Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace
The Plate of the Mitre
Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony
Subject: Pentateuch
Lesson: The Plate of the Mitre
Genre: Lessons with Q & A
Track: 101
Dictation Name: RR171BC101
Location/Venue:
Year: Early 70’s
The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men. Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. Let us pray.
We give thanks unto thee, O God, that thou who art maker of heaven and earth and all things therein, art ever mindful of the least of thy creatures. The flowers of the field are thine, and thou dost delight in thy handiwork, and has summoned us to enjoy all creation, to delight in thee and praise thee for the wonders of thy workings. Make us ever joyful in thee, O Lord. Make us mindful of our sin which has brought so much evil into this world will be destroyed in due time by thy Son, Jesus Christ, that all things shall be made new, that he3vean and earth shall resound with thy glory. Give us grace therefore, to praise thee, to enjoy thee and to rejoice in thee. In Christ’s name. Amen.
Our scripture is from Exodus 28:36-43. Our subject: The Plate of the Miter. Exodus 28:36-43. “And thou shalt make a plate of pure gold, and grave upon it, like the engravings of a signet, Holiness To The Lord. And thou shalt put it on a blue lace, that it may be upon the mitre; upon the forefront of the mitre it shall be. And it shall be upon Aaron's forehead, that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things, which the children of Israel shall hallow in all their holy gifts; and it shall be always upon his forehead, that they may be accepted before the Lord. [always having reference to during the temple service] And thou shalt embroider the coat of fine linen, and thou shalt make the mitre of fine linen, and thou shalt make the girdle of needlework. And for Aaron's sons thou shalt make coats, and thou shalt make for them girdles, and bonnets shalt thou make for them, for glory and for beauty. And thou shalt put them upon Aaron thy brother, and his sons with him; and shalt anoint them, and consecrate them, and sanctify them, that they may minister unto me in the priest's office. And thou shalt make them linen breeches to cover their nakedness; from the loins even unto the thighs they shall reach: and they shall be upon Aaron, and upon his sons, when they come in unto the tabernacle of the congregation, or when they come near unto the altar to minister in the holy place; that they bear not iniquity, and die: it shall be a statute for ever unto him and his seed after him.”
In verse 41, as in verse 3, we have the word “consecrate” and in chapter 29 we have the consecration of the priest. Two different words are used. The Hebrew 41, for consecrate, means to fill the hands. That is, to empower, to govern. In verse 3, the word used in the Hebrew means to make or pronounce clean. In Exodus 29, the former word is used; to fill the hands, and there is an implication of devotion because what the priests are required to wear is, in effect, a uniform. If we wear the uniform of a police officer, that uniform sets up certain boundaries for our behavior. It fills our hands, in other words. That is, it governs our activities. It identifies, and hence, limits us by governing our conduct. This is a very important point.
We are today very casual about such things, but it is a fact that uniforms govern people. This is one good reason for school uniforms. When there is no dress code in any school, the behavior in that school shows the effect of a lack of any dress code, and since in the state schools dress codes have no place anymore because one court decision after another has destroyed any power on any part of the administration to enforce a dress code, it has led to a corresponding decline in good conduct.
A major aspect of the modern desire is to be both distinctive and, at the same time, anonymous in dress and person. This has its desire in an impulse to flee from responsibility, to be non-identifiable. To merge into the crowd of, say, other young people. I recall once, fifty years or so ago, traveling by train from San Francisco to Reno. It was a rowdy crowd, they were going over there to gamble and to do things that were essentially lawless, and one of them bragging about what all he was planning to do, and it was quite a catalog and a lawless catalog. Was kidded by one of his associates and, “Why don’t you do those things back in San Francisco?” Well, “Nobody knows me in Reno.” Uniforms identify people. Distinctive garb which sets apart a person in terms of a responsibility, in terms of a calling, require a given character of people. But there is, today, hostility to uniforms.
One suburban city, in the early 1970s, insisted on abandoning police uniforms and guns as authoritarian symbols. The results were predictably bad and they reluctantly had to go back to uniforms and guns, but that hostility is very prevalent. There is a hostility today, for example, to clerical garb in public, and to military uniforms in public, because uniforms of any kind identify and empower, and this is resented.
Well, to continue with the priest’s garb, a plate or rosette of pure gold was to be made, and it was to be tied to the priestly mitre by a diadem of violet or blue lace. Thus, like a crown on his head, the mitre and the rosette set forth the necessary dedication, holiness to the Lord. The coat or tunic mentioned in verse 39 was the usual garb of men of high rank, as was the girdle also. Both were marks of authority. The linen breeches in verse 42 were what we would call underwear. The girdle made of fine needlework is of interest because a girdle was normally to keep in place during a time of work or battle, the long tunic so that a man might have freer movement. That’s how we get the expression “gird up your loins.” That is, pull up your tunic and tie it up so you can run or you can work more freely. George Rollinson, one of the great scholars of the last century, said of the girdles, and I quote, “Girdles were less for beauty than for use. Men girded themselves for battles, for a race, for active exertion of any kind. The high priest was to have his loins continually girded that he might be ready at all times for God’s service, but he was not to make a parade of this readiness. The girdle was to be hidden under the robe of the ephod. Hidden as it was, the girdle was to be costly and beautiful, of many colors, the work of the skilled embroiderer. The Israelites were taught by this that things devoted to God’s service, whether they be seen or not, should be of the best. The intention is not to please men’s eyes by beauty of color or form, or richness of material, but to do honor to God by the beauty. Scant work in places where it is not seen has been thought allowable by many a church architect. Dust and untidiness in hidden corners are tolerated by many who have the care of sacred buildings. True piety will make no difference between the seen and the unseen, the hidden and that which is open to sight. But aim at comeliness, fitness, beauty in all that appertains to the worship of God.”
In verse 41, we are given three aspects of the investiture of the priest: anointing, consecration, and sanctification. First, anointing was of persons and things. Its purpose was to set them apart for God’s use. It was against the law for any other use the fully anointing oil. Such an act meant excommunication. The anointing of anyone or anything was an act commissioned by God and therefore, His act. The word “anoint” was used metaphorically at times to signify God’s blessing, as in Psalm 23:5, “Thou anointest my head with oil.” Things or persons anointed were not only set apart for God’s purpose but also sometimes they received the spirit of God in some special way.
Second, consecration we’ve already touched on. It meant filling the hands, empowering the anointed person for his task, fitting him for it.
Then third, sanctification is the making holy that which has been set apart. God is holy. We are repeatedly told, “Be ye holy for I am holy,” and the whole of law is given with that preface. We obey the law, we are given the law that we might be holy, even as God is holy.
Holiness is in both form and content. It is outward and it is inward, it both ritual and morality. Both aspects of holiness must be manifested and maintained. There is a hypocrisy in maintaining a mere outward or formal holiness, and there is disrespect and a questionable holiness in despising the forms. In Isaiah 8:13, we have a statement which sheds light on the meaning of sanctifying. “Sanctify the Lord of Hosts himself, and let Him be your fear and let him be your dread.” This means that God is not to be treated casually or lightly. At all times, we are to remember that He is God the Almighty, a consuming fire. That which is holy is set apart. It is to be regarded as holy, as unique, as different. A casual treatment of God is a form of disbelief, and we are similarly to view all things which God sets apart for His purpose with respect, not with casualness, and that means ourselves.
There are two directions to this required holiness on the part of priests. First, in verse 28, that they may be accepted before the Lord. Moral faithfulness was mandatory for the priest, but so too was ritual holiness. Failure here meant contempt for God’s simple requirements of ritual dress.
Then second, the priest could not represent the people unless they were first faithful to the Lord. The inscription on the mitre’s gold plate thus set forth the purpose of worship; holiness to the Lord. All of man’s life and the whole of creation must become holy, it must be set apart for God’s service, beginning with ourselves. As we’ve seen already, “consecrate them” in verse 41 means “fill their hands.” Originally and very literally it meant fill their hands with the work of sacrifice, with doing God’s word, but sacrificial animals are not here referred to. So, the consecration went beyond the immediate sacrifices. It was stated in a general way. It harks back to God’s command to Adam in Genesis 1:26-28 to obey and to serve Him, to exercise dominion and to subdue the earth under Him.
In verse 38, we are told that the exact obedience to the ritual plus the wearing of the mitre are necessary in order that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things. The holy things refers to the offerings brought by the people and presented by the priests. These had to be unblemished offerings. The reference to their iniquity means that the best sacrifices are imperfect, and that the best of men are not without sin and mixed motives. The high priest’s careful attention to holiness was thus a means of purging the offerers and their offerings from their impurities. Christ, as the perfect high priest, and the representative of the new humanity, himself purges us and our gifts. Here, the high priest in his own person, stood between God and man to represent the great high priest who was to come.
Well, the temper of the twentieth century is emphatically hostile to the emphasis on ritual faithfulness, which marks these laws. Even in the 1930s when a different moral atmosphere still prevailed to a degree, I can remember the contemptuous amusement of a Berkeley professor for his grandparents. They were, he admitted, a loving and faithful couple, but and here he was talking about things that went back to 125 years ago, to the end of the last century. But in public, his grandparents always addressed each other respectfully as, let’s say their name was Smith, as Mr. Smith and Mrs. Smith, and they addressed unrelated children as Master John, or Miss Jane, or if the girl were very close to their family, as Missy. He thought this was absurd, but formal courtesy and respect towards all was once routine. Things have changed dramatically since then.
I don’t suppose many ministers now recall it, but I can recall how in the 1950s there was a great deal of distress among the clergy at the casualness that was coming in among people who were getting married, towards the marriage service. They regarded the reception as the main event, and the joke was told about someone who presented themselves, I forget whether it was supposedly an Episcopal church or a Catholic church, a bride, to be married, with her hair in curlers and a bandana over all of it, and when she was asked by the astonished rector or priest, as the case may have been in this apocryphal story, the reason for it she said, “Well, I want to look good at the reception.” Now, that story was passed around among the clergy with some amusement, but with some dismay, because it was revelatory of what has happened, beginning then but very much so now. The center has shifted from the service to the reception, which indicates a radically alien and false view of life, and this is what this chapter, in effect, is dealing with. It is centralizing on the ritual, on the importance of it. That this is what God requires, and this is what God considers is important. It’s not the banquet after the wedding, it’s the service itself. It’s not what is important to you, but what is important in the sight of God.
We’ve had a major revolution here, and this is why scripture like this is no longer of consequence, and why it seems strange that a girdle should be made of beauty and costly materials for a priest when no one would ever see it, except God. And why, during a good deal of the Middle Ages, but not all of the Middle Ages, a man who did the sculpture on a cathedral high up where no man could see it, was expected to do it with the same attention to what the people could see from the ground on the other side where no one would ever see it once it was up there. The reason being, God sees. But when a decline set in, only the façade that the people saw was important. This was a revolution. It helped destroy the Medieval world, and the same temper now is destroying if it has not already destroyed our culture. A culture that does not see this point does not understand what reverence means. Formalities and rituals are a form of honor and respect, things not highly regarded in these last years of the twentieth century and the modern age. Hence, our text is especially relevant for our time. Let us pray.
Our Father, we thank thee for thy word and we thank thee that thy word always speaks to our needs, our necessities, our life. Give us grace to hear and to obey, to rejoice in thy word when it corrects us, to be thankful for thy word as it encourages and blesses us, to be ever mindful that we have thy gift of the Holy Spirit that we might hear and obey. Bless us in thy service. In Christ’s name, amen. Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?
[Audience] Well, the decline of courtesy has now affected our political dialogue.
[Rushdoony] Yes, it has become an arena of wolves and dogs tearing at each other. Yes?
[Audience] The definition of holiness I found interesting. Why do you suppose that that view of holiness is so widely ignored among Christians with regard to the sabbath day which we are told to keep holy?
[Rushdoony] I think there are a number of reasons for that. First, there is a very prevalent unbelief. Then we’ve had faith-only attitude for so long, and works have been decried. Well, if you are going to deny that scripture is right when it says “Faith without works is dead,” you’re not going to honor the sabbath or anything else. Then, I think, another factor has been that some sabbatarians, especially in the English-speaking tradition, became absurd and created sometimes a joyless attitude towards it, as though laughter or being relaxed or contented was something wrong. Now, sabbatarianism, in the English tradition, originally was a very, very important thing, as I pointed out, and Christopher Hill, while still a Marxist, wrote on the importance of the Puritan sabbath, and what a great liberation it was for the working man, and we need to recapture that early Puritan view of the sabbath as liberation, and a great many people swung into the Puritan camp precisely because of their view of the sabbath, because they emphasized rest. They emphasized that the scripture requires it, not only of everyone but of their workers, their animals. The liberating impact of that Puritan emphasis has been lost, and we do need to get it into our thinking again because a very sizable percentage of our population now do work unremittingly and they do not get rest on the Lord’s day when the whole family rests. Are there any other questions or comments? Yes?
[Audience] The reason for the resistance to uniforms, I think, was because of the abuse of the uniform as a symbol of authority.
[Rushdoony] Yes, they have been abused somewhat, but I think least of all in this country, so I think we have less excuse for it here. The thing that comes back to me very vividly, it’s a story I’ve told before, but I think it bears repeating, in the early 1920’s my father went to the railroad station, this was in Detroit, to meet an elderly man whom he knew, a priest, who had just arrived from France, and as they were coming, they got off a streetcar and started to walk to the place where they were going, I forget where it was. The old man stopped and looked at something, at the school crossing, a priest helping, a policeman helping the children across the street, and they were running to grab his hands, the little girls and boys in particular, and the old man wept. Because he was not used to, in his experience, ever seeing a policeman treated by a child or an adult as someone you could feel kindly towards. So, while there have been abuses, I think we’ve gotten a little spoiled. We expect too much perfection, or perfection at all of men who are fallible. But, I think that little episode from my childhood is something I’ll never forget, because it set apart this country from the rest of the world in a very dramatic way. Any other questions or comments? Well, if not, let us conclude with prayer.
Our Father, open our eyes to see the glory of all things with which thou hast surrounded us. The manifold of blessings, thy mercies, and thy care. Teach us to walk in terms of thy requirements, the order of life, thou hast ordained, that we might find our peace in thy peace. Grant that our children and our children’s children grow up in the nurture and admonition which thou hast ordained, that their lives be filled with faith, with godly order and discipline, that they may grow up to become beacon lights of grace. Grant us these things, we beseech thee. 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.