The Ninth Commandment

Judges

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Prerequisite/Law

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 12

Track: 109

Dictation Name: RR130BH109

Date: 1960s-70s

As I’ve said earlier, this hymn, “Christian, Dost Thou See Them?” is one of the oldest hymns of the Christian church and through the centuries has been one of the favorites of many of the great men of God. And it is also one of my favorites. However, I can never sing it without recalling an amusing episode in connection with it. A good many years ago, over 30 years ago at least, a man who had served during the 1920s as a chaplain in a mental institution told me of his experience at the first chapel meeting he conducted. He chose this as one of his favorite hymns. And unfortunately, it is a dramatic hymn and it had the wrong effect on some of the mental patients. “Christian, Dost Thou See Them?” that is the forces of Satan. And before they had gotten very far into the hymn, a number of the patients were hallucinating and practically climbing the walls! So he said, for the duration of his chaplaincy there he avoided this hymn. He almost got thrown out of the place after that chapel.

Our scripture this morning is II Chronicles 19:4-7 and a related passage which we shall not read, but consider, Exodus 18:13-26. II Chronicles 19:4-7, and our subject, “Judges.”

“4 And Jehoshaphat dwelt at Jerusalem: and he went out again through the people from Beersheba to mount Ephraim, and brought them back unto the Lord God of their fathers.

5 And he set judges in the land throughout all the fenced cities of Judah, city by city,

6 And said to the judges, Take heed what ye do: for ye judge not for man, but for the Lord, who is with you in the judgment.

7 wherefore now let the fear of the Lord be upon you; take heed and do it: for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of gifts.”

Very early in his career, Moses, as Exodus 18:13-26 makes clear, set up judges throughout all of Israel. At first, Moses himself had been the sole judge. But as Jethro, his father-in-law pointed out, the work was too much for him, “18thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone, 19 Hearken now unto my voice, I will give thee counsel, and God shall be with thee: Be thou for the people to God-ward, that thou mayest bring the causes unto God.” And then Jethro went on to declare that he should establish a series graded courts, which was done. What we would call a justice of the peace for very ten families, then district judges over them to hear appeals, and then other judges to hear appeals with Moses then providing the final court of appeal. Moses had declared that the purpose of the judge was to make them know the statutes of God and His Law. This, then, is the purpose of a judge.

A judgeship is one of the most important of civil functions. The court cannot represent real justice in any society if the judge and his office are defective by nature and authority. For a social order to provide prosperity and stability, to provide peace, certain things are necessary.

First of all, it is necessary that all the people with grievances of a serious sort submit them to a court of law, rather than taking the law into their own hands. If and when the citizenry take the law into their own hands, the consequences of course, are anarchy. Now, the citizenry is important to law enforcement. As we saw earlier in studying some of the laws of scripture, the citizenry had the right of citizen’s arrest. They are the basic police of society. And our modern concept of the police and of the citizen’s right of arrest comes directly from the Bible. Every free man without a criminal record is a police officer, has the right of citizen’s arrest. But the citizenry cannot identify themselves with law without destroying it because law transcends the people. The law requires for judgment, an agency which is immune to partial and personal feelings.

Second, a court of law and a judge must have the power of the State to enforce decrees or else anarchy prevails. Every decision by a judge is sure to displease at least one party. A court can never please everyone. It must of necessity render a decision which will displease one and very often will displease both parties. But the court’s decisions must be protected. Appeals against the decision of the court must be made within the structure of the courts, not outside the court, or against the court.

Third, a court must represent a transcendental concept of law and justice that is a standard above and beyond man. The whole idea of a court and of a judge implies transcendence, that is, God. What you are going to a court for is not a man’s idea of what should be done, not the idea of a party or a group or a class. It isn’t Republican justice, or Democratic justice, or Marxist justice, or Fascist or Nazi justice you want. There’s no point in going to a court. It is justice; God’s justice. This is why, when God is divorced from the judges and the courts, you inescapably and inevitably have injustice. Justice is more than the victory of the most powerful or the most popular party. Justice is more than the triumph of a part, a caste or a class, of the rich or of the poor. It cannot represent a man’s perspective. If it does not represent God and His Law, then it is injustice. Justice is the righteousness of God as expressed into law. This is why in every society that is godless, that goes against God and His Word, that denies the law of God as it is given in scripture, inevitably has discontent. It represents injustice. This is as true of the United States as it is true of the Soviet Union. The courts then represent the establishment, of Washington or of Moscow or of London or of Paris or of Berlin or what have you. They do not represent the absolute and sovereign God. And if they do not, they are unjust. And it’s simply a question of how far have they traveled on the road towards total Humanism, total injustice. The difference today between the courts of the Soviet Union and the courts of the United States is not of kind, but of degree. They are both humanistic courts. They both deny the law of God. In the Soviet Union, there is total denial. In the United States, there is progressive denial. It is a difference of degree, not of kind.

Then fourth, we must say in terms of scripture that the election or selection of judges is not the real issue. It is not the real issue. It is not the thing that determines whether a judge is a good or a bad judge. In the United States today, the state, county and municipal judges are elected, by and large. Federal judges are selected. There isn’t a nickel’s worth of difference between them. You can find a very low standard in the federal courts, say on the Supreme Court, and a very low standard on the state courts, our State Supreme Court. There’s not a nickel’s worth of difference between them. It is not the method of selection. Voting doesn’t make a thing right. Both methods have good and bad results, depending on the times. The fault is not in the method but in the religious standards of the day.

If a people have no true standard of law, if they do not derive their standard of law from the law-word of God, then whether they select judges or elect them, it isn’t going to make any difference. The scripture says like people, like priest. In other words, the officials reflect the sins and the depravities of the people, their lack of faith. This is what our judges reflect today. They have no standards. There are exceptions, but by and large, they are a fearful group of men, men to be afraid of because they represent the evil of the man on the street with power.

Now in Israel, the purpose of the courts was clearly stated by Moses and by Jethro in Exodus 18:13-26 and then by Jehoshaphat, II Chronicles 19:4-7. Here you have the standard of God according to His Law for justice. Jehoshaphat said to the judges, take heed what ye do, for ye judge not for man but for the Lord who is with you in judgment. The judge therefore is not the representative of the people, but of God, and it is the epitome of evil when the judge represents the people. The contrast here is marked. Jehoshaphat, as he recalled the people to the Lord (this is incidentally the chapter that tells us about Jehoshaphat’s revival. We’ll come to that in a moment), he declared that instead of representing the people, that was what they had to have a revival to save them from. They had to represent God.

The trouble with most churches today is that they represent the people. They are democracies, not a monarchy. The Church is a monarchy with Jesus Christ, not the minister nor the board, as the head. The courts, however the judge is selected or elected, must be a monarchistic institution, representing Christ the King, or they represent injustice. Now this is the Word of God.

I stated a moment ago that Jehoshaphat’s revival is described in this chapter. This is an important point. Every revival, every reformation in Israel involved in part a return to the prophetic nature of the civil office. A prophet in the basic and primary sense is one who speaks for God. Secondarily, he is often one who foretells the future, for God. Now ever minister of the Church is called to be a prophet of God, one who speaks for God and one who foretells the future, because, you can say, and basic prophecy is, the wages of sin is death. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The nation that departs from the Lord shall face the judgment of the Lord. The Law of God gives us the basis for prediction.

Now every judge, every civil magistrate is, according to St. Paul in Romans 13:1-4, a minister of God. The Church has the ministry of grace, the State and especially the courts, the ministry of justice. And therefore the judge must be a prophet of God. He must speak for God and he must do precisely what Jehoshaphat said, ‘ye judge not for man but for the Lord who is with you in the judgment. Wherefore now let the fear of the Lord be upon you, take heed and do it, for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect of persons nor taking of gifts.’

Every reformation, every revival in Israel involved a revival in large measure of the judges as specific {?}, a recalling of the people and the priests, of the people as a judge, of the law-word of God. And it was in terms of what Israel had done and what Jehoshaphat had done that the Reformation was born. This is something that we’re not told today in the churches. We’re told that the Reformations of Luther and Calvin was a Church reformation and that what Cranmer did in England and his successors was a church reformation, but they spoke not only to the church, but to the State, Luther to the electors, Calvin to the Council of Geneva and his Institutes, incidentally was dedicated to the king of France, summoning him to reform himself and his judges in terms of God and His word. Cranmer, the king and his successors, to King Edward VI when the Reformation in England really took place and the prayer book was established and Church and State reformed, in terms of the Law-Word of God.

It is a modern heresy to believe that revival is a matter of the Church people. It is a partial, limited preaching of the Word. Through revival, through reformation, preach to Church and State and recalls both to the whole Word of God and calls for the re-establishment of the sovereignty of God in every realm. If God is totally God, and He is sovereign, then he totally governs every area of life, not only the Church and the individual believer, but the State and the schools and every other area of life. If the State can be secular, then why not the Church? God is not completely God; He is only a partial god and we should not worship him. A God who is called to be only the god of souls and of the Church is a half-god and should be rejected.

But the God of scripture is totally God; He is sovereign. His Law requires that every knee and every tongue in every domain shall bow to Him and swear to Him (Isaiah 45:23). And those who read it as something that applies after the end of history or after the Second Coming are wrong, because ‘shall swear’ means ‘shall take the oath in a court of law’ in terms of Him. That’s the meaning. In other words, God’s Law, the law that was given to Moses must prevail and shall prevail in every nation. Every tongue shall swear by me, says the Lord. Every court of law shall acknowledge me and my law.

This then is the biblical standard for the judge. The office is theocratic. The minister of the church declares the Word of God. The judge, the minister of justice, applies the Word to the conflict of life. The judge therefore must represent God, not man. He is only secondarily an officer of State. He is primarily an officer and minister of God. If he is not the minister of God, then he is a political hack and a hatchet man for a party, a client, or a group. Then the office of judge becomes an ungodly office and a cancer on society, and such judges are to be feared and {defeated?}. Such judges and such a country then live under the judgment of God.

Let us pray.

Almighty God our Heavenly Father, we give thanks unto Thee for Thy Word. Recall us, our God, unto Thee, and grant that we have a true reformation, a true revival in Church, State, school, and every area of life, that ever dominion, every tongue, every knee shall indeed bow unto Thee and swear unto Thee and acknowledge Thee to be their Lord and the law giver. Lead us our Father, to the re-establishing of Thy sovereignty in our lives and our domain and in every area of life, unto the end that the kingdoms of this world might become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, in Jesus’ name, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson first of all?

Yes.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Which countries? I didn’t—

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Asia, yes.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Well, let’s take China as it was before the Marxist Revolution. It had at least 1500 years, probably closer to 2000 years of Humanism of which there was no absolute standard. What, therefore, was their concept of justice? Once a few months ago, I cited an illustration that I was told by a missionary. Remember that, that illustration of the missionary, who, living in a small community in rural China, had two cows. His Chinese neighbor had one cow, very sickly, diseased cow. And he and the neighbor, his son and the neighbor’s son were outside playing and they picked up pebbles and they threw them at the neighbor’s cow. They didn’t bother the cow; he didn’t even bother to stop chewing grass, but later in the day he died. Not unexpectedly; he was very sick and fairly diseased. So the Chinese neighbor filed suit in the Chinese court against the missionary and the missionary lost. And when a judgment was rendered, he complained. And he said, everybody knew, could tell, that cow was sick, it was diseased, it was going to die. Those little pebbles my boy threw couldn’t have hurt the cow. Where’s the justice in all this? And they said: “But our decision is just. You have two cows and he has none, so now you each have a cow.” Pure Humanism, you see. Now what chance does he have in a court like that? Justice means a Humanist consideration, and of course with Marxism it’s no different.

Now this has been the law in Asia—purely Humanistic. It’s no wonder they are more congenial to Marxism, even though they don’t like it when it abuses them, than they are to anything that Christianity has to offer. And this is why Deweysim and Progressivism were so popular in Asia and in China especially prior to the Revolution. After all, pragmatism was no different than their philosophy of total relativism.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. A very interesting observation. Why has Chinese civilization lasted the last 2000 years when it’s been Relativistic? And the answer to that is, it has not. It has been conquered over and over and over again by outsiders. Because, when you are Humanistic, you have no standard of value to give you a concept of law or of progress. So it’s been just a fat prize for one invader after another to enter in and overthrow them and take over. Then in three or four generations, the invaders, whether it was Kublai Khan, {?} Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan, the Mongols, or the Manchus, the last conquerors, they in turn ore overthrown, because once they imbibe this philosophy of China, they themselves become stagnant and stale. So the history of China has been a history of successive conquest by all the border people. Then the border people, not having this radical relativism, carried China forward to a new height, and by the time they imbibed the philosophy, they’d disintegrate and somebody else moves in.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] This is true of India too. In both these countries and in other countries as well, you have a long, long succession of invaders who’ve taken over, falling under the sway of the prevailing relativism and themselves subsequently been taken.

[Audience Member] ...?...

[Rushdoony]Well, of course, the faster we move toward judgment, the faster we move towards deliverance, you see. Judgment and deliverance. Salvation and judgment are different sides of the same thing. The supreme instance of judgment is the cross of Christ which is the great instrument of salvation; God’s appointed instrument. So, judgment and salvation are different sides of the same thing and the judgment of this evil generation is also our deliverance.

Yes.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Very good observation. The judges were, until not too long ago, representatives of God and His Law. As late as the 1890s, the Supreme Court of the United States declared that this was a Christian nation and that Christianity was the common law of the land. The judges therefore, represented that law.

Now of course, the judges are totally Humanistic, but they still take the attitude that somehow they are representatives of God and nobody dare question them. So they’ve gotten holier-than-thou in the process of abandoning God and are bent on playing God, having denied God. ‘Course, an ironic fact is they’re still garbed as ministers of God—the black robe of the priest. You see, in the Middle Ages, they set forth the ministerial major of both the teacher and of the judge, they both wore black. Today when the judge’s gown that’s a relic of the fact that he once represented God, the Supreme Court is still always gowned. Local judges are not. But the Supreme Court is witnessing against itself. The judges come there with their robes, indicating they are ministers of the Word, of justice, when they are not. Anytime anyone graduates from college, he wears a cap and a gown, the gown signifying that now he has attained a ministerial role to minister God’s Word in a particular area of life. And he lies when he puts that on, because he does not.

Yes.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] That, I don’t think is important. Whether he’s elected or selected. If you have a godly nation and godly men in high places, you’ll, whether you elect them or select them, you’ll have godly judges. But if you have an ungodly people, it doesn’t make any difference. And we haven’t done any better by election or selection today in our courts.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, the whole point of the jury system as it developed is this: the people of God, trained in the Word of God, would be able to render judgment in terms of God’s Law, the Ten Commandments, and all the other laws. But today, you see, how can the people know the law? Statue law is without rhyme or reason, and so today, is useless really. A jury system is the proper development of Biblical Law, where people can know what God says, ‘thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill,’ and so on, and can judge in terms of it. But today, it may be obvious to judge and jury that the man is guilty. The real question is does the crime fit with some statue that’s mostly an interpretation of the law?

Yes.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. Oh, yes. Well, you see,

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] If they have no faith, they will be no better than the judge. They will represent a faction, not God’s Law. And this is true of juries. They’ll feel sorry for an individual who’s against a corporation and so on.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. Not surprising.

Yes.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. When you have had periods of Christian history when you’ve had a system of real justice, it has been because the people, the churches, and therefore the courts have respected God and His Law. Therefore, there has been a conscientious effort on all sides to speak for God.

Our—

Yes.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] That’s, uh….

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] If high school were again what it once was, yes. Because it should prepare them for life, and college would be only for those who are training in terms of a particular calling, professional skill. But if college—if high school were truly a place where the liberal arts, the arts of the free man, which are Christianized, then—

Yes.

Yes.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] That’s very true. Very true. And not as well-educated as those who in the 1840s and 50s graduated from Eighth Grade and I can prove it with the text books. I have them.

Our time is just about up and I’d like to pass on a few things to you.

First of all, an announcement. A Sennholz Seminar on the currency system will be held Saturday, July 11, in Glendale. And there are leaflets in the back concerning it.

Next, we were studying some time ago the Biblical Law of judgment in the courts, which is restitution. In terms of that, last Monday there was an interesting item in The Herald Examiner and the Answer Line column, which is questions that are raised by different people. And this one coming from R. {?} in Los Angeles, a rather indignant and an unhappy letter:

“I robbed a bank back in 1966 and was captured and sent to prison. Early this year I was released and sent to a half-way house to receive help to rehabilitate. I found a job and started a savings account, which was one of the stipulations given me at the half-way house. Unfortunately, the bank that I was required to put my savings in was of the same banking chain that I had robbed. They found out that I had an account with them and took away my savings because not all of the robbery money was recovered. Is there action legally?”

(Answer) “According to a local bank, the action of your bank was legal. It is called ‘The Right of Offset.’ When two parties have mutual claims against each other, the money you owed from the robbery, and they money they owed you in your savings account, the claims are reduced to the lowest amount owed each other. Obviously you still owed more from the bank robbery than they owed you from your savings account. You had a debt you owed, so they collected it legally.”

That’s an example of a minor remainder of Biblical Law in our legal system.

Now the other item is not a very serious item, although it’s real history, rather humorously presented. I don’t know whether it’ll mean much to most of you, unless you’ve grown up on a farm. And the title of this, because I think it’s very interesting in view of the fact that a while back we were dealing with the law of men and women and their respective natures that God created them. The title of this is Why Men Took Over Milking. Now, you know, the idea of a milk man or a dairy man is new. It used to be, through the centuries a dairymaid and a milkmaid. So there’s been a major change in recent years. About the turn of the century an {?}.

“There’s only one thing lower than a grave robber, and that’s a man who would stoop to milk a cow,” so stated the medieval farmer to his wife, trying his best to duck the job. Even today, milking the cow is not every farmer’s cup of tea.” Incidentally, they used the term for the milking shed now, milking parlors. {?} parlors {?}, staring out across his Dakota cattle ranch, “I wouldn’t milk ‘em if they were in the Waldorf-Astoria.” For countless ages, men saw to it that milking was women’s chore, along with most of the other homey chores necessary for survival. That left men free to go to town and run for public office. But naturally, men still wanted to balk the job. The worst point of housewifery said a Mr. Martin in 1650 is to leave a cow half milked. {Francis Guinin?} in 1867 was more unctuous. “Milking seems better fitted to females who are likely to be more gentle and {fleet?}. But in case they weren’t, he had plenty of advice for them. “Go to the cow’s stall at seven o’clock in the morning. Douse the udder well with cold water. Keep your hands and arms clean. Milk each cow dry, as you suppose, then begin again with the cow you first milked and drip them {?}. Suffer no one to milk a cow but yourself,” (can’t you hear the men cheering), “and have no gossiping in the milking stall. No wonder women took to wearing bloomers and marching for equal rights. But likely as not, milk maids would have gone on quietly milking the cows, were it not for machines. The first patent for a milking machine was granted in 1859. It was a simple piston pump that removed air from a steel pail and sucked the milk out, like the plunger on a beer keg in reverse. Women bent dutifully, but were {?} the pumping and the men stood around with hands in pockets grinning at the machine and winking at the girls. There is no record of what the cow did, but I bet that you and I know. One day that system pump broke and milk maid, being a woman, could not fix it. So the man rushed to her aid, wanting to keep her bent to the task or else he might have to do it, and from there on, man the tinkerer was hooked. The term dairy man came into existence, but it was a difficult transition. {C.S. Farmet?} admitted in 1900 that men disliked to milk cows, and so numerous machines have been invented by them. Most of these are foolish contrivances and none are real successes. Men will continue to devise, however, and it is probable that at some time, large herds will be milked by machine. Back in 1895, when Tom {Denottsi?} was just a campus Indian, {?} invented the first {?}. But really practical milkers didn’t appear until after the turn of the century, when William Morris and Robert {?} of Scotland developed a mechanism for controlling pulsation. The first U.S. patent on a double-chambered {?} was granted in 1903.

As long as women were tending the cows, milking three times a day was considered necessary by men. But when men tinkered their way into the dairy, they abruptly decided that twice a day was enough. And nearly every generation of dairymen today {?} try to milk only once a day. With men at the helm, other milking {?}. Cows come to the milker, instead of visa-versa. They stand on raised platform because men have weaker backs than women. Pipelines rid the man of the job of carrying milk and heated parlors keep him from freezing to death when he’s out there in the morning, as he does not have that extra layer of female fat under his skin. And what about those gentle, seemly females whose very natures fitted them especially for milking cows? They are going to town and running for public office. [Laughter]

Now that’s not only good humor, but there is a lot of history and a great deal of human nature {?}.

Well, let’s bow our heads now for the benediction.

And now, go in peace. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.