Salvation and Godly Rule

Incarnation & Indwelling

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Works

Lesson: Incarnation & Indwelling

Genre: Speech

Track: 46

Dictation Name: RR136Y46

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Our scripture lesson is from the first epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians 3:16-17, and 6:19-20. Our subject: Incarnation & Indwelling.

“Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.”

Now the sixth chapter, verses 19-20: “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.”

We touched briefly last week on the fact that the church has, at times, claimed inerrancy and infallibility for itself. This doctrine is normally associated with the Catholic church, but it is by no means confined to the Catholic church. In some respects, perhaps the most far-reaching expression of that belief has been in Greek and Russian Orthodox circles. It has also been very commonplace in Protestant circles, although very commonly in disguised form. Let us analyze the significance of these ideas and where they spring from so that we might understand their fallacy and what scripture teaches.

The idea of the inerrancy and infallibility of the church rests in the idea or doctrine of the church as the continuation of the incarnation. The rush{?} now is that if the church is indeed the body of Christ as scripture very clearly teaches, then it follows that the church is, in some sense, a continuation of the life of Christ and of his incarnation. That it is in fact the continuing history of the incarnation of Christ. This is the rationale.

The doctrine has had extensive expression. It has become popular in some liberal circles on a limited basis in recent years. We find approaches to the idea very emphatically set forth in Paul Tillich and in Donald M. Bailey, two very popular and influential liberal {?} theologians. Both these men formulated the idea of a sacramental universe. Now, if you have the idea of a sacramental universe, you have, in effect, formulated a far more deadly doctrine than any of the older and more conservative expressions of the idea of the church as a continuation of the incarnation.

Well, what does this idea of a sacramental universe mean? Let us examine, first of all, what the Westminster Shorter Catechism says with regard to the meaning of sacrament. It declares in Question 92, What is the sacrament? A sacrament is a holy ordinance instituted by Christ, wherein by sensible finds Christ and the benefits of the new covenant are represented {?} and applied to believers. Now very clearly, a sacrament is something that Christ instituted as a means of grace. The {?} universe, sacramental means that nature is made a bearer of grace that supernatural grace demands. It says then that instead of nature, like man, being fallen and in need of redemption, restoration, that nature is on a higher plane than man, is in some sense divine, and can give grace to man. This, of course, completely alters the biblical perspective. It gives up the world in which everything in nature is in some sense, a bearer of grace, and every kind of institution then can become a bearer of grace. It means that the faith, the {?}, everything in the natural sphere can become a bearer of grace. It can become sacramental. Naturally, as in these theologians, Tillich in particular, it leads virtually to a sacramental kind of political order.

Now, Bailey, in discussing the idea of a sacramental universe, comments, “Some writers go further in developing the connection between nature and sacraments. Dr. Lampert of the Eastern Orthodox tradition maintains in the general basis of the sacraments that there is something holy and theandric in nature itself, and even that in some mystical sense, there is a natural connection between baptism and water.” Now the word used here is theandric, which has to deal with that which is divine and human. If nature is theandric, it means it has inherent in it, both the divine and the human. This falls, quite logically, for Dr. Lambert to say, and Bailey to echo that water itself, even apart from baptism, has something mystical and sacramental about it. As an irreverent thought, we would have to say that if everything natural is theandric, then wine {?} is theandric, and any wino who is drinking a bottle of wine, is at any time partaking of a sacrament, because everything in a natural order is theandric, according to these men.

Now, obviously, this idea is very dangerous. When Bailey stopped short of declaring that the church was a continuation of the incarnation, it did not mean that he was somewhat more conservative than those Protestant, Catholic, and Greek and Russian theologians who say that the church is a continuation of the {?} incarnation. On the contrary, he is far more deadly than they are, in that he makes the whole world, other than the church, a continuation of the incarnation. He divinizes virtually all reality.

Moreover, Bailey links us with Tillich to sacraments to the incarnation rather than to the atonement, and he tells us that we are saved by God, “Through faith, and therefore, partly through sacraments which he uses to awaken and to strengthen our faith. Thus, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is a means of grace and an instrument of salvation.”

Now, we are not saved by partaking of the Lord’s table. We partake of it because we are saved. If Bailey were right, then the more communion wine and the more communion bread that we could gorge down, the more sure we would be saved. That’s the very crude logic of his position, but the sacraments celebrate our salvation. They are not the means of it.

It idea of a sacramental universe has no ground in scripture. Nature, like men, is fallen, and nature like men is in need of redemption and restoration. Neither nature nor men are divine or are {?} or part of God. But this doctrine of an institution as a continuation of the incarnation, or the universe as sacramental is not new. It was common to paganism. This is why the Roman Emperors and the Pharaoh of Egypt and various rulers of Antiquity regarded themselves as divine. The state was a divine order. It represented the incarnation of whatever deity was in nature, and the ruler was the culmination, the high point of that incarnation, and therefore, he was infallible. There could be no appeal against him in some society{?}.

But scripture no where speaks of the incarnation except with reference to Jesus Christ, as a unique, as a single event only is it described in scripture. When scripture indeed does speak of the church, it does not speak in terms of incarnation, but in terms of indwelling. In our scripture, in the first passage, 3:16-17, St. Paul declares, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.”

When St. Paul wrote these words, the imagery was very vivid through any Jewish of Gentile believer. Every Jew immediately through of the glory of the second temple, and it’s the indwelling presence of God, the glory of God which had, until the crucifixion, inhabited the temple. Every pagan thought immediately of the tremendous temples that were commonplace from Corinth to Athens to Rome, and to every great city. Magnificent marble edifices, monument to beauty, so that to speak of man and the church as temples of God was indeed very, very magnificent and glorious a description of man. However, if any man defile or the word can also be translated, destroy, the temple of God, him shall God destroy, for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

Now, in this particular chapter, St. Paul is speaking primarily of the church, the beginning of the chapter he deals with the controversy in the church, and he deals with his ministry and the ministry of Apollo to the church, but declares that the foundation is only Jesus Christ, and he declares that that is the only kind of foundation he or Apollos, or any other minister can lay, or any man, and from there on, he goes on to the passage in question to generalize, and speak of the church primarily and of individuals, secondarily, as temples of God. Then, in the sixth chapter, he deals very specifically with the individual. He is dealing with the sins of believers, particularly in the immediate passage preceding to fornication and other sexual sins, and he concludes by saying, “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.”

Now St. Paul is emphatically here declaring that the proclamation of the church and of our body is a direct offense against God and brings on the vengeance of God against us. Thus, incarnation and indwelling are radically different concepts. Where you have an incarnation, the human and the divine, are in perfect union without confusion. No judgment by the one nature over the other is possible. It is perfect union. It would be blasphemous to think of the divine nature in Christ criticizing the human nature. It’s unthinkable. Christ is a unity, truly God and truly man, in perfect union without confusion.

Now to speak of the universe or of the state, or of the church as a continuation of the incarnation, means that you thereby place those institutions, or the universe, beyond criticism. The logical conclusion of the idea of a sacramental universe is, whatever is, is right, and of course, this is a conclusion that men have come to more than once, as a result of such thinking. But when you have the doctrine of indwelling and the fact of indwelling, there is no confusion of either deity of humanity, one with the other. There is no attempt to claim the attributes of the one for the other. The indweller can judge the indwelled. This cannot be so with respect to incarnation. The Christian and the church can be God’s temple. They had been, they have also been judged. Very often the church has been forsaken by God, and people have been forsaken by God when his judgment is upon them. The indweller is not bound to whatever the indwelled does. He can judge it. He can condemn it. He can destroy his temple, and the destruction of the temple twice, in biblical history, is a sign of the fact that God can turn on that which he indwells if his judgment requires it.

Indwelling is not limited to the church or the individual, the believer. A godly family can have the indwelling present, of course {dang plane!}. A godly state can be indwelled. We have scripture for that. The very anointing of the king and of judgment in the Old Testament era set forth the fact that it was God’s realm and by his spirit, he would indwell a godly ruler, and protect that order. We have two civil Pentecosts in the Old Testament as evidence of the fact that God’s indwelling can be with the state. It can be with a godly vocation, with a school, with any part of our life and of our institutions. The concept of indwelling keeps God and man separate as scripture requires, but brings them together in terms of faith and obedience by man and by the inclusiveness{?} of man. As a man grows in faith, and as he rebuilds all things in terms of God’s word, he is more and more faithful to God and to God’s Spirit, more and more, in close alliance with the indwelling Spirit.

The doctrine means that God is where he is obeyed. The house of God is his possession, and the temple means house, and to the extent that he allow God to possess our lives and to govern all our ways, to the extent that we obey him and allow nothing to separate us from him, to that extent we move in terms of God’s calling and indwelling. This doctrine means also that the church is the body of Christ only in so far as it is holy and obedient to the Lord. It has no guaranteed status. Our Lord said to the church of Laodicea, “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.”

Now this distinction between incarnation and indwelling is extremely important. The background of the church’s thinking and the background of the world’s thinking is that, of course, {?} institution, has been in terms of a pagan doctrine, not a biblical doctrine, of incarnation. It has not thought through its position in terms of the doctrine of indwelling. This is why so many scholars who have attempted to write a study of the church in the Old Testament, or the church in the New Testament, or the state in the Old Testament, are baffled. Some of the books that have been written in this area are a mass of self-contradiction. Why? Because they are looking for highly institutionalized kind of things such as the modern world has. They look for institutions to bind society together. They look for permanency in the structure of these institutions so that they will be here, come what may, in terms of man’s will. Somehow, the biblical pattern seems so ephemeral.

As a matter of fact, Albert J. Nock, in his study Man’s Enemy, the State, after examining some of these various studies of the state in the Old Testament, concluded there was no state, and therefore, the Old Testament was in favor of anarchy. Well, in that he was looking for the institutionalization that the modern world calls the state, he was right, but he missed the point entirely. The binding element in pagan society is a whole section of human institutions which claim somehow, implicitly or explicitly to be God walking on earth. The binding element in scripture is God’s law, and thus, when you examine scripture, what appears primarily is God’s law. This has priority. This is the binding element, not the state or not the church, as institutions which men have made and said “They’re going to endure, come what may, and we’re going to ensure that somebody can budge these institutions.”

The whole emphasis has been wrong, because the doctrine of indwelling has been neglected. It has begun from the assumption that the church is the body of Christ, and therefore, it is, in some sense, a continuation of Christ in the world. Protestants have been more weasel-worded about stating the same thing the Eastern Orthodox and the Catholic church holds, but in effect, they’ve affirmed very much the same kind of thing, but there is a difference, to use the very imagery they use between a head and a body. We are not told to press the imagery too far, or given any permission to state that the oneness is there, come what may, and that it applies to the institution rather than to the congregation. The body of Christ is at all times, the people of God. Very commonly, the word that is used for church cannot be rendered the building ever, or the institution, but the congregation, the people in whom God indwells. Over and over again, men have been confronted with the horror of seeing the world over-institutionalized, and men have rebelled against this and sought to remedy it by swinging from this over-institutionalization to a kind of anarchism, and in our time, we definitely have both very prominently with us.

Implicit in the background of both is the doctrine of paganism, that of the sacramental universe. The only answer to these oppressive elements, whether in secular society or in the church, is to go back to scripture into its doctrine of the church, and of man, and of God’s presence in the world. It is indwelling, and so we can say to our generation emphatically, “Build your institutions. Try to make them endure.” They are not the temples of God unless they are holy.

In verse 17 of the third chapter, the declaration for the temple of God is holy goes on “which temple ye are.” Now, as you will note in the King James version, which is the most faithful, temple is in italics, which indicates it is not in the text and is apparently understood. In this case, the translators misconstrued the reference, and therefore, the meaning there is not accurately rendered. The reference “which ye are” is not to temple but to holy, not which temple ye are or the which are ye, that is holy, and it is because ye are holy that ye are the temple of God, only on that condition, and he has previously given them the warning that if “Any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy.” Now he assures them that, in spite of very serious problems in their midst, he is still convinced that they are the temple of God, “For the temple of God is holy, the which are ye.”

Only by holiness, are we God’s temples, and only in terms of holiness, righteousness, knowledge, dominion, in terms of the law word of God, for the word holy covers all those senses in its broadest meaning, can we be God’s temples, and can any institution or any church in any age, be indwelled by God. What we nee din our day, therefore, is a de-institutionalization of life and the restructuring of life in terms of God’s law, and his indwelling spirit. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of thy grace and mercy, hast made us thy temple. We thank thee, our God, for thine indwelling presence. We thank thee for thy guiding, correcting hand. Make us ever faithful to thee, and grant that, day by day, we may ever labor to establish thy word, thy law in every area of life, to bring all things under thy dominion, and to supplant the institutions of unbelief with the instruments of thy word and of thy power{?}. Bless us to this end in Jesus name. Amen.

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

[Audience] When you said the word temple {?} was not in the original text, [?} straight from the Bible {?} in the Bible?

[Rushdoony] There are no mistakes in the original. In translations, sometimes we have problems. Now, I believe the King James translated the accurate texts, the received text, and is the most error-free of any of the translations we have. There are some places where we do have minor mistakes in the King James version, but it helps us to detect them too, because first of all, you have a very literal translation, so that when a word is supplied because it is understood or because here they belt the reference was the temple, it’s put in italics, so you know when there’s a word in italics, that it is supplied. Sometimes with, say noun, a pronoun, or a part of a verb, it is a part of another word and not a separate word in the original. Now, I don’t think there’s any serious problem involved in this little problem here with regard to temple. You still get the point. The passage is still clear. Any other questions? Yes?

[Audience] Can you explain Hebrews 4: {?} in terms of {?}?

[Rushdoony] Hebrews 4, in terms of?

[Audience] {?} verse 5

[Rushdoony] The third verse, in terms of?

[Audience] Verse 5

[Rushdoony] “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works. And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest. Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief.” Now, in the previous chapter, the subject is the people of Israel when they left Egypt, and why they did not enter into the promised land, the older generation, save for Caleb and Joshua. They entered not in because of unbelief. Now, this in the overwhelming majority of cases was the fact. It’s not true of Moses, of course, or Aaron, or Miriam, but for the majority of people, they died in the wilderness, we are told, because of unbelief. They did not enter into Canaan, and the promised land was a symbol and type of rest. What Hebrews does is to present us first, the promised land as a type of rest, the new creation as a type of rest, the future triumph of the people of God as a type of rest, the seventh day, as I indicated, a type of rest, but the fullness of rest is Christ. So, in the fifth verse, he says, “If they shall enter into my rest.” That is, “Into the fullness of my promises in Christ.”

[Audience] I meant the third verse.

[Rushdoony] Oh, I see, the third verse. Let’s see now, what is it about the third verse that is a problem?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. God’s rest began when he finished creation, but we do not enter it until our work is finished, both as a society and as individuals. Now, the reference is to Psalm 95:11, and in that psalm, he says to the people, “Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness: when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work. Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways: unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.” So, in the third verse, it’s a reminder to the church of what he has previously done with people who refused to obey God, and now it’s a reminder to the church that they are destined to enter in unless they, too, by unbelief and disobedience, prove to be as those who fell by the wayside. One was set aside, you see, and another has supplanted them. Israel was set aside, the church has supplanted them, and this is a reminder of that supplanting as well as a warning that we, as individuals, and as congregations can be supplanted.

You see, just as Israel came to believe there was something natural that guaranteed them salvation, they were of Abraham, and they had to be confounded to that, so the church cannot assume that because it is the church, or Christians because, “Well, we’ve called upon the name of the Lord,” this means we can go our way and forget about God and be guaranteed that we are going to be a part of his redemption. Are there any other questions? Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. Hyssop was used for penting{?} so that, now when he says “Purge me with hyssop,” he’s saying, “Send me to the cleaners,” morally. That’s very literally. You do the cleaning job on me and I shall be whiter than snow. Any other questions? Well, let’s bow our heads then 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