Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace

Laws of Liberty II

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: Laws of Liberty II

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Track: 75

Dictation Name: RR171AP75

Location/Venue:

Year: Early 70’s

Let us worship God. Thus saith the Lord, Ye shall seek me and find me when ye search for me with all your heart. Jesus said blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled. Let us pray.

O Lord our God, we give thanks unto thee for the blessings of the week past, for thy sure mercies in Jesus Christ, for thy providential care all the days of our life, and we gather together in thy name, having received so much to receive even more. For thou art all gracious, all giving, and all righteous. Teach us, O Lord, to receive all things from thy hand, and to know thy mercy and thy purpose in and through all things. Bless us now by thy word and by thy spirit, and strengthen us for thy service. In Christ’s name, amen.

Our scripture is from Exodus 21:28-36. Our subject again for the second time, Laws of Liability. Exodus 21:28-36. “If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit. But if the ox were wont to push with his horn in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death. If there be laid on him a sum of money, then he shall give for the ransom of his life whatsoever is laid upon him. Whether he have gored a son, or have gored a daughter, according to this judgment shall it be done unto him. If the ox shall push a manservant or a maidservant; he shall give unto their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned. And if a man shall open a pit, or if a man shall dig a pit, and not cover it, and an ox or an ass fall therein; the owner of the pit shall make it good, and give money unto the owner of them; and the dead beast shall be his. And if one man's ox hurt another's, that he die; then they shall sell the live ox, and divide the money of it; and the dead ox also they shall divide. Or if it be known that the ox hath used to push in time past, and his owner hath not kept him in; he shall surely pay ox for ox; and the dead shall be his.”

In these verses we have a further group of instances illustrating the meaning of liability. These cases give us instances which set forth, in each case, a general premise. In the first case, verse 28, a goring ox is cited, but the law means that any farm or household animal, including dogs, can incur liability for itself and for its owner. If the ox gores and kills a man, or a woman, or a child, the ox is to be killed, but the owner is not guilty. The flesh of the ox is not to be eaten because the ox is unclean because of its offense. The ox is stoned, which means it is killed without being bled thoroughly. Any way whereby no full bleeding occurs would be legitimate for the execution. This would prevent use of the dead animal’s meat by any covenant person.

Now notice, in this case the animal is killed but there is no liability for the owner, because it is an instance where the animal previously had been tame, had never created a problem, so neither the owner nor anyone else had any way of knowing that something serious might develop. It was an accident, and in an accident there is no liability, but the ox must die.

The second case, verse 29, involves an ox which had been known to gore people, and yet the owner had not kept him penned up. If such a known, vicious animal of any kind then kills a man or a woman, not only the ox dies but also the owner. In such a case, the owner, by his negligence, shares in the liability with his animal. He is guilty of murder. Now these are two cases that, outwardly, seem similar, but they’re very different. One is an accident. There is no way we can control an accident, and God’s law stipulates that in the case of an accidental death, there can be no liability because then in any accident, anyone of us would become liable. This is an important distinction. Sadly, it is now being destroyed. Our courts, having abandoned biblical law, which once prevailed in this country, now see no difference between an accident and a crime. We see this, for example, in the Ashland Oil case. We see it in the Exxon case, and many others.

The third case, verses 30-31, tells us that whereas other kinds of killing give us no escape from the death penalty, in the case of a known dangerous animal, the owner can pay a random for his life. The family of the slain person can set a ransom, and the court then approved it or alters it. The term, “a sum of money,” in verse 30, is “kaphar,” a covering, meaning a propitiation or an atonement. The sum of money would be a given weight of gold or silver. This applies whether the person was an adult, a child, a boy or a girl, whatever. This is with respect to cases involving guilt.

In the fourth case, verse 32, again we have a killing by a farm or household animal, in this instance, of a manservant or a maidservant. The reference is to a foreign slave. In this instance, the restitution is very clearly specified; thirty shekels of silver. The shekel then was not a coin but a weight of silver. This was the price which, in Matthew 26:15 we have for our Lord. Thirty pieces of silver were paid to Judas for betraying Jesus. Now, this is a very important verse because there is so much misunderstanding here. We are very commonly told that the Sanhedrin showed its contempt for Jesus by setting the price at thirty pieces of silver, since it was the price of a slave. Well, this ugly act has colored our ideas ever since about Exodus 21:32. Precisely because in court a man would argue that the life of a foreign slave or a foreign worker was not worth much, a high ransom price was set. So, the thirty pieces of silver was a high price, not a low one. The man then faced, going back to the Exodus case, either death or the price of thirty shekels of silver. It was a ransom for his own life, well priced, and it also set forth very, very clearly that the humblest person among aliens was under God’s concern. So, this was a very high price.

This law simply gives us the details of what God commanded of Noah in Genesis 9:5-6, “And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.” The reason is thus very clearly stated. All men are created in God’s image, and hence, neither man nor an animal can kill a human being without guilt. Therefore, if a man were able to ransom his life, the price had to be high, even if the dead person were a foreign slave or a hired hand.

The fifth case, in verses 33 and 34, concerns the death of an animal that falls into an uncovered pit. This pit could be any excavation for any kind of work, such as building a cellar. It was normally a cistern. If for one reason or another, the cistern was not fenced in, or the gate left open, or the cover removed, a stray animal at night could fall in and die. The cistern may have been left uncovered to catch the night rain. All the same, it had to be enclosed by a fence and the gate shut. In this case, of course, the application is more general but the normal kind of case was of a cistern. The owner of the cistern was liable for the price of the dead animal. He had the pay for it and then the dead animal was his, which meant he had to dispose of it. It was a compulsory sale at the market price of the dead animal if it were alive. The dead animal would have little value except for its hide. There was an added problem for the careless owner. He had a cistern full of contaminated water. Such a drowning animal usually loses control of its bowels and bladders.

Now the sixth case, in verse 35, has reference to two animals fighting. Two oxen or any other animals, and one being killed in the course of the battle. No fault is involved. The two animals simply fought and one died. In such a case, the loss is to be divided. The live ox is sold, or possibly half of its value is paid to the owner of the dead ox. The dead ox is sold and whatever comes in for the sale of it is then divided. Even though neither owner was guilty of any wrongdoing, the consequences had to be shared.

In the seventh case, in verse 36, there is guilt on the part of one owner. His ox, boar, or whatever other animal was involved, had a record of dangerous behavior. Instead of keeping this animal penned up, the owner allowed him to graze freely or possibly did not have his fence secure. In such a case, the guilty owner had to compensate the other man, the dead animal was then his. There is an interesting sidelight on this. The dead animal might still be worth something for its hide, or as meat to some pagans who liked animals that had died and had not been bled. On the other hand, it could be so badly torn and gutted as to be worthless. In any case, because the dead animal was his, he had to remove the carcass.

Now the very specific nature of biblical law is embarrassing or painful to many people. Many religions give us vague, high-sounding and general affirmations of supposedly spiritual truths. Religion for such faiths is not concerned with everyday affairs. Neo-platonists and stoics refuse to believe that the material world and its affairs should be of any concern to the philosopher or any intelligent man. Their attitude was also prevalent in the monastic movement within the church. Many held that marriage was a concession to a lower element in man. Among some Calvinists, you had the same kind of majoring in irrelevance. For example, very, very serious intellectual wars were fought within the Calvinist fold over the issue of lapsarianism. Sub, infra, and supra-lapsarianism. But such thinking blasphemously projected a time sequence into the mind of God. It made God subordinate to time, and subject to the limitations of human thought. Scholars have very often perpetrated monstrous thinking when they get wrapped up into their intellectual exercises.

On the other hand, from the Romans to the present, law also has been subjected to childish specificity, to a detail of amazing nature. The Medieval canonists who were the lawyers of the medieval church were guilty of this. They often did it because they were eggheads, intellectuals, unrelated to the life of the faithful. And, as a result, they took pleasure in very abstract and absurd intellectualism. For example, when it came to defining for courts, how many lovers paid or unpaid a man, a woman needed to have to be classified as a prostitute, the thinking was amazing. One character who was one of the eggheads par excellence of the Medieval era, Johannes Teutonicus, held that it required a minimum of 23,000 customers, although on another occasion he said, either forty or sixty, it depended on the context. Then, as now, intellectuals played games.

The Spanish authorities were very hostile to this kind of thing that took place in the rest of Europe, and they set the figure at five or more, but it was all an intellectual exercise, very little related to reality. Unfortunately, our courts today are involving themselves in the same kind of specificity, endless details as though intelligence rests on the minute details with which they define things.

As against such absurdities, the Bible gives us a little less than 600 laws. These laws establish understandable premises for all kinds of problems. Moreover, many of these laws must not be enforced by either the church or the state. They are between God and man. As a result, we have, in biblical law first, a limited number of laws, and an even more limited number of penalties.

Then second, the emphasis covenantal. Men in covenant with God is a government power himself. If his faith and character are bad, no law can make him good nor create a good social order. Thus, an essential ingredient for a good society is true faith on the part of the people.

Third, in scripture the law is written for and addressed to the people, not to lawyers, because the essential enforcement of law comes from self-government. The law is not, in the Bible, a monopoly of church, state, lawyers, or anyone else. It is for the self-government of the people and for every sphere of life and thought. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we give thanks unto thee for thy word, for its plain speaking, for its sufficiency, and we pray, our Father, that we might see again Christ prevailing as king over this land, and also over the other nations, and thy law-word governing in the lives of men. Use us, O Lord, in thy service, to the end that the kingdoms of this world might be the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. Grant us this, we beseech thee, in Christ’s name. Amen. Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] Yeah, from my understanding, the Synod of Dort said that lapsarianism wasn’t worth fighting over, didn’t they also say that supra-lapsarianism was the {?} what you’re saying it seems like….

[Rushdoony] Yes, the Synod of Dort was a great synod, but at that point, they tried to be over-precise. They fell into a trap set for them by Armenianists, and the result was a long-standing disaster. I’m glad that lapsarian thinking is now virtually dead.

[Audience] I had a pastor of a church quit over the issue about five years ago. That’s one of the reasons I asked you that question.

[Rushdoony] Uh huh. Well, it’s amazing how even into this century, and into the beginning of the fifties, bitter battles were fought over the lapsarian position. Yes?

[Audience] Equipment {?} liability is getting to be very interesting, because individuals and governments, the actions of the government and the actions of the crowd, like the crowd at Woodstock that ruined the property, was not held responsible, but industrial enterprises and commercial enterprises are held responsible to an unlimited expense.

[Rushdoony] Yes, that’s a very important point, and behind this breakdown of the meaning of liability, there’s a very interesting theological history. Now, God never makes any mistakes because God is omnipotent. He is God. Well, if you assume that man, or the state, or the corporation is a super power, then it cannot make mistakes. You begin to assume its infallibility, and you hold it accountable for everything that occurs, even if it’s something that the corporate leadership knows nothing about that happens way out somewhere on the field. We have that kind of doctrine in the military service. For example, in the Navy. The Navy developed an arrogance to the point where they felt that no ship captain could be allowed a mistake, or an accident, and it’s absurd. Many, many excellent naval officers have been broken because of an accident over which they had no control. Well, such thinking, however, is logical. If you deny the sovereignty of God, you’re going to locate sovereignty somewhere on the human scene, and you’re going to insist on total liability, and the result is you create no ends of havoc, you begin to warp the whole of the human scene, and that’s what our courts are doing, and it’s because they do not recognize God is sovereign. Are there any other . . . Yes?

[Audience] A couple members of the supreme court recently tried to deflect criticism of the supreme court by explaining congress {?} imprecise laws, and they’re trying to weasel out of their imprecision in interpreting laws and making laws through their interpretation.

[Rushdoony] Yes. As far as I know, the supreme court does not acknowledge errors. They reverse direction very often, but the legal justification for that is that in terms of subsequent appeals to the court, another light is thrown on it and therefore, the law takes a different turn. It’s not a question of being badly in error. Yes?

[Audience] I think the justices should take courses in remedial English because {?} they didn’t seem to be able to differentiate between {?} and accidents.

[Rushdoony] Yes, yes. Well, legal language is a relic of late Medieval Latin, that’s why it is highly Latinized. The excuse is that it is needed for precision, but it has become a means of highly technical imprecision. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Audience] At times, I’ve heard the fact that the state cannot be sued unless it agrees to be.

[Rushdoony] I couldn’t quite hear.

[Audience] The state cannot be sued unless it agreed to be sued. Is that true?

[Rushdoony] Yes. By and large, any branch of civil government cannot be sued unless they agree to it, or by law have said that in this area they are liable, so they exempt themselves from it. Well, if there are no further questions, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we thank thee that in all the things we see round about us, thou art at work, shaking the things which cannot be shaken so that only those things which are unshakable might remain. Grant us, our Father, ever increasing knowledge of thee, strengthen us in thy grace, and make us more and more a part of those things which cannot be shaken. We thank thee for the sufficiency of thy grace, and the majesty and glory of thy word and kingdom. 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.