Eighth Commandment

Restitution to God

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Restitution & Forgiveness

Lesson: Restitution to God

Genre: Speech

Track: 90

Dictation Name: RR130AW90

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Our scripture is Leviticus 5:14-16, Leviticus 6:1-7, and Numbers 5:5-10. Restitution to God. First of all, Leviticus 5:14-16. “And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying , If a soul commit a trespass, and sin through ignorance, in the holy things of the LORD; then he shall bring for his trespass unto the LORD a ram without blemish out of the flocks, with thy estimation by shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for a trespass offering: and he shall make amends for the harm that he hath done in the holy thing, and shall add the fifth part thereto, and give it unto the priest: and the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering, and it shall be forgiven him.”

Then Leviticus 6:1-7, “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, If a soul sin, and commit a trespass against the Lord, and lie unto his neighbour in that which was delivered him to keep, or in fellowship, or in a thing taken away by violence, or hath deceived his neighbour; or have found that which was lost, and lieth concerning it, and sweareth falsely; in any of all these that a man doeth, sinning therein: then it shall be, because he hath sinned, and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which he hath deceitfully gotten, or that which was delivered him to keep, or the lost thing which he found, or all that about which he hath sworn falsely; he shall even restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part more thereto, and give it unto him to whom it appertaineth, in the day of his trespass offering. And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the Lord, a ram without blemish out of the flock, with thy estimation, for a trespass offering, unto the priest: and the priest shall make an atonement for him before the Lord: and it shall be forgiven him for any thing of all that he hath done in trespassing therein.”

And finally, Numbers 5:5-10. “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, When a man or woman shall commit any sin that men commit, to do a trespass against the Lord, and that person be guilty; then they shall confess their sin which they have done: and he shall recompense his trespass with the principal thereof, and add unto it the fifth part thereof, and give it unto him against whom he hath trespassed. But if the man have no kinsman to recompense the trespass unto, let the trespass be recompensed unto the Lord, even to the priest; beside the ram of the atonement, whereby an atonement shall be made for him. And every offering of all the holy things of the children of Israel, which they bring unto the priest, shall be his. And every man's hallowed things shall be his: whatsoever any man giveth the priest, it shall be his.”

Two or three months ago, we dealt with the laws of restitution in scripture. We saw, at that time, that the basic kinds of penalties for crime in the Bible were capital punishment for capital offenses, and for incorrigible criminals and delinquents, and restitution. If a man stole $100, he had to restore the $100 plus another $100, the exact amount he hoped to profit thereby. In certain cases you will recall, for example, where livestock was concerned, which had the possibility of increase, above and over the increase of money, the restitution of money had to be the sheep or the ox that he stole, plus a four-fold, or five-fold restitution.

The laws that we read just now also deal with restitution. They are a kind of footnote to the basic laws of restitution that we dealt with earlier in Exodus 22:1-14. They are a footnote, we might say, a minor addition, dealing with minor matters, and yet, I think the very fact that these laws deal with minor problems is significant in what it says concerning the law. Let’s analyze these three sets of laws.

First of all, Leviticus 5:14-16 deals with inadvertent errors concerning things belonging to God. Thus, a person who has been informed concerning the obligation to tithe and is a {?}, and then makes a mistake in computing his tithe, and is off 4-5% because of an inadvertent error, brings therefore, a trespass offering to God, plus the full amount wherein he withdrawn{?}, if he miscalculated, let us say, by $50 or let’s say $100. He brings the $100 with a fifth added, or $20.

Then, in Leviticus 6:1-7, the reference again is to small offenses with respect to a neighbor. It speaks of violence, but the Hebrew clearly means not acts of violence in our sense of the word, but deceptive ways, small deceit, whereby another person’s property is either appropriated or destroyed. The reference is very clearly in the Hebrew, to small things. Let’s put it in very common, modern terms. Supposing you are at a friend’s home and you are helping, which will apply to women, helping with the dishes. There is a party or some do, and you break a platter that is prized by the hostess, and you’re very much embarrassed about it, and you slip it away, the chipped or broken platter, and go off, embarrassed. This is the kind of offense to which it applies, or damaging a neighbor’s tool when you are working with him. It refers, thus, to minor offenses, and again, the requirement is that a sin offering, or a trespass offering be made to the Lord, there would be a full restitution plus 20%.

In Numbers 5:5-10, the same offense with respect to one’s neighbor, is treated. Again, real offenses but minor matters due to carelessness or error, and then compounded by being embarrassed and covering it up, and going off, feeling a little bit unhappy and embarrassed about the matter. In Numbers 5:5-10, the point is made that in case, by the time the person decides to make restitution for this, there is no one to whom he can make it. Perhaps the family has moved into another country. He no longer has their address, no way of reaching them. What does he then do? He still must make a trespass offering to the Lord, and then make the restitution to the priest or the pastor. In this case, the restitution becomes the property of the priest, the purpose of it being, to protect his confession. In other words, the fact that he has made this restitution is not to be public knowledge.

So, this brings us to another facet with respect to the offenses. They are to the person. They do not go through a court, but it is a moral and a legal obligation. It is nobody else’s business. Where there is a serious offense, like genuine theft of considerable property, then it goes through the court. Restitution is ordered by the court, but these are little things. This law thus requires the restitution, but it says these minor matters are between the Lord, the person, and the offended party, and therefore, the restitution, when it is made the priest, is not public property by being entered into the temple records.

Now, there are certain principles that appear in these three laws, which are important for us to realize. First of all, it stipulates that restitution has to be made because God requires it. It is a restitution of God’s order. The slightest offense that any man commits is also an offense against God. Now, in Exodus 22:1-14, sacrifice is not required in those specific laws because it is assumed. That is, every offense is an offense against God. It is specifically cited here because its purpose is to remind us that the slightest breach of order is a breach of God’s order. What God wants, human society to move in terms of law, that the slightest infraction of that law is also an offense against him, and so God appears in every situation.

The second point, of course, of restitution, past{?} 20%{?}. We have seen previously the importance of restitution. Crime today, because is lacks restitution, is a profitable matter. It is interesting to see what criminals themselves have to say about crime today. The old saying “Crime does not pay” is only true in a Christian order, because then the thief pays 100% at a minimum of the value of that which he has stolen, but an English criminal whose confessions and answer to questions by {?} have been published as The Courage of his Convictions (it’s an interesting title), was asked about the risks involved in his theft, and the fact that, with his record of prison sentences for a variety of offenses, the next time he got caught for any of them, there was a likelihood of an eight-year prison terms. His answer was, “I don’t want to do eight years, no, but if I have to, and that’s all there is to it, yes. If you’re a criminal, what’s the alternative to the risk of going to prison? Coal miners don’t spend their time worrying about the risks they might get killed by a {?} place either. Prison’s an occupational risk, that’s all, and one I’m quite prepared to take. I willingly gamble away a third of my life in prison, so long as I can live the way I want for the other two-thirds. After all, it’s my life and that’s how I feel about it. The alternative, the prospect of vegetating the rest of my life in a steady job, catching the 813 to work in the morning and the 550 back again at night, all for 10 or 15 quid a week, now that really does terrify me far more than the thought of a few years in the mick{?}.”

Now, he’s very candid and he’s very honest. After all, he’s living very, very well, and he figures it’s a cheap price to pay a third of his life in prison to live high the rest of the time. The principle of restitution removes all profit from crime.

Now, the purpose of biblical is to make restitution of God’s order as well as to remove profit from crime. The Anglo Saxons, and England carried on the Anglo Saxon tradition, did believe is removing the profit from crime, but they applied their principle of punishing crime with incredible rigor. Every kind of theft, in ancient Anglo Saxon law, was punishable with death, if it was above the {?} of {?}, and those of you who have read about the kind of executions that prevailed in 18th century England, and almost to Queen Victoria’s reign, have often read that this was a terrible indictment of the kind of Christian civilization they had. They did, indeed hang people for stealing a loaf of bread, for stealing a cat, or stealing a pair of shoes, but this was not any part of Christian law. It was simply a survival in England of the old Anglo Saxon, pagan law, and the fallacy in that Anglo Saxon law was that it was a case of overkill, was it not? There was no justice behind it. As a result, it did not solve anything because it did not create a just social order, and thus, it was always a failure. Hanging wholesale as they did, did not alter the stipulation or instill in the public at large in England at any time that the Anglo Saxon laws were put into force, any sense of justice, because the Anglo Saxon law was a {?}, in justice. It was a disproportionate penalty, which is not biblical. The purpose of the biblical law is to restore order, God’s order. It is to institute justice. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. That is, there must be a proportion between the offense and the crime. That’s the meaning of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Then, another important aspect of this law is this simply. Restitution in little things make for better relations with regard to our neighbors. A very sizable amount of the offense between person and person is very small. The modern attitude is forgive and forget. To go back to our illustration of the platter, the modern hostess would, if she learned about it, say “Oh, think nothing of it, just forget about it. It’s nothing,” but it is something, and it may be a platter which she prizes a great deal. In fact, it may be one that is a particularly fine piece, which has family associations and many things that make it very dear to her. The principle of restitution is the principle of justice, and so many of the frictions between people are precisely in the area of little things, and that’s the biblical law, requiring that in little things as this, there be restitution. {?} simply makes for better relations. It makes for better understanding between friend and friend, and there isn’t this kind of thing rankling between people. It certainly makes people more careful, does it not? And though people say, “Oh, forgive and forget little things like that,” they don’t forget. I have known women who have been insistent when they’ve had some kind of affair in their home, a bridge club or something like that, and one of the guest has broken a particular piece. “Oh, think nothing about it,” and have been effusive about the matter, and yet, according to their husbands, ten years later they’re still hopping about the fact that Mrs. So-and-So broke that teapot or that dish.” In other words, little things are important and a big factor in our everyday lives, and God’s law governs little things as well as great things, and it establishes a principle of justice.

Finally, we saw in Numbers 5:5-10, the fact that confession to the priest, when there was no one to whom restitution could be made. If the family next door had moved away and there was no knowledge to where they had moved to, so there was no way, of say the man or the woman making restitution in this little thing to their neighbor, then it is made to the priest, with confession, and it could not be publicized. It could not be even entered into the temple receipt. It became the private property of the priest for the reason that it was not to be publicized.

Now, why confession in such a case? What we need to realize is the meaning of confession. True confession is restitution. Thus, when a person has broken, to go back to the platter, a platter, they only make true confession when they make restitution. When we confess our sins to God, we have not truly confessed them if we have not made restitution. Restitution therefore, is the basic confession. It is the heart of confession. It indicates integrity. It is not merely work. It’s a very simple thing, and very many people are quite {?} at it. To confess anything from a small sin to a major one, and then to demand that their husband, or wife, or their parents, or their neighbor forgive them. It’s like the man I once knew who admitted to adultery periodically and had confessed it to his wife, usually when he was found out, and was quite happy because his wife was {?} to forgive him. “I’ve confessed. What more does she want?” Now, of course, this is why confession in the modern world is such a silly and useless thing. Whether it’s to a clergyman or whether it’s to a psychiatrist, the meaning has been destroyed, because true confession is restitution, and therefore, there is no confession cited to the neighbor, because it is assumed that the confession there is the restitution. To the priest, it is cited because then he specifies to whom it was, but even then, the confession is invalid in that, in these little offenses, it is between God and the persons involved, and none other.

This means, therefore, when Mrs. Jones breaks Mrs. Smith’s platter and makes restitution, she has fulfilled her obligation, and Mrs. Smith then has an obligation to keep that confession {?}, to keep her mouth shut in other words. These little things are governed by God’s law in order to make relations between man and man godly, and godly relations require restitution.

Thus, these three laws are relatively minor matters, dealing with very insignificant and trifling affairs, but most of life is made up of trifling affairs, and it is the greatness of God’s law that provides the way between man and man and woman and woman, in dealing with little offenses. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we thank thee for the glory of thy law. We thank thee that it provides us a way, a way of coping with ourselves and with one another, and with all the problems with which life is {?}. Give us grace therefore, to walk day by day in terms of thy law-word, rejoicing in thy grace, delighting in thy providential care, working in thee to restore godly order to every area of life. Bless us to this purpose in Jesus name. Amen.

Are there any questions now, with respect to our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] {?} restitution {?}

[Rushdoony] A very good point. Yes, there is such a restitution required, and the law as we saw some months ago, does require continual restoration of the earth. Man has an obligation to make restitution to the earth, and of course, this is one area where we have very signally{?} sinned. One of the ironies of the news lately is that there is a great deal about pollution, and we’ve had lawsuits centered, in the past few days, with regard to the air pollution at Santa Barbara. Now, of course, any time there is pollution it’s bad, but the ironic thing is that that was a single incident, but the pollution up and down the Pacific Coast, by the city, in their pouring of sewage into the ocean, is tremendous, but all seepage was a trifle compared to the continual pollution, but there is no hew and cry about that, and that has cost million and billions in dollars in loss of fishing, and loss of the kelp beds, and in a variety of other things, but we don’t hear much about that, because the offense there is of the state, of the government, and that’s not a sin now a days when the government commits it. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] How do you arrive at what?

[Audience] Limit of restitution.

[Rushdoony] Oh, the limit of restitution. The law requires certain things. For example, I’ve specified $100, the $100 stolen to be restored, plus exactly the thing {?}, another $100. Restitution, at its most, is five-fold. Thus, certain types of livestock, because of their value and their capacity to reproduce, because their hide has value, their meat has value, their reproductive abilities gives value, has to be restored five-fold. Thus, if you steal a calf, which has reproductive qualities and therefore, not only represents itself as future wealth to the owner, you restore that calf plus five. Now, that’s the maximum, five-fold, but there are categories of offenses, and this guides the extent of the restitution. Imprisonment was not a part of the biblical law. It was either a capital offense or it was restitution. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] It is theft, yes. It is theft.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Exactly. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, a good point. Scripture is the basis of exegesis, our confession. In the early church, the confession calls for restitution always. Gradually, restitution began to disappear and it was replaced with penance, which was something entirely different. When you make restitution, you are referring to the person offended. When you make penance, you’re just punishing yourself by going through certain spiritual, or so-called spiritual exercises, and that’s a radically different thing. So, confession has changed radically in its character over the centuries. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] First of all, it is grounds for divorce, very definitely. So, in terms of that, you can say it is grounds for dissolution of their marriage. Second, it is not the kind of sin for which restitution can now may be made. It is, in Old Testament law, a capital offense. In principle, it still remains that. So, in a sense, he has forfeited any right, and his situation is now one where it’s the grace of the wife that maintains the relationship. So, he has no rights in the situation, unless over a period of time, he proved himself to be of a changed character, but the idea that you can just say, “I’m sorry,” and it’s wiped out, this is a modern myth, and it is exceedingly immoral, the modern idea of forgiveness and confession as just an {?} for you to be forgiven and to wipe it out.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Exactly. You put your finger on it. If you tell a person who has stolen $100 bill, “That’s alright, forget about it,” you are contributing to the offense, because in terms of God’s law, there is one answer to sin. It’s either the death penalty or restitution. You are then cooperating to destroy restitution, to destroy a basic aspect of moral order, and you have no right to do that, because then you have joined with the thief in sinning against God. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] No, if you {?} sometimes {?} the damage is deliberate, that’s another thing. If you {?} in the law where someone is hired and comes with his equipment and tools, the pay includes the damages. So that, if he comes and helps his neighbor and his equipment is damaged in the process, he has no claim against his neighbor or against the man employing him, for any damage to his tools, because his hire includes the cost of his equipment and any potential damage {?} depreciating {?}. Similarly, the employer who is making tools available is producing something, the cost of the maintenance and replacement of his equipment is a part of the selling price of whatever he produces. So he cannot penalize the employee for any damage to the equipment unless that damage is intentional. If is the usual kind of wear and tear, and normal breakage of an accidental sort, it’s an entirely different matter. Thus, if someone is driving a car for a company and there are new tires on it and they blow out, he’s not responsible. This is a part of the {?} of operation, a part of your operating cost, but if {?}

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] If it his lack of training, yes, but if it is deliberate, if he slashes the tires, or if he abuses the equipment deliberately, that’s different. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, of course, in the case of {?}. Remember, Israel destroyed the land. It polluted everything. It polluted the earth by failure to abide by God’s laws. It polluted money, it destroyed it. One of the indictments is you have turned silver into dross, you have slugs instead of real money, and so on. So what was the punishment? Well, God is going to exact retribution of the entire line and it was going to lie idle for seventy years, to be destroyed, and so they were going to go into captivity for seventy years, and it is interesting that the modernist who tried to wipe out every prophesy by saying it never occurred, has not been able to dig up any kind of flimsy excuse to eliminate that fact. But it was actually foretold that the land would suffer captivity for seventy years, because it was the only way God could exact restitution for the land, and it was exactly seventy years. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] What was that?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, but we must remember what forgiveness means. Our word “forgive” today is a meaningless word. It means {?} an emotional feeling or statement, but the biblical word “forgive” is a legal term. It has reference to a court of law. It means literally “charges deferred because satisfaction has been made.” So it wasn’t forgiveness {?} in the Bible, the charges dropped because satisfaction has been made. It means, therefore, that the charges against someone are dropped because he has made restitution. Then, there is forgiveness. There is only one other meaning for forgive in the Bible, and it’s used in that other sense want{?}. Charges deferred for the time being, pending something. Now, our Lord used it in that second sense want{?}, from the {?}, and he said of the Roman soldiers and the others, “Father, forgive them,” defer the charges for the time being, “for they know not what they do.” Thus, if a person sinned seventy times seven and makes restitution seventy times seven, satisfaction is made, you see. Restitution {?} is to be forgiven, but not if he’s just {?} “forgive me”. I took $10 out of your wallet, or I did this or that, then you’re simply subsidizing the sinner, or thief, you see. The word “forgives” in the biblical sense, always is called restitution. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Very good question. Forgiveness can only be given {?} sincerity, exactly. Now, we are forgiven in Jesus Christ because the {?}, but the whole point of the {?}, the death penalty, has been enforced against {?} the person of Jesus Christ. Therefore, we’ve been saved now, we’re alive in Christ because we have been dead in Christ. Now, we must abide by the law, and make restitution, as St. Paul said when he spoke in the seventh chapter of being dead to the law through Christ, but then in the eighth, we have been made alive. Why? That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, that we might now keep the law of God and that we might make restitution. If you have forgiveness on any other terms than fulfillment of the law, you’re destroying godly order. You’re creating a sinful society.

Just this week I heard from someone who dealt with two of the top radio evangelists in the country, and both of them, when it comes to financial and other dealings, are as crooked as can be, and easily {?} trying to get money out of one of them, now two of them, and the man doesn’t deny it, but the law being what it is now, it’s virtually impossible to collect. There is no feeling of any obligation on the part of either of these men. They’re crooked, but they feel they’re under grace, not under law, and this is why you have so many of your top so-called evangelical leaders as crooked as a {?}, because they have no sense of law. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] You pay the penalty, yes.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] In terms of the law, you’ve made restitution. If you have taken away a man’s life then your life is forfeit.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] With a civil law, not with God. Yes, you see. In other words, restitution has reference to society and it has reference to God. The murderer makes his restitution to society. You’ve taken a life, his life goes, but in relationship to God, it’s another matter. He has to take that out with respect to God {?}. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] No, the reference there to ignorance is that he didn’t intentionally. That had reference to the tithe. He didn’t intentionally withhold a portion of the tithe, but we all, when we {?} periodically make mistakes in our favor, and maybe we find out at the end of month we have $20 or $30 less in the account than we thought, or more in the account because if we’ve been {?} we just made an error. Now similarly, a man is sitting down and he’s computing say, his tithe, and so much out of this, and so much out of that, and then {?} was computing his tithe in terms of his income from wheat and his income from his cattle, and his income from his fruit and so on, and very often, at that time, it was computed in terms of {?}, and then later, he goes over his accounts and he realizes he’s made an error. So, the reference there is not to the fact that he was deliberately trying to cheat God, but it was an inadvertent thing.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Well, that’s man’s fault {?}. If there is negligence, then it is murder, even though {?} He is {?}.

Well, our time is just about up. A little item in the paper of Tuesday of this week which, I think is a very interesting sign of the times. It’s from {?} Corsica, from the Herald Examiner, Tuesday 3, 1970. “The voters of {?} voted for fifteen {?} Sunday and the votes kept coming, and coming, and coming. The list of candidates, headed by {?}, socialist, radical socialist, an independent candidate, got a majority. The French government {?} now will have to decide on the next move. When the counting was finished, the election judges counted 9,647 ballots, and there are only 4,303 registered voters on the town’s voting list. In addition, 401 absentees had asked to vote by mail. The postman got in 892 absentee ballots.” Well, this is happening, not only in Portugal, but more often than most people realize in a good many precincts of the United States, and of course, this is the kind of thing that happens when there is no character in a people, and there is nothing you can do to prevent this {?} a change in the people. As long as you have a population of sinners, it makes no difference whether you have a democracy or republic, a monarchy, {?} you’re going to have corruption. Out of the heart of man, and if the heart of man be polluted, then he’s going to bring forth fruit {?}. As our Lord said, you don’t {?}, and today, we’ve got a good crop of {?} in every country in the world, and {?}, as a result.

Our time is up.

End of tape