Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace

The First Commandment

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: The First Commandment

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Track: 060

Dictation Name: RR171AF60

Location/Venue:

Year: Early 70’s

Let us worship God. This is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. Having these promises, let us draw near to the throne of grace with true hearts in full assurance of faith. My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, oh Lord. In the morning will I direct my prayer to thee and look up. Let us pray.

Oh Lord, our God, we give thanks unto thee that thy mercies are new every morning, that we live in a world where we dare not do other than hope because thou art on the throne, and it is thy will that shall be done and not the will of thine enemies. Make us courageous, strong in hope, strong in thy service, and resolute in all that we do. Bless us this day by thy word and by thy spirit, and grant us thy peace. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Exodus 20:1-3, our subject: The First Commandment. “And God spake all these words, saying, I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

Before the law of God was given, there was a requirement for physical sanctification. The law was given on Mount Sinai. It was a very unlikely place from a human perspective, as we have seen. In every respect, God’s requirements went against humanistic anticipations. The sum total of humanistic views and expectations can be summed up in one word: magic. Unfortunately, the word “magic” for us carries usually the meaning of childish or primitive beliefs. This prevents us from understanding its meaning and its danger, because it is very much with us.

Magical beliefs begin with two presuppositions which are basic. There are other aspects to magic, but these two are basic. First, there is a belief in the continuity of being, so that what man does can affect or govern whatever forces are ultimate in the universe. The idea is known to philosophers as the great chain of being, so that God and man are all one being, we are little bits of God, and this which is basic to most religions, leads inevitable to magic, because it means that what you do has a continuity to whatever the gods or god may be, and there is a linkage, and an effect. Your thinking, your willing can affect whatever is ultimate.

Of course, we’re very familiar with that in, for example, Masonic ritual. As I will, so mote it be. What I will must be, because there is that belief among them as well as other groups, in the continuity of being.

Then the second aspect is the worship of power. There are other key beliefs, but this is what concerns us today. Magic is usually naturalistic rather than supernaturalistic. Its view of natural phenomena can include the super-normal. Gerardis Van der Loo{?} said of ancient religions and their magical perspective that, and I quote, “’God’ is above all for such the name for some experience of power.” God is the name for some experience of power. And he went on to say that in so many religions and practices, the word “God” is not appropriate although it is routinely used because, he said, “It is a much too personal term to give a clear view of what the philosophical and pagan ideas of God have been and are.” Van de Loo, a phenomenologist, went on to say, and I quote, “From the emotions of the young maidens of Trozen, for instance, who before marriage sacrificed their tresses, there arose the name and later the form of hypologist. This, however, implies no anthropomorphic theory nor feuerbachian wisdom. The power in the experience leads to the endowment with form, surrender of maidenhood involves contact with some strange power and this contact receives name and form.”

The goal of magic, as more than few experts in the area; Thomas and van der Loo, and others have pointed out is control and domination, not dominion, but domination. Magic is thus very closely related to science, and properly, in its primitive forms has been the forerunner of science and science today as it is divorced from a biblical faith as a magical perspective. Religion seeks to know and to obey the ultimate power. Magic seeks control of ultimate power. Thus, magic is very closely linked to science and statism, because their goals are control and domination, power.

To understand magic further, let’s look at examples of it both ancient and modern. In some cultures, prior to planting, men and women copulate in the fields to stimulate fertility. In India, naked women drag a plow across a field by night pontchedel{?} tribesmen, who dream of winning a girl’s favor and their dreams tell her so and she submits, because of their trust in continuity. Now, a more modern example. About fourteen, fifteen years ago, a Pentagon official was a juror. He succeeded in gaining the acquittal of a young hoodlum on drug charges who are also involved in criminal activities. When he returned to his office and someone asked him how the trial went, and he told him, the man was shocked and he said, “Do you mean you voted for acquittal? You knew the man was guilty,” and he said, “Of course, but next time it could be my son.”

What relationship was there between acquitting a hoodlum and a future possible trial of his son? The man was using power to establish a precedent in order to create, in the chain of being, a future mercy for his son and other sons. To give another example. A man insisted religiously on mercy for a depraved criminal guilty of a very vicious offense. This man was no better than he should have been himself, but in answer to objections, he said, “I do not believe that God will be less merciful that I am.” He was trying to teach God something about mercy. “I’m merciful, so when I face you if you do exist, be merciful to me.”

Because man denies the biblical distinction and division between the uncreated being of God and all created beings, because man affirms the great chain of being which we find coming into formulation in the minds of men without any philosophical training, man believes that his actions can affect all being. That he can set a precedent which will influence the nature of reality. Magical practice believes in the power of contagion because of this belief in the continuity of being. We see it, for example, in the idea, “If we disarm, the Soviets will disarm.” That’s magical belief. “If we are good to criminals, they will become good,” and so on. We are surrounded by a world of magic.

God deals with this perspective through the prophet Haggai. In Haggai 2:11-13, “Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Ask now the priests concerning the law, saying, if one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priests answered and said, No. Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean.” This is a very important and a telling passage. It means that in the physical sphere, neither cleanness nor health are contagious. Whereas dirt can pollute something clean, and disease can affect the healthy. We live in a fallen world, and it has its consequences. In the moral sphere, justice and morality are not contagious, whereas evil and injustice are. Man, being fallen, can pollute, but he cannot purify. This is God’s prerogative and in His power.

Thus, God begins by declaring that the good in Israel’s life is entirely His doing. “I am the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the land of bondage.” Deliverance was not Israel’s doing, but God’s. God makes a similar statement to St. Paul which sums up the matter. When Paul complained of an infirmity, a problem he had in his life, a physical ailment apparently, or perhaps an impediment of speech, all kinds of surmises have been made, God says, “My grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” Any trust in a humanistic power leads to magic, because it assumes the ultimacy of human action, and Paul was not allowed to trust in a humanistic sufficiency.

Then, God next declares, in verse 3 of our text, as the first commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” This can be also translated “beside me, to my face, or in my presence.” It can also read, “No other god.” The phrase “before me,” or “to my face,” was seen by R. Allen Cole, one biblical scholar, as related to a like phrase in Leviticus 18:18 which forbids polygamy, and Cole wrote, and I quote, “This slightly unusual phrase seems also to be used of taking a second wife while the first is still alive. Such a use or breach of an exclusive personal relationship would help to explain the meaning here. It then links the description of God as a jealous God in verse 5.” Now this is a telling observation because the law requires an exclusive personal relationship. It means that there is to be no other source of power, blessing, hope, or anything else to be sought outside of a God of scripture. We cannot limit God’s power and effectiveness to any sphere of life while excluding it from other areas.

The King James version is very accurate at one particular point especially. Unlike modern versions, it reads, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” whereas, in the modern versions it reads, “You shall have no other gods before me.” “Thou” is the singular person of the second personal pronoun form, and “you” is the plural. We now use the plural for people in the singular as well as in the plural. We’ve depersonalized our language, and with the impetus of the scientific perspective, we are further depersonalizing not only our language, but our world. So, we have, in modern versions, depersonalized our approach to God. “You” instead of “thou,” the singular. Although all the covenant people are here addressed, all of Israel, all of us, God does not speak to them or to us now as a group, but as individuals. The covenant was with Israel as a group and every person in particular, and it is so with us.

At another point, according to Martin Gruber, the laws of the Ten Commandments are more accurately translated as, “You will not have,” “You will not make,” so the idea is, although we would disagree with him on “you,” that we have a series of orders. It’s not only a commandment but an order. God is not negotiating a treaty, contract, or covenant with Israel, not with us.

He is granting it in His grace and mercy, and as a result, the commandments are given unilaterally as orders. Negotiated laws represent a consensus, not an ultimate order of justice. Humanistic law expressed and expresses, not God’s justice, but either a man-created and imposed fiat will or law, or a democratic consensus. It has no relationship then to an ultimate right or wrong. As such, it is by nature unrelated to justice. It represents either human logic as the older juridical scholars held, or experience as Oliver Wendell Holmes insisted. Experience has now triumphed as the key to all spheres.

The U.S. Supreme Court rules on the cases before it in terms of popular and legal experience. The schools, of course, increasingly stress the learning experience. Students are now taken on credit course trips to France, for example, in order to gain learning by experience. But law cannot be logic or nor experience. Its only valid foundation is in the being and nature of God, and the ultimate nature of reality. Any other doctrine of law will destroy a society. It is comparable to removing the bones from the body and bidding a man to stand and walk. It cannot be done, and our society is perishing today, as are societies the world over, because law no longer is related to justice in any ultimate sense.

The Ten Commandments are variously divided, as you know. In the Jewish form of our times and somewhat earlier, the first two verses that we read, “I am the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage,” is seen as the first commandment, and then verses 3-6 are made into the second one. St. Augustine also did some alteration. He added the second commandment to the third and divided the tenth, and this division is still used by Catholic and Lutheran churches. The Reformed and English arrangement is now more generally used the world over. The only differences, of course, in these three forms are in the division of the verses, not in the content.

Then finally, we must make note of the fact that the first commandment, by condemning any other God or source of power is condemning syncretism. Syncretism is the attempt to unite two alien things or concepts in order to increase the available power. It’s magical thinking. Syncretists in religion attempt to bring together their ideas of the best in all religions in order to increase their effectiveness and power, and of course, syncretism is very commonplace in politics, as people make alliances with very strange ideas in order to enhance, numerically, their influence. In the economic sphere, syncretists believe in a mixed economy, uniting capitalism and socialism, among other things. In politics, syncretists believe a better world will emerge if conflicting political beliefs are merged into one another, and of course, our foreign policy is a masterpiece of syncretism. In every sphere, syncretism is a violation of the first commandment; thou shalt have no other gods before me. Syncretism in every sphere emerges wherever there is a disregard for this commandment. It is a form of magic. It is a belief that man can put together a coalition of ideas, or peoples, or forces, in contempt of God’s truth and justice, and somehow come up with a winner. It will not work, because there is no other god, no other power is ultimate. No other power governs reality, and to go against Him, is to commit suicide. All they that hate me, love death. Let us pray.

Deliver us, oh Lord, from syncretistic, from magical thinking, from a trust that we can devise. Greater truths, greater powers, greater strategies than thy word permits. Make us zealous for thy kingdom and for thy truth, that we might, in Christ, be more than conquerors. In His name we pray. Amen. Are there any questions now abut our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] Well, magic is at a peak, belief in magic is at a peak today.

[Rushdoony] Yes, and that’s why the only writing you have seen, especially since World War 2, on magic, will deal with primitive tribes, not our state department, or our presidents, or our voters, or our economists, because then it gets too close to home.

[Audience] Well, the {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. Well, when I was a student, you could still find an occasional professor, of course that goes back to the thirties, who would say of course, magic was simply primitive science, but even then, it was increasingly being associated with religion, as though magic were a form of primitive religion, and the two are in radical conflict. Yes?

[Audience] Well, there’s also the belief in religion as magic.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Yes. We are masters in our day of confusing everything, to make it difficult for people to see right and wrong, or to disentangle the various strands, but they have tried to substitute magic as religion, and this is very popular in our time. Any other questions or comments? As we shall see, in part we have already seen, they were taken into a desert place, which would be unlike anything that the religions or cults of Antiquity, fertility cults, really magical, would associate with, to separate them from any such thing. They were told to separate from their wives for the three days before the giving of the law. So again, there would be no association with the fertility cult. But it was so contrary to the ideas of the time that what great event ensues afterwards while Moses was on the mount, do you recall? The golden calf, yes. The golden calf episode, which was an affirmation of continuity and it was derived from Egypt. Yes?

[Audience] Why is the media and also surprisingly the police are very hesitant to recognize the influence of magic and occult{?}

[Rushdoony] A very good question. I don’t know the answer as they would state it, but there are, I know, several writers on the subject have said such very, very powerful groups behind this, that go high up, and one reporter who was investigating some of these cults and their murders was himself killed. So, you’re not dealing with anything that is harmless, very dangerous. And the police don’t like to get too deeply involved. They have enough battles on their hands. Yes?

[Audience] ism{?} is officially recognized as a religion.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Yes. So, they prefer to deal with the act and not go into what is behind it.

[Audience] Is it maybe because they want to recognize that man is basically rational or he’s insane, and leave religious police{?} out of it altogether?

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] Maybe it could be, too, because they just, they don’t have any answer. The only answer is God and they don’t have that.

[Rushdoony] They’re not trying to pick a fight, they’ve got enough battles on their hands.

[Audience] Courts would be forced to rule on its admissibility as evidence, perhaps they’re not anxious to do that.

[Rushdoony] Yes. However, several departments across country now have someone on the force who devotes himself to these things, and becomes an expert in the area of satanic cults and groups, because they need someone like that very often to help them solve the crimes.

[Audience] We have one in this county.

[Rushdoony] Oh we do?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] On the sheriff’s staff. Yes. Well, of course, we have had episodes here among high school students, and one teacher has told me, a high school teacher, that there isn’t a high school in the country where the satanic groups are not active. That is the public high school. Yes?

[Audience] By failing to define a religion in this nation, when it was founded in 1789, they’ve left the definition of religion to anybody who wants to claim it.

[Rushdoony] Yes. They’ve left it to the states, and of course now, they’ve outlawed any state definition. Yes, that was a tragic oversight. This is why it has been easier for Mrs. Thatcher to accomplish certain things, even though the Islamic groups there are extremely numerous, they cannot have quite the same official status, although, apparently the BBC is for granting them that. Any other questions or comments? Well, if not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, as we face the enormity of the evils of this world, we know our weakness and our helplessness in the face of these things, but we thank thee for thy word, that thy strength is made perfect in weakness, and when we, in our weakness, stand fast in thy truth and justice, we thank thee that ours is the victory in Christ. Give us, therefore, a holy boldness. Make us more than conquerors in Him. 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.