Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace

The Ninth Commandment

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: The Ninth Commandment

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Track: 068

Dictation Name: RR171AK68

Location/Venue:

Year: Early 70’s

Let us worship God. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of them that fear Him. He also will hear their cry and will save them. Where two or three are gathered together in my name, saith the Lord Jesus, there am I in the midst of them. Let us pray.

Oh Lord and our God, we give thanks unto thee that day after day, thy mercies are new every morning. We thank thee that we live, move, and have our being in thee and in thy grace. Grant, oh Lord, that we may ever be grateful. Give us a grateful heart. Fill us with praise. Make us joyful, knowing that it is thy will that shall be done, and thy kingdom and not man’s, that shall come. Bless us now by thy word and by thy spirit, and grant that we be strengthened in thy service. In Christ’s name, amen.

Our scripture is Exodus 20:16. Our subject: The Ninth Commandment. The Ninth Commandment. Exodus 20:16. “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”

False witness has primary reference to a court of law. While there is a general requirement of truth-telling, there is a difference in context. A court of justice must hear from a witness the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in order to expedite justice. A man whose purposes are evil is not entitled to the truth from us, nor to any communication.

With regard to the processes of justice, the laws concerning perjury are very specific in the Bible. We read in Deuteronomy 19:15-21, “One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established. If a false witness rise up against any man to testify against him that which is wrong; then both the men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges, which shall be in those days; and the judges shall make diligent inquisition: and, behold, if the witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely against his brother; then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother: so shalt thou put the evil away from among you. And those which remain shall hear, and fear, and shall henceforth commit no more any such evil among you. And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”

Well, perjury is routine in the courts in our time, and is rarely punished. According to Deuteronomy 19:15-21, the laws of testimony are very strict. First, there must be corroboration before there can be conviction. Two or more witnesses, or two or more forms of evidence are necessary. Then second, if there are contradictions in the testimony given, there must be an investigation to determine if false witness has been given. This investigation will involve both priests and judges. That is, experts in God’s law as well as knowledgeable trial judges. Now this requires that testimonies not only be heard but be assessed, so that in a very real sense, not only is the suspect on trial, but the witnesses are also liable to the court’s judgment. To give false witness is as much against justice as the offense of the suspect. Today, about the only time perjury is punished is if you are guilty of perjury in testifying before Congress.

Then, third, the equivalence of the offense and of the false testimony concerning it is borne out in the penalty for perjury. If the witness testified in a murder trial falsely, whether for or against the suspect, he incurred the death penalty for his perjury. The false witness received the penalty for the offense involved in the trial.

Now this commandment concerns offenses against our neighbor; Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, and the law also defines who our neighbor is. In Leviticus 19:18 and in 19:33-34, we read, “Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD,” and “And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” Our Lord makes very clear that our neighbor includes all men, including out enemies in the parable of the Good Samaritan, which is precisely about the definition of our neighbor.

This commandment against false witness, first of all, requires us to give priority to justice, above ourselves and our loyalty to friends. Since we are not the source of justice, we cannot bend our testimony to suit ourselves or our friends, or be the determiner of whether it should be given or not. God’s justice must prevail. It is more important that our friends be damaged than that God’s justice be frustrated, because where God’s justice is neglected, all society suffers.

Second, our neighbor must include all men. We are not the judge; God is, and both the judges and the witnesses will, in due time, be judged by God. Therefore, God’s justice must prevail on every level. All society prospers when this is done. Our testimony must not be partial to some men, but faithful to God’s justice.

Then third, this commandment has to do with speaking, with words. Unlike God’s other creatures on earth, man speaks. He has a vocabulary, and words are central to living. When men defile words, when men pervert speech by using words and speech to lie, men then help damage communication among men. Thinking requires words, and speech is an expression of thought. False witness pollutes language and thinking. It is an aspect of radical social disorder. Whenever we are casual about perjury, society begins to fall apart. To be indifferent to perjury is to assume as normal the reduction of language from a means of communication to a means of warfare. Now, Marxism regards language as a tool to be used, as an instrument for class warfare. Its abuse of language is an aspect of its abuse of man, and wherever language is abused, there sooner or later you will see the abuse of men. Language is a wealth men take for granted in which they abuse casually. The ties between men are sometimes fragile, but they are what make community possible, and community depends very strongly on language, and that’s why when men use language indifferently and casually, and dishonestly, they are destroying community.

From the evolutionary perspective, language as we know it has been called an artificial language; artificial as compared to grunts, screams, and various like thoughtless and wordless expressions that supposedly marked the ape man, or primitive man, or whatever you want to call him. In all such evolutionary thinking, language, words, and man are separated from God and the image of God in man. As a result, in all modern thinking, language is simply instrumental and expressive, like grunts of joy or belching, and that’s exactly how the scholars describe it. We’ve simply sophisticated our self-expression. But, for us as Christians, talking man is the recipient of the revelation of God, the enscriptured word, and was created in the image of God to receive God’s revelation. God created man in his image to hear and receive the word of God, and to speak the praise of God, to serve Him and to rejoice in Him. All the various languages express the growth and character of a people. There are differences in language, and those languages that have been affected by Christian faith have taken a very, very different form than those which are not.

The growth of evolutionary thinking has very sharply eroded language and meaning. We see a breakdown of language now. Greetings on going and coming were once religious. For example, “good-bye,” is an abbreviation of “God be with you.” In Spanish, “Vaya con Dios,” “Go with God.” The forms and acts of life were invested with meaning, because all things being God’s creation, all things derive their meaning from Him, even among cultures where the Shamans were and still are given to trances and possessions, which we must see as demonic. The emphasis was still on the spoken word. The Shamans spoke of the mandates from a spirit world, and the people waited for his word. The word was a power word, because it was supposedly an index to the truth order of being. With evolutionary thought, the word has been eroded. But after all, what meaning can it have in a universe of chance? How can it communicate meaning when ultimately, it is held that no meaning exists. Given the meaninglessness of the universe in modern thinking, it follows that man is meaningless, and so too is speech. This is why you have the new English in which anything goes.

This type of thinking, evolutionary thinking, led Darwin to a very disturbing conclusion which bothered him, because if he were right then there was no reason to believe that his theory meant anything, or that anything he said meant anything. He wrote in a letter, on July 3, 1881, “But then with me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind if there be any convictions of such a mind?” Well, at least Darwin was intelligent enough to see the implications of his own thinking. If evolution were true, then how could anyone know that anything is true, or that Darwin’s formulation of evolution, or any formulation is true? The destruction of words and speech by such thinking means the denial of any valid communication and certainly, revelation. Where the word of God is doubted or denied, there is, in time a cynicism for all words. Language is cheapened and society is damaged.

One of the things that amazes me among university students as I encounter them, as I travel, is that they decide to take some courses in philosophy, and what they find after they get through the history of philosophy, is that all modern philosophy is no longer concerned about the truth of things, or abut the traditional disciplines like metaphysics, epistemology, and so on, only linguistic analysis. Words are endlessly analyzed, not because they have any meaning, but because, since there is no meaning in ethics, or metaphysics, or any of the traditional disciplines, they are simply trying to analyze the usage of words, not believing that there is any real meaning there.

Well, this commandment forbids false witness. To bear false witness is to disobey God. It is a form of insubordination. It is an assertion that our way is bear. To bear honest and true witness means that we believe that God’s justice and God’s order are best for us and for all men. It involves a respect for truth and for speech. It is also related to prayer, because it recognizes the majesty of the truthful witness, and God’s ability to hear every word and to know our every thought. Hence the commandment, Thou shalt not bear false witness against they neighbor. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we thank thee for thy word. We thank thee that thou created us to hear and to receive thy word, to speak the truth, to come to an understanding of things through speech and knowledge. Oh Lord, our God, restore in our society true witness and a respect for language. In Christ’s name, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] Propaganda is a tool of warfare. I don’t remember, since I was pretty young when World War 2 started, but I wonder if, during either the world wars, if there was any outcry from Christians about the United States using propaganda as a tool of warfare?

[Rushdoony] Well, propaganda during war time is a little different. We don’t owe the truth to an enemy. However, we do owe it to those who are among our people, and some of the propaganda during World War 2 was designed to delude both the people of Britain and the United States, and that is dishonest. They could have kept quiet, but they preferred to lie and to release dishonest data, as well as not to tell the truth about what they were doing, and propaganda is very dangerous. Now there is a difference between propaganda and espionage. During the twenties, Stimson, who served also during World War 2, was at that time in Hoover’s cabinet, and he was very upset when he found out about military intelligence, and he said, “Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail.”

Well, Stimson represented, perhaps a bit naively, but still something the older standard, which is now gone totally, and now just about anybody’s line can be tapped, and mail read, and there is a total disrespect for the privacy of people even when we talk more than ever before about the right to privacy. Perhaps that a facade for destroying it, because the kind of thing they want to give privacy to is not usually what should be allowed. So, I really do not believe that we’re not going to deal with this problem before we get back to a biblical faith. Then people will have a respect for speech, their own and that of others. The disintegration of language is very, very rapid. It’s amazing, where you do see misuse of language in bank ads, newspaper ads, columns, and the like, routinely. The language is breaking down. Well, if man sees himself as an animal, he’s not going to treat language with respect because language was given to man by God because man is created in His image, to hear and receive His word, to proclaim it, to apply it. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Audience] Has any judge ever said anything regarding the prosecution of perjury going into disuse, or do they regard this as an admission that they’re conducting courts according to biblical . . .

[Rushdoony] The judges today do very little unless it’s to clobber Christians, because they are so afraid they will be overruled. They will put up with anything rather than open their mouths so that a superior court may say “You’re out of line and therefore, the conviction is invalid.” It leads to some very ugly things in courtrooms. One of the things that I find very distasteful is a trial in which the prosecuting attorney is a woman and the judge is a man. Now, if the judge is a woman, she’ll tick off a woman lawyer, but in one trial of a Christian school, the woman attorney was vicious in dealing with one of the parents who was on the stand. The man was a Mexican. He was a gracious Christian gentleman. She ridiculed him for lack of his education, even though it was obvious that man was very well read and knew his Bible backwards and forwards, was working, had a good income, was putting his children through Christian school, and was an elder in a church, which was not a Hispanic church. She was vicious, she did everything except to call him a dirty greaser. She was unspeakable, and she had been that way with all the witnesses to that point, and only after she’d carried on and on, and really was through did the judge say in a very mild way that, “Perhaps this line of questioning was not necessary,” but he didn’t tell her to stop.

Now, he was afraid he might be accused of being sexist, and such woman lawyers are ready to do it, unless they have a woman on the bench who will clobber them every time, so I do enjoy women on the bench because they tolerate no nonsense from woman attorneys, and they are using a lot of them on the side of the prosecution. If they have three or four attorneys for the prosecution, one of them will be a woman, and she will lead off with the cross-examination because she can get away with so much. Well, if judges who sit on the bench with a great deal of power are so cowardly, what are they going to do with a perjurer? Nothing at all. Nothing at all.

Any other questions or comments? Well, if not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we thank thee that the word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and in Him we are a new creation. We thank thee that we are the people of the incarnate word, and of the enscriptured word, the people to whom newness of life and clarity of thought have been given by thy grace. Make us strong therefore, in thy word, that we may believe it and live it. 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.