Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace

The Center

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: The Center

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Track: 128

Dictation Name: RR171BR128

Location/Venue:

Year: Early 70’s

Let us worship God. Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Give unto the Lord the glory due his name. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. God is a spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Let us pray.

O Lord, our God, we give thanks unto thee for all our yesterdays. We thank thee that our hand, when placed upon thy plow, means thy providential government and that all things work together for good to them that love thee, to them who are the called according to thy purpose. We rejoice in thy mercies and in all thy promises to us in Jesus Christ which are yea and amen. Teach us so to walk, that taking hands of our lives we commit them into thy keeping, trust in thy government, and rejoice in thy mercy. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Our scripture is from Exodus 40. Exodus 40, and our fourth and final study of The Center, and with this we conclude our study in Exodus. Exodus 40. “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, On the first day of the first month shalt thou set up the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation,” then skipping to the 17th verse, “And it came to pass in the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month, that the tabernacle was reared up.” Then, verse 22. “And he put the table in the tent of the congregation, upon the side of the tabernacle northward, without the vail. And he set the bread in order upon it before the Lord; as the Lord had commanded Moses. And he put the candlestick in the tent of the congregation, over against the table, on the side of the tabernacle southward. And he lighted the lamps before the Lord; as the Lord commanded Moses. And he put the golden altar in the tent of the congregation before the vail: and he burnt sweet incense thereon; as the Lord commanded Moses. And he set up the hanging at the door of the tabernacle.” Verse 30, “And he set the laver between the tent of the congregation and the altar, and put water there, to wash withal.” Verse 34. “Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And when the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the children of Israel went onward in all their journeys:

but if the cloud were not taken up, then they journeyed not till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.”

Within two weeks of two years after the first passover, the sanctuary was completely constructed. It took perhaps six months to complete, according to some scholars. In verses 9-16, we are told that when all things were in place, certain things were anointed, not only things but also Aaron and his sons. The Greek word for anointed is our word “Christ,” the anointed one, or in the Hebrew, Messiah. The priesthood so anointed is declared to be an everlasting priesthood, in verse 15, although it ended in its temporary form with the Fall of Jerusalem, but the everlasting priesthood continues in God’s great anointed one, Jesus Christ.

In verses 1-16, we have the instruction for the erection and the anointing of the sanctuary. Then, verse 17 gives us the date of this event. In verses 18-33, we are given an account of this actual erection, plus the fact, in verses 23 and 29 that Moses had the privilege of conducting the first acts of worship as God commanded. Moses was assisted by Aaron, but in this instance, Moses had priority over Aaron in the sanctuary. The pillar and the cloud, of God’s presence and glory, filled the sanctuary. In verses 36-38, Israel is ordered to move and to halt, only as guided to do so by God. Man cannot move ahead of or in contradiction to God without judgment.

As Ellison observed, it was once axiomatic in Antiquity and in Christendom that the temple, which was also palace, should be central to and dominant in any city or town. To deny this centrality meant that you were an Atheist. It was common also in the English city and town that the town was dominated by the church and the city by its cathedral. The importance of a city depended often less on its size and more on the fact of a cathedral. Early American towns and cities were built on the same pattern. Not to do so meant Atheism.

The temple, or sanctuary, was witness to the fact that communion with God depends upon atonement. If there is no atonement, there is no communion. Because a covenant is a law treaty, a broken law means a broken covenant and the penalty of death. There can be no restoration of communion and community without the death penalty, without atonement, and the temple system tells us that God provides the sacrifice of atonement. Only by atonement could the wrongdoing or sin be covered and blotted out. Since the sin was against God, only God could set the form of atonement.

The dedication of things was the first step in sanctifying the sanctuary. They were anointed and declared holy unto God. Then, the sanctifying of the priests followed. The essential and great sanctifying is described in the concluding verses. God’s presence makes the sanctuary holy.

In verse 20, there is a reference to the testimony. This is to the tables of stone with the engraved Ten Commandments. There is a reference again to the testimony again in verse 3, and in verses 20 and 21. Now, the word has, as its root meaning, a word meaning witness. Also, a recorder or a prince. That’s a rather startling meaning to us. It means God’s personal evidence, His binding law is also His personal presence in a covenant statement to His people, so that where God gives the law He is also present. The law therefore, in the Bible, is not an impersonal or an abstract code, but the personal witness and covenant presence of God. It sets forth the premise of His covenant and His peace.

Central to God’s sanctuary and palace is the ark, and within it, God’s law. Then, we find in the Holy of Holies, two things which clearly set forth the meaning of the covenant. The ark and the mercy seat, and within the ark, God’s covenant law. Grace and law are thus inseparable in the Bible. At the same time, for God to covenant Himself is an act of sovereign grace, and His covenant is law. Any attempt to separate grace and law is destructive of both and a destruction of covenantalism. God’s required center for society is thus the sanctuary. The sanctuary sets forth the necessity for both grace and law. Man can live without neither, and to attempt to build any social order without grace or law is suicidal. This is why the Christian state and the Christian church, working together but separate, are essential to society. Neither communion nor community is possible without God’s grace and law at the center.

Antinomianism is hostile to true covenantalism. It destroys social order. While proclaiming grace, antinomianism in time erodes it, because like law, grace is inseparable from God’s covenant and His atonement. Grace through Christ’s atonement is a witness to the necessity for and the importance of God’s law for His kingdom.

While the sanctuary was sanctified and the tables of the law were placed within the ark, something else took place. The glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Prior to that, when the erection of the sanctuary was completed and its sanctification, we are told, so Moses finished the work. Having done his part, Moses stood back and God, with His glory, filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter because God’s glory filled and covered the sanctuary. For the rest of their wilderness day, the pillar of fire and the cloud rested on the tabernacle or else guided their journey. The pillar and the cloud did not remain with Israel after their entry into the Promised Land, although when the temple was dedicated, they reappeared. Once in the land, God’s glory was to be manifest in their exercise of dominion.

In the wilderness, the pillar and the cloud were a guiding and protecting force. Once in the land and no longer on alien ground the covenant people now had the duty to reveal the glory of God and their faithfulness to the covenant law word and covenant grace. Deuteronomy 28:1-14 tells how practical, remarkable, and far-reaching that manifest glory will be, whereas the rest of Deuteronomy 28 tells us that God’s presence and glory will, when people are disobedient, be replaced by His judgment and His curse. The manifestations and blessings in God’s presence and glory require faithfulness to the covenant law. There is no neutral ground between God’s blessings and His curses. All attempts to deny centrality to God in a culture are efforts to escape from the inevitable alternatives of blessings and curses. There is no escape possible. No center holds like the triune God. Everything else falls apart. So, our duty is to reestablish the God-ordained center.

Now Exodus tells us a great deal about the center of society, God, His sanctuary, His worship, His law, His grace and mercy. In Ezekiel 40-48, the temple reappears in a vision which tells us the meaning of the center even more fully. Out of the sanctuary there flows a river of life to all the world. It comes out from under the altar, from the atonement. Instead of diminishing as it leaves the altar, the river of life become wider and deeper and its waters carry healing everywhere. There is a related vision prophesy in Zechariah 14:20-21. All things everywhere shall be so sanctified that not only men and nations, but very ordinary things, utensils, everything shall be holiness unto the Lord. Isaiah spoke of this also when he said, “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all of my holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” The same prediction appears in Habakkuk 2:14, and throughout the whole of the Bible. The goal of history is that the world become the sanctuary of God. Even as God inhabits all of eternity without becoming comprehended by it, so too He shall inhabit all the earth, even as he did the Holy of Holies. The world must become and shall become the sanctuary of God.

So, we are summoned to be wise hearted and willing hearted in the preparation of God’s ordained sanctuary; this earth. The center cannot be limited to a place made with hands. It must comprehend the whole earth. God must be at the center everywhere, and in all things.

The goal of history is a global jubilee, a total restoration, all things under God the king. The center must govern our lives and the world, and this means bringing all things into captivity to Jesus Christ. David, in Psalm 89:9 declares, “All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord, and shalt glorify thy name.” If a church does not see itself as an embassy of the great center, God in His glory, it is a false church. It is the duty of the true church to seek the preeminence and the rule of God in every area of life and thought.

So, Exodus is a very important book. The very word, Exodus, as Luke 9:28-31 makes clear when it speaks of our Lord’s decease, which He shall accomplish at Jerusalem. The word “decease” is Exodus; ex hodos. Hodos meaning way. So, God shows us the way of the Lord through Christ. Jesus Christ, as God incarnate, leads the way into the very presence of God. The false center Jerusalem in destroyed, and the true center our Lord says, is himself. “Destroy this temple and in three days I will built it again,” he told the court, and the veil of the temple was rent in twain from top to bottom according to Matthew 27:51. The old temple was a false center. It had profaned itself, so God profaned it. In 1 Peter 4:17 tells us that now, in the gospel age, judgment must begin at the house of God. Those churches which had made themselves into false and evil centers, which point to the wrong way, the wrong exodus, shall be profaned by God. Where God’s covenant people, our Lord’s exodus means going from captivity to freedom, and from the realm of death to the realm of resurrection.

The whole goal is cosmic in scope, and the great error of Israel was to limit the Messiah to a nationalistic goal, and the great error of a great many churches now is to limit it to a humanistic goal, the social gospel, or with others to purely personal salvation, saving souls. But God’s purpose is that the whole earth be filled with His knowledge as the waters cover the see.

Psalm 117, the shortest chapter in the Bible, celebrates this fact. It stresses God’s merciful kindness. It declares that all nations are to serve Him. The center is not man nor man’s political state, nor man’s institutions. It is God and His kingdom, His reign, His rule. We are summoned to praise God for His merciful kindness, for our salvation is all of grace.

But even as the construction of the sanctuary required willing hearts, wise hearted men, we cannot have the center and its transforming power in our society or the world at large without freewill offerings, above and over the tithe. The tithe is to maintain the present work. The freewill offerings go to extend it. There has been a long and ongoing debate in the church on freewill versus predestination. In the sense that these advocates of freewill use the term, the idea is a myth, an impossibility. No creature has freewill. No one chooses the day of his birth, the race, the family, his sex, the time of his birth, the century, or anything else, or his aptitudes. He only develops what he has. Freewill is an absolute concept. It is impossible for man. We have responsibility and accountability, a very different thing from freewill. It is a grim irony that the only references in the Bible to freewill have to do with offerings to God above and over the tithe. So, let those who insist on freewill demonstrate it in God’s appointed way by giving freely and generously, above and over the tithe, to God’s kingdom work.

The kingdom of God cometh not by disputation. It rests, humanly speaking, on God’s appointed way, on the willing hearted and the wise hearted. When men have their lives governed by the only true center, Jesus Christ, then their giving will also be so governed, then the power and effect of the center will radiate into all the world. Let us pray.

Our Father, we thank thee that thou hast summoned us to the center, to Christ, and summoned us to make Him the center of our lives and of our world, our time, our homes, our work, everything, and to give ourselves to be wise hearted and to give our freewill offerings for the extension of thy kingdom. Bless us to this purpose in Christ’s name. Amen. Are there any questions now with regard to our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] Could you please address verse 75 where it says that Moses was not allowed to enter into the tabernacle. It seems of all people he would be the most deserving, but apparently it’s not a matter of deserving.

[Rushdoony] We are told again and again in scripture that for sinful man to behold God is to die. He must be totally cleansed, totally sanctified, and because God’s presence was there in the sanctuary, no man dare enter. It was the center, and they were to live in terms of that center, but they could not enter as long as God’s glory inhabited the sanctuary with that particular power. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Audience] I hear that the chaplains in the army over in the Gulf have had to remove their Christian symbols from their uniform, and I wonder if there’s a possibility of religious conflict between Christians and Muslims there.

[Rushdoony] Yes. That’s another instance of how we are surrendering at every turn to the Saudis so that, not only are Bibles not to be shown publicly, they are to be hidden books, but the cross cannot be shown nor any public worship, and we’re surrendering to this, and I would say to chaplains who go along with that are guilty before God. What they are saying is, “Our presence there to defend the country, which with untold wealth, has taken no steps really of any substantial form, to defend itself, and for them to dictate terms to us is evil.” They have only an army of 60,000. They have an air force which is totally trained and totally supplied by us. Their army of 60,000 we’ve trained and we’ve supplied, and yet we allow them to dictate terms to us. I don’t see how we’re capable of winning a war when we are such “Casper Milquetoasts,” and the chaplains are saying that they are not under God, but under Washington and George Bush. I think one of the interesting developments, which no other country has followed, as continued for sometime in the British Navy. In the British Navy, the chaplains are not a part of the Navy. From way back, they have refused to be a part of the naval force. They are civilian help onboard the ship conducting religious worship under the jurisdiction of the church and with no relation to the Navy. It’s the only example of that type of stand, and yet nobody else has picked up on that. Are there any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Audience] A question in relating to this no man seeing God, when Moses came down from the mountain after receiving the law, his face was shining from the glory of God. I was wondering how that could be, that he {?} face was shining?

[Rushdoony] We are told he saw, as it were, the backside, or the reflection really, of God, and the effect of that was such that his face glowed and Christ, of course, was transfigured on the Mount of Transfiguration, too, and when He came down they were afraid of him, just as the people were afraid of Moses. We have no idea because we’ve never seen into the other world the glory that shall be ours there, because with perfect sanctification, we shall be partaking of something that, at present, we cannot even guess at. Yes?

[Audience] In the lesson {?} the cloud indicating God’s presence appears each time the law is given, and there are over, I understand, over 600 laws . . .

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] And God has appeared, or this cloud has appeared each time in all 600 instances.

[Rushdoony] No, the cloud appeared by day to lead them when they journeyed, and when they weren’t traveling, it rested on the sanctuary. At night it was a pillar of file, so that at night they could move in the darkness following that pillar. So, the law was given from Mount Sinai where there were thunderings, lightnings, and cloud, even though it’s not a volcanic mountain, but it wasn’t that it appeared each time with each law. It was there always, over the sanctuary. Are there any other questions or comments? Well, if not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we thank thee for thy word, and we beseech thee make us instruments of thy kingdom, that we might be centered on Jesus Christ and we may restore this nation and the world to its true center. Teach us so to walk day by day, that our hearts may always be fixed on Him in whom our true joys are to be found. 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