FROM ETERNITY TO ETERNITY ERICH SAUER By the Same Author THE DAWN OF WORLD REDEMPTION A Survey of Historical Revelation in the Old Testament THE TRIUMPH OF THE CRUCIFIED A Survey of Historical Revelation in the New TestamentFROM ETERNITY TO ETERNITY AN OUTLINE OF THE DIVINE PURPOSES By ERICH SAUER Translated by G. H. LANG WM. B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY GRAND RAPIDS 1954 MICHIGAN AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION This book appeared in Germany at the end of 1950. It consisted originally of Part I of this English edition. For the second German edition the book was considerably enlarged. The initial impulse to issue this book in English was a remark in the American magazine United Evangelical Action, Cincinnati, April, 1953,1 which, while reviewing the Author’s other two books, referred to this also. These two books were The Dawn of World Redemption and The Triumph of the Crucified. They were issued in English in London (Autumn, 1951) and in Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.SA. (Autumn, 1952), and found a kind welcome among serious students of Scripture. Twenty thousand copies of the two books were issued, in the first twenty months. The text and colored Chart of the present book supply an outline of the basic train of thought of the other two books named. At the same time the train of ideas itself and the whole structure of this book is essentially new and different. It exhibits the unfolding of the history of salvation not in broad cross-sections of the development, showing the contemporary stages, persons, and events connected one with the other at any given time, but rather portrays them in the form of longitudinal sections, showing a number of distinct developments included in the whole course of history. These may be viewed as separate streams and single rivers flowing through the whole region, as, for example, the special history of the Divine methods of revelation in general, the history of the temples of God, the history of Israel, the history of the nations as to salvation, the history of the Messiah, the “days” of God, the various final judgments. Thus in spite of the difference of Part I of the present book from the two books mentioned, it is nevertheless, like them, historical in character. To this are added two further Parts, the purpose of which is to establish by fundamental considerations the historical point of view set forth. For this purpose Part II deals with the basic attitude to the question of the inspiration of the Bible as such, and thus to the foundation and justification of all study of Bible history in principle. For the whole study of the history of salvation stands or falls with the attitude taken to inspiration.^. The official organ of the National Association of Evangelicals (N.A.E.). Then Part III justifies the expectation of a visible kingdom of God (the Millennium). This is therefore more exegetical and eschatological. We deem it necessary to add this discussion because the entire nature and structure of our outlook upon the historical development of salvation depends in high degree upon the basic attitude taken to the Millennial kingdom. This applies as much to Old Testament prophecy as to the whole arrangement and texture of New Testament history, and in particular to the order and connection of some chief and essential questions as to the original Christian hope. Thus the three Parts of this book form a unity. Part I gives our actual exposition, Part II its basic warrant, and Part I2 The justification of the character and structure of our historical outlook. This unites the present book with its two predecessors, so that they form together a trilogy. It uncovers the underlying pattern and roots of the two others, and endeavours to expand their message from new points of view and to support from the Scriptures the soundness of their basic position. At the same time this book is so written that it is complete in itself, independently of the other two. It is not a supplement to them, but it includes in itself a complete, self-contained message for those readers who do not know the other books named. I desire to express my heart-felt gratitude to the Translator, my esteemed friend Mr. G. H. Lang. I have read and carefully checked this English translation. It is accurate and excellent, reliable in all details. I am very conscious of the difficulty of treating such a vast, all-embracing theme in so small a space. On this account only the chief points can be touched and these not even with approximate completeness. But if the Lord shall use this book to provoke to further meditation those who love His word, and to awaken and establish faith in Holy Scripture and in its personal and world-embracing message, the Author will rejoice and be well repaid. To proclaim His grace, to witness to His praise, to glorify Himself, this is the highest privilege and happiness of life. Erich Sauer Bible School, Wiedenest, Rhineland, Germany. INTRODUCTION The Bible—the Key to World Affairs The Bible is the Book of the history of salvation. It is the most world-embracing of all books, the mightiest historical organism, the book of mankind. In the midst of the general history of mankind God begins a special historical revelation, in which He makes Himself present to the sinner as Redeemer and Lord. “The march of the gospel through the world is the proper theme of world history.” This His plan of salvation God carries out in ages and periods. What was eternally determined in Him before the ages will in the ages be carried through and perfected. Therefore Paul terms the plan of salvation the “purpose of the ages” (Eph_3:11), and praises God, the Lord Himself, as the “King of the ages” (1Ti_1:17). Of this mighty unfolding Holy Scripture is God’s testimony and record. Only he who reads it in this sense, and so allows it to work upon himself, does justice to its proper nature and chief meaning. But then there will rise before him a wonderful historical prospect. He will learn to regard the development of human history from the standpoint of eternity. _He will perceive in history a uniform, universal plan, guided by God, which, in the course of millenniums, unfolds itself in living variety, regular order, and cosmic universality, moving surely to its goa]. And the Bible, as the record of this totality, will become to him, not only the guide to personal salvation in Christ, but at. the same time the universal call for salvation, the Book for all mankind, the key to world events. Danger of and Warrant for Charts of the History of Salvation The Chart here offered seeks to set forth this historical unity of the Bible. Its definite presupposition is faith in the Divine character and historical trustworthiness of the Holy Scriptures, including the literality of the ancient histories of the Bible, the genuineness of the prophecies of Daniel, and the reliability of the Old and New Testament prophecies of the End times. He who does not share this faith must reject in advance the study of the Bible history of salvation, and by consequence must refuse every attempt to set forth the periods of salvation diagrammatically. The Chart offered is not intended for such a one. But let this only be said, that Christ, the Son of God, Himself has confessed faith in the historicity of the first chapters of the Bible (Mat_19:8; Mat_24:37-38), as well as in the book of Daniel (Mat_26:64 :comp. Dan_7:13; Mat_24:15), and also in the expectations of the future of Old Testament prophecy (Act_1:6-7; Mat_19:28; Mat_25:31 if.). Therefore they only can deny the historical unity of the Bible who do not acknowledge the absolute authority of the Lord Jesus. But even one with a full faith in Holy Scripture may at first feel a certain reserve in relation to a pictorial setting forth of the historical Biblical revelation. It is not to be denied that every such drawing has in it the danger of rigidity and inflexibility, which can only be overcome if it be intentionally limited to the clearly perceptible, main, basic lines of the whole development of the history of salvation. But above all, how much seemingly learned but really confused and amateurish, not to say Gnostic, trifling has often been connected with such drawings! How much over-refinement and artificial symbolic numbering, how many rigid schemes and often insipid drawings! How many times—especially in connection with setting forth of the End-days —has prophecy been mistaken for mere prediction and has fallen—albeit unintentionally—under the ban of inquisitive striving to satisfy unwarranted curiosity! Yet with all rejection of such extravagances one should endeavor to be just to the subject itself. If it is certainly true —and this is guaranteed absolutely to faith by the authority of our Lord and His apostles—that the Bible gives us reliable historical information as to the earliest times of the human race, and that its prophecies as to the general main divisions of the End-times are likewise reliable, why should it not be permissible, indeed useful, to set forth in one glance these historical periods of the past and the future, and to make their sequence easily perceptible to the eye through a diagram or a drawing? In the same way every dial of a clock is a diagram setting before the eye the sequence of sections of time.