Salvation and Godly Rule

The Forgiven

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Works

Lesson: The Forgiven

Genre: Speech

Track: 39

Dictation Name: RR136V39

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Our scripture is from the Epistle to the Hebrews 10:16-22, and our subject: The Forgiven. “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having an high priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.”

Since the Fall, it has been an aspect of man’s sin since he sees himself as a god, rather than a sinner, to discuss forgiveness as though he were primarily the forgiver. All too often, when we think of forgiveness, we think of it in terms of forgiving other people. We are very much aware of their offenses, and in this we are humanists. The primary fact about us that we are the forgiven. It is God who is primarily the forgiver. Our forgiveness of one another is an aspect of God’s forgiveness, a condition of our being forgiven. “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” We are forgiven. This is the primary fact about us.

Thus, while St. Peter was on the right track, in part, when he asked in Matthew 8:21, “Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Till seven times?” He was nonetheless, in raising that question still seeing himself primarily as the forgiver. What he should have asked was, “How oft shall I sin against God and against man when I break God’s laws and still be forgiven? Till seven times?” Peter would have understood the point much more clearly and would have been spared all the grief that was his because of his own sin against God and his inability to recognize the nature and extent of forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a God-centered fact, a theological fact, and a legal fact. God forgives as sovereign Lord and judge, and our forgiveness is in response to his grace in terms of his law word. Forgiveness begins and ends with God and his word. If we see ourselves as forgivers, in the primary sense, we have usurped God’s office.

Before we are the forgiven, there must be effectual calling, justifying grace, and our response, faith. The Larger Catechism said of faith, in Question 72, “What is justifying faith? Justifying faith is a saving grace wrought in the heart of the sinner by the spirit and word of god whereby he, being convinced of his sin and misery, and as a disability in himself and all other creatures, to recover him out of his lost condition not only a{?} to the truth of the promise of the Gospel, but receiveth and resteth upon Christ and his righteousness therein held forth, for pardon of sin, and for the accepting and accounting of his person, righteous in the sight of God for salvation. How doth faith justify a sinner in the sight of God? Faith justifies a sinner in the sight of God not because of those other graces which do always accompany it, or good works that are the fruits of it, nor as if the grace of faith nor any act thereof were imputed to him for justification, but only as it is an instrument by which he receiveth and acquired Christ and his righteousness.” Faith, thus, is a gift of God which prepares us to receive his forgiveness.

When we discuss faith, therefore, in relationship to forgiveness, we must emphasize that faith is not merely belief on the part of man, but it is God’s work in man’s life, a saving grace wrought in the heart of the sinner by the Spirit of God and his work. St. Paul speaks emphatically of this centrality of the word of God in faith. In Romans 10:17, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Faith is related to law in that faith recognizes that it is condemned in the sight of God because when we have faith in God, we assent to God’s law and to the judgment of that law, and then we recognize God’s grace in Jesus Christ.

The Greek word translated as faith is “pistis,” and it means “belief, trust, a firm persuasion, conviction,” and much more. It is contrasted in the scripture to unbelief, and unbelief is associated with death and faith with life, so that the association of faith in scripture is with knowledge. It is with works, and it is clearly with life. These are all aspects of a vital, of a living faith.

But it is more than that. A very much neglected, a central, an important aspect of faith our text points to. In our scripture, St. Paul declares to the Hebrews everywhere that when God made his covenant and said he was going to call out a new people, he would regenerate them and write his law on the tables of their hearts, “and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” There will be remission of sins, and no more offering for sins because Christ will have come, so the great fact of regeneration and the forgiveness of sins is stressed.

Then, emphatically, “having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way,” “let us draw near with true heart in full assurance of faith.” This is an aspect of faith that needs to be stressed. It has been very much neglected. Boldness. This boldness lies in the assurance of being forgiven and accepted. “There is therefore no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.”

Shakespeare has a line which reads, “Conscience doth make cowards of us all,” a bad conscience, and we all know how a bad conscience has, at one time or another, struck at our vital nerve and made us incapable of action, and how in people who are ungodly we have seen this paralysis set in. I recall in my student days the one big, burly fellow who was perhaps the most cock-sure, most pugnacious and most arrogant person in the dorm, and who treated all girls as though they were dirt, and they all adored him. He was big and handsome and very popular. There was a joke among some of us who still knew him, about five or six years later. He was married and he was the most hen-pecked man I have ever seen, and his wife, when we knew her on campus, was a slip of a girl who was as meek and submissive as they come, but the thing that characterized {?} was that he very quickly had a very bad conscience with respect to his wife, and “conscience doth make cowards of us all.” His old boldness was gone.

Now, what St. Paul tells us is this: that because our hearts have been sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water, we can draw near to God with true hearts in full assurance of faith, having boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. It is important for us to understand, therefore, some aspects of this holy boldness. This holy boldness is a basic aspect of man’s exercise of dominion. With this holy boldness, man is restored, made a new creature in Christ and commissioned to exercise dominion and it takes boldness to exercise dominion in this world, to press forward in the confidence of victory.

In relationship to forgiveness, therefore, this holy boldness means that we demonstrate faith. We forgive in terms of God’s word with a boldness that looks forward to the Jubilee. “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Sometimes to forgive seems such a risky thing, but when with a holy boldness we forgive, we are putting our confidence in the power of God. When we extend forgiveness in terms of God’s word, we look forward to the Jubilee. We believe that that which God has begun through Jesus Christ and his resurrection, for our regeneration and the forgiveness of our sins, and the holy boldness he has implanted in our hearts, he will extend unto others. This boldness, this advance, this conquest is closely associated throughout scripture with forgiveness.

Thus, when our Lord opened the chapter, Isaiah 61, and began to read therein, he read a very significant passage to the people in the synagogue, the proclamation concerning the Jubilee. “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to open up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified,” and our Lord then closed the book and said, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.”

The Jubilee meant the forgiveness of sins. It meant liberty. It meant healing, comfort, and joy, and boldness to conquer the earth, and that conquest began in Christ, his life and his resurrection. The proclamation of the kingdom of God, and the remission of sins, forgiveness, are always proclaimed together. The remission of sins, forgiveness of sins, gives men the holy boldness to conquer all things in Christ’s name. Forgiveness is also a demonstration of love. It means restitution. We, having received grace, share it, and we share it because we have confidence in God’s future and Christ.

Now then, St. Paul tells the Hebrews who were facing persecution, these were the Christian believers everywhere. Most of them still of the Jewish background and hence, his letter specifically to these, the prospect for many of them was discouraging. There were only a small handful in the face of the Roman Empire. Humanly speaking, they had no future, no chance. The day of toleration had ended and the day of persecution had begun. At any moment, the Jewish/Roman war might break out as it did, in a very brief time after this letter, and these people were fully aware of what was happening. They were thoroughly discouraged and disheartened. A sea of trouble was rising against them, and so it is when St. Paul speaks to them and speaks of the great fact of the remission of sins, he therefore declares we now have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. We can approach God, the sovereign, the Almighty God, the greatest power in the universe, in boldness, holy boldness. We can commit to him our every hope, our every want and wish, and if we can be bold in relationship to God, we can certainly be bold in relationship to man. This is the implication.

It is the forgiveness of sins, the fact of being the forgiven, that changes us from guilty people whoa re afraid of life, afraid of God, afraid of people, into a bold people who have boldness before God and boldness before men. This is what it means to be forgiven, to be among the people of holy boldness, before all things. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto thee that in Jesus Christ, we have remission of sins and have been summoned by thy word to exercise a holy boldness before thee and before all things. Strengthen us, our Father, in this holy boldness. Make us ever confident concerning the things which we do in thy name and to thy glory, and grant that ours be the victory in all things through Jesus Christ. Prepare, our Father, for thy suffering saints the world over. Strengthen their hearts, we beseech thee, and make them ever mindful, our Father, of thy promises, of the assurance of thy word, and of the summons to conquer in thy name. We thank thee that where two or three are gathered together in thy name, thou art there in the midst of them, and that we have thy promise that we need not fear anything for thou art ever with us and if thou art with us, who can be against us? Our God, we thank thee. In Jesus name. Amen.

Are there any questions now, first of all with respect to our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] {?} was when he was seeking forgiveness, having sinned.

[Audience] Oh, I see. Then after {?}

[Rushdoony] After he changes, and he also says subsequently, “Blessed be the Lord God who teacheth my hands to war. By my God I shall leap over a wall.” So, you see the holy boldness in David emphatically when he stands in the fact of forgiveness. Yes?

[Audience] {?} are the Hebrews considered {?} not Christians.

[Rushdoony] I’m not sure I understand your question.

[Audience] I’m curious if the present {?} are post-millennialists essentially.

[Rushdoony] Oh, yes. No, they’re most humanists and nothing, but the Pharisees at the time of our Lord were essentially pre-millennial. At this point, they had definitely broken with the Old Testament faith so that when St. Paul speaks of Jewish fables, this is what he had in mind. They have created all kinds of myths concerning a Jewish worldwide kingdom, the Messiah was going to come and establish it, and this is why in the Gospel of John, we are told that when they saw the miracle of the loaves, the first miraculous feeding, they tried to take him by force and compel him to be their king, and this was in terms of a thoroughly Jewish hope, a political hope. Any other questions? Yes?

[Audience] {?} boldness and not every one {?} every wish. Shouldn’t our {?} wishes be conformed to the world {?} God in our life, because {?} we have {?} for us.

[Rushdoony] Right. When they are according to his word, we should be bold.

[Audience] Forgiveness can only be remembered{?} Forgiveness can only be forgiven{?} by the one, the individual {?}

[Rushdoony] I’m not sure I understand. Are we to forgive others only?

[Audience] {?} only as Christians {?} Christ has forgiven us {?}

[Rushdoony] Oh, yes. There are two kinds of forgiveness. Both are necessary according to the word of God. There is civil, or social, forgiveness, and there is divine forgiveness. In other words, God says that in society a man who has robbed is only forgiven when he makes restitution. Thus, if we had godly laws as we did say, in the Colonial period, when a man stole, he made restitution, and there was no more penalty. No one had any right to hold anything against him. He had a clean record. He had made restitution. This did not mean there was forgiveness in relationship to God as far as his sins towards God were concerned, as far as regeneration was concerned. So that a man could have civil forgiveness and man to man forgiveness for an offense, but still not have sought forgiveness in his relationship to God, for his sin against God, for his rebellion against God. So, there are two aspects to forgiveness. This is why when our Lord forgave the woman taken in adultery he forgave her religiously. She had come to accept him. She called him Lord, “curios,” which was the same as saying God, it was another way of saying God. She knew who he was, and she believed in him. The disciples were still calling him rabbi, or teacher, so he said, “Thy sins be forgiven thee. Go and sin nor more,” but as far as say a civil judgment, that was up to her husband, that was up to a court. That was not his concern there, you see. So, he didn’t touch on the civil aspect of it. He dealt with religious, and we should have both kinds of forgiveness operative in a society.

On a sense, I’ve touch on what we’re going to deal with next week when we deal with forgiveness as such. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] From the fact of forgiveness.

[Audience] From an unregenerate person.

[Rushdoony] Oh, an unregenerate person. Well, you notice I spoke of it as a holy boldness. The unregenerate person is sometimes bold, but the boldness is not a godly one. It is arrogance. It is presumption.

[Audience] Where do they get that from?

[Rushdoony] Well, the question is where do they get that? They get it from their attempt to play God, but sooner or later this collapses and they are, after the first flush, very much unable to function. They are paralyzed by their conscience, by their acts. One of the illustrations of that is the fact that, historically, one of the best cases that can be made for anything in history is for imperialism. Now, there is no question that imperialism has sometimes produced certain brutalities, certain oppressions, but when you analyze the sum total of what the various imperial powers did, you’d have to say, for the most part, with exceptions (Assyria and the Soviet Union being conspicuous exceptions), the imperial powers of history have, by and large, been malevolent. They have, as they’ve gone out, brought people under the sway of civilization. They have spent more money on them than they’ve ever taken from the area. They’ve educated them. They’ve helped advance them. When you realize what the world was before the great imperial expansion of the last century into Asia and Africa, it makes you realize how those areas have advanced, and they’ve advanced as they did not for a thousand years before just because of imperialism, and yet the irony is, imperialism sees an initial thrust outward, and even then that outward thrust has behind it a sufficient number of religious people. You had a tremendously religious element in the British, for example, which lead to the British Empire. The Scots were very prominent in the establishment of the Empire. You had it among some of the early Romans when they established the Empire, and then you have the Empire beginning to collapse because of a bad conscience, so that it’s a false boldness and then there is a collapse of what that boldness achieves because it was improperly motivated, and the sense of guilt then overwhelmed the person.

Now, no one would have dreamed that the victors in World War 2, Britain in particular, would have collapsed to the point it has today, by giving away as much as it did, by pouring as much money as it did into the commonwealth when it was turning them loose, and by allowing the commonwealth countries to kick it in the teeth as they so often did, and yet they have. So, without a holy boldness, there is very often a false boldness which leads to a radical collapse, a guilt complex whereby you’re trying to atone for what you have done. Yes?

[Audience] Why was David allowed to live after he had Uriah murdered?

[Rushdoony] The question is why was David allowed to live after having Uriah murdered? He was guilty. He did deserve the death penalty, and God did bring about a death penalty, as it were, on his child whom he loved so dearly and then a judgment upon the nation as well, all of which was very grievous for him. The fact is that God, in his sovereign grace, can choose to forgive or to punish as he sees fit. We don’t have that prerogative but God does, and in this case, he had a purpose to accomplish in and through David, as well as a judgment on the nation whom he regarded as more in sin at that time for other reasons than for David. The nation did not appreciate David and what he meant to them. They were too ready to turn on him in the Absalom case, and so God was ready to use David’s sin to bring judgment upon the nation, as well as more grief than David would have experienced if he had been executed, so there was a real judgment.

[Audience] {?} verse 23 {?}

[Rushdoony] Verse 26. “For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.” This clearly, according to all scholars of the Greek, does not refer to those who have been converted, but those who have been within the fold of the faith, who have heard the word of truth, and the reference primarily here is to the many, many Jews who had received the knowledge. Christ had been in their very midst, and the apostles, and they had still sinned willfully after that. It also applies to someone who’s been under the ministry of the word without being converted, and then sins willfully and with a high hand, and so he says, when there is sin with this kind of knowledge, deliberately and with a high hand, then there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin. Well, that latter phrase, of course, has reference specifically to the Jews. The blood of bulls and of goats has no meaning for them. They sinned willfully. They’ve denied Christ’s sacrifice. Are they going to find atonement through a sacrificial system which is now obsolete? The primary reference is then to the times, but it has an application for all time. Are there any other questions?

With that, I’d like to remind you of the notices which you can pick up in the back of the Christmas festival Saturday, December 2. I believe that’s just 13 days away, so please reserve this date and tell your friends about it so that we can have a very well-attended and successful festival. 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