Power, Family, Community and Law

The Robe of Glory

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Sociology

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 6

Track: 37

Dictation Name: RR111A2

Date: 1974

Our scripture this evening is from the Gospel According to St. Matthew chapter 22 verses 1-15. Matthew 22:1-15

[Audience] Chapter?

[Audience] Chapter….

[Rushdoony] Oh, uh excuse me. Chapter 22. Matthew 22:1-15:

“1And Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables, and said,

2 The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son,

3 And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come.

4 Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage.

5 But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise:

6 And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them.

7 But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.

8 Then saith he to his servants, the wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy.

9 Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage.

10 So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests.

11 And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment:

12 And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless.

13 Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

14 For many are called, but few are chosen.

15 Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk.”

This parable has had rather strange history at times. Some Arminians have shunned it because they do not like the fourteenth verse, “For many are called, but few are chosen.” It smacks too much of predestination, of God’s election and various things that they prefer to stay away from. On the other hand, some sour Calvinists—and there are such, delight in this because it proves their point. There’s only going to be a small company of them in Heaven and they’re one of them. [Laughter]

The parable says nothing of the sort. It does not say that few are chosen for the Kingdom of Heaven. As a matter of fact, we are told that a vast throng were brought in from the highways and byways. So we must conclude that there are many brought in to the wedding supper. As a matter of fact, one Puritan divine, doing some calculations (which I don’t think are valid, but nonetheless it’s of interest to indicate how he and others felt), said that the proportion of the redeemed against the lost by the end of the world would be seventeen thousand redeemed as against one lost.

So you have both extremes. Certainly, many are brought in here from the highways and the byways. Who then are the few that are chosen? Why, of those who were originally called to the supper; meaning, the Jews of our Lord’s day. The Pharisees understood this, and in the 15th verse they went out and “took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk.” They understood the meaning of the 7th verse—that Jerusalem was to be destroyed; that our Lord was saying that they, the people of His day in Israel were the many who were called. But they rejected the Lord of glory. And of those who did come in, there were the Judaizers, and even they, of them, few were chosen. So our Lord’s reference here to the few that were chosen out of the many who were called has reference to the physical Israel of His day, not to the number of the elect. It is important to understand this, because if we do not realize that part of the reference, we miss the main point: the wedding garments, or as they were known in our Lord’s day and people throughout the Greco-Roman world, the robe of glory.

What did the robe symbolize? Here it is a king’s wedding feast, and the guest has not taken upon himself the garment provided by the king. When the king gave anyone a garment, the significance was enormous. And it was worn as the robe of glory. The robe symbolized incorporation, membership, into the life of the king, into his family. So that when a king honored someone, made him a member of his household, made him a prime minister, he gave him one of his garments and had it cast about the man. And anyone who is invited to the lord’s table, and certainly to a wedding feast, there was a garment provided for him by the king to make clear that now he was brought to the lord’s table to break bread with him, to have communion with him, to be made a member of his family and to wear the mantle of the king as a member of his body.

From the earliest Bible times, the robe, the garment, has this significance. When Jacob gave a robe, a coat of many colors, to Joseph, the brethren knew its meaning. It was commonly known in that day. He clothed him with authority, so that where Joseph went, Jacob was in all his authority. And they resented the authority of one who had been made “father over them” as it were, when he was a younger brother. Then subsequently, when Joseph was taken out of prison and interpreted the dreams for Pharaoh, Pharaoh immediately had him clothed in his robe and declared that now Joseph’s voice would be as the voice of Pharaoh to all the land of Egypt. Remember again, when Joseph revealed himself to his brethren, they were fearful. They knew they had given him over to death, figuring, we won’t murder him directly, but if we sell him into slavery, he’ll soon be dead. And we’ll be rid of him. And now they feared for their lives. And how did he allay that fear? He gave them garments. He who wore the mantle of Pharaoh, who was the power of the world of that time, gave them garments, making them members of his body, his household, his family. And then they returned to their father, joyfully and confidently.

Again, we meet with the significance of garments passing hurriedly through scripture when Naman came with ten robes to give to Elisha to honor him, to make him a member of his body and of his life as the great general of Syria. Elisha refused because he wore the mantle of Elijah. And you recall when he asked to become the heir of Elijah, ‘give me a double portion; make me among all the prophets who follow after thee, those whom you have trained; your heir.’ It was the mantle of Elijah that fell as he was taken from Heaven, to Elisha. And it was that mantle he took and divided the waters of Jordan. The power of God, the power of Elijah was now upon Elisha. He needed not the mantle of Naman. And so here it is. He healed Naman. But he would take no gift. He, as the greater one was giving to the lesser one.

In one of the great moments of history, when the elector protected Luther and Luther was in hiding and the elector was fearful, Luther said, “I extend to you the protection of the Almighty God.” The hunted one extended to the ruler protection in the name of God.

You remember Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, went after Naman and said, my master has changed his mind. I will take the robes to him and the gifts of gold and silver. And what was it that he inherited, the leprosy of Naman, because he had forsaken God for the mantle of a man and man’s power.

We could go on through scripture and cite other instances of the use and the significance of the robe, but one more. Perhaps first of all recalling that Abram refused to take anything from the king of Sodom, but Mordecai, when a Ahasuerus honored Mordecai, he had him clothed in his robe, in his mantle and let through the streets on a horse with the proclamation, “Thus doeth the king delight to honor whom he chooses.” And immediately, the wife of Naman [Haman] told him, ‘it’s finished with you.’ Mordecai, whom you desired to hang, now has all the power of Ahasuerus. He wears his mantle and he rules.

To wear the mantle was an act of allegiance. The refusal to wear it when the king offered it was an act of treason, a rejection of him. It denied the sovereignty of the king and his overlordship. It declared that you stood in your own right an in your own sovereignty. To wear the mantle, the robe of glory meant that you could sit at the king’s table as a member of his family because wearing his mantle, his life was now your life and you were a member of his body.

And so it is, that our Lord summons us to take up our cross, His cross and follow Him. His robe of glory, which He gives to us, is His cross. And what does it signify? That we stand not in our righteousness, that we recognize that we are dead in sins and trespasses, that we can stand before God only in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And so the parable of the wedding supper signifies that those who came in, good and bad, all men who came in could only sit at the wedding supper of the king’s son clothed in the wedding garments, in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. The one who came in in his own righteousness in terms of Phariseeism was cast out into Hell, as one who is guilty of treason, who denied the king, who had no right to the king’s table let alone the marriage supper.

The robe of glory; this is what God offers to us in Jesus Christ. When the prodigal son returned the father’s first thought was, clothe him, put my mantle upon him, for this my son was lost and is found. So God clothes us in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

And so it is that Jesus Christ, as He looks unto us, so thoroughly identifies Himself with us that He says in the parable of the judgment, “even as ye have done unto the least of these, my brethren” (those who are clothed in my robe of glory), “ye have done it unto me. And as ye have not done it unto the least of these, ye have not done it unto me.” We are thus, in Jesus Christ, members of the household of the king. We’ve been called to put on Christ and His righteousness, to wear the robe of glory, to be members of His household, to partake of His table.

What does it mean then, for us, to be the people who wear the robe of glory, who come not in our righteousness, but in His righteousness? It means first of all that when that robe of glory was put upon Joseph, or Mordecai, Elijah or Elisha, they were under authority. So that when we put on the robe of glory, when we put on the righteousness of God in Christ, we are under authority.

And so it was when Peter came in his own pride and righteousness and was humbled in it and was asked, “Simon bar Jonah, lovest thou me?” At first confessing against the use of the word ‘agape’ that our Lord used, first more than these. You boasted of your love. Is it this divine, supernatural love that you have? And Simon said, “Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee.” Not agape, philio, a very frail, human love. Simon bar Jonah, “Loves thou me?” (agape yet?) “No, Lord, Thou knowest I love Thee” (philio). Then when our Lord the third time spoke and said, “Lovest thou me?” using ‘philio,’ ‘Do you love me with a frail, human love?’ Then Peter, we are told, was hurt and said, “Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee.” Frail though it be, sinning and erring though it be, by your grace, I love Thee. And so then our Lord said, now because you are under authority, men will lay hands upon you and you will be called to suffer as you witness for my sake, because now that you stand not in your righteousness but in mine, you are under authority; and where you go, and what happens to you will be of my determining, my ordination.

And so when we are called and made members of Jesus Christ, we are first of all under authority. The authority of God the Son, the authority of the Word; we are not our own. We have been bought with a price.

Then second, we bear His reproach. The World lashes out at us because it hates Him. We suffer for His sake. We know the opposition, the hostility, the loneliness that He knew, never to the extreme of the Garden of Gethsemane, of course, but we often find ourselves very much alone, very much filled with grief as we bear the reproach of Christ.

But this is not all, because we are now wearers of the robe of glory, we also exercise authority and dominion in His name. Just as Joseph, when he put on the robe of his father had the authority of his father, and when he put on the robe of Pharaoh he had the power and the authority of Pharaoh. So now we, because we’ve put on Christ we have the power of Christ to manifest, to declare to this world and we are summoned to go forth, to make disciples of all nations, to conquer in His name. This is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith.

So, to wear the robe means we are under authority and we bear the reproach; but we also exercise authority—a greater authority than Pharaoh’s and Jacob’s, the authority of Christ the King.

And finally, because we now wear the robe of glory, and are by adoption, the family of God, we cry, “Abba, Father. Abba Father,” Our authority, our protector, our nurturer. And we know Him as Father. Adoption in Biblical times was a very marvelous thing. A natural son could be cast aside. An adopted son could not be—a very significant fact. This was the custom of the day, and so when in the providence of God, this doctrine, this word was used, the connotation was one of eternal security. We who are adopted in Jesus Christ, who cry Abba, Father, are heirs who cannot be cast aside. Thus, as we wear the robe of glory, as we put on the righteousness of Jesus Christ, we need to see what a rich inheritance is ours, here and now: access to the Throne of Grace, commissioned with power, having an eternal security, able to cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ Indeed, the promises of God in Jesus Christ are yea and amen.

Let us pray.

Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, we thank Thee that we who were clothed only in the nakedness of sin and who were dead in sins and trespasses have been made a new creation and are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, in the robe of glory. We thank Thee, our Father, that in putting on Christ, we have put on authority, eternal security, and the certainty of Thy unfailing grace and love. Grant, oh Lord, that we be ever-mindful of those things which Thou hast given us. Forgive us, oh Lord that we think so often of our poverty in the eyes of the world and forget our wealth in Thy presence. Bless us unto faithfulness to Thee. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

[Audience] Do you find the same philosophical tenets at the roots of all these: American education, occultism, Socialism, Communism, Evolution, Arminianism, political Liberalism, Humanism, religious liberalism, Modernism, {?} etc. Everything that’s bad.

[Rushdoony] Yes, well, to a very great extent, these things all have a common root in the worship of Man, in the desire of man to be his own god. So that they are very closely inter-related, and they do feel friendly one to another, as against us.

I know that over the years in some of my experiences, for example, when I was at one foundation, I found that the Marxists and the hard-core right-wingers finally joined forces against some of us who were Christian, because we were a challenge to them. They were agreed in the primacy of Man, so that they stopped their fighting with each other long enough to unite against us who held to the sovereignty of God and the absolute authority of His Word. They didn’t like to admit they were bedfellows, but they did in their common hatred of God and anyone who stood in terms of His Word.

Well, American Education had as its purpose, our public school education (although very few people realize it. I develop it out of their own words, in my Messianic Character of American Education) to throw the Bible out of this country. It was anti-Christian in purpose; and Socialist in purpose.

Occultism we’ve gone into.

Socialism and Communism, their whole and avowed purpose is the predestination of man by man and to replace the sovereign God and His predestination by the sovereign man and his elite planners, or predestinators.

Evolution, of course, is a faith. There is no evidence for it. It requires more miracles than scripture provides for. [Laughter] And its basic plan is to say well any miracle can happen if you have enough millions of years, you see. The millions of years take the place of God and it is anti-God to the core.

Arminianism (and please say Arminianism, not Armeniansim, because I’m an Armenian and I’m not Arminian!) [Laughter] Arminianism is a form of theology which exalts the power of man to the point that it makes man a cooperator in his salvation. Well, it is Humanism disguised as Christianity, and ultimately its logic will overthrow Christianity, and does. And this is why the Arminians either come to the Doctrine of Sovereign Grace, or ultimately they drift into Liberalism given the logic of their thought, because they do not recognize that man is dead in sins and trespasses, that he can only be born again by the sovereign grace of God.

Well, political Liberalism rests on the Doctrine of the Goodness of Man, which is anti-scriptural. Humanism is the worship of Man.

Religious Liberalism, or the principle of Modernism, says that it’s the spirit of the age that gives the infallible word, and so the modernists change their gospel every 10 or 20 years and openly and avowedly do so, because it’s the spirit of the age which should govern and you should move with the spirit of the times. This is Humanism.

[Audience] If innocent people are to take responsibility for, and make restitution for crimes in which the guilty party is unknown, and the crime will then be forgiven, does this also forgive the criminal?

And secondly, does this mean that we as Christians are responsible for, and must make restitution for all the crimes in the world in which we don’t’ know the guilty party?

[Rushdoony] Yes…

No, because the Bible speaks first of all about your community, not the world. And second, when the guilty party is caught, they are required to make restitution. In this case, to the community. Now obviously, we are in a situation where we cannot make restitution for all the crimes in Niceville, or Fort Walton Beach, or Canoga Park. We are living in a godly society—uh, in an ungodly society as a godly remnant. So what is our responsibility? How did the Early Church handle that problem, because they took that law very seriously?

They recognized they had a problem. Because first of all, they had members who had committed sometimes murder and the death penalty wasn’t enforced. And sometimes they had members who committed adultery and the death penalty was not enforced. Or who practiced abortion; they killed a, or aborted a baby and the death penalty was not enforced because Rome didn’t care about those things. Well, they realized they had a problem. And so, as they came together and they wrestled over these problems in various church counsels and synods and meetings of pastors (and they did the same sort of thing in Geneva under Calvin), the pastors would come together with these problems and they would say, the Counsel of Geneva is not friendly to us, they won’t even allow us to rule our own churches properly, but how are we practically going to deal with these cases?

Well, the Early Church said we must make it clear to these people that they are under sentence of death for the crimes. And we are a community as it were, within a community. We are a colony, a colony of Heaven, put here to conquer this alien territory, so that in a sense, while we are a part of that Roman world, or of Geneva, or of whatever that place might be, we are also not a part of it. We’re at war against it. Well, within our community then, we must require restitution. Therefore, anyone who commits these offenses is barred from the Lord’s Table for 5 years or 10 years, or life if is a capital offense. And they must know that in a sense that they are dead in terms of the Law of God. They’ve committed a capital offense. That on their death bed, we make clear to them they are under the blood of Jesus Christ, and therefore, they have eternal salvation, but in terms of the law of man, they should have been executed, but we didn’t have the opportunity.

Or, where it is a theft or something else, we require them to make restitution, so ours is as it were, a state within a State, you see. So they said, within this area, we will avert the judgment of God and have the blessing of God by requiring restitution within our area and then reaching out to convert, reaching out to redeem.

Well, that’s what they did. In other words, they regard the Church in an alien and ungodly world as an area where if they applied God’s Law, applied restitution, God would bless them. And where it was with someone without, or it was a law the State wasn’t’ going to enforce, they at least imposed some kind of situation, some kind of standard, to make clear that God has His judgment on this kind of sin and we cannot overlook it because the State does. Then they reached out.

It’s very interesting, that they were so busy rescuing the babies that were abandoned and adopting them, that it became a problem to the Romans. They were winning too many converts this way. They were taking care not only of their aged, but also of those who were cast off by their families as not worth supporting (too old; Grandma can’t do anything about that house to help out with the housework, so push her out in the street and let her die). Christians were taking them in. They actually, at one point toward the last, passed a law prohibiting Christians from this kind of charity, because it was having too big an impact on the pagans. They had to admit that the Christians were a superior people; that they not only cared for their own, but cared for our own.

The emperor, Julian, much as he hated the Christians, at one point commented on that fact, that this was a problem. How could they get pagans to do the same thing, because the Christians were making an impression on the whole world by the way they not only cared for their own, but have went out to minister to all who were in need as a means of witnessing to them and thereby converted them.

So, you see, there are ways in which it can be done, and has been done by the Church when it’s been under fire, and its very life has been at stake through persecution.

[Audience] This will be the last question. Do you feel that scripture teaches the ceremonial law is still binding upon the Christian, and that the passage in Deuteronomy 21:1-9 is ceremonial, or one of the moral Ten Commandments?

[Rushdoony] Well, uh, first of all, I don’t think it’s a ceremonial law, although there is a ceremony connected with it.

Now, the way a law is to be enforced, that is the outward form, changes from time to time. There is no longer, for example, a necessity of the blood of bulls and goats, because we have, according to Hebrews, the all-sufficient sacrifice of Christ. So that this part of Deuteronomy 21:1-9 is no longer obligatory for us. We have the witness of the blood of Christ. But that witness should tell us that. When it was necessary for God’s only begotten Son to give His life to make atonement, to make restitution for our sins, sin is very serious in God’s sight and cannot be set aside. That for us to set it aside and say that it doesn’t matter, is a very serious offense, that God requires that there be restitution for all crime. This is mandatory.

And so while the form of the observance of this law has changed, the basic law is still valid. And everything we know in scripture tells us that this is the way they behaved, that restitution was required, not only in Zaccheus, but when St. Paul says, “Let him that stole, steal no more, but work honestly,” and the implication there, some of the Greek scholars tell us, is in the word conveys the connotation of restoring when he works honestly, that he worked to effect a change in his relationship. But in various ways I think it is clear to us, the whole of scripture requires us to make restitution.

The very word ‘forgive’ in scripture has that meaning. Now, our modern word forgive is empty. When I say “I forgive you,” it means I’ve changed my mind about you. The meaning of the word forgive in its root is totally in the Bible, juridical, that is it’s a legal term. It’s a court term. It means, “charges deferred because satisfaction has been rendered.” It can also mean, and only used in scripture once, “charges deferred for the time being.” When our Lord said on the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,” he said, ‘Father, defer the charges for the time being, because they know not what they do.’ But apart from that, the charges are dropped when satisfaction has been rendered. This is why there is no charge against us before God. All our sins are under the blood of Christ. “There is therefore now no condemnation” for us. The charges are dropped, because satisfaction has been rendered by the blood of Jesus Christ.

Now, I have no right to forgive you apart from the Law of God. And if someone has robbed me, I must under God, require restitution. I cannot call it forgiveness, otherwise, I can say, I’ll forget about it, but to use the word forgive is not right, because the word forgive requires satisfaction.

Now when St. Peter, you see—when you understand that meaning of that word, you can understand St. Peter’s question—he said, “Lord, how oft shall I forgive my brother,” (my fellow covenant member, my fellow believer) “Seven times?” And our Lord said, “Seventy times seven.” As long as satisfaction is rendered, the charges must be dropped. Now, you see, that puts an entirely different meaning on forgiveness. And that’s the biblical one. God didn’t say, well, I feel sorry for John Jones down there. I’ll forgive him is sins. No. The charges are only dropped where satisfaction is rendered, and we cannot do it, God does it in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. But in the man-to-man relationships, we can render satisfaction and we must. Otherwise there is no forgiveness possible, because forgiveness is a juridical term. And when someone does render satisfaction, then they must be forgiven, they must be restored.

So you see, the whole idea of restitution is implicit in the word forgive, which is basic to scripture, basic to the Gospel. You cannot eliminate restitution without eliminating forgiveness. Remember, we have sinned in the modern age, beginning with the Romantic Movement, we have turned the doctrines of scripture from their legal meaning, because they have reference to the court of God’s Law. They look ahead to the last judgment. And we have converted them into emotional terms, romantic terms which have to do with our feeling. But they have to do with God’s Law, God’s holiness, God’s righteousness. We cannot forgive on our terms, only on God’s terms. And forgiveness has a price; with respect to God, the price of the blood of Christ, with respect to our neighbor, the price of restitution. Otherwise, it becomes a condoning of sin if I forgive someone who does not make restitution. And scripture speaks of it as the woman who commits adultery and wipes her mouth and says, no matter, {?}. No seriousness attached to sin then. If it’s something you can just forgive, purely emotionally.

It is God’s Law in every sin that is violated, whether it’s a sin in relationship directly to God or it is one of man-to-man relationship where the Law of God is involved. And so it is God’s Word that must be kept. So I must forgive when God requires it (when satisfaction is rendered), I cannot withhold it (“seventy times seven”) forever, as long as satisfaction is rendered. God’s Word must prevail.