Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace

The Fabric of the World

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: The Fabric of the World

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Track: 124

Dictation Name: RR171BP124

Location/Venue:

Year: Early 70’s

Let us worship God. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with singing. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him, and bless His name, for the Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting and His truth endureth unto all generations. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto thee that despite all the ravings and rantings of men, thou art on the throne and it is thy will that shall be done, thy kingdom that shall come and prevail, and all the plannings of men shall be brought to nothing. Teach us therefore so to walk day by day, that our trust is entirely upon thee. Give us grace to take hands off our lives and to commit them into thy keeping, to be faithful to thee, to do what thou dost require of us, and to know that the end of all things is in thy hand. Our God, we thank thee. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Our scripture is from Exodus 36:8-38. Our subject: The Fabric of the World. We shall read only a few passages from this long text. “And every wise hearted man among them that wrought the work of the tabernacle made ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet: with cherubims of cunning work made he them. The length of one curtain was twenty and eight cubits, and the breadth of one curtain four cubits: the curtains were all of one size. And he coupled the five curtains one unto another: and the other five curtains he coupled one unto another,” and skipping over to the next paragraph, 14. “And he made curtains of goats' hair for the tent over the tabernacle: eleven curtains he made them.” Then, verse 20, the next paragraph, “ And he made boards for the tabernacle of shittim wood (or acacia wood) standing up.” Then, the next paragraph, 31, “And he made bars of shittim wood; five for the boards of the one side of the tabernacle, and five bars for the boards of the other side of the tabernacle, and five bars for the boards of the tabernacle for the sides westward.” And then, verse 35. “And he made a vail of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen: with cherubims made he it of cunning work. And he made thereunto four pillars of shittim wood, and overlaid them with gold: their hooks were of gold; and he cast for them four sockets of silver. And he made an hanging for the tabernacle door of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, of needlework; and the five pillars of it with their hooks: and he overlaid their chapiters and their fillets with gold: but their five sockets were of brass.”

We saw recently when we quoted Ben Sirach, concerning the importance of the work of artisans, of scribes, and scholars and others, doctors, his very important summary statement. His writings were a meditation on the Old Testament scriptures, very often virtually a quotation thereof, but he summed up the importance of artisans, scholars, and physicians with these words: “They kept the fabric of the world and their prayer is in the practice of their trade.” This is the biblical attitude.

For ancient Greek thought, ultimacy rested in ideas, in abstractions. As a result, its philosophy turned everything into an abstraction. Its practical scientists were often foreign slaves who were usually given Greek names and freedom for their work, but the focus in Greek thought was on pure reason, on ideas, on abstractions. It is interesting that, at present, we are seeing a revival of Greek thinking in its emphasis on abstractionism. It’s a curious revival because they are doing two things, the scholars that are behind it. First, they are downgrading any difference between Hebraic and Greek perspectives and, at the same time, condemning the Hebraic in favor of the Hellenic viewpoint.

In biblical thought, all things are concretized because the triune God is not an abstraction. He is the supreme and total person. God’s goal in creation and history is not an abstraction. It is the incarnation of God the Son. All history must concretize and particularize God’s law and His justice, and bring all things under the reign of Christ, as King. The practical application of these two contrasting points of view is apparent in the fact that Greek culture gave status to ideas, whereas biblical culture gave status and dignity to work. Sirach’s statement has, as its counterpart, the Hebraic insistence that if a father does not teach his son the law of God and a trade with his hands, he taught him to be a thief. St. Paul represented this perspective. To keep his independence, he worked on the side as a leather worker making tents and saddles.

Many cultures have discovered various promising things, but it has remained for Christendom to make these into practical and commercial assets and inventions for all men. Thus, people have called attention to things that could be found in ancient Chinese culture, but none of them were developed. Only when westerners came upon the same things did they make them into working tools for all of society.

Basic to this is the stress on the particular, which marks biblical thought. This chapter is an example of it. This chapter and those that preceded it and follow it go on and on in very specific details, which are not of interest to modern man because the influence of Greek philosophy runs deep in our educational systems. Our concern for the particular and the specific is diminished by our education. Over the centuries however, many Christians have actually relished these texts. God’s great attention to the particulars has given confidence over the generation to works in the specific and in the concrete aspects of our world. This is why, in the high point of Medieval culture, there was such a great respect for detail. Why, in the construction of the cathedrals or in the manufacture of stained glass windows, it was the very minor details that were so greatly stressed and made as fine as possible. When Christians have given this attention to details as a result of imbibing the spirit of scripture, they have, whether as mechanics or scientists, seen the particular as very important.

In verses 8 through 38, we have a virtual repetition of Exodus 26:1-37 with about six or seven verses omitted. In Exodus 37, the next chapter, we have data similar to Exodus 25:10-39 and chapter 30:1-5. From Exodus 25, a few verses are omitted in Exodus 35, about five. All this stress and repetition. Why? Well, it serves to remind us of God’s requirement of good workmanship and precision, and this goes counter to the modern temper which stresses instead a good heart, which is a fuzzy idea, but a good heart is now stressed over good workmanship. If there’s any kind of volunteer work at the church or at a community center, and everybody is there, the person in charge is not supposed to criticize shoddy workmanship. “Well, they have a good heart. They’re really working to help us.” What has that got to do with the fact that they’re doing poor work? So, we see not only Christian causes but also various other activities, usually overwhelmed with bumblers, who believe that their inept work is sanctified by their willingness. God here makes very clear that skills are necessary for godly service, and there was a time when craftsmen would tell their apprentices, “God has an eye for detail and you’d better have one also.”

The construction of the tabernacle was important for what it represented. According to Morehead, it set forth four things. First, it meant that God was present with His chosen people. The church now serves the same purpose. The presence of faithful churches in a community is a witness to God’s grace, law, mercy, and judgment. The church gives notice to men that there is a transcendent, a supernatural frame of reference. Second, the sanctuary showed that God identified Himself with His chosen people. In Isaiah 63: 7-9, we read, “I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the Lord, and the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which he hath bestowed on them according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his lovingkindnesses. For he said, Surely they are my people, children that will not lie: so he was their Saviour. In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.” God’s patience is such, says Isaiah, that He carried us as a father does his child.

Third, the sanctuary witnessed to salvation, to God’s method of bringing sinners to Himself. It confronts us with the need for atonement and the only valid means for it. Fourth, the sanctuary pointed to the incarnation, God’s tabernacling presence with us. God calls Himself, in John 2:19, the temple. This is why, in Israel, there could only be one sanctuary, because there is one incarnation. In later years, there were many synagogues. The church is the Christian synagogue, according to the Greek text of James 2:2. Thus, there can be a multiplicity of churches representing the one true temple of God, Jesus Christ.

In the construction, the work mainly proceeded from the center to the circumference. The sanctuary itself is built and then the tent which covered it. The taches of verse 13 and other verses, are golden clasps, tenons refer to pegs as sockets or pedestals, shittim wood, of course, is acacia, and fillets are connecting rods. We have here only a careful account of the construction, but that is not all. We have an ordered sequence. Here, the work is recorded. In Exodus 40:18-33, the setting up of the sanctuary is described. While some workmen prepared the sanctuary, others were engaged at the same time in the construction of all the furnishings and the utensils which were to go into it. The tabernacle was a moveable temple. This is an important fact to remember, for otherwise, we will not understand the very great attention given to its design and construction, both here in Solomon’s time, and after the captivity with Zerubabel.

In one study of temples in the Ancient world, Richard J. Clifford, a scholar of American origin, wrote, and I quote, “The temple in the Ancient Near East is not merely a building which archeology can excavate. Inseparably woven into the fabric of public and private life of Antiquity, it performed functions in society which modern students would analyze as economic, cultural, religious, and political. It was at once a municipal or national vault, a seat of learning, a repository of sacred traditions, a place of worship and theophany, a platform where the king and his role in the divine governance of the world might be displayed and given legitimacy.” The temple, as an instrument in divine human governance. Thus, while there can be a separation of church and state, there cannot be of religion and life. What people say in Antiquity, what other faults they may have had, was that all life is, at its core, religious.

Well, this is the reason why the sanctuary is so important in Exodus and elsewhere in scripture. God is the source of all authority and government, and He is the supreme and only lawgiver. It is a rejection of the whole of the biblical revelation to receive law from any other source. The lawgiver is always the sovereign. He is the god of the society.

Clifford cited Ugaritic texts which stress that Baal lacked political power before his victory of Yam and Mot, and therefore, did not have a temple palace until after the victory. With victory, he was able to rule and a temple was built.

John, in Revelation, refers repeatedly to God’s temple. When he wrote, Jerusalem was still standing, but it was soon to be destroyed. He therefore tells us that the true temple is now in heaven. The true temple, not made with hands, is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb. The cosmic rule by the triune God is revealed and we are a people with access to the very throne of creation and of all eternity. In other words, the concept of a temple is the concept of a center, out of which the order of life and being emerges.

The Kremlin has been the temple, the center of life, for the Soviet regime, and Washington D.C. for the United States. A temple means the core or nucleus of a social order. Every society has its temple, a core group, a power center, or something similar. In each instance, this religious center, whatever it calls itself, governs all of life. Only biblical faith prevents a humanistic concentration of all power into a temple of man, a new tower of Babel.

When the biblical doctrine wanes, the humanistic tyrannies and totalitarian regimes arise. This is why these chapters on the sanctuary are so important. Churches now see their place on the edges, the peripheries of society, because they do not see God as the lawgiver and the sovereign. Their thinking has become polytheistic, and the sovereign state for them is too often their main god. As Hebrews 9:11-12 tells us, we are told that Christ is now the Great High Priest in the eternal sanctuary and therefore, also the king. In James Moffatt’s translations of these two verses in Hebrews, we read, “But when Christ arrived as the High Priest of the bliss that was to be, He passed through the greater and more perfect tent which no hands had made, no part that is to say of the present order, not taking any blood of goats and oxen, but His own blood, and so entered once for all into the holy place, securing a redemption that is eternal.”

This text is meaningless to us unless we understand what being the temple himself and reigning in the temple means. Namely, that Jesus Christ is the blessed and only potentate, the king of kings, and Lord of Lords. He is the only temple and the only potentate. The fabric of the world is maintained by those who are the artisans and workers for God’s true sanctuary, for the center life which is God and His law word. Let us pray.

Our Father, we thank thee for thy word. O Lord, our God, our times are out of joint, and our world if full of false centers, and we seek to do things and have thy blessing on things which despise thee. O Lord, God have mercy upon us. Recall us to thy word, to thy true temple, Jesus Christ, and grant that our lives, our communities, and our world again be centered on Him. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

Are there any questions now, or comments about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] It seems to me that the politicization of work is our major problem today. Politicians are now mandating the performance of vehicles. How well congress is equipped to do that, I don’t know, and the same thing is true in the environmental area. Politicians are mandating practicalities of life without the background, so the men of skill are being set aside by derefericience{?}.

[Rushdoony] Exactly. You summed it up thoroughly, and that represents the Plutonic point of view, the philosopher kings, the abstractionists, as the rulers of society, and at the bottom level are the workers, the producers, and that’s exactly what we’re doing to our society. We’re saying that the man who is productive is at the bottom of the ladder, and the man at the top, who is the Greek philosopher king, has the right to govern every detail of the life of the man at the bottom. So, we are working towards the realization of Plato’s Republic.

[Audience] Of course, in this area, the genuine scientists are ruled just as much as the mechanic.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Yes, and we are destroying good science and replacing it with a different kind. I think it’s interesting that in a society that has been ruled for a long time by philosopher kinds, the Soviet Union, there has been a progressive decline in the power to produce and maintain, and when the grandfathers who had grown up and gotten their training before the revolution of 1917, retired and died off, there was no one to replace them. We must remember that the czarist regime was a productive one. They were selling railroad equipment; trains, railroad engines to Latin America for example, and other places in the world. They were competing with the United States and Britain, and Germany. Now, they are working with decaying equipment, with an inability to maintain anything, and it’s because their whole society has been Hellenized. Abstractions prevail, and that’s what the Politburo and the Kremlin are good at. Abstractions. They send out abstractions to the factories and to the fields, and so there is no production. They’ve reversed the natural order of things and the producers are now the slaves. Yes?

[Audience] Is there in any other nation in history that has taxed its people and used the money to produce blasphemous art?

[Rushdoony] Not since Christ. Not since the Fall of Rome, and there was a cartoon that someone sent me this past week on that precise point. The National Endowment for the Arts. It showed a flasher, a naked man with a raincoat on, and opening it in the presence of some women and children, and a policeman rushing to arrest him and the man shouting at him, “First Amendment! First Amendment!” which I think is a telling commentary on these people in Washington and their idiocies. In fact, someone else sent me a clipping about ten days ago of a Die-In in New York City. There’s an art park which some endowment has funded where artists are funded and given housing and so on, and they wanted to stage in the nearby city what had been staged in San Francisco; a Bible burn-in, burning a huge pile of Bibles, and the foundation forbad it because they felt it would be counterproductive and the bad publicity it would bring them, so they staged a Die-In. They acted as if the arts had been killed, and they all stretched out in one of the public squares in the most prominent place like dead men, all these artists from this art colony, and one critic said it was a fitting symbol because he said art is dead, it has died of insanity. Any other comments or questions? Well, if not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we thank thee that because thou art on the throne, the day of the artist, the Christian worker, the producer, the thinker in godly channels shall again be with us, and that thy triumph shall be assured and eternal. We thank thee, our Father, that we can, as thou hast commanded us, share in thy heavenly laughter, for we are told that thou who sittest on the circle of the heavens dost laugh and thou dost have them in derision. O God, how great thou art, and we praise 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