Human Nature In Its Second Estate

Death

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Doctrinal Studies

Lesson: 8-11

Genre: Speech

Track: 17

Dictation Name: RR131J18

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s - 1970’s

[Dr. Rushdoony] Our Scripture is Romans 5:8-12. In particular the 12th verse. Romans 5:8-12. Death. We are drawing to a close our series on the nature of fallen man. Man in the state of depravity, and in about a month we shall begin man in the state of grace as our subject of study. Romans 5:8-12, with emphasis on the 12th verse.

But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

The consequence and penalty of sin St Paul declares, is death. Sin entered the world through one man and through him also death. And because we are all sons of Adam, we share in the consequences of his act. Genesis 2:17 promised that if they should sin, dying thou shalt die, or certainly die. Dying is separation from God. But this is not the way the fallen man sees it. When we analyze the psychology of fallen man, and there are elements of this in all of us, fallen man used death, not as separation from God, but as separation from life. As a result, his perspective towards even death is false. He fails to recognize the reality of what death is. Moreover, fallen man is basically schizophrenic because being in revolt against God, he is in revolt therefore ultimately against everything that is of God. And this includes life.

He is therefore governed by a will to death. This is what Scripture says. Long ago our Lord speaking His wisdom declared in Proverbs 8:36, he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul. All they that hate me love death. This has been abundantly confirmed as we have seen over and over again, even by existentialist psychologists. Their own thinking makes clear that they recognize that the will to death governs man. Freud as a matter of fact felt that man could never overcome the will to death. So that mankind would ultimately be suicidal. The cause of death, according to Scripture, is sin. But as we have noted, it is not sin which the ultimate revolutionist, which is what the sinner is, it is not sin which he fears, but the consequence of sin, death. Like a child who will eat forbidden food, which are sure to make him ill. So the sinner enjoys the eating but he dislikes the aftermath. Moreover, he will deny that the gate of hell are what they are. He insists they are the gates of paradise. I think in C.S. Lewis’s book ‘The Great Divorce’ one of the most telling passages is when he portrays a number of prominent personalities who were in hell, commenting about the semi-darkness. The semi-darkness, because it is not yet the end of the world and the last judgment. And they insist that the semi-darkness is only the step to eternal dawn. This was a shrewd observation of his and has been, of course, confirmed by a great deal of psychic phenomena. Very interesting example of this is the books that have written about Bishop Pikes experience. Bishop Pike, after the death of his son perhaps by suicide, certainly by an overdose of drugs, began to have a number of experiences that can be classified as psychic phenomena.

Bishop Pike did not believe in any life after death. But then he began to find all kinds of things happening in his house, witnessed by two associates, all of which indicated something of his son. And finally he sought refuge with a medium, to have it explained. And apparently or supposedly, made contact with his son. Now Merrill Unger, who has written a book on the subject, believes it was demonic spirits rather than the actual son, we won’t go into that, that is not our concern. But the interesting thing about all the communications, some of which did indicate very real knowledge of things that would not have been known by any medium, in all these communications, Bishop Pike’s son and Paul Tillick{?} and others who communicated with Pike, said they knew nothing about Jesus Christ and that they were in the place of those who made mistakes. They refused to call it hell, didn’t know anything about hell, and they said that they believed there was progression. In other words, they were going to move towards an eternal god.

As a result, even when the fallen man accepts the fact of death, and something beyond death, he insists on reinterpreting it in terms of his belief in man. And yet in spite of all of these signs of hopefulness that they seem to read into psychic phenomenon, the common complaint of, not only mentally disturbed people, but of modern man, is that they feel dead inside.

I quoted a few weeks ago from a very prominent existentialist psychiatrist, R.D. Lang. And he says that this feeling of deadness is a basic aspect of the human condition. This he sees in terms of his existentialism. Not only is there a feeling of deadness, but a feeling of hopelessness, of despair, a loss of any hope in life. And Lang himself, as he describes the extreme of this in the schizophrenic comments, and I quote, “The schizophrenic is desperate, is simply with out hope. I have never known a schizophrenic who could say he was loved as a man by God the Father or by the mother of God, or by another man. He either is himself god, or the devil, or in hell estranged from God. When someone says he is an unreal man, or that he is dead, in all seriousness, expressing in radical terms the stark truth of his existence as he experiences it, that is insanity.” Unquote.

And yet Lang has to say, when he has said this, that all men feel this. All men want life and yet they feel they are the living dead. In the heart of their being there is a deadness. They continually seek life according to their profession, but they feel an aggravation continually of this feeling of deadness. And of isolation, from life and from people. Moreover what Lang refuses to face up to is that these people he deals with refuse to be loved except on their own terms. He does admit that attempts to love the schizophrenic, to love them out of their problems, really intensify their alienation from reality. So that love as a therapy only aggravates the problem. Now what is Lang to answer to this? He says that they must strive to be an ontologically secure person. What does that mean? well, basically it means that they must become their own god and be able to live as their own god. Not to feel this need of other people. Not to feel as isolated because they cannot relate to man and to reality, but to realize that they don’t need other people and reality.

They are then ontologically secure. Their ontology is derived from themselves. They are then, their own god. Lang also admits that such people feel that love is a threat to their independence. And this is why, when love is propagated as the cure-all for all things, it doesn’t last long. The love people become the people of violence. And love very quickly gives way to a frenetic sexuality. As a result, already the love {?} which was so prevalent just two or three years ago, is becoming passé. And an emphasis on a wild kind of sexuality has taken its place. But even that is beginning to pass today as an emphasis. Why? Well O’May{?} in his book ‘Love and Will’ comments and I quote, “The relationship between death and love is surely clear in the {?}. Every kind of mythology relates to {?} relates to dying. And every therapist comes to see the relationship ever more clearly through his patients.” Unquote. Now this is strange language, is it not? Sex being equated with death in the minds of psychiatrists, psychologists and their patients. Very definitely so. Because it means a giving of oneself to another. And this is seen as death. Even though you deny love in favor of sexuality, in the act of sexuality you admit that you have need of someone else. And this is death, if you are claiming to be god. If you’re trying to be an ontologically secure person. That is, your own god.

If you are developing the logical implications of the Tempter’s summons to man, ye shall be as gods, knowing, determining good and evil for yourself. If this man’s declaration of independence, then, finally they begin to find that even sex is not a cure. Some still believe it is, but at the Washington D.C annual convention of the American Psychological Association, one local psychologist, Dr. Robert A. Harper, and I quote, advocated sex play pens for nursery school children to prevent sexual hang ups in adulthood. And Dr. Harold Greenwood from New York, blamed the first signs of sexual anxiety on a mother’s removal of a child’s hand from his sex organs while diapering him. Unquote. However, poor Dr. Harper and Greenwood were already passé. Because another Washington D.C psychologist, Dr. Lesley H. Favor{?} has this to say, and I quote. “According to the laboratory, there is only one perfect orgasm, if by perfect we mean wholly subject to its owners will, wholly indifferent to human contingency or content. Clearly the perfect orgasm is the orgasm achieved on one’s own. No other consummation offers such certainty and moreover avoids the messiness that attends human affairs. Nor should we be to surprised if such solitary pleasure becomes the ideal by which all mutual sex is measured by.” Unquote. Now here we see the conclusion. Modern psychiatry and psychology having become existentialist, and having declared man’s independence from God, must declare his independence then from other people, how can a god need anyone? Must renounce love, and must finally renounce every kind of sex except masturbation. This is insanity. And this is the conclusion of man’s will to death. It leads to this kind of insanity. Moreover, increasingly it is apparent that the more man isolates himself from God, the more he will become less and less an individual. The more he will become prone to propaganda and to influences. It is the {?} man, the intellectual of our universities, who is the most prone to every fashion of thought, every style that comes along. He is the most sheep like in his mentality.

Because man was not made to live alone. In separation either from God or from man, and the more he tries to make himself a god, the more radically he becomes thrown to every kind of influence. Evil influence. One of the characteristics that have been noted over and over again of revolutionary groups is that they are intensely subject to influence. One of the things that puzzled people when {?} was arrested and subject to extensive examination was, his susceptibility to influence. Some felt that he must have been subjected to very extensive brainwashing. One writer commented and I quote, “{?} was a {?}, that is a clean blank table, upon which ideas could be imposed with ease, or better, a piece of video tape on which certain images could be electronically imprinted and certain sounds electronically etched.” Unquote. This is how impressionable he was. So that the examiners found that almost any idea, provided of course it was not a godly one, could be implanted in his mind. But this is not due to any special processing of his brain, it is commonplace with the alienated modern existentialist mentality. Having severed his roots from God and man it is most worthless and responds to every evil whim. Such people thus are natural revolutionaries. They have no roots. Only an urge to destroy. Only an urge to respond to that which is evil. Revolutionary man, which is man the sinner, thus has an ugly destiny, to hunger for life but to have death and a feeling of deadness his goal. To resent everything which could bring life to him, any communication from God, any contact with God or man. As a result, the terrors of death are felt by the fallen man, not beyond the grave, but long before it. As a matter of fact, revolutionary man represents man in torment, man in Hell. Bent on propagating his hell across the face of the earth. But our Lord is right when He said ages ago, he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul. All they that hate me love death.

As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passeth on all men, for that all sinned. There is no escaping this destiny of death by man apart from Jesus Christ. And only in Christ can mankind be redeemed, be delivered from the revolutionary impetus which is the end product of the psychology of fallen man. His urge to destroy, his urge to make the reign of death all the more prevalent. His urge to project the evil and the death which is written across every fiber of his being across the face of the earth. To pollute because he is polluted. To bring death because he feels deadness. But the essence of the fallen man is impotence. And therefore his purpose can never be achieved. But God having commended His love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by Him. If God when we were yet His enemies delivered us by His grace, how much more will He not do for us when we, in His name and as His people, worked to rebuild all things in terms of His Word. The promises of God in Jesus Christ are yea and amen.

Let us pray. Our Lord and our God, we give thanks unto Thee that in this world of death we are alive in Christ. That in the midst of an old and dying creation we are citizens of the new creation. Strengthen us therefore our Father and make us joyful in Thee, courageous in Thy service, steadfast in the rebuilding of all things through Jesus Christ our Lord. Bless us this week by Thy grace, prosper our activities, and draw us ever closer to Thee. In Jesus name Amen.

Are there any question now, first of all with respect to our lesson? Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] I didn’t quite get that.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Oh yes. The question was do I see a relationship between the desire for a unilateral peace on the part of so many of our revolutionary youths and this will to death. Very definitely. Very clearly their desires for peace are not realistic. I have heard on campuses some of these youths demand a radical and total disarm. Without, of course, any comparable disarmament from any enemy. Now this is clearly suicidal. And what they refuse to recognize is the extent to which they are suicidal. Even in their symbols, the suicidal urge, this urge to death, manifests itself. The peace symbol is of course an ancient medieval witch’s symbol, which signifies death. When you posted it on a man’s door you were saying this man shall die. Now this was pointed out some few years ago when the peace symbol first was manifested. First used. But it has not made any difference. Now would you, if you had a genuine urge to life and to peace, take a symbol of witches, hostility and a death symbol, as your symbol of peace? No.

So there is a very schizophrenic aspect to all their thinking. And the will to death is very, very prevalent. Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Not those who die in the Lord. Our Lord as the sin bearer was indeed isolated from God. Because as the sin bearer, he knew that this would mean that He, though the second person of the Trinity yet very man of very man, would separated from God, would feel the full weight of estrangement from God because of our sin. And it was concerning this that He prayed in the garden of Gethsemane. The total isolation that would be His. And of course one of the last words to{?} the Cross, a third from the last, I believe, was from the Psalm, my God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? The Psalm of estrangement, a prophetic Psalm, expressing His total separation from God as well as from man, as the sin bearer. And then, having become the sin bearer His last words were, it is finished. A priestly word, such as the priest in the temple used, the sacrifice is offered, atonement is made. And then after that one final word. Father into Thy hand I commit my spirit. Psalm 31. The evening prayer of Israel, of which every child learned at his mothers knee. Indicating that now He has made atonement as the priest and also the victim, he had offered himself as the vicarious sacrifice for sin and now, in quietness of spirit, He slept.

But we, when we die, because we are His own, death instead of being a separation from God, for us brings us closer to Him.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] That kind of speculation and talk involves trying to psychologies the mind of God and it’s futile. What we do know is that, as the sin bearer, sin made him at that time, in estrangement from God, as the sin bearer. But to try to go beyond what Scripture says and to be able to say what God was thinking, I think is beyond us. Yes. Was there another question? Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] One of the subordinate meanings of the peace symbol is the broken cross, but that’s one that came in later. The original was as a death symbol and a witches symbol. Churchill did use V for victory, and whether he knew what the V stood for I don’t know. Churchill was a politician and he wasn’t beyond doing a great many things that perhaps he didn’t entirely agree with.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] I don’t know. I know that the basic meaning is goats horn. That’s what it stands for, rather than V. and it is a part of the old satanic witches cults. Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Of course it is inconsistent because what they mean by love is not anything that you and I would mean by love. Their concept of love is basically political. It means a particular type of political action.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Well first of all I would not deny that there are people who have genuinely been converted as a result of the Jesus movement. I know someone, a very fine man, some years ago, who was converted through the ministry of Amy {?}, that doesn’t change my opinion of what Sister Amy was. Now, basically what we must say about the Jesus movement is that it is not genuinely Christian. First of all, its concept of God is radically defective. God is somebody who can be used by man, not man’s sovereign and Lord. So that He is big daddy, to use one of their common expressions. And big daddy won’t let me down. Big daddy will see that I don’t have an accident. Big daddy will see to it that I don’t get shot if I do get drafted and sent to Vietnam. In other words, He’s a big insurance policy there, not the sovereign lord. And the chief end of God, in their thinking, is to glorify man and to enjoy man forever. So it is basically humanistic. Through and through. It is a radical form of humanism. Then again, it has no basic feelings for law, God’s law. What it emphasis is feelings. How do you know you’re a Christian, how do you know that so and so is a Christian? Well don’t they feel wonderful? They have had an experience, they’ve freaked out for Jesus, supposedly.

I think a great deal of it is clearly blasphemous. There was an article about the Jesus movement in Life magazine a couple months ago. Ordinarily I wouldn’t commend Life, but I think it was a very fair one and I think they leaned over backwards not to be unkind. Bu they gave some flagrant examples of this kind of radical humanism it characterizes. Some of the papers, or most of the papers that the Jesus movement puts out make very clear that this kind of radical humanism characterizes them. And of course if they hear someone like myself make these comments, they’re quick to say how unloving you are. But they are themselves downright savage in their hostility to anything we represent. They feel that religion is not of the mind, it’s of the heart, and that’s a schizophrenic view of man and it’s false, it’s not scriptural.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] If not, you’re a schizophrenic person.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] I didn’t hear that statement by Billy Graham, but certainly it does reveal to his antinomianism, and of course they’re all basically on the same page. One of the things, to change the subject and yet to comment on this, that I found most interesting in reading the books of Dr. Warrengrant{?} was this. Now there’re points where I feel {?} theology is not entirely correct, he started out as somewhat liberal in his theology, he had grown progressively. But there’s no question that he is a great Christian.

A very remarkable man. And he comments in one of his books on the fact that when he came over here it was very easy for him to find out which clergymen were involved in communist activities. Because when he came over here, he visited some of the prominent evangelists of this country, some of the top men in the nation counsel of churches and so on. And he would tell them of the fearful torture that Christians were subjected to. Some of which are not repeatable. And what would their answer be? Well, let’s pray about it. In other words, not, let us face up to what Communism is, let us make a stand here or let us stop sending money there, or let’s stop this nonsense of cooperating with these Communist clergymen. Or making them officials of the world counsel of churches and so on. No. none of that. Well, let’s just pray about it. And he said very quickly this was a sure mark of every guilty man, and he confirmed it more than once. Incidentally, the interesting thing too that he comments on is this. He says, over the years all kinds of men have defected from the Communist countries save one. Communist officials, generals, secret service men, all kinds. But never once has any clergymen in any position within the official churches which the communists recognize, ever defected. Never. They’re so far gone in their depravity that they would never think of forsaking that which is more a part of their being than many communist party members.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes, but I think when you read him a little more carefully, first he doesn’t emphases the love aspect as much as he did, but what he does say in his books is more than once, by witnessing to the torturers he was able to convert them.

So, I think in the books that he has written more recently where his language is a bit surer in respect to English, I think the point is made a little clearer there. So that there isn’t a confusion in his language that there was earlier. He does tell some really wonderful stories of how the torturers were converted. I think one of the most ironic parts of the book ‘Christ in a Communist Cell’ is that sooner or later he saw not only his torturers, but the top men in the government take their turns in the cells. The turnover has been so great, he was in prison how many years? 15, 16, 17 years, something like that. And in that time he saw one after another of the top communists wind up in the cells and tortured.

Well our time is just about up, I’d like to remind you of the Christian School seminar August 9-10. If you are planning to come, be sure to ask me for a registration form.

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.