Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace

The Breastplate

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: The Breastplate

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Track: 98

Dictation Name: RR171BA98

Location/Venue:

Year: Early 70’s

Let us worship God. Grace by unto you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin. Let us pray.

O Lord, our God who art from everlasting, we give thanks unto thee that we can come to thee confident in prayer, knowing that thou art ready to hear than we to pray. We thank thee that, in thy mercy, thou hast made us a people, a people of victory, a people with a future now and forevermore. Make us mindful of our wealth in Christ. Make us bountiful in every need, joyful in thy service, and ever instant in prayer. In Christ’s name, amen.

Our scripture is Exodus 28:13-21. Our subject: The Breastplate. Exodus 28:13-21. “And thou shalt make ouches of gold; and two chains of pure gold at the ends; of wreathen work shalt thou make them, and fasten the wreathen chains to the ouches. And thou shalt make the breastplate of judgment with cunning work; after the work of the ephod thou shalt make it; of gold, of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine twined linen, shalt thou make it. Foursquare it shall be being doubled; a span shall be the length thereof, and a span shall be the breadth thereof. And thou shalt set in it settings of stones, even four rows of stones: the first row shall be a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle: this shall be the first row. And the second row shall be an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond. And the third row a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst. And the fourth row a beryl, and an onyx, and a jasper: they shall be set in gold in their inclosings. And the stones shall be with the names of the children of Israel, twelve, according to their names, like the engravings of a signet; every one with his name shall they be according to the twelve tribes.”

As we have seen, there is a very strong emphasis in our text in excellence in construction, in design, furnishings, and in all things connected with worship. This emphasis is missing in most recent church planning. Some men insist that church funds should go where they will do the most good for the most people. This is a humanistic emphasis, and it stresses a false antithesis between the glory of God and the welfare of the people. Liberation theology in both Catholic and Protestant circles, it very prone to such thinking. It insists that a radically humanistic view alone does honor to Christ, but we should remember that it was Judas who objected when Marry of Bethany anointed Jesus with costly spikenard declaring, “Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor?” Three hundred pence was then the earnings of a day laborer for three hundred days, so it was a consider sum of money. Judas placed caring for the poor an antithesis to honoring the Messiah. Our Lord, however, requires that we do both: honor God and help men.

We have, in Matthew 15:1-9, his very sharp condemnation of those who deprive their parents of support in order to give to God’s temple. This, he said, nullified God’s law. It is a man’s basic duty to care for his family and parents. It is a woman’s primary duty to care for her husband and children, and to provide good food, a clean and orderly house, and the teaching of the children. Neither men nor women can use any excuse, including the Lord’s work, to evade their primary duty. We honor God most by doing our work best.

I think it’s ironic that as we move more and more into socialism, that we have a bill before congress for daycare, and yet the one country that has tried it to the nth degree and abandoned it is the Soviet Union, because they found by separating the small child from the mother, they produced a high number of retarded children, because during the essential years, the mother and child were separated. But we are going to repeat their error.

What we find when we analyze scripture is that, indeed, God requires the best kind of workmanship with regard to His sanctuary, but in no sphere of life does the Bible approve of any shoddy performance or workmanship. In every sphere, excellence. Hence, it is that the family begins with the dowry. It has a duty to husband its wealth. It has a duty to place the emphasis on inheritance and making each generation richer than the one before. The emphasis is on excellence. Now, of course, we, by law, militate against the transmission of an inheritance and the emphasis is on consumption, entertainment, and the like, and that is where a high percentage of the modern income goes. Excellence in the key spheres of life, is no longer considered important. This is a radical revolution in the nature of life, and this has been a revolutionary century to an unprecedented degree. Historians could well term this the revolutionary century. The revolutions of the past beginning with the French, were only preludes to this century.

We are called, in Christ, to be kings and priests. Our royal calling requires moreover the royal virtue in us, and the royal virtue is now a forgotten thing. There was a time when preaching about the royal virtue was commonplace. It means a generosity of spirit in giving to God and to man. It means avoiding cheapness in every sphere of life. When we are therefore told that we are kings and priests, Revelation 1:6, as well as many verses in the Old Testament, it means, of course, we are to exercise dominion, we are to be God’s man, but it also means we are to manifest the royal virtue. One of the reasons for the great power and expansion of Christianity has been the practice of the royal virtue. Other religions have too often left all men niggardly in giving. They have played the role, whether rich or poor, of tight-fisted peasants, whereas everything in scripture militates against that. “Freely ye have received, freely give,” our Lord commands us.

Our text refers to ouches of gold, in verse 13. This means settings, or fastenings. The breastplate is doubled or folded in two to be a square, nine inches square probably. The twelve precious stones are referred to also in Revelation 21:19-20 as the foundation of the New Jerusalem. The breastplate was a kind of pouch and it contained the urim and thummim, or tummim more accurately in the Hebrew. We will deal with that at length next week, a very, very important subject.

Since the jewels listed have, in some instances, changed their names at times, we cannot with certainty identify all of them, but such a breastplate of judgment, setting forth the power of decision was found in Antiquity on great kings. Here it is for the high priest to wear as God’s representative. It is called in verse 15 The Breastplate of Judgment. We find similar garb in various parts of the world, and in fact, the robe of the ephod we find examples of it in the Museum of Iona, off of Scotland. It was worn by chiefs to indicate that they had the power of judgment. Here, it is for the high priest to wear as God’s representative. It is called, in verse 15, the breastplate of judgment. There were four rows of gems, three on each row. Jay Erbhart{?} wrote on the meaning of these gems, and I quote, “The names of the tribes were engraved upon and identified with the choicest jewels. Christ not only remembers us, we are loved, honored, treasured by him. The name of each tribe was engraved upon a separate and different kind of jewel. We are not grasped by our high priest in a mass, we are identified, known, loved, and cared for individually. The names were borne upon Aaron’s heart whenever he went into the holy place. For a memorial before the Lord continually, we are held in perpetual remembrance by God by Christ.”

The breastplate was closed at the bottom and partially open on the other three sides, apparently. The high priest was a type of Christ. As such, his garment represented the beauty and the glory of God, and of God’s mercy to us in the incarnation. The costliness and the beauty of all things associated with the tabernacle are very important for us to be mindful of. We have a seeming paradox in the scripture in that thrift, good husbandry, judicious actions, and much, much more, which over the centuries have been productive of monastic virtues and the puritan outlook, go hand in hand with this sharp and strong emphasis on beauty and glory, and this is in strong contrast to the modern outlook of many because modern man has a warped perspective. When he sees the world, he sees not a bundle of resources clear through, which we have barely tapped the surface of, but disappearing resources. A supposed overpopulation, a necessity for abortion and euthanasia and a variety of like matters. We must say, in terms of scripture, that in all of this, there is a hatred of life and a love of death.

Just recently, James Filisekian{?}, in chatting to me on the phone, reported an encounter in a health food store with a woman to whom all such causes were matters of faith, and one might say, addiction. She was a vegetarian also, and she proudly stated that her aversion to killing life was such that she only ate unfertilized eggs because, she said piously, “To eat unfertilized eggs was to kill life.” When James Filisekian{?} questioned her about her stand for abortion, the killing of human life, she was furious and resentful. That was another matter to her. All life was precious, except human life.

Humanistic man is extravagant in gratifying his taste for amusement, while having a meager spirit in the essentials of life. When man faces the magnificent order of creation, and sees no more in it that a mindless accident, he beggars himself and he becomes a very meager man and a fool as well. We are told that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” This godly fear and wisdom mean recognizing that God’s law is the way of life. As we are told in Proverbs 13:14, “The law of the wise is a fountain of life to depart from the snares of death,” and in Proverbs 28:4-5, “They that forsake the law praise the wicked: but such as keep the law contend with them. Evil men understand not judgment: but they that seek the LORD understand all things.”

The verses of our text are more than directions for the designers and artists whose calling it was to do the worked ordained by God. These verses are a part of revelation. Revelation comes from God, and it gives law, instruction, knowledge otherwise unknown, and much more. Above all, revelation enables us to understand God Himself. As a result, the frame of reference in such text as ours is much more than its obvious context. God orders a breastplate for the high priest to be prepared, and many other things; the furnishings, the altar, all carefully specified. Now that God would order such a thing rather than merely say, “prepare suitable garments for the high priest,” or “good furnishings for the sanctuary,” is not a like matter. His order, very specific and made known by revelation, makes God’s will particular and specific. No detail in creation is outside His knowledge and concern.

The god of the philosophers, when philosophers have posited a god, has little interest in concerns, outside the can{?} of philosophy. But for the God of the Bible, the very hairs of our head are all numbered. This particularity of God manifests itself in His revelation, and therefore, in His care for us. If God is concerned about every detail of the furnishings of the tabernacle, and tells us that the very hairs of our head are all numbered, and puts this down in His revelation, it means that our total life is in His hand. The particularity of God manifests itself thus in His revelation and therefore, in His care for us. It is precisely this particularity of the Bible which offends many people, but which, for us, is a guarantee of total meaning in our lives and in all creation. As we shall see in the following weeks, this place of total meaning in our lives does have a glorious promise for us. Let us pray.

Our Father, we thank thee for thy word, for its particularity and the particularity of all thy dealings with us. We are not dealt with en masse, we are not a mob of nameless faces in thy sight, that we each have a name, and we are all, each of us, better known to thee than we are to ourselves. Great and marvelous are thy ways, O Lord, and we thank thee. In Christ’s name, amen. Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] The use of, or the adoption by the color was termed royal purple by kings, by kings in their robes, that the color royal purple, was this an attempt to elevate themselves?

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] Drawing from the description of garments?

[Rushdoony] Subsequently, that was very definitely the case. Before, whether from general revelation or what, we do not know, but kings did claim, did use garb that invoked the idea of deity, and they did claim to be gods on earth. Now, one of the things recognized over the centuries, and you find it embedded in the first edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, namely that a sovereign is the source of law. Moreover, in terms of the ancient definition, a sovereign can only be someone who was God, so when kings began to claim the power to initiate, to create law, they claimed to be gods, and therefore, they dressed in a way to invoke deity, and very often, something in their investiture would set forth that fact. They were god-kings by definition, as in Egypt. In Babylon, when they took office, whoever they were, they would go into the temple of Marduk, or Baal, whatever god was prime in that era, who would be portrayed with an outstretched hand, and they would go up and shake the hand, grasp it, meaning that they were now the god’s representative on earth and his presence. So, this was routine, and with the Roman gods, uh emperors, each became god, after his death, if they felt that the laws he had passed had truly reflected divine powers. But in every culture, this was true, and in the Middle Ages, the biblical patterns were adopted very obviously, so that when a king entered a city, it was an imitation triumphal entry of Christ, simulated palm branches, “blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord,” and so on. Today, the modern state doesn’t use that language, but in terms of Hegel, the state is god walking on earth. The state is sovereign, it is therefore ultimate. It is the god of life. So, the modern state is a totally religious thing, but since Hegel this has been disguised, and all the Hegelian categories are used, but the religious language is concealed, and the words that are used have their meaning disguised. The word “sovereignty,” every modern state uses it. The IRS uses the word “grace.” If it allows you sixty or ninety days to pay it, calls it sixty or ninety days of grace. So, you have a theology of the modern state, even more than, let us say, some of the kings of Antiquity, the modern state claims all the historic attributes of deity. Yes?

[Audience] Well, it goes even farther because it denies that any other gods exist.

[Rushdoony] Yes, and it is bent on determining anything that points to the living God. I think that kind of theology has reached its uttermost in what was called the “Death of God” school of theology, which was totally statist. Their statement was a question of whether God exists or not is irrelevant, because for us He is dead. So, that’s the perspective today. Yes?

[Audience] In Ephesians 6, in Paul’s description of the Christian’s armor, the breastplate is equated with righteousness. Is that a continuation of the idea of this breastplate of judgment?

[Rushdoony] Very good. It is, because we are kings and priests {?} we are all, in a sense, officials under God in Christ to manifest His justice, and His grace and mercy on earth, so we put on the breastplate. Yes?

[Audience] Well, people that want a king to dress up in all of these regalia, royal purple robes, and jewels and so forth, aren’t they, in effect, creating an idol?

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] The people like kings. There are some countries in Europe today. They want monarchies back, and they want to dress them up and put them on a throne and a pedestal and like that.

[Rushdoony] Yes. A great deal of that is the desire to have a human source they can look to. In itself, there is nothing wrong with a monarchy if it is truly Christian. It’s ironic when you look back to a tyrant, a very real and thorough tyrant, like Louis XIV, and you realize that, at his worst, he didn’t have the taxation and oppression underway that the French Revolution had and the French Republic has had. His taxes were small by comparison to what is routine today, and yet people groaned under the kind of taxation that Louis XIV represented. The capacity of one man to enrich himself at the expense of the people is far less than that of a vast bureaucracy. Any other questions or comments? Well, if not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we thank thee for thy word. We thank thee that it is not the words of Congress, nor of the Polit Bureau, nor of any Parliament, that thy word that shall prevail, for thou alone art God. Thou alone art king of all kings, ruler over all rulers, and their pretentions are as nothing in thy sight. Give us joy, therefore, in all thy ways, and confidence in thy victory. 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.