Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace

The Consecration

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: The Consecration

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Track: 10

Dictation Name: RR171BC102

Location/Venue:

Year: Early 70’s

Let us worship God. Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are they that keep His commandments and that seek Him with the whole heart. Let us pray.

O Lord, our God, we give thanks unto thee that although the ungodly take counsel together, and the heathen nations conspire together against thee and thine anointed, thou art on the throne and thou dost hold them in derision for thy will alone shall be done, thy kingdom alone shall prevail and all the plans of men shall be shattered. Teach us therefore, to walk in faithfulness to thy word, in obedience to thee, in trust in thy ways, and a reliance on thy grace and mercy, that by thy spirit we may be more than conquerors in the face of all things. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Our scripture is Exodus 29:1-14. Our subject: The Consecration, the first of our studies of the consecration. Exodus 29:1-14. “And this is the thing that thou shalt do unto them to hallow them, to minister unto me in the priest's office: Take one young bullock, and two rams without blemish, and unleavened bread, and cakes unleavened tempered with oil, and wafers unleavened anointed with oil: of wheaten flour shalt thou make them. And thou shalt put them into one basket, and bring them in the basket, with the bullock and the two rams. And Aaron and his sons thou shalt bring unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and shalt wash them with water. And thou shalt take the garments, and put upon Aaron the coat, and the robe of the ephod, and the ephod, and the breastplate, and gird him with the curious girdle of the ephod: and thou shalt put the mitre upon his head, and put the holy crown upon the mitre. Then shalt thou take the anointing oil, and pour it upon his head, and anoint him. And thou shalt bring his sons, and put coats upon them. And thou shalt gird them with girdles, Aaron and his sons, and put the bonnets on them: and the priest's office shall be theirs for a perpetual statute: and thou shalt consecrate Aaron and his sons.  And thou shalt cause a bullock to be brought before the tabernacle of the congregation: and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the bullock. And thou shalt kill the bullock before the Lord, by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.  And thou shalt take of the blood of the bullock, and put it upon the horns of the altar with thy finger, and pour all the blood beside the bottom of the altar. And thou shalt take all the fat that covereth the inwards, and the caul that is above the liver, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, and burn them upon the altar. But the flesh of the bullock, and his skin, and his dung, shalt thou burn with fire without the camp: it is a sin offering.”

The Bible here speaks of the consecration of the high priest and other priests. The word “consecrate” is used in Exodus 28:3 and 41, and 29:9, 33, and 35, and chapter 30:30. It also appears in Exodus 32:29. Now, the Hebrew words behind this, and behind, for example, Exodus 28:3, means “to make or declare holy.” It’s the same word that’s used again in Exodus 30:30. But in the other instances, it means, as we saw two weeks ago, “to fill the hands, to empower.” What we have here is more understandable in our time if we speak of inauguration into office. To inaugurate a governor or a president in the United States means to empower him into his particular function. At one time, civil authorities were, in Christendom, commonly consecrated into their offices. At times with kings, it was with an anointing with oil.

In the United States, there still is an oath of office, although the relationship of that oath to God and Hi slaw word is now forgotten. We still have a prayer at the swearing in of a president, but the sermon which once marked inaugurations and school graduations is now gone. The point is that at one time, all ecclesiastical and civil authorities in Christendom were consecrated into office. It was believed that empowerment from God and His law was a necessity, because an order without godly sanction and authority was, in fact, disorder and tyranny.

It is a curious fact that, with the development of the Victoria era, coronation ceremonies of Kings were developed and stressed to a remarkable, to an unprecedented degree. The declining monarchies sought earnestly to inflate the rights in order to enhance their status, but it was all in vain. It meant that theater replaced worship, because the rights concentrated on visible glory rather than the Christian empowerment and faith. And this is what inauguration observances everywhere have become, theater rather than consecration.

McGregor, in a very striking sentence, called attention to another aspect of the consecration. He said, “This here is the first historical appearance of a Christ, that is an anointed one, and that in the central office of mediation, and with a view to the fundamental action of that office, offering sacrifice.” The word “Christ” here means anointed, and Jesus Christ is the supremely and absolutely God-anointed person. He is our mediator, he is our high priest, and also our sacrifice. All human authorities have a mediating role, although atonement is not their function. Men in authority within church and state are called to mediate God’s authority and word to their respective spheres. Parents also mediate God’s authority and word to their children, and a slackness in teaching order, discipline, and obedience means culpability and guilt in our responsibilities. The same is true of employers, all people in any kind of legitimate authority. They must not dispense a personal doctrine of order but God’s. Consecration in any sphere is not into Omni competence. Not into being sufficient for everything, but into service unto God, and to man in the Lord.

Verses 12-14 tell us of the sacrifice of a sin offering. This aspect of the consecration ritual was to remind the priests that all righteousness describes God alone. Men are sinners, rulers are sinners, priests are sinners. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Therefore, in the discharge of their authority, the priests must remember their sinful estate and their fallen nature. They share a nature in common with all men. The authority of their calling must therefore come from God, and all authority must be exercised in terms of His law in His name, not man’s name.

The washing referred to in verse 4 was to indicate that the priest and themselves were unclean men. They needed God’s cleansing grace. Their duty required them to rely therefore on God, not on themselves. Kate summarized the meaning of the consecration very tellingly, and I quote, “The ceremonies of washing, cleansing, anointing, and offering the special sacrifices were performed to show that a priest could not lead others in the service of God than he had gone himself. Further, in order to serve God, one must be both clean and pure, as well as being set apart by God.”

As a part of this consecration, a bullock was sacrificed, and the priests laid their hands in his head. This meant that they accepted the death penalty for their sins against God in the person of His anointed and appointed substitute to come.

The service of consecration is a ritual. We need to look briefly at the meaning of ritual, and what it means for us. There are many ways whereby ritual can be considered but three are important to us here and now. First, ritual can be seen as a binding act. The performance of certain things that will cause certain consequences. Magic rituals are the best example of this. Man performs a particular rite and inevitably, certain things are expected to follow. The ritual creates the power.

This view has had an influence on churches, quite extensively. Its rationale in the church has been such verses as Matthew 18:18-20 which reads, “Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.  For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” There is also another verse: John 14:13, “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name that will I do, that the father may be glorified in the Son.” But these verses have a very important and serious qualification. What is done must be done in Jesus’ name, in His person, for His kingdom. The Christian idea of ritual as a binding power means that the priority is entirely in the hands of the Lord, and if we are faithful to Him and we do His will, then he can choose to confirm what we have done. To deny the priority of God means to shift determination from God to man. Well, when you do this, the institution that performs the ritual becomes very powerful because it controls both God and man. Binding and loosing are conferred then, irrespective of God’s law word and person. Only if ritual is in the name of the Lord and in obedience and faithfulness to His word does it have God’s blessings. So we cannot, from the ritual, insist on a human fulfillment irrespective of God’s sovereign determination.

Then second, ritual is a form of service. Worship is often spoken of as a service of praise and thanksgiving, a petition, and more. It is the collective service of all present serving God by hearing His word, praising His name, and pledging themselves to His kingdom. In Protestantism, ritual as service is the most familiar meaning of ritual in this century.

Now the third meaning of ritual that concerns us here is ritual as reparation. This is a meaning that has been much neglected in our time. In a military training camp, there are repeated drills of a set pattern to prepare the new troops for potential military action. In a sound training, all aspects of the drill referred to a context beyond the present. Likewise, ritual is a repetition of certain necessary aspects of the Christian life in order to equip the worshiper for action in the world.

In all three aspects of worship, the reference can be to human action, but the mandate is from God. Ritual therefore, in a Christian sense, refers to an order beyond man. George Rollinson spoke of the consecration of the priest as an acted parable and in a sense, all worship is to be an acted parable.

Now, there is a world of difference between pagan worship, pagan ritual on the one hand and Christian worship and Christian ritual on the other hand. Of course we can say it’s because one worships the false, the other the true God. But there is something more. In paganism, ritual functions to hallow an existing order, an existing state or power, but the Christian ritual has a very different focus and we see it best in the Lord’s Prayer. “Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” When false escatologies remove that dimension, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” The ritual is warped. It begins to move towards a pagan realm, which is simply to want the existing order blessed. Ritual may invoke God, but it can at the same time, be man-centered.

A scholar of some note wrote, S.H. Hook, of the Acadian ritual in Antiquity, and I quote, “We have already seen that the sacred tree enters frequently into the pictorial representations of the ritual. The conception of the plan of life, or herb of life, some plant with magical potency is also a frequent element in the myths. As we have suggested, the interchange between the god, the king, and the sacred tree seems to point to the fact that the tree, which it may not be misleading to call the tree of life, is a symbol of the life-giving functions of the king.” So, if instead of the Lord being the tree of life, some king or president is the tree of life, how can you grow beyond the present order. You have it as it is, as the final order, and that was the essence of paganism. What they had was the final order. There was no growth concept.

So there were pagan rites installing officers of state of kings, but it was the status quo that was affirmed and protected. There was no vision of growth. The ritual blessed and sanctified what existed, which is another way of saying, “Whatever is, is as it should be.” And this, of course, is an article of faith with modern man. Back in the 60s, there was a so-0called comedian, Lenny Bruce, who insisted that things as they were right. Whatever is is right, he maintained. Therefore, no one had a right to object to drugs, or to homosexuality, or to anything else, because nature is the standard and whatever exists in nature is therefore right. This was the thesis of the Kinsey Reports.

All this means that paganism always sanctifies what exists, whatever evil there is, and it brings them into the worship. This is why in Canaan when Joshua and the Israelites entered, there were all kinds of pagan practices that were a part of the temple worship, including bestiality, homosexuality, prostitution, all a part of the temple. Everything was blessed, all of life was holy, and of course, isn’t this what the hippy poet, Alan Ginsburg, celebrated in his poem, “Holy, holy, holy, everything is holy,” which was regarded as the virtual bible of the hippy movement. What this does then, is in things like Earth Day today, to tell people that anything that changes the world or improves it is wrong. We’ve got to go back to nature. We’ve got to remove the standards, and a biblical faith becomes the enemy. But the Christian ritual, the Christian worship stresses God’s order and the necessity for men and nations to seek not their will but God’s justice and grace. A truly Christian ritual is thus a mandate for renewal in terms of our sovereign God. It is marked by an awareness of our sin, the sin within our institutions, and it invokes God’s grace to restore God’s order.

These are the two realms that are in conflict today. The world that men idealize in nature and the world of God’s order, and there can be no compromise between these two religions, and we had better wake up to the fact that war has been declared against Christ and His kingdom. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we thank thee for thy word and we thank thee that thou hast called us together, here to worship thee, here to be reminded of that which needs to be done, that all things must be brought into captivity to Jesus Christ, our Lord. We thank thee, our Father, that in this conflict we are assured a victory, that this is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith. We pray for those who are being persecuted the world over for their faith. Deliver them, we beseech thee. In Jesus name, amen. Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] How many offices, or what offices did Moses have and in which capacity was he doing the consecrating of the priest?

[Rushdoony] In which capacity, well it was Aaron here who was consecrated, not Moses.

[Audience] Moses was doing the consecrating.

[Rushdoony] Well, Moses was God’s prophet and a mediator between God and man, so Moses had special privileges that were unique. He was a type of Christ. Any other questions or comments? It is interesting to note, by the way, the news coming out of the Soviet Union indicates that what Glasnost means really is we’re going to be having the forms of life, elections and that sort of thing that the West likes, but we have not stopped being anti-Christian. Churches are again being bulldozed. Churches that are ancient buildings, ruthlessly bulldozed. So much for their intentions. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Audience] Can you give an example of Christian ritual?

[Rushdoony] Any set pattern is a ritual. Worship services are a ritual with varying patterns, and prayer at the table, family Bible reading, those are rituals.

[Audience] It goes beyond just ecclesiastical ceremonies.

[Rushdoony] Rituals in the Christian sense point beyond man to God. They are occasions when persons or families stop, fix their attention of those things that are of God, and in their way, whatever the pattern is, or whatever they’re brought up in, worship God, pray to Him, and exercise those things which are necessary in order t learn from God by submitting to it. So, ritual goes beyond the church. Now, of course, ritual has been paganized in our time in that the most prominent rituals are outside the church. They are civil ceremonies, or Masonic, to give an idea of a blasphemous variety, they are academic. Anytime you want to go to a university graduation service, you’ll see a ritual there, solemnly performed. Nothing wrong with it, but it was once a Christian ritual. It’s been separate from that, although at some universities they still have prayer. Although, again, usually a liberal pastor. They don’t want anyone who can be heard by God, apparently. That might lead to problems. Any other questions or comments? Well, if not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we thank thee that our whole life and world are illumined by thy grace. That however great the darkness of man’s sin and however horrifying all his evil works, it is thy son that shines, thy will that shall be done, and thy kingdom alone that shall prevail. Make us ever joyful in 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.