Power, Family, Community and Law
Grace and Community: Q & A
Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony
Subject: Sociology
Genre: Speech
Lesson: 7
Track: 38
Dictation Name: RR112A1
Date: 1974
Our scripture is Psalm 133. Psalm 133:
“1Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!
2 It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments;
3 as the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.”
Very often, major quarrels, social issues, differences, hinge upon words. It is all the more tragic when these words are often meaningless, and very often they are, especially when men have forsaken the faith. The eyes of their understanding are darkened and as a result they deal with shadows rather than reality.
In the modern world, a great deal has been made over a number of issues that have very little substance to them. With the French Revolution, the basic battle cry of modern man became “Liberty! Fraternity! Equality!” And yet, liberty has been so redefined by the social philosophers, that today (very few people realize this, but) freedom has been redefined to mean total submission to the State. Rousseau began this kind of redefinition. Fraternity, or brotherhood, has been redefined, to mean our compulsory submission to what the planners declare to be brotherhood. And equality, of course, is perhaps the worst of all. It is not a biblical word, although there is the word ‘equal’ in the New Testament, but it is a bad translation of another concept. It would be a good thing if the good thing if the words ‘equality’ and ‘inequality’ were abolished from common use and restored to mathematics. Why? Because they are useful in mathematics; they belong there. They are an expression of what takes place when you have an equals sign, when the sides of the equation balance, or do not balance. Now if I am dealing with lumber and abstract things, I can talk about their equality and inequality. But when I deal with human beings, I cannot use those words. Do two Englishmen equal two Germans? Well the idea is ridiculous! Why? Because the richness of human life cannot be defined in terms of a mathematical abstraction; equality and inequality are terms that deal with abstractions. You cannot apply them to human life. You degrade life when you use those terms.
The Bible does not use such language. It does not say, behold how good it is when men live together in terms of Rousseau’s Doctrine of Liberty, or the French Revolution’s ideas of fraternity, or the modern ideas of equality, but “how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.”
Now notice the word is ‘unity.’ It is not ‘peace.’ In our time, precisely because men have so little peace, they idealize peace. And they make of it an idol. They make of it something that is unduly emphasized to the exclusion of others and peace, however desirable it can be, a Christian peace, cannot be exalted to a place of priority. I know a man who has a peaceful marriage and I think a judgment of God is going to be upon him one of these days; because he treats his wife and his children as absolute slaves and they’re cowed. There isn’t a ripple of dissent in that family! There’s perfect peace, if that’s what you want to call it. If you want peace, you can go to a graveyard as well.
A marriage can have unity but not peace. And the psalmist says, “Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” It is more important in your marriage to have unity than to have peace. If it’s a healthy marriage, two people who have their share of sins (We all do. Of course, I tell my wife my sins are all loveable ones [Laugher] but, uh, some of hers aren’t! That’s purely a private opinion, you see), two people who have their share of sins are bound to rub each other the wrong way. You cannot have peace short of perfection. This side of Heaven, there will not be any peace, such as the world seeks. There will be God’s peace, the peace of His grace, peace with God.
But we can have unity. We can have our difference, but we can be united in our love of the Lord, united as brethren together. And it is this, this unity in the faith, unity in the Lord which is the most promising thing that the world can ever hope to attain, that it forgets about. But scripture says, “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.”
But because our world emphasizes a variety of false doctrines, it has an inability to live together with anyone in unity. One of the most conspicuous things in our world today is that there is no ability to tolerate faults in anyone else. One of the most common things in church life are the church tramps, who do not leave a church because of a real difference in doctrine, when one must leave—very few leave for that reason—there are millions in churches today who have no business there. They should get out! But what do they leave for? They get angry with Mrs. So-and-so, or the pastor didn’t call on them when they were sick (they expect him to trot around incessantly to take care of them every time they feel a little qualm about something), and for a variety of other trivial reasons. There is no ability now to tolerate faults in others. We have the luxury of so many people around that we can endlessly shift groups, shift friends, wear them out and go on and on.
One of the most remarkable young couples, not quite so young, but I think their names might be known to some of you, have limited their usefulness to God’s kingdom, precisely because their independence financially is such that they can afford to quarrel and to leave. So that if they don’t like what people are doing in this particular church or congregation, they can tick them off and if they won’t take it, we’ll go somewhere else, or we’ll move to another state. And they’ve done it. And so while their work through the printed page has been influential, their personal witness is abominable. There is no ability to live with others.
And so it is, many people will not tolerate superiors, nor inferiors. They move constantly from group to group, not living with problems, unwilling to live with difficult people. I suspect there is scarcely a pastor across country who has not heard someone say, count me out if so-and-so is going to be on that committee; because they refuse to work with them. They are difficult people to work with. And when we take that attitude, what happens to us? We become difficult people, people who will put up with nothing, who cannot live in unity with anyone, and finally, cannot live in unity in the home.
I was very profoundly moved when I first went to the Indian reservation, an isolated reservation a hundred miles from any town, bus, or train line, and I was the only missionary for a hundred miles in any direction. I was ministering to a sheep camp and I was ministering to isolated ranchers all through there. I went to this one area, very isolated; three ranches, nothing else for miles and miles around, and these three ranches, separated by several miles. And I was talking to this one woman and this, who lived in this cabin on the mountainside, and I knew a little bit about the other two ranchers and they were rather difficult people. And I commented on the fact, that was it a problem to get along with them, and she laughed, she said, why no. When you live as we do, and there are only two other families for miles and miles around for almost a day’s journey, you know that they need you and you need them in an emergency, and you get along with them. You see, we have the luxury to wear out people. And so, the Lord says, it is blessed, it is good for men to dwell together in unity, but who needs it?
St. Paul said in Galatians 6:2, “Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” In John 13:34 and I John 3:23 and elsewhere we see that love of the brethren is required. To bear one another’s burdens means these burdens can be various; they can be physical, they can be mental, they can be moral, and we are told that He, Christ bare our sicknesses. Now He did so with a redemptive power. This we do not have. But we can show sanctifying grace and patience as we bear one another’s burdens.
How blessed it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. But of course, there is freedom if you do not. And people today run away from the idea of community because it gives them a great deal more freedom. One of the best ways for a church nowadays to grow is to reach a certain point, several hundred members, and then it takes off. Why? Well, after that point, you’re less likely to be called upon to do anything. You can walk in and out without getting involved with other people. And modern man loves this noninvolvement. He likes the freedom from other people.
And this is why the big cities have grown so much in our age. It’s an ironic fact. Big cities have grown since the later part of the last century, when there was less need for them to grow than ever before in all of history. Why? They were not needed because with the development of the railroad, you could transport goods anywhere and you could manufacture in any small town. You did not need to concentrate at the harbors as was necessary before if you had goods. But people began to concentrate in the cities precisely at that time and in the direct proportion as they began to abandon the faith. They liked the impersonality, the noninvolvement. You don’t get involved with your neighbors. Back on the farm or in the small town, you knew everybody and everybody knew you and you had certain responsibilities in the community and in any group you were, you had a life that was interlocked with the lives of many other people. But in the city, you can live without knowing your neighbor’s name, or if you do, without more than saying ‘hi.’ You’re not involved in his life, in his problems. And because people as they began to abandon the faith, began to abandon involvement, they went for the cities, and they go for the big churches, because there’s no involvement, there’s no responsibility.
One of the things we see in California, and perhaps you see it here in Florida because many people retire here, as they do in California, is that we get every year, tens of thousands of people retiring from all over the country who’ve been church members all their lives and come there and will not join a church. They will visit endlessly, Sunday after Sunday, different churches. They may like one, but they won’t go there more than three or four weeks in a row because they’re afraid they’ll be asked to join and they’ll get involved. I’ve had enough of involvement, is their attitude. And so they very soon find themselves reaching that time of life where old age catches up with them, sickness, and then they are alone, because they have forsaken the unity of the brethren.
Many of our crimes today are a product of this lack of unity, of community, of brotherhood. We are told today that wife beating and child beating are growing by leaps and bounds. And supposedly, it indicates that there is a tremendous increase in this type of crime. There is, on the police blotter. But the difference is, a generation ago, it was handled differently. I can remember as a small boy, if there was any man who was guilty of either, wife beating or child beating, some of the neighbors would call on him and tell him, look, straighten up or we’ll take a hand. And they were not above thrashing him. It wasn’t a police matter, it was a community matter. Or his employer was told about it and he was told I’m not going to have anyone who works for me act like that; because it’s reflection on me. So behave yourself. The community policed the man. Today, people turn up the radio so they won’t hear what’s happening in the apartment next door. And it becomes a police matter.
When people do not live together as brethren in unity, bearing one another’s burdens, then life begins to fall apart. Problems arise. And we become problem people ourselves, unable to put up with anything and finally unable to put up with each other in our own home, in our own marriage. I think nine-tenths of the problems we encounter on the psychiatric couch and in the pastoral counseling sessions are products of this unwillingness of people to live together in unity, because they have withdrawn and isolated themselves to the point where they can live with no one. And their whole idea of life is an artificial one.
I recall one tragic case, they were not Christians, I called on them but it was futile to deal with the woman. The woman had a compulsive desire to have everything look like something out of a show room or a window display at the finest furniture store in town. She was unhappy if a magazine were disarrayed or if a chair were moved slightly and she would just sit there in agony, waiting for a chance to straighten things. It was impossible for her husband and two children to live in peace in the house because her compulsive desire to have everything perfect, just so, so he got busy being a handy-man and added a large rumpus room to which he and the girls could retire, which she moved out there and began to order everything in terms of her desire to have everything just so. And I’ve felt over the years that she’s a fitting symbol, although a little further out, of what most people are becoming in our culture; unable to stand any of the ordinary disturbances of life, unable to live together.
“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments.” Now understand what that is saying. As the precious ointment with which Aaron was anointed as High Priest, the ointment that symbolized the Holy Spirit, and through the centuries the Church has recognized that this very obviously refers to the Holy Spirit, that when brethren live together in unity, what does it do? The Holy Spirit works more effectually among them. The Spirit thrives with its blessings so much more where brotherly unity prevails and it is difficult to enjoy those blessings when discord tears men apart and sets them at variance one with another.
The precious ointment, the anointing of Aaron as High Priest, flowed from the top of his head, down to the skirts of his garments. And so is the dwelling together in unity, the Spirit comes down upon us, from top to bottom. Everyone is affected by it, moved by it, brought more closely together and blessed by the Spirit.
It is the dwelling together in unity, not in peace, that is here spoken of as good in the sight of God. And whether it is in the family or in the church or in the community, the scripture tells us it is this dwelling together in brotherly unity, bearing one another’s burdens in forbearance, in patience that constitutes the ground of the Spirit’s blessing. And the context of the promised blessing is that the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forever more. He commanded it upon the mountains of Zion, that is upon the chosen people, upon the Promised Land, upon the people of faith as they lived in terms of God’s Word.
Now we are told throughout the Law, we are told in the Epistles that the commandments of God are with promise. We are told that obedience to the commandment to obey father and mother or to honor them, with adults, is a promise of long life. And God declares over and over again the blessings that flow from obedience. Deuteronomy 20:8, Deuteronomy 6:2, promise long life for covenantal obedience. Deuteronomy 13:15[30:15, 19b], “15See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil…19therefore, choose life that both thou and thy seed may live.” Thus, [Psalm 133:3] “…as the dew of Hermon and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.” Very clearly refers to Deuteronomy 4:48 and other passages. It is the blessing of the Holy Spirit upon the covenant people.
In I Peter 3:7, husband and wife are commanded to dwell together in mutual forbearance and unity, that being heirs together of the grace of life, their prayers be not hindered. The outpouring of the Spirit, you see, is not solitary. That’s a modern heresy. The outpouring of the Spirit is not solitary in normal circumstances. It is to the people of God. It is to those who live together in faith and in obedience. It is not in terms of the medieval idea which saw the Spirit as solitary in its blessing, to monks, to nuns, who spent hours in their cells in prayer and finally were supposedly possessed by the Spirit, and the charismatic movement of today has this similar attitude. It emphasizes the solitariness of the Spirit’s blessings, and this is not in terms of our scripture. When brethren dwell together in unity and that unity is in terms of God’s Word, in terms of faith and obedience, then the Spirit flows from top to bottom, like that precious ointment in terms of which Aaron was set apart for the Lord’s service.
Life in community, however, does as we have said, involve problems. Marriage is the institution which survives the Garden of Eden but it is also called in scripture, a yoke. And we are told, unequal yoking, that is between believer and unbeliever and by unequal, is meant of different kinds, different faiths, is forbidden. Discipleship is also a yoke. “Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” How does peace, rest, come? Not by seeking it, but by taking the yoke. By bearing burdens. By dwelling together in unity. Peace is an aftermath, a produce of faith, of obedience, of burden-bearing, of living together in unity.
And today, men seek peace in isolation. They want the Lord and the blessing of the Spirits by going to a church where they can sit and know that they are not going to be asked to do too much or to give too much because, well, there’s a church a 1,000 or 2,000 and the giving is going to be great, and the missionary program is going to be great, and we can bask in the light of all that accumulated giving and feel that we are really meeting our obligation to the Lord. See how much the church is doing. And nothing much is going to be asked of us. But if we go to a small church, somebody’s going to tap us on the shoulder, and we’re going to know everybody, and you know anytime you get 20 or 50 people together, some of them are going to be problem people and we forget that the problem person is always the one that meets us in the mirror.
If we believe scripture, we will know the blessing of the Spirit flows where brethren dwell together in unity. Where are you seeking the blessing of the Lord? In His house? In unity with the brethren? Or in flight? If in flight, then it is the judgment of God that you will find.
Let us pray.
Our Lord and our God, we thank Thee that Thou hast called us to live in unity. And we confess unto Thee that so often we have been disobedient to Thy Word. Our Lord and our God, we give thanks unto Thee that Jesus Christ has come, has redeemed us from sin and with all our frailties and with all our waywardness, lives in unity with us. Forgive us, oh Lord, that in the face of Thy so great salvation, we fall so far short of Thy calling. Grant, oh Lord, that this spirit of unity prevail among these, Thy people, and they know the blessing of Thy Holy Spirit that comes to those who obey Thy Word. Grant us this; we beseech Thee, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
[Audience] The first question is this: as we live in a large city, Atlanta, what should we do practically, to insure an involvement in the community? What should we do if, say, a neighbor actually does beat his wife?
[Rushdoony] Yes, that’s a good, practical question. It used to be, as I said, that neighbors did take care of that. Now, it’s very difficult because it’s regarded as jut the ultimate in offense if you step in to try to do anything. Nonetheless, I think we should try and we have to be very careful because the law is kind of complicated today and you can get into trouble sometimes. But very quietly and firmly, to try to lend a hand there. A lot will depend on the people, but I think if there is a situation where there is something going on next door, one should go there and try to say, ‘is there some problem here?’ try to offer their services. Now sometimes you’re going to have no welcome at all. But you do what you can. You don’t have success every time. I know on one occasion, I actually prevented a murder. That was quite remarkable, and no one was more surprised than I was! [Laughter] But a good deal of the time, you’re not going to get anywhere, but sometimes you will.
Then, we should be involved in one another’s lives and be ready to help out. I’ve often said as I go across country, I feel every church should organize, or every group of Christians, to take care of one another. For example, there’s not a church in which there are not some people who are getting along in years, and they can’t use a car any longer and they need somebody to take them shopping once or twice a week, or the wife is becoming ill and she needs someone to go in and clean house for her. Now, it’s easy to give, to help somebody half-way around the world, or across the country, but when it’s right there in your own community or your own church, to do it means you’re involved. You have to do it regularly. You’re needed. And so people don’t like it. Or sometimes to help out with some mother who has a lot of children and occasionally needs a hand. There are many ways whereby we can involve ourselves.
Now there was a time when there were no elderly people in any congregation who were not taken care of by the church. There was no welfare for them by the State. The church took care of them. I think we should get back to that, and we should work toward that end through the Deacon’s Fund. So, it seems to me important to begin to explore ways how, first of all, within the family, “He who does not care for his own is worse than an infidel,” the scripture says. So we have an obligation to care for our own family, our parents, one another; then, within the church circle, to take care of one’s own, and to feel that it is a responsibility. Now, it’s going to take time to create the agencies and the institutions, and our efforts are going to be feeble at first, but they will be helpful. I know the little congregation I last had, we began to do it, and I felt the results were very, very helpful, very beneficial.
[Audience] In a community, county, etc, who or what has the authority to set up a police force, under what authority should be the police force, other than God?
[Rushdoony] Yes, well that in a sense, I assume the question is, in terms of scripture, what should it be?
Well, in the Bible, you have the police power of every citizen which we have today. Everyone has a police power. And I mentioned in Biblical Law, how the human cry meant that everyone had a responsibility to involve himself in the enforcement of law besides the one or two law enforcement officials. We still have that doctrine to a degree, in certain things. For example, out west, where forest fires are often a problem, if you’re anywhere in the area, a federal official or a forest ranger can tap you on the shoulder and say, ‘you’re on the firing line,’ to help put this fire out. And as long as that fire is raging, you are there. If you refuse to go, you are under arrest. And this used to be the case too in any case of law enforcement. You could be tapped as a member of the posse.
Now, the principle there is that every citizen has a responsibility in law enforcement. And this is as it should be. Law breaks down if it’s left to the police, because unless every person exercises police power, feels there’s a responsibility to keep an eye on things and to make sure there is a godly behavior, or things are in order in the area, it breaks down. They found a few years ago, that the lowest crime rates in some urban areas like Boston and New York were areas where they were all Irish or all Italian or something like that and everybody made everybody’s business their own business. They, ah, as a result, they knew if there was any stranger on the street and they kept an eye on them. You couldn’t rob in that area. If you were a boy (this was true in any community when I was a boy; for a while we were in a city when my father had a church there), and in those days, you could be a few blocks from home, and if you were out of line, some woman picked up a phone and told your mother. So you didn’t get away with much, you see, which was tremendous policing power.
Now today, people do not involve themselves that way in what goes on and the result is the crime rate has skyrocketed. Urban redevelopment has destroyed many of these communities such as I’ve told you about such as existed in Boston, New York, and elsewhere. And as a result, they’ve put in plush apartments and what-not, but the crime rate has skyrocketed, because of this lack of involvement.
There are a few, in some areas, my wife’s niece teaches in Pittsburgh, and it’s in a school that’s really in a very bad area, but where she lives, fairly close to the school, it’s an Italian neighborhood. And she’s totally safe. One thing, she speaks Italian. She’s not Italian, she’s Scotch, but she’s a language teacher, she’s spent time in Europe, she’s learned Italian, speaks it like an alien. The old man who’s rented her the apartment (she lives in the upper flat), is an Italian who speaks almost no English. And he is so delighted with the fact that she speaks English and has advertised it all over the neighborhood, that when she parks her car out in the street, if there is some kid who comes along and leans against it, there’s some old Italian to come out there and tell him off! And pull a handkerchief out and wipe off the spot. [Laughter] Because they all feel they’re going to take care of Erma Jean, you see. Now, that’s policing—the best kind of policing in the world! And in that particular little neighborhood, there’s no law problem. They police one another.
[Audience] Many people in the last few years have moved out of cities to small plots of land. Do you view this as a reversal of the rapid city growth, or the desire not to be involved? If the latter, why doesn’t the large city of today provide new involvement as it once did, or non-involvement as it once did?
[Rushdoony] Well, I think that the person who wrote this understands the problem. The flight from the city today is a part of this non-involvement bit. And because the city has developed problems of pollution and what-not, they feel they’ve got to run away from the problem, not do something about it. And so, the- this is an increase of sickness, rather than a measure of health. It’s an unwillingness to take responsibility. The average young and old person today feels that if you somehow protest, you’ve done your duty. But protest is not work or involvement or responsibility. It’s a form of renouncing responsibility and saying, it’s your fault, city hall, or the establishment, you did it; rather than assuming part of the responsibility and doing something about it yourself. So, ah, people today are anti-community. They talk a great deal about community. There is a dangerous hunger for community, but there is no sense of community, because you cannot have it apart from God. The root of the word community is communion; it’s the Lord’s Table. It is in the atonement that you find community. This is why every attempt of modern men to find it apart from that is a failure.
[Audience] You mentioned how a person should overlook faults in order for the sake of unity. How about the other side of the coin? Shouldn’t we try to correct the faults of others for the sake of unity?
[Rushdoony] Should we try to correct the faults? To a degree, yes. But don’t expect people to change very readily. I think today we fail to realize that none of us are going to be perfectly sanctified in this life and that while it is important for people to grow, the best growth comes through unity. I don’t mean putting up with total stinkiness on the part of a person; I think people do need correction in some things.
I’m trying to answer this without going into something I’m going to be dealing with in the next hour. But the best correction is the correction of the Word and of the Spirit. We have a problem when we become too prone to try to correct people in that it accomplishes nothing except to alienate them. Now, if it is a sin, it needs our speaking. We have a duty there to correct them; but so many of the problems that trouble us in our living together are mannerisms and way, ways of doing things. Most married couples find that when they quit trying to change each other, then they can really love one another. The trouble comes in when they figure, ‘well, if they’d only change in this or that respect, all would be well.’ But of course, each of us wants to change the other. But both are determined that they are not going to change. You see, as I said earlier, we all feel that our particular frailties and failings are loveable ones. We love them! Why doesn’t everybody else? So we have to be careful. That area is one where correcting does no good.
[Audience] Is it possible to carry community too far to the extent of sacrificing the family?
[Rushdoony] Yes, that’s a good question. I think some churches are very sinful in this regard. I know in California we have some churches that insist on passing out a calendar on the last Sunday of each month for the next month for you to pin on the wall in the kitchen, which will list activities at the church for every day of the week. And they really insist upon people coming out. They have something for youth, something for men, something for women, every day of the week. They destroy family life. Now that’s not community! I think a church that has only morning and evening worship on the Lord’s Day and one mid-week meeting at the most can have more community and more unity and those that occupy themselves endlessly with busyness, you see. This is not community, just to have endless activity. That’s play. There’s a difference between community and endless activity. And many churches fail to see this, and they are destructive of family life.
[Audience] In terms of unity, are there ever circumstances when a person should leave a church?
[Rushdoony] Yes, I referred to the circumstance. When there is a basic matter of faith, of doctrine, of Word of God, then we have a duty to leave a church. Now, this does not mean we should hold a church to every fine point of doctrine; we’d have to leave the world, then. But a church that is faithful to the Word, that honors God and is clear on the sovereignty of God, we should then be faithful to it and work within the framework of the church. But if a church dishonors God and His Word, then we have a duty to leave. I know that there are so many people who stay in a church endlessly, ‘well, my parents were here and my grandparents helped established this church, and I don’t see why I should leave. I have more right to be here than anyone else.’ Well, that attitude is Traditionalism. We must leave a church when the church leaves the Lord. Or we leave with the church.
[Audience] At what point in Church History was the Doctrine of the Trinity recognized?
[Rushdoony] The Doctrine of the Trinity was recognized from the Old Testament times; because, for one thing, the word for God, which, in the English is God (Elohim), is a plural. It literally is ‘Gods’ but it takes a singular verb. So it definitely asserts the plurality of the Godhead and yet its unity.
Now Judaism was Trinitarian at the time of our Lord’s coming. They recognized very clear that there was God the Father, God the Logos (or Wisdom) and God the Spirit. What happened was, that after the Fall of Jerusalem, because the Early Church was making such tremendous inroads into the synagogues by going there and saying, ‘those things that you’ve been taught are not fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ.’ They went through and re-interpreted the whole of the Bible in terms of a Unitarian sense. So they changed all the meanings of prophesy, for example, so it would not point to Christ, because they felt they would be destroyed by the Christian witness. So we are wrong in assuming that 2nd century Christianity and ah- Judaism, 2nd century Judaism, and all subsequent Judaism was the Old Testament perspective. It was Trinitarian. You and I are closer to the Old Testament faithful people than Judaism is. There- they are Unitarians, and they are Unitarians because having rejected Christ, they had to reject all of that.
Now, this means therefore that the converts who were made in the Day of Pentecost and subsequently were Trinitarians. Most of them, for the first generation, were Hebrew converts, even those in Europe; they were first of all won from the synagogue. I believe there were seven synagogues, according to one church historian, that were converted in the first century in Rome alone. So when Paul wrote his epistle to the Roman, he was writing to predominantly Christian Jews. There were others as well that formed churches, but seven synagogues that became churches. So these people were Trinitarian. It was just assumed that you were Trinitarian.
Now, problems with regard to the Doctrine of the Trinity came in subsequently as more and more Gentiles were brought into the Church, because the Gentiles, first of all, came from a polytheistic perspective of many gods, whereas their philosophers were monotheistic and had come to a belief in the One God, who was the first cause. He was not a person, he was an impersonal factor. So, you had the polytheists and the philosophers with their impersonal god. Well, Arianism was a heresy that developed out of that—a god who had no consciousness and therefore could not speak an infallible word, or any word. So Trinitarianism as a problem to people developed when the pagan converts began to predominate in the Church. So Trinitarianism was always there. It had problems when the Gentiles wrestled with it.
[Audience] We have a question from a child. It says, “I know there will be no tears of sadness in Heaven, but what do you think about tears of joy? Will there be tears of happiness?”
[Rushdoony] Well, there will be joy and there will be happiness, but tears? We are told God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes and there shall be no crying, no sadness, no sorrow. There will be joy. There will be happiness. We are also told that His servants shall serve Him, so there shall be no more curse on work in the New Creation after the last judgment. And we shall all work. We don’t know what it all leads to, because God keeps that veiled from us, but we shall have an eternal and a glorious work. We are told that the Tree of Life there bears blossoms and bears perpetually. Now, that is a symbol for potentiality and actuality being one. That’s a wonderful fact.
What does that mean? Potentiality means the possibilities in me. Now, none of us in this life develop all our possibilities. One of the things that interested me when I was in a community of retired people was to see some older men, who, now having been compelled to retire (incidentally, I do not believe in retirement. If I were in a situation where I were going to be compelled to retire, I would use the Civil Rights Act to fight it as a violation of my civil rights. On the average, men die within three years of their retirement, because we’ve been called by God to work, to exercise dominion and when men stop doing that, they die. Let me digress on that point, by the way, because it’s such an important one. How many of you read the National Geographic? Well, go back to that article, I think around October or November of ’72 about this doctor’s visit to the people of the Caucasus Mountains, Armenians, and I’m an Armenian, Svanitians, Aphasians, Azerbaijanis, and others, various little groups of peoples there, who are 120-30, 40 years old. And he went there to study them to see what made the difference. And he found it wasn’t weight, because some of them were very much overweight, and he wrote in this, and he’s written subsequent medical reports; I’m using all of the things I’ve read by this doctor. He found that he couldn’t keep up with these men, some of whom were well over 120 when they went out into the fields to work, and he was panting. And here he was a young doctor. But he found there were certain things that characterized these men.
1. They never quit working. They were always useful. That was a factor in their longevity.
2. They did not lose out in life as they became older, because the older they were, the more authority they had. The Word of God with regard to respect for white hairs and for the aged, and to stand before them, was very fully kept among those people. If you were old, you commanded respect, and so you enjoyed getting old. And the older you were, the more authority you had and your word counted for more. And they didn’t get senile and feel they were useless and laid on the shelf. They were a more important person the older they got.
Now, this was a factor for longevity: work, plus the increased respect; very important factors. Well, I got sidetracked there. I was dealing with this matter of potentiality and actuality). So many people, when they are retired, find unexpected talents. They may never have worked with their hands before and suddenly they find they’re a good carpenter, or a good painter or a good sculptor. Or they develop talents in other direction. And I heard more than one man say, ‘I never knew I could do this sort of thing, but I was so bored I thought it’d try anything!’ Potentialities that we have, that we never realize. Well, in the New Creation, all our potentialities will be actualities. We will realize ourselves totally and fully.
[Audience] What is the difference between peace and the term “Peace of God”?
[Rushdoony] Yes, well, one of the things we must remember is that words mean different things to different people. To illustrate: the word ‘pure’ to us in English (it comes from the Latin) and to the Romans, means ‘something untouched; virginal; cellophane-wrapped so-to-speak’. But that’s not the biblical word. The biblical word for ‘pure’ is associated with age, white hairs, tried by fire, refined. So purity in the biblical sense is something that comes through the fire. Purity in the English sense comes out of, just newly-born, fresh. Two words. They’re the same word. But as the Bible uses it, it has a totally different meaning.
Now, this is true also with regard to the word peace. As the world uses peace, it means ‘absence of hostilities, absence of conflict.’ But this is not the way the Bible uses it. Our Lord told His disciples at the Last Supper when He was sending them out into a world that was going to be like a wolf towards them, “Peace I leave with you. My Peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” Our Lord said, my peace is different. It’s not as the world giveth. And it’s going to be peace in the midst of conflict, peace in the midst of troubles, but let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid, because the peace I give you, is peace with the Father. The peace that comes from knowing that though there is much tribulation in this world be of good cheer; I have overcome the World. It’s the peace that comes from knowing that God is on the throne that nothing happens apart from His will and though things look bad, we know this—the script has already been written by God. And no man is going to make it deviate an iota from His script and it’s going to come out in terms of His sovereign purpose. That’s peace in the biblical sense. So it can be peace in the midst of very great conflict and distress. Peace in the midst of the most fearful experience, because it’s first of all peace with God and peace in the security of His government.