Human Nature in its Fourth Estate

The Sabbath

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Psychology

Genre: Lecture

Track: 45

Dictation Name: RR131Y46

Location/Venue: ________

Year: 1960’s-1970’s.

Hebrews 4.

Grace be to you and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sin, that he might deliver us from this present evil world. According to the will of God and our Father to whom be glory for ever and ever, Amen. Let us pray. Almighty God our Heavenly Father who of Thy grace and mercy hast made us a people and a kingdom unto thee. We thank thee that thou hast called us to be the people of thy sanctuary. Behold the beauty of thy power, to rejoice that we are citizens of thy kingdom, heirs of all things in Jesus Christ. Fill our hearts ever with the joy of salvation, and make us in all things, our Father, ever filled with thy praise and Thanksgiving, in Jesus name Amen.

Our scripture lesson is Hebrews the 4’th chapter, and our subject, the Sabbath. We have on several occasions especially in our consideration of the law dealt with the Sabbath at length. Today we consider it in relationship to the state of grace. Hebrews 4.

“4 Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.

2 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.

3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.

4 For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.

5 And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest.

6 Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief:

7 Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

8 For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day.

9 There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.

10 For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.

11 Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.

12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

13 Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

14 Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.

15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”

Wherever the word rest appears in this chapter it can also be translated as sabbath. It is the same word. The sabbath is a day of rest. Now as we saw when we studied the law the idea of a day of rest weekly was unknown in antiquity and in paganism. There were certain festivals annually or royal days when men blessed it, but this might be twice or ten times a year depending on the culture, so they were infrequent. There were also taboo days, or unlucky days, given a variety of names depending on the culture. We can understand something of what those days were when we look at modern astrology which continues the same sort of thing. If you occasionally glance at the astrology columns it will say that for those born unto the sign of the taurus or so and so this is an unlucky day, don’t enter into any business deals, or in some cases I’m told that in private astrological forecasts say don’t go out of the house today!

And now of course that is not a day of rest, when you’re waiting for the axe to fall, as it were, if you make a move! But this is the kind of so called day of rest that existed very commonly in antiquity and still does in the non Christian world. There were no Sabbaths outside of the biblical faith. There is an imitation of the sabbath today in Islam, Islam has made Fridays their holy day, and yet it is not really a day of rest. The only thing required is a minimum amount of rituals, bowing towards Mecca, repeating some prayers, and a few other things. It is not a day of cessation of work. In Israel the sabbath was a sign of Israel’s covenant with God, and the fact that God being their savior they had a rest, a peace in God. They could cease from their labors in the confidence of God’s labor for them. That it was God’s work, God’s salvation, that was definitive in the life of man.

In Israel therefore the Sabbath was always begun the night before by the recitation of the kaddish, or sanctification. Which among good Jews to this day is still recited on the evening of the Sabbath. The Kaddish began with the recitation of Genesis 1:31 to Genesis 2:3 and continued with a praise of God. This was the Kaddish; “And God saw everything that he had made and behold it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the hosts of that. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” Blessed art thou O Lord our God King of the universe, who createth the fruit of the vine. Blessed art thou O Lord our God who has Sanctified us by thy commandments, and hath taken pleasure in us, and in love and favor hast given us thy holy sabbath as an inheritance, a memorial of the creation. That day also being first of the holy convocation in remembrance of the departure from Egypt, for thou hast chosen us and sanctified us about all nations. And in love and favor hast thou given us thy holy sabbath, as an inheritance. Blessed art thou O lord who hallowed the Sabbath. Blessed art thou O God our God King of the universe who bringeth forth bread from the earth.” This is the Kaddish, still used and very important in that it sets forth very very tellingly the meaning of the sabbath.

It is a sign of a present blessing of this world wherever God’s people are and a sign of the world to come. It sets forth the fact that the sabbath is a memorial of the creation, and of the creation rest. When God, having completed all things, all things were at peace and at rest in God. The sabbath of God was not yet broken by sin. It sets forth also the salvation of Israel. That it is the first of the holy convocation in remembrance of the departure from Egypt, that is, of the passover.

Then it sets forth the future of the Sabbath, that it is something yet ahead. Twice the Kaddish says: Thou hast given us thy Holy Sabbath as an inheritance. An inheritance received and still to come, a promise of things to come and yet and present reality. Only the redeemed can rest. It is significant that there was no rest outside of Israel and Christendom, because in the world of paganism there is no rest. As Isaiah declared in Isaiah 57 verses 20 and 21. “The wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace saith my God to the wicked.”

Thus we have a paradox that in the world of paganism there is neither rest nor is there work! You will recall a few weeks ago we dealt with work outside the world of Christ. How little work there is, and Doctor {?} Ladene remarking that in India he found that the employee’s at the hotels worked about 45 minutes a day! There is little work outside of the world of faith. There’s a very great deal of fretting and stewing and making stabs at work, but no real accomplishment. Neither is there any peace, no rest.

Those that are outside of the world of faith thus have this inability to function which reveals itself both in their work and in their rest. This is why increasingly as we have a world in which men are without faith, productivity goes down, and the ability to rest declines. And men as often as not find that nothing is more painful to them than rest, even though they run into it trying to escape from work.

Now as we saw when we studied the law the Hebrews sabbath was not on Saturday. That was a change that was wrought centuries later in the Christian era, when to conform with the Christian calendar, they changed the day and said arbitrarily it will be from this time on, Saturday. The Hebrew sabbath was on the day of the week just as our birthdays are on a day of the month. Just as our birthdays are on a day of the month, so that for example in the month Nisan the sabbaths were on the first, the eighth, the fifteenth, the twenty-second, and the twenty-ninth. Irrespective of whether they fell on any day of the week from Sunday through Saturday as they did in turns. So that the Sabbath would be alternately on every particular day of the week but it remained on the same day of the month.

Yet very interestingly, even though the Hebrew day of rest would fall say at one time of Sunday, later Monday, on different days... it was always regarded as the end of the week. So that although their Sabbath might have come say on a Wednesday it was regarded as that which concluded the week. So that their week might end, depending on the time of the year and which day it was of that particular time, any time through Sunday to Saturday and did not go in terms of the straight line on our calendar. Their calendar thus was adjusted always so that the first of Nisan was at the end of the week. Now the significance of this as compared with the Christian calendar is very interesting.

Under the old covenant we must say that the Sabbath pointed ahead to him which was to come. Rest follows toil. The Sabbath was at the end of the week, men would look forward to Christ. The rest of man the peace of man was ahead. But, with the new covenant and the coming of Christ who arose from the dead on the first day of the week so our day of salvation unlike the passover is the day of resurrection. The first day of the week, as a result it was made not a day of the month but a day of the week. To begin always at the first of the week. This is the very significant change, and it sets forth the fact that in the new creation we do not look ahead to rest but we begin with rest.

Thus, in the fourth chapter of Hebrews we are told that the rest, the sabbath, was always ahead for the people of God, and they look forward to the rest of Canaan. But that rest was broken. By sin, by invasion, by problems. And in the third chapter it is made clear, “So I swore in my wrath, God says, that they should not enter into my rest” of the people in the wilderness. But also of the people who were in the promised land. It was limited.

The eighth verse of the fourth chapter says “for if Jesus had given them rest then would he not afterward have spoken of another day.” Now this verse very often confuses people as to the meaning of this passage. The word Jesus or the name Jesus in Joshua are one and the same. So what Saint Paul is here declaring is that the rest that Joshua gave with the conquest of the land was not the true rest. Because it was broken by war. There remaineth therefore a rest or a sabbath to the people of God, for he that has entered into his rest or his sabbath he also hast ceased from his own works as God did from his. Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.

So the appeal of Saint Paul to the Hebrews. To men who were on the edges of the faith or who were in church and yet were still guilty of Phariseeism, were worshipping in the temple, who did not know that Christ was their rest. That the blood of bulls and of goats, as he goes on to say , no longer makes atonement. Christ’s rest for man has come. He is our sabbath. And therefore the week begins with a commemoration of rest. The christian therefore in this life, instead of looking forward to rest as the believer of the old testament did, begins with the fact of the plentiful{?} of rest in power and goes forward towards the Sabbath.

Now the fullness of that rest is in the world to come and it signifies just as the tabernacle did... that there we begin and move forward in a new creation, fully having the principle of rest in a regenerated body as well as a regenerated soul. Perfectly sanctified. And now the principle being fully and total,y a part of our being. We are at perfect rest as we do a perfect work throughout all eternity. The world of the fall thus is an anti-sabbath world. It has no rest because it is not in Christ. It is separated from God. It has violated the cosmic rests of God where all creation rested in his power and grace!

And what man outside of God seeks is a rest or a peace which he has made, and thus it is that men and the politics of men constantly seek a sabbath made by man. World peace, world brotherhood, world rests! Without God. In the student revolution that began at Berkeley a few years ago--a decade ago-- there was a manifesto issued which said among other things that work was now obsolete and it was only the conspiracy of the establishment that kept men from entering into this world wide sabbath in which machines would do all the work and people could sit back and enjoy life.

Of course, their concept of enjoyment was endless sex and endless play. And of course, this is the dream of man today. A sabbath without God. A peace brought in by politics rather than by Christ. Calvin,, in commenting on Hebrews 4:10 declared ”We must indeed confess that then only is our life rightly formed when it becomes subject to God. But through inbred corruption this is never the case. Until we rest from our own works. Nay, such is the opposition between God’s government and our corrupt affection that he cannot work in us until we rest. But though the completion of this rest cannot be attained in this life, yet we ought ever to strive for it.” Unquote.

We cannot rest Calvin said, until our lives are subject to God, and the more they are subject to God and his word, the greater our rest. But we constantly want to interfere with our lives, and with the lives of others! and interject our wisdom, our ways. The opposition, he says, is between God’s government and our corrupt affections.

And so, we have no rest. Thus, the world of the fall has no rest. But the world of Christ is the fullness of rest set forth. When we studied the law we saw that the Sabbath sets forth something of the significance of the new creation. Not only was there a Sabbath every seventh day, a day of rest, but a Sabbath year every seventh year. The cancellation of debts, rest for the land, freedom for slaves, and so on. Now Leviticus 25:20-22 speaks to the Hebrews who say, Well how are we going to eat if we don’t plant anything and if we don’t harvest in the seventh year? If we don’t pick the fruit? “And if he shall say, what shall we eat the seventh year? Behold we shall not sow nor gather in our increase! Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years. And ye shall sow the eighth year any yet of old store, until the ninth year, until your fruit comes in you shall eat of the old store.

Now one of the things that interested me very, very much years ago when I went to the Indian reservation, soil conservation man there said the best means of revitalizing and fertilizing was to allow it to have its Sabbath. He was not a Christian... he became one subsequently. But at the time, this was something he had come to and he was very interested that it was in the Bible, and he thought it was very remarkable that in ancient times the Hebrews had stumbled on this great truth. That was his attitude. And he said far more than fertilization or anything you can do to a soil that is producing, the revitalization that comes when the land is allowed to lie fallow, given a Sabbath, is unique. It revitalizes the soil, the microorganisms in it can be able to do a great deal to nourish the soil and to work without hindrance, and so he felt it was a necessary thing which then increased the fertility of the soil. And he said, this is remarkably so.

After you allow the land to lie fallow, you’re production is greatly increased the year thereafter and in subsequent years. But the significant thing is and this is true it’s been demonstrated more than once... what God says in this passage in Leviticus 25:20-22 is that those who obey him will find that the sixth year there’s a miraculous increase in productivity. So that, he says, you will be able to eat the seventh year from what you harvested in the sixth, and in the eighth year when you sow you still have to wait until the end of the eighth year, so “and ye shall sow the eighth year and eat yet of old fruits until the ninth year. Until that fruit come in ye shall eat of the old store.”

Now this {?} conservation engineer could tell you, nor would he be able to believe in it, apart from faith. But what God is saying is that when you begin with a principle of rest, Jesus Christ, when you set aside your own works, and your own vanity, your own pride, your own way, and submit yourself to God in his word and you find your peace and your rest in him. When you begin with a principle of rest, you are bless when you begin and before you begin. So that the Sabbath year is preceded by blessings to those who abide in him.

The eternal Sabbath, the new creation, begins with the regeneration of all things. All made new in Christ. In the new creation we are told the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it, according to Revelations 21 “They shall bring all the glory and honor of the nation’s influence.” The picture that is given to us then, is that the Sabbath rest is not only one of rest, but rest in wealth. Rest in the magnificence of all of history and of all experiences. The promise of the psalmist is “the meek shall inherit the earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.” The meek shall inherit the earth in time, and in eternity. And they shall indeed delight themselves in the abundance of peace and the eternal Sabbath of God.

Let us pray.

Almighty God our heavenly Father who of thy grace and mercy has given us rest in Jesus Christ, teach us daily to seek that rest, and submit ourselves afresh unto him. To take hands off our lives and to allow the government, that we may grow in rest and in the wealth and peace of Jesus Christ. In his name we pray, Amen.

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

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Not in Egypt, they didn’t have a Sabbath in Egypt. The Sabbath began with the Passover after or with the tenth plague on Egypt. We do know that in Babylon they did, because in Babylon they were not slaves. The situations with regard to the Babylonian captivity was that the leaders and many of the people were simply taken as prisoners into the Babylonian empire and then they were free to go their own way and start businesses and so on. So they were a free people, only you could not have a national identity.

Yes?

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

Very good, yes! That’s an excellent point. Because that really sets forth the Sabbath principle before the law was given. Very good.

[audience member speaks unintelligibly]

First of all as I’ve said more than one, I consider the King James Version to be the best translation as well as the most beautiful. There have been many modern translations over the years, and some of them when they are read now are really rather ridiculous. For example in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there were a number of different translations and here is one, by William Mace in 1729 of James 3:5-6 about the tongue, well lets read to that so that we can compare the two... “Even so the tongue is a little member and boasteth great things, behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth. And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity, so is the tongue among our members. That is fireth[?] the whole body and setteth on fire the course of nature and it is set on fire in hell.”

Now, here is the way Mace translated it, “The tongue is but a small part of the body, yet how grand are it’s pretentions. A spark of fire, what one of these of timber will it blow into flames? The tongue is a brand that sets the world in a combustion, it is but one of the numerous organs of the body, yet it can blast full assembly. Kicked with infernal sulfur it sets the whole train alight in a blaze.”

And here is one by Harwood[?] published a little later which begins the parable of the prodigal son where it reads simply “A certain man had two sons”. Well Harwood[?] rendered it, “A gentleman of splendid family and opulent fortune had two sons.” I could go on and give you instances of how ridiculous these translations are in retrospect, and many of the modern translations are just as bad. Now one of the things that in of interest is that as {?} discovery reveals to us ancient manuscripts, business manuscripts and other things, they also throw a flood of meaning on some of the passages in the Bible.

For example in Mark 6:8 and in Matthew 10, when our Lord sends out the seventy he tells his disciples to take no bread, no wallets, no money and so on... Now, they have found what the words purse as it is translated there actually means, and here from E.D. Hed’s study of new Testament like literature as reflected in the Papyri[?] and I quote: “The term for wallet was a beggars collecting bag, which the peripatetic religious leaders habitually carried with them. Evidently Jesus was warning them against going out in some ministerial garb or making any claim of Mendicant piety.” Unquote.

In other words, the meaning that some people give is exactly opposite of what the connotation here is! While they are to be supported, the laborer is worthy of his hire, they are not to go begging. They are not to drum up money like a beggar. Then some of the Papyri[?] have turned up some very interesting aspects of life in those times in the roman empire.

For example they have turned up a great many pool[?] boy exercises, papers, business papers, letters and so on. I’d like to quote a little bit because this has to do with children and the extremes that characterize ungodly culture in Greco Roman civilization. On the one hand, the exposure of children if they were unwanted, and on the other hand, the spoiling of them.

The horrible and shocking practice of the exposure of children presents its gruesome head in the Papyri’s[?] correspondence of the times. A letter from Hilarian, an Egyptian laborer written to Alice, his wife. Written on June 17, 1BC, concerning his own child and a baby probably about to be born reads as follows: “Hilarian to Alice his wife, many greetings. Be not distressed about the general coming in I remain as Alexandria. I pray thee and beseech thee, take care of the little child, and as soon as we receive wages I will send them to thee. If (blank) is delivered if it be a male baby let it live, if it live, it if be a female expose it. Think with what agony and terror it is freighted[?].” Numbers of papyri[?] from Alexandria dating near the birth are in reality contracts with women who served as nurses kicked off the mothers sheets[?] and kept for slaves or used for immoral purposes. Childish whims keep cropping up in the Papyric[?] letters.

Here’s one which echoes a boy’s complaint and keen disappointment very vividly. Now here’s a letter about the same time from a spoiled brat. Sea unto sea on his father reads: “You did a fine things. You’ve not taken me along with you to the city. If you refuse to take me along to Alexandria I won’t write you a letter or speak to you or wish you to help! And if you do go to Alexandria I won’t take your hand or greet you again henceforth. If you refuse to take me back for a son, and my mother said to Archelaus[?] “He upsets me, away with him” --this about the child-- but you did a fine thing, you sent me gifts! Great ones! Huh. They deceived us there on the 12’th when you sailed. Send for me then I beseech you, if you don’t send I won’t eat, I won’t drink. There now. I pray for your health. To be eighteen[?], delivered to Cion from Dionysus[?] son.”

It is easy to imagine the pettiness and petulant attitude of the childish author of this formidable missile of disappointment. The little letter reflects the meaning of some words used in the new testament in a striking way. Husk, he calls his fathers presence, which did not please him. So did the prodigal son of the new testament find unpalatable husks to eat. The boy’s mother had said of him, “-he upsets me.” This is the same charge brought against Paul and Silas at Bethel and {?}, they had turned the world upside down, their preaching was upsetting or disturbing to a world complacent in its sin.

There’s also in the papyri[?] the old story of Celio prodigality and unfaithfulness. A father is compelled to post a public notice giving warning against the lending of more money to his spendthrift boy. The extravagance of this son is described in the words, “This our son, Castor, along with others by riotous living has squandered all his own property and now has laid hands on ours.” The prodigal son writes to his mother confessing all when he says “I am going about in rags, I write to you that I am naked. I beseech you mother, by reconciled to me. I know what I have brought upon myself, punished I have been in every way, I know that I have sinned.”

A father writes a letter of remonstrance to a dilatory son who has left the letters of his father and mother answered and because of whose dilatoriness the father is about to lose a piece of land. On the other hand are examples of heartfelt parental concern and anxiety which have their compensation in manifold love and loyalty of their faithful children. A mother writes her son expressing anxiety for him because he has a splinter in his foot, she continues thus: “Do not forget then my child to write me regarding your health for you know the anxiety of a mother for her child.”

A soldier writes his father to assure him of his safe arrival in Italy after a stormy voyage, and encloses a picture of himself. A little girl writes to her father in affectionate devotion, and {?} to her sweetest fathers preach. “Now that I have got your letter and have learned that by the will of the gods you have been kept safe I have been very glad. And finding opportunity the same hour I have written you this letter hastening to greet you all your individually sent greetings to you. I pray that it will be well with you.”

Then, a letter from a despairing wife to her negligent husband describes a hint of economic distress which she is experiencing because of the high price of corn. She expresses censure toward him because he has never even thought of returning or spared a look for our helpless state. A complaint against a husband AD 20 to 50 describes his conduct in the following words: “Having squandered my dowry as he pleased, continually ill treated me and insulted me using violence towards me and depriving me of the necessaries of life. Finally, he deserted me, leaving me in a state of destitution.” A petition to the centurion from a woman charging her husband with robbery and desertion is vividly revelatory of domestic infelicity.

“Several years ago my Lord, I was denied it in marriage to Hermede[?], of the village of Theogony. During the lifetime of my parents and brought him on the occasion of a marriage in accordance of a contract made between us. A dowry amounting to 5000 [some sort of currency]. I have also had two children by him and have no thought of another man, but he after my parents death carried all that was left me by them and took it too his house and it using it up.”

A fourth century document gives a very elaborate indictment  of a husband who was guilty of the most violent behavior which extended over a long period of time. It appears that he shut up and abused his slaves, tried by torture to make them accuse his wife of theft, hid his keys from her and climaxed a long series of outrages with a nagging word “a month hence I will take a mistress.” Such offensive conduct was not confined exclusively however to the husband. The bad department of a wife is depicted in the following: “She became dissatisfied with our union and finally left the house carrying off the property belongings of mine, a list of which is added below. I beg therefore that she be brought before you in order that she may receive her desserts and return to me my property.

And it goes on to sight all other types of documents. Now, I read these at some length because these come from people who are working men, people of ordinary means, as well as wealthy people. But they were writing! In other words, there was a considerable amount of education. Something that  we are not given to think from our history books. To read them you would think that until public schools came into existence there was really nobody who knew how to read or write. And when you go into the middle ages it’s surprising to see how many people did read or write. So, we have not been told the truth about history.

Now, very obviously a couple centuries ago there was a great deal of illiteracy in Europe, but what was that a product of? Well it was a product of the humanistic movement and the enlightenment the elitism that came about as Christianity receded. All the wisdom belonged to a handful of people, men, so women were no longer educated- women who had been for centuries well educated were no longer taught to read- and the common people, they didn’t need to learn.. So the education of the common people began to decline. And of course today you’re getting humanism again coming to the fore, we are very solemnly told that a third of the children in public schools really have no verbal aptitude and therefore they shouldn’t be taught to read.

And if they have their way you’ll have a new illiteracy! You see, illiteracy is not something that was there all the time and the wisdom of the public school educators abolished it, it has been a recurring fact in civilization. And one of the great enemies of education has always been an elitist philanthropy. Then what education you have is turned into propaganda, brainwashing. This is why again you have the hostility to real education. And the systematic destruction within the schools. No one would have dreamed thirty years ago or forty years ago that educators would actually solemnly say that a third of the children should not be taught to read! And yet this is actually stated. It indicates where the problem actually is,  and it also indicates that universal education has never solved the problem of civilization because here’s an Egyptian working man writing to wife to get rid of the baby if it’s a girl, writing in very fluent Greek.

Now that’s significant. They obviously were educated. He was an Egyptian, but he also wrote in Greek. Education did not give them freedom, or give them a sound culture any more than having public schools from one end of the country to the other has abolished as Horace Mann claimed it would, crime and poverty and every kind of problem that man has. The heart of the matter, as always, has been man’s relationship with God.  Well, our time is up, 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.

[audio recording ends]