IBL13: Law in the New Testament

The Cultural Mandate

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Law

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 7

Track: 135

Dictation Name: RR130BW135

Date: 1960s-1970s

“The Cultural Mandate,” St. Matthew 2:1-11.

“1Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,

2 Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.

3 When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.

4 And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.

5 And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet,

6 And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah: for out of thee shall come a Governor that shall rule my people Israel.

7 Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared.

8 And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also.

9 When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.

10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.

11 And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.”

We have in times past as we have studied the Christmas story, analyzed the meaning of the gifts of the wise men. Very clearly, they had studied the scriptures. They knew the meaning of this babe in Bethlehem. Their gifts reflected it; because gifts in antiquity were symbolic. Gold was the gift for a king. Frankincense had reference to His priesthood. And myrrh, used for embalming. So they knew that He was indeed God the King, the Son of God, the great High Priest, He who had come to die, to give His life as a ransom for many.

They also identified Him. When they asked of King Herod, “Where is he that is born king of the Jews?” We need to understand the significance of that phrase. It does not mean merely king over the Jews. There were kings in abundance all over the world in those days. In fact, in many areas, if you traveled the distance of a county, you crossed the line of a kingdom. For these men to travel a long journey just to do honor to a Jewish king was meaningless. After all, Judea was a country of very small size, of very little consequence politically. And as a result, they were not interested in someone who is merely going to be king over the Jews; but king of, out of, from the Jews, in terms of prophecy. Where is he that is born king of the line of David, out of Judea, in terms of the prophecies of scripture, born king to restore the sons of Adam to their destiny, to exercise dominion and to subdue the earth as priests, prophets and kings? We know that they understood this. As a matter of fact, there are inklings that many people all over the world were expecting such a savior to be born; a world king, a world ruler, who was going to restore man to that condition which he had before the Fall. Everywhere men felt that history was at a dead end and therefore, there had to be some kind of an intervention in history from heaven to restore direction to history. As a result, the writings of scripture were studied by people as far as China throughout the Roman Empire in Europe, North Africa. The fourth Eclogue of Virgil reflects his knowledge of the prophecies of the Old Testament, notably Isaiah’s prophecies concerning the messiah. The difference was, of course, he felt that when this world’s messiah came, he would undoubtedly be born of the household of Caesar.

Thus, the world was knowledgeable about the scriptures. The world was expecting the great restorer and redeemer to come. As a result, they knew even better than the church today, the meaning of Christ’s coming, though they rejected Him, though they tried to bend Him to their purpose, their way believed this world restorer should come in terms of the Roman royal house. They knew this meaning.

Let us examine that meaning, that which was expected, that which they knew the messiah was destined to do. The word that sums it up, or the expression rather, in two words is the cultural mandate, also called the creation mandate. God had created man wholly good and set him in paradise to serve God as priest, prophet and king, to subdue the earth and to exercise dominion over it under God. And man had fallen from that task and been cast out of the Garden. Yet he had been promised that in the fullness of time there would come a son who would bruise the serpent’s head and restore man to his dominion. And yet tragically, on October 9, 1970, a meeting in Pasadena, or San Merino rather, the Synod of the Bible Presbyterian Church adopted a resolution (number 13), written by Dr. McIntyre and an associate calling the cultural mandate a false doctrine.

The statement is a full page in length. It is an amazing document. It virtually says that the only people who have any obligation to subdue the earth are the ungodly, that the requirement to subdue the earth and to exercise dominion over it was only applicable to Adam. And thus, the church has only one duty: to preach the Gospel; not to talk about exercising dominion, not to talk about the requirement of Christians to bring all things into captivity to Christ.

Let us examine the term cultural mandate that they reacted to with such horror. Let me add that as far as South Africa, the resolution of the Synod of the Bible Presbyterian Church was met with shock. I had an airmail letter yesterday from South Africa. Abroad they have recognized, at least those who are evangelical and orthodox, the shocking implications of this, a surrender of the Christian calling! Here it has attracted no criticism and notice. Cultural mandate, what does it mean? Let’s examine the words in terms of the dictionary definition.

1.      Culture: it means to educate, to refine, to cultivate, it means the training, the improvement, the refinement of the mind, moral state. Means enlightenment.

2.      Mandate: means an authoritative requirement, a command, an order, or a charge.

Thus, the cultural mandate is the obligation of covenant man to subdue the earth and exercise dominion over it under God. And law is the program for that purpose. All men, in every age must improve, develop and sanctify themselves, their household, the world around them and their calling unto God. This is the cultural mandate.

Now St. Paul summoned believers to this calling. He wrote in II Corinthians 10:4-6,

“4(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; )

5 Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

6 And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.”

That last verse is translated for example, by the Berkeley Version, “We are prepared also to administer justice upon all disobedience when your obedience is fully shown.” In other words, the Christian has a calling to subdue the earth, including all disobedience in every area and to punish it. Another translator has brought out the meaning in even more modern English, that verses 5 and 6, to demolish theories, Evolutionary, philosophical, whatever they are, that are in opposition to God, “To demolish theories and any rampart thrown up to resist the knowledge of God. I take every project prisoner to make it obey Christ. I am prepared to court-martial anyone who will remain insubordinate, once your submission is complete.” In other words, St. Paul told the Corinthians, you’re an army! This is why I am disciplining you. You’re being disciplined so that you can go out and bring the world into the saving knowledge of Christ and the discipline of His Law-Word, and in every area, every thought, every project must so be subdued.

This is the cultural mandate. Now, before the Fall, this was a less complicated task. Now man needs regeneration. This is the first step of the cultural mandate, to bring men to the Word of God and to the regenerating power of God. God the King, Jesus Christ. Where is He that is born king? To Him men must be brought, subjected to Him. Then we must demolish every kind of theory and belief, every kind of opposition to the dominion of God in Christ and bring all things in captivity to Christ and His Law-Word. This means that we must court-martial (that’s the literal meaning of the Greek term) or administer justice upon all disobedience in every area of life where we encounter it.

Now, this is what the kingship of Christ means. This is what Christ came to do. He destroyed the power of sin and death. His coming was the signal that God the King had come and the re-conquest of the earth was underway. The cultural mandate therefore is not to be equated with a natural man’s view of culture and progress. You know, when the ungodly talk about culture, they mean operas and ballets and that sort of thing. This is what the Soviet Union means by it. And to prove that Socialist culture is better than any other, they put up opera houses and theaters in every little city across the Soviet Union. And they show these to visitors, they take them from city to city. Look, we’ve got a ballet and an opera house in Podunk, out here in Siberia. This proves Socialist culture is the superior culture.

This kind of nonsense is in reality, a symptom of degeneracy and decline, to equate culture with such trappings. Rome, in the days of the Early Church, had such idea of culture, too. And the Early Church made fun of it. One of the things that’s most interesting to me as I read through the church fathers, how in the early centuries, how they made fun of the Romans and their ideas of culture, because, they said, culture means that everything is brought into place under Christ the King and made to serve Him. Then indeed things are educated, refined, and cultivated, improved. Then indeed life is brought into the world. And so Clement of Alexandria, for example, as he ridiculed the attempt of the decadent Romans to prove their culture and walk by absurd displays wrote, “It is a farce and a thing to make one laugh outright for men to bring in silver urine bases and chamber pots of crystal as they usher in their counselors and for a silly rich woman to get gold receptacles for excrement made, so that being rich, they cannot even ease themselves except in a superb way.”

The church fathers made much of this sort of thing and they said, is this the way light is going to come into the Roman Empire? Is this the way you’re going to have culture? Are you not instead becoming barbarians? Is it not Christ who is the bringer of light? Is it not Christ who alone can redeem men and therefore truly enlighten, cultivate, refine and educate them?

Rome had no true god. Its laws had become relativistic and therefore its ideas of culture had also become degenerate. And as a result, their solution to everything was, well, environmentalism; fate, not man as the responsible creature who was to be regenerated by God. Tatian, an Assyrian Christian of the 2nd century, about a hundred years after our Lord, declared as he addressed the Romans, “…that we are of superior faith. And instead of wandering demons, we have learned to know one Lord who wanders not. And as we do not follow the guidance of fate, we reject its lawgiver. And how is this that Chronus, who was put in chains and ejected from his kingdom, is constituted a manager of fate? How too can he give kingdoms who no longer reigns himself?”

And Tatian went on to say, you who say that man cannot rule himself because he is the product of the environment and fate, how can you rule anyone else? But we who believe that Jesus Christ, the virgin-born Son of God and has regenerated us and called us to rule all things in Christ, we shall prevail in spite of all your persecution. Tatian’s point was a good one. How ultimately can people who do not believe that they can rule themselves, that the environment rules man or fate does, ultimately rule the world? This was their confidence: Christ, the babe of Bethlehem, born king, would prevail.

The Romans were only puppets, or a reflex action, according to their own philosophy. This is what Tatian told them. And this is what we can tell the Communists today, and the Fabians, and the welfare Socialists, the Pavlovians in every area. If man is only a puppet, a reflex action, a product of conditioning, how can he hope to rule the world very long when he cannot rule himself?

Recently I read a very interesting book on Soviet justice written by an American who got a degree by going to the Soviet Union and studying their law, their courts. And he cited the statement of a Soviet judge, and I quote, “Only when everyone is fully conscious of what it means to be a Soviet citizen will there be no crime. There is no such thing as human nature. Man is the product of his surroundings, of the social and economic system which molds him. Change the mold and you change the man. And that is what we are doing. You know the Church used to talk loud and long about original sin. It was a good way to keep the masses in their miserable places. But we junked that idea long ago. We are doing something. We are doing a great deal about removing the artificial societal arrangements that foster crime and this is where I think Socialism shows its greatest advantage over Capitalism. You see, man is essentially good. Only private property and everything he learned from it corrupted him. We are restoring his goodness and at the same time making him infinitely richer in every way. Don’t you see the glory in that?”

Man is only a puppet, a product of his environment, and this is where they find their glory. The same premise is in Western Law. Man is a product of his environment. This is sociology and law around us today. That the meaning of the birth of Jesus Christ is in contradiction to all things; man was originally created to be king under God, and Jesus Christ as very man of very man is the second Adam borne from God. Even as the first Adam was a creation of God, the second Adam is not only a creation of God, and very man of very man, but also very God of very God come to restore man to his original calling and purpose, come to make him again a covenant-keeper, a faithful citizen of the Kingdom of God, able to fulfill his creation mandate under God and to inherit the earth.

Go through our hymnal sometime this week and study the old Christmas hymns, the carols. This is what they’re all singing about—Christ the King is come, to restore man to his task, to subdue the earth, to abolish the curse and sin, to enable man again to rule. Therefore, joy to {?} all, the Lord is come. No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground (the symbol of the curse). He comes to make His blessing flow, far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found.

And when we are regenerated we are moved out from under the curse and made again citizens of God’s kingdom, commissioned to do His work. Johannes Olearius, in 1671 in another great old Christmas hymn, “Comfort Ye, Comfort Ye My People,” wrote, [verse 3] “Hark, the Herald's voice is crying/in the desert far and near/bidding all men to repentance/since the Kingdom now is here/ Oh, that warning cry obey! / Now prepare for God a way/let the valleys rise to meet Him/and the hills bow down to greet Him.” [Verse 4] “Make ye straight what long was crooked/ make the rougher places plain/let your hearts be true and humble/as befits His holy reign/for the glory of the Lord/now o'er earth is shed abroad/and all flesh shall see the token/that His Word is never broken.”

This is the message of the Christmas songs and this is why they’re such a joy to sing. Why, even the ungodly feel a momentary flush of joy when they know and sing the Christmas carols because they speak of victory, of man restored under God, of a glorious day in Christ, of a new creation that begins when we are converted and that grows as we fulfill His task and bring men, women and children into the fold of Christ and subdue the earth under Him. “For lo! the days are hastening on by prophet bards foretold/when, with the ever circling years/shall come the age of gold/when Peace shall over all the earth, its ancient splendors fling/and the whole world give back the song which now the angels sing.” Our Lord at His ascension, and His last words declared anew the purpose of His coming, “All power is given unto me in Heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”

The word translated twice as “teach all nations,” “teaching them to observe all things…” is the same as the words “disciple them.” It comes from the same words also translated as disciple and discipline. Bringing them under discipleship, under discipline, under teaching, under authority, under the law, under the judgment, under the discipline of Christ the King--all nations are to be subdued, all peoples, tongues and tribes by baptism and teaching, by regeneration, and the law-word.

The world sought to put the fullness of curse on He who was born king, the fullness of the curse being death. But even as they sought to put the fullness of the curse on He who was born king, He destroyed the curse, the power of sin and death, hence the joy of His birth, who turned the curse into victory and overthrew the enemy. As a German scholar commenting on the significance of the birth of our Lord, in the Early Church wrote, “The Church persecuted by the ejected dragon and yet freed from a tremendous burden, sings its hymns to Christ, now is come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ, for the accuser of our brethren is cast down which accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb. This is a new situation for the world that {?} on the nativity and the ascension.”

If men are not regenerated by Christ, if they will not submit to His calling to the cultural mandate, they will be crushed by His power for He is the one who was born king. Therefore, we can echo the words of the glorious carol, “God rest ye merry, Gentlemen/ let nothing you dismay/remember Christ our Savior/was born on Christmas Day/to save us all from Satan's power/when we were gone astray/Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy/Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.

Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto Thee for the tidings of comfort and joy whereby we who were gone astray have been restored in Jesus Christ and made with Him joint heirs of all creation. Oh Lord, our Father, so enable us to grow by Thy Word that we may bring all things into captivity to Christ and rejoice in His kingship. Bless us to this purpose in Jesus’ name, amen.

Are there any questions now, first of all with respect to our lesson?

Yes?

[Audience] {?} … I was thinking about the environmentalists, the way {?} … what I wonder {?}

[Rushdoony] Well, the environmentalists believe he is a product of fate, of his environment, of the world around him. So when he says he wants to do his thing, he’s saying there’s nothing else I can do but that which I was created to do, or rather not created to do, conditioned to do, so if it’s to be a hippy, or if it’s to smoke pot, or if it’s to be a criminal, or if it’s to do this or that, I’m just doing my thing, you see. I’m not responsible. This is what it means to say I’m doing my thing.

Yes.

[Audience] {?} buying out {?} of the world, that’s making people so unhappy that {?} Is there a point {?} make changes?

[Rushdoony] Right. It is an illogical aspect of all environmentalist theory in that they say everybody is conditioned, everybody is the product of their environment except a few of us elite people who are like god and we will do the conditioning because we are above being conditioned. We have reached an illumination and as this elite circle, we will condition and therefore we make man and deliver him.

Yes.

[Audience] I was asked once before {?} and I saw … {?} Now I wonder if {?} a plan for {?}

[Rushdoony] No, you would have…

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Right. It would be in bad taste if I were really to read things from St. Augustine and some of the other people as they made fun of the culture of the Romans, because it’s almost unbelievable the crudities they went to, to refine their idea of culture. But it becomes progressively more and more barbaric, you see.

To prove that there is no god, they develop cruder and cruder ways, sometimes involving remarkable abilities to say, here is jewelry or here is a skill or here is a line of art that represents man, man and nature—not God, nothing of an order from above. Some of the forms of arts they developed have fortunately disappeared and are practically unknown unless you happen to read some of these church fathers. Some of them, I should say, that are least repeatable, are also being developed again. But they went to all kinds of fantasies to prove that they had culture, something that only man’s imagination could have produced.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] It is junk. Yes. It is a recur---

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. Right.

Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] I have never seen any examples, although I do not know whether in fact any exist, but there are hints, and some little evidence that what we call modern art was also developed by Romans towards the last. And that their music similarly had the same breakdown of form, a reverse against any discipline.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] In returning to {?} and {?}, they are mad. These generations don’t {?} .. Adam and Eve were {?}, particularly Adam, {?} But now they believe a cultural mandate, we’ve not {?}

[Rushdoony] We always have that choice. Now, the natural man, because he is fully evil in principle, by nature, rejects good, so that everything he chooses is evil. The redeemed man can still do that which is evil, but his basic nature being now Christ, he preponderantly chooses good, and as he grows in sanctification, which is in terms of God’s Law-Word, he progressively chooses more and more, systematically that which is good. In Heaven, we shall only choose that which is good because we shall be totally sanctified and there shall be no element of the Old Adam in us to have any desire or capacity for that which is evil.

[Audience] Are there times in our day when {?} individual has a {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. We know our growth in sanctification very definitely in terms of what we want to do. Thus, while the motions of sin (to use the old expression) are still present in all believers, in this point, progressively, what we want to do is that which is God’s will. Thus, whereas the unbeliever, the ungodly would like to steal whatever he can get away with, and commit adultery or lie whenever he can get away with it, the believer finds this not to his taste, because his taste is to do the will of God. And the more he grows in grace, the more he enjoys doing that which is godly, and the more repulsive evil becomes to him.

Now, never in this life is he totally free of the motions of sin, but as he grows, his taste is progressively (to use the modern term) for that which is godly. He does-the other is repulsive to him. So he does and that which is godly because this is his choice. This is his desire. He enjoys, for example, the study of scripture. He wants to know more about it and to grow in terms of it. So if you’re enjoying the kind of thing we’re doing here each week, this is proof of growth in sanctification. If you enjoy {?}, God’s people triumph. If you enjoy seeing justice flourish, if you enjoy knowing that people being converted to Christ, and there’s a progress in this cause, this is all proof, you see, evidence of sanctification. You enjoy the things that are of God, that manifest His dominion in your life and in the lives of others.

Yes?

[Audience] Where I grew up, {?} being faithful {?} can you quote {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. It does not mean that believers cannot drift and stumble and fall, but they cannot fall away if they are truly saved. You can see something of the development of a culture as a whole, a period of history in terms of its taste. What does it enjoy seeing triumph? Well if its heroes turned out to be criminals, you know something is wrong. The amazing thing that happened after World War I when the gangster became a hero; and the hoodlums became a hero in literature. Go back and look at the popular stories and the movies of the 30s. Now, they told us what was happening to America, and that before long, the people themselves would become like that. They would want to see vice triumphant, because this was to their taste.

Yes.

[Audience] Is {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, a very good question; a very, very discerning one. Now, we have to look at things from God’s perspective. A child who is being disciplined doesn’t see things as an improvement, but the mother can see progress, you see, because the mother is looking at the over-all picture. We are in one respect now at a period of radical break down, the worst break down culturally for several centuries, the end of an age. So we are seeing evil become more and more flagrant. We are seeing the breakdown of law and order in a radical fashion.

But on the other hand, we are seeing enormous progress made. Now, our Lord as He spoke to encourage His disciples, he said first the blade, then the leaf, the stalk, then the full gear. In other words, don’t expect everything all at once. But if you’ve seen the blade you know something’s coming up. If you see the stalk, you know something is developing and growing.

All right. Humanism began to infiltrate Western Civilization radically after the Reformation. Beginning in the latter part of the 17th century, the Reformation began to go down the drain in the 1600s. And Humanism captured Europe. The Reformation then moved to America and triumphed here, but beginning in the 1820s and thereabouts, 1815 when Unitarianism was born, and after the Civil War with Darwinism as well, there was a radical collapse of Christianity, a very radical collapse. As a matter of fact, the collapse was so far-reaching, that except for a very few scholars (two or three at Princeton, the Old Princeton), there were no defenders of the faith. There was no one to challenge Darwinism in the Church, even. There was no one writing as, say, Whitcomb and Morris, and David Hizer and a host of other writers writing on Creationism in those days; just non-existent. You had a group of Christians finally developed in the 90s, 30 years or more after Darwin, who issued a series of papers titled The Fundamentals, recalling people to the fundamentals of scripture, the deity of Christ, the miracles, the virgin birth. But not even in The Fundamentals were they too strict about Creationism. After World War I you began to develop some Creationist books, and it’s only since World War II that you’ve had some real development of Creationism, that you had some real development of Christian doctrine. From about 1820 or 30, until a few years ago, there wasn’t even a book published in this country which dealt with the deity of Christ.

So you see, what is now happening is that the Christian scholarship is beginning to reappear, men of science who are Christians. There are a handful, but they’re the blades that are coming up, that have not been on the scene for a long time. So there’s tremendous hope for the future because the groundwork is now being laid and people are beginning to re-think every area of thought in terms of Jesus Christ. So, for the first time you can say there is tremendous hope because the seed is being sewn, and there are young men interested, especially. There’s a response that was not there before.

Yes.

[Audience] It’s real usual to see that the {?} people, that is troubling {?} Actually troubling, {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, the very decline of law and order in a sense should hearten us because we know it means that the attempt to build on a foundation other than Christ is futile. To try to build a state without Christ, on a purely relativistic standard of law, man-made law is doomed to crumble, and it’s crumbling around us. So we should rejoice at these things.

Yes.

[Audience] Is it {?}

[Rushdoony] Well, some very fine Christians were concerned about this before it was ever picked up, for purely political reasons by the opposition. It doesn’t mean anything in their hands, but it does mean this much: they are realizing that they themselves are the destroyers of their world. It’s another area where judgment is coming home to roost as a result of their own doings.

So, all these things are a judgment on the ungodly, and they are a manifestation of something of a terror that’s falling upon them. There’s not a month that goes by that I don’t see evidence of a fearfulness on the part of the opposition and people who five years ago wouldn’t have every dreamed of reading something I’ve written, for example, like professors of law in schools where they wouldn’t have even thought I was fit to mention, are quietly reading my books. I know this because I’ve heard from various people. Now, why are they doing it? Because their hearts are filled with terror at what is happening to law, to society, to man himself. They see the abyss opening up before them and so they are reaching out for this, that—everything! What’s the answer? Now, I’m not saying they’re going to take the answer today or tomorrow, but the time is coming when as their world falls around them, many of them will turn. So, it is a time of crisis and therefore a time of opportunity.

Remember that when Huss first preached the Word of God, the only result for him was death. The world was not ready for it. He was a couple of centuries too early. But when Luther and Calvin began, it set the world on f ire because everything was crumbling and people were now ready to hear. That time of readiness is drawing very close. Very close. So you see, there’s progress.

Well, our time is up. Let’s bow our heads now for the benediction.

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