Law and Life

Inheritance and Work

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Law

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 36 of 39

Track: 142

Dictation Name: RR156T36

Date: 1960s-1970s

Our Scripture this morning is Isaiah 28:23 through 29. Isaiah 28:23 through 29, and our subject Inheritance and Work; Inheritance and Work. This is a very important passage of Scripture that has in the modern age, in fact for some centuries been very much neglected by theologians as they deal with the doctrine of man. Isaiah 28:23 through 29. “Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech. Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? Doth he open and break the clods of his ground? When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cumin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rye in their place? For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him. For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cumin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cumin with a rod. Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen. This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.”

The Neo-Platonic influence very early entered the church, and brought with it the pagan, and in particular the Greek contempt for physical work. It is a fact that outside the world of Scripture, religions everywhere have despised manual labor, they have despised work; any kind of work that requires physical exertion. The material world has been seen by them as the realm of bondage, of manual labor, of things physical, and therefore as degrading and enslaving. Thus, to have to work with ones hands in the world of paganism is seen as punishment, as an indication of a very low and contemptuous state. This was true not only among the advanced civilizations of the past, but also among the so-called primitive ones. For example, when the American Indians were put on reservations and they knew that their future was only in terms of working in American style, of becoming farmers and ranchers, the very chiefs who said we must become hard working farmers because this is the way of success, nonetheless were ashamed if anyone caught them working. If, for example, someone surprised them working with a shovel out on the farm, they would hide the shovel behind their back. It was degrading. In fact, for Indians it was women’s work. Among the farming tribes of the Indians in the old days, it was the women who did the manual labor, and it was regarded as a part of their low estate.

Some of this paganism actually crept into the Talmud and into the thinking of Rabbis in the time before Christ, as well as after. For example, Rabbi Nehorai said “I abandon every trade in the world and teach my son Torah only.” Also, Rabbi Huna ben Idi held once a man is appointed head of a community, he may not do manual labor in the presence of three. However, the more common rabbinic and Talmudic teaching was closer to the Biblical requirement, and the basic principle, as taught through the centuries by the Rabbis in terms of the Old Testament is this; the father is bound with respect of his son to circumcise, redeem if the son is the firstborn, teach him the law, take a wife for him, and teach him a craft, some say to teach him to swim too. Rabbi Judas said he who does not teach his son a craft; a trade with his hands, teaches him brigandry; teaches him to be a thief.

This contempt for work gained power in the modern age with the Renaissance and with the Enlightenment, because they were both a self-conscience return to classical antiquity and to paganism, and it led to the degradation of workers throughout Europe. Now, much can be said against the condition of the peasant in the Middle Ages, but there is no question that with the Enlightenment his condition became drastically worse. Moreover, the Victorian era, which gave us those fine upstanding citizens like Darwin and Marx, also gave us an increased contempt for physical work. It was very vehemently held in the Victorian era that a gentleman did not work. The middle class people who made fortunes through commerce or manufacturing then spent their time trying to rid themselves and their children from the taint of work. One English scholar, Frank Dawes has written, and I quote, and this has to do with the position of women because a good woman, any decent woman was even further removed from work than any gentleman. And Dawes notes, and I quote, “Women of the Victorian and the Edwardian middle classes regarded the life of complete idleness as being essential to maintaining their position in life. If they put a piece of coal on the fire, lifted a duster, or answered a doorbell, they were letting their husbands down, or worse depriving a needy person of employment. So, during the great age of servants, a whole class of women was reared that was incapable of performing even the simplest domestic services for self. These gentle mistresses never had to make a pot of tea, wash a cup, darn a sock, post a letter, or even brush their own hair.” Unquote. Now that’s what it meant to be a gentlewoman, in fact a decent woman one hundred years ago and less.

Now, this kind of thinking had less influence in the United States than anywhere else in the world because the Biblical, the Puritan background was so strong in this country. As a result, there was a productivity in America which we have to this day, which outdistanced everything in the world. Moreover, anyone who wanted to retire in this country had to leave and settle in England because there was a contempt in this country in the last century and up until World War I for anyone who quit working. However, since World War I, the United States has become rapidly Europeanized and paganized, and a patronizing view of physical work and manual labor is growing. As a matter of fact, recently one American professor, of very conservative tendencies said for most of the professors in the university, manual labor was some Mexican. All physical work now is seen as some form of exploitation, and of course this was the perspective of Karl Marx. It is increasingly the perspective of most liberals. The idea that anyone has to work with their hands means that somehow they have been exploited. Manual labor in the modern perspective means exploitation. All this, of course, is radically anti-Biblical. We cannot begin to understand the Biblical doctrine of work unless we approach it theologically, unless we begin with God. According to Greenburg, in the Bible, and I quote, “Labor was considered so much a part of the cosmic order that God Himself is depicted as a worker. He founded the earth, and the heavens are his handy or literally finger-work, according to Psalm 9:4 and 102:26, He is the fashioner of everything, Jeremiah 10:16, man is clay and God the potter, Isaiah 64:7, based on Genesis 2:7. He worked 6 days at creating the world at creating the world.” Unquote.

In all creation, outside of heaven, only God and man work. Only God and man work, as aspects of their being, as basic to their nature. Domestic animals are made to work by man, it is not their nature to do so. Some animals collect and store food, such as squirrels, but work beyond survival, work beyond feeding oneself is an attribute only of God’s image bearer; man, and work in man has a purpose has a purpose that is far wider than survival. It is work in terms of dominion. It is work in terms of satisfaction. It is work to further the beauty of things; art. It is work to explore; science, to master knowledge, whether it is useful or not. Work has a purposive function in man so that when we speak of work in any Biblical sense, we mean purposive activity in terms of goals beyond bare subsistence; bare survival, work in terms of that creation mandate.

Now, Isaiah in a very remarkable passage in which he is talking about judgment earlier, in Isaiah 28, and discusses how God in His judgment is all the same manifesting His love, that He has a purpose, stops for a moment to develop that point in a side issue as it were, and brings forth a very fundamental aspect of God’s nation. He says, “Give ye ear and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech.” And then he goes on to describe what the farmer does, and he describes how the farmer plows and how he opens the ground and prepares it, and then sows his seed. And he goes on and uses different words for the kind of planting, he casts forth the fitch, he scatters the cumin, he cast in the wheat, the barley, and the rye. And then he goes on to say in verses 27 following, 27 and 28, that when he comes to harvesting and then threshing, he uses a different means for the fitches, for the cumin, for the grain, because each requires its own proper method of processing, of threshing. And so, he says, as God prepares us, He is like a good farmer. And the farmer, he says, how does he have this knowledge? For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him; a very amazing statement. Now, he does not mean that God supernaturally instructs the farmer. He’s talking here about any farmer; pagan or Christian, pagan or Hebrew. Any farmer anywhere in the world, as he develops his method of farming is instructed by God, Isaiah declares. How? He is instructed by God because the image of God is in him and the witness of God is active in him to guide him in the way that he should go. So that he is able to think the thoughts God intends for him because the image of God in him declares this is the way to exercise dominion, this is the way to develop, to explore, to understand, to utilize the earth and to utilize the products of the earth.

Our ability to work, in other words, whether we are Christian or not, whether we are working as farmers, as writers, as scientists, as businessmen, whatever our calling, comes from the very instruction God gives us, because of His image in us. So that a very important aspect of the broader meaning of the image of God in us is work; the ability to work purposefully in terms of long range goals, to develop the technology, to develop methods, whatever we’re doing, so that we can improve our productivity. As a result, it is you see a totally pagan idea to despise any form of work, and here where God through Isaiah gives us this very important meaning of work, this passage incidentally was very important to the Hebrews in the Old Testament times and in the early times of the church. God does not single out the intellectual worker, He singles out the farmer to illustrate His point, because in a world that despised physical work, God used it to illustrate this fact; that work and the ability to develop work is an aspect of God’s instruction to us who are His image bearers because of His image in us.

Moreover, this is carried to an even further degree in verse 29, in verse 26; “For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him.” And in verse 29; “This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.” Now the Hebrew here is a direct quotation of and reference to Isaiah 9:5, where it is applied to the Messiah. And here it is applied to God’s work as He in man manifests the ability to work, to develop the technology, to present, to develop ideas, to work in any and every area of life. Thus while the Fall did affect work, work is God’s purpose for man. It is not work that is the curse, but man’s being and man’s work which are under the curse of God when man is in rebellion against God. The purpose of work is to exercise dominion and to subdue the earth, and when man will not do this in the Lord, it becomes frustration when it should be under God, their great privilege. Thus, the curse on work is a consequence of man’s revolt against God, death was made inevitable as a consequence of sin, and death has its impact on work too; it frustrates it. Because man made himself his own God he was separated from God and cast out of Eden, but in redemption work is again made a means of blessing. Work is an aspect of the image of God in man, and the application of righteous, holiness, and knowledge, as well as dominion to work mean only prosperity for man in the long run. As the Psalmist declares, except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

Work apart from the Lord is frustrating, but there is over and over again in Scripture a greeting to Godly workers which was the commonplace thing in ancient times as you saw men going to work, you didn’t say “hello”, no, according to Psalm 129, verse 8, Judges 6:12, Ruth 2:4, the greeting to a working man in the morning as he went to work was “The blessing of the Lord be upon you, we bless you in the name of the Lord.” A special blessing was pronounced to all who went to work because the nature and the importance of work were recognized in their relationship to God and His image, and their relationship to God and His purpose for man, and their relationship to what it meant for man to work. On the other hand, according to Proverbs 18:9, he also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster or destroyer. Work, our ability to work productively and with foresight is an aspect of our natural inheritance as men created in the image of God. It is a key inheritance from the Lord. The Fall brought a curse upon this inheritance and a frustration to it. Regeneration gives us again the supernatural reestablishment in this inheritance, so that we can again work with blessing. And so it is that over and over again Scripture declares that God blesses the hand of those that work in the Lord, that the meek are blessed and they shall inherit the earth. Inheritance, as we have seen, is in the Bible a theological fact, and work is central to our inheritance from the Lord. It is basic to our nature and to the image of God in us and to our redeemed faith as the legal sons of God by adoption, called, as we saw in Exodus 4:22 and 23, into a service. “Let my people go that they may serve me.” Thus it is that work is a blessed inheritance in the Lord, and hence it is that the rabbis of old taught that anyone who did not teach his son the law of God, by law they meant the total Word, and the ability to work, taught him to be a thief. They separated him from his calling of the Lord and placed him under the curse. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto Thee that Thou hast called us to be Thy people, and in Jesus Christ has reestablished us in our calling; to work in Thee and under Thee. O Lord, our God, make us ever joyful in our work that as Thy faithful people we may labor in Christ’ name to bring all things into captivity to Him who is our Lord, unto the end that the kingdoms of this work might become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. Grant us this we beseech Thee, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

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

[Audience member] Were more of the people in the Biblical times; God’s people, were more of them engaged in common community of agriculture, and what was the {?} for the farmers, did they live in the villages or were they in farms?

[Rushdoony] Yes, the question first, what was the ratio of people who worked by hand in manual labor; farming, as against those in commerce, and then did the farmers live in the villages or out in the country; in medieval fashion, were they in a central place and went out to work in the fields. Well, first of all the answer to the first part is that the ratio varied as much in the Old Testament times as it has since. You had times when a high percentage of the people apparently, to the best of our knowledge, were urban, when Palastine for example, would become a great center of commerce. Other times when the cities were less important and the countryside and farming were more important. So it’s difficult to single out one as more basic than the other. At the time of our Lord, for example, you have something that was unique worldwide and not reproduced until our time; the world was predominantly an urban oriented civilization. Major urban metropolises dominated every part of the world to the best of our knowledge; the civilized world.

Now with regard to how they lived, the cities were walled. The villages, by and large, were defenseless. Very commonly, in some parts, they lived in the city, in the villages, but very often too in much of the Old Testament period, the people lived out on their holdings because their holdings were permanent. They passed from generation to generation, and they lived right there on their holdings. So, history and the Old Testament era had just as much variation and differences as it has since. We cannot regard the Old Testament era static, it was subject to just as great changes and fluctuations from one type of culture to the other. Yes?

[Audience member] {?} couple weeks ago concerning the distinction between civilian urbanize societies and dominion, in Genesis 1:28 God commands man to exercise; subdue the earth and then exercise dominion over the fish of the sea, fowl of the air, everything that creeps upon the earth, is it valid to make the distinction that subduing the earth really refers to or usually refers to {?} aspects of creation; like blood control, science, technology, whereas dominion refers to exercising dominion or rulership over the living part of creation; animal kingdom, husbandry, things of this nature. That is what {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, I think there…

[Audience member] mean through most of Scripture.

[Rushdoony] Yes, I think there is a validity to the distinction you’ve just drawn between subduing the earth and exercising dominion. However, it isn’t necessarily between the animate and the inanimate. Subduing the earth means that you bring it under the dominion of man, and then proceed to exploit its possibilities; mineralogically, agriculturally, scientifically.

[Audience member] Which was that?

[Rushdoony] Subduing it, you bring it under the possibility of this kind of exploitation and development, and then dominion having used these things you exercise dominion. For example, by mining iron ore you’re helping subdue the earth that way, but it helps you to exercise dominion because you now have equipment and machinery through iron ore which enables you to exercise dominion, so the two go hand in hand. But there is a distinction. Yes?

[Audience member] In view of this concept of work, is it wrong for Christians today to cut down their work, in order to cut down their income, in order to cut down on their taxes?

[Rushdoony] Yes, of course, our tax structure today penalizes work, it is anti-Christian for that reason and many others, and some people are penalized if they get into a higher bracket, why that much higher percentage of their income is taken, and they have to use some discretion. I would say the thing to do is to work but to have some kind of estate management so that your income doesn’t become as heavily taxable and that it can be channeled into other areas, but our tax structure does penalize work. It penalizes productivity, it’s anti-Christian to the core. Yes?

[Audience member] What’s your definition of work and what’s your definition of retirement?

[Rushdoony] What is the definition of work and of economy?

[Audience member] And of retirement.

[Rushdoony] And of retirement. Well, first of all, work can be both physical and intellectual, but it is productive activity aimed at fulfilling God’s purpose for us, whether the man is a Christian or not, towards the end of subduing the earth and exercising dominion over it.

Now, retirement is just ceasing from all such activity to devote yourself to leisure, to travel, to play, and the like. I don’t believe in retirement unless the person is physically incapacitated. I simply regard it as a modern innovation which is not very sound. The fact is that men die on an average three years after they retire. Now that doesn’t everybody who retires dies in three years, but on an average they do, which means a great many of them die within a year or so because some will last ten, fifteen, twenty years. Retirement is not healthy for man, not many men survive it very long. Now, women can because they’re still continuing with household work and duties and the like. But retirement is death for man, and men go downhill physically, even if they survive, very much more rapidly when they retire than when they do not. Yes?

[Audience member] It seems anything in the sixth century forms of monasticism gives the philosophy or theology was “ora et labora”, work and pray.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience member] {?} insignificant impact on the Christian orientation of work throughout the {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, and it is interesting that a great deal of the what we would call capitalistic activity of the medieval era originated from monastic influences and sources, precisely because at this point they were thoroughly Scriptural. They called upon men to work and pray. There is a medievalist who’s not very far from here; UCLA, Lynn Townsend White Jr. whose attitudes in some areas are very anti-Christian, but he has done some brilliant work on the development of technology, the development of commerce and industry and its relationship to monasticism. This emphasis on work and how productive it was. Yes?

[Audience member] What about the old Jewish law about women being trained in a trade. Was there anything? What was the?

[Rushdoony] Oh yes. The question is what about the old Hebrew or Biblical attitude about women being trained for trade. All you have to do is to read the latter half of Proverbs 31, and it speaks of the woman managing an estate, buying and selling, managing a farm, managing a business. So, women were definitely trained in this, very definitely. And women throughout the Christian era were very definitely brought up to help manage the estate, it was only with the Renaissance and Enlightenment that women began to be regarded as very low and common if they lifted their hand to work, so that it was beginning with the restoration in England; Charles the Second, and throughout Europe, that date you can take as signifying the turnaround, 1660. It meant the end of Christendom and the beginning of the modern age of the state because various governments stopped trying to be theological in their orientation and became progressively secular in their orientation, and their attitude toward work changed. Their attitude in every area began to become radically different and the role of women became progressively more and more irrelevant, and as a result you wound up finally with the Victorian attitude where a woman could live her entire life without even picking up a hairbrush to brush her hair. It’s hard to imagine but that wasn’t too long ago. Yes?

[Audience member] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, right.

[Audience member] {?}

[Rushdoony] Women’s lib is wrong in that respect because work and calling in the Bible is family oriented. Incidentally, to give you an idea of the attitude in the Victorian era, the gentlewoman, the middle class woman and the upper class woman never touched work, but in a household where there were servants, the dignified work like answering the doorbell was given to a man and it was a girl or woman who carried the coal from the cellar to the third story fireplace, because if women were working, well, work being degraded women should do it. But if a woman was not a degraded being, if she were a good woman, a gentle woman, then she didn’t touch work. So you can see the two extremes as they were applied to women. So a big brawny man would answer a doorbell and a girl of sixteen or fifteen or sometimes nine or ten would carry a couple of buckets of coal from the cellar to the third story fireplaces.

Well let us, if there are no further questions, 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]