Studies in the Incarnation

Immanuel, God with Us

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Doctrinal Studies

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 1 of 7

Track: #63

Dictation Name: RR116A1

Date: 1960-1970’s

[Rushdoony] Almighty God our heavenly Father we give thanks unto Thee that Jesus Christ has come, that He is our Lord and Savior that in Him we have the blessed assurance that God is with us. Strengthen us in this faith. Make us every mindful our Father, if God be for us, who can be against us? In Jesus name, amen.

Our scripture lesson is Matthew one, eighteen through twenty five. We shall begin a series of studies meaning in every respect of the Christmas narrative, of the incarnation.

18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.

19 Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.

20 But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.

21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.

22 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,

23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

24 Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife:

25 And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name Jesus

The narratives of the incarnation ring out with an unforgettable beauty. Every word sings out, and we can say with Luke as he wrote “let us now go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which has come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us” but as we are mindful of this beauty, we need to be aware also that behind this beauty there is much hard reality and anguish in the story of the incarnation. Let us examine the story briefly.

Joseph was a carpenter, and in those days the carpenters were also stone masons, it was one trade. Work was apparently hard to get in his part of the country, and so Joseph went north to Nazareth in Galilee which at that time was the center of masonry. And there as a stone mason apparently found work. There too he met Mary, a distant relative also of the line of David who apparently had come North with her family, also in search of work. Nazareth at that time was a fairly populous community thriving in industry. They became betrothed; betrothal in Biblical times was the legal aspect of marriage. Although a couple did not live together for some time after the betrothal, until the formal marriage festival, the legal aspect of the ceremony took place at the betrothal. At that time the marriage contract was drawn up, the dowry was settled. And then the couple, now legally married but each living in his parents’ home or the young man very often separately, they awaited the time of formal marriage. When the young man had accumulate sufficient funds for the dowry, the family capital; then the families came together, there was a feast and the young couple setup housekeeping. To break a betrothal a formal divorce was necessary, even though there had been no co-habitation whatsoever between the couple.

The angel Gabriel appeared to this young Virgin Mary, through her the Son of God should be born, a miraculous virgin birth, and the angel declared to the amazed young girl “With God nothing shall be impossible.” In her the ancient prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 was to be fulfilled, “behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and thou shalt call His name Emmanuel”. This was marvelous indeed and we can understand the amazement of Mary, the greatest miracle of the ages to be fulfilled in and through her, a young girl. But let us remember this was not an age of miracles. There had been no miracles for centuries, although close by un-known to Mary, a miracle was taking place in the life of her cousin Elizabeth to whom John the Baptist was born. But Mary was not living in an age of miracles. The Old Testament cannon had been closed at least for at least four centuries. And even when the last of the books of the Old Testament cannons were closed miracles were remote. Mary was no closer to miracles at the very least than we are to Columbus. Miracles indeed were to break forth on the right hand and the left, speedily, in the life of Christ and in the apostolic era. But at the moment miracles were remote.

But this miracle took place and if this is not true nothing in scripture is, for this is a cornerstone, a declaration of the incarnation , that God became flesh the two humanities without confusion united in the one person of Jesus Christ. But immediately after the miracle instead of glory, shame, the young Mary was obviously pregnant. She was not living with her husband; they were still in separate households. The most glorious event in history became immediately a subject of shame and Mary a target of gossip, and we are told that Joseph her husband, being a just man not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. Because he was a kind and considerate man, and loved her truly he had no desire to invoke the penalty for what apparently was adultery, the death penalty; and so he was going to have her divorced on other charges. Mary thus faced the loss of reputation together with the loss of her husband.

“Thou shalt call His name Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us” so had the angel spoken. But where was God in all of this? Mary must have felt Him very remote and must have felt very much alone; then came the vision to Joseph, followed by the marriage, but no sexual relations until after the birth of Jesus. Thus Mary’s name was preserved; but what a trial in the face of so great a miracle. Then came the order for the Roman census, every Hebrew had to return to his own tribal home there to be registered. Because the tribe in each country was conducted according to the custom of that country, and the census in Israel had to be by tribes each in their home place. Bethlehem was the home place of both Mary and Joseph, hence the necessity of return; along hard journey over the mountains, on foot and on donkey back. Bethlehem a very, very small town was unduly crowded as so many who had left there years and years before to go to work elsewhere returned for registration. Every home was filled to capacity, and the one little Inn very quickly and early crowded also to capacity. And thus there was no room for them at the Inn, only a dirty stable. A necessity for a quick delivery, no midwife available so that Joseph was all alone and Mary had no other help, she herself we are told wrapped the child when the delivery was over. It was a hard and difficult thing, a first delivery in a stable for a travel-worn couple. Where was God in all of this? He must have seemed remote

Later the shepherds came to tell the glorious story of the angelic choir and to worship. And many far and wide heard of these wonders, and indeed the story of the angelic choir and later within two years time of the visit of the wise men, and of many of the miraculous circumstances attending the occasion were known far and wide. So generally known in fact, that together with all the events of our Lord’s life no-one dared deny them during His lifetime or the lifetime of the apostles or during the first century, this is a significant fact. No-one dared put down in writing any skepticism about any events of our Lord’s life from birth to death and to resurrection until after the first century because there were too many people who were eye witnesses who could say “I was there, and I saw Him raise the dead and heal the blind. I was there, I saw Him after He was crucified, and I say the nail prints in His hands and in His feet.” These things indeed were true, but at the moment in that stable Mary and Joseph heard only the cattle and the baby and they tried to rest in very wretched circumstances after a weary night.

Where was God in all of this? This is a very important question, and this is very important question for us to face too, because we also face our lows, not unlike those of Mary and Joseph. We face time when we feel indeed the burden and the oppression of evil, when we look around us and we find the world and the monstrosity of evil and the conspiracy against God and His truth are overwhelming. And everywhere we look we seem to see nothing but the tower of evil; and almost satanic omnipresence, and we wonder “where is God in all of this?” And so it is a good question to ask “Where is God?” Where was He then? The answer is clear cut, indeed God was on His throne, sovereign of the universe, creator, sustainer, redeemer, He by whom all things were made and without Him was not anything made that was made. He whom angels hailed, He who is the creator and by Whom all things occur and apart from whose permission nothing could takes place. He is on the throne, but more than that He is very near to us. Closer to us than we are to ourselves, and knowing our experiences because He was there, He was there in Mary’s womb and in the manger. He experienced all the difficulties of life in poor and impoverished circumstances. He knew the difficulties of growing up and of facing maturity, of going to work at first to support His mother until others were able to assume the responsibilities and at the age of thirty He could begin His ministry.

He knew the anguish of betrayal; of being homeless “for the Son of Man hath no-where to lay His head.” The foxes have holes and the birds have rest, but not He. He knew the agony of death itself, there was nothing that we had experienced or can experience apart from sin, in which He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin, nothing that he did not experience. He was there. He was made the captain of our salvation, made perfect in His sufferings. And it is easy for us therefore to go to Him and to pray to Him precisely because every feeling we have He has experienced. Thus he is closer to us than we are to ourselves.

God was there in Mary’s womb, in Mary’s arms and in the hay in that manger. There were no easy circumstances on that first Christmas, but they were all blessed and providential circumstances because they were within the government and the purpose of God. And they set forth the nearness of God to all our problems in the whole of life because He became partaker of all of it; and they set forth moreover the glorious salvation of our God. The pagan scheme of salvation as it appeared chronically at that day, in the Roman and Greek religions is best summed in the term “Deus ex Machina” “The God out of the Machine”. The God out of the machine concept so dear to the hearts of all paganism and many who are pseudo-Christians is a concept of salvation in which the god’s appear out of heaven and snatch their pets out of trouble and take them into happy circumstances. Thus in Homer we read that Paris was on the battlefield before the walls of Troy, and he faced certain death; and suddenly the gods appeared and snatched him out from certain death and took Him and placed Him in Helen’s bedroom for lovemaking. This was the pagan conception of salvation. To escape totally from a situation and be given something that is bliss. To be taken out of a difficult problem into a lovely meadow where maidens are strumming lyres and you stretch back and they drop grapes into your mouth. This literally without any exaggeration was the Greek and Roman conception of salvation. This is paganism; this is not the scriptures because God saves us not out of this world but in and through the world and history. He saves us not by lifting us out of our sin and temptation but in the face of it by victory over it, by giving us power to overcome.

Even as God in Christ entered into this world and faced every problem and never side-stepped any of them; so we too must face every problem and never side-step any of them. Our Lord Declared to His disciples and to the authorities “thinkest not that I am able to have untold legions from my Father in heaven come to my rescue?” But He called for no such legions; this was the kind of temptation that Satan had offered Him. “If Thou be a Son of God cast Thyself down from the pinnacle and let the angels of God appear and snatch and rescue you before you dash your feet against a stone”. Intervene, to controvert and subvert history, but our Lord refused. He did not take away people’s hunger by turning the stones into bread, he did not perform miracles which would make it unnecessary for all men to have faith, He hungered and thirsted and He thrived. And He gives us power by His Holy Spirit to face life in all its sufferings and humiliation and to gain as He did a glorious victory. This is the meaning of His incarnation, Emmanuel, God with us.

Thus as we face the enormity of evil today we cannot surrender to any hopes of being raptured out of it, we cannot expect a “Deus ex Machina” salvation but we can expect that God who has overthrown His enemies again and again and again century after century will again overthrow His enemies. Even as Sennacherib was destroyed, even as Babylon was cast down, even as Rome disappeared and became as nothing; so all the enemies of God shall perish age after age until He comes again. Thus we know that our salvation means a deliverance in the face of the very evil we struggle against, and over it. Even as Christ takes us when we are fallen, and changes us so that we who are the same body and flesh that we are yesterday are now victorious over the old Adam in us and those things which once made us slaves we are now victor over them. So too He shall overcome and shall subdue all things under His feet until the last enemy, death, shall be destroyed. And we can be certain of this that as we face this world the greater the grace the greater the testing and the greater the attack upon us, and also the greater His deliverance and His presence as our Emmanuel. Because He is Emmanuel, God with us we can say with Paul in the face of all things “What shall we then say to these things, if God be for us, who can be against us? He that spareth not His own Son but delivered Him up for us all how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Nay in all these things we are more then conquers through Him that loved us.”

Where was God when Mary and Joseph experienced all their hardships? God was there at Bethlehem every step of the way, and He is here today in our community in America, moment by moment each step of the way. He is our Emmanuel, God with us. Therefore we will not be feared, though the mountains be removed, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof the Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge. Let us pray.

Almighty God our heavenly Father we thank Thee that Thou art our Emmanuel, God with us. We thank Thee for Thy promise that Thou wilt never leave us nor forsake us, so that we may boldly say “The Lord is my helper; I shall not fear what man can do unto me”. Our Lord and our God confirm us in this faith, make us bold therein, make us every mindful that greater is He that is with us, then He that is in the world. We thank Thee that Thy power surrounds us and dwells within us and governs the universe. Oh Lord our God how great Thou art, and we thank Thee in Jesus name, Amen.

Any questions, yes?

[Audience member] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes the Hebrew word “Alma” or “Almah” is translated by the Revised Standard Version as a young maiden. This has always been translated until the Revised Standard Version came along as virgin. Whence this new reading, or new translation? The only point of course of Isaiah’s statement is that this miracle will take place, and there is no miracle in the fact that a young woman is going to have a baby, and through the centuries this was always interpreted as virgin. The meaning of Alma is virgin, but after the first century as controversy between church and synagogue arose the Jewish scholars anxious to take away the force of that text as proof of Christ’s coming insisted that it did not speak of a virgin. So they began to insist that Alma meant a young maiden, any young unmarried woman, rather than a virgin. Now the evidence clearly is against this, no scholar ever took that statement which was pure propaganda, an anti-Christian propaganda. No-one took it seriously until recently when the translators of the Revised Standard Version, who were uniformly modernist, who did not believe in the virgin birth went to the Hebrew and insisted on reading it in terms of this old propaganda reading. The weight of the evidence is clearly against them. Dr. Edward J. Young of Westminster seminary has written extensively on the history of the word “alma” and made it clear that it is impossible to give it any other reading than virgin, but this is one instance of many where the revised standard version has given at the very least a very debatable reading which is based on anti-Christian premises.

[Audience member] I’d like to ask a very basic question, and perhaps you’d like to answer this at another time, but there is some confusion in my mind based on what I’ve been taught on the plan of Salvation based on the Old Testament and now we’re into the New Testament. Now I’m coming to the understanding that it has always been the same, there’s never been any change. Old covenant, new covenant have always been based in Christ. But would you talk about that a little?

[Rushdoony] Very good question. The plan of salvation from the Old to the New Testament, from the beginning to the end of scripture has always been the same. Salvation was never by the law in the Old Testament; because even before the law was given beyond the Ten Commandments and a few other statements, the sacrificial system was set up. Because it was apparent that they could not be saved by the keeping of the law; therefore the sacrificial system was set up and the tabernacle and the pattern of the tabernacle given in great detail immediately after the first giving of the Ten Commandments. Thus the whole of the latter part of Exodus deals with the tabernacle. Then Leviticus gives immediately the sacrificial system, then you begin to get laws, and laws are given again further in Deuteronomy.

Now, in the sacrificial system as it was set-up, it was as apart as could be from the beginning that their salvation was by the grace of God through an appointed sin bearer. What was the sacrificial system? There could be no approach to God except through the blood of an innocent one. They had to come to the sanctuary with the blood of a lamb without blemish. This lamb was to be taken and slain upon the alter, and the blood shed, the bones were not to be broke; his wholeness was to be retained. The believer who came forward put his hands upon that sacrificial animal to identify himself with it first of all, to indicate “it is I who deserves to die, and the death of this innocent one is my death, I accept the sentence of death upon myself, and this lamb is my sin bearer.” So that he laid his sins as it were upon that lamb. He identified himself with it and said he was one with it and it was he who died in the person of this lamb, and he who now lived because this lamb had died in his stead.

Now this was the essence of the Old Testament plan of salvation. They knew of course that that lamb was a type, a symbol. Now the one difference between the Old and the New Testament is that the typology, the symbolism, gives way to the reality. Christ now appears, He is the sin bearer, He is the innocent one. When He dies and we accept His death He takes our sins upon Him and He becomes us, He dies for us and we are alive because He destroys the power of death through His resurrection. Now there is thus no difference from one end of the Bible to the other in the meaning of salvation. Thus those who have tried to say that the Hebrews are saved by the law are completely misreading the Bible. Moreover they have fallen victim to the pharisaic fate, because the Pharisee’s in the inter-testamental period between the Old and New Testament developed this plan of salvation by works, by law. But it was not the Biblical law but a substitute for it, a reading of it; and of course the Talmud as we have it today is simply the interpretation century after century of the law whereby the meaning of the law is completely destroyed and the interpretation takes its place and it is made possible to keep.

Now the law as it is no man can keep perfectly save Jesus Christ, who kept it. But if I am allowed to build a church to my scale I can jump over the steeple, I can reduce it to that size; and this is of course what Phariseeism did. It said we shall be saved by works, and so we will take the law and re-word it, re-write it in effect so that it will become what we want it to be and we can keep it. Now many Christians have fallen under the very, very deadly assumption that the Old Testament and Phariseeism are one and the same. Now they wouldn’t put it in that kind of language, but when they say people in the Old Testament where saved by the law they are looking at it through the eyes of Phariseeism. But salvation in the Old and the New Testament is identical; there is no difference except the type now gives way to the open reality. Is that clear?

Yes?

[Audience member] Wasn’t Christ speaking of the very thing which you’re discussing here when He was talking to the Pharisee’s themselves, that they were as unclean cups, they were clean on the outside but on the inside they were all filthiness. And that they were as white as sepulchers but they might have covered themselves on the outside but inside the oral traditions outdid themselves.

[Rushdoony] Exactly. They used the façade of being champions of the law while destroying it. And we must remember that here again there is a parallel error that goes with this; the assumption that because we are saved by grace, we are dead to the law. Now this is true, but it is true only with respect to salvation. In other words the law is a handwriting of ordinances against us, a built indictment. Now when a man is killed the indictment is null and void, it’s been fulfilled. When we accept Christ the law as an indictment against us is dead; but now the law is written on the tables of our hearts so that the Christian is not saved to be lawless, but to fulfill, to keep the law. He’s not saved so that he may kill, steal, commit adultery, but now given power by the grace of God to live in the law because the law is now his new nature. The righteousness of God is no longer something outside of Him as an indictment pursuing Him with a charge of death, of treason against God, but now his very being because Christ is the new man in him and Christ the righteousness of God, very God, cannot do other than fulfill Himself in and through us; so that we are saved not to break the law, but to keep the law of God. And hence the bypassing of God’s law in preaching today is really antinomianism and apostasy. And it’s because we have so much lawless preaching that we have such lawless a country, because the law of God is basic to all Law.

Yes, did you have a question?

[Audience member] I had a question, call me rather naïve but, sometimes I’ve heard discussions that Jesus was not a Jew but a Hebrew. It says here in the next chapter “Where is he that is born king of the Jews?” Does this mean that Jesus was a Jew?

[Rushdoony] A very good question and I’m glad you brought it up to clarify the confusion there. There are some people that who say indeed that Jesus was not a Jew, when they say that they are thinking of the modern Jews most of whom are not of Hebraic or Judean blood so that He was of a different people than most modern Jews are because most of them are converts. Khazar and other groups, Asian or Europeans, Central European groups who became converted to Judaism in the early centuries in the Medieval periods so that most modern Jews have no Judean or Hebraic blood. But in terms of the Biblical Jew our Lord definitely was of the tribe of Judah and therefore a Jew. It is simply a question of “what do they mean by the term?”

Yes?

[Audience member] Well following along that same line then, isn’t there something wrong with expression of the Jews commonly today saying “Judeo-Christian heritage”?

[Rushdoony] Very good! That phrase should be anathema to any conservative Christian because Judeo-Christian heritage involves a contradiction in terms. The Judaic heritage is Phariseeism and this we have no part of, nor can we ever subscribe to it. Whenever you have such a phrase you have modernism or else ignorance, you have a social gospel which is a form of Phariseeism, and no Christian should use this phrase. The phrase Hebrew-Christian heritage is acceptable, but when you say “Christian” you are talking about the Old and New Testament so you don’t need to have a prefix. The Christian heritage or the Biblical heritage is sufficient. But Judeo-Christian is nonsense; it’s comparable to the expression “Christian-atheism” which is beginning ot pop up. I was using that term a year ago to express the idea of contradiction but I find now articles written about Christian atheism. [General Laughter] There is nothing impossible with some people nowadays.

Yes?

[Audience member] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, you mean the idea that the Messiah refers to the Jewish people as a whole? Yes, this idea was one of many that was propounded after the coming of Christ to do away with the force of the Old Testament as it clearly pointed to Christ. Now when you read through the book of Acts and the Epistles the thing that comes out most clearly is this, that as the apostles went into any synagogue all they had to do was to preach from the Old Testament, and all preaching was from the Old Testament and they simply said it “This is what our scriptures say and this is how it has been fulfilled in Christ.” because the accepted meaning then so clearly pointed to Christ. In fact at that time the faith of Israel was also, this is rarely noted, but it was clearly Trinitarian. They believed in God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, and they believed in God the word or wisdom. They were Trinitarian. But faced with the fact that all of their interpretation pointed to Christ and the whole of their faith clearly was Trinitarian within a generation after our Lord’s death, in fact by the time the Jewish-Roman war had ended, their interpretation was denying everything that they had once affirmed, they had become Unitarian and they were taking the prophesies of the Messiah, of the suffering servant and saying that all the old meaning were no longer valid, indeed they said it means Ezekiel, this is one interpretation they gave, excuse me Hezekiah. Or it meant someone else, or someone who is yet to come, and some of them said it meant Israel.

In recent years this interpretation has again been revived very extensively although you find it far back in the Christian era in one Rabbinic writing which was written to the Khazari or Khazar peoples for instruction. There again this is propounded Israel as the Messiah. But this was simply an attempt to evade the plain meaning of scripture and of course it has no textual warrant whatsoever. However it is very prevalent now.

[Audience member] {?}

[Rushdoony] Well it is actually creeping into church circles, and I believe the next step will be to say that the church too is itself a part of this Messiah, this collective Messiah. The reason why I say this is because you are beginning to find in the council of churches member bodies, the definition of the church as a redeeming body. A redeeming body, it is a body of the redeemed, but they are not the ones who do the redeeming. But now it is the church, not Christ who is redeeming, the church has become the Messiah; only they have not gone as far as the Jewish scholars to identify openly with the church and to say the church is the Messiah, but that’s the next step very obviously.

Yes?

[Audience member] What’s our relationship to the laws of {?} not mixing the materials and not wearing linen and cotton together, and things of that sort in generality in Leviticus?

[Rushdoony] A very good question. I think we need to go back and restudy those laws and to take them more seriously. Now there are very few people who pay attention to them, I do and I’m trying to understand their meaning. In many of them there is a principle set forth, but there is also a practice required and I think we need to pay attention to those laws very definitely. God had a purpose in giving them. The ceremonially laws which dealt with the tabernacle, with the sanctuary, with the priesthood and with Christ were fairly fulfilled. But I do not believe that we have any warrant to set aside any law unless it is clearly fulfilled in Christ or at some time Christ or the apostles said that some aspect of it was to be changed. For example the death penalty for adultery was set aside and divorce became its substitute. That we know from our Lord and from the Epistles so there we feel the law has been altered, and we a legitimate ground. But unless the New Testament clearly gives us grounds I think we need to respect the Old Testament law.

[Audience member] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes we have become completely lawless. Now there are very few penalties that would invoke on us in our everyday living, and we all come from a background where these things were respected. We don’t realize it but in America these things were respected until fairly recent times so that there are not too many respects in which we bypass the Mosaic law. But I do believe God honors obedience and we don’t always understand the reason for these things. There is a book that has been written, I hesitate to recommend it because it is so stupid in some respects but it is a book by a doctor in which he points out how some of the apparently inconsequential regulations of the Mosaic law have such very important results health-wise, and they’re just beginning realize this.

[Audience Member] Well I had two questions they’re not related but I wanted to ask them. Is the day of miracles over? Is number one, and number two, what is the meaning of the word “Israel”?

[Rushdoony] Israel, to answer that first, means “A Prince with God” a prince with God, so that when Jacob became a prince with God that is God honored him, he assumed that name and we are the true Israel of God. That name belongs to the church, to the chosen people of God who are believers in Jesus Christ. We are in the site of God Israel - that is princes with God.

[Audience member] The chosen people are believers?

[Rushdoony] Yes, the chosen people are believers. It is not a matter of blood and this is very, very clear over and over again in scripture. Then, let me see the other…miracles. The age of miracles in a sense is ended; it ended with the apostolic era in that these clearly supernatural miracles, the raising of the dead and so on, speaking in tongues and so on, ended then. But this does not mean there are not many, many things which are to a very real degree miraculous, but not of the same totally supernatural character. There are healings in answer to prayer, there are events and things very often in our own lives which clearly point to God’s intervention, God’s miraculous working. But in the same sense as in the days of Elijah and in the days of Moses and in the days of Christ, no. There, there was an amazing and miraculous demonstration of things such as we do not have in our day, but I do not believe we can deny that there are very definitely supernatural healings and other things of a very real sort.

Yes?

[Audience member] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, a very good question but the difference is this, when God intervenes it is not to take us out of a situation but to give us power and strength to overcome in the face of it. And this is a very different thing. Very often we find that people have clearly unforeseen, unforgettable things happen in their lives where through a most amazing thing something turns up which delivers them, and it is clear cut answer to prayer. There’s no accounting for it, but it didn’t take them out of the situation it gave them strength to go on, strength to overcome in the situation. This is a different thing. The salvation of God is not Deus Ex Machina; God does intervene in history, but not to take us out of it. He intervenes to give us strength to overcome in and through it. Is that point clear?

[Audience member] Getting back to some of the laws in the Old Testament, God forbade the eating of meat with blood, but does he mean rare roast beef, or does he mean eating a live animal?

[Rushdoony] No, the reference there is quite specific in the Mosaic Law, it was an animal that had been strangled rather than bled so it did not have reference to rare meat. That is a good question, very good because there is an important point there and it was a good health law as well as a good religious law. Its purpose was this, that in the Old Testament all blood that was shed in slaughter was a type of the blood Christ that was to be shed, so that the blood had to be poured out and every time they sacrificed they had to remember someone was to be sacrificed for them. Every time they killed they had to remember someone was to be killed for them in time to come. Now once the New Testament age was ended there was no strict requirement of this ruling for the gentiles. In Acts 15 however they do require this lest it be an offense to the Jewish believers, they require it of the gentiles, and the church as a whole has continued that requirement, and there is a good basis of health in it I am told. Well our time is up now so we stand adjourned.