This little phrase from Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. encapsulates so much of Geerhardus Vos’ eschatological program. The phrase is meant to convey the idea that God has a plan of eschatological, consummated life laid out for Adam even before the fall into sin.  The Covenant of Works was put into place with the offer of that reward.

When attempting to demonstrate this point, we often appeal to the Tree of Life and its “reappearance” in Rev 2:7 and 22:2, 14, 19.  This occurrence demonstrates the realization of the blessings offered to Adam prior to the fall. But one place we do not often consider is the book of Job.  Job 42 offers a similar perspective on the question of eschatology.

Job undergoes terrible trials and loses almost everything.  Job was blessed in 1:2-3: “here were born to him seven sons and three daughters.  He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east.”  All of this he lost at the hands of Satan who received permission from God to persecute him.  The book continues through several questioning episodes from Job’s friends who are convinced Job must have sinned in order to receive this portion.  Retributive theology is at work among his cohorts.  The LORD eventually speaks up in the face of Job’s questions.

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: “Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right? Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his? “Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity; clothe yourself with glory and splendor. Pour out the overflowings of your anger, and look on everyone who is proud and abase him. Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low and tread down the wicked where they stand. Hide them all in the dust together; bind their faces in the world below. Then will I also acknowledge to you that your own right hand can save you. (Job 40:6-14, ESV)

Shortly thereafter, in chapter 42, Job is restored, and this is the interesting eschatological point.  Look at the details of his restoration in Job 42:12-13 “And the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning. And he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys. He had also seven sons and three daughters.”

His blessings are doubled [except for the sons, an interpretive issue we'll save for another day].  The inheritance is expanded to his daughters – something unheard of in Job’s contemporary culture. Moreover, his daughters are named and the sons are not.  This is perplexing, but I think is illustrative of the expansive reach of the New Covenant blessing (similar to how the covenant entrance sign of baptism is given to both men and women).

God’s plan and goal for a consummated glory was in place even before man fell into sin.  It was set out for Adam to attain.  He would have entered into eschatological, consummated life had he obeyed throughout his probation period.  But he fell and now a second Adam must come to provide a way for God’s elect to reach that original goal.

This eschatology is behind the message of Job.  Job’s “salvation” is not a return to his original blessing.  Likewise, we do not look to the Garden as our heavenly reward.  We look to the New Heavens and New Earth.  Job is a prototypical righteous one who suffers while pointing to the eschatological one who comes to suffer vicariously.  This is the Christ, the one who ushers in eschatological blessings greater than anything ever present before.

By faith [the Christian] is a member of the covenant [of grace], and that faith has a wide outlook, a comprehensive character, which not only points to justification but also to all the benefits which are in Christ.  Whereas the Lutheran tends to view faith one-sidedly – only in its connection with justification – for the Reformed Christian it is saving faith in all the magnitude of the word.  According to the Lutheran, the Holy Spirit first generates faith in the sinner who temporarily still remains outside of union with Christ; then justification follows faith and only then, in turn, does the mystical union with the Mediator take place … The covenantal (of Reformed) outlook is the reverse.  One is first united to Christ, the Mediator of the covenant, by a mystical union, which finds its conscious recognition by faith.  By this union with Christ all that is in Christ is simultaneously given.  Faith embraces all this too; it not only grasps justification, but lays hold of Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King, as his rich and full Messiah.  (Geerhardus Vos and Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. ed., “Doctrine of the Covenant in Reformed Theology” in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation, 256).

Vos recognizes the structural difference between a Reformed and a Lutheran soteriology.  The principal issue is the structural positioning of union with Christ relative to justification and the other salvific benefits.  For Vos and the Reformed, the benefits flow out of union.  Union is primary.  Vos’s reason is that each of the benefits are received by faith through which believers lay hold of Christ.  This is saving faith “in all the magnitude of the word.”  Consequently, salvation is bigger than the single benefit of justification.  It is a possession and laying hold of Christ in His entire person as Prophet, Priest, and King: the full Messiah.

While I’m not qualified to speak about the accuracy of his statements regarding Westminster (CA), I think he makes an interesting and generally accurate observation.  Clearly, this kind of statement cannot be applied to the entire student body of either institution, but as far as general trends go, I believe he’s right.  If that’s the case, then we necessarily arrive at an is/ought question.  Should we necessarily place a heavier emphasis on biblical theology?  Is some other stress preferential or should we place equal emphasis on systematic, historical and biblical theology?

It is, in fact, the case that Abraham’s descendants (i.e. those who have faith in Christ, see Gal. 3) become heir’s of the “world,” in Him who overcame and received the inheritance of the world from His Father. In Christ, we too become heirs of God and of the world. This is also the explanation of our Lord’s words, “The meek shall inherit the earth,” and Peter’s reference elsewhere to the New Heavens and the New Earth. Believers will come to possess “all things,” as Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 6.

A proper understanding of the purpose of the land of Israel opens a new area of research into the significance of the Garden of Eden. Eden was a special place, a physical location (or land), in which Adam was place by God at Creation. It was the prototypical promised land. There is also identification between Eden and the Temple–the place where God is worshiped by man, and dwells with man. The presence of lilies, palm trees, and pomegranates in the very fabric of the Temple are meant to bring the minds of the people of God back to Eden. Phil Ryken notes:

[the Temple] really was like the gates of Paradise. And for many people the way of access was still denied. Unless they were priests they would never see the golden wonders inside. Only the High Priests would enter that most holy place. Yet however limited it was there was access. You see God was opening back up the way to Paradise. You might think of Solomon’s temple as a kind of spiritual portal. The paradise lost could be regained.¹

It must be firmly established in our minds that God was always, throughout the Old Testament era, moving toward the restoration of the blessing of Eden. This in turn ought to move our attention back to the Garden of Eden to find hints as to the land/world connection. This is the case if we begin at the beginning, with the creation of man.

In Genesis 2:7 we learn that God formed man “out of the dust of the ground.” The “ground” is man’s natural environment. [As an aside, there seems to be a relationship between man and the rest of creation as a direct result of his being made out of the ground. On account of man's sin and idolatry (Rom. 1) this manifests itself, in the greatest act of perversion, in man worshiping the creation (i.e. beasts, animals, tress, etc.). This explains why men now exalt the created order above the image bearer of God and above God Himself. The hippie movement of the 60's, environmentalism and all naturalized forms of religion are correct, in one sense, to draw a connection between man and the value of his environment. The fault lies in the subordination of man to the environment and, at the same time, the exaltation of the creation over the Creator Himself. The close relationship between man and beast may be argued, in part, from the fact that both are created on the same day (Gen. 1:24; 26-27), as living, moving and breathing beings. The dissimilarity is to be observed by the fact that man, who alone is made "from the ground," is alone the image bearer of God. We are told that the LORD commanded the earth to bring forth the beasts of the field, but we are not told that they are made from the "ground," nor that they bear the image of their Maker. Add to this that the Hebrew word for "ground" is [Adam]. The very name of the man is the name of the place from which he is taken. Genesis 1:24 is the first time the word [Adam] is mentioned. There it is in regard to the animals. God is said to have created ever living thing that moves “on the ground.”]

There is another reference to the “ground” found in Genesis 2:5 where we read, “…there was no man to work the ‘ground.’” The “ground” is the sphere of blessing and fruitfulness. Eden especially carries this meaning. God intended to create an image bearer who would “work the ‘ground.’” Therefore, God made man from the “dust of the ground” (Gen. 2:7). The sphere of blessing that would be the source of fruitfulness is the place that man is taken from. He is taken from the ground and he is created to work the ground. Adam is made to “be fruitful and multiply,” and to “dress and keep” the Garden. Adam is to work the ground and take the Garden out into the world. His task was to turn the world into the Garden.

Sadly, we know how quickly man forfeited his task by sinning against his Creator. In the pronouncement of judgment on man (Gen. 3:17-19) we discover that the sphere of blessing, the very place where man originated, is now cursed and turned into a thorny, barren wilderness that man will have to suffer toilsome labor in order to cultivate the once fruitful land. The “ground” is cursed on account of Adam’s sin. Adam was taken from the ground, the ground was the sphere of God’s blessing man–the environment in which blessings would be uncovered–but Adam rebelled against His Maker. God now curses the very place out of which He made man.

Adam’s sin and the depravity and corruption that he brought on all his descendants manifests itself, in the worst way, in the life of his firstborn son. Cain kills his brother, shedding Abel’s blood on the “ground” that he, incidentally, tilled. When the LORD confronts Cain He makes this astonishing statement: “The voice of your brothers’ blood cries out to Me from the ‘ground.’” Cain had sought to hid the body of his brother in the ground, but God is not limited by time and space, as fallen man wants to think about Him. The blood of Abel “cries out” to God to bring vengance and judgment on Cain.

The author of Hebrews picks up on the idea of Abel’s blood “crying out,” when he–while comparing Old Covenant and New Covenant worship–writes:

For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, ¹⁹ and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. (For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.” And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”) But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:18-24)

Abel was a type of our Lord Jesus Christ. The blood that Abel shed was on account of Christ. Abel, was a “righteous” man, putting his faith and trust in the promise of God for a Savior (Gen. 3:15). Just as Cain, the ‘seed of the serpent’ (1 John 3: ), killed Abel, the ‘seed of the woman,’ so the apostate Jews and unbelieving Romans, the ‘seed of the serpent’ (Matt. 3:7; John 8:44) killed Jesus, the Seed of the woman (Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 3:23-38; and Rev. 12:1-5). The blood of Abel cried out from the “ground” for judgment on the ungodly, but the blood of Jesus “speaks better things than that of Abel,” crying out for redemption and salvation. When Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, agonizing under the realization of what He would suffer, Luke tells us that “his swear became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” The blood of Jesus fell into the ground in the Garden, and it was shed into the earth at the cross. While, the most important aspect of the blood of Christ is that it is sprinkled on the mercy seat in heaven, it nevertheless, falls to the ground, the place of curse that He came into the world to turn to the sphere of blessing.

Returning again to Genesis we soon discover that God pronounces a curse on Cain, further cursing the “ground” that had once yielded its fruit for him. Cain had shed his brothers’ blood into the ground, therefore, God cursed the ground, from which man was taken, to an even greater extent than he had before.

When Lamech, a descendant of Seth, bore a son, he called him “Noah” (lit. ‘rest’), because he believed that, “This one will comfort [lit. give rest to] us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD has cursed (Gen. 5:29).” Noah is also a type of Christ. Lamech names his son “rest” because he is believing the promise of God (Gen. 3:15), that He would send a Redeemer to give rest from the burden of sin manifested in God’s curse on the “ground.” Interestingly, Noah does give “typical” rest to the ground by obeying the LORD when he is called to go into the ark with the animals and his family. Man and beast, were brought into the ark. God would actually provide rest through the judgment He brings on the earth with the flood. Rest would be provided through judgment. Likewise, Jesus, the greater than Noah, provides eternal rest through the judgment He endures as the sin-bearer. When Noah left the ark, the “rest” that he typically provided for man is seen in the fact that he is, essentially, the head of humanity on a “new earth.” All of the flood narrative is moving toward the “re-creation” of the earth that had been so polluted by sin. So Christ, does not just redeem His elect, He also purchases the “new heavens and new earth” with His blood. He provides ‘rest’ for “us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD has cursed.”

Moving backwards again to the creation account (Gen. 1-2) we learn that there is a “Sabbath,” a day of rest pointing forward to the eschatological rest that Christ would provide for us. It is interesting that Jesus healed many people on the Sabbath, giving rest from physical infirmities. In this way He was showing that He was the one who could give “rest” for the soul (see Matt. 11:25-12: 14 for support of this idea). In the OT the rest that Christ came to give is typified, first with Noah and the “ground” then with Israel and the “land.” Meredith Kline noted:

Another indication of the royal nature of God’s Sabbath rest is afforded when the Bible interprets the entrance of God’s covenant people Israel upon their royal inheritance as the securing of a Sabbath rest. Thus Israel’s occupation of the promised land is described as God’s gift of “rest” (menucah) to them (Deut. 3:20; 12:9; 1 Kings 8:56). In fact, in Hebrews 4, Israel’s dominion rest in Canaan (viewed as forfeited by the generation in the wilderness but typologically achieved through Joshua’s conquest of Canaan) is expressly interpreted in terms of the Creator’s seventh day rest…

The link here would be between typical “Sabbath rest” for Israel in the “land,” and eternal Sabbath rest for the people of God in the “new earth.” Again, the link between the promise that Abraham would be heir of the land and that he would be heir of the world is made through the relationship of Christ to the Sabbath.

The most amazing truth, unfolded in the book of Revelation, is that all the places that were representative of the sphere of God’s blessing (i.e. the Garden, Land and City) become the language of the redeemed church. Man becomes the environment of God’s dwelling, the eschatological sphere of blessing. The covenant promise that God would dwell with His people and that He would dwell in them is typified from Eden to Christ. In the New Covenant the land no longer has the typical significance it once had. Meredith Kline explained how it is that man no longer needs a typical environment for redemption:

At the consummation man leaves behind the external…he has developed through his earthly history…Glorified mankind is depicted as the city of God, the fullness of the new heaven and new earth…Scriptures identification of the eternal city with the glorified church (Rev. 21:9-10) is accompanied by its proclamation of a new heaven and new earth (Rev. 21:1) and thus intends, of course, no negation of the cosmic dimension of consummated creation…glorified mankind is encorporated into the archetypal Spirit-temple, with which…the cosmos has been intergrated. Hence…it is at once the people-temple and the cosmos-temple, together consummated in the glory temple.

It appears that this interchangeable language between the church as a Garden, Land, City and Temple is founded upon the fact that man is taken from the “earth, land or ground,” the original place of Glory and the dwelling of God with man. It is only through the shed blood of our Savior Jesus Christ that the “ground” is redeemed, and man again enjoys, this time to a much greater degree, the blessings of God on the land. The blessings of Christ on the land are really typical of His blessings on His people. It is image bearers with which God is most concerned. The environment is simply a way of showing the totality and comprehensiveness of His riches in Christ Jesus. In the truest and highest sense, “He makes His blessings flow far as the curse is found.”

]]> http://historiasalutis.com/2009/05/29/a-biblical-theological-perspective-on-the-ground/feed/ 3 http://historiasalutis.com/2009/04/18/pre-redemptive-special-revelation/ http://historiasalutis.com/2009/04/18/pre-redemptive-special-revelation/#comments Sat, 18 Apr 2009 13:52:46 +0000 Camden Bucey http://www.historiasalutis.com/?p=44 Read more→]]> When studying general and special revelation, people can tend to think of special revelation as a supplement that comes in only after the fall into sin.  Special revelation is seen as a mode of revelation that is exclusive to the post-lapsarian order since it is a specifying or corrective revelation that communicates the details of redemption.  It bears the message of the gospel to men whom have fallen into guilt and corruption.  Let me augment that view ever so slightly.  In chapter 2 of Biblical Theology, Geerhardus Vos is intent on showing that special revelation existed even prior to the fall.  Even before Adam sinned, God initiated a verbal relationship with him.  We should not think of special revelation qua special revelation as strictly redemptive or exclusively part of the post-lapsarian order.  We should rather see special revelation as interpreting or further specifying what God has revealed in general revelation whether that revelation is prior or subsequent to the Fall.

Vos has a helpful way of understanding how general and special revelation relate to each other.  He teaches that God’s Word interprets his deeds.  Throughout Scripture, God often announces his work, acts, then interprets his work again.  The interpretive Word always accompanies the deed.  We should always understand special revelation as the interpreter of general revelation.  Moreover, this is a one-way street.  General revelation does not have interpretive authority over special revelation.

Though we should affirm the existence of pre-redemptive special revelation, special revelation does take on a specifically redemptive character after the fall.  Again in chapter 2 of Biblical Theology Vos says that it ushers in a whole new world.  It is the offer of the gospel of Jesus Christ and is at the same time the offer of the eschatological life which Adam failed to obtain.  In the garden, special revelation conveyed to Adam that eschatological life could be grasped by perfect and personal obedience to the Lord.  After the fall, special revelation conveys to us that eschatological life is available by faith in the second Adam – the one who has offered a perfect, personal and perpetual obedience to the Father on behalf of his people.

The eschatological idea influencing the constitution of the theocracy becomes dependent on the interaction of the type and the antitype. The future state imposes its own stamp on the theocracy, an actual institution of Israel. The theocratic structure projects its own character into the picture of the future. Heaven reflected itself on Israel and Israel became part of the future. The type inevitably influences the conception of the antitype. The future is depicted in terms drawn from the present, earthly, material reality. There is somewhat of the shadowy, inadequate character of the prefiguration that passes over into the description of what the eschatological will be like when it comes. The antitype impresses its stamp upon the theocratic structure and imparts to it somewhat of its transcendent, absolute character. The theocracy has something ideal or unattainable about it. Its plan, as conceived by the law, hovers over the actual life of Israel. The theocracy in the idea transcends its embodiment in experience.1

In 21st Century English vernacular, Vos has explained, in the afore mentioned quote, that God worked within the theocratic structure of Israel to show the reality of the theocratic nature of heaven. The laws given to Israel were good, and were God-ordained, but they were unattainable. They were meant to show the people of God, throughout all generations, that God is Holy, and that His rule is holy. But, at the end of the day–or you might say, “At the end of the old age”–they passed away because they were the earthly type of the heavenly reality. This is confirmed constantly throughout the NT when the writer to the Hebrews draws the parallel between the earthly mountain and the heavenly mountain, between the land here and the land there, between the voice shaking the earth and the voice that now also shakes the heavens. There is an antitype for all of the typical elements of the OT, and this is no less true of the theocracy than it was for anything else.

But how does this help us understand the particular case laws given to Israel? Are we simply to dismiss them as irrelevant and unnecessary? Or are we to seek to apply them wholesale to the New Covenant economy in Gentile governments? Here, I think, Vos supplies us with the balanced answer. He noted:

“Eschatological revelation is presented in the language of the Mosaic institutions. The New Testament first transposes it into a new key. Here in the New Testament it is spiritualized. In the Old Testament it is expressed in terms of perfection of the forms of Israel’s theocracy. The holy city is center; offices, organizations, peace, abundance, etc. are there, but this all is to be eternalized in the Messainic era, and will be free of the vicissitudes of the present era. All this is the content of revelation.”2

Notice the way that Vos made use of the words “spiritualized” and “eternalized” in order to describe the theocratic forms of the Old Covenant, as they relate to the Messianic era. Certainly we find, in the book of Hebrews, a clear statement of this in regard to the ceremonial system of Old Covenant worship. It is not that the Old Covenant is supplanted by the New with no relation whatsoever. Rather, it is that the Old was the foundation of typical forms and shadows, and, as Vos noted, “heaven reflected itself on Israel” in order that these types might reflect something of the heavenly antitypes.

But, I want to point out that this is also true with regard to the civil system of theocratic Israel. How does the New Testament use the civil legislation given to Israel? In brief, it “spiritualizes” them so that they are seen to be “eternailzed in the Messianic era.” This can be demonstarted from one brief illustration–Paul’s use of Duet. 17:7; 19:19; 22:21, and 24:7. This oft repeated verse, in its theocratic setting, had reference to stoning the idolatrous, the false witness, and the fornicator.

1 Corinthians 5:13 is the New Covenant setting, in which this Old Covenant sanction now has reference to excommunicating the impenitent adulterer. The penal legislation is “spiritualized” with regard to the New Covenant church. Certainly the discipline excercised by the apostle Paul in this case had an “eternalizing” principle. Jesus Himself had told the apostles, “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on Earth will be loosed in Heaven.” We know that God in His mercy and grace brought the man of 1 Corinthians 5 to repentance, so that he was restored to communion with the saints–as is evident from 2 Corinthians.  But we must take the greatest of care in understanding the spiritualizing principle of the theocratic system. God has given us examples, such as Paul’s use of Duet. 17:7 in 1 Corinthians 5:13, so that we might realize the applicability of the Old Covenant civil law, without missing its eschatological spirituality.

1. Geerhardus Vos, The Eschatology of the Old Testament (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2001) pp. 117-118

2. Ibid., p. 118

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