Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace

The Death Penalty

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: The Death Penalty

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Track: 073

Dictation Name: RR171AN73

Location/Venue:

Year: Early 70’s

Let us worship God. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. Seeing that we have a great high priest that has passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Let us pray.

O Lord, our God we come unto thee who art the author of all things, rejoicing in thy grace and mercy, and the certainty that thou art he who dost make all things work together for good to them that love thee, to them who are the called according to thy purpose. O Lord, our God, be mindful of our country, of thy suffering saints the world over, to deliver us from the hands of evil men, to strengthen us by thy word and by thy spirit, to make us more than conquerors in Christ. In His name we pray. Amen.

Our scripture is Exodus 21:12-17. Exodus 21:12-17 and our subject: The Death Penalty. “He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death. And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand; then I will appoint thee a place whither he shall flee. But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbour, to slay him with guile; thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die. And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death. And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.”

In our time, the death penalty is regarded as morally evil. In fact, in many quarters it is enough to say that a man is for the death penalty for him to be regarded as morally reprehensible. We have an overturning of moral order. This morning’s paper, for example, the featured front page story in the Stockton Record had to do with the making of friendship quilts as memorials to those who have died as AIDS. They are termed regularly “victims.” Now, this is a use of the word which is alien to its meaning. A victim is an innocent party, and while some who die of AIDS may be innocent, the overwhelming majority are moral degenerates. Moreover, according to this story, these dear victims were so noble in their death and one woman gushing as she called attention to the roses and the butterfly around the name of this victim, how much he loved roses. He was a beautiful soul, in other words.

Well, with this kind of moral climate, these verses, which are concerned with several death penalties, are hardly popular. Verse 12 has a parallel in Leviticus 24:17, “And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death.” In biblical law, we do not have the many gradations of murder common to civil legislation today. Unless it is an accidental death, the penalty is death. In verse 13, we have a reference to accidental death. Such incidents were cases where no guilt existed. Where, for example, a man’s ax head flew off and killed a man. NO guilt was incurred, unless a defect in the ax was previously known and the man had done nothing about it.

A third kind of killing, in verse 30, we shall be considering later on, not today. For accidental deaths, the cities of refuge were created as havens. In verse 13, the statement, “If God deliver him into his hands,” means if in the providence of God this accident occurs. The first half of verse 14 can be paraphrased in this way, “If a man slay another in deliberate defiance of law and justice.” The premise of the death penalty is the fact that man is created in the image of God to be God’s dominion man and steward, and to take a man’s life is therefore an attack against God and His order. For this reason, the right to sanctuary and the cities of refuge were subject to religious review. Any person who sought sanctuary was given a priestly hearing to determine whether or not he was entitled to sanctuary.

Since life and social order are God’s creation and ordination, all aspects of murder or killing must be governed by His law. There was thus no unlimited to right to sanctuary. Because God is the creator and owner of all things, we cannot take life without sin. Our own life belongs to God, because we are God’s property and our life is not our own. God’s law excludes our right to do as we please, and also the pretended right of other men or civil powers to use us at their will. As George Bush, an American commentator of 150 years ago observed, and I quote, “In the first place, no authority was vested by the Mosaic constitution in any one man or body of men. Nor even in the whole nation. To elect a chief magistrate nor give any power even to the whole nation to elect a supreme governor. It was the especial prerogative of the Lord to appoint whomsoever He pleased to preside over the people under the title of judge, as his own immediate vice {?} and such men we know were from, time to time, raised up as the exigencies of the state required them, and under a special commission from heaven where {?} the most signaled deliverance for their countrymen. Another important consequence of the theocratic polity was that idolatry became not only the transgression of a moral precept of most aggravated character, but also an act of treason against the state. It was a virtual rejection of the authority of their acknowledged ruler.” Government was to be, by the law of God, through the system of elders going up to a high court, except under unusual circumstances when God appointed a judge or a governor.

The law of murder in verse 12 has no qualifications. It applies equally to a free man, a bond servant, or a foreigner. All receive life from God, all were under God’s law.

In verse 16, we have the death penalty for kidnapping. Given the fact that all men are God’s creation and property, to steal a man is to steal from God. Now, the Phoenicians and the Greeks, in particular in Antiquity, were given to kidnapping and selling people. In the ancient world, close to living while necessary for trade reasons was hazardous for this reason. Safety was to be inland. Cities were located, at times, in terms of safety as well as commerce. Over the centuries, kidnapping for enslavement has been very, very common. No one has done a study of this subject, a very important one. In America’s slave years, such incidents were very common, especially with poor immigrants. Thus, in 1791, William Cunningham confessed when dying, that he had kidnapped Irish children and sold them in America as slaves. Courts regularly ruled against these blonde and blue-eyed slaves when they sought freedom, and there was a celebrated case of a German woman, Solome Mueller, when the supreme court of Louisiana declared her a negress. William Chambers, the encylopediaist, visited the United States in the 1950’s and reported on efforts to further enslave whites. Poor whites in the North and South were sometimes sold, or their children were sold by them into slavery. Others were kidnapped. This was acknowledged openly. The courts conspired in it, so evil in the courts is nothing new.

G. Fitzhugh, who wrote The Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society, held, and I quote, “Race, do not speak to us of race. We care nothing for breed or color. What we contend for is that slavery, whether of black or white, is a normal, a proper institution in society.” Fitzhugh also wrote, and I quote, “Slavery, white or black, is right and necessary.” The Richmond Enquirer held at the same time, “While it is far more obvious that negroes should be slaves than whites, for they are only fit to labor, not to direct, yet the principle of slavery is itself right and does not depend on any difference of complexion.”

Now, historians routinely ascribe the light-skinned complexion of many blacks, to sexual abuse of black women by their slave owners, but they choose to overlook the presence in the slave quarters of kidnapped whites. While some slave owners were Christians who were especially gracious towards their slaves, the driving forces in the slave economy were indifferent or hostile to Christianity. The selling girls and women into prostitution was, and is still a major form of kidnapping. All these forms are covered by this law. They call for the death penalty.

Sadly, what they used to call the white slave trade attracts less notice today simply because the moral concerns of other areas are lacking in our time. It is still a major form of kidnapping on all continents. God’s death penalty covers all forms, and if it is not imposed upon men, God imposes it upon that society.

In verses 15 and 17, we have the death penalty against a physical assault on one’s parents or for cursing them. Such laws have existed in many societies whenever the family has been the basic social unit, and central to life and government. Some years ago, a Scottish commentator observed, and I am quoting from James McGregor, his study of Exodus, “An old Scottish law made the same offense to be punishable by death without mercy. Yet Canaan and old Scotland are the two famous lands of song, that is, the two happy lands. Perhaps, profound reference for a parentage{?} is near akin to godliness, which makes a people to be happy.”

All this seems horrifying to the modern mind because it fails to recognize that biblical law and Scottish law, among others, saw such offenses against parents as the ultimate anarchism. The old word “anarch,” means literally, “no ruler,” or “rulerless.” Modern man associates anarchism with the denial of the state as the basic governing power on earth. It seems unreal or remote to him to see the family as central. The laws of Hammurabi were secular laws, but they still represented an awareness of familistic society, and in the Hammurabi Code, offenses against parents meant the loss of a hand.

God’s right to legislate over every sphere rests on His property rights as creator. This means that all things are under His law, and the family; the parents, the children, all are to be governed by His law. In pagan families given to ancestor worship, no such restraint on parental power exists, so that parents have a power without limits. Where ancestor worship has prevailed, parents could and did sell their children at will, or put them to death. In terms of Exodus 21:16, this would be stealing the child from God or killing him as against God’s law. We have a good statement in Job, Job 31:13-22, of God’s claims on us and His property rights over us all. “If I did despise the cause of my manservant or of my maidservant, when they contended with me; what then shall I do when God riseth up? and when he visiteth, what shall I answer him? Did not he that made me in the womb make him? and did not one fashion us in the womb? If I have withheld the poor from their desire, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail ; or have eaten my morsel myself alone, and the fatherless hath not eaten thereof; (for from my youth he was brought up with me, as with a father, and I have guided her from my mother's womb;) if I have seen any perish for want of clothing, or any poor without covering; if his loins have not blessed me, and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep; if I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless, when I saw my help in the gate: then let mine arm fall from my shoulder blade, and mine arm be broken from the bone.” God’s property right over us as seen by Job was the ground for our responsibility one towards another.

As against murder, we must manifest love, community, and charity. Murder denies God and his law. It denies our need for community among men, and our responsibility to obey God in all things by manifesting His justice and mercy. To withhold God’s judgment from the murderer is to bless the murderer and to condemn those who have been murdered. It means a reversal of the moral order, and it is precisely this reversal that we see in our time. It is a very serious matter. It does invite God’s judgment. Let us pray.

O Lord, our God, thy word is truth, and thy word exposes the evils of our times. The apostasy of thy church, its indifference to the world around it, its self-absorption in its own business. O Lord, our God have mercy upon us. Thou hast declared the judgment when it comes, begins at thy house. O Lord, our God, let thy judgment come, but in judgment remember mercy, and in judgment strengthen thy people to do thy work and to bring all things into captivity to Jesus Christ, our Lord. In His name we pray, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] How should society be treating people who kill someone with an automobile while under the influence of alcohol or other drugs?

[Rushdoony] They are then guilty, and the sad fact is that our society is very indulgent towards such people. We finally have, in some states, some laws that require some kind of prison sentence for such people, but we forget that those people are repeaters. In my first year of college, there was a very lovely girl in our class, and she was struck down by a dance director in Hollywood who was very prominent in films and whose name is still remembered, and he is a celebrated figure. She was the second or third person he had struck down while driving under the influence, and still nothing was done to him. He was a murderer, and over the years, because of that particular incident, I followed cases of that sort, and such people are commonly repeaters, because they are alcoholics, and because they are confident that they can drive while they are drinking. But we don’t do anything about them, but of course, we don’t do anything about rapists. Again and again, rapists have been released after a short time. One particular incident, a man with a long record of rape and murder was released in a short time for good behavior. Well, he had the sense enough to know that it was to his advantage to behave properly. He was subsequently arrested for two murders, and the evidence on the one was clear-cut. He should have been sent up under the law now, without parole, but his case is still not on the docket. Nothing is being done to him. Well, in such a case, what God says I will not punish these people, but to society. Yes?

[Audience] At the same time, there’s an effort to criminalize industrial accidents, and forbidden literature like the Bible in school.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] So, there’s been a reversal, the punishments have been directed toward new targets.

[Rushdoony] That would be a good subject for an article, Otto, on what we are criminalizing while we are progressively decriminalizing other offenses, yes. Industrial accidents, because of the hostility towards capitalism, are being progressively treated as though they were malicious offenses, and the Bible is being treated as a dangerous book, and it is, for those people because it condemns them and is being eliminated from our society. In some instances where courts once had the Ten Commandments on the wall, they are being removed. And statues of Moses once graces some of our courthouses, those have long since been gone. This is the kind of thing that is taking place. Yes?

[Audience] A good example of that is now they’re having a big surge on gun manufacturers. They want to prosecute the manufacturers of guns, rather than the individual that uses the gun to kill the victim. They want to say that they have produced a weapon that can only be used for murder or to kill another individual. Therefore, they’re guilty, rather than the individual that takes the gun and shoots him.

[Rushdoony] And yet there are cases of men who have used a gun, went on parole, and it is not being taken seriously. It’s only when you have a gun that you’re in trouble. It’s a reversal of moral order. It begins with a hatred of God. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Audience] I just happened to hear this on TV, that you spoke of slavery and such like that, and it made me think of Lincoln. Did Lincoln, according to this individual that said this on TV this morning, Lincoln had accepted the Lord, Jesus Christ, as his savior on Good Friday, and had asked a Presbyterian minister if he could make a public announcement on Easter professing that he had accepted the Lord. Is that, is there any validation?

[Rushdoony] I’ve never seen anything to anything…

[Audience] He gave the documentation for it. The book was written in 1883, I could not get the author, I missed the author. But I thought maybe you knew.

[Rushdoony] No. Lincoln was basically, as far as I can see from his works, a deist. He read Dick’s theology, and Dick was a Scottish theologian, a staunch Calvinist, and told the Presbyterian pastor in Springfield that he could accept everything in it except the person and work of Christ. He could not see Christ as the Son of God and as one who atoned for our sins. He was ready and in fact, did believe in strongly in predestination, but all this was set in a deistic context. Any other questions? Yes?

[Audience] Verse 13 raises the idea of God’s role in evil, at least permissive role in evil.

[Rushdoony] I couldn’t…

[Audience] Verse 13 raises the idea of God’s permissive role in evil. Could you comment on that?

[Rushdoony] Yes. It means that by the providence of God, a man is in a place where, let’s say your saw blade flies off and kills him. That’s in the providence of God. Now, why such things happen is beyond us, but we cannot, in a fallen world, ask God to prevent any kind of accident or any kind of mishap, so the alternative is that we remove all the consequences of evil and of sin in the world, but by the providence of God, with the fall, all these things do occur. So, it’s ultimately God’s permissive will. Now, there is a great deal that if we seek to understand and explain rationally, we are then claiming to have a mind equal to God’s, which we do not. We simply believe, and of course, this was the great antithesis in the Middle Ages between the perspective St. Anselm and of the scholastics like Aquinas, but it was best set forth because Aquinas was ambivalent here with oh, uh, the founder of the scholastic movement, what was the name, it escapes me at the moment, who had the famous love affair and wound up the loser?

[Audience] Abelard.

[Rushdoony] Abelard. yes. Now, Abelard’s premise was “I understand, or seek to understand in order that I may believe.” So, he would not believe anything until he could understand it thoroughly. Well, this would preclude us from any contact with electricity because we really don’t understand it, it’s a power we use, as many other things. Whereas, Anselm said, “I believe in order that I may understand.” And, of course, Anselm’s premise was the sound one. Well, if there are no further questions, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we thank thee that our times are in thy hands, that although we live indeed in a fallen world, in a world facing judgment, we live, move and have our being in thee, and thy purposes for us now and throughout eternity are altogether righteous and holy, altogether good. Teach us therefore, to walk in faith, and in trust, and in obedience. 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.