Salvation and Godly Rule

Godly Rule

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Doctrinal Studies

Lesson: Godly Rule

Genre: Speech

Track: 66

Dictation Name: RR136AJ66

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Galatians 3:13-14, and our subject: Godly Rule. “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”

For more than a year now we have been analyzing the doctrine of salvation from various perspectives and in it, various facets, and within the next few weeks, we shall conclude the study. One of the things that we have seen is that salvation does mean the restoration of man into his creation mandate, to exercise dominion, to subdue the earth under God, and to develop the implications of God’s word into every domain. In other words, it calls for godly rule.

When we go back to the 17th century, we find that the principle of godly rule was accepted throughout Christendom. It was accepted in Catholic countries. It was accepted in Protestant countries. The basic division was power was godly rule to be implemented. In England, for example, there were, among the various factions, a common agreement that man had been called by God to exercise godly rule. The difference between the high church fathers, the Puritans, the independents of various clans was how, how shall Christ’s rule be established? Some held that a godly prince was to institute it, and such people were predominately monarchists. Others held that this was the duty of godly bishops, these men were Anglo-Catholic and, on the continent, the Catholic parties held to a similar opinion. Others held, such as many of the Puritans, that it was a godly people whose responsibility it was to usher in godly rule. While still another group held that it was a godly Parliament that was to institute godly rule.

One small group of Reformed believers, while accepting many of these things, dissented as a critical point. They pointed out that the common assumption of all parties was that all England was Christian. Just as in the continent the same assumption was made in each country that everyone was a Christian. The only question was which theology would put them into action best? How were they going to be disciplined and organized into bringing about godly rule? But one small group of Reformed men said this whole policy has a serious weakness. It assumes that all are Christians, and that our problem is simply how is this to be done? We agree that the question “how” is a very important one, but before that, we need to recognize that we are dealing with a balanced{?} number of unconverted people who are nominally in the church, whatever the church. But, they said, the basic need is for conversion.

It turned out that these people were right, and whether in Protestant or Catholic countries, these areas {?} institute godly rule collapsed, and collapsed drastically. When Cromwell gained power, he very quickly realized, for example, as he dealt with the situation in England, that the Puritans whom he represented were a very small group. Scholars who have analyzed the Puritan movement say that it was never more than 4% of the population. The need, therefore, was for something more than organization. Once they were in power, it was for conversion, and here is where they missed the boat. After the collapse of this {?} in every country to establish godly rule, what happened throughout Europe was that there was a retreat from this hope of godly rule, and religiously, it lead to pietism, to mysticism and to {?} in various forms, all of them a retreat from a calling to conquer the world, and as the people of God to reign over us, a retreat from this to an emphasis on salvation of self-preservation, an emphasis on personal salvation and personal morality. The outer world was surrendered for an emphasis on the inner world.

Now, there was an evidence of progress in all of this because they recognized that overwhelming need for conversion, and within a century, the movement of Whitfield and Wesley arose to correct us. Another movement elsewhere on the continent. Thus, there was progress. There was a difference, for example, as they dealt with unbelief. Earlier, the state, often supported by the church, reacted to the very dangerous movement, the witchcraft movement, which involved human sacrifice and many other things, with statist approaches, prosecute and execute. Now, the attitude was work to convert them, so there was some real advance.

However, the emphasis on conversion and on salvation as self-preservation from judgment and from the wrath of God, meant that while it was right as far as the “A,B,C’s” were concerned, it was merely a negative emphasis now. The Christian man was no longer seen as the destined lord of all the earth, but rather as a man who had found safety and insurance against a coming storm.

As a result, very quickly, as the same time as the hope in godly rule was abandoned, a totally different type of state came into being. Now whether we agree with Charles I or not, or James I in England, or Queen Elizabeth, or Cromwell, what we must recognize with these men and others on the continent was that their idea of rule was religious and Christian, according to their theology. Philip II of Spain is an easy man to criticize and has been very extensively criticized. A great deal of his stiff and unyielding ways lead to the bankruptcy and the collapse of the tremendous Spanish power in Europe. So, there’s no question that Philip, as a very devout Catholic, saw his calling as godly rule. When he built his palace, the heart of it was a chapel and a monastery for a particular group of monks, and the essence of his approach was to be guided, religiously, by these spiritual leaders.

James I of England saw himself as a theologian. Henry VIII did, too, in spite of his sin. Henry VIII wrote theological writings, and this is true of many monarchs over the face of Europe. As suddenly the situation changed. Charles II was totally cynical. In France, Louis XIV made his bedroom the center of Versailles{?}, and everywhere, one saw a de-Christianization of public and private life. The course that was begun by Charles II and by Louis XIV, and by the degenerate heirs of Philip in Spain, lead directly to the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution, the attempt to abolish Christianity, to separate it entirely from life.

In the 17th century, one Englishman saw this clearly, and he said, “Religion turned into statism will soon prove atheism.” Now in every form of politics today, it is the fallen man rather than the Christian man who seeks to conquer the whole world. Of course, this has been the drive of fallen man since the Garden of Eden, since he submitted to the temptation of Satan to be his own god, to have his own apostate creation mandate, but since the beginning of the 18th century, and from about 1660 in the previous century, there has been this growing divorce between the idea of salvation and godly rule, which did not exist previously and, as a result, the ungodly have been less and less opposed, until today there is virtually no opposition to them in their attempt to conquer the world in terms of the presuppositions of fallen man.

Meanwhile, the church has had many revivals, but these revivals have only, with exception like Whitfield, aggravated the retreat of the church from its calling, and have lead to a progressive deformation of the world and a denial of the real meaning of converting.

One of the first heresies that arose in the latter part of the 17th century was quietism. Now, some time ago, we dealt with the Moravian aspect which so heavily influenced Protestant circles. At the same time, in Catholic circles, Molinos very heavily influenced the entire church in the direction of quietism. For the quietist, conversion became essentially union {?} a mystical union. This meant that there was no need for Christ, and man approached God directly. It meant, moreover, that the kingdom of Christ would seem as an earlier and inferior discantation, and the reign of the Spirit as the later and perfect dispensation. It meant also that for the quietist, external things would {?} for internal things, and to be concerned with these things of this world was a mark of being unspiritual. Man withdrew from the world instead of conquering it. This meant also an indifference to morality, and to moral action, to a philosophy of surrender. Catholic theologians of the day condemned Molinos as an antinomian and rightly so, but the damage was done. The thinking{?} of Molinos saturated the popular piety of the church. Just as on the Protestant side, the quietist movement took over and created what was regarded as true evangelical piety. The quietist movement is still very, very much with us in varying forms. Let me cite two illustrations of specific cases, which demonstrate the quietist movement, which really is an immoralism.

In the one case, a man who goes to a thoroughly evangelical church and very often in it claims to believe the Bible from cover to cover, and yet is consistently, regularly, flagrant guilty of adultery and fornication, and his attitude towards it is basically one of unconcern. He will quit, he says, when the Holy Spirit leads him to drop it and makes it impossible for him to continue. Now, what is he doing meanwhile? Well, he’s praying that the Holy Spirit will take the desire entirely out of his heart. Now, {?} he doesn’t feel that there is any necessity for him to do anything. A similar example, a man whose drinking is making him an alcoholic. In fact, you could probably {?} if you want. He will admit that he is in danger of becoming an alcoholic, but he makes no effort to quit. He says he is praying that the Lord take the desire for drink out of his heart. Now, this is quietism. It is a denial of the reality of the individual will, and it is practical immoralism.

In the 1820’s, when revivalism became very commonplace in America, the revivalists of the day were essentially immoralists because of their quietist presuppositions. They strongly opposed Christian schools and catechism teaching, and were in part responsible for the rise of state schools. Their attitude was that discipline and training were not built. No one should work to become disciplined morally. They should do nothing until the Holy Spirit, like a thunderbolt, struck them and changed them. Salvation thus, became essentially a subjective experience, not the objective work of God in Christ.

Now, this meant that the doctrine which, in the late Middle Ages worked to destroy the medieval church now became the property of the evangelical movement, and the Protestants and Catholics had now a common doctrine. They differed about the structure of the church, but essentially they, today, have a common doctrine of salvation. As one scholar has said, analyzing what happened in the late Middle Ages when the church began to collapse, “The church did not abandon such biblical expressions as justification and salvation by grace. The words of Paul were still used freely by the theologians as they are today, but the great Pauline words, justification, grace, etc., had evolved a new meaning altogether. Justification had lost its objective, forensic meaning (forensic means having to do with law and a court of law). Instead of meaning what God did outside of man in pronouncing him righteous, it came to mean God’s renewing, sanctifying act in man’s own heart. Instead of justifying grace meaning the disposition of mercy and favor in God’s heart, grace had come to mean a God-given quality that adorned the human soul. The contrast between the Medieval and the Reformation views may be summarized as follows: Medieval justified by God’s work of grace in the heart. Reformation justified by God’s work of grace in Christ. Medieval justified by Christ’s work in our heart. Reformation justified by Christ’s work outside of our hearts, that is, on the cross.”

In other words, what happened was that there was a confusion between the results of justification and justification{? Sanctification???}, and of course, the whole of modern Protestantism is very definitely given the same view of justification. This is why both the modernists and the evangelicals on both Catholic and Protestant sides are increasingly very close. {?}73 they’re cooperating. Both{?} no real difference between them except in their views of the scepter{?} of the faith.

When salvation becomes essentially a subjective experience, it means that justification and sanctification are become confused, and man’s response to salvation is confused with salvation itself, which is God’s work. It means, moreover, that God’s sovereignty in salvation is replaced by man’s decision, instead of God’s decree and grace. As Paul says in Ephesians 1:6, “wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.” We have man’s desire whereby man says, “I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior,” but what man accepts, man can take exception to, and therefore, there is an implicit antenomianism in Armenianism, a hostility to predestination, a hostility to the doctrine of the security of the saints, and so on. Man’s will becomes imperative to God’s will. Man is sovereign. When there is no sovereign God and no sovereign law, there is no total mandate to conquer everything in the name of Christ, the King. Man now can choose in terms of the new Christianity, if it can be called that, to be a Christian with respect to his inner light and the world to come, but in education, we can believe in the public schools, and politics, he can be a humanist, in art a relativist, and morality {?} and so on. It is a matter of choice. From a God-centered religion, we have moved to a man-centered one.

Now, our scripture text gives us very, very plainly the difference, and the emphasis on God’s justification whereby we are converted, and Godly rule. “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” We are all under the curse of that law, that is, under the death penalty for sin. We cannot redeem ourselves. We cannot save ourselves. Our salvation is the work totally of God in Christ. Christ, who was sinless, became a curse for us, and the curse of our Fall was laid upon him. Christ redeemed us, St. Paul makes clear, without any action on our part. Our sanctification requires our action. Our justification is entirely Christ’s work. In this passage, St. Paul does not even mention our faith, which is our response, which is the fruit of God’s justification, but he only mentions Christ’s forensic action.

The purpose of this salvation, of this sovereign act, was to bring upon us the blessing of Abraham, “that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ.” Now, this is a remarkable statement, and the passages of Genesis that deal with the blessing of Abraham are numerous. It is a promise of land, of prosperity, and of power, of the possession of the earth by the spiritual heirs of Abraham, and of great blessing even to his brother. The blessing of Abraham means that we share in Abraham’s blessing. God declared to Abraham that you will bless them that bless Abraham, and he will curse them that curse Abraham, and this is the part of the blessing of Abraham that comes to us through Christ. If men are blessed and cursed by God as they bless and curse Abraham, this then is true for us. God reacts with the same intense closeness{?} to us. People are his friends and enemies insofar as they are ours, as we serve God and as we work to further his rule.

Thus, the blessing of Abraham is the possession of all the earth, “that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” Not by blood descent, but by spiritual heirship through faith. Now salvation, as St. Paul here speaks of it, is very different from self-preservation. It is justification. It is regeneration. It is inherited. It is conquest{?}. The 17th century Christian believed in godly rule despite various defects in his provision. Today, the churches believe in ungodly surrender. The godly must be trained for conquest and rule, and as we look at the past, we must learn from their shortcomings, and we must recognize indeed that they have their defects, but ours are greater{?} and we must indeed emphasize conversion, to convert and prepare the generation around us for godly rule, because we have been redeemed by Christ from the curse of the law, that the blessing of Abraham might come unto Gentiles through Jesus Christ. This is our calling. This is the purpose of our salvation. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we thank thee that, in Jesus Christ, thou hast redeemed us, that thou hast declared that the blessing of Abraham shall come upon all the world through us. Empower our souls, Lord, by thy grace and mercy, that we may convert and prepare this generation for thy service, and for the blessings of Abraham, our father. In whose name we pray. Amen.

Are there any question now, first of all, with regard to our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] With regard to salvation, grace is not something that the individual develops or deems. It is not an infused quality. Sovereign saving grace is simply God’s act on the cross whereby we have been redeemed. Now, grace has been imparted to us, indeed, and our lives manifest this, but that is not to be confused with the act of justification and this is where the confusion has been. Justification is a legal act. Our salvation is a legal act, whereby the offense was removed. It would be comparable to, this is a very poor illustration and I recognize its poverty, but if I owed $10,000 to the bank and could not pay it, and you paid it for me, it would involve nothing on my part. Now, our salvation was bought, pure and simple. We were under the death penalty. Christ became accursed for us, and we were redeemed, we were justified. Then, in his sovereign grace, mercy, he also regenerated us, so that we become converted, but we cannot confuse this with justification. When you do, you see, you make salvation somehow man’s {?}. In conversion, we respond to God’s regenerating grace in our hearts, but justification is prior to all of this, and then sanctification is our growth in {?} of the renewed man, the new man in us. We {?} more than an infusion of grace, totally different from an infusion of grace. First it is a legal act, and then a re-creation. It brings{?} out the subtle point, but the difference is so important that civilization has swung from one stress{?} to another in terms of it. The modern attitude, whether it is in Protestant or Catholic circles is that salvation is essentially an infusion of grace. The Jesus People today, very definitely manifest this kind of heresy. This is why there is no difference across church lines today. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. Right. It is because we are humanistic that we have to see justification as essentially something we do, and therefore, we confuse the effect of God’s salvation with salvation {?}. Salvation, strictly speaking, is justification. It is the fact that Christ, being made curse for us, died upon the cross and we have been redeemed. We have nothing to do with that. Absolutely nothing. Then, because we have been redeemed, we are regenerated by the grace of God. Now, we cannot take the effects of regeneration in our lives and say, “Oh, this is what saves us.” No. The justification is a separate act. It took place even before we were born. We have nothing to do with it. Any other questions? Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. First of all, since Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. That was a citation from Deuteronomy, I think the 21st chapter, wherein, well, let’s turn to it. The last verse. It has to do with the incorrigible criminal. If he is executed by being hung, or in any way on a tree, “His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.” In other words, the guilty man and the one who is hung are symbols of guilt, are the curse of God, and here, particularly, it says they are not to be left hanging up as was the custom of some people. They are to be taken down and buried, because even the sight of evil in the form of an executed evil-doer is an evil thing. Evil was to be put out of the land in every sense of the term. So, Christ becomes the curse for us, the one upon whom all our iniquity is laid. The fullness of the curse of sin is laid upon him. Are there any other questions? Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. To some degree that is true. The Church of England, in {?} the first {?} in particular, became very high church. It is believed that the bishops were essential to the establishment of godly rule, and it emphasized more and more the power of the bishop, even above and over the king, which very few people realized. The Presbyterian party still emphasized the church and the church authority, but not the bishops, of course. Whereas, the emphasis of the independent, which is a general term to cover what later became Congregationalists and Baptists, was to emphasize the priority of the congregation. So, there were three differing emphases here. Now, the Presbyterian party, at the time, tended to favor Parliament as the means of bringing in godly rule, and the Independents, a godly people. Any other questions?

If not, I’d like to remind you that this Thursday, we will continue our class on the Biblical Doctrine of Knowledge, Thursday night, 8-9 p.m. at the Gutierrez home. 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