Numbers: Faith, Law, and History

The Center

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: The Second Census

Genre:

Track: 03

Dictation Name: RR181B3

Location/Venue:

Year:

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.

Almighty God, our heavenly father, we give thanks unto thee that underneath all the experiences of life are thy everlasting arms, that thou art He who made us, ordained us for a purpose, and that all our days are known unto thee, for known unto thee are all thy works from the foundation of the world. Teach us therefore so to walk day by day, that in all things we may trust in thee, praise thee, and know that thou art working to make all things add up to good for us. How great and marvelous thou art, O Lord, and we praise thee. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Our scripture is Numbers 2. Our subject: The Center. We continue in this chapter and two more chapters with a study of the census of the twelve tribes, and we shall see when we finish the four chapters the far-reaching implications of the census. Numbers 2. “And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard, with the ensign of their father's house: far off about the tabernacle of the congregation shall they pitch. And on the east side toward the rising of the sun shall they of the standard of the camp of Judah pitch throughout their armies: and Nahshon the son of Amminadab shall be captain of the children of Judah. And his host, and those that were numbered of them, were threescore and fourteen thousand and six hundred. And those that do pitch next unto him shall be the tribe of Issachar: and Nethaneel the son of Zuar shall be captain of the children of Issachar. And his host, and those that were numbered thereof, were fifty and four thousand and four hundred. Then the tribe of Zebulun: and Eliab the son of Helon shall be captain of the children of Zebulun. And his host, and those that were numbered thereof, were fifty and seven thousand and four hundred. All that were numbered in the camp of Judah were an hundred thousand and fourscore thousand and six thousand and four hundred, throughout their armies. These shall first set forth.

On the south side shall be the standard of the camp of Reuben according to their armies: and the captain of the children of Reuben shall be Elizur the son of Shedeur.” Then skipping over to the seventeenth verse: “Then the tabernacle of the congregation shall set forward with the camp of the Levites in the midst of the camp: as they encamp, so shall they set forward, every man in his place by their standards. On the west side shall be the standard of the camp of Ephraim according to their armies: and the captain of the sons of Ephraim shall be Elishama the son of Ammihud.”

Then skipping to the twenty-fifth: “The standard of the camp of Dan shall be on the north side by their armies: and the captain of the children of Dan shall be Ahiezer the son of Ammishaddai.”

Then the twenty-ninth verse: “Then the tribe of Naphtali: and the captain of the children of Naphtali shall be Ahira the son of Enan.”

The thirty-second verse: “These are those which were numbered of the children of Israel by the house of their fathers: all those that were numbered of the camps throughout their hosts were six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty. But the Levites were not numbered among the children of Israel; as the Lord commanded Moses. And the children of Israel did according to all that the Lord commanded Moses: so they pitched by their standards, and so they set forward, every one after their families, according to the house of their fathers.”

Numbers 2 gives us not only the census, but the arrangement of the tribes of Israel around the sanctuary. The Levites and the priests, as Numbers tells us, surrounded the tabernacle. The tabernacle was the royal dwelling on the march. Numbers 2 gives us the location of the twelve tribes, outside the immediate area of the sanctuary and the priestly and Levitical encampment. IN the center was the sanctuary. Around it were the priests and Levites, then in each of the four directions there were three tribes, each under the leadership of a particular tribe. They were to march this way. The formation was that of a square.

Now this was not an unusual pattern. In Antiquity, the royal tent of an army on the march was usually in the center of the square. Modern man affirms a universe originating in chance. Therefore, meanings are difficult for him to grasp. Modern man is data-based, and so he is not congenial to a governing overriding meaning, and as we shall see in the weeks to come, this census does have a far-reaching meaning.

Cities over the centuries have been religious facts until very recently. The center of the city was the location for the temple, or the royal palace, which was the center of the society. Everything else was around the central square, or center, both protecting it and deriving its protection from the center. It used to be that cities were built around a central square where the main church was, because this was the heart of the city. The concept of the center is essential to an understanding of a society. At one time, the closer one was to the center, the greater the power he had and the greater the protection. To be in the city meant status. It meant that you were important.

In Ancient Rome, for example, those who were not citizens could not even be in side the walls after sundown. They were not entitled to the protection because they did not share the faith. The suburbs were originally, therefore, an area outside the city walls. They were therefore, unprotected and very often did not even have any legal status. The rise of modern suburbia goes hand in hand with the decay of the center of the city. When the center decays, which means when its faith decays, or when a false center arises, when the center of the city no longer is the church but something else, the protection afforded by the center gives way to a high vulnerability. The city becomes a dangerous place.

Then, the suburbs become attractive because, to distance oneself from the center becomes an advantage. Economically, a suburb remains dependent upon the city while in terms of peace and security the city becomes an increasing liability. When this happens, it is because the city, at its heart, fosters and exports not faith, law, order, and peace, nor security as the center, but rather lawlessness, disorder, and death itself. The center then, does not hold. It was at the beginning of this century that William Butler Yeats, not a Christian, wrote as he looked at the modern world, “The center does not hold, and therefore,” he said, “there is a beast slouching towards Bethlehem waiting to be born.” When the center does not hold, it is because it has lost its meaning and therefore, it exports disintegration and decay. It walls in death for its people because it can no longer provide the core of meaning, the faith, which is necessary for community.

The godly community is then replaced by a criminal community. Christianity then no longer provides the center, nor the basis of community for the city. As a result, criminal gangs become, by means of violence and terror, the cohesive force. The same is true of young gangs. They now dominate vast areas of the modern city. Narcotics, prostitution, theft, and murder become a way of life in the city. One refuge from the Soviet Union was asked, “Do they have a mafia in the Soviet Union?” and he said, “Yes, it’s name in the Communist Party.” Whenever a country becomes godless, little by little, the center of the government becomes the center of evil. Where there is a false center, there will be false laws. Where the throne of a society is evil and is governed by iniquity, it will as Psalm 94:20 tells us, “Frame mischief by a law.” The rights of criminals will be strictly guarded, but their innocent victims go unprotected and without restitution.

In such a society, the center being evil, furthers evil. We see this now, two motives now govern men. One is egocentrism, whereby the individual judges all things by himself. He is the center of everything. In terms of Genesis 3:5, he sees himself as a god, empowered to judge and determine what is good and evil in terms of himself.

The other motive is group centrism. The criterion for judgment becomes one’s social, racial, or special interest group. In either case, no higher law is seen as binding on all. The political process then becomes a clash of false and petty centers, all determined to destroy everybody if their will is not done.

Now, this false centralization is often united to a false pluralism, which denies the validity of a God-given center in favor of a multiverse of entirely relative meanings. It says that all things are equal. All things are equally good, equally bad, equally meaningless. In such a society, every group is at total warfare with every other group. No overarching meaning governs the various groups. The tabernacle as the center of the encampment is very important to an understanding of the New Testament. In John 1:14 we read, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth.”

The word translated as dwelt, “the word was made flesh and dwelt among us,” is in the Greek “tabernacled or tented.” So, what John tells us that Jesus Christ is the tabernacle of God, come to be amongst men and to dwell in their center. This is stated more than once in the Bible in the new Testament. In Revelation 21:3, we have the same word, tabernacled or tented, “And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell (or tabernacle, or tent) with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.”

Jesus Christ is the tabernacling presence of God. He must be at the center of the social order, this is what John is telling us, what the whole of scripture is telling us. Although our Lord refers to himself also as the temple of God, the tent palace which suggests an army on the march, because a tent, a royal tent, was a movable palace, is the basic image which the New Testament gives us for Christ.

Moreover, as Birch pointed out some years ago, our Lord deliberately sets aside the false human centers. In John 4, in talking with the woman at the well in Samaria, our Lord confronts the humanistic doctrines of the center. Jerusalem versus Samaria, or Gerizim, in the Jewish Samaritan controversy. According to Birch, “Gerizim, like Jerusalem, was once a famous center of the earth. The woman refers to that fact in John 4:20. Jesus’ answer to her that, ‘Neither in this mountain nor in that in Jerusalem shall men worship,’ shows that he is aware of the center concept. His revelation will sweep both away.”

Now, Birch wrote from an anthropological point of view, and he called attention to a number of things about the center. For example, Revelation 14:4, which speaks of those undefiled by women, who are virgins and follow the lamb of God. These are contrasted by the nations who follow Babylon the great, and will fall with her. These virgins are contrasted with all who commit fornication with the nations and Babylon. This reference to fornication is to living in terms of a false center, giving yourself to a false center; whereas, virginity refers her to faithfulness, to the true center, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the true tabernacle and center. All true worshipers of God will make him the center of every aspect of their life and thought.

Throughout the Bible, the New Jerusalem, or Zion, is the community of believers who, in every area of life, make Jesus Christ and his law word basic to everything. As Roderick Campbell observed, “Consequently, a definition which will fit perfectly almost every occurrence of the word ‘zion’ as used in the psalms, in Old Testament prophesy, and every occurrence in the new Testament must read somewhat as follows: Where there exists a covenanted community, corporate body, or a society in which Jehovah’s or Christ’s presence as redeemer and king is recognized, his power experienced, and his revealed will obeyed, there is zion.” Revelation gives us the battle, the warfare between the false center, Babylon, and the true center, the New Jerusalem, Jesus Christ and his new humanity.

Quoting from Campbell again, “John sees an entire city coming down out of heaven to earth. He is witnessing two things at once. He is seeing the divine pattern for all human relationships, a heaven-planned civilization, the ideal new covenant community in all its varied activities, and he is seeing an prophetic vision, the fulfillment of the same glorious ideal.” There is a word which appears again and again in the accounts of the construction of the tabernacle: foursquare. It also appears in Ezekiel’s account, and in Revelation 21:16, the New Jerusalem is also described as foursquare, and the tribes of Israel were camped foursquare around the sanctuary. Many cities of Antiquity were deliberately and carefully built to be foursquare. Babylon and Nineveh are well-known examples. The cube was an ancient symbol of perfection, and the perfection of Christ’s tabernacling presence is in community, one founded by him and grounded on his atonement and law word. The census, from beginning to end, had one purpose: To number those who could defend the faith, to center them as they were located around the sanctuary, around the tabernacle, Jesus Christ being set forth, and to make them always recognize that their surest defense was to be governed by the center. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we thank thee that Jesus Christ is our tabernacling presence with us, that are to center our lives upon Him who is king of kings, and Lord of Lords. We thank thee that, day after day, all false centers are judged and brought down by thy sovereign purpose, and we rejoice that even now, as thy judgment goes forth, it is that the false centers be destroyed and Jesus Christ prevail. Bless us as we serve Him. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience]What happened in early cities when the city would start with the church as the center, and another congregation would start up somewhere else? How did they reconcile this?

[Rushdoony] Yes. That was taken care of very simply. All those other sanctuaries were under the central one, were branches of it, and that’s how you came to the overseer, which is the word we have as bishop. He was the overseer of all the branches, so that as the city grew, the center was still maintained and the overseer looked to the outlying branches to make sure that their faith was correct. We have this in Geneva in that the cathedral there where Calvin preached was the center, and the company of pastors came together to deal with all their problems. When the first settlement was made here, for example, in Boston, then new churches were established by the center and pastors sent out. This was the pattern that was used. This was used even in this country on the west coast. In Seattle, in the early part of this century up to the thirties some time, there was one church in downtown Seattle that had twenty-six branch churches. The pastor’s name was Mark Matthews. Any other questions or comments? This was the pattern, you see, for the diocese, or for the presbytery, or for the conference, or whatever the term used by a church to indicate the branches. Now it has lost virtually all reference to center, but originally, all was in terms of the center, the mother church, as it were, and the work it created in the outlying areas. Any other questions or comments? Well, if not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we thank thee that in Jesus Christ, thou hast recalled us to the true center of life. We pray that, day by day, we may move always in obedience to Him, knowing that it is He that shall prevail, His will that shall be done, and His kingdom that shall rule. How great thou art, and we praise thee, O Lord. 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.