 1789, what good would it do to takes us back to the top of the same slippery slope we’ve already gone down? It would be at best a holding action. A greater foundational change is needed.

Rush is clear that this must be done by spread of the Gospel and Christian self-government, not by top-down political implementation:

The essential government comes from the self-government of the Christian man. The U.S. was best governed when it was least governed, not because less control from the state was the essential ingredient but because Christian self-government was central in the eras of good government. Without strong, self-governing Christians taking back self-government under Christ in health, welfare, education, and more, we cannot return by politics to less statism.[13]

What this type of statement does is alert us to the main political enemy: statism.

The Bible & War in America
Only $9.95

In light of this, the modern liberty movement has Christian enemies on two fronts: those who are statists, and those who are too pure to acknowledge a “libertarian” who is not theonomic enough.

The truth is that there are very few if any of the latter. Most are some form of statist when it comes down to it, and statism is by far the greater enemy than too much liberty.

And while RJR rightly believed we could not roll back statism by mere politics alone, it is a much greater shame that so many Christians ignore or dismiss the liberty movement for largely bogus reasons while trying to achieve aspects of a biblical society (life, marriage) through the unbiblical means of the central state.

RJR would applaud the modern Liberty movement, even if he would critique its theological foundations. But as for the statists, RJR called their attempts “the practical denial of Christ.”[14]

Choose this day whom you will serve.

1. and it is ultimately vital, and I would side with Rushdoony
2. Roots of Reconstruction (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1991), 63.
3. Roots, 64.
4. Systematic Theology: In Two Volumes (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1991), 2:1141.
5. With the exception of Rothbard.
6. Ross House Books, 1982, i.
7. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (The Craig Press, 1973), 643n.
8. Intellectual Schizophrenia (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1961 [reprinted 2002]), 15.
9. Roots of Inflation, 85.
10. Roots of Reconstruction (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1991), 65.
11. pp. 802, 804, 806
12. p. 819
13. Systematic Theology, 2:1142; my emphasis.
14. The Foundations of Social Order, 170.

Yesterday I received a review copy of Eric J. Bargerhuff’s The Most Misused Verses in the Bible: Surprising Ways God’s Word is Misunderstood (2012) published by Bethany House. The author writes that common biblical phrases like “an eye for an eye” and “do not judge, or you will be judged” — “derived from the bestselling book of all time, the Bible — have often been misunderstood and misused” (13). I couldn’t agree more.

I often give a simple Bible quiz to people when I’m going to address a controversial biblical subject. I ask questions like the following to show that most Christians not only don’t have a handle on what the Bible says, but they often don’t have a handle on what a particular text means.

1. Did Noah’s Ark land on Mount Ararat? You would be wrong if you said yes (Gen. 8:4).
2. Who cut off Samson’s hair? It wasn’t Delilah (Judges 16:19)
3. Is it true that the lion and the lamb will lie down together? No it’s not (Isa. 11:6).
4. Does pride come before a fall? Not exactly (Prov. 16:18)

These are verses of fact, and many people get them wrong. When people find out that they believe things that are not found in the Bible, it makes my job easier in introducing a pet subject. There are verses of interpretation that people hear over and over again without ever doing their own study to see if the interpretation they’ve heard repeated so often is what the text actually says and means.

I received an email asking me if I could answer an objection. The emailer’s friend tried to claim that Matthew 23:39 is a prime indicator that the events of Matthew 24, Luke 21, and Mark 13 have not been fulfilled. He, like so many other futurists, appeal to Matthew 23:39 as prima facie evidence that Jesus is predicting a future Great Tribulation when in the midst of it the nation of Israel as a whole (after two-thirds of the Jews living in Israel are slaughtered by the forces of antichrist: Zech. 13:8) will proclaim, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” While this makes for great prophetic theater, it’s not what the text says.

Stanley Toussaint is representative of the position advocated by the emailer. He agrees that the use of “your house” (Matt. 23:38) refers to the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70, but “verse 39 describes Israel’s future repentance when they will mourn because of their great sin (Zech. 12:10).”[1] R. T. France argues that the word “For, with which the verse begins, unambiguously links it with God’s abandonment of his house in v. 38 [of Matthew 23].”[2] The two events are linked in time and not separated (so far) by nearly two millennia. If Matthew 23:38 refers to the generation of Jews that will see the destruction of Jerusalem in their generation, in A.D. 70, then so does what Jesus describes in verse 39.

Before we take a closer look at Matthew 23:39, let’s be clear that Israelites and non-Israelites are reconciled to God in the same way. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6), Jesus said. There aren’t two ways of salvation or two different periods of salvation. Jews and non-Jews were being saved the day the Holy Spirit was poured out at Pentecost. In fact, “Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5), were the first people saved.

There are a number of problems with the claim that Matthew 23:39 is describing a yet future national repentance of Israel. First, there is the audience reference. If “your house” refers to that generation of Jews, then “until you say” must also refer to that same generation of Jews as well. Notice the use of the second person plural throughout Matthew 23 and 24. Why a sudden shift to a different audience in Matthew 23:39 when “you” is used repeatedly?: “For I say to YOU, from now on YOU will not see Me until YOU say, ‘BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE Lord!’”

Second, Jesus begins Matthew 23:39 with “from now on.” Unfortunately, some translations translate the Greek as an indefinite “hereafter” instead of the more accurate “from now on.” This is another indication that Jesus had His audience in view. The following examples show that what will happen takes place soon the statement is made:

• “But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on [ἀπ᾽ ἄρτι] until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom” (Matt. 26:29).
• “From now on [ἀπ᾽ ἄρτι] I am telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am He” (John 13:19).
• “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on [ἀπ᾽ ἄρτι] you know Him, and have seen Him” (John 14:7).
• “And I heard a voice from heaven, saying, ‘Write, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on [ἀπ᾽ ἄρτι]”’” (Rev. 14:13).

Each of these phrases describes events that were near.

Third, part of the problem in understanding the relationship between verses 38 and 39 in Matthew 23 is in the way “until” is used. France contends that “the words until you say are expressed in Greek as an indefinite possibility rather than as a firm prediction; this is the condition on which they will see him again; but there is no promise that the condition will be fulfilled.”[3] The following verses demonstrate the conditional use of “until”:

• “Truly I say to you, you shall not come out of there, until you have paid up the last cent” (Matt. 5:26).
• “He was unwilling however, but went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what was owed” (Matt. 18:30).
• “And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him” (Matt. 18:34).
• “And when it was day, the Jews formed a conspiracy and bound themselves under and oath, saying that they would neither eat nor drink until they had killed Paul” (Acts 23:12).

Actions do not take place unless or until certain conditions are met. Until the person pays full restitution — “the last cent” — he will remain in prison. Toussaint wants to read Matthew 23:39 this way: “For I say to you, from now on you shall not see Me, but one day a future generation of Jews will because they will say, ‘BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!’” James B. Jordan writes:

When Jesus entered Jerusalem in Matthew 21:9, the people shouted, “Blessed is the One coming in the Lord’s name”; and they saw Jesus daily in the temple until they had rejected Him. Now, leaving the temple and the city, Jesus states that they will not see Him again until they reaffirm what they said when He first arrived.

It is clear that “The One Coming in Yahweh’s Name” is the Messiah. The quotation is from Psalm 118:26. This same Person has been identified as “Yahweh’s Right Hand” (vv. 15–16) and as the “Chief Cornerstone” (v. 22). Jerusalem will not see Jesus again until they again affirm that He is the promised Messiah. Their temple will not stand unless Jesus is the Chief Corner.

Jesus is describing what was necessary in order to escape the coming judgment that was to take place before that generation passed away. Throughout the period between the crucifixion and the destruction of Jerusalem, there were Jews who cried out, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” After hearing Peter’s Pentecost message, the Jews “were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brethren, what shall we do?’” (Acts 2:37). Peter told them that they must “repent” in order to “be saved from this perverse generation” (2:38, 40). Three thousand Jewish converts were added to the believing community “that day” (2:41). Luke records that “many of those who had heard the message [of Peter and John] believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand” (4:4). The restoration had begun in Jerusalem and extended throughout the Roman Empire prior to the destruction of the temple and city in A.D. 70.

Toussaint is willing to dismiss repeated references to an impending judgment by straining to find a single passage to bolster his argument that a pre-tribulational rapture, a rebuilt temple, and the reinstitution of Old Covenant Judaism during an earthly millennium remain to be fulfilled. A careful study of the New Testament dispels such notions.

Does this mean that there was no hope for these Jews after Jesus declared that their house was being left to them desolate? Not at all. As James DeYoung writes:

“Although the temple shall be destroyed, a new religious order will be instituted in which the Jews are still invited to come to Christ and greet him as the Messiah within the new temple, the spiritual house that God will build, the Church. But there is in this passage no expression of the thought that this judgment on the temple, and hence on Jerusalem as the religious center of God’s people, will ever be reversed; that God will ever return to his temple in Jerusalem and once again make it the place where he exercises his redemptive revelational relation with his people.”[4]

1. Stanley D. Toussaint, “A Critique of the Preterist View of the Olivet Discourse.” John 19:37 quotes Zechariah 12:10 as something that “came to pass, that the Scripture might be fulfilled” at the time of the crucifixion (19:36). For a preterist interpretation of Zechariah 12, see Gary DeMar, Why the End of the World is Not in Your Future (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, 2008) for an exposition of Zechariah 12.
2. R. T. France, The Gospel According to Matthew: An Introduction and Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1990), 333.
3. France, The Gospel According to Matthew, 332.
4. James Calvin De Young, Jerusalem in the New Testament: The Significance of the City in the History of Redemption and in Eschatology (Amsterdam: J.H. Kok/N.V. Kampen, 1960), 89.