Salvation and Godly Rule

Mercy

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Doctrinal Studies

Lesson: Mercy

Genre: Speech

Track: 56

Dictation Name: RR136AD56

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Our scripture is from the Gospel According to St. Matthew 23:23-24, and our subject: Mercy. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.”

These words are one of our Lord’s strongest indictments of the religious leaders of his day. With very sharp and bitter language, he calls them hypocrites, blind guides, and he speaks of them as straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. Now, as he describes their religious practice, it’s very interesting to see what he points to that they have done, and says they ought to have done it. That is, to tithe. Moreover, he characterizes this as the easy aspect of the law. This is a very significant fact. Today, we tend to think of the tithe as something difficult, but very plainly, not only is tithing not condemned, but it is separated from the other matters of the law as an easier duty. The more weighty the difficult matters are justice, mercy, and faith.

These words therefore, should make us pause. Our feeling today, of course, is very much the reverse than that of our Lord. We tend to feel that justice, mercy, and faith are very simple matters, and tithing is difficult. The reason for this is that we regard justice, mercy, and faith as an emotion position. We feel that it’s sufficient to say that we believe in these things and therefore, we are those things. It’s like saying that we believe we are beautiful and therefore, we are beautiful. There is a difference, and we tend to feel that the tithe is difficult because it is actually something that is measurable. Our Lord says, this is the easier part and the other, the difficult. Mercy, he declares, is the mark of the redeemed. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” It is important for us, since mercy has so central a position in our Lord’s estimation of the law, that we understand mercy. The word mercy is sometimes also translated compassion, which is basic to its meaning, and it means to show compassion, to be gracious, and to be pitiful, to pity. Optimeyer, a contemporary scholar, has called attention to the fact that our usual meaning of mercy is humanistic, and we must place mercy in a God-centered context in order to understand its meaning. He writes, “It is often been pointed out that one Hebrew word for mercy or compassion, derived from the stem meaning womb, and that it’s original meaning was brotherly or motherly love. That is, the feeling of those born from the same womb, or the love of a mother for her child. Thus, God’s mercy has been defined in terms of such familial love and some Old Testament passages support this meaning. In Psalm 103:13, Isaiah 63:15-16, Jeremiah 30:20, God is a father to Israel. In Isaiah 49:15, a mother. In Isaiah 54:4-8, a husband. As such, the Lord welcomes his sinful child or wife back to him with overflowing yearning, and love and forgiveness. It is a mistake, however, to define God’s mercy only in terms of such familial affection. More of one to view it solely as an inward feeling. God’s mercy in the Old Testament, like his faithfulness, his steadfast love, his righteousness, his judgments represent his continual regard for the covenant which he has established with his chosen people Israel. Not once is God’s mercy granted to those outside the covenant relationship.

Further, although mercy signified more than the other terms listed above, an affection or love within the divine person, it is never described in the Old Testament, apart from its concrete manifestation and some outward act by God within history. It is, in general, a loving act of God by which he faithfully maintains his covenant relationship with his chosen people.”

Unfortunately, the idea of mercy has moved from this covenant, this God-centered aspect to a humanistic one, so that as men interpret mercy today, they confuse it with charity and a love of man. Now the Bible does give a very important place to charity, but it is not the same thing as mercy, and humanism has no place in the bible. It is very interesting to see how this change and the idea of mercy, as well as love, have been reflected in our literature. We have a very famous passage on mercy in Shakespeare, and Shakespeare’s context is Christian. He wrote, in the Merchant of Venice, “The quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed. It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. Tis mightiest in the mightiest. It becomes the throned monarch better than his crown. His scepter shows the force of temporal power, the attribute to awe and majesty. Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings, that mercy is above the sceptered sway. It is enthroned in the heart of kings. It is an attribute to God himself, and earthly power doth then show likest gods when mercy seasons justice. Therefore, though justice be thy plea consider this, that in the course of justice, none of us should see salvation. We do pray for mercy, and that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy.”

Thus, for Shakespeare, it was mercy that represented character, and mercy was an idea firmly grounded in God, and in the nature of God, and in God’s redemption.

When we come to the 19th century, the early 1800’s, we find that the picture is greatly changed. One of the best known poems from that period, “Abou Ben Adhem,” by Leigh Hunt, gives us a specifically and deliberately non-Christian interpretation of greatness of character. Now, Shakespeare said it was marked by mercy. Leigh Hunt sees it otherwise. He wrote,

“Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)

Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,

And saw, within the moonlight in his room,

Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,

An Angel writing in a book of gold:

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,

And to the Presence in the room he said,

"What writest thou?" The Vision raised its head,

And with a look made of all sweet accord

Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."

"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"

Replied the Angel. Abou spoke more low,

But cheerily still; and said, "I pray thee, then,

Write me as one who loves his fellow men."

The Angel wrote, and vanished. The next night

It came again with a great wakening light,

And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,

And, lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest!”

Now I don’t know whether you were asked to memorize that in school. I was, and I can realize now as I look back why the world has become the way it has, when we were asked to memorize that kind of idea, because most specifically, what Leigh Hunt says here is that Abou Ben Adhem did not love God. His name was not on the list of those who loved God. In fact, his answer was he was doing something else which, in his eyes, was obviously far superior. He loved man, and so God loves him therefore, the angel reveals, more than anyone else because, although he doesn’t love God, he’s a lover of man. Now, with generations of school kids being asked to memorize Abou Ben Adhem, as was still the case when I went to school, it’s no wonder that we have the kind of world we do.

Now, as we look backward, however, we find that someone writing just after Shakespeare, Thomas Randolph, wrote, “He that’s merciful to the bad is cruel to the good,” so in Thomas Randolph’s day there was still some common sense. If you showed mercy to a murderer, you were showing no mercy to the victim. If you showed mercy to a thief, you were being merciless to the one robbed. Now, Optimeyer{?} in his definition said that in the scripture we never find God showing mercy to anyone outside the covenant. This is a very interesting statement because Optimeyer is not, in any sense, an orthodox or evangelical Christian. He is an extreme modernist, and he is reporting simply what he believes to be true of scripture. However, we would have to qualify his statement. God does show mercy at times to those who are outwardly of the covenant but actually are not. We have one exceptional case in the Bible. God was merciful to Ahab, and Ahab certainly was not redeemed. He was outwardly of the chosen people, actually reprobate, so that God declared that he would be judged and his household would perish, they would no longer rule, and God was merciful to him in that he postponed this judgment until after his death.

God’s mercy, however, is very definitely in terms of his law. Optimeyer{?} says that it is the structure of the covenant which governs and limits the demands of mercy, and in this he is right. In the Bible, the basic institution is family, and in the family mercy in particular, predominates. It was a duty, according to scripture. Where family was, there was mercy. Where mercy was lacking, there was no family, and as a result, throughout the scripture, the family tie is represented as a very strong one, and as the area of mercy, as an example of what mercy is, and yet, within the family, mercy cannot be antinomian, so that we do have the law, Deuteronomy 21:18-22 whereby the incorrigible delinquent had to be cut off and denounced to the authorities.

Then the covenant, people who are members of Christ, members of the covenant in the Old or the New Testament, are regarded as the family of God, and therefore, the covenant law stipulated a love and mercy towards one another. Leviticus 19:17-18 says, “Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord.”

Now, of course, the key question here is, who is my neighbor? The rabbis took the reference to be the fellow Israelite, but our Lord also said that we should love even our enemies and be merciful to them on occasion, and he gave the parable of the good Samaritan as instance of precisely this kind of mercy. The parable has, as its point, the lack of mercy in religious leaders. The fact that their point of view was hard-hearted as they bypassed one of their own and showed no mercy towards him.

Another aspect of mercy that is emphatically stressed over and over again in scripture is mercy towards widows and orphans, the idea being those who are needy, and we find in Zechariah 7:9-10, a summation of the teaching of the law and the prophets. “Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassions every man to his brother: and oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.”

Now, another aspect that we must again remind ourselves of that the English word “mercy” has a very different connotation than the biblical word. We have seen that, in our text, our Lord says that judgment, or justice, mercy, and faith are matters of the law. The attitude of modern man and of pagan man is that mercy has nothing to do with law. It is antinomian, and as a result, you have the kind of picture of mercy that is best set forth in Parnon, the Chinese goddess of mercy who, in Chinese tales is portrayed as standing outside the gates of paradise because she is so full of mercy she will not enter in until every last living person decides to come in. Now, this is total antinomianism. This is not the biblical concept. Then again, the English word has picked up the meaning also of pardon. This is not a part of the biblical meaning. We do have mercy and forgiveness often occurring together in the Bible. In Numbers 14:18, Deuteronomy 21:8, and Deuteronomy 32:43 in particular, mercy and forgiveness are very closely associated, but not necessarily so. Grace also implies mercy, and redeeming grace means forgiveness, but mercy does not always mean forgiveness. Thus, when God was merciful to Ahab, he did not forgive Ahab. There is a difference.

Moreover, not only is mercy in the Bible an aspect of the law, closely related with it, so that we are not permitted to be merciful in such a way as to set aside the law and show favor to the wicked as against the godly. Mercy, however, is also an aspect of the redeemed man’s nature. It manifests and furthers his blessedness. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” Mercy, we are told, is required by God. God’s people must show compassion one to another, and to all men in their grief and trouble. Moreover, we are told by James in his epistle 3:17, and by St. Paul in Colossians 3:12-13 that mercy is a part of the wisdom from above so that mercy is not only associated with the law, but with wisdom.

Now, a very interesting aspect of pagan mercy is not only that it is antinomian, and that it is associated with pardon always, but it also flows in one direction, from a superior to inferior. From above to below. Now when you have the paganization of society, one of the immediate results is that there is only contempt that flows from below above. No understanding and a merciless attitude, and we have that very much with us today as society is again paganized. In pagan society, the citizen or the individual looks at superiors either with fear and awe and envy, or with hatred, never with any mercy or kindness, or compassion. This is a very important fact, and whenever this pagan one-way attitude enters into a society, it does mean that there is either such force above that people below are kept in awe, or else there is such an envy and a hostility from below that society crumbles.

We have that situation today. Certainly the sins in Washington and Sacramento are very real, that they are a reflection of our own sins as a people, and when there is no feeling of unity, then there is a merciless attitude toward sins at the top, whereas a demand for total mercy for our sins if we are below. This is why various passages of scripture like Hebrew 10:34, represent a totally new note in world history. The Roman Empire had nothing like it, because Paul writes in gratitude for the fact that the members of the churches had compassion for him when he was in prison. We are in a different world than the Greco/Roman Empire when we read that. The idea of someone who is a thinker, a leader, a philosopher, a man of prominence, having mercy when he is in trouble was unheard of. The only thing he could expect is for people to rejoice, because the wheel of fortune would turn now and it would mean someone else, maybe one of them, would have a position at the top, and this is why one of the great pleasures of the Roman circus was precisely being merciless. When a man was the loser in the gladiatorial combats, if he had been the great figure up until that time, the champion of the arena, who’d won again and again and had become rich because he had, for months and years on end, been triumphant in every combat, now when he was down and he looked to the crowd for mercy, it would be thumbs down almost invariably. The pleasure in seeing someone who was high and mighty abased, was basic to the pagan character. Mercy never went from above to below. If there were an underdog there, he might get mercy, and it would be thumbs up for him, but not for a man who had been prominent, and we see again that prominent attitude. Mercy for the underdog. No mercy for the top man, and yet when Paul writes, it is as though that world had ceased to exist. He, Paul, who had been one of the great men of the Empire, a citizen by birth, one of the great families so that some of the surviving rabbinical documents indicate that he came from a millionaire family, was now in prison and people had mercy on him and did everything possible to minister to him, and he was grateful to them, because now they had a common life in Christ. Love and mercy were flowing in every direction. There was a new world in existence.

Only if that new world again extends its boundaries can we have a world that is fit to live in. The old world of the Roman circus is once again very strong all around us, and its attitude is heartless and merciless. It wants everything forgiven like {?} for the underdog, and thumbs down for all else. Such a world can only offer death and destruction because it wants to destroy everything that brings forth progress, excellence, and advancement. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we thank thee that thou hast been merciful until us, and by thy mercy hast created a new humanity through Jesus Christ. Make us ever merciful one to another in terms of thy word, that we may be a people of love and mercy, and ever rejoice in thee and delight in one another. Grant us this, we beseech thee in Jesus name. Amen.

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

[Audience] I was reading the other day in James where it says, “But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” It’s James 1:4, and I was wondering in there, it says that patience have her perfect work, perfect and entire and you’ll want nothing, and yet on the other hand, we know that there’s no excuse for sin, that God has provided a way out, and yet on the other side if we say we have no sin, the truth is not in us. Can you, sir, explain {?} perfect {?} at the same time if you don’t{?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. Now, what was the passage again?

[Audience] James 1:4.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Now, first of all, the word “perfect” there is not the modern English word which means sinless, but in the Bible, the meaning of perfect is mature. “Let patience have her perfect work (her mature work) that ye may be perfect (mature) and entire (wanting nothing), lacking nothing. “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given unto him.”

Now, first of all, what this has reference to is our mental and our spiritual equipment. It’s not saying that you’re not going to need bread or food or some material things. What he is talking about is the trying of your faith worketh patience. Therefore, let patience do her work. The whole point is that spiritually, you be equipped, and lack nothing spiritually, you see, and the one thing we are promised in scripture without any qualification, that if we pray for it we get it, is wisdom. This is perhaps the thing we least of all pray for, but we are assured we can have it. Now let me qualify that. Some years ago, a priest said that the one thing he had never heard in his confessional, I believe, is that people ask for humility, or felt that they needed humility, or lacked it, so perhaps we should link the two, humility and wisdom, are the things that people seldom ask for. Does that help explain it? Any other questions? Yes?

[Audience] What is a good {?} for adults who propose that, for instance, a criminal is, must be sick or ill{?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. This is a very common argument. In fact, I read a whole book by a Church of England rector, the thesis of which was, of course, that the criminal was sick and particularly deserving of our love and attention. Now, the implication of this is that it destroys all responsibility. You cannot have any society which is in any respect civilized if you destroy responsibility, because if men are not responsible for their actions, and are to be forgiven and given special care and treatment as though they had not done it, what you are saying then is that society is responsible and you’re going to punish society, and you quickly destroy society, because you’re requiring the innocent to subsidize those, who from a Christian perspective, are guilty. It constitutes a subsidy. The attitude that it is mental sickness creates mental sickness. Even psychiatrists are beginning to admit now that they no sooner invent a kind of term or mental sickness and they begin to have all kinds of examples of it. That, as a matter of fact, people are so suggestible, that it has been demonstrated that if they go to a psychoanalyst or a psychiatrist with a particular kind of theory, they will begin dreaming, very quickly, the kind of dreams that are made to order for that psychiatrist or psychoanalyst, and they’re not doing this consciously, but they are open to suggestion. They are very suggestible, so that if a man is a follower of Jung, the dreams turn out to be ideal dreams for Jungian analysis. If the man is a Freudian, the dreams will be Freudian. Well, before this, they found that there were other examples before Freud and Jung, of the same thing. One of the great men of the last century discovered a very serious kind of mental sickness: hysteria, and the result was that there were hysterical women all over Europe for a generation. It was quite fashionable, and then it went out of style and the classic symptoms of hysteria began to disappear, and institutions were no longer peopled by hysterical individuals.

Well, in recent years, according to Dr. Szasz, who is not a Christian, The Myth of Mental Illness is the title of one of his books, we have fabricated this myth and the result is that people who cannot make the grade find it a very convenient way of dropping out at society’s expense. To test this, not too long ago, a couple of researchers did a great deal of work in mental institutions, and they very quickly found that it was true, and there’s a report on their research which is in process of being published in the current “Psychology Today.” What they found is this: That by talking to a very large percentage of the inmates in various mental institutions, they found that they rated the various institutions as people rate resort hotels, and that they were regarded in the state institutions as the poor man’s resort, that there was a very good game they played that they tried as much as possible to avoid the psychiatrists on duty, and to be in the various therapy groups where they could go all day long from one kind of game to another, or go to the movies every evening, or go to the various programs, or craft shops, and occupy themselves all day long. Now, if the psychiatrist or the psychiatric worker in charge of them began to feel they were making rapid recovery and should be discharged, then they would immediately go into a tailspin and collapse almost to the point of needing a straightjacket, or something, but not quite. They would know the fine line to avoid, and that a very, very large percentage of the people in institutions were there for such reasons, and that they openly regarded it as a place to go if you felt the world was too difficult, and they had a rating system in terms which you rate the kind of institutions and where it’s best to go, and it’s too bad if you can’t make it into this one because they really have the entertainment there.

So, there is some dawning awareness now in the world of psychiatry and psychology that the idea of mental sickness is not altogether sound. However, they still are not giving up on it, because it’s been a good field for them, and the area of the most rapid growth in the past ten years, and with the likelihood of the greatest growth in the next ten years, is psychology. So that as of now, psychology majors in colleges have perhaps the best chances of placement in good paying jobs, because industry is buying this bit about mental health, and setting up in all the big plants psychological counseling so that if you think things are going bad, you can make an appointment and get an hour off work, and see the psychologist, consult him about your problems, and educational institutions are going for it, so that even though the cynicism is beginning to develop, it still works. Let’s hope it won’t work too much longer. Any other questions? Well, if no other questions, let’s bow our heads 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.