Salvation and Godly Rule

Christian Obedience

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Doctrinal Studies

Lesson: Christian Obedience

Genre: Speech

Track: 54

Dictation Name: RR136AC54

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Our scripture is Deuteronomy 29:29 and Deuteronomy 30:11-14. Last week we studied Christian Liberty. This week, Christian Obedience, and next week Christian Conscience.

“The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.”

Deuteronomy 30:11-14: “For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.”

The larger catechism question 29, asks, “What is the duty that God requireth of man? And the answer, “The duty which God requireth of man is obedience to his revealed will.” This is the point of our text. When Moses declared, “The secret things belong to God,” the secret things primarily are things of the future. We are required to do our duty and to leave the results in the hands of God, so that where the secret things, the things of the future are involved, this is God’s responsibility, not ours.

Moreover, the secret things in the secondary sense, refers to the determination of things. It means the control of lives of others and our own lives. So that the basic determination of things, as well as the future, can be classed as the secret things which belong unto God, but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. The revealed things are the laws of God. Moreover, as Deuteronomy 30:11-14 goes on to declare, the law of God is the essence of simplicity. “It is not hidden from thee,” Moses declares, “neither is it far off.” It is not in heaven, that you should have to climb up or make great effort, or require a great deal of intellectual ability to comprehend it. “Neither is it beyond the sea,” it is not something remote or distant. “The word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.”

St. Paul tells us in the first chapter of Romans that this means that the law of God is fundamental to the being of man, so that whether men have ever encountered the scripture or not, they are, St. Paul declares, without excuse, because that law is written in the framework of our being, and they hold it down, they suppress it in unrighteousness. But St. Paul also tells us that man is more prompted by curiosity than by obedience, and he spoke of itching ears that turn away from the truth in preference for fables. Men want a charted future. They say, in effect, “If I do thus and so, will God do thus and so and precisely when I want it.” Men want to know the secret will of God and what is involved in it, and they resent the fact that God doesn’t consult them when he makes plans for the world and for their own lives, and of course, this is sin. Original sin, the desire to be as God, determining what is good and evil.

Now, all of this is very basic to the question of obedience, because scripture plainly requires obedience. It requires it of men towards their rulers, government officials, of men towards their employers, towards officers of the church, towards husbands, parents towards children, so that, very clearly, authority is everywhere emphasized in scriptures and obedience thereto.

However, it is normal today for this obedience to be misinterpreted. On the one hand, we have a world around us of disobedience, of contempt for the law word of God, and on the other hand, we have, within the church, and ungodly emphasis on obedience.

Let us take an example of this. Ephesians 5:24 declares, “Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.” A very important verse, and a verse, however, which has been so brutally used through the centuries that it has been converted into an unscriptural, ungodly doctrine. Charles Hodge, a century ago on commenting on this verse, made very clear the fallacy of the totalitarian requirement of obedience, whether by husbands or anyone else. He wrote, “As verse 22 teaches the nature of the subjection of the wife to her husband, and in verse 23 its ground{?}, this verse teaches its extent. She is to be subject in everything. That is, the subjection is not limited to any one sphere or department of the social life, but extends to all. The wife is not subject as to some things, and independent as to others, but she is subject as to all. This, of course, does not mean that the authority of her husband is unlimited. It teaches its extent, not its degree. It extends over all departments, but is limited in all, first by the nature of the relation and secondly, by the higher authority of God. No superior, whether master, parent, husband, or magistrate can make it obligatory on us either to do what God forbids, or not to do what God commands. So long as our allegiance to God is preserved, and obedience to man is made part of our obedience to him, we retain our liberty and our integrity.”

Now, this is a very important statement and let’s examine it practically. The whole problem with so much of the church teaching on obedience, and especially in this area because this is the area where so many churches stress it, is that it has a very, very pagan background, the idea of divine right. Now, in Antiquity, rulers were gods, so that whether the monarch was in Egypt of Babylon, or Rome, obedience was given to him as a literal god. This idea crept into Christendom. It developed throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era as the doctrine of the divine right of kings. If you go back to the period of the Middle Ages and to the Reformation as well, you will find that commentators, when they come to verses in scripture that require us to obey rulers, speaking of the ruler as a god on earth, as gods, and using the same kind of language with respect to husbands and employers, and authorities in every realm.

Thus, a pagan doctrine of divine right was assimilated into the biblical doctrine of obedience. Now when God requires obedience, he does not say that employees or wives, or citizens are to be slaves, and their superiors as little gods walking upon earth. As a matter of fact, we are told that Eve was created to be Adam’s helpmeet. That’s a very different thing from being a subject. I’m sure that Adam, from the very beginning long before Eve was created, among the animals found himself a dog, and made a pet out of that dog, and since that dog was living before the Fall and was without any of the consequences of the Fall, when Adam whistled that dog came, and that dog obeyed Adam perfectly. Now, if that’s all Adam needed, someone to come when he whistled, and to jump when he said jump, he didn’t need Eve, and there are too many men who feel that that’s the role of a wife, to be like a well-trained dog. Now, this is not the teaching of scripture. Incidentally, the husbands who so require obedience of this sort certainly will not render it to their employers, and what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Now, what is the kind of obedience that scripture requires? The obedience that we render to God is absolute. It is not total in extent, not only total in extent but total in degree. Without reservation, we obey God in all things. The obedience we are to give to all human authorities, to rulers, employers, pastors, husbands, parents is at all times relative. We cannot absolutize human authority. All human authority is under the word of God, and we are at all times to give priority to the word and to obey human authorities insofar as they do not oblige us to do that which God forbids.

Now, Sarah in scripture, is selected as a type of the godly wife, the pattern for wives, and yet Sarah told Abraham off on one occasion, Genesis 16 if you want to read it, and God told Abraham she was in the right. She was not being a disobedient husband [wife] in calling attention to something that was wrong. Abraham was clearly superior to her, but under God, and always relative to the word of God.

As a result, it is very, very wrong to require, in any area of life, an unconditional, absolute obedience, and unfortunately this is too prevalent. All primary, all absolute obedience must be to God and to his word. Those things which are revealed unto us, the secret things, the future and the control of men and things belongs to God. The world around us and the people in it are not ours to use as we see fit. All things are under God, including ourselves. We belong to God. We cannot use ourselves in terms of our own will. There are boundaries to our power in this world. We have Christian liberty to the degree that we have Christian obedience, to the degree that there are boundaries on human power.

The doctrine of Christian obedience, therefore, is very, very important to us, especially important in our day, because we do see a growing anarchy around us. There is a contempt for authority and a contempt for the idea of obedience. The word obedience is a red flag to all too many people in our generation, and unfortunately, the reaction of all too many Christians is to go back to an older pattern.

Recently, a very fine publication which perhaps some of you get, Sword and Trowel, had a reprint, a number of reprints, on the question of authority. One of them was one by Bunyan on the authority of husbands over their wives, and another by someone else on rulers, and so on. Now, the men who wrote these, like Bunyan, were very wonderful and godly men, but they did live in an age where the doctrine of divine right was very much a part of the culture, and as they interpreted scripture, the intended clearly to interpret the word of God, but they too often read into their interpretation the divine right idea.

Now, this does make a difference. It absolutizes man, but it also creates a destruction, ultimately, of human authority. It is significant that changes in Europe have usually come about violently, through revolution. When you create a totalitarian authority on the human scene, it either leads to blind obedience and a stagnant situation, or rebellion and revolution, a blow up, as people become totally hostile to an abusive authority. It is significant that this country was established on a different, a more biblical concept of authority, that the men who came here were men who disagreed with authorities in the Old World, who challenged the idea of divine right, so that we find not only that they began with a different concept of authority, but from the very beginning, the Puritan woman in the country had a reputation back in the Old Country of being very independent, and something to be afraid of, but they were remarkably capable women.

Now, all this has had its consequences. True, today we are having a great deal of breakdown of authority, but the answer is not to return to the Old World pattern. Consider, today we are the oldest nation in the world with an unbroken, unchanged form of government. Every other country has had either, in most cases, an overthrowing of government several times over, or such radical changes internally, peacefully in one or two cases, the entire fabric of the country and the government was totally changed. The oldest, continuous government in existence is ours, and the background is precisely the biblical faith that undergirded this country, and a biblical doctrine of obedience, a biblical doctrine of authority. It is especially dangerous, in our day, for men to try to revive an Old World pagan concept, no matter how biblical clothed, which would render human authority absolute. It would undermine and destroy our nation, as surely as the anarchy in the streets, because it is equally ungodly. One is ungodly in the name of God and the other is ungodly in an atheistic fashion, and one might say that that which passes in the name of God is worse, because it makes idols of men. The doctrine of the divine right of kings made an idol of human rulers, and we have this kind of idolatry behind the Iron Curtain. The doctrine of the divine right of the clergy, or of husbands, or of employers made idols of those people, and God says “Thou shalt have none other gods before me,” so that we are strictly forbidden to be idolatrous.

As a result, as we work to establish godly authority in our time, we must beware of all teaching that would put it on a false basis. All human authority is under God, is relative, and is to be obeyed with our eye on the word of God, to examine it under the word of God, to subject it to the word of God, and to obey when we do as unto the Lord, and if we must suffer sometimes from authority that is not altogether wise, we obey as unto the Lord, but knowing that there is a higher law and a higher authority. This is Christian obedience, and this is the kind of obedience that leads to progress, that leads to a godly order. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto thee that thou has called us to obey thee. We pray, our Father, that thou wouldst deliver us from the anarchy of our time, and from the ungodly idolatrous obedience of our time, that we may, by thy word, establish those things which are of thee, magnify thy holy name to our obedience, rejoice in our liberties, and enlarge the boundaries of thy kingdom. Bless us to this purpose in Jesus name. Amen.

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

[Audience] I don’t understand the {?} Abraham

[Rushdoony] I can’t quite hear you.

[Audience] I don’t understand the relationship {?}

[Rushdoony] Oh, yes, the . . .

[Audience] In other words, she told Abraham to {?}

[Rushdoony] In the reference the sixteenth chapter, Hagar was taking advantage of the situation, and Abraham was letting her get away with it, so she told him he was wrong in so doing, and what he ought to do, and he went to the Lord in prayer about it, and the Lord said, “Sarah’s right, listen to her.” So, in the sixteenth chapter, God very clearly backed her up. Any other questions? Yes?

[Audience] Since some people are talking about man and his role {?} person into three parts, the body, soul, and spirit, and then they divide everything a person does into these three parts. You know, spiritual being, you have, whatever. Can you comment on that?

[Rushdoony] Yes. You have this tripartite view of man, which is heretical, and you have the dualistic view of man, which is again heretical. Man is not three beings or two. He is a unit. He is one, and any attempt to say man is body, soul, and spirit, is ridiculous. Scripture speaks of man as a living soul, as a unity. Now, the origin of these ideas is not biblical, but Greek. Ancient Greek philosophy believed that man was a division of two basic substances. One was mind and one was body, that had been brought together in a kind of an unhappy union, that the mind of spirit was eternal, and the body was temporal and would pass away. The Bible, of course, denies the doctrine of the immortality of the soul which is so often assumed as biblical. It says that God alone hath immortality, dwelling in light and approachable. Our life after death is not a natural immortality but of the grace of God, although we are told that after the last judgment, this mortal shall put on immortality. We shall then have eternal life as a part of our being.

Now, we do not believe that there are two kinds of being or substance in the universe. There is only one kind of created being, and then above that, the uncreated being of God. The created being is not to be divided in various elements. It used to be thought that, well you had hard material, matter, and you had soul or substance, but the idea of hard matter has long since disappeared, physically, as you probably know better than I, and the proper definition of matter now is energy and motion, so that the idea of matter being something hard, material, stationary, is not true. It is as spiritual as the old idea of spirit, you see, and we have one kind of created being in various forms, so that we cannot divide it and break it up. This is an impossibility. This tripartite view has become popular in recent years, especially in premillennial circles.

[Audience] Does the Bible in some verses like 1 Thessalonians 5:23 mention three parts {?} the purpose is {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, very often the Bible repeats the same thing in several ways. The Psalms are full of repetition, for emphasis, but very clearly, the words soul and spirit are used interchangeably over and over again in scripture. Yes?

[Audience] Would you comment on the concept of matter and form?

[Rushdoony] Of What?

[Audience] Of matter and form.

[Rushdoony] Yes. The concept of matter and form is from Greek philosophy, and it was a part of the idea of two substances. Matter, as material substance, and form or ideas or spirit or mind as another kind of substance, and through Aristotle it influenced Aquinas, and then the whole western thought. As a matter of fact, it influenced all of Protestant theology, virtually, through Armenias, the Dutch theologian. Modern philosophy rests on this basic Greek dialectic, in and through Descartes, who held to this dualism also, and there’s no ground for it whatsoever. We do not believe that there are two kinds of substances, that is, in the material world or in creation. There is the uncreated being of God and then the created being of the universe in various forms. But once you accept that dualism, it leads to, ultimately, very pagan conclusions, and this is why, over and over again, it has to be arrested. For example, in the Catholic church, again and again, in the Middle Ages, this type of thinking lead to a radical paganism in philosophy, and it has again, so you have to say you can’t go more than so far with this kind of thinking. Its presuppositions are radically pagan. It makes form or spirit the divine aspect and matter the unworthy aspect, and we have no ground to say that mind in us is unfallen, as Aquinas did, you see. Reason, he said, is not fallen because it is the divine principle, whereas matter is fallen, and this is why he put such total faith in reason, and he said that, following Aristotle, that the mind is a blank piece of paper, which is where John Locke picked up the idea, and all modern education, all of Dewey’s ideas, are premised on this. The total malleability of the mind because it’s a blank piece of paper, but we believe that man is fallen, mind and body alike. The whole of his being is affected by the Fall. The mind is not a divine principle in man. It is simply an aspect of his creaturely being. Yes?

[Audience] Some people say that the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament came on people for specific things {?} dwell, and then in the New Testament, to quote John 7:39, which says, “ But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.”

[Rushdoony] Yes. Very definitely, however, the Holy Spirit was present and a part of the possession of believers in the Old Testament. There are too many hundreds of passages: “Take not thy Holy Spirit from me,” which testify to that. However, he was given, in a fuller sense in the New Testament, and whereas in the Old Testament the primary dwelling place of the Holy Spirit was in the Holy of Holies, and secondarily, in the believer. In the New Testament, the Holy of Holies is made the believer and the church, so that the dwelling of the Holy Spirit now in a particularly new sense, in a special sense, is primarily with the church and in the people of God, rather than in the Holy of Holies, and then secondarily in the people of God. Yes?

[Audience] Would you say {?} Americans are now apostate or pagan?

[Rushdoony] I would say they are apostate rather than pagan. They’re trying to be pagans but not succeeding too well. They are apostate. Are there any other questions? Well, next week we shall go on to a consideration of Christian conscience. We’ve dealt with liberty, obedience, and conscience. The three are very closely related and to understand them, we need to see all three of them as a unit. Let us bow our heads now in prayer.

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.