Numbers: Faith, Law, and History

The Burden of Iniquity

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: The Burden of Iniquity

Genre:

Track: 33

Dictation Name: RR181S33

Location/Venue:

Year:

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 of thy grace and mercy, thou hast entered into covenant with us. Thou hast given us thy law, thy blessings, thine Holy Spirit, thine only begotten son, Jesus Christ, and hast beset us before and behind with thy providence. We know, Lord, that we as sinners, so often see the things and the problems and trials of this world, and not the things which are of thee. Keep our hearts fixed where our true joys are always to be found, even in thee and in thy Son, that with all our heart, mind, and being, we may serve thee all the days of our life. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Our scripture is Numbers 18:1-7. Our subject: The Burden of Iniquity. Numbers 18:1-7. The Burden of Iniquity. “And the Lord said unto Aaron, Thou and thy sons and thy father's house with thee shall bear the iniquity of the sanctuary: and thou and thy sons with thee shall bear the iniquity of your priesthood. And thy brethren also of the tribe of Levi, the tribe of thy father, bring thou with thee, that they may be joined unto thee, and minister unto thee: but thou and thy sons with thee shall minister before the tabernacle of witness. And they shall keep thy charge, and the charge of all the tabernacle: only they shall not come nigh the vessels of the sanctuary and the altar, that neither they, nor ye also, die. And they shall be joined unto thee, and keep the charge of the tabernacle of the congregation, for all the service of the tabernacle: and a stranger shall not come nigh unto you. And ye shall keep the charge of the sanctuary, and the charge of the altar: that there be no wrath any more upon the children of Israel. And I, behold, I have taken your brethren the Levites from among the children of Israel: to you they are given as a gift for the Lord, to do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation. Therefore thou and thy sons with thee shall keep your priest's office for everything of the altar, and within the vail; and ye shall serve: I have given your priest's office unto you as a service of gift: and the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death.”

The subject of these verses is the burden of iniquity, or in more contemporary English, the burden of guilt. Once again, the book of Numbers gives us something which exposes the gap between modern thinking and God’s law. Modern thinking in this area is simply ancient paganism.

First of all, in relationship to what had just taken place, as we saw last week, the arrogant attempt of some Levites and some clan princes to seize power from Moses and Aaron. God, in verse 7, declares that anyone hereafter who attempts to seize priestly power not belonging to him must be put to death. This applies to transgressing Levites, as well as other unqualified to be priests. No false modesty on the part of any priests at any time could be allowed to permit a transgression of the exclusive privileges of the priests.

But second, the priestly office meant no merit on the part of Aaron and his descendants. It was, as God says in verse 7, a service of gift, a calling established by God’s grace, by God’s mercy. The fact that it was all of grace made faithfulness all the more urgent. The status is of God’s creation, not theirs by any inherent power. Any priest who permitted unauthorized person s to perform priestly duties was also to die. This was one aspect of the burden of iniquity, or a gift. The function given to them was not theirs but God’s, and they were simply discharging it for them. God’s electing grace, not man’s will, therefore had to be the determining factor.

We are also told in Hebrew 5:4-10 that even God the Son in His incarnation could not of himself assume the part of our great high priest, except by the calling of the triune God, “and no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron,” according to Hebrews 5:4.

Then third, the Levites are given by God to Aaron and his descendants as a gift from God for his service, according to verse 6. They are to serve God under the governance of the priests, so that their relationship to God is one of subjection to the priestly line. This did not make the Levites inferior. In fact, a very good case could be made by going through the whole of the Old Testament for the greater importance of the Levites in everyday life, for their greater importance in Old Testament history, but with respect to the sanctuary, their part was limited and subordinate.

Then fourth, there is a very interesting aspect to verse 1 in the reference to the fact that the priests shall bear the iniquity of the sanctuary. T.E. Espin said of this Hebrew word for bear, “The word bear here in the Old Testament has this double sense of enduring and removing, but in the person of Christ, who atoned by his endurance, the two meanings are, in effect, one.”

The fifth, in Numbers 17, immediately before this, Aaron’s rod had budded miraculously, but no other staff did. There may be a veiled reference to this fact in Ezekiel 7:10, because we are there told, “The rod had budded, pride hath budded.” This would mean that Aaron’s line felt proud of the miracle that had taken place instead of being humbled by God’s miraculous power and grace, so we are reminded more than once there was no merit in Aaron’s line. Everything is of God’s sovereign mercy and grace.

Then sixth, this points us to the key fact of this text, the burden of iniquity or guilt. With every gift of God there comes a corresponding duty or responsibility. We cannot ascribe our abilities and privileges to our heredity, nor to anything or anyone other than the Lord. We are responsible, however, for the way we use our responsibilities, privileges, and gifts. They are a gift from God. Then, we have a responsibility to use those gifts for the Lord. But, basic to paganism was and is the premise that the greater the power and authority, the greater the exemption and freedom from moral laws binding other men.

I was a university student when I encountered a talented art student; very, very talented. In fact, he once wound up in court and rightly so, and the judge let him go because he sat there on the witness stand with a pad in his hand and sketched a picture of the judge and he was so impressed, and he said, “Young man, with your talent I can’t send you to jail. Go out and behave yourself,” but he was dead before he was thirty. He insisted to me, and I once had a long argument with him, that his abilities exempted him from all family ties, law, moral laws, and all requirements of ordinary civility. He lived by that premise, and died by it, but this opinion is very commonplace in many circles. When Otto Scott first published his study, James 1, he was criticized by an historian for mentioning James’ homosexuality on the ground that this was a royal privilege. Some men feel that their status as males exempts him from various civilities and duties. In one area of life after another, we are now returning to the pagan premise that supposedly greatness provides an exception from law and morality. This is what scholars are reluctantly and kicking their feet over finding it to be true, discovering with regard to Satonius’ Life of the Twelve Caesars. They misbehaved, they were flagrant in their violations of every kind of decency, because it was their way of proving they were superhuman, they were gods, they were heroes, they were above and beyond all law and morality.

Well, the pagan Greek and Roman gods and goddesses routinely broke moral laws, because they were gods and goddesses. They interfered with causality and they substituted personal wrath with law, and this is what the ungodly do, because this is the essence of paganism, and this pagan premise is all around us. A flagrant example of this in recent years, a reminder of Suetonius’ Caesars, was President Lyndon Baines Johnson. The more power he gained, the more flagrantly he indulged himself. The Roman emperors, of course, went sometimes to great extremes to show their contempt for law, and did it publicly. On one occasion, one of the emperors performed in public in a way that is beyond description, and it’s authenticated.

In this text, God, having given to the priests a high office, not because of their merit but because of His greatness, tells them that theirs is a high burden of iniquity, a high burden of guilt, if they are not totally faithful to Him. In other words, every gift from God and all His blessings have as their concomitant a burden of responsibility. The greater our gifts, the greater our responsibility, the greater our accountability to God. Failure to meet that responsibility means a corresponding burden of guilt and judgment. This applies to all men and also to all nations. This is a fundamental premise of scripture, and of the sacrifices of Leviticus 4, the sins of the high priest are more grievous than those of a prince.

Our Lord tells us in Luke 12:48, “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required, and to whom men have committed much of him they will ask the more.” Well, our Lord says this more than once in different ways. After all, it is the basic point of the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30. Our Lord tells us there that this is basic to the kingdom of heaven. We see it in history in God’s judgments. In 1 Peter 4:17 we are told, “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God, and if it first begin at God, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?” In other words, the clergy and the churches will be the first target of God’s wrath.

I referred earlier to Ezekiel 7:10, “The rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded.” The context of that statement is very important. According to the whole chapter, a radical judgment was on its way. According to simply a part of this prophesy, Ezekiel 7:5-11, “Thus saith the Lord God; An evil, an only evil, behold, is come. An end is come, the end is come: it watcheth for thee; behold, it is come. The morning is come unto thee, O thou that dwellest in the land: the time is come, the day of trouble is near, and not the sounding again of the mountains. Now will I shortly pour out my fury upon thee, and accomplish mine anger upon thee: and I will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense thee for all thine abominations. And mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will recompense thee according to thy ways and thine abominations that are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the Lord that smiteth. Behold the day, behold, it is come: the morning is gone forth; the rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded. Violence is risen up into a rod of wickedness: none of them shall remain, nor of their multitude, nor of any of their's: neither shall there be wailing for them.” In the face of God’s manifold blessings and mercies, their pride had budded and blossomed. They had not seen God’s hand in their successes and prosperity. Now, therefore, they would see it in a radical judgment.

Ezekiel and Jeremiah both faced hostility in proclaiming God’s coming judgments. They were fully aware of the burden of iniquity or guilt the people and nation shared. Jeremiah twice tells us what constituted popular preaching in his day. He says both in Jeremiah 6:14 and also 8:11, “They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.” James Moffet renders it that these popular preachers were “treating the wounds of my people slightly and lightly saying, ‘all is well, all is well, when all is not well. They were applying cosmetics to a cancer.” God had miraculously vindicated the fact that Aaron was His chosen, that no one else could transgress on the privileges of that office, but now he tells Aaron, “Ye shall bear the burden of iniquity, the burden of guilt if you and your descendants do not fulfill the duties of your office as I have required them.” Of course, the combination of all this is in the trial of our Lord, where we see the high priest acting in complete contempt of God, and the judgment he and all of Jerusalem paid for their sin. The burden of guilt, or iniquity, is laid upon all who have any talents, upon all of us to some degree in varying degrees, but clearly.

So, we see again the relevance of Numbers. On the way to the Promised Land, the people rejected God and chose death. Men and nations are again making the same choice. It is our duty to create a remnant to replace those who shall pay the price. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, the burden of guilt that Christendom bears is very great, and rightly we face thy wrath and thy judgment, but in wrath, Oh Lord, remember mercy. Cleanse thy churches and the nations of Christendom. Make of them again godly peoples. Make of us a beacon light of grace unto an evil world and an evil generation. Empower us. Bless and prosper us, oh Lord, we beseech thee. In Christ’s name. Amen. Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] You set forth that the history of executive privilege and its abuse, going back as far as Numbers, this century we see it with televangelists who have great moral failures and have heard that they’ve done so much good, and they should retain their post, {?} simply take their post back.

[Rushdoony] Yes, executive privilege is a good example, precisely, of this kind of abuse, and we see it again and again in a number of things. I’ve been ready the past few days about an attorney general in one state who began to uncover the vast maze of corruption, where men were openly in alliance with the mafia leaders, and thought there was nothing wrong with it and were vindicated at every turn by the courts, which the judges, the politicians, the elected officials were all working together, and the people were content to let it happen, and it was the crusading attorney general who was treated as a scoundrel for daring to raise the issue. These people were important, therefore, they had the right to do as they pleased, just as in the Stanford case. The feeling of the trustees was that the university was sacrosanct. Therefore, they had the privilege and the right to do what they did for the couple of hundred million dollars of federal funds. This is paganism. For scripture, “To whom much is given, of him much shall be required,” according to our Lord, who sums up so much that’s in the Old Testament, including this chapter.

But in the modern point of view, to whom much is given, much exemption and privilege applies. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Audience] Otto, in his book on The Secret Six, brings up the fact that the, the significant fact that England had a national religion, of which helped over several centuries. Would it have been better had we had a Christian national religion in this country? Would it have helped us?

[Rushdoony] We did have. Every one of the states had an establishment of Christianity. The federal government did not say so, but it did in the requirement in the oath of office. Today, that doesn’t mean anything, but at the time, it meant a Bible open to Deuteronomy 28 and the invitation of all God’s curses for disobedience to that word, and all His blessing for obedience, and they took it very seriously, but that became a dead letter. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Audience] On the topic of executive privilege again, going back to David’s time, he was guilty of {?} executive privilege abuse with Bathsheba, it took Nathan to confront and reprove him.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] Would the churches in this century to be a Nathan and confront this specific sin along with all the others and be the instrument{?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, the church must be like Nathan. Just recently, Liberty Press, which is a libertarian group, published a fat volume of election sermons by Puritan clergy. It’s marvelous reading, and John Lofton wrote in the past couple of months a long article precisely about that book. It’s very good reading. It was once routine. I wrote an editorial for the Chalcedon Report entitled “Dumb Dogs That Cannot Bark,” about the clergy, and I just received this past week, just a few days ago, a long letter from a very brilliant pastor and scholar, telling me, “Of course this is true, because beginning the seminaries they are trained to be submissive and to be eunuchs.” I’m going to ask his permission to publish the letter, but it’s a very telling indictment. So, the clergy today have been derelict. The congregations have been derelict. They are no longer a force for anything, and the result is we keep going downhill. From 1969 to 1989, the number of Americans who profess to be Bible-believing and born again, more than doubled, but the country went further downhill. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Audience] I have had something on my mind since that breakfast at Utica, and that was when, I hope I pronounce his name correctly, Preyde?

[Rushdoony] Preyde.

[Audience] Preyde?

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] He brought up that he would like to see us reach high officials so as to change policy so the United States would be on a righteous path, but I kept thinking about reaching those type of men. It made me think about Romans 2:14 when it says, “For when the Gentiles which have not the law do, by nature, things that are contained in the law, these having not the law, are a law unto themselves,” then it is not our prime concern, really. That’s a byproduct of reaching those that truly have the faith and will always fulfill the law to the best of their ability. I just felt we were kind of on the wrong track, kept thinking about it.

[Rushdoony] Well, it’s our duty to make a stand. Then God opens the doors, and those whom He appoints hear us and then God works in them as He chooses. So, just as we cannot look into the future, so we cannot plan beyond a certain limit. We do our duty whenever the opportunity presents itself and the rest is in God’s hands. That’s about all that can be said. Any other questions or comments? Well, if not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we give thanks unto thee that thou art on the throne, that by thy sovereign grace, thou hast made us thy people. Make us effectual in thy service. Grant that what we do and what we say may be in faithfulness to thee and may accomplish thy task, for thou hast declared that thy word shall never return unto thee void. Quieten us in our disquiet. Strengthen us when we feel our weakness, give us joy in thee when we are troubled in heart, and use us, bless and prosper us. 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