Human Nature In Its Third Estate

Atonement

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Doctrinal Studies

Lesson: 3-20

Genre: Speech

Track: 23

Dictation Name: RR131M24

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s - 1970’s

[Dr. Rushdoony] Romans 5:8-13. Atonement. 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: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

According to the dictionary, the word atonement means satisfaction, reparation, or expiation made for wrong or injury. Something suffered, done or given by way of satisfaction. Theologically it refers to the sacrificial work of Christ. It means reconciliation and agreement. Now atonement is very clearly a human need, since man is a sinner. Man has so many wrongs that he must atone for, so many sins. The question is, is atonement also a human problem? It is a need, but is it man’s problem? We saw last week that a problem is something for which we have a solution. Where we are the problem solver. Is man the problem solver with respect to atonement? According to St. Paul in our text, Jesus Christ is the one by whom we have now received the atonement. In other words, atonement is not man’s problem, it is God’s problem. He has the answer for it. It is, however, man’s need. Every man needs atonement. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. On the other hand, humanism sees atonement as man’s problem. Man somehow is going to reparation for the wrongs he has done, and reconcile man to man. Of course humanism does not consider the need for reconciliation with God.

The need to make atonement is basic to men everywhere. Every man ever born needs atonement. His goal is to be justified, and we will return in a couple of weeks to the subject of justification. To be justified, to be guiltless, to be free from the burden of sin and guilt, to be publicly exonerated, free and innocent, justification by means of atonement is the goal of all men living. The humanists seeks atonement. And humanistic atonement has two forms. Sadism and masochism. In sadism the process is to lay the burden of guilt on someone else. To say in effect, not I, but this other person is responsible and therefore he should be punished. The beginnings of a sadistic mentality were in Adam and Eve when both said, not I, but the other. The woman Thou gavest to be with me, she did give me and I did eat. Or, the serpent did give me and I did eat. In other words, they were laying the burden on someone else. The next step, which makes it sadistic, is to then seek the punishment of that other person. To illustrate. Some years ago I knew a workman who was incapable of ever admitting that he made a mistake. He was a very competent man, he could have, but for this fault, gone a long ways. But somehow, whenever anything went wrong, even though it was very obviously his mistake, he blamed someone else and if it were pinned on him finally, it still wasn’t his fault. Some how it was his wife’s fault, even though she were at home miles away. She had done something that had resulted in him making this mistake. And so, when it was pushed back to him and proven that somehow he had done it, he not only blamed his wife, but he went home and beat her savagely. Moreover, he would boast of having done it, as though somehow this made him free of the guilt, because he had punished the responsible person.

And of course his constant remark to her was, now see what you made me do. Of course this is a very common remark with such people. In fact it was picked up some years ago, because it was such a commonplace thing, and made a target of extensive humor by Hardy of the Laurel and Hardy team. Now see what you made me do. Sometimes sadistic people will make an entire race or class the butt of their sadistic action. They want to say that it is the blacks, or the whites, or the Jews, or the Germans, or the Japanese. And then to belabor these people as savagely as they can. Whenever a popular war occurs mental health has a seeming improvement and suicides decline drastically. Why? Because for such people it brings out the sadistic element in them and they gain a great satisfaction in the warfare against some one upon whom all their sins can be laid. Of course much of the satisfaction people have derived in making Hitler the super villain of modern times is, is that he has become a convenient scapegoat. There’s no question that Hitler was an ungodly man. But he has been magnified into a kind of super devil and everything was ascribed to him. And anything evil in the modern world is called fascist or Nazi, in a sense to lay the guilt upon one man and his movement. Thus one form of making atonement is sadistic activity, whereby guilt is placed upon someone else. Sadistic activity is very commonplace in our culture. A great deal of it is vicarious. One of the reasons for the popularity of so much violence in the films and in popular literature, is precisely the sadistic elements. It enables someone to identify all guilt with a particular person or group of people, the bad guys, and to see them get in the neck, and to feel some vicarious atonement thereby.

Even more basic however, than sadism is masochism. I refer to this sadistic workman who beat up his wife. But he was also masochistic. So much so that some scholars in this field speak of sadomasochistic activity. In other words, they see the root as masochism, self punishment. This workman so often, when he would beat his wife brutally, would do it in a public way so that he would insure either arrest or public disapproval. And then he would be punished. And this would gratify the masochism in him.

In masochism the guilty person brings punishment upon himself, in effect to pay the price for his sin and to rid himself of guilt. A guilty man wants to be rid of his guilt, and therefore he invites punishment. To cite another example. Some years ago there was an incident in which a man committed adultery, in fact was committing adultery regularly with his wife’s best friend. Thus he felt doubly guilty, because he was committing adultery, and secondly because he was committing adultery with his wife’s best friend, and thereby polluting a relationship that was very close. Now he wanted to continue in his sin, he didn’t want to acknowledge it and have it exposed and ended, but he wanted to pay the price for it. And so he would do things that were obviously wrong, and that would aggravate his wife, and then defend them passionately so there would be an ugly fight between his wife and himself. He would provoke her into being unreasonably angry about trifles. And then after she had flared up and taken it out on him in endless ways, he would very humbly confess that he was wrong in this little trifle, and try to find atonement thereby. Confessing to a minor offense, in order to cover a greater one, but provoking her into overreacting so that he could feel he had paid for his past sins and had credit, so to speak, for some future ones.

Now self atonement and masochism flourish in every godless age and in every godless culture. People deliberately bring trouble on themselves in order to have punishment. Or punish others brutally for nonexistent offenses which are really their own. It’s not surprising that a humanistic age is one in which psychologists and psychiatrists flourish. In bygone eras they had their own equivalents for the modern witchdoctor, the head shrinker. The whole purpose to which was to find false atonement. To be rid of the burden of sin and guilt. But self atonement is impossible. The guilt does not go away because we try to make it go away. And every act of self atonement only aggravates and increases the guilt. Because it is a form of guilty activity. Now there are two aspects to atonement. First there is the reconciliation between the persons who are at odds with one another or at enmity, and second, more basic, there’s the sacrifice or the expiation that make the reconciliation possible. The expiation renders satisfaction for an offense, it removes the guilt and the punishment. These two aspects are necessary or there is no atonement. Now man is not capable of fulfilling either aspect of atonement with respect to God’s. His every act as a sinner is still sin and it only aggravates his offense. His atonement is sadomasochistic. The atoning work of Christ, whereby He died, as St. Paul declares, on the cross, while we were yet sinners, and has justified us, made atonement for us by His blood, is an objective fact. It is not a subjective act, it is not our work, nor our feelings that makes atonement for us. That it is the objective act of God through Jesus Christ.

Moreover it not only removes God’s indignation against us, His wrath for our offense, but it also removes our alienation from God. It reconciles us to God. And reconciliation is a basic aspect of the meaning of the word atonement. Literally, at one-ment. It brings two parties that have been alienated together. It changes the relationship from enmity to peace. From judgment to grace. Moreover John Calvin said, with regard to atonement, speaking on Romans 5:11, and I quote, “Nor is it in vain that he, Paul, so often mentioned reconciliation. It is first that we may be taught to fix our eyes on the death of Christ, whenever we speak of salvation. And secondly, that we may know that our trust must be fixed on nothing else but on the expiation made for our sins.” Unquote. In other words, what Calvin was saying was the atonement rests not on our experience, so that we don’t point when we say we are saved, to an experience we’ve had, but on what Jesus Christ had done on the cross. It is His work, not our feeling. This is the objective fact wherein our salvation, our atonement, stands. Now, the humanist, in his work of self atonement, is guilty of a tremendous self absorption. He is always thinking about what I can do to right the relationship, to wipe this out, and he is constant absorbed with himself. But as Calvin said, God’s atonement fixes our eyes on the work of Christ. It takes away our self absorption and our self righteousness. When God makes atonement for us through Jesus Christ, then, instead of the self absorption, there is a concern with God and His word. In the 19th verse of Romans 5 St. Paul said, for as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Adam’s sin all lawbreakers. But the work of Christ makes us all, who are in Christ, law keepers. For all men therefore, atonement is a need.

But it is not man’s problem. It is God’s problem. God alone can make atonement for man. And God through Jesus Christ has done precisely that. As the Scripture declares, we joy in God through Jesus Christ by whom we have now received the atonement. The atonement for us therefore not a problem. It is a settled objective fact. We stand now atoned, justified through Jesus Christ. And therefore, because we are now no longer concerned with self atonement, our life has a different motive and a different psychology. Next week we shall deal precisely with that difference. But suffice it to say at this time, one of the greatest errors of our day is the assumption that there is a common psychology to all men. That the redeemed and the unregenerate alike move in terms of a common psychology. The dividing point is the atonement. We must say that those who are unregenerate are governed by sadomasochistic acts of self atonement all the days of their life. Whereas those who are redeemed are freed from this burden, the burden of sin and guilt, freed from the necessity for self atonement, whereby civilizations have been from the beginning of time torn apart. Men can work in Christ concretely and constructively to fulfill the Word of God. We can therefore joy or rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have received the atonement.

For it is to us a freedom from the psychology of the old Adam and from the necessity of self atonement.

Let us pray. Almighty God our Heavenly Father who through Jesus Christ has made us new creatures, and through His atoning blood set us free from the burden of sin and guilt. We give thanks unto Thee our Father for our freedom. And we thank Thee that having the glorious liberty of Thy Son, we can now work in the confidence that Thou dost make all things work together for good to them that love Thee. That we can live in the confidence that we are victors over death and the grave. And that we have the blessed assurance that in time and in eternity we are heirs of Thy glorious kingdom. Oh Lord our God how wonderful Thou art and we praise Thee. In Jesus name Amen.

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

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] What? I didn’t hear that.

[Audience] …{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. One of the weaknesses in the church, which is a theological weakness, it is a failure to know the Word of God and to apply it, and to have the freedom of God, is that there is too much concentration on sin. I’m thinking of the wife of the father of a very wonderful Christian woman, who has been a member all his life of a Pentecostal church, who into his old age, a very wonderful and kindly man, feels that it is his duty constantly to bewail the fact that he is such a terrible sinner. Which he is. But his whole life is concentrated on this fact, and the endless need for getting up and confessing that he is such a terrible sinner. Now what has this done? Here’s a very wonderful man who’s ability to work and his Christian vitality has been hindered by staying with the ABC’s, as it were.

We need to come to Christ confessing ourselves to be sinners. Then to go away as freemen. As we sin, day by day, to take it to the Lord, in the confidence that, through the blood of Jesus Christ there is forgiveness for sins past and present, and to our dying day. And then to walk away. Now where the sin affects someone we must make restitution. But this business of public confession, unless there is an offense against the entire group and they should be involved in it, is not only wrong but it leads to unseemly scandals. In some of these churches, to emphasis it, half the fun, and I’m not being cynical, I’m using the words that these people use, half the fun of going to these meetings is to listen to all the dirt that comes forth. It’s better than going to an X rated movie in some cases. Now that’s how bad it gets in some of these churches, and I think it’s wicked.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] The law was made manifest orally to Adam in the Garden of Eden. It was obviously known by his descendants. We have references to it in God’s commandments to Noah, it was then given in written form through Moses. But the law was always there.

Yes. Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes, in some of these holiness groups actually the bigger sinner you can boast yourself to be, the more status you have, and this is actually stated. Actually stated by some of them. And this kind of thing is really wicked. As a matter of fact, I recall on one occasion when there was an evangelistic meeting for a particular youth group, national renown, and all kinds of characters were brought up, former hoodlums and criminals, an actress or two, all to confess to their sordid past, and this was the entire conference almost. Some of the kids were talking afterwards and they said well I guess the way to be a great Christian is to go out and live it up. And then to get on the circuit and confess.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] What?

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] It’s certainly masochistic. Yes. Our monetary policy is. A great many of our activities are. In other words, masochism and sadism can be individual, group, or national. And certainly we do many things that don’t make sense that are inviting disaster. And when a people are godless, they take that course. They do things that are so irrational, that are designed, almost you would say, planned, and some would say, subconsciously, they are planned to bring down punishment upon them.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] You’re very right. Since man is created in the image of God he will want everything righted. And therefore when he is in the wrong he brings punishment upon himself in order to try to right the balance, but he cannot do it himself. Only God can do it. On the subject of masochism and atonement of course I haven’t done more than touch it because in the ‘Politics of Guilt and Pity’ I’ve given, I think it’s the first chapter, over to the subject, and most of you are familiar with it. But it is basic. Before you can understand what atonement means you’ve got to recognize what it is in the lives of the ungodly.

If there are no further questions….Yes.

[Audience] {?}

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. Well, the holiness groups come out of a Arminian theology which is the protestant form of Toamistic or Scholastic philosophy. It is essentially humanistic. And you do find wherever there is an element of this Arminianism, as the splits{?} come in, and they try to go back to the faith of the church, they’re only going back to something that is very often wrong. And so they very quickly run into this kind of holiness movement.

A couple of things I’d like to share with you. The ecology movement now has a songbook, the Survival Songbook. And the contributors are Peet seeker{?}, {?} Reynolds, Tom Lairer{?} and others. And there are some real gems in it which offer anti-pollution advice. And here is a couple of sentences from one of these songs. And maybe you’ll find it so interesting and so beautiful you’ll be moved to get a guitar and sing it.

Don’t use a tissue, sniff instead. Don’t use a napkin, use a piece of bread.

Now the other subject, I don’t know how many of you saw the film ‘Cromwell’. Any of you saw that? Just two or three. Well I think it’s probably the finest and the most accurate picture that’s been put out for some years. It was very unpopular with the scholars and the critics because, first of all, they don’t like Cromwell, he was a Puritan, and second, they felt it didn’t do Charles the 1st, King of England, justice. After all, he was the patron of the arts, and therefore he had to be of a very noble character. Well he was a very ugly sort of character, and I was very interested to see a little bit in the Herald Examiner of Saturday August 21st 1971, that dealt with one aspect of Charles’s character. The question in the answer line was with respect to the origin of ice cream, and it says that it goes back to the first century, in Rome. But there were very different formulas for it and they were kept secret. And it says the Charles the 1st of England, 1600 to 1649, went to great lengths to determine that the formula for ice cream should remain a secret, and that it should be served at no table but his own. Stories related that Charles paid a French ice cream maker a large sum of money for not divulging his art, and that he eventually had the man put to death. Of course this is not the kind of thing they like to refer to when they admire Charles the 1st. After all he had to be a good man, he was against the Puritans.

Then someone suggested last week that I discuss something that I referred to about five years ago and which only a few of you therefore heard me discuss. A very famous pamphlet written in 1819 by Whately. Now Whately was a scholar of the Church of England and one of the great men in the history of philosophy because of his work in logic. And as a logician Whately felt that all the attempts of scholars in his day, and of course we would say in our own, to disprove the Bible were ridiculous. Because, he said, if they applied the same standards of being critical to anything that was going on to our day, they would be unable to prove things that happened everyday. So he took some of the principles that they applied to the Bible and to the life of Christ and applied them to Napoleon. And Napoleon was alive at that time. He died two years later. And he proved that Napoleon did not exist. The title his essay was ‘Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Bonaparte’. And first of all he went through the witnesses to Napoleon and the newspapers and proved that they were highly inaccurate, that they had a bad record for honesty, that both sides, the French and the enemies, had claimed victory at the battle of Borodino, and so on. And so he said, the whole thing is nonsense. It’s ridiculous that such a man as Napoleon ever existed. And he says, the name itself is suspect. Because the Bonaparte means the good, bravest, or most patriotic heart. And so this is the collective name for some of the choicest legions of the French army. It doesn‘t refer to a man.

And the first part of his name also is such a symbolic name. Therefore the man obviously does not exist. Moreover there are such ridiculous things in his life’s story, and he said let’s just put it into biblical language and you can see how absurd the whole thing is. “Supposing again, we found in this history such passages as the following. And it came to pass after these things that Napoleon strengthened himself and gathered together another host instead of that which he had lost. That is, in Egypt. And went warred against the Prussians and the Russians and the Austrians and all the rulers of the north country which were confederate against him. And the ruler of Sweden also, which was a Frenchman, warred against Napoleon. So they went forth and fought against the French and the {?}. And the French were discomfited before their enemies and fled and came to the rivers which are behind Lipestick and essayed to pass over them that they might escape out of the hands of their enemies but they could not, for Napoleon had broken down the bridges. So the people of the north countries came upon them and smote them with a very grievous slaughter. Then the ruler of Austria and all the rulers of the north countries sent messengers unto Napoleon to speak peaceably unto him and saying, why should there be war between us any more? Now Napoleon had put away his wife and taken the daughter of the ruler of Austria to wife. So all the counselors of Napoleon came and stood before him and said, behold now these kings are merciful kings. Do even as they say unto thee. Knowest thou not yet that France is destroyed? But he spake roughly unto his counselors and drave them out from his presence. Neither would he hearken unto their voice. And when all the kings saw that they warred against France and smote it with the edge of the sword and came near to Paris, which is the royal city, to take it. So the men of Paris went out and delivered up the city to them. Then those kings spake kindly unto the men of Paris, saying be of good cheer, there shall no harm happen unto you. Then were the men of Paris glad and said, Napoleon is a tyrant, he shall no more rule over us. Also all the princes, the judges, the counselors, and the captains who Napoleon had raised up, even from the lowest of the people, sent unto the brother of King Louis who they had slain and made him king over France. And when Napoleon saw that the kingdom was departed from him he said unto the rulers which came against him, let me I pray you, give the kingdom unto my son, but they would not hearken unto him. Then he spake yet again, saying let me I pray you go and live in the island of Elba which is over against Italy nigh unto the coast of France. And ye shall give me an allowance for me and my household and the land of Elba also for a possession. So they made him ruler of Elba.

In those days the pope returned unto his own land. Now the French and other diverse other nations of Europe are servants of the pope and hold him in reverence. But he is an abomination unto the Britain’s and to the Prussians and to the Russians and to the Swedes. Howbeit the French had taken away all his lands and robbed him of all that he had and carried him away captive into France. But when the Britain’s and the Prussians and the Russians and the Swedes and all the rest of the nations that were confederate against France, enemies of the pope, came thither, they caused the French to set the pope at liberty. And to restore all his goods that they had taken. Likewise they gave him back all his possessions and he went home in peace and ruled over his own city as in times past. And it came to pass when Napoleon had not yet been a full year in Elba that he said unto his men of war which clave unto him, go to, let us go back to France and fight against King Louis and thrust him out from being a king. So he departed, he and six hundred men with him that drew the sword and warred against King Louis. Then all the men of Belial{?} gathered themselves together and said God save Napoleon. And when Louis saw that he fled and got him into the land of Bavaria and Napoleon ruled over France.”

And he goes on to say, now this is exactly what the books tell us is the history. And who in his right mind would believe it? That here’s a man who’s sent to fight in Egypt, and he abandoned the army and runs back to France and the whole country acclaims him? He abandons an army in Russia and goes back and they acclaim him even more. He said it’s just nonsense. The whole thing, he said, is a fabrication of the British foreign office to get us involved in wars on the continent. And before he was through, he made such a convincing case of it in his long pamphlet, that although Napoleon was still alive, there were a great many people who were convinced that their foreign office had gotten them involved in a lot of wars by concocting this story about Napoleon, which was obviously nonsense. Well Whately made his point. But you know it’s a forgotten pamphlet, because it’s so true of our own day. If you were to write up the story of what America’s done to itself in the last fifty years and put it in biblical language, any scholar would tell you that no country could be so stupid. No country could act so against its self interest. And in terms of logic they would rule it out. It’s quite a brilliant essay, and there’s no question it’s one of the great works in the history of philosophy in the application of logic to the critics of the Bible. But it is a forgotten classic.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] What?

[Audience] {?}

[Dr. Rushdoony] No. There are not. You can find it in the libraries by looking up the works of Whately. Archbishop Whately. It’s well worth reading in detail. It’s a lot of fun.

Yes. If you didn’t hear that, copies of the letter announcing the activities for the Fall season for the Chalcedon guild are available, and if you’ll see Mrs. Fizard{?} after the meeting she’ll be glad to give you one. And if your name is not on the mailing list, please give it to her, because this is a new list and we’re gradually building it up so that you can all know of the activities of the guild.

Let us 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.