Leviticus; The Law of Holiness and Grace

Phariseeism and the Law

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Lesson: 18

Track: 18

Dictation Name: RR172J18

Date: Early 70s

Let us worship God. Thus saith the Lord, “Ye shall seek Me and find Me when ye shall search for Me with all your heart.” Jesus said, “Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” Let us pray.

Oh Lord, our God, fill us with a hunger, a thirst after righteousness, after Thy justice, that according to Thy promise, the earth may be filled with Thy knowledge, Thy justice, as the waters cover the sea. We come to Thee mindful, oh Lord that the earth is indeed covered with injustice, that men despise Thy Word and forsake Thee. Make us ever mindful, oh Lord that we have been made not for our own purposes, but for Thy glory to serve Thee with all our heart, mind and being. Use us, oh Lord. Recall us to Thy self and make us strong by Thy Word and by Thy Spirit, unto the end that the earth may hear Thy word, rejoice in Thy Law, delight in Thy Spirit, and fulfill Thy righteousness. Grant us this we beseech Thee in Christ’s name, amen.

Our scripture is from Leviticus 10:12-20. Our subject, “Phariseeism and the Law.” “Phariseeism and the Law.” Leviticus 10:12-20:

“12 And Moses spake unto Aaron, and unto Eleazar and unto Ithamar, his sons that were left, Take the meat offering that remaineth of the offerings of the Lord made by fire, and eat it without leaven beside the altar: for it is most holy:

13 And ye shall eat it in the holy place, because it is thy due, and thy sons' due, of the sacrifices of the Lord made by fire: for so I am commanded.

14 And the wave breast and heave shoulder shall ye eat in a clean place; thou, and thy sons, and thy daughters with thee: for they be thy due, and thy sons' due, which are given out of the sacrifices of peace offerings of the children of Israel.

15 The heave shoulder and the wave breast shall they bring with the offerings made by fire of the fat, to wave it for a wave offering before the Lord; and it shall be thine, and thy sons' with thee, by a statute forever; as the Lord hath commanded.

16 And Moses diligently sought the goat of the sin offering, and, behold, it was burnt: and he was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of Aaron which were left alive, saying,

17 Wherefore have ye not eaten the sin offering in the holy place, seeing it is most holy, and God hath given it you to bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the Lord?

18 Behold, the blood of it was not brought in within the holy place: ye should indeed have eaten it in the holy place, as I commanded.

19 And Aaron said unto Moses, Behold, this day have they offered their sin offering and their burnt offering before the Lord; and such things have befallen me: and if I had eaten the sin offering today, should it have been accepted in the sight of the Lord?

20 And when Moses heard that, he was content.”

In the first half of this chapter, we saw the judgment that fell upon Nadab and Abihu because they brought strange fire into the presence of the Lord. Beyond that general statement, nothing is specified. Except that some way or other, what had happened was that something alien (‘strange’ meaning ‘alien’), had been introduced into the ritual. And God requires that His Word be kept in every jot and tittle, that man has not the prerogative to alter things, to say, ‘this is a reasonable addition or subtraction from the Word.’ Nadab and Abihu were in the process of making adaptations, changes, which apparently they believed would improve on the worship of God, on one’s approach to God. And the judgment on them was death.

What they did was Phariseeism. Because, as we saw, Phariseeism adds to the Word of God, or alters it and says in effect, ‘our interpretation is superior to the plain letter.’ Hence, their saying (the Pharisaic saying), the word of scripture is like water, but the interpretation is like wine.

Now Moses in verses 12-15 repeats some of the requirements of God. This has to do first of all with the meat, or more accurately, meal or cereal offering. ‘Meat’ being used here in the old-fashioned English term, where ‘flesh’ was the word for what we call meat today. Why he repeated these requirements, we are not told, but apparently, some of the changes, or so-called improvements introduced by Nadab and Abihu, had to do with some of these things. So he summarizes the Law here.

Sin is not usually an isolated act, but a pattern—a way of life, and so we have no reason to believe that Nadab and Abihu did one solitary act rather than establishing a pattern of sin; a pattern of saying, ‘We can improve on the Word of God.’ Moses stresses these particular aspects of the ritual. In this reminder, he makes clear it is not his personal view, but a mandate from Almighty God. He declares, “For so I am commanded,” in verse 13. The Law in its totality is God’s Word, God’s Law, and there can be no variation from it. We are told again and again in scripture that every jot and every tittle of the Word must be obeyed. Parker’s comment on this is, again, very excellent, and in line with what he said that we cited last week. “And Moses spake unto Aaron, ‘Take the meat offering’ and he adds, ‘For so I am commanded.” Moses was not the fountain of authority. There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding. This is not a clamorous interference with Aaron—an interference merely for the sake of tumult or the assertion of an endangered right—it was the representation of a divine purpose and a holy command. This is an instance which shows how the Law was looked after. Men make laws and forget them. They refer to statutes three hundred years old, venerable with the dust of four centuries, and they surprise current opinions by exhumations which show the cleverness and the perseverance of the lawyer. Men are fond of making laws. When they have ignoble leisure, they improve it, to use an ironical expression, by adding to the bylaws, by multiplying mechanical stipulations and regulations and forgetting the existence of such laws in the very act of their multiplication. God has no dead letters in His law book. The Law is alive, tingling, throbbing at every letter and at every point. The commandment is exceedingly broad; it never slumbers, never passes into obsoleteness, but stands in perpetual claim of right and insistence of decree. It is convenient to forget laws; but God will not allow any one of His laws to be forgotten. Every inquiry which Moses put to Israel was justified by a statute. He said in effect, ‘I do but represent the Law; there is nothing hypocritical in my examination. There is nothing super-refined in my judgment. I am simply asking as a representative of the Law how obedience is keeping up step with the march of judgment.’”

However, Moses did more than remind the priests of certain aspects of the Law. He checked up on their obedience. Result was that a breach of ritual became evident. Moses was angry. The priests had not eaten a portion which was for their consumption but had rather burnt it. Quoting from Samuel Clarke, who has best summarized what was at stake, we read, “The Law had expressly commanded that the flesh of these sin offerings, the blood of which was not carried into the sanctuary, should belong to the priests. That it should be eaten by them alone in a holy place. The sin offerings, of which the blood was carried into the sanctuary, were those for the high priest and for the people. But on this occasion, the sin offering which had been offered by Aaron was for the people; its blood was not carried into the tabernacle. The priests might therefore have too-readily supposed that their eating the flesh or burning it was a matter of indifference. A doubt was in some way raised in the mind of Moses as to the fact, and he diligently sought the goat of the sin offering, and behold it was burnt. In his rebuke, he tells them that the flesh of the sin offering is given to the priests, to bear the iniquity of the congregation to make atonement for them before the Lord. The appropriation of the flesh by the priests is thus made an essential part of the atonement.”

Now, there is an interesting point here. The priests were to bear the iniquity of the congregation to make atonement for them before the Lord. They were types of Christ. They were stand-ins for Christ and therefore it was basic to their function to make atonement. In a restricted sense, this is still true. The pastor, in hearing confessions and requiring repentance of people who come to him, becomes a burden-bearer of the people’s sins. He cannot make atonement for them, but he can point them to the atoner and he has a ministerial function to declare the requirements of the Law. Our Lord says in Matthew 16:19, “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven.” Again, our Lord says, “Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven. And whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven.” And again He declares in John 20:22, 23, “And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said unto them, ‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost.’ Whosoever’s sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them. And whosoever’s sins ye retain, they are retained.”

Now it is important to understand, because there are some who in pride and insanity, insist that they have some kind of infallible power through these verses. However, what is clear, that there is only a ministerial function here, not a legislative power. No pastor, no priest of old, is ever given, or ever has been given, a legislative power, that is, to define sin and absolve it on his own grounds in terms of his own will. What this means, as our Lord declares it, and as implicit as it is in Leviticus, and sometimes explicit, is simply this: the ministerial power means that when a man sins, the pastor has a duty in terms of the Law of God to declare whether his sins are absolved, remitted, or whether they are bound. To illustrate, if a man has defrauded another man of $100, he has a duty to make restitution to the tune of $200. Now, no man has the right to set this aside and say, ‘well, forget about it; you’re forgiven.’ That would be a legislative power on the part of a priest or pastor. It cannot be done. He can only absolve or bind in terms of compliance with the Law Word of God. Anything beyond that is a sin. It is ministerial power only. God is totally faithful to His Word. So when God declares, “Whosoever sins ye remit are remitted to him, if ye act in terms of My Word.” We know that the man who makes the restitution of the $200 has his sins remitted in Heaven, whatever men may say. And the man who will not make it, has his sins bound in Heaven, whatever men may say. Now, this is what both Old and New Testament have to say at this point.

But at this point, Aaron, Ithamar, and Eleazar, had not kept the Law strictly. And Moses is angry with them. To break the Law at one point is to break it at all of them. So, Aaron answered him and said, “This day some fearful things have happened. We have lost two of our family. In a sense we feel perhaps that we were guilty in their sins in that we did not supervise or stop them in what they did. And so, out of a sense of our sin, our guilt, our fearfulness of judgment, we hesitated to do that which would put us in the role of the Great High Priest, the one who is to come.” There was a real element of humility here. When Moses heard it, we are told, he was content. But he did not say that it justified it. The rabbis of old made this, in the New Testament Era, a precedent whereby certain things were concluded. In so doing, they were very wrong. Because whatever grief and sense of sin Aaron felt, was not the determining factor. Aaron was a man like all other Israelites, and all other sons of Adam: a sinner. He was officiating, not because he was sinless, but because God had summoned him to that task and told him to be faithful. So he was to be governed by his duty, not by his feelings. So Moses in accepting Aaron’s answer did not thereby vindicate it.

One of the interesting things, then, by way of conclusion, is that much in this chapter, all of the twenty verses, is echoed in the New Testament. Not actually quoted, but it underlies it. In fact, Leviticus underlies so much in the New Testament. For example, our Lord told His disciples that He must have priority over one’s family, and that no man could truly follow Him unless he were ready to leave father and mother and children for His sake. And this is the meaning of what we’ve been reading. Again, Christ’s servants, Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 3:3, 8 must be temperate, and this we recognize because Leviticus 10:9 stipulates this. We are told in Leviticus 4, as well as in this chapter, that the greater the responsibility, the greater the culpability. And this we are told very clearly by our Lord in Luke 12:48, by Peter in 1 Peter 4:17, and James in James 3:1 says, “We who teach shall be judged with greater strictness.”

But this is not all. This chapter deals with Phariseeism; of going beyond the plain Word of God. And our Lord again and again, tells the Pharisees that by their traditions, they have made the Word of God of none effect. An unswerving obedience to every word of God is required. Our Lord’s answer to the tempter (Matthew 4:4), is that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. In a temptation, our Lord’s answer to each of the three temptations of Satan is, “It is written.” “It is written.” “It is written.” And he goes to the Law on each occasion. What the devil hoped to do was to use Phariseeism, which had the great odor of sanctity at that time, to turn Jesus to an anti-God position in the name of Humanitarianism. And our answer must be that of our Lord, “It is written.”

This is the meaning of Leviticus 10. It confronts us with the fact that God means business with His word. That we don’t have options; we cannot trifle with His Word or take advantage of it. We cannot shade it or overlook it. Man must live by every word of God. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, we thank Thee for Thy Word. We pray that by Thy Spirit, Thy Word may become bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh: our life, that we may live it, do it, rejoice in it, and make it our breath and the life of our nation. Oh Lord our God, injustice covers the face of the earth. But we thank Thee that it is Thy Law, Thy justice that shall prevail, and Thy judgment that shall alone endure. Make us servants of Thy kingdom, zealous in Thy truth, in Thy Law, and for Thy kingdom. Grant us this we beseech Thee in Christ’s name. Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes, John.

[John] I have two, ah, Rush. One, uh, Phariseeism is addition or subtraction to the Law, Legalism is, ah, the belief that by the adherence to the Law Code, one is, is . . . uh, finds salvation, but the two of them, where you find one, you would actually find the other, because it’s a part of a total system of thought. Is that correct?

[Rushdoony] Usually, you do, because if a person is going to add or subtract from God’s Law, what they are saying is that there is a better way, and I know it! I can improve on it! And if something can improve on God, you’re saying it’s better. So like the Pharisees of old, you make your word the binding word, the word in terms of which man must live, so that again and again, you have this. Churches have regularly added their word to God’s Word. This is very often called ‘tradition.’ Now, uh, Protestants seem to think that tradition is something that marks the Eastern Churches and Catholicism. Well, I have enough contact with all kinds of Protestant churches to know that they have their traditions, although they don’t call them that. It’s their particular denomination’s way; and it very commonly outweighs scripture—very commonly, and very strongly, because they are determined that what they say is the truth.

Now from the Reformation, to cite one example of that, you’ve had men saying there are three kids of laws: ceremonial, sacrificial, or no—ceremonial, judicial, or civil, and moral. And only the moral law is binding upon us. Now where is that in the Bible? And yet, if you deny the validity of that, it is as though you have departed from the faith. But that’s a purely humanistic division. God never makes that division. He never separates them. They merged the one into the other, so that in one sentence you can find evidences of all three, and yet virtually every Bible-believing church in the United States and the world over says, “This is the truth about the Law. It is ceremonial, civil, and moral.” Now, that’ tradition! That’s not scripture. That is adding to the Word of God, because once you give it a label whereby you classify it, you can eliminate it. And of course, it poses some problems, because what do you do about murder? Is that civil? Or is it moral? And it has posed problems for some. And they have to vindicate retaining it in some fashion, or say, ‘The State enacts that, and we abide by whatever the State does on their grounds.’ In fact, one supposedly good Reformed scholar had this to say about the supposedly civil character of the law that the only way you reestablished such commandments as ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ was by the light of reason. In other words, it wasn’t good enough for the Law of God to establish it for all of us, and for all time, the Law of God couldn’t do that. No. But the light of human reason says murder is bad. Well, the man has been dead for a few hundred years, but since then, more than a few have found occasion to say in the light of their human reason, murder is convenient and good.

So when you do that sort of thing—this is the kind of abomination you fall into!

[John] Now the other thing is on this binding thing. There’s this a whole—there has been for a long time—a whole movement in the Christian church, and people actually pray, you know, that they are actually going to bind certain powers and things of that nature. But when they do that, is that not acting as a legislative function {?} from what we were talking about earlier in the lesson that it, uh, that that is transgressing the ministerial function and moving over into the legislative functions?

[Rushdoony] It can be in certain instances. We’d have to deal with the specifics . . .

[John] …alright…

[Rushdoony] … if we are faithful to the Word of God, you see, then we can bind and loose. If a man makes restitution, we can bind, we can loose. Now, where it is something we want, it is ‘If it be Thy Will.’ So that if it is a prayer for certain blessings we want, or certain needs to be met, “If it be Thy Will.” We cannot bind God with our prayers there. The only unconditional gift we can receive from God is the one I never hear people ask for: wisdom. God promises to give us wisdom if we pray for it.

[John] Alright now, within context of Providence, in the course of history, whether we’re talking about short, medium, long-term history or whether we’re talking about just day-to-day events and transactions, we, we see that there are, there’s clearly a certain body of law for specific areas, let’s say economics, okay? And one of the major, uh, uh, preoccupations with a lot of modern thought is with economic situations, economic editions. If restitution is not made by man, according to God’s Law, then does not Providence bring about restitution on God’s terms?

[Rushdoony] Yes. Because, for example, man did not keep the Sabbath, the Babylonian captivity resulted. And the Sabbath is required, kept by God, in spite of men. So, God makes clear that when men do not make restitution, or require it where they have the power, He’s going to require it. So, the World goes through times of judgment. And right now, we are on the initial stages of world-wide judgment, which will come in a variety of forms, including the weather. There are predictions now that within a few years, a good deal of the Northern countries of the world, including the Soviet Union and Canada possibly, may be wiped out agriculturally, by the direction of the weather, and that other areas are going to be affected by drought, floods, all kinds of things—judgments.

[John] Thus the weather is the agency of restitution that brings about {?}

[Rushdoony] It’s one agency; there are a number.

[John] {?} It’s not, God is … we have not damaged, we did not go out and damage the weather, what I’m saying is, that the weather though is being used within the context of God’s Providence as the agent—as one agent, whereby restitution is going to be made.

[Rushdoony] Exactly.

[John] Okay. Uh, I was talking to a gentleman the other day, and he said that one of the major flaws of the whole ‘cause-and-effect’ argument is modern science, it’s the fact as it sees cause and effect as directly related with no intermediate, and he said that the point I’m leading out is it should be ‘cause-agency-effect.’ And uh, uh, I’ve been thinking about the implications of that idea, and it seems like that, that in some ways I’m not sure yet, that’s a kind of an oversimplification, but it’s an accurate kind of a general premise.

[Rushdoony] Well, the whole argument with regard to causality is pretty much dropped in modern philosophical and scientific thinking, because the old Newtonian simple cause-and-effect relationship has been shown to be inadequate. In every effect, there are thousands of converging causes …

[John] … {?} …

[Rushdoony] …Yes; so that we cannot say there’s been a cause and effect, but a multiplicity of causes that converge on that particular point and create an effect, and that effect is part of tens of thousands of causes that produce another effect. So, it is a very complex pattern.

Then there is another factor. The language of causality is not popular, because it is purposive. It does presuppose inescapably, a mind. It presupposes ultimately, or immediately, God. So, it is avoided. So there has to be an ultimate agency, as well as a continual agency in the form of God’s Providence and purpose; and hence, the unpopularity of the concept of causality in many circles. Al the same, it is inescapable. You cannot talk; you cannot have speech or {?} without presupposing a purpose, a causality, and a consequence.

Yes, Carl, you had a question.

[Carl] Yes, ah, I was talking, getting back to the Law and to the different divisions between {?} judicial and ceremonial laws, I was taught, ah, Dispensational Theology makes a distinction. Now, uh, does not Covenant or Reformed Theology make this distinction, and if not, ah, how do you interpret Ephesians 2:14, or Ephesians 2:15, “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man…” and in Colossians where it says, {?} … to those against us, {?} …. The ceremonial law … {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. Ephesians 2, we had better begin with the 11th verse.

“11 Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;

12 that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:

13 but now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

14 For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;

15 having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;

16 And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:

17 and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.”

This is addressed to Gentiles. They are told that there were once aliens from Christ, and now both they and those Israelites who believe, are made one in Christ by Christ who, through His atoning blood, hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us and He has also abolished the enmity, the Law of Commandments contained in ordinances.

That’s the key point. The enmity of the Law. If you’re an outlaw, the law is your enemy. And as long as we are outside of Christ, whatever our background or nationality, we are at enmity with the Law. We’ve broken it, we are at war against it, and we are in flight from it. But Christ ends the enmity of the Law—and that’s the point! It’s not the abolition of the Law, but it’s the enmity that is abolished, having abolished in His flesh, the enmity of the Law. It’s not the Law that is abolished, but the enmity.

So, we’re not outlaws, we are now the people of the Law. It’s written on the tables of our hearts. “Lo, I come, and the volume of the book it is written of me to do Thy Will, oh God.” So the use by some of that passage to say the Law is ended is law is wrong. It’s the enmity alone.

[Carl] What about in Ephesians, ah, Colossians 2:14 it says, “blotting out the handwriting of the ordinances…” {?}

[Rushdoony] No, it’s the ordinances that were against us. An indictment always specifies your crime. So when you are freed, you are free from particular charges of the law. To say that the Law is abolished is to invalidate the whole imagery there, the whole point. In other words, here’s an indictment. And here are you, the person indicted. Christ takes the penalty, satisfies the Law, and acquits you. Does that mean that the Law is abolished, or the indictment is quashed?

[Carl] Yes. Oh, we don’t practice, um, the sacrifices the Jews practiced anymore, {?} because those things were, ceremonial aspects of that, weren’t they abolished {?}

[Rushdoony] The sacrifice has now been put into force in Christ, however, there are meanings in the sacrificial law which that still important for us, and that’s what we have been dealing with in Leviticus.

Our time is almost over, so let us conclude now with prayer.

Oh Lord, our God, we give thanks unto Thee for Jesus Christ our savior. We thank Thee our Father that in Him we are a new creation, heirs of all things, heirs of victory, heirs of freedom, heirs of Thy peace, which passes all understanding. Grant oh Lord that as more than conquerors, we go forth to bring everything in our sphere into captivity to Christ. 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.