Salvation and Godly Rule
Prophet, Priest & King
Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony
Subject: Doctrinal Studies
Lesson: Prophet, Priest & King
Genre: Speech
Track: 62
Dictation Name: RR136AG62
Location/Venue:
Year: 1960’s-1970’s
Our scripture lesson is from the first chapter of Paul’s epistle to Titus, verse 15-16. Our subject: Prophet, Priest & King. Titus comes after 2 Timothy and before Philemon and Hebrews. Titus 1: 15-16. “Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled. They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.”
When God created Adam, he called Adam to serve him as prophet, priest and king. We see those terms, prophet, priest, and king, too often in rather stereotyped terms, and we fail to realize that their function is much broader than our historic connotation of the words. The role of a prophet is essentially intellectual. A prophet is one who speaks God’s word and interprets the world and its events in terms of God’s law. The prophetic role of man, therefore, as given to Adam, was to develop the world and to interpret it, to analyze it, to study it in terms of God’s word. Now, man cannot be truly himself apart from God and his law. When man, by his Fall, rejected God, he rejected true knowledge and he created a false idea of what constitutes knowledge and law.
The priestly office of man, as given to Adam, was to dedicate the world to God and to consecrate himself and all reality to the service of the living God. When man serves any other purpose than God’s purpose, he becomes profane. Some time ago, when we were studying the law, we saw the significance of the word profane. It literally means profano, outside the temple, that is, outside God. The real meaning of profane, therefore, is any kind of living, speaking, thinking that is outside God. This is why some older works spoke of holy and profane living. Language is profane when it is outside God, whether the words are what we call profanity or not. Any kind of speaking, living, or acting outside of God is profane. When man was called to a priestly office, it meant therefore, that all his thinking, living, and acting, had to be dedicated to God.
As king under God, Adam was called to rule the world under God and to bring all things under the sway of God’s law. God created the world to be his kingdom, and the glory of that kingdom is to be developed by man under God in terms of God’s purpose.
Man, however, fell from his office, and as a result, the office of prophet, priest, and king was deflected by man from its original purpose, to serve God, and put into service of the Devil, so that man today functions as prophet, priest, and king, but in terms of Satan’s proposition. Now, Satan’s proposition to man was “Ye shall be as God.” Every man his own god, knowing good and evil for himself. Therefore, instead of working as God’s priest, prophet, and king, work as your own. Interpret reality in terms of your own word, as your own prophet, so that when you speak, you give forth your own word, your own infallibility. Again, be your own priest. Dedicate everything as you encounter it to your own service, so that you put the whole world, every person, every thing, to your own service, and be your own king. Rule over everything in terms of your own desires, in terms of your own goals.
As a result, man outside of Christ, is prophet, priest, and king, but a Satanic one. He is dedicated to himself, and to enmity to God.
Now all of this comes to focus very clearly in Paul’s words to Titus. These words have sometimes troubled people because they seem to cover so much territory under the {?} all things, the totality of things are pure. We are told in Genesis 1 that God made all things and declared them to be very good, and all things, as we use them, as we think concerning them, not profanely outside of God, but in God, are pure because we then think of them in terms of God’s created purpose, God’s ordination, so that we view the whole of reality and see the impurity in all things, in God. “But unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.”
Now, of course, the ungodly will also say, “All things are pure, on our terms.” The offices of prophet, priest, and king, as we have seen, are permanent offices of man, but man fulfills those offices either under God or in unity with the Tempter. Either in terms of God’s purpose to make this world the kingdom of God or the Satanic purpose to make this the kingdom of man. Now God declares that when man views all things in terms of his premise, all things are defiled. The ungodly, of course, say, “In terms of our premise, all things are pure.”
Now this is a longstanding affirmation. We can go back through the centuries, the Enlightenment, the Romantic Movement, the French Revolution, into ancient times, and we find again and again the declaration on the part of the ungodly, everything that is, is right, or is holy. A great modern statement of that came in the 1950’s, and was the Bible as it were of the Beatnik movement. Allen Ginsberg, the Beatnik poet, who had a profound influence on the whole of the Beatnik movement, was one of the fathers of it, incidentally a homosexual himself, and had a very powerful influence throughout the 60’s on the campus revolutionary movement, has a position of tremendous influence today and has been featured in many magazines as though he were the voice of America today, wrote a poem in which he expressed this philosophy, a poem in two parts, titled Howl and Footnote Howl{?}, and the thesis of this was over and over again in every sentence, “Everything that is is holy.” It was a deliberate take off on scripture, a deliberate attack on St. Paul’s premise. God is therefore, prayed{?} as Moloch, the heavy judger of men. Of course, Moloch is the god of the Canaanites in the Old Testament who required child sacrifice, and Ginsberg said, God, by his requirements, his law, his summons to man to serve him, is requiring the sacrifice of man. Nothing should be condemned. God’s law condemns everything said “Howl.” All perversions should be approved. All things, said Ginsberg in his poem, are holy. Only when separated from God’s law and conformed to the uninhibited will of man. Now this is the profane idea of pure, and when he is finished with his poem, Ginsberg summons men to work now, in terms of the offices of prophet, priest, and king, although he does not use those precise words, but he is parodying scripture, and his concluding sentence is, “America, I put my queer shoulder to the wheel. He will serve as prophet, priest, and king if no one else will.”
The lines thus are very sharply drawn. St. Paul says man, as prophet, priest, and king will find all things pure, because he will use all things, think on all things, and work in terms of all things in terms of God’s calling, but when man steps outside of God, he is then profane. His thinking is atheistic.
To digress for a moment, this morning at 9:00 when I spoke to the {?} meeting, their chapel service, I spoke on Psalm 14, “The fool hath said in his heart there is no God,” and the point that David makes in that psalm is closely related to what we are here talking about, because when David referred to the fool, he did not refer to the Atheist who says, “There is no God,” not the professed Atheist, but the fool who says, or holds, or acts in his heart as though there were no God, who outwardly is ostensibly a practicing believer, but the practical implication of his position is that there is no God, and I cited an illustration which I have reported to some of you, which sums up what David meant.
When I was in Mississippi, I woman I know called me up. She is a resident of the community now, Jackson. Her husband who is a psychiatrist left her a couple of years ago, and after many years, she returned to her original vocation, nursing. She was nursing in the emergency hospital on the night shift. Now, Jackson is a city of churches, very conservative churches. There isn’t a city of comparable size, a quarter of a million, that is as conservative and church-going, and yet Ellen told me that only once in two years time had she seen anyone go to the emergency table with either the mention of God or of prayer on their lips. The next day they might have a priest and the pastor there to see them, but in the crisis they did not think of God. “The fool hath said in his heart there is no God.” This is the great rule in David’s eyes. The one who does not act and think in terms of God when the chips are down, and this is the average person today. They may profess to be God{?}, but they are not the prophet, priest, and king in their daily life of God, but of Satan. When the chips are down, in their heart they do not think and act in terms of God.
To fulfill our office, therefore, as prophet, priest, and king, we must, in every area, work to interpret all things in terms of the word of God, to dedicate ourselves in all things to God and to rule ourselves and all things in terms of God and his word.
Jesus Christ came as the second Adam, or last Adam St. Paul tells us, to reestablish man in his original righteousness and calling, to redeem man. He created a new humanity. He justified and redeemed us from sin and death, and transferred us into light and righteousness, as our federal head, as the great Prophet, Priest, and King.
The Shorter Catechism says, concerning Christ, that Christ executed the office of a prophet, in revealing to us by his word and spirit, the word of God in our salvation. He sets forth the true knowledge of God above all things. Christ executed the office of priest in his once offering up of himself as sacrifice to satisfy divine justice, and to reconcile us to God in making continual intercession for us. Christ executed the office of king in subduing us to himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all his and our enemies. If you’ll go to the Shorter Catechism and read these declarations, you’ll see also, of course, all supporting scriptural texts.
What does this tell us? That Christ, as the second Adam, as Prophet, Priest, and King, began the work which we are to fulfill in him, of restraining and conquering all his and our enemies. Thus, the task is a great one. Our king is not an impotent king. We are told that he conquers, and that we are to conquer in him, but we are therefore, in the discharge of these offices, to bring every area of life and thought into captivity to Christ, to rethink all the arts, sciences, and professions in terms of God and his word, so that every area of life might be brought under his dominion.
Moreover, unlike the first Adam, the second Adam could not fall. He triumphed over sin and death, and he is eternally secure in his calling, and therefore, our eternal security in our office of prophet, priest, and king, in our person, rests on the person of the second Adam who is our head, of whose body we are members. The first Adam could and did fall. The second Adam triumphed. The Tempter did his uttermost. He was crucified, but he arose again from the dead, so that sin and death had no power over him. Our eternal security, therefore rests in the fact that we are now members of Christ. In the old Adam, we had total vulnerability to sin and death. In the new Adam, we are triumphant over sin and death, and we have the assurance of ultimate and total victory when the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
Therefore, as we view all things, we are to see that to the pure, all things are pure. God created it so, and although the unbelieving have defiled everything they touch because they are, even their mind and conscience defiles, because Christ has called us to victory and leads us in restraining and conquering all his and our enemies, all things shall be restored to the dominion of God in Christ, and all enemies shall be destroyed, the last enemy for the new creation at his coming, to be destroyed, is death itself. All things then shall have that perfect purity in terms of which God created them, and we ourselves shall have that perfect purity, and shall eternally work in the new creation in terms of our callings as prophet, priest, and king, to set forth that which is our nature and our being, to be ourselves fulfilled, so that that which is our potentiality will be eternally our actuality. This is the meaning of our office, and this is the meaning of the purity of all things to which Adam was called, and into which the second Adam has reestablished us. Let us pray.
Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of thy grace and mercy has made us prophets, priests, and kings in Christ. We thank thee that thou who didst make all things pure, and has summoned us to see them as pure, to use them, to dedicate them to thee, and to know them to thee{?}, hast given us such a glorious destiny, the totality of righteousness and life in Christ. Our God, we thank thee in Jesus name. Amen.
Are there any questions now, first of all, on our lesson?
[Audience] I was thinking the other day about love and how {?} loving God {?} discussion, and I find that in order to love God as Jesus commands {?} and then I got to thinking about {?} it seems like we’re saying do all these things, and yet if you don’t have love, {?} and I was thinking what is, how {?} get the idea of love, you know {?} specific acts {?}
[Rushdoony] Yes, we are told that love is the fulfilling of the law, emphatically, in a number of places. “If you love me keep my commandments,” so that we’re very definitely told that love requires and involves the keeping of the law. Then in 1 Corinthians 13, Paul who has said love is the fulfilling of the law in Romans 13, says, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels and have not charity (or love), I am become a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Thou I have the gifts of prophesy, though I bestow all my good to feed the poor, give my body to be burned, and have not charity or love, it profiteth nothing.”
Now, how do you reconcile these two? Well, the answer is, of course, that they’re both talking about the same thing although they approach it from a different perspective. In other words, the unity of love, of faith, of the law, of all of these things, is emphatically affirmed. It’s not going through the motions of keeping the law, or it’s not having the gifts of Pentecost, because those are clearly referred to here, that constitute the reality, nor is it a perfection of love that constitutes the reality. It is all of these things. Just as faith without works is dead, so keeping the law without love is dead, but love without obedience is dead. In other words, they go together. So, in each instance, while the scripture is telling us, in terms of a concrete situation is, that you may be talking about having faith, but you don’t have it, because the works are not there, or you may talk about the love, but unless you have the fruits of love, or the works of love, you don’t have it. The whole thing is a seamless garment.
[Audience] {?} Last Judgment, you know, it’s just that, that {?}in prison and all that, but it seems like {?}all this stuff, and still have love, you know, cast down.
[Rushdoony] Yes. Well, of course, in the Last Judgment they said “When saw we thee sick, naked, hungry? You see? They hadn’t, but that was the whole point. Now that, of course, is very often misunderstood, because the implication there, in the minds of many and that is Matthew 25, in the parable on judgment, and he said to some, “For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” My brethren, my members, my Christian people.
Now, this is a very important passage and the church had occasion to use this for centuries, especially in the Roman Empire. Today, we don’t see the application, but consider, supposing we were living in the Roman Empire. It was death to be proclaiming the word of God, and supposing I were arrested. Now if you came and visited me, you would identify yourself immediately as a Christian, wouldn’t you? And a lot of people thought twice about doing it and didn’t do it, or if I had to run out of the city in a hurry because I heard there was a warrant out, of course they didn’t have warrants, but had advance word that they were sending out men to arrest me, and made me climb out of a window with practically nothing on because I didn’t have time to dress, they were at the door, and somebody took me in, practically naked. It was a dangerous thing to do, or fed me as I was on my way elsewhere. This was risky. Someone could say, “I saw so-and-so let in so-and-so,” when the officers were looking for him as a Christian. You see the implications? So, our Lord was saying this is a test of the faith. Have you done this? You didn’t. Therefore, he says to those who did not, “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.” This was a problem, and it’s a real one today, believe me, in China, and behind the Iron Curtain, and the Russian and Central European countries. There are many dramatic stories that have been told by escapees of what has happened, and how people have themselves suffered for taking someone in, and yet how many have done it. That’s what our Lord was talking about. So, this is not an academic thing today in the communist countries, and many people regularly face the question, “Am I one of these?”
So, the requirement in all of these passages is that there be a totality. Man is of a peace{?}. Any other questions? Yes?
[Audience] I was just thinking about the Jews and the persecutions, {?} and they claim {?} million Jews were killed {?}
[Rushdoony] It’s a well-accepted figure, it is not an accurate figure, because from all that we know, there were not that many Jews in prison camps that were unaccounted for. The figures may be as high as 1,200,000 and they may be lower. It may be as low as 300,000. There is no accurate check, but as close as you can come to it, it’s somewhere between 300,000 and 1,200,000 range. Now, this is typical of the kind of thing that goes on today. History is extensively falsified, and how many of those were actually executed is again hard to say. Some definitely were, but very many of them died of typhus, see? There was a very interesting trial a few years ago, and in my biblical law I do refer to it and cite it, and the implications of it, of a Polish doctor who was in a prison camp, and who was referred to in Exodus, the novel, and he sued because his name was actually given as supposedly having performed experiments on 17,000 prisoners. Well, he sued and in the trial, what came out was there actually about 120 persons involved, not 17,000. There were some very vicious experiments performed on these persons, very vicious. They were used as guinea pigs. His plea was that he had had to do it. He’d been compelled to do it.
Now, to me, the whole thing shows that there was an enormous evil on all sides of this situation. On the one part, to require such experiments and on the other side, that our sense of evil is so limited that we have to lie and multiply figures like that to create a sense of outrage. It indicates there’s something totally, morally wrong on all sides, and of course, even that now is nothing compared to the crimes that were committed after the war, because after the war, some even greater crimes were committed, such as turning over millions of refugees to the Communists, which we did, and the kind of thing that’s happened in Red China and elsewhere, the fact that millions of African Christians have been murdered, a couple hundred thousand, in the Sudan in the last five, ten years, and many more in other parts of Africa, and we keep silent about it because it’s not to our advantage now to attack our black brethren. These new African countries are not to be criticized, so we don’t, and the news is suppressed.
[Audience] I got this letter that says more Christians were killed in Red China than the Nazis killed Jews. I was just wondering, you know, about that, that, you know, so many Christians have died {?} just even recently, and that {?} about that, and that {?} supposed to be so horrible[?].
[Rushdoony] And of course, that was built up by the allies for their own purposes. There is a very interesting thing in process now, and I’ve been in on it from the beginning. I’ve referred to it a time or two before. Two books have been written by Guy Richards, former editor of The New York American, and the title of one is Imperial Agent, and the second, {?} and he’s writing a third book, the point of which is that Czar Nicholas II was not assassinated, that Lenin created that story just to make the followers of the Czar feel hopeless and give up fighting, that he was secretly holding them, figuring that if he lost, he could dicker with the allies for his life by having possession of them, but that British and American agents who were able to smuggle the Czar and his family out of the country into Poland, where they lived anonymously until the Czar died in the 50’s and the Czarovich{?} Alexis, is in this country now, on a U.S. pension.
Now, Guy Richards has gone to a great deal of work and finally got the British documents declassified from the foreign service which prove that he’s right. The Czar was never executed, and of course, his whole purpose is to show, here is a case history where we know the history has been flagrantly falsified, and he’s demonstrating it to the “nth” degree, and of course, numerous other such instances could be cited. We live in a time when, because men are ungodly, the lie most becomes them. We are told in scripture that the ungodly love a lie, because they are children of Satan who is the father of lies, so the lies continually increase. They are skyrocketing, they are snow falling{?}
Now, one of the newest faces of Watergate that is coming out is that a plane, apparently, crashed in Chicago a few years ago, and they have been covering up the fact that the pilots and several other people, seven people of whom several were prominent, had cyanide in their stomachs, and these were people, very, very powerfully involved in high places in the government, and this was several years back, about six, seven years ago. Now, this is the kind of thing that is routine, and we shouldn’t be surprised or worked up about it. Investigations will do a little bit, but they’re not going to do much. Basically what you have today is the office bearer of Satan as prophet, priest, and king, rather than the office bearer of God, and so his whole life is dedicated to precisely the Satanic {?}, that man is his own god, and can determine for himself what is right and wrong. Yes?
[Audience] {?}
[Rushdoony] Yes, of course. There, all of them playing the role of Pharisees. Yes?
[Audience] {?}
[Rushdoony] Titus 1:11?
[Audience] Yes.
[Rushdoony] “Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake.” Yes. It certainly fits.
Well, our time is up. I’d like to remind you of our study class at the home of the Gutierrez’s this Thursday evening from 8-9 on the Biblical Theory of Knowledge. We began last week and we will continue for two months, studying the biblical doctrine of what constitutes knowledge. How do we know? What can we know? And our second session is this Thursday at the Gutierrez’ home in Eagle Rock. 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