PAPER NO. 104

ESCHATOLOGY

The Earth Shall Be Full of the Knowledge of God

Eschatology has to do with the end. It has to do with our hope. It has to do with what we can expect in the future. Eschatology has a broader and a narrower aspect. The broader aspect has to do with the goal, or end, of human existence.

The first question of the Shorter Catechism is: “What is the chief end of man?” It is the more basic aspect of eschatology. The narrower aspect has to do with how and when this chief end of man is realized. If we understand what is more basic, we will understand what is less basic.

If we agree on the chief end of man, we can overcome the divisions regarding premillennial, amillennial, and postmillennial eschatologies. If we keep in mind the method of Rational Presuppositionalism and the problems of the noetic effect of sin, we can come to the unity of the faith in relation to eschatology.

From general revelation, from Scripture, and from Historic Christianity (summed up in the Westminster Confession of Faith) we can know that eternal life—the good for man—is the knowledge of God (John 17:3), and that the earth shall be full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11:9).

We know that creation reveals the glory of God (Isaiah 6:3) and that knowledge of God’s glory comes through the work of dominion given to man in the beginning. The hope of life in knowing God is assumed and affirmed throughout Scripture from the beginning to the end.

  1. Sabbath

The Sabbath is the single, greatest, continuing affirmation of hope for mankind. Man is made in the image of God. As God worked and completed His work of creation, so man will work and complete his work of dominion. As creation is revelation, dominion brings knowledge of this revelation. As a result of the corporate work of mankind through the ages in ruling over the creation, the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.

  1. The seed of the woman

In sin man turned away from knowing God as the good. He put himself in the place of God to determine good and evil. God permits evil to serve the good—to deepen the revelation of His glory, especially His justice and mercy. His mercy is seen in the promise of redemption, and in the curse which restrains, recalls from, and removes moral evil. God established a spiritual war between believer and non-believer which is age-long and agonizing, with the promise that good (the seed of the woman) will overcome evil (crush the head of the serpent).

  1. Noah

In the first age of human history God permits evil to come to maximum expression. Yet His purpose is not frustrated. Noah, in faith and hope, builds the ark in which he preserves the promise of redemption and the work of dominion attained thus far. In doing so, he comforts us (mankind) in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed. Hope is preserved through the greatest darkness, and continues, with further restraints on evil by increased toil and diminished lifespan.

  1. Abraham and the patriarchs

Apostasy has become worldwide again at Babel and further restrained by the division of mankind. While mankind is left to go on in apostasy, God chooses to fulfill the promise of redemption for all of mankind through Abraham. In Abraham’s seed all the families of the earth will be blessed. The promise continues through Isaac and Jacob and his sons, who are seeking the City of God, a city with foundations, which is the kingdom of God on earth, in the Promised Land.

  1. Moses

Moses sought this City too. He left the power and glory of Egypt for the promise in Christ. He led the people out of Egypt by God’s power and gave them the Law of God for the Kingdom of God. The way of life through atonement, sanctification and service is taught, culminating in the feast of ingathering (of all peoples) and the full removal of all debt (jubilee).

  1. Joshua

After the first generation leaving Egypt did not enter the Promised Land because of their unbelief, Joshua leads the next generation in the conquest of Canaan. Joshua’s conquest is a pattern for the Church to overcome all worldviews of the nations raised up against the knowledge of God, rather than fear the giants of opposing systems of thought, and wander in the wilderness in unbelief.

  1. David and the Psalms

David and others in the Psalms sing of the person and work of Christ, both in His suffering and His glory. Christ is raised from the dead and appointed to reign now (Psalms 2, 22, 67, 72, 110, 148, and 150). All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord and all the families of the nations will bow down before Him. All of creation is brought to praise the Lord whose splendor is above the earth and the heavens.

  1. The Prophets

All the prophets speak of God’s judgment of famine, war, and plague on sin, and of God’s restoration of His people. This restoration extends beyond the near future into the Gospel age, in which the nations are brought into the house of God. All nations stream to it (Isaiah 2) until the earth is filled with the knowledge of God (Isaiah 11). The comfort of restoration extends to the new heavens and the new earth (Isaiah 40; 66). Ezekiel sees the restoration in the vision of the dry bones (37) extending as a river from the Temple to all mankind (47). Daniel sees the kingdom of God grow from the Rock that struck the image of the worldly kingdoms and became a huge mountain that filled the whole earth (2:34-35). Jonah’s life prefigures the resurrection of Christ and the call of the nations to repentance. Joel anticipates the outpouring of the Spirit on multitudes in the Valley of Decision.

  1. Jesus

Jesus is the seed of the woman who came to destroy the works of the devil. He is the seed of Abraham in whom all the families are to be blessed. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He is the anointed prophet, priest, and king, whose kingdom is to rule over all the earth. He is the Word of God, the Son of God, incarnate. He taught the character of the kingdom and the law of the kingdom in his Sermon on the Mount. He taught that the goal of the will of God and the coming of the kingdom is that the name of God would be hallowed (that God would be glorified in all that by which he makes himself known). He taught that the kingdom will grow gradually to its fullness (as a mustard seed, and as leaven). Though few at first are saved, and though Jerusalem will be destroyed (Matthew 23-24), He commanded His followers to make disciples of all nations, and He sent the Holy Spirit to enable them to do this work.

  1. Paul

The apostle Paul taught that where sin increased grace increased all the more (Romans 5). He taught that God placed all things under Christ who, through his body the Church, is to fill everything in every way (Ephesians 1), that through the work of the Spirit in the ministry of pastor/teachers, the Church is to attain to the unity of the faith, to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4). He taught that all Israel will be saved when the fullness of the gentiles has come in (Romans 11); that Christ will reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet, the last enemy to be destroyed, at his second coming, is death (1 Corinthians 15).

  1. Peter

Peter exhorts his readers to be patient in suffering for the cause of Christ; that although false teachers are bold and arrogant, God rules, as in the days of Noah, when he brought that world to a sudden end. So too now the world of wickedness will be destroyed. Believers are to speed the coming of that day by their witness. The rule of spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (the heavens) will be destroyed and the fundamental principles (the elements/stoichea) of the world will be destroyed suddenly. In the place of the old, believers look for a new heaven and a new earth, in which the will of God is done.

  1. John

John’s Revelation brings the blessing of hope to all who read it and take it to heart. The time is near to readers in every age. After a seven-fold description of the state of the Church in John’s age, the rule of God through the curse and the promise in an age-long spiritual war is unveiled in a seven-fold vision: the seven seals, the seven trumpets, the woman and the dragon, the seven bowls, the woman on the beast, the age-long spiritual war (Armageddon—fought with the sword coming out of the mouth), the thousand-year rule of believers (the millennium, in which all rule, who are raised from the dead spiritually—the first resurrection). Each vision covers the entire period of Christ’s rule, from the first to the second coming. Each vision depicts the spiritual war between believers and non-believers under different aspects. Each vision shows the conquest of the kingdom of God over the kingdom of darkness. John’s Revelation ends with the consummation of the kingdom of God. The work given to mankind in the Garden of Eden is completed by Christ through the Church. The City of God, perfected in beauty, comes down from heaven to earth. The river of life flows through the middle of the city, bringing blessing to all nations, life in its fullness. The hope of the Sabbath, of work and rest, is fully realized. The earth is filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.


© 2000 Logos Papers Press