Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace

The Priority of Grace

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: The Priority of Grace

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Track: 037

Dictation Name: RR171U37

Location/Venue:

Year: Early 70’s

Let us worship God. Our help is in the Lord who made heaven and earth. Seeing that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us therefore come bolding unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Let us pray.

All glory be to thee, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. We thank thee that, day after day, thou dost surround us with thy mercies and thy providential care. We confess, our Father, that too often we are mindless of thy mercies, and complaining of the things that we have not. Give us grateful hearts. Give us joy in thy word and in thy care, and in the knowledge of thy victory, and make us ever faithful in thy service. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture is from Exodus 12:43-51. Our subject: The Priority of Grace. Exodus 12:43-51. “And the LORD said unto Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of the passover: There shall no stranger eat thereof: But every man's servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof. A foreigner and an hired servant shall not eat thereof. In one house shall it be eaten; thou shalt not carry forth ought of the flesh abroad out of the house; neither shall ye break a bone thereof. All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that is born in the land: for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof. One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you. Thus did all the children of Israel; as the LORD commanded Moses and Aaron, so did they. And it came to pass the selfsame day, that the LORD did bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their armies.”

In this passage, we return again to the passover. Moses is commanded to instruct Israel further concerning its meaning. To be in communion with God and to receive His grace, mercy and blessings means that we must recognize and obey the divisions created and ordained by God. Human relationships cannot legitimately be determined by human considerations. They must be grounded in the word of God. In other words, God tells us with whom and how we are to associate. But men prefer their humanistic standards to God’s law. As a result, the wealthy, the educated, and the art-conscious homosexual, for example, is in our day commonly regarded as socially acceptable when a poor and honest Christian is not. Men want their world and their relationships to be determined by their tastes, by their standards, and they thereby pervert the social order. Faithfulness to the Lord, scripture tells us, is a matter of life. Jesus Christ says, “Ye shall know them by their fruits.”

For Socrates being a sodomite was no bar to talking about virtue as though he were an authority on the subject. Ellison was right in stating, and I quote, “The stress on verbal orthodoxy, which has brought so much suffering and division to the church, is a part of the early church’s legacy from the Greeks.” The Greeks divided man into two substances, and they felt the mind was above sin, and the mind was capable of knowing and practicing virtue when the body did not.

Israel then, and the church now, cannot be a part of the family of man, which means membership in the fallen Adam. It means accepting his war against God. It means insisting on human unity. As a result, no stranger, meaning no one alien to God’s covenant, can partake of the passover, we read. No foreigner, nor hired servant who is outside the covenant can approach the table. If a slave of foreign extraction accepted circumcision, that is entered the covenant, he could do so. This also meant he became a free man, because when he became a believer, he was free when his purchase price was worked out in labor.

The passover lamb was to be eaten in its entirety, so that a family too small to eat a lamb shared one with a neighbor, as we saw a couple weeks ago. The meat could not be carried from one house to another and it was to be eaten in its entirety where it was prepared. Moreover, “neither shall ye break a bone thereof,” verse 46 says. This verse is cited in John 19:36 when we are told unlike other crucified men, the bones of Jesus were not broken by the soldiers.

The separation required by the passover and now by communion, have as their purpose, our peace with God and our unity in the faith. Our Lord’s passover prayer is “Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be given me that they may be one as we are.” We are told this is the ordinance of the passover, in verse 43. That is, the law God has established. It is not a suggestion but a requirement, a law. Again, this is stated in verse 49, “One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you.” Things cannot be made easier for the st4ranger, nor for the homeborn. Circumcision meant recognizing the necessity of rebirth, of regeneration, by God’s electing grace. Passover, or communion, set forth God’s grace and blessing to His covenant people.

Now, there is a very important difference between Judaism and Christianity which comes out here. According to the very learned and brilliant Late Chief Rabbi of the British Empire Dr. J.H. Hertz, circumcision, and I quote, “Is the sign of Israel’s election.” Now, this is a very important point, because what this belief does is to transfer from the individual to the race, or the nation, and this is a dramatically different fact. This changes the whole effect of the gospel.

The text stresses that the covenant and the table are open to believing strangers, and it is a serious warping of the meaning to say it is Israel that is elected per se. Now, God has elected and used nations, but the primary election is of individuals. In terms of this belief, membership then becomes not membership in God’s community of grace, but in Israel, and this was a problem in the early church. This is, of course, a violation of verse 49, the requirement of one law for the homeborn and the stranger. The one law is God’s, not Israel’s. It has reference here to the passover, but elsewhere this doctrine of one law is applied generally. For example, in Leviticus 24:22, “Ye shall have one manner of law as well for the stranger as for one of your own country, for I am the Lord your God. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you and thou shalt love him as thyself, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord.” This in Leviticus 19:34. In Numbers 35:15 we read, “These six cities shall be a refuge, both for the children of Israel, and for the stranger, and for the sojourner among them: that every one that killeth any person unawares may flee thither.” These and many, many other texts stress first that all men and peoples are under God’s law, so that no nation can legitimately make laws contrary to God’s law.

Then second, although all men are and must be equally under God’s law and justice, their approach to Him in worship must also be in terms of His law. In both the sphere of justice and of worship, God’s law prevails. If a man is a thief or a murderer, he is an outlaw in the sphere of civil justice. On the other hand, if he does not kill, steal, or bear false witness, and so on, he has the protection of God’s law but without faith, he is an outlaw in the sphere of worship and in relationship to God.

Isaiah 56:3-8 give us a prophetic declaration of the place of foreigners in God’s covenant. Isaiah makes clear it is not national but God-centered. So, the primary election is of individuals. The primary salvation is of individuals. And, when Judaism shifted election from the person to the nationality, to the race, it went into Phariseeism. It said that salvation now was by membership in Israel, not by their relationship to God. The tragic fact is that the failure of Judaism at this point is being repeated by the church.

A very fine congregation in Brooklyn, made up of Jews, and almost as many Irish, spoke out against things happening in their denomination, which happened to be the Christian Reformed Church. No one answered them on a single point, all of which documented from what had transpired at the college and in their synod meeting. Instead they said, “You’re an outsider. How dare you open your mouth.” And he received some very harsh letters of this sort.

In the New Testament era, the moral superiority of the Jews when compared to other peoples was very marked. The Gentiles simply were not on the same moral level. Much of the hatred of the Jews was due to their very obvious superiorities. However, much was also due to the fact that the Jews stressed their superiority and made others feel it. The church in our time is often guilty of the same thing. Moreover, it makes two errors as well. First, in the past two centuries, it has regarded with contempt, races other than certain European groups. Racism is a very modern thing. It has come in with the decline of the faith, and so people have associated their superiority with their race, and very commonly it was asserted and there have been books that have been written, especially before World War 2 and World War 1, declaring that the Nordic peoples had an inherent superiority which separated them from all other peoples, or that the Anglo Saxon peoples represented the element of virtue, genetically and among the races.

Then second, in reaction to this, many have insisted on racial equality and have added to that a contempt for Christianity and the European peoples, and both positions are false. A biblical faith can give people a great advantage, but the advantage is one of grace, not race. Remember, God told Israel through the prophets that he could raise up unto himself a great people out of the Ethiopians, that power and eminence and ability came out of His ordination, not out of any inherent thing in any people. Both the racist and the equalitarian perspectives overlook the priority of God’s electing grace as the determining fact in the lives of men and nations.

This is what perverted the passover. To say that it was the election of them as a people, no matter what they did. And this is what perverts communion in the modern age, when it is separated from God’s election. To celebrate communion apart from the doctrine of predestination is to drift into Phariseeism. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we thank thee that it is of thy grace and not our merits that we stand before thee, for in thy sight we have no merit. Make us ever mindful, our Father, of how great thou art, how great thy grace and mercy unto us, and use us to reach out to others with the grace that we have received, to the end that all peoples, tribes, tongues and nations may become members of thy kingdom. In Christ’s name, amen.

Are there any questions now concerning our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] It’s interesting that the equalitarians are not aware of the injury that they’re doing to so many.

[Rushdoony] Yes, they are really modern Pharisees, because they feel so proud of their equalitarianism, as though somehow they are superior because they are equalitarian. It’s a peculiar position and an illogical one. Yes?

[Audience] Well, they’re really saying that the rest of you are all equal.

[Rushdoony] [laughs] Yes, it is commonly associated with an elitist position. Yes?

[Audience] On arguing that the primary election is of the individual, you conceded that God at that time elected nations and used nations. In what sense has He elected nations and can you give some examples?

[Rushdoony] Yes. The election of a nation does not mean that all the people therein are elect, but simply that for a time He uses a nation which may be Godless. Such as Nebuchadnezzar, such as the Persians whom God raised up and elected to fulfill his purpose. The Assyrians. So, God can ordain people to do fearful and tremendous things, good and evil. The election of a people is not necessarily an election of grace, but where individuals are concerned, what is at issue here is that their election is of grace, and they do not stand in and of themselves. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Audience] Is it right to apply these passover instructions and restrictions to Christian communion, and if so, is verse 47 an instruction for participation of children in the sacrament?

[Rushdoony] In verse 47?

[Audience] {?} whole community of Israel.

[Rushdoony] Yes. The Israel there in the sense of those who are of the household of God, because the term “Israel” is used both of the nation and both of the congregation. It did mean the children celebrated it and in the early church, the children did participate. And just as in the Old Testament ritual, the youngest child in the family capable of understanding and speaking would ask the question, “Father, what is the meaning of this that we do?” and then the meaning was explained to him. In the early church, it was a regular ritual that the young boys, as a group, participated by raising the question. They recited something that asked that the meaning be explained to them, and that was a regular part of the service. Any other questions? Well, if not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Lord and our God, we thank thee that our salvation is all of grace. That it does not depend on us for surely we could never attain unto it. We thank thee that thy mercies are new every morning. That thy grace and mercy is not only in our salvation, but in our daily protection and care. Thy providential mercies. Make us ever joyful and grateful. 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.