IBL06: Sixth Commandment

To Make Alive

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Prerequisite/Law

Genre: Speech

Track: 37

Dictation Name: RR130U37

Location/Venue: ________

Year: 1960’s-1970’s.

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Our scripture reading is Deuteronomy 32, verses 35-43. To Make Alive. Deuteronomy 32:35-43.

“35 It is mine to avenge; I will repay.

In due time their foot will slip;

their day of disaster is near

and their doom rushes upon them.

36 The Lord will vindicate his people

and relent concerning his servants

when he sees their strength is gone

and no one is left, slave or free.

37 He will say: “Now where are their gods,

the rock they took refuge in,

38 the gods who ate the fat of their sacrifices

and drank the wine of their drink offerings?

Let them rise up to help you!

Let them give you shelter!

39 “See now that I myself am he!

There is no god besides me.

I put to death and I bring to life,

I have wounded and I will heal,

and no one can deliver out of my hand.

40 I lift my hand to heaven and solemnly swear:

As surely as I live forever,

41 when I sharpen my flashing sword

and my hand grasps it in judgment,

I will take vengeance on my adversaries

and repay those who hate me.

42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood,

while my sword devours flesh:

the blood of the slain and the captives,

the heads of the enemy leaders.”

43 Rejoice, you nations, with his people,

for he will avenge the blood of his servants;

he will take vengeance on his enemies

and make atonement for his land and people.”

Last week we saw that according to scripture the state is more than God’s hangman. The state has a prophetic office, the protection of life. The expression the state is God’s hangman of course comes from Luther. But, it has been very commonly taken out of context. The Lutheran church in using it as it’s doctrine of the state has not been true to Luther. As a matter of fact Luther saw the state as far far more than God’s hangman, rather as God’s prophet and servant. We tend to think of Lutheran as churchman and as ecclesiastical in it’s emphasis. And of course the lutheran clergy has made a very pious and strong church man out of Luther who worked to reestablish a new church.

This is radically twisting the facts. Luther was primarily a professor! And we cannot properly understand his career unless we understand what he was. Indee, he was concerned about the faith, but his main concern was with Christendom and the whole society of church, state, and schools! And as a professor, as a scholar, he was concerned with the revitalization of all of society by means of Christian scholarship. And so he saw as the two central agencies in that revitalization of Christian society, the Christian prince and the Christian scholar.

These two worked together to revitalize society, so that it was not so much church and state in Luther’s thinking, nor how the Lutheran clergy today read it, the church, but it was the Christian ruler and the Christian thinker. And this is why the universities in Germany came to have a tremendous fire and vitality for centuries after Luther. In fact, until our day, almost, the German university had a import that no university elsewhere in the world had! And until a generation ago, their supremacy was marked. And even today the language to learn if you are interested in scholarship is German, because the great scholarly works that are not in English are predominantly in German.

And all this because of Luther’s emphasis on scholarship. Christian scholarship. We might add parenthetically here that Luther had during his lifetime 20,000 pupils, and those 20,000 had an important position in revitalizing the face of Europe! So that Luther’s position was not that the state was just God’s hangman. It had a positive, a prophetic function. To speak for God, to declare the law word of God in the domain of justice. Now God specifically declares that as he deals with the world his principle of operation which he ask human authorities to follow is this. See now that I, even I, am He. And there is no God with me. I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal. Neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.

So that God as he faces the sinful world proceeds then to kill and to make alive. To destroy that which is evil and to prosper that which is good. And as he faces any law order that fails to fulfil this calling which he delegates to them, to kill and to make alive, he exacts vengeance upon them. I set my glittering sword, mine hand takes hold of judgement. I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward --that is, with judgement-- them that hate me.

God as the supreme law giver has this function. And he delegates to human authorities. All human authorities in every sphere have this function. Not only the church, but the state and every calling: To inhibit, to injure, to kill out that which is evil, that which is destructive, that which harms. And to further that which protects and furthers life, under God. In the church it is the binding and the forgiving of sins. In other areas it varies in terms of their function. And so the scripture sees everything that man has and man must do in terms of this function of killing and making alive.

It surprises us when we realize the extent of this, but when we examine the book of psalms for example we see that music also has this function! To make alive. Conversely we can say that bad music certainly kills. That’s the way I respond to a great deal of music today. It has a very depressing, killing effect, so far as I’m concerned. But good music makes alive! And this was the function of the psalms, of music in worship.

Now with respect to people and personal relations, the law spells out certain areas where it is our duty to obey the law and make alive. Some of these areas where we have a function according to the law to make alive are these: first, with respect to widows and orphans. The law specifically requires that we be gracious and kindly to them. That we avoid all oppression. As individuals we have a responsibility toward those who are without protection. And therefore, widows and orphans are to be dealt with with kindliness and with helpfulness. And God declares he will hear there cry when they are oppressed and cry earnestly to Him, and he will oppress the oppressors and that he will bring upon them fullness of judgement.

Secondly, our neighbors, who are our fellow covenant neighbors, fellow believers. They are to receive the special favoritism of our day by day dealings.

Earlier we dealt with the fact that the law has several levels... it might be well to repeat that at this point, because this is important to understanding the law. To understanding why neighbors who are our fellow covenant members are given a special category from strangers, although we are to deal humanely with strangers. According to the law of God we do not deal with all people in terms of an equal law, where justice is involved in courts yes, but we are never commanded in the scriptures to treat all people in our personal relationships with equality.

First, there is one level of law for the family. We deal with our loved ones who are members of the faith who are of our household, on one level. As I pointed out when we dealt with that, the law requires us to; the law that we support our wife and our children and that we love them with a special kind of love. It would be a sin to love our neighbors wife and children the same way we love our wife and children. In fact we can get into trouble if we do that.

So there is one level of law where we are required by God’s law to have a partiality, towards our own. Second, there is another level of law, that which deals with fellow believers. And here again we are to exercise a certain kind of partiality. We recognize that for all their faults, those who are true believers have a higher standard of character. Sometimes, they are guilty of flagrant sin, but there is a principle in them, Jesus Christ, which makes them different. And while we are not to be fools in dealing with them we yet deal with them differently than we do with, say, a communist or with a savage in Africa.

The third level of law is that which deals with non-believers. And while we recognize here there are some variations and some nonbelievers having grown up in a Christian community and a Christian world have many ways that they have picked up as a result of the permeation of Christian life into them. Still, the unbeliever is on a lower level. He is to be accorded justice unto the law. We are not to do him any injury or any wrong, but still we cannot give to him the favoritism that we do to others.

So it is that neighbors are fellow covenant members. Towards them we have a responsibility to make alive. That is to further them, humanly speaking, in their need and to create a social condition and a community where we can together thrive.

A third category, according to the law is the poor. And one of the provisions for the poor was gleaning. We touched on gleaning previously but it is important again to review it in this context. The poor of the land, whether believers or unbelievers, were to have the privilege of gleaning in all rural communities. That is, no farmer was allowed to strip his trees or his vine or his grain field. The fruit that was hard to get, the solitary bunches of grapes, the grain along the corners and the edges of the field, all this had to be left. And if they dropped a sheath of wheat they were to allow it to remain. Then the poor were to be allowed to go in and harvest the field. And each farmer was to give permission to certain of the poor to glean his field. This provided them with food, plus something they themselves could sell for their income. It as hard work. Far harder to glean than to harvest, because the gleaner had to work harder to get what he did. But gleaning was a means whereby the poor were cared for.

Then another category of persons whom we were to help, to make alive, that is to further, sojourners and aliens. The law specifically and repeatedly cites the sojourner and the alien as one whom we are to be considerate to and helpful to. And of course the Hebrews are reminded, remember you yourselves were sojourners and strangers in Egypt. So that we are ever to be mindful of people who in an alien context are out of place, and things are different and difficult for them.

Similarly, slaves and servants were to be dealt with in kindliness and patience with the full awareness that they do not have the capabilities and abilities we have. So that, they were to be dealt with under God, to make alive, that is, to assist those who are weaker.

Similarly also, the needy and the defenseless. Those who are aged, they are to be dealt with with reverence. Then again one of these laws which called for making alive was that of Deuteronomy 22:8. Which I shall read because it is illustrative of a particular area of law that has had a radical influence of our society.

“When you build a new house, then you shall make a parapet for your roof, that you may not bring guilt of bloodshed on your household if anyone falls from it.

Now in Palestine most roofs were flat, or relatively flat, and during the heat of the summer a good many families lived on the roof during the evenings. It was a good place to eat, often to sleep, and almost every home without exception had a staircase that went to the roof. And so, the law required that there be either a railing or a raised wall so that there be no injury to anyone. In other words, there was a liability incurred by every homeowner if any neglect on his part led to injury to any friend, or to any friends child.

So the biblical law clearly spelled out laws of liability, and our liability laws until very recently very clearly followed the biblical principle whereby a property owner if his neglect led to injury to anyone who was legally and legitimately on his property had to pay damages. Of course now we have destroyed this principle, and even a thief can collect if he is on your property.

Now these various laws, all of which had common purpose to make alive --to further the weak and the helpless in society who are deserving-- are taken up and reaffirmed in the new testament. The new testament says for example saint paul speaking in Galatians 6:2, “Bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Now, lest anyone misinterpret this and feel that charity was to take the place of individual responsibility Saint Paul immediately added with respect to our personal responsibilities “Every man shall bear his own burdens. Every man has his own responsibilities and we are not to bear one anothers burdens when a person has failed to bear their own burden. Only, when a person is overwhelmed by problems and has sincerely tried to meet them.” Thus it is that Saint Paul specifically declares that “If a man will not work, let him not eat.” The implication of which is, let him starve. If he will not assume the responsibility of his own nurture he is not to be fed.

These laws therefore which have as their purpose to make alive, are part of our function under God of restoration. The world is a fallen world, God has called us to restore it to it’s original purpose. Therefore in every area of authority man’s duty is to kill and to make alive. To inhibit, to cut back, to destroy everything that is destructive of man’s life under God... and to make alive, to protect, to further everything that enables us better to serve God. The purpose of course is that we exercise dominion under God. Now, it is impossible to serve God without doing both!Both killing and making alive. And the society that attempts to create a better world by doing only one or the other is in for trouble.

If we kill only, we end up with tyranny. Stalin was trying to usher in a new world, paradise through revolution, through destruction. And so the work of Stalin was essentially to kill! No man in all history killed more people than Stalin did, and he left the world much worse for his coming. Although his stated purpose in speech after speech was to create the communist paradise.

On the other hand those pacifists and liberalists who oppose anything that injures or kills, who are against the death penalty, who want to protect and further everyone irrespective of whether they are good or evil are giving life to evil thereby and death to society. And as a result, in the name of making alive, they too are killing. God’s mandate is that we must do both under him and according to his law word, and only so shall we further life. Reestablish man in his dominion, and make of this world, God’s kingdom. Let us pray.

Almighty God our heavenly father, we thank thee that thou hast called us to exercise authority under thee. Thou hast made us thy servants with responsibility to kill and to make alive each in our domain. Give us grace, wisdom, and power, as we discharge this function unto the end Our Father that thy kingdom may be furthered, and law and order may be reestablished in thy name and to thy glory. Bless us to this purpose in Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now? Yes?