Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace

The Golden Calf II

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: The Golden Calf II

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Track: 113

Dictation Name: RR171BJ113

Location/Venue:

Year: Early 70’s

Our help is in the name of the Lord who made the heaven and the earth. The eternal God is thy refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled. Neither let it be afraid. Let us pray.

Our Father, we come into thy presence again, rejoicing in the mercies and blessings in the week past, knowing that thy hand is upon us for good, all the days of our life. We thank thee that thy chastenings are done in grace and mercy, in thy sovereign love and grace for us. Teach us day by day to take all things as from thy hands, knowing how great thou art, how infinite is thy goodness, and how sure thy mercies and thy providential care. Our God, we praise thee. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Our scripture is Exodus 32:15-29, and our subject for the second time: The Golden Calf. Exodus 32:15-29. “And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written. And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables. And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp. And he said, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome: but the noise of them that sing do I hear. And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount. And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.  And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto thee, that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them? And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord wax hot: thou knowest the people, that they are set on mischief. For they said unto me, Make us gods, which shall go before us: for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf. And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies:) then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the Lord's side? let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him. And he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour. And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men. For Moses had said, Consecrate yourselves today to the Lord, even every man upon his son, and upon his brother; that he may bestow upon you a blessing this day. And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the Lord; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin. And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold.”

In verse 29, Moses summons the tribe of Levi to consecrate themselves to God by standing against their friends, neighbors, and even brothers and sons, who had taken part in this fertility cult orgy. Their consecration meant a stand in battle against these people. It was their confirmation into a sacerdotal calling. George Bush, a century and half ago, said that this act of obedience was a kind of inauguration, a fearful one of this particular tribe, into their holy office. The Levites were to show no pity. Faithfulness to God had to take priority over everything else.

Moses, as he started down the mountain, knew from God what was happening. Joshua, who was waiting some distance below, knew nothing. As they descended, Joshua heard the shouting and he assumed the camp was under attack. Moses corrected this misapprehension. As they camp upon the camp, they saw the sexual acts and the people naked. Moses threw down the two tables of stone containing the Ten Commandments and they shattered on the rocks. Moses was angry but this was not an act of anger, but of law. The tables were each an identical copy of the legal covenant, or treaty, between God and Israel, written on both sides so there could be no addition. One copy of the contract for each; one for Israel and one for God, both to be kept in the Holy of Holies. The tables were God’s work, because He was the superior covenant partner who had decreed the law. Israel’s open apostasy had rendered the covenant null and void, and so Moses destroyed the now invalid contract. He had no other choice. It had to be renewed subsequently, or there would have been no covenant.

At this point, the moral force and authority of Moses is remarkable. He had only Joshua at his side, but he seized the golden calf, powdered the gold, and made the people drink all the gold dust mingled with water. They had to eat their own idol. At any time, the people could have killed Moses and Joshua, but they did nothing. Perhaps it was too difficult for them to muster up much indignation or resistance as they stood there naked and ashamed.

No doubt, various merchants of other nations came and went during this orgy. There were people regularly coming from the nations of the peninsula to trade with the Israelites. Moses refers to this in verse 25. They were now a source of mockery among their enemies. A people who had left Egypt, were so great a display of supernatural power were now rolling on the ground in sexual rites like the very peoples they despised. Moses then confronted Aaron, his brother. Aaron’s account, as he explains himself to Moses, is in part true. He describes accurately the demand of the people, but he falsifies the creation of the golden calf. It was, he says, a miracle. He threw the gold into the fire, out came a calf. Moses then summons the Levites to join them, which they did. To them is given the order to go through the camp and kill the guilty, apparently the leaders, for about 3,000 are killed according to verse 28. According to 1 Corinthians 10:8, some 23,000 were killed. However, this number is confused by some, and that’s why I’m mentioning it, with the golden calf episode. It has reference, instead, to the Baal-Peor fertility cult episode a little later, in which between 23,000 and 24,000 died in the plague, according to Numbers 25:1-9. Very obviously, the paganism many had practiced in Egypt remained with them at Sinai and at the Baal-Peor event.

In verse 26, we have one of the great challenges of history. “Who is on the Lord’s side let him come unto me.” To stand with God is equated with doing battle when necessary. No merely verbal affirmation can be a substitute for faith on the firing line. All the sons of Levi who had been faithful joined Moses. This did not include, obviously, Aaron. There is a very grim irony in that fact, that God had passd over Moses’ family and chosen Aaron for the high priesthood. While Moses temporarily had the precedence, there was no line of authority created by Moses’ eminence. Other families provided tribal leadership. Later, one provided the royal line, and Aaron’s family, the high priests, Moses showed no concern over this fact. He is fully dedicated to God’s purpose, not establishing a line of power.

There may be also a legal reason why the 3,000 were killed. An ancient penalty for mutiny was decimation; killing every tenth person. Aaron’s act must be classified as itself idolatry. He had feared the power of the people more than the power of God. He had acted pragmatically rather than religiously. In our time, the cowardly pragmatic stand is very much in evidence, in church and state, capital and labor, in every sphere. After all, pragmatism has been the reigning philosophy in this country all of this century and a little earlier, having its origins in Charles Pierce, William James, and John Dewey. It should not surprise us therefore, that whatever the group, capital or labor, agriculture or the academic community, or the church, all have been infected by this pragmatism which has seeped all over the world, and the net result is that no one stands in terms of the faith. Everyone bends to the wind and does the opportunistic thing. It is interesting that Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy called pragmatism and the work of John Dewey the “confucionization” or the Chinafication” of America. The country where its influence has been the strongest has been Sweden, but everywhere, the influence of pragmatism has triumphed, and there is good reason to believe that it is the philosophy of pragmatism that has finally overcome in the Soviet Union. So that now we have their pragmatic Marxism, a pragmatic socialism. But, pragmatism is idolatry also. It makes an idol of expediency. What makes the difference in any society is a presence of men of faith, courage, and character, and this is what we lack in every area; in all the churches, in all the corporations, in all the unions, in the farm sphere, in every sphere.

Recently, one poll made clear that a major mainline church was, as far as personal feelings are concerned, overwhelmingly anti-homosexual. But at every turn, they are compromising with gay rights. Why? Because it isn’t pragmatic to stand against the crowd, against the reigning temper. Pragmatism rules today in the school house, in the families, in congress and in the White House. Where there is no courage, there is no faith, and leaders bear a particular responsibility. Although the initiative in this apostasy came from the people, we are told bluntly in verse 25 that Aaron hath made them naked,” or Aaron had uncovered them. So, the leader bears the responsibility. He either makes a stand or he is guilty of the sin of the people. This applies in churches, it applies in unions, in civil government, in corporations. Everywhere.

According to Deuteronomy 9:20, only the intercession of Moses saved Aaron from death. According to a Jewish tradition, {?} had resisted the demand for an idol and had been killed. This may be an excuse for Aaron saying it would have been futile. Even if true, no where does the Bible tell us that the possibility of death is an excuse for apostasy. This incident was a testing of both Aaron and Moses, and Moses clearly evidenced courage and faith, and Aaron, cowardice and a fear of the people rather than a fear of God. Moses, who was strictly faithful to God also showed more love for the people than did Aaron. In verse 32, he intercedes for Israel and is ready to sacrifice his own salvation for them. Aaron sacrificed for no one.

It is interesting that, according to verse 17-18, as Moses and Joshua were coming down the mountain, Moses did not tell Joshua what to expect on reaching the camp. He allows Joshua to see for himself, and make up his own mind where he will stand. The demand of the people, “Make us a god,” or “Make us gods,” is still very much with us. If we do not take God on His own terms and in all his enscriptured law word, we are using the Bible to build our own little god in our image, a selective acceptance of God’s revelation is idol-making out of God’s own words, and this is what many groups, notably the Armenians, are guilty of. They go to the Bible selectively. Idolatry is thus very prevalent in the church, and it is present in the limited and very selective stresses on the Bible. As a result, we must see the golden calf episode as a seminal one. It tells us a great deal about man’s desire to govern the terms of his faith, and also the church’s readiness, age after age, to provide men with golden calves, and having done so, to call them by the name of the Lord. This we see all around us. Let us pray.

Our Father, we thank thee for thy word, and thy word speaks to the Aarons and peoples of our time, to men in every sphere of life. We pray, our Father, thou wouldst raise up men of faith and courage who would stand against the pragmatism of our time, risk everything if need be, to stem the powers of darkness. Grant us this, we beseech thee. In Christ’s name, amen. Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] What did happen to Aaron?

[Rushdoony] Well, he died in the wilderness, together with all those who were doomed to perish for their lack of faith. He was not killed at this time, but he certainly went down as a very, very weak man. Weak, because he did not share the same faith as Moses. Yes?

[Audience] When I read verse 22 before the phrase that popped into my mind, the current day phrase where he says thou knowest the people that they are set on mischief, I thought of “The Devil made me do it.”

[Rushdoony] That’s always a good excuse. “Well, the times being what they are, what can I do?” That’s pragmatism through and through. Yes?

[Audience] Getting back to Aaron, it seems that he got away with, his punishment was really no greater than Moses, because Moses died in the wilderness also.

[Rushdoony] I couldn’t get that.

[Audience] I said, Aaron’s punishment seemed to have been no greater than Moses, because Moses didn’t enter the Promised Land either. He seems to have gotten away with it, and that always seems amazing. He was the anointed priest after all.

[Rushdoony] Yes, he did not get away with it. He is remembered to this day as a man of great promise who failed. On the other hand, God spared Moses even though He told him, “Your anger at this particular point was sinful.” Nonetheless, He spared him because the difficult task of the conquest needed a younger man like Joshua, and so he had a good end and a blessed one with God’s blessing on him. Yes?

[Audience] Are there any other instances in the Bible where God was talked into changing His mind?

[Rushdoony] Where God was . . .

[Audience] Talked into changing His mind?

[Rushdoony] Well, there are a number, but it doesn’t mean, the word “repent” doesn’t mean in the Hebrew what it does in the English, and our word does there convey a different sense. What it means is that, having said something, He really is taking another direction. So, what God said was, in a sense, a test of Moses, not a change of mind. Yes?

[Audience] Well, if God cannot change His mind, has he got the same freedom as a man?

[Rushdoony] Has he . . .

[Audience] The same freedom as a man? Would not God be able to change His mind if He choose?

[Rushdoony] If He choose, yes. But His nature is such that since He does not make mistakes, he doesn’t need to change His mind. Changeability is an evidence of fallibility. That’s why it’s so hard for people to admit they have to change their mind because it’s a confession of error.

[Audience] I’m familiar with that. God, at times, has favored some and then changed His favors.

[Rushdoony] Yes, but He has predestined all things so He has known when this is going to happen. So, He has set some people aside and raised up others, over and over again, in history, all a part of His sovereign plan and for His purpose. I like the old line that God goes forth giving a body to falsehood that it may be cast off forever. In other words, as we see various peoples rise up and see evil develop to its full fruition in them, men then see the horror of the evil that they created, that they espoused. So, God allows, in the course of history, one people after another, to develop their ideas, to develop their dreams of a brave new world in order to expose them and to destroy them, and to cause them to turn against what they have created. I believe we’re seeing in our own time, God giving a body to all the dreams of fools that dominated this world at the beginning of the century, so that before the era is over, men will despise everything that they have espoused. I was amused to note in an advertisement this week that there is a book printed, a satire, which describes democracy as that system of government which provides the greatest misery for the greatest number of people. So, that’s ironic that the century began with Wilson proclaiming that the world must be made safe for democracy and with the 90’s, we have a novel advertised, a satire, which has at its thesis that the purpose of democracy is the greatest misery for the greatest number of people. Well, that’s what God does. He allows falsehood to incarnate itself, as it were, in history in order to expose it so that men cease their trust in their own creations and begin to look to God. Any other questions or comments?

Well, before we close, another word on pragmatism. It’s an interesting thing that a philosophy which has so thoroughly dominated this century has had no real study, no book on it. There have been books on the philosophical formulation, but nothing about the dramatic change in the world that has come about as a result of the prevalence of this society, of this philosophy, and it has completely warped the outlook of humanity. It has meant the reigning attitude is, “What’s in it for me?” “Can I get away with it?” It has enthroned the philosophy of Nietzsche, derived from Emerson in his auto has pointed out more than a few times and very tellingly, that a lie is more valuable than the truth if it works. The history of pragmatism in the practical out-workings is very much in need of attention, because it has done more damage perhaps to the world than even Marxism, and it is now conquering Marxism. So, perhaps we’re too near to the pragmatic temper to be able to write about it. Yes?

[Audience] Well, originally, the pragmatic argument was a balancing of reality, so that the decision would be tilted in favor of the best possible outcome granted the situation, and it seems to me the pit it fell into was in the hands of men who would not admit realities.

[Rushdoony] Yes, and they deny that there is a truth, that there is a good and evil, a right and wrong, beyond good and evil . . .

[Audience] Beyond realities, . . .

[Rushdoony] Yes, yes. And, of course, one of the grim facts is that people now look back on bygone eras when people were ready to die for something, and feel that we’re not that ignorant, and yet we’ve killed more people in this century, a higher percentage of humanity, than in any century in history. So, we have been more murderous with our pragmatism. Well, if there are no further comments, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we thank thee that thy word is truth, and that thy word governs all men, all nations, all ideas, and all things shall stand or fall in terms of thee and of thy word. Make us strong in thee and thy word, and in thy service, to the end that the kingdoms of this world might become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, guide you and bless you, protect you now and forevermore. Amen.

End of tape.