Salvation and Godly Rule

Degradation

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Doctrinal Studies

Lesson: Degradation

Genre: Speech

Track: 18

Dictation Name: RR136J18

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts. A day in thy courts is better than a thousand. For the Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. O Lord of Hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of thy grace and mercy hast made all things, and hast ordained their triumph in Jesus Christ. We thank thee that we have been called and chosen to be a part of thy glorious purpose and victory. Make us ever strong, our Father, therefore, in thy grace and in thy service. Teach us, day by day, by thy word the way wherein we should walk, the things we should do that we might better serve thee and magnify thy holy name. Bless us now by thy word and by thy spirit, O Lord, and grant us thy peace, thy joy, and victory. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Our scripture is from the book of Job 2:1-10. Our subject: Degradation. Before we read that, let’s glance first at the first chapter, the ninth verse. “Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, Doth Job fear God for naught? Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.”

Now, the second chapter. “Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord. And the Lord said unto Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.

And Satan answered the Lord, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life. So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes. Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die. But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.”

In Genesis 3:1-5, we have Satan’s plan of salvation. In essence, it is this: Man, the creature, can become his own god, independent from God to decide good and evil for himself. This was Satan’s program for the angels, the fallen angels, and his program for man. He declared that God, in trying to prevent his creatures from realizing this, was a liar. He was not telling the truth that every man could be his own god, and therefore, was engaged on a great preventative campaign, lying to man, preventing man from realizing his own godhood. This is still Satan’s program.

Philip Blair Jones has made an interesting comment, quoting from Warfield. “Cant and equivocation aside, the world’s battle is being fought between two armies. On the one side is the religion of humanity. On the other is Christianity in its splendor; Calvinism. He who believes in God without reserve and is determined that God shall be God to him, in all his thinking, feeling, willing. In the entire compass of his life activities, intellectual, moral, spiritual. Throughout all his individual, social, religious relations, is by force of that strictest of all logic which presides over the outworking of principles into thought and life by the very necessity of the case a Calvinist. ‘So spoke Dr. B.B. Warfield in 1909 at Princeton Seminary for the 400th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin. Substitute the words “man” for “God” and “humanist” for “Calvinist,” in the above quotation, and the followers of humanity’s religion are contrasted with their opponents.”

Now, that’s well stated, and this precisely is Satan’s program. In every statement of faith where god belongs, substitute man, substitute the creature and you have the essence of Satan’s program.

And so under the influence of this, man proclaimed his freedom from law and a do-it-yourself idea of law. Satan said, “Ye shall not surely die,” and men still dream of reversing God’s verdict. They believe that with science they will overcome death, and they will nullify God’s decree of death. All that man needs, they hold, is time and he will surpass the God of the Bible.

Now Satan also insisted in this temptation, as we saw, that God is a liar. “Ye hath God said.” You mean you believe everything God has said? This same indictment, this same program appears in the book of Job. Satan appears before God to indict Job. Here is the man God delights in, the most faithful of all His saints on earth, and so Satan appears to say, “You don’t know anything, God, about reality. I know better than you.” Does Job fear God for naught? “Something’s in it for Job. Look at the way you’ve blessed him. You’ve made him rich. He has seven sons and three daughters, seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred she-asses, and a very great household, so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the East. Surely, Job loves you. Look how well of he is because you have blessed him. Now put forth thine hand, and touch all that he hath and he will curse thee to thy face.” So Satan says, “I know men. I know the creation better than you, the Creator,” and the Lord said unto Satan, “Behold, all that he hath is in thy power, only upon himself put not forth thine hand.” And so Satan immediately destroyed all his property, destroyed his children so that only Job was left, and Job fell down upon the ground and worshiped and said, “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked I shall I return thither. The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. In all this, Job sinned not nor charged God foolishly.”

But Satan was still not content, and when God said, Do you see? It did not work. He is a man of faith. He moved in terms of faith.

“And Satan answered the Lord, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face,” and so God said Alright, he is in your hands, only don’t kill him. We shall see. Now Satan’s indictment of Job is really Satan’s indictment not only of Job, but of God. Satan claimed that God was wrong about Job and Job’s character. Satan claimed that he had a great insight into reality than God himself, and everything that he said shows his contempt, not only for Job but also for God.

Moreover, Satan claimed that Job and all men are governed by self-interest, that Job is simply pragmatic. What Satan was saying was that God is also the same. Satan confused God’s asaity, that is, his self-being, with egoism and selfishness, and when he says that Job is essentially selfish, he’s not moving by faith. He’s moving in terms of self-interest. Aye, “skin for skin, all that a man hath will he give for his life.” He’s also saying, God you don’t know yourself. You’re no better.

Now, to prove his point concerning Job, and God, Satan must degrade Job to prove that Job is only capable of raw self-interest, and thereby to prove that God doesn’t know Job and therefore, doesn’t really know himself. What he’s trying to prove ultimately is that Job and God are no different than himself. Satan’s thesis is everyman, every creature his own god, doing his own thing. I’ve done it, and I’m the only sensible one in the universe, and I’m going to prove to God that Job is no different than I am and that He himself is the same, that God is no different than Satan, and so his attempt is to degrade a saint of God before God’s eyes, to show somehow that the people whom God delights in are no better than he is, and so Satan, to prove his thesis, must move against Job. He must move against you. He must move against every saint of God in history to degrade them, and his is a program of salvation by degradation. If we prove that all men are moved by self-interest, we’ll show God that He is deluded, and we’ll show God that he is no better, and then maybe he’ll leave us alone so that every man can do his own thing, and so Satan must degrade. Satan’s program is not evil, but self-righteousness. He denies that there is any standard of right and wrong. The only evil is that which limits me in my self-righteousness, and so Satan says, Job does what he does because it pleases him. It is righteousness that conforms to his own ego.

Thus, in every age, we must recognize the intense self-righteousness of the Satanic, and their urge to degrade. Some years ago, earlier in this century, it was discovered that the Wordsworth had an illegitimate daughter. Now words were, Well, never really an orthodox Christian although he came closer to that in his old age. It was very much an offense to all liberal scholars because here was a man who, in his youth, had been a radical, had welcomed the French Revolution and very quickly turned against it, and became an ultra-conservative leader among the literary people of England. To this day, the intellectuals have never forgiven him for that. Thus, when they found that this ultra-conservative, literary leader had, during his period in France, as a young revolutionist, become involved with a French girl and had an illegitimate daughter whom he cared for all his life. It was {?}, from one end of the literary world, and from one end of the university world to the other, and one Harvard scholar said, with delight, “It makes him seem like one of us.”

They had brought him down to their own level, and of course, they’re going through all kinds of proven research, it’s proven to be futile, to find out what else they can dig in up in the way of dirt against Wordsworth, and against everyone who is not on their side, because there is the urge, the love of degrading to prove that others are no better than they are, to prove this is the way reality is, and when they say, This is the way reality is, they are saying, this is the way God is. This is their ultimate {?}, and of course, this is the essence of modern literature and art. The modern novel, as Jacques Barzoon{?} has pointed out, is at war with culture and morality, with excellence, with Christian faith, and its whole point is to tell everyone, You see how ugly and vicious reality is. This is the truth about everything. It’s the truth about you. It’s the truth about God. This is the thesis also of the films, television, just about all popular entertainment today, to degrade, to say that the reality about everything is precisely what Satan says it is, and you’re not living right until you recognize this and begin to do your own thing, until you stop pretending to be moral.

Perhaps some of you, if you read the morning paper, noticed that a prominent public health official said that VD is spectacularly on the increase, and that the pill makes people more prone to it, and do you know who he blamed for this? The people who believe in virginity. So, they’re responsible for the increase in VD. Now, if that’s illogical, if it sounds logical it’s because it is, but the logic in it is that whatever you find, you’re going to try to degrade the godly. The urge to degrade is such that the atheist says that all men are atheists at heart. The lecher says that all men are lechers, and one man has said there is no virginity in the United States. Anyone who claims to be a virgin who is over eight years old is a liar. The urge to degrade, the urge to pollute, and the essence of this is self-righteousness.

One scholar of the Marquis De Sade has said, “To the extent that God can be viewed as the original guilty party who attacked man before man could attack him, to that extent man has acquired the right and the strength to attack his neighbor.” If that sounds illogical, again, it’s because it is, and yet there’s a logic about it. If you assume that egoism, selfishness, the desire to pollute, to degrade, to do everything evil first of all begins with God, then God has attacked man by trying to prevent man from realizing his own propensities, and therefore, man has the right to get even by attacking everyone else, and by doing everything that he sees fit. The goal is, “the exaltation of the ego to {?}”. Man must not bow before any will but his own, and he must try to degrade and to say, “This is the reality. This is the true righteousness. Every man his own god doing his own thing, and given enough time, I will prove that Job is such a man, to prove that God is such a one.” Satan did not give up on this. He failed with {?}. He tried it with our Lord. At every point in the temptation of our Lord, the appeal was to self-interest, and Satan’s thesis was that because here is one who is both God and man, he will be doubly reached in terms of self-interest. All these things will I give thee, and all this will follow and people will bow down and worship thee. The appeal is to self-interest. It’s an urge to degrade, to prove that true righteousness is exactly what Satan said it is. Self-righteousness. Every man his own god doing his own thing.

Thus, there was more to the testing of Job than just Job. There was Satan’s program of salvation, to degrade all men and ultimately God. But it failed, of course, as it shall fail in every age. Job’s reaction to the loss of all things was an act of faith. He fell down upon the ground and worshiped, “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither. The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Now, there are many questions in Job’s mind as the book of Job continues. He does not understand, but he believes. He is deeply distressed and hurt, and cries out, but he also says, “I know that my redeemer liveth, and I shall stand before Him at the last day.” And when his wife grieved at all that has befallen Job, says, “Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God and die,” and he says, “Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.” Job was a man of God. The Spirit of God was in him, revealing thereby what Job was in the Lord and what God is in himself. Self-interest? This was Satan’s thesis, but God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ,” who underwent the agony of crucifixion for our sins that we might become Sons of God. Satan’s urge to degrade is still with us. We see it very prominently in our day, but even more powerful, far more powerful, before whom Satan is as nothing, is the Lord, who raises up the “A bruised reed shall he not break,” nor quench a smoking flax, and He is our Lord and savior, as against Satan’s urge to degrade, He raises us up out of sin and death, and makes us a glorious people destined for the new creation. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we thank thee that though Satan seeks ever to degrade us, thou hast raised us up in Jesus Christ to sit in heavenly places, to rule in Christ over all things, and day by day, to manifest thy dominion, thy victory and thy peace. O Lord, our God, how great thou art and we praise thee, and we thank thee that thou hast called us to trample Satan underfoot. Bless us through this purpose in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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

[Audience] What is the relation of predestination of Job’s {?}

[Rushdoony] It was a part of God’s purpose and plan. Yes. He created all things, including Satan, and He created all things including Satan’s will, so that this was a part of the predestination of God. It also works out, you see, the implications of creation. Since we are created in the image of God, it means that we can try to play God, but when you try to play God apart from God, that’s evil. So you see, God foresaw all these things and recognized that all these things were possibilities inherent in creation. What he foresaw, He predestined, so that these things indeed have come to pass, that they’re totally within the will of God and totally governed and ordained by God to fulfill His purpose.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. For example, to put it on very, very limited basis, but still to give an idea, supposing you are building or designing a building, designing and building it. You’re being both the architect and the contractor. You’re going to have to think ahead and predestine that building, as it were. You’re going to have to say, in terms of the kind of use this building has, I’ve got to build this in and that in, and everything, in terms of the kind of use, the kind of weight, and so on, and I will have to think in terms of the possibility of earthquakes and so on. So you are both foreseeing and foreordaining, or predestining everything in terms of what you recognize as the master builder, the possibilities are, and this is precisely what God has done. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. There are some people, Armenians in theology, who hold the Devil is in charge of this world, and this is totally false. There is nothing in the scripture to indicate that he is in charge. I’ve heard it said that when it thunders and lightnings, that this is the Devil’s work. Well, this is ridicules. God is the creator. God alone is Lord, and not one thing that Satan does is apart from the purpose and ordination of God, just as the very hairs of our head are all numbered, so every act, every step, every step of Satan’s head if he isn’t bald, is all numbered. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] No. When it says Prince of this world, by that is meant Prince of the fallen, as against the new creation. That’s what the contrast there implies. Certainly, those who are evil have Satan as their leader, just as we have Christ as our leader. It does not mean the whole world as an entity. World is used in a great number of senses in scripture. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Very well put. This text reveals that Satan could do nothing apart from the permission of God, and that’s as true today as then, and God has a purpose. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Creation is the world as it was created in the beginning. The new creation is all things being brought under the dominion of Christ. Individuals, homes, institutions, and the new creation finally is at the end when God remakes all things, when the old creation is like an old garment cast away and the new creation come forth.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, we are. Every man is a new creature, or it can be better translated a new creation, in Christ. We are citizens as the new creation. We are, as it were, in two worlds. We are citizens of the new creation, and we are a new creation in Christ, but it is not a perfect one in that we are not perfectly sanctified. Every godly home is a new creation, a part of the new creation. Everywhere where we work faithfully unto the Lord is an area of the new creation. Yes?

[Audience] {?} man was made for God, God was not made for man. {?} [ 36:19]

[Rushdoony] Yes, well put. Man was made for God. God was not made for man. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] The angels.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] It’s a term sometimes used as the angels. Yes?

[Audience] I a great deal about the third world. {?}

[Rushdoony] The third world is, it would take an hour or two to go into that. I have, let me see, the series on tapes on modern, on philosophy. I have the third lecture given over to the implications of the third world term. Now, politically today it means the world of the neutralists, but historically, the background is that there was an age of law, the age of God, then the age of grace, the age of the Son, and then the third world is the age of the Spirit. Now, this is done by Gnostics who are really anti-Christian, and the age of the Spirit is when everyone does his own thing. You’re beyond law, and beyond grace, and you’re in the third world where every man is his own god. So, the third world concept has that background. It’s existentialist basically, and Joaquin of Peoria, a Medieval monk, was one of the great formulators of the third world concept.

Our time is almost up, but I’d like to read a few passages from a very interesting book by a Polish scholar, who finally escaped from the Iron Curtain, and has written an anti-Communist book. His name is Leopold Tyrmand, and the title is, The Rosa Luxemburg Contraceptives Cooperative, a Primer on Communist Civilization. Now, it’s a little different from most books because what he is trying to do is to show what communism does to people, what life becomes like under communism. He says, very bluntly, at the beginning he hates it with a passion, and he regards communism as the worst plague that ever befell mankind, “and I nourish the deep hope that this book mirrors my feelings to a sufficient degree.”

But what he is trying to do is through a very careful analysis of what happened in the maternity hospital, how to be a child, how to go to school, how to go through university, how to take advantage of the invention of the telephone, how to use the mails{?}, how to be a woman, why toothpaste does not clean, and many, many chapters like that to show daily life, the average life of people under communism, and I’m going to read just a few illustrations {?} which I think are very telling, on the radical dehumanization and stupidity of communism.

“Quite early, while still in the nursery, the child is first given foods to the fundamental attitude toward him as a human being and an individual,” and then he tells the story about a young mother who calls at the state nursery, impatient to see and pick up her baby after a long working day of separation. The nurse brings her little thing, then explains that “Comrade Nurse, for God’s sake this is not my daughter.” The nurse smiled indulgently, “What the big fuss about? What’s the difference? You bring her back tomorrow in the morning before going to work as it is, wouldn’t you?” Now, that’s a very revealing little illustration as to what it’s like.

Then, of course, he gives illustrations of life on the black market, which is something that is the only way a lot of people survive. This is, I think, is not as revealing as some of the illustrations, but I thought it was very interesting and amusing. “The metaphysics and surrealism of a communist economy open up unlimited possibilities for a person willing to expend a little energy. The improbably simplicity, as opposed to Western sophistication, so well-known especially from British films about operators became the source of the most extravagant successes. The zenith in this sphere was reached once by a certain young Pole, who read an announcement about an unusual campaign to collect bottles as a result of an insufficiency of bottles and the economic plan, and in the marketplace. He then repaired to the nearest grocery store, where he established the price of a bottle containing a certain liquid called soup, was lower than the price being paid for an empty bottle by the economic authority. Unperturbed about the magnitude of his investment, he bought every bottle of the product he could find in stores throughout the entire city and surrounding areas, dumped the soup into the gutter, and sold all the bottles to the state at a handsome profit. In view of the fact that the soup itself was manufactured by a state enterprise, or in other words, that the bottles in question belonged to the state before the sale to the state, one has to admit that the young fellow displayed traits of genius. However, instead of being made Minister of Trade, he was arrested on completely non-economic grounds.”

Then, this illustration. “A bridge was needed over a certain river in Communist Poland. If every screw and every toy{?} has to be centrally planned in advance, you can easily imagine how much planning must go into an entire bridge, and since communist states plan the production of both screws and toys{?} five and six years ahead of time. The central economic plan is officially called the Five of Six Year Plan for Development or Progress.” Now, God can plan in advance, but when we plan, we’ve got to be ready to revise plans because we’re not infallible, and of course, this, he says, “The communist will not admit his plan is always infallible. The bridge then existed in the Central Planning, based on maps of the terrain which turned out to be not very accurate. Because Central Planning always, and on principle is a theoretical business, in a few years, everything concerning the bridge contained not only the seeds of error but also the seeds of fatalism. That is, the solution of matters which was condemned in advance to be wrong, so years went by in preparation, planning, sketching, and ordering materials from firms and factories. These, of course, were also subordinated to the Central Plan, and their production planned in the same way as the bridge.

“When the builders finally arrived at the building site, they found that, according to the plan, the bridge would join the two banks of the river at a sharp, obtuse angle, not at a right angle as is usually the case. This deviation from tried and tested methods came as a complete revelation, inasmuch as the bridge, when close to completion, did not join the two banks orthogonally but seemed to stretch out into the distance along with the river, making the crossing a kind of never-ending winding path, which followed the course of the river. This attraction began to draw crowds of local peasants who tried to explain to the builders that they must have gone crazy. The chief engineer responsible for the construction replied that he had two choices. Either he could finish the ridicules bridge according to plan, receiving his salary and perhaps even a bonus for conscientiousness, or he could ignore the plan, build the bridge correctly, and go to prison. If the river did not conform to the plan, that was the business of the Central Planning Agency and {?}, not his, and he would not argue about it with anyone.

“The peasants went somewhere else to complain and subsequently, a commission of the planning agency came to the construction site. However, as always happened with commissions, by the time it arrived, the bridge was completed according to the plan. The commission {?} declared it an unheard of scandal. The security authorities arrested the engineers, and while they were at it, a few peasants from the local council who were accused of allowing maniacs or saboteurs to build an absurd bridge over a national river geared to the heart of every patriot. The commission also recommended that the bridge be corrected and the plans revised. Shortly thereafter, a new construction team arrived which, on the basis of the new plan, managed to give the rebuilt bridge the shape of a paragraph sign, making it a spectacle on an international scale.

“To make matters worse, unforeseen complications arose with a strangely shaped bridge. Because the raw materials supplied according to the plan had been incorrectly used. Among other things, the electrical wiring got tangled up so that the bridge is live, and everyone who walks on it gets a shock. The simplest solution would have been to tear the bridge down, bomb it, destroy it, but this was out of the question. The bridge was in the plan, the sacred and infallible plan, the ultimate tabernacle of the communist idea of success, achievement, accomplishment, and the improvement of the world. The careers, jobs, even the personal freedom of too many people, from the lowest strata of that region to the highest ranking post in the Polish economy depended on the continued existence of the bridge. Thus, the bridge stands to this day. A solution was even found for the unforeseen problem of electric shock. It turned out that the plan for that region provided for special medical aid in buildings located near a dangerous electrical current. Thus, an ambulance was put on duty 24 hours a day near the bridge. Anyone who steps on the bridge, gets a shock and is immediately taken to the hospital. This, of course, represents the patent and natural triumph of the plan over man.”

Well, the book has much more of the same nature and it is a delight to read, and you can see why this man hates communism with a passion and makes it clear that what he wants to do is to portray the insanity of it, how ridicules it is.

One final thing. He says that the American diplomatic principle is as insane almost as anything that they do, but he said in spite of that, America is the dream of everyone in the Iron Curtain countries, and I thought this was amusing, when Polish television, communist Poland, was invented, they didn’t have materials, so they bought old and cheap American serials for entertainment programs. As a result, 90% of the boys polled about the ideal of their dreams in communist Poland, replied “Zorro,” and to the question, “What literary or film character you have come to know in recent years would you like, meet and like?” Millions of Polish television viewers replied, “Dr. Kildaire,” and so they had to drop these things because they were all getting the wrong idea about their goals in life, and this one, there’s so much in here that’s amusing and delightful, as well as very sad, but this, behind the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe, the gypsies who have caused people in parts to tell their fortunes don’t begin with the ritual words, “Elsewhere you will be rich,” “You will win in a lottery,” “You will get married.” Rather, “You will get your exit visa and go abroad in the near future.”

Well, 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