Salvation and Godly Rule

Salvation – Pagan and Christian

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Doctrinal Studies

Lesson: Salvation – Pagan and Christian

Genre: Speech

Track: 01

Dictation Name: RR136A1

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Our scripture is Romans 1:16-19, and our subject: Salvation – Pagan and Christian. We begin this week our series of studies in the doctrine of salvation. Salvation – Pagan and Christian. Romans 1:16-19. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.

As we look at the doctrine of salvation, we must say in some respects that the obvious place to begin is with the doctrine of John and the declaration that ye must be born again. On the other hand, in some respects, while the elements of that declaration of our Lord are readily grasped, the full meaning cannot be grasped without first considering much, much else in scripture. Remember, our Lord was talking there to Nicodemus, to a man whom he called a leader in Israel, a man who was an expert in the law, and what we must recognize is that when he thus spoke to Nicodemus, he was talking to a man to whom salvation was a very important matter, even though he had come to despair of its possibility, and he had an extensive knowledge of all of scripture in terms of which he could understand precisely what our Lord was driving at.

Now, in a sense, what we shall be doing for some months now is to understand not only all of what scripture teaches about salvation, but all that was in Nicodemus’s mind, the problems he faced as he tried to wrestle with that doctrine.

Now, as we study the doctrine of salvation, inevitably, at times our subject will cover ground that is the same as we dealt with in biblical law and in the doctrine of man, and psychology. So, in a sense, there will be a review at points, but all of this will lead up to a conclusion, to the full orb meaning of salvation.

Now, the word “salvation” which is very common in the New Testament, is the word soteria. It means “deliverance, preservation, victory, help.” It means these things in the material and temporal sense. In the personal sense, as well as in the national and worldwide sense, it means then in terms of in time and eternity. In other words, you cannot put limitations on salvation. It affects the whole man, the whole world, the whole of life in time and in eternity, body and soul. It is clearly a doctrine of victory, and this is an important aspect of the meaning of the word salvation. It means victory. It means help, preservation, deliverance.

The pagan doctrine of salvation, if we can use that word, is not one of victory but of escape, so that in all of paganism, it is escapism that is presented as salvation. We have referred previously to the doctrine of salvation in Homer. It is what is known in {?} circles as the deus ex machina concept, the God out of the machine. What happens in Homer’s Iliad is that Paris, who had stolen away Helen and run off to Troy with the wife of King Menelaus, is on the battlefield as the Greeks are receiving the Trojans, and he is confronted with Menelaus, the angry husband, and a battle begins and very quickly it is going very badly for Paris, for any moment is likely to have a sword thrust from Menelaus, either whacked off his head or run him through, and at this point, he is picked up by the goddess out of the battlefield so suddenly he isn’t there and Menelaus is looking around and he’s gone, and where does he land. Why Paris lands in Helen’s bedroom, and so he ends from a battlefield in which he is facing certain death, in the bedroom and sexual relations ensue. Now, this is escapism, and this is the Greek concept of salvation, and the Latin or Roman as well.

The same is true of Buddhism. When we look at the four noble truths, which are at the heart of Buddhism, and this is what you believe if you are a Buddhist. The first is that all existence involved suffering. Second, all suffering is caused by indulging, apparently, in satiable desire. Third, all suffering will cease when we suppress all desires, and fourth, while still living (because you see, if you are going to suppress all desires you have to be dead) live moderately. Don’t want anything too much, and just don’t enjoy life or anything too much. Separate yourself from everything.

Now, Buddhism made no difference between good and evil desires. All desires are bad because life is bad, and salvation is to escape from life, ultimately to die, to find Nirvana. This is why the goal of the Buddhist monks is to do nothing at all, to think nothing at all, to have a totally blank mind, and to will nothing at all.

We touched on the Muslim concept of salvation a few weeks ago, and we saw how Mohammed, coming a few centuries after Christ, deliberately took a statement of St. Paul, “He is a Jew (that is, he is a member of the covenant who is one inwardly)” and reversed it to say He is a Muslim, who is one outwardly, because Mohammed said there was no solving the problem of guilt and sin, and so the man who was a good Muslim was one who forsook all that conflict, all the fretting about his inner life, his character, and the five pillars of Islam are 1) a regular repetition of the creed of Islam; there is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet, 2) the repetition of the prescribed prayers several times daily, 3) the duty of giving alms, 4) the observance of the feast of Ramadan, and 5) the pilgrimage to Mecca, and if you couldn’t make them all, you were still a good Muslim because not every Muslim got to Mecca. So, it was one of pure externalism. Again, it was an escape from the problem of man and his relationship to God, his heart, his spiritual condition, his conduct, his morality.

Similarly, in Egypt, Ancient Egypt, there was no real doctrine of salvation. Osiris says in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, “I am he who cometh forth advancing, whose name is unknown. I am yesterday.” What does this make of Osiris? He doesn’t’ even know his own name. Osiris is just a name that’s been given to him so that they know who they’re talking about, but Osiris himself doesn’t know his own name. He is yesterday, which means he is just the evolving force of history, of nature, of the universe. He is an effect, not a cause, and therefore, Osiris is unable to save anyone, and of course, this is not surprising.

Paganism has no where in the world any doctrine of God as a fully self-conscious, self-existent, sovereign and creating God. Only such a God can save man, only one who made all things, who predestines all things, who governs all things absolutely can save man, because only he is impotent. This is why, in paganism, the idea basically was that the gods were powerful forces, spirits in the universe who could give you a hand, but if they didn’t, you could threaten them. Now, this seems strange but we find many, many instances in pagan religion as threats to God. For example, from about 1100 BC in Egypt, we have a case of a lover demanding that he be given this girl, and threatening the gods if they did not give him the girl he wanted, and it reads, “Hail to thee, O Horakhty, father of the gods! hail you, O seven Hathors, who are adorned with springs of red thread! Hail to you, ye gods, lords of heaven and earth, call [so and so, giving the name of the girl] born of [so and go] to come after me, like an ox after grass, like a mother after her children, like a drover after his herd. If you do not make her come after me, I shall set fire to Bursirus city, [a holy city] and burn up Osiris.” Now, this is the kind of thing that was commonplace. We see this kind of paganism surviving in some countries among backward peoples, who have turned nominally Catholic, who get very angry at an image because they demanded something from him and he didn’t answer their prayer, so they threaten him. This is the essence of paganism. It is not a doctrine of salvation. The pagan gods are simply forces that can be controlled and can be threatened.

Moreover, because the pagan view of history was cyclical, that is, it didn’t have progress in it, things happened and it was an endless of recurrence of the same cycle of decay, and death, and meaningless, the gods themselves of paganism, after awhile, died{?}, or overthrown and are replaced by others, and as a result, the gods themselves are doomed. Only in the Bible, in all the religions of the world, do we meet a god who is able to save us, and we meet Him in the very first verse. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Because He created all things, He is Lord over all things and He is able to save.

When the doctrine of creation is weakened, the doctrine of salvation is also weakened. As a matter of fact, in many languages, the word that is used for salvation does not mean victory, but escape. For example, in Hinduism, the word is Mukti{?} which means escape or release.

As we thus look at all religions, we find they are without a doctrine of salvation. Mazdaism of ancient Persia had no doctrine of salvation. The old Teutonic, or Norse, religion had no doctrine of salvation. Everywhere in the world, we find the same problem. The word soterios, was in the Greek and was used by the {?}, but as we shall see here, it was not a doctrine of salvation.

Now, the failure of paganism to offer salvation was not accidental. This is what St. Paul is talking about when he says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, for the Jew first and also to the Greek.” St. Paul is here saying, “I’m not embarrassed.” That’s what he means when he says “I am not ashamed.” I am not embarrassed when I preach salvation. If any other man talking in terms of any other religion, tries to talk about salvation, he’s going to be embarrassed, because the god he serves is not able to save. For I am not ashamed. I have nothing to be ashamed about, nothing to be embarrassed about, because the power of God unto salvation is something I can declare in absolute confidence.

I notice he makes this old statement in that letter in which he talks about the sovereign of God and His predestinating power, “For then in the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith.” Because God is sovereign, salvation is no longer something man needs to fret about, or in his heart, ponder and trouble himself over because it is the power of God, it is given by grace to the Jew first, {?} it came to them first, but not all people, and it is not about but of God, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.”

St. Paul says that men are without excuse. The witness of God, that He is God, that He is maker of heaven and earth, sovereign over all things is written in the tables of man’s heart, every man’s heart, in the fiber of his being. It is impossible for man to be man and alive and not know this, but they hold, or suppress, or hold down the truth in unrighteousness. In other words, they will not admit that they are sinners nor that they need salvation. They know it, but they deny it, and so they will not truly talk about salvation in any biblical sense. They do not demand victory in life, but escape, and as a result, they will not speak of salvation in any biblical sense.

Now what the apostles were thus doing, and this is what appears in their letters, as they went out into a world of paganism, they were trying to overthrow pagan doctrines of salvation, and to present the biblical doctrine of salvation. They were using the word soterios, which the Greeks and the Romans used, but they were making it emphatically clear that there was a vast difference in meaning, but while the pagans called it soterios, it was escapism, and the Christian could say, “I am not ashamed. I am not embarrassed about preaching salvation, because it’s not a possibility, definitely not an impossibility, but Satanism has, but uncertainty, because the power of the sovereign God who made heaven and earth stands behind this declaration. For the Greeks and the Romans, soterios, salvation, was gained by ritual and ceremony. It meant security.

Sir. William Ramsey, some years ago, did a study on the Greco/Roman idea of salvation. He did it by studying not only their religious writings, but their gravestones, their inscriptions, everything that had been uncovered, and he said emphatically that for the pagans, for the Greco/Romans, the word soterio meant security, ultimately slavery, and the word was most commonly used for those who had claimed cradle to grave security on the imperial estate, whereas, I pointed out a year or so ago, serfdom began. Serfdom did not begin in the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages gradually began its elimination. Serfdom began on the imperial estates where people who were lucky, in their estimation, got a job working for the Emperor, working his land, managing his buildings, and it was cradle to grave security. It was slavery. It’s what we call today welfarism, and socialism, and this, for the Greeks and the Romans was salvation. It was for this they used the word soterios, and all the epistles of the New Testament make clear over and over again the vast difference between the two words. It’s not the emperor who gives it, and it is not security. It is salvation; it is freedom. It means exposure to all kinds of problems and troubles, but it also means victory.

That’s why, when among some people who are great for testifying and are Armenians, you very often hear “I praise the Lord because I am saved, and all my troubles are over,” they’re half pagan and half Christian Science, which is all pagan really, because when we are saved in any biblical sense it means freedom under God, and the call of God now giving us victory, first over sin and death, and second, as we meet the problems of life. It doesn’t say the problems are going to be dissipated or disappear. In fact, they aggravate very often when we become Christians, because we are now at war with the world in rebellion against God. We are now plucked out of them like Paris, out of the battle with an angry husband into Helen’s lap{?}. No, it does lead to problems, but it assures us of victory.

There’s a very interesting passage in one of the church father, Tertullian. It is interesting because, in this passage, Tertullian is answering the Romans who are persecuting them, killing them, and he reminds them of one of their laws, and he cites, 1 Timothy 2:2, the command to pray for kings and for all who are in authority, that ye may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all goodness and honestly.” And Tertullian goes on to say, “There is also another and a greater necessity for our offering prayer in behalf of the emperors, nay, for the complete stability of the empire, and for Roman interests in general. For we know that a mighty shock impending over the whole earth--in fact, the very end of all things threatening dreadful woes---is only retarded by the continued existence of the Roman empire.(1) We have no desire, then, to be overtaken by these dire events; and in praying that their coming may be delayed, we are lending our aid to Rome's duration. More than this, though we decline to swear by the genii of the Caesars, we swear by their safety, which is worth far more than all your genii, Are you ignorant that these genii are called "Daemones," and thence the diminutive name "Daemonia" is applied to them? We respect in the emperors the ordinance of God, who has set them over the nations. We know that there is that in them which God has willed; and to what God has willed we desire all safety, and we count an oath by it a great oath. But as for demons, that is, your genii, we have been in the habit of exorcising them, not of swearing by them, and thereby conferring on them divine honour.

“But why dwell longer on the reverence and sacred respect of Christians to the emperor, whom we cannot but look up to as called by our Lord to his office? So that on valid grounds I might say Caesar is more ours than yours, for our God has appointed him. Therefore, as having this propriety in him, I do more than you for his welfare, not merely because I ask it of Him who can give it, or because I ask it as one who deserves to get it, but also because, in keeping the majesty of Caesar within due limits, and putting it under the Most High, and making it less than divine, I commend him the more to the favour of Deity, to whom I make him alone inferior. But I place him in subjection to one I regard as more glorious than himself. Never will I call the emperor God, and that either because it is not in me to be guilty of falsehood; or that I dare not turn him into ridicule; or that not even himself will desire to have that high name applied to him. If he is but a man, it is his interest as man to give God His higher place. Let him think it enough to bear the name of emperor. That, too, is a great name of God's giving. To call him God, is to rob him of his title. If he is not a man, emperor he cannot be. Even when, amid the honours of a triumph, he sits on that lofty chariot, he is reminded that he is only human. A voice at his back keeps whispering in his ear, "Look behind thee; remember thou art but a man." And it only adds to his [exultation, that he shines with a glory so surpassing as to require an admonitory reference to his condition. It adds to his] greatness that he needs such a reminiscence, lest he should think himself divine.”

Now this statement is very, very interesting and very important. You can begin to see why the Christians had a problem unlike any other religion. When they talked about soteria, they were not talking about an escape. They were talking about deliverance and victory. This put them under suspicion. It made them look like a revolutionary outfit, and Tertullian is saying, “Not at all, this is not the way we get our victory.” He interprets the passage in Thessalonians which speaks about the power that hinders the coming of the man of sin, to apply to the power of law and order in the empire, and so he says, Because we Christians, more than anyone else, do not put our trust in politics and in revolution. We are the ones who are most loyal to the emperor, most dedicated to law and order, most dedicated to safety, because we are anti-revolutionary. Moreover, he said, our trust as Christians can never be in the emperor’s genius, and the emperor as a divine leader, but only as a man ruling over men under God, and then salvation is not political, but wholly supernatural, and the redeemed man, then, as a new force in history, does the work of God in his domain.

Now, the difference, I think, is beginning to emerge very clearly. The pagan view is one of escape. The biblical view is one of conquest, of victory in Christ. The Roman empire never had any move towards revolution from the Christians. Although in ten great persecutions, as well as minor ones, it worked to eliminate, to execute, to wipe out all the Christians, and yet the Christians conquered. They conquered because they had the principle of victory. They had problems, believe me. When an empire has dedicated itself to wiping you out, and periodically orders every Christian to have his head put on the chopping block, and that’s not figuratively speaking, but literally so, you have to say there was no escapism there, no Greek idea of salvation in those Christians. When they were talking about victory, they were talking about it in a biblical sense, and they knew that the victory in time would come only by obeying the law, and it did come. They triumphed in Rome. They triumphed then again against the Barbarians, and they shall triumph again in our day, when they become again faithful to the Lord.

And then when we turn to pagan writings, we find that paganism is full of references to the misery of man, very commonly {?}, the misery of man, and some pagans would say, depending on which religion it is, that the sensible course is eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die, whereas others would say just withdraw from the world, grin and bear it, but the biblical emphasis is on joy, on the happy lot of man. This was the thing that befuddled the Romans. They actually thought the Christians were crazy. All these people acting so happy when the empire was out to exterminate them? They had to be crazy, but consider St. Paul who certainly spent enough time in and out of prison, beaten, shipwrecked, thrown to the wild animals on one occasion. He speaks of the unsearchable riches of Christ. God hath raised us up together with Christ and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, and in the ages to come, ye might show the exceeding riches of his grace, and his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice.

So, William Ramsey, in commenting on the sense of joy and the apostolic age in the early church, summarized the joyful prospect as they sought{?}, and this was his summary of their feelings. “Not merely do we receive from Christ, we are the riches of Christ. To that great honor had we been exalted by the grace of God. The assembly of saints, the whole body of Christians, the universal and catholic church constitutes the inheritance of Christ. The purpose of God from the creation has been to create and complete this structure as the kingdom of God. The wealth of the glory of Christ’s inheritance among the saints.” This is their view of salvation. It was a salvation of man from sin and death. It meant finally, the resurrection of the body as well as the redemption of the {?}. It meant the fullness of health unto victory. It applied to things material and spiritual in time and in eternity, and they were, therefore, more than conquerors, men who had the assurance of salvation in the biblical sense, are confident and triumphant men. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto thee for thy so-great salvation, and we pray, our Father, that thou wouldst make us strong and joyful in thee, that we might become a conquering generation in the face of all things, that we may, by His grace and in His joy, meet every adversity, every problem, triumphant in thee, knowing, our Father, that no matter how difficult and painful the moment, thou art He who dost make all things work together for good to them that love thee, to them that are the called according to thy purpose. Teach us then to so submit to thy purpose, that the joy, the health, the victory of thy purpose may flood our being. In Jesus name. Amen.

We have time only for a few very quick questions. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Very, very true. Exactly so. Our present predicament is that we have become pagans, and we look for a political salvation, and of course, this is so characteristic of us today that we have reached the point where it is impossible for any president, really, to be popular, more than briefly. In the Roman Empire, as I pointed out before, it reached a point where the {?}, to the people became greater and greater, and it reached the point where one emperor, I believe in the year 256 or thereabouts, not only increased the cradle to grave security, but said that all children of those born to welfare recipients had a hereditary right to welfare, so it would be passed from generation to generation, and he was hailed immediately as our savior and our god, and the next year they killed him, you see. You cannot satisfy politically, so the advantages are very short-term, very short-term.

Now, I was very interested, just yesterday, to be reading an account of the great Mississippi flood in 1927. Do any of you remember it when you were young, the tremendous flood of the Mississippi, which overwhelmed whole areas of some states and left many, many cities, entire cities underwater. Well, at the time, of course, the relief was predominantly private relief. There were, in every city, people collecting money; the Red Cross and other agencies to extend relief. Hoover was president then, and Hoover met with his cabinet and extended a message of deep concern to all the people who were affected by the flood, and when it was over, some of the Negroes in one area of the Mississippi that had been affected, sent him a present, in appreciation of the fact that the president of the United States had taken time to express concern for them. Now, can you imagine how they would treat a president today who expressed concern and no more? You see, at the time, we still hadn’t reached the point where we expected the government to do everything, and so they appreciated the fact that a politician, whose business was none of those things, had shown concern for them. We’re a world away from 1927. Any other questions?

Well, if not, I have an announcement. I’d like to call your attention to the notices on the lectern in the back about the Chalcedon guild dinner meeting on Saturday, March 18 at 6 p.m. at the Cattleman Steakhouse in Garden Grove, and Dr. Truman Davis of Mesa, Arizona will speak on the medical aspects of Christ’s crucifixion. I feel this is a very, very important meaning. I feel that you will understand what the scripture is talking about much better after you have heard it. Dr. Davis is an expert in this area, and as I have pointed out before, has written articles from medical journals on the subject, and I’d like to say I think it’s a very important thing that the guild is doing in this and other meetings, to make available speakers like this, and I commend to all the women here, their membership in the guild, it’s a service group, it’s a working group, and it is doing a great deal to further the work of Chalcedon, because things like this would be impossible for me to take time to put on. To give you an idea just in passing what my schedule was like last month, in January I spoke eighteen times, I wrote all of a little paperback on the effect of Neo-Platonism on Christianity, I wrote seven chapters for two different books, I wrote three articles for the California Farmer, I answered 309 pieces of mail, and I read fifteen books in full, besides doing a good deal of research in many others, and without the Guild, the work would, of course, not be able to go on as it has, and would falter. So, I strongly commend the Guild to you. It is doing an excellent work, and this is an excellent service in presenting this opportunity to hear Dr. Davis.

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.

End of tape