Salvation and Godly Rule

A Return to Reality

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Works

Lesson: A Return to Reality

Genre: Speech

Track: 50

Dictation Name: RR136AA50

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Our scripture is from Paul’s Epistle to the Romans 2:12-16, The Return to Reality. “For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law; (for not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;) in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.”

A contemporary scholars, Hadas, in translating some Greek novels from the time well before Christ, in his introduction to those novels comments as follows: “What the serious reader finds most objectionable in the Greek novels is their shrieking implausibility. There is no logical nexus between events and events, or between character and events, but in a world where the links of causality are broken, and fortune has taken controls of the affairs of men, it is the very incalculability of events that absorbs interest. Logic is supplanted by paradox and emotion becomes sentimentality to be savored for its own sake. The cavalier attitude to probability is not the mark of indifference, but a true reflection of current belief.”

Now that’s a very important statement, and it has far more to say then Hadas intended, as it were. He is speaking of Greek novels from the period before Christ, and what he is saying is that to us, as outsiders, these are full of shrieking implausibilities, to use his phrase, but we could also say that the same thing characterizes all non-Christian literature. If you go to the epics of India, the thing that is so difficult for us as readers is their shrieking implausibility. Cause and effect are not present, or go to the tales and legends of Africa, or of China, or of the Germans in the period before Christ, anywhere in the world, and again, the thing that marks them is the shrieking implausibility. This is true of the Greek drama, Esc{?}, Euripides, Sophocles, of Homer. The stories are interesting, but they’re implausible. Why? Hadas the reason. There is no logical nexus between events and event, or between events and character.

The reason for this is that if you take the God of scripture out of the universe, out of the perspective of man, the logical nexus of all reality is gone. Nothing follows consequently on anything else. This is why, when you read the Greek literature, for example, the shrieking implausibilities can be of the fairy tale variety or of the horror variety. Now, of course, the various Greek dramas like Oedipus, the Oedipus Trilogy, are regarded as among the greatest classics of the world, and yet anyone who reads them with a thoroughly Christian perspective, is at once bewildered. Why in the world does all the evil that befalls Oedipus happen to him? There is no logical reason for it. Everything is stacked, and all the Greek tragedies are characterized by this fact, everything is stacked, the dice are loaded, and this is the mark of all non-Christian literature. It’s a question of fortune, or Lady Luck, the modern equivalent. If you’re lucky, everything happens to you, whether you deserve it or not, and if you’re unlucky, everything wrong happens to you, whether you deserve it or not. There is no logical nexus between event and event and character and events. The whole of the world, the whole of the universe is meaningless.

Now, this is a matter of very great concern to us, because this is again our literature. We’re so steeped in it that we don’t recognize it, but the modern film, the modern novel, the modern television fare is full of shrieking implausibilities. The ten{?} now, a few years ago, everything was stacked favorably. Now everything is stacked unfavorably, and there is no rhyme or reason to it. It’s just that the writer is determined to present something that says, “You see how rotten things are.” There is no logical nexus. It happens to you because it happens to you.

Now, of course, this kind of attitude is a revival of paganism. Long ago, in the Roman era, Seneca said, “The shifting hour flies with doubtful wings; nor does swift fortune keep Faith with anyone.” Everything is a question of luck. From the early period of France, there is a proverb which says, “Fortune has no reason.” Don’t try to understand the reason why things happen. They happen because they happen, and not because there is something in man’s character that brings them about, not because there is a reason, a logic behind events.

Now, the regenerate man, by our Lord’s saving power, is delivered not only from sin, but from this world of shrieking implausibility, from a world without any logic into a world in which there is a logical nexus for everything. The universe is God’s. It is his handiwork. It has cause and effect in it, and so when we become Christians, one of the aspects very often, very painful, of our growth in Christ is that we continually find that we are a hard world of reality where cause and effect prevail, and all our lives we are learning more and more about God, about man, about law, about the universe, and we become more and more aware of reality and less and less mindful of our imagination. This is a process which is a part of sanctification. The logical nexus becomes more and more central in our lives. We live less and less in a world of the fairy tales, or the world in which the dice are loaded. All men, whether they like it or not, live in a real world. Not all men are ready to live in terms of reality, which means God.

Now, St. Paul in our scripture text, gives us a very sharp perspective on this matter, and it’s a very important point that he makes and it’s one that people have often bypassed. To many people, the doctrine of salvation is something that they abstract out of the world, and they say “Jesus Christ is my personal Lord and savior.” Fact, but then that fact means that you withdraw from the world. The world out there belongs somehow to the Devil. You let the world go to Hell. You don’t concern yourself with the world because you are now abstracted from it, and meaning is salvation and nothing more, but meaning is total. The universe is a seamless garment, and our salvation puts us into the total meaning rather than abstracting us from it, and it’s because so many fail to see that, that this passage somehow becomes a problem to some commentators and they go all around the barn trying to explain it away. What does St. Paul say that troubles them? Well, for “as many as have sinned without law,” that is, who have never heard of the law of God, who are outside the world of God’s revealed law, shall also perish outside that law, and as many as have sinned in the law, “shall be judged by the law; (for not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.” Now, that’s the thing that is a blockbuster to the commentators. There is no other way of translating the Greek there, and St. Paul has just said earlier in the epistle that “we are saved by faith alone. For the just shall live by faith, not by works of the law,” and here he turns around and says the doers of the law shall be justified. I know of one evangelical church in Northern California which does not allow any Sunday School teaching on the book of Romans. It raises too many upsetting questions, but it has the answers. St. Paul does say, “The just shall live by faith alone,” but he also says “the doers of the law shall be justified.”

Now, he’s not alone in saying that. After all, St. James in his epistle 2:17-26, says something similar. “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”

St. Paul here says exactly what James says. The doer of the law should be justified, but St. Paul also says in Ephesians 2:4-5 and 8-9, “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;).” “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.”

Now this is emphatic. Salvation is the work of God and it is entirely of grace, and yet none of these statements are in contradiction. The initiative, the determination, and the ordination in our salvation is entirely of God, but man is not a puppet, nor is man an automaton. His response to God’s grace and his manifestation of the grace is by faith and faith reveals itself in works. We cannot have a dualistic view of man. Man is a unity. The world is a unity. There is causality in the world. There is a logical nexus to everything, and the whole of life is a seamless garment, the handiwork of the sovereign God.

Therefore, there is a relationship between faith and works, and those who are indeed redeemed will manifest their redemption in their works.

The doers of the law shall be justified,” St. Paul said. Those who are outside the law are those who are outside the revealed law. They shall be judged, St. Paul tells us in the 14th verse, by the law of God written into their being. The point he makes earlier in Romans 1:18-21, men suppress this knowledge, they hold it down in their unrighteousness but they know it still. Those who have heard the Gospel or are inside the pale or special revelation, St. Paul tells us, shall be judged in terms of it. The law, in some sense, justifies, Paul makes clear. In the world outside Christ, there is no logical nexus. Things are not held together. They fall apart. There is no sense{?}. Modern literature tries to find, sometimes, a logical nexus outside of Christ, and to this extent, it is Christian in that it still sometimes tries to find a reason, but basically it is irrational, for without God, there is no nexus. Causality disappears from the world. We have only irrationality, luck, fortune.

What St. Paul is here saying, thus, because he is one and the same man who says “The just shall live by faith alone, by grace are ye saved and that not of yourselves. The doers of the law shall be justified.” He tells us we are redeemed by the grace of God in Christ. We are justified by the perfect obedience of Jesus Christ with the law, the supreme doer of the law. We were judged in Adam. We are redeemed in Christ, and now because we are members of his body, we, in him, keep the law and we reflect his nature. Not perfectly for we are not perfectly sanctified. For those who are justified by the atoning work of Christ are the doers of the law, and we can recognize in them their justification. In Christ, we keep the law as individuals, though not perfectly. We are doers of the law. Ours is not a world of shrieking implausibilities, but the glorious handiwork of God. There is a logical nexus. Instead of a world of opposites instead of a world of conflicts, reality is a unit. Faith and works are not in opposition. There is a unity. All things good have their unity in God, so we recognize our salvation is entirely of the grace of God, but this does not separate us from the world. It puts us totally in tune now with reality, and that grace of God manifests itself in us in faith and works, and now as we grow, we see a logical nexus, a meaning to all events, and our life is an experience of waking up from the shrieking implausibilities of unbelief, of sin, and to the reality that there is a perfect unity, a perfect harmony in the world. There is a causality, “What men sow, they reap,” that we live in a world of sin, sin has its consequences. We have to beat it back step by step, conquer it step by step, or otherwise, there is only a withdrawal and a denial of God’s calling, of a logical nexus of all things, and of the meaning of all things as they are found in Christ.

Pagan literature of old, and modern pagan literature believe in the Goddess Fortuna, Lady Luck. Things are either stacked din your favor or against you. It’s a question of grace. For us, it is a question of God, of his government, of his reality, and we know that all things have their meaning in him. He is the logical nexus. St. Paul said this beautifully. “For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” They have stepped out of the world unbelief, and rebellion, and meaninglessness, into the world of perfect meaning, of total causality, where everything now is a part of God’s creation, moves in terms of its purpose, and will progressively manifest the glorious harmony which is his purpose. Our return to reality and our redemption is marked by a growing awareness of that logical nexus. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we thank thee that in Jesus Christ, thou hast redeemed us from a world of meaninglessness, of emptiness, and the frustrations, into the glorious harmony of thy creation. We thank thee that for us, all things do work together for good in Christ. We thank thee that, day by day, thou dost open our eyes to see cause and effect, to know reality, to move in terms of it, to be hearers and doers of thy word, and to rejoice in the certainty of meaning in all things. O Lord, our God, how great thou art, and how blessed is thy government and we praise thee. In Jesus name. Amen.

Are there any question now, first of all, on our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] In the scripture today, {?}

[Rushdoony] A very good question. Now, first of all, the fairy tales are all radically pagan in their background. Very radically pagan. They speak of a totally non-Christian, in fact, an anti-Christian world. However, all of them have come to us with a long background of having been told and retold by Christians until all the original meaning is gone, in many cases, and a new meaning has taken its place. The best example of this is a little outside the world of fairy tales, is Aesop’s Fables. There’s not a one of them that was ever written by Aesop. Some of them go back before Aesop to India. Every one of them was totally reworked, totally rewritten by Christian monks in the Medieval Era in terms of scripture and biblical law. So, Aesop’s Fables are now totally Christian, totally Christian, and in spite of the effort of some editors to paganize them by substituting gods for God in the text, they reflect a totally Christian perspective. Now, a similar process has been at work in the fairy tales, not to the same extent in that the implausibilities are still there, but they have been moralized in that it’s always clear that there is a good side and an evil side. The moral perspective is always preserved in fairy tales. However, the implausibilities of cause and effect still survive as far as events are concerned. In the moral realm, they have been altered so that they do represent good and evil clearly. So, they’re not a clear case, in other words. They do have a Christian moral perspective basically, but the implausible causality is still there in many cases. Yes?

Audience] Could you {?} Ecclesiastes 9:11 {?} context?

[Rushdoony] Ecclesiastes 9:11 and the context. “I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.” Yes. Here you have very much the kind of attitude I was talking about, the pagan attitude, very, very clearly summarized. Now, the context of the book of Ecclesiastes is this. It is called goads and nails, and I believe you find this in some of the 12:11, “The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd.” Now, the one shepherd, of course, is God. The masters of assembles you could translate as the rabbis of synagogues, or teachers of the law. What are goads and nails? Well, this was a teaching device. A goad was a presentation of the enemy’s case, sharply and clearly, in order to say, “Alright, how are you going to answer this?” you see. Now, the book of Ecclesiastes is a series of goads with nails. That is, to drive home the opposite point and to nail a particular attitude, to kill it. So, what Solomon does in this book is to summarize the pagan view all around, and he begins with “Vanities of vanities, all is vanity,” or futility of futilities, all is futility. Everything is useless. Time and chance govern everything. Now, he has summed up more clearly than any other single book ever written, under the inspiration of God, the whole of the pagan perspective. The whole of it, and then he gives goads, the goads, and then the nails, you see? He hammers home the other point.

For example, just looking down here 10:8, I noticed a nail. “He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him.” Now, whoso diggeth a pit, here’s strict causality, you see. Earlier, time and chance. It’s all a matter of luck, but now here’s a nail. If you dig a pit to trap somebody, by your dishonest dealing, you yourself are going to fall into a trap, and “whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him.” I’m very fond of that particular one and I use it often. What it means is this: In those days, you have hedge fences. There was a good reason for this. First, a hedge fence was a good wind break, so you protected your fields from the wind, and second, it kept the neighbor’s cattle out. Third, it also provided a good place, a hedge fence, a thick hedge fence say, that would go two, three feet or more, thick, would also provide a nesting place for all kinds of birds and small game, so that you would have an abundance of wildlife, so they were ideals things, and it’s a pity that people don’t use them today. There’s some very good reasons for hedge fences. Now, if anyone broke through a hedge fence, say, in the night, to let his cows into somebody’s vineyard, or orchard, of pasture, there’s a good chance that a serpent would bite him, because since those small game and the birds were in these hedge fences, so were the snakes, and this was a very grave hazard of trying to break through a hedge fence at night. This was another beauty of a hedge fence. It took a foolhardy man to try to break through one. So, what Solomon is here saying, “whoso breaketh an hedge [fence], a serpent shall bite him,” and by it he means, whoso breaketh the law of God, a serpent shall bite him. There shall be retribution. There shall be judgment. Here is a nail. Now, this is how to read Ecclesiastes. Perhaps one of these days we may turn to the book and go through it. It’s a book I enjoy teaching and have very often in past years, but it’s a tremendous statement of the pagan case and then nailing it down. That’s how to read Ecclesiastes. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] They are not held accountable under God’s law as revealed in scripture, but God’s law as it is written on the tables of their hearts. In other words, they know that “thou shalt not kill,” “thou shalt not steal,” thou shalt not commit adultery,” and so on. All these are written on the tables of every man’s heart. Paul makes this clear earlier. They’re not accountable for the various details of the law, as the Mosaic law spells it out and refine it and so on. So that they are accountable in terms of the unwritten revelation rather than the written revelation.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] It means reprobation, yes.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Well,

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Oh yes, because they do know God’s law even though they don’t know it in the written form.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] They are accountable to God’s law, yes.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Oh, and the point is they operate with the knowledge of it, but not of the written form, you see. They operate in the knowledge of the unwritten law.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, that’s right. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Would I recommend the use of fairy tales in a Christian school for children? I would say that they could be used very profitably if you teach them properly, and you tell them precisely what is involved, you see, and make them see the implausibilities, and contrast that with the reality of life under God. It can be a very important teaching device. So, it’s all in how it’s taught, it can be. Now, not all of the fairy tales are of the same quality, but certain selected fairy tales, if they’re properly taught and are in the reading books, and the teacher guides them to see, “Now, this is a fairy tale from ancient times. This is how people believed life is. It’s a very interesting story, but what’s wrong with it? Is life really like this?” Sooner or later, the child is going to come into contact with fairy tales. You get a lot of them on television. Now, if a child begins to see what is at stake, because if he doesn’t see them on television, he’s still going to have them in his head. Being sinners, you see, we live in terms of a fairy tale. We want reality to conform to our imagination. So, I think it’s very good to confront children with what imagination is and how it departs from reality. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. In the original, Robinson Crusoe, of course, does come to a saving knowledge of Christ through a copy of the Bible. Yes. The original edition, it’s a tremendously thick book, and you rarely have it today in its original. Now, the importance of Robinson Crusoe is very, very great. It was written, of course, by Daniel DeFoe who, in some respects, was a wild character, but he was basically a Puritan, and it is a very real Puritan classic. In fact, that and Pilgrim’s Progress are each, in their ways, two very great Puritan classics. One reason why the Robinson Crusoe is not popular today is because it’s also regarded as a classic of free enterprise, and capitalism, you see, because his point is this: Robinson Crusoe is essentially a product of a Puritan society even though he is, at the moment, a castaway and a reprobate character. As he goes back to his faith, he also, by his initiative, constructs things so that he has civilization there on a deserted island, and is living the life of a civilized man, and when he comes in contact with a savage, he turns Friday into a civilized man. Now, this, of course, was exactly the kind of thing that men were beginning to do at that time, because of the impetus of faith. So, it’s a very important document. Incidentally, it’s based on the life of a very real man whose name is not Robinson Crusoe but Alexander Selkirk, a Scotsman. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] In Matthew 25, the Parable of Judgment is a parable with regard not to the reprobate, but to Christians, when they are confronted with Christ, and he says, “inasmuch as ye have done to the least of these ye have done it unto me,” and he’s telling those to claim to have faith but no works, “I was sick, hungry, poor, naked, and ye knew me not. You have no faith,” and you see, our Lord was writing, or speaking at a time when the church soon was going to be under persecution, so it was a very real test he was proposing. Supposing there was a Christian under arrest, or who had been wiped out under persecution, his home, his business, everything. To take him in or to visit him marked you. You were one of those people, too, you see? Well, here’s the question, are you going to demonstrate your faith? There was a Christian in prison awaiting execution, and anyone who called on him was going to be very poorly known, and yet his life there and it might be weeks and months, but be extremely difficult, painful, and he would need help, he would need food. Were you going to take care of your Christian brothers? So, you can see the point of that argument.

Well, our time is just about up. 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.

End of tape