Per the inferred deeper meanings thread, there was a question related to
this some time back there was a question related to this.



Harry said/asked:

>I would say that eschatology is one of the major themes in Scripture, but
soteriology would be >primary, wouldn't you agree?



William Dumbrell points out that "eschatology" was coined in the 19th
century by a German writer and brought into English about 1845. The OED
defines it as "the department of theological science concerned with 'the
four last things: death, judgment, heaven, and hell"; But the word has much
broader and narrower meanings. Narrowly, it can refer to the end of history
and the beginning of the new age. But when we are discussing the themes and
events of the canon, eschatology is almost always used the broader sense:
that goal of history toward which the Bible moves and of Biblical factors
and events bearing on that goal.  This places eschatology in the very first
chapters of the canon. the development of eschatology begins in the garden
and its trajectory is toward the New Garden of God in Revelation 21 and 22.



Or as Vos puts it, "all that transcends the present life. all that reckons
from a definite beginning of creation and looks forward to a definite
winding up of things, and. all that cleaves to the Messianic interpretation
of Jesus, and has made of historic Christianity a realistic, concrete,
factual religion, placing itself at the center of the development of the
world, all this. springs from this one source.(eschatology)" (Vos, BT, 287).
Even the beginnings are concerned with "the end", or as Vos puts it, "the
end is seen to give birth to the beginning in the emergence of truth." (Vos,
P.E., pg. 11).



So, when we say that eschatology precedes soteriology, we are saying that
not only eschatology chronologically is before soteriology, but also that
eschatology is before soteriology in priority.  Soteriology serves
eschatology.  There are numerous reasons for this.



Redemption is the central thought/reason for revelation.  Redemption is tied
to sin (Vos, BT, pg. 4). Until Genesis 3:15, redemption was not a time/space
reality because there was no need for redemption.  The giving of the promise
inaugurated the beginning of redemptive history.



This does not mean that the pre-redemptive revelation doesn't tell us
anything about redemption.  The pre-redemptive anticipates redemption (and
here we're assuming we're speaking of Moses' revelation of the prelapsarian
world. certainly there was special revelation between the Creator and the
Creature before the fall; Vos insists that the special revelation we have
from Moses was necessitated by the fall's derangement of the communion
between God and man).  Without the fall, there is no redemption; there is
nothing to redeem man "from" (gr).  The law/gospel antithesis hangs on that
reality.



History is tied to time and space as is sin.  While I would agree (as a
supra) that the fall was predetermined, the redemption clock didn't actually
start in what we call time and space until Genesis 3:15.  Without sin, there
is nothing to redeem man "from" (gr).  Man isn't "redeemed" when he is
created.  Redemption makes nonsense in the prelapsarian world.



History itself has divinely revelated/ordained themes, some of which are
revealed very early on.  The best work I've nearly read :-) on this is Beale
's "Temple as the Church's Mission".  The God-acts, God-interprets those
acts pattern of revelation first shows up in Genesis 1 & 2.  And while the
prelapsarian themes are redemptive in that they anticipate the coming act(s)
of redemption, the actual act of redeeming in time and space does not begin
until Genesis 3:15.



What is redemptively anticipated is incorporated into the redemptive history
itself (Israel's Sabbath, which is organically linked to the original
seventh day rest is an example.  The Sabbath rest of Israel is redemptively
anticipated in the original seventh day rest).  Hence: the eschatology (Gen.
1:1-2:3) precedes soteriology (Gen. 3:15).  And the soteriology serves the
eschatological ends (the Rest in God for which man is originally intended
(Gen. 2:1-3), Christ the lamb slain before the foundation of the world, is
the end point of redemption (Heb. 4:1-11, Rev. 21:6).



Chad Bresson

Xenia, OH