Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace

God’s Way

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: God’s Way

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Track: 018

Dictation Name: RR171J18

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 to all generations. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, we lift up our hearts and join in thanksgiving that thou art on the throne. In a world where draught and troubles and evils abound, we have the blessed assurance that because thou art on the throne, all things shall indeed work together for good. That thy will shall be done, and thy kingdom shall come indeed. Bless us in our service to thee, make us ever faithful and joyful. Bless us this day by thy word and by thy spirit, and grant us thy peace. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture lesson is Exodus 7:1-7. Our subject: God’s Way. Exodus 7:1-7. “And the LORD said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh: And Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. Thou shalt speak all that I command thee: and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh, that he send the children of Israel out of his land. And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I may lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth mine armies, and my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them. And Moses and Aaron did as the LORD commanded them, so did they. And Moses was fourscore years old, and Aaron fourscore and three years old, when they spake unto Pharaoh.”

From the standpoint of a modern writer, the narrative here is slow. The radical conflict between God and Pharaoh is delayed. From the standpoint of the Bible, however, God was preparing Moses for that confrontation, and the duties of leadership. Israel was acted upon instead of acting. Moses was the one person in this struggle who moved on God’s orders. He was not a man who reacted to events but however willingly, served God in his determination of them. All others in this confrontation with Pharaoh and the plagues on Egypt were, in a sense, spectators. They were spectators to one of History’s greatest moments. They were acted upon instead of acting, as men under God.

Because of the significance of Moses’ calling, God moves in terms of bringing Moses to an awareness of God’s purpose, and the place of Moses in terms of it. Moses, as God’s man, had, as his calling, the duty to mediate God’s law word to Israel, and to instruct the people. The liberation of Israel from Egypt was only the first step, then came the giving of the law. To mediate God’s word was a great responsibility, because it meant showing the covenant people the way of freedom and power. Moses was called to represent God’s word to Egypt and to Israel, to speak in the name and the power of the Lord.

Ellison has pointed out that to pray in Jesus’ name means to act as His representatives. It means that you are engaging to do God’s work, you are concerned about God’s work, and because you are one of His people as His representative, you pray because you also work in the same direction. To pray in the name of the Lord means to pray in His power and authority. God’s purpose was that the Egyptians “know that I am Lord.” This expression is used by Ezekiel over 60 times. God’s way is justice, and Egypt, because it refused the justice of God, came to know it as judgment. It was then Israel’s turn to know the Lord through judgment, and we must not forget that the story of Exodus deals with both the judgment on Egypt, and then the judgment that developed before they entered the Promised Land, on Israel as well.

It was Israel’s turn after they left Egypt to know the Lord through judgment. In Psalms 78, the “Psalm of Asaph,” is a vivid account of this, and so is Psalm 106. And in Psalm 106 we are told that, after Israel was delivered from Egypt, we read in verses 13-15, they soon forgot His works. They waited not for His counsel, but they lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert, and He gave them their requests, but sent leanness to their souls.

Moses was to be as a god to Pharaoh. The Egyptian concept of a god was radically unlike the biblical doctrine, except that, in practice, Pharaoh was the ultimate authority for Egypt. Moses was now to speak through Aaron as the voice of the living God and like Pharaoh, one who spoke through a mediator. According to Kasuto, and I quote, “The basic idea of this section is speech. In the one side, the Lord speaks to Moses and Aaron, and one the other we have the utterance of human beings.” But even more, the basic idea is whose speech, whose word shall stand. Men are always speaking, and men propose we are told, and God disposes. Men seek to establish an independent work, and independent plan in order to be free of God, but God pronounces His word of judgment on all rebels. In the proclamation of this word, Aaron is to be God’s prophet by serving Moses. “Even Aaron, thy brother, shall be thy prophet,” God says, or spokesman. This was no demeaning, or downgrading of Aaron. It tells us how close he was to the center of God’s power, and that he was in a place of trust.

In verse 4, we have a reference to Israel, as God’s armies. In Exodus 13:18, we are told that Israel left Egypt in some kind of battle array. Exodus 15:3 it says, “The Lord is a man of war.” There is an irony in this, in that a slave people hardly constituted an impressive army. It was because there was such a difference between what Israel was and what God did for them that led to a fear of Israel among the nations, as we are repeatedly told in Exodus and Deuteronomy.

Now in the verses which follow our scripture, verses 8 following, we have the beginning of the judgments on Egypt. But immediately before this, in verse 7, we are told that, at this point, Moses was eighty years of age, and Aaron eighty-three. Now it is an important fact that is stated here very deliberately. It is not an accidental fact, but it is especially purposive. We have, first of all, a very reluctant man, Moses. Moses knows the impossibility, humanly speaking, of his human task, and he is very unwilling to start it. Second, we have a slave people who prefer slavery to the hazards of freedom. Then third, we have the power of Pharaoh and Egypt. And that power was determined to suppress a potential slave rebellion. Fourth, and finally, we have the fact of the age of Moses and of Aaron, hardly young men.

Now, Egyptian records indicate that men of that era lived and worked for a century. Life expectancy was still longer. But what was unusual was for a man to begin to make his mark at the age of eighty. Centuries later, in David’s case, God used a very young man. In both David’s and Moses’ cases, we have God confounding the normal human expectations. A generation ago, a writer pleased many by writing a book, “Life Begins at Forty.” God here tells us that a great career begins at whatever age God ordains. Moses is a man whom God uses, when He chooses, and He makes him into one of history’s powerful movers.

This has not made Moses, however, a popular figure for the twentieth century, not even among Jews. Sigmund Freud tried to make an Egyptian out of Moses, and thus, exorcise him and the law out of Judaism. Others have attempted the same task in other ways, thus commentary published a few years ago on the Torah by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, says of Exodus 7, the chapter we are studying, and I quote, “Scholars have sought in vain for a historical kernel{?} to these tales. Some have attempted to fit them into the context of the Egyptian natural environment, but such procedure leads nowhere. The reality that the tale intends to convey is not past historical but present effective.” Well, Freud and Moses, and monotheism have the Egyptian Moses killed by the Jews, and as a modern Jewish scholar, David Bakan has observed, “It is Freud who wishes that Moses were murdered.” Bakan charges that what Freud did was to seek to break the hold of Moses and God’s law on Jews, and he wrote, “The myth he fashions is not a one-person murdering Moses, it is a murder which is collectively committed by all the Jews.” Freud saw himself, according to Bakan, in a messianic role as a deliverer of his people, and Bakan says of Moses and monotheism, and I quote, “Thus, by writing this book, Freud becomes a Jewish hero in the history of the Jews. He performs the traditional messianic function of relieving guilt, the very same function he ascribes to Jesus.” Well, since Freud’s death, the practical and working religion of Jews has not been historic Judaism, but Israel, a secularized faith, a nationalist religion.

Now, within the church this same trend has existed, to exorcise Moses, to get rid of him. Antinomians have killed off the relevance of Moses. Supposedly, Moses gave Israel a plan of salvation, by law, which they say Jesus invalidated. Thus Moses, for the antinomians, is dead in so far as having any relevance for the church. Moses is not only misrepresented as to his significance, but is also pushed onto Judaism by these antinomians, and there are approximately 100,000 such churches in the United States. To deny the validity of the law as God’s way of sanctification and to downgrade Moses is to invite judgment for a faithlessness and irrelevance. God took Moses, a man of eighty would have been very humanly speaking and was of no consequence, and made him the mover and shaker of history in his day, and through most of history, and God says He is able to take the things that are weak and despised by the world, and use them to confound the world. This is what God has done over and over again, and what God will do in our generation. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, we thank thee that thou art moving, and that thy judgment is abroad, and that the Pharaohs of our world shall know that thou art God. Grant, oh Lord, that thy people stand in thy word, become more than conquerors, and give justice to the nations. Use us, oh Lord, in this task, we beseech thee. In Christ’s name, Amen. Are there any questions now about our lessons? Yes?

[Audience] What Freud tried to do was to replace God.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] And the other point is a question, and that is, you said 100,000 churches, 100,000 people who have rejected Moses as relevant to Christianity, and who are they?

[Rushdoony] The 100,000 churches are the pre-mil churches that really look to Israel for their hope and the restoration of Israel, and the rapture, and are irrelevant to the problems of our time. There are 100,000 of them. Any other questions and comments? Well, if not, let…Yes?

[Audience] Well, it’s interesting that although Freud tried to remove guilt, that they’ve been {?} guilt since World War II on all the Germans.

[Rushdoony] Yes, yes. Guilt has become an instrument of power. The current Harper’s magazine, surprisingly, has an excellent article on this subject. It is written by a black professor, and his point is that innocence gives power. A very remarkable point religiously. And he said that as long as the white man was strong in his faith and in his sense of innocence, he knew he was better than others, and he could rule, but once he began to feel guilty, he began to lose power and the black man began to lay a guilt trip on the white man, and by playing up the fact that he was a victim, the black man gained his own version of innocence. His conclusion is, of course, this is destroying now the black man. That he is worse off than before the Civil Rights Movement began, and that it is also destroying the United States, black and white. He begins his account, which is a very, very telling one, by citing a discussion that ended rather lamely in which this woman of some means and position bewailed the fact that her daughter was going to a school, a black girl, where there were virtually no blacks, and how was she going to have the ability to identify and to lay a guilt trip on others, that was the implication. It’s a devastating account, coming from within the black community. A very remarkable article. Well, let us conclude now with prayer.

Lord, it is good to read thy word and to study it, for thy word is truth and thy word is light upon our way. We give thanks unto thee, oh Lord, for all who stand in terms of thy word in high places and low, and we rejoice in Margaret Thatcher’s stand upon thy word, and upon thy Son. Bless us, as we are faithful to thee and make the way straight before us, and grant us thy peace. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.

End of tape.