Leviticus; The Law of Holiness and Grace

The Reparation Offering

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Lesson: 10

Track: 10

Dictation Name: RR172E10

Date: Early 70s

Let us worship God. Grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father, and 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.

Oh Lord our God, we give thanks unto Thee for the many mercies with which Thou doest daily surround us. We thank Thee that the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, Thy love, and the presence of the Holy Spirit are always ours. We thank Thee our Father than in a world of evil, we have the certainty of the triumph of Thy kingdom. Give us strength and grace therefore, day by day to walk in faith, to walk in obedience, to be ever-active in Thy service, knowing that the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. In His name we pray, amen.

Our scripture is Leviticus 7:1-10. Leviticus 7:1-10, and the subject, the Reparation Offering; The Reparation Offering.

“1 Likewise this is the law of the trespass offering: it is most holy.

2 In the place where they kill the burnt offering shall they kill the trespass offering: and the blood thereof shall he sprinkle round about upon the altar.

3 And he shall offer of it all the fat thereof; the rump, and the fat that covereth the inwards,

4 and the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, which is by the flanks, and the caul that is above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away:

5 and the priest shall burn them upon the altar for an offering made by fire unto the Lord: it is a trespass offering.

6 Every male among the priests shall eat thereof: it shall be eaten in the holy place: it is most holy.

7 As the sin offering is, so is the trespass offering: there is one law for them: the priest that maketh atonement therewith shall have it.

8 And the priest that offereth any man's burnt offering, even the priest shall have to himself the skin of the burnt offering which he hath offered.

9 And all the meat offering that is baken in the oven, and all that is dressed in the frying pan, and in the pan, shall be the priest's that offereth it.

10 And every meat offering, mingled with oil, and dry, shall all the sons of Aaron have, one as much as another.”

These verses continue the laws of trespass offering. They also presuppose restitution. Our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:23, 24, declares “that if any man has ought against his brother” (any fellow believer), “when he comes to the altar if he remembers there is something that he owes his brother, he must go and make restitution and then return before he can offer his offering to God.” Our Lord was referring to these verses, to the requirement of restitution or, as it can be rendered, restoration when we approach God. Restitution is inseparable from atonement. Christ on the cross made restitution for us both by his atoning death and by His life of obedience, as our representative. All believers now have restitution made with regard to their salvation. Christ has made it. But with regard to our daily life, our association one with another, the obligation of restitution or reparation continues. It is a part of our obligation as members of the covenant. The cross sets for the pattern of God’s justice for us to follow. It is restitution to God, and we are to make it to man.

One scholar, F.W. Grant has commented, “In Government, God’s nature must be declared.” In how we govern ourselves, both as individuals, as organizations, churches, and as civil governments, God’s nature, His Law must be declared; it must be set forth in every sphere of government. And this means restitution. In every area of life, God’s covenant mercy, protection, providence, and Law set forth for us the justice He requires of us. God’s goal is the restoration of His order and the development of His justice in every area of life and thought. Thus, restitution is basic. It means reestablishing God’s order, because He made all things very good, then developing the implications of that order for every sphere of life.

These verses set forth two things. First, when a man acknowledges his guilt he makes restitution and he comes to God with is offering. It is called the most holy, or the holiest of offerings, because man has taken steps thereby to restore God’s order. So the first verse begins by telling us of this offering; ‘it is most holy.’ This is the key. God’s order must be restored. There must be restitution towards God and towards man. Second, because the laborer is worthy of his hire, the priest receives the hide as his portion, and also ate of the sacrifices, according to verse 6. The portion belonging to God was burnt on the altar and the rest was given to the priests. Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:13 speaks of this fact. And he speaks of it as applicable in our day, declaring, “They which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple.” And so, Paul says, in terms of this, the laborer is worthy of his hire.

This law sets forth the life of faith as a very responsible one. This is why the Sermon on the Mount echoes it as does the whole of the New Testament. Peace with God and man means requital; restitution. And it is far removed from antinomianism. Our Lord makes plain how radical the requital God requires is, because He says, in Matthew 12:36, “But I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the Day of Judgment.” That’s a radical statement. It is set in the context of a passage, Matthew 12:25-37 which tell us first, ‘that a house divided against itself cannot stand.’ This applies to men and to institution. Second, it speaks of the unforgiveable sin, which is to blaspheme the Holy Ghost.

Now, there are too many men who will say, “We don’t know what that is.” Well, can you imagine a sin being called ‘the unforgiveable one,’ and the Bible does not tell us what it is? The Pharisees had just accused our Lord of healing by demonic power. And in Mark 3:30 it is made very clear that our Lord’s comment concerning the sin against the Holy Ghost had reference to this charge against Him. They had called evil, good and good, evil. They had overturned--they had reversed the moral order. Then third, our Lord in this passage, says, “Every tree is known by its fruits.” And then, fourth, He makes this statement, “there will be a full requital for every idle word.” In other words, God’s judgment is far-reaching. The restoration He requires in this world is far-reaching. Christ makes restitution God-ward for all of us. We then are to make restitution man-ward, wherever it can possibly be done.

We have a similar statement in the Sermon on the Mount on reparation; we are told the Lord requires payment ‘to the uttermost farthing.’ This is a part of our Lord’s declaration of the meaning of the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” We cannot defame, we cannot defraud, or in any way harm any other person without the requirement of restitution. Now this is a radical fact. To a degree, it is, perhaps, an impossible fact in that people are dead and gone and beyond our reach, and restitution cannot be made. But it is a possible fact, and there is must be done where we can still make restitution.

Now, what the Lord does not tell us in these passages is that we are to be reconciled with an unrepentant man who has wronged us. The sad fact is the people pay no attention to scripture, except to turn it upside down. It is the sinner who must make restitution, not the offended person. We are not told if someone sins us against we are to forgive them and make restitution to them, as some idiots have suggested. We must return good for evil, but this does not mean calling evil good or forgiving the unrepentant. The trespass offering sets forth requital--reparation, restitution--not confusion. The trespass offering restored or maintained peace between God and those persons who came to Him. Reparation is a term not commonly used, but it is a very vivid one in conveying the meaning of this offering, because reparation has the connotation of repairing, or restoring, and of repaying. It says that a relationship, an order, a justice, must be restored. And it must be made in two directions.

The sacrifices stress the God-ward aspect, and they require the man-ward aspect. Christ’s atonement replaced the old sacrifices, but it has not altered the requirement of requital or reparation. When the antinomian churches preach the death of the Law, they thus reduce Christianity and Christians to historical and social impotence. It says that evil does not need to be eradicated, that no restitution needs to be made. As a result, we have the prevailing attitude today, whereby it is argued even by people who profess to be Christian that it does not do any good to restore the life of a murdered man to murder the murderer. But it is restitution; life for life. What they have done is to work against the restoration of moral order. The Bible requires life for life. The reason for the impotence of the millions of Christians in this country is the fact that they are irrelevant because they pay no attention to the Word of God. When perhaps over 50% of the adults in this country profess to believe the Bible from cover to cover, it says something about them when only 4% of all elected officials on every level can be called, even in a loose sense, evangelical.

The result of antinomianism is all around us. Church preaching has become one of irrelevance. But the Bible makes clear the total relevance of God’s revelation to all of history. And the sacrifices are a constant reminder that man’s faith, or lack of faith, has social and historical consequences. No man can escape the relevance of his life. If he is not relevant in terms of the whole Word of God, then he is relevant in terms of man’s word, in terms of the basic premise of man’s sin to be his own god, to determine good and evil, law and morality, for himself. Relevance is inescapable, but most churchmen are irrelevant in terms of God and relevant only in terms of Adam.

When men abandon God’s word for their own, God then moves in judgment against them. The reparation offering means, very simply, that faith must be relevant. Faith always has consequences. If our faith does not have consequences for Jesus Christ and His kingdom, then it is not in Christ that our faith rests. Let us pray.

Oh Lord, Thy Word is truth. And thy Word requires the restoration of Thine order, of Thy kingdom, of Thy truth. We thank Thee our Father that Thy kingdom shall come, and Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. For Thy hast decreed it. And Thou hast declared that the wages of sin is always death. Make us alive in Thy Word and by Thy spirit, that we may be relevant in terms of Thy kingdom. In Chris’s name we pray, amen.

Are there any questions or comments now?

Yes

[Audience] The only use for that, uh, the only time that Christians, as far as I can see, have organized against anti-Christian activity has been the abortion issue …

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] …but I do remember that one of the great instruments of the Revolution is social ostracism and Christians have never applied that against anti-Christians.

[Rushdoony] Very true. Ah, excommunication was once a very serious thing, and not a trifling matter. Today if excommunication is at all used, it is for things related to the church, not to God’s Law. You can be excommunicated for disagreeing with church authorities, but not for blatant sins.

One of the things we need to recognize, and some of us were discussing this a day or so ago, is that man is a logical creature, because he is created in the image of God. We are all inescapably logical. Now, our logic can be very, very faulty if we begin with a bad premise. A bad premise will invalidate all the thinking we do, however rational it may be in terms of the presupposition. I recall about 30 years ago reading in a book, ah, about paranoia, the statement that paranoid people were usually highly intelligent and superb logicians. That they could, ah, overwhelm you with the logic of whatever was their problem and virtually convince you because their logic was so superb, except it began with a totally false premise.

Well, such people represent an extreme instance, but all of us are logical creatures. But the basic premise may be our self-will, or a false belief, which we then rigorously apply. Now, what we are required to be, because otherwise as sinners and as Humanists, we will have a false logic, is Theological. In other words, logical in terms of God, in terms of His Word, in terms of God as a basic premise. And antinomianism is not theological; it is Humanistic in its logic.

Are there any other questions or comments? [ 0:22:22.2]

Well, if not, let us bow our heads in prayer.

Our Lord and our God, Thou hast made us, and Thou hast made a world for us to subdue, to exercise dominion over in Thy name, and according to Thy Law-word. Oh Lord and our God, we have strayed from this task, we have abandoned it, we have denied it. And yet in Thy grace and mercy, Thou hast redeemed us in Jesus Christ and made us a part of Thy victory. Give us ever-growing zeal and knowledge and make us theological in the whole of our being that we may serve Thee with all our heart, mind, and being, and rejoice in Thy victory. 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.