Deuteronomy

Time and Justice

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: 53-110

Genre: Talk

Track: 053

Dictation Name: RR187AC53

Location/Venue:

Year: 1993

Let us worship God. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after. That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in His temple. Wait on the Lord, be of good courage and He will strengthen thy heart, wait I say on the Lord. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God we give thanks unto Thee for Thy sure mercies. We thank Thee that in a time of judgment in Thee we can have hope. Give us grace so to walk day by day that in all things we see Thy hand and know that Thou art working to accomplish Thy glorious purpose. Teach us to know that time is but the door to eternity and that what we do here and now has eternal consequences and that our victory is assured in Christ for time and eternity. Our God we thank Thee. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture today is from Deuteronomy 16:16-22. Our subject: Time and Justice. Deuteronomy 16:16-22.

“Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles: and they shall not appear before the Lord empty:

17 Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord thy God which he hath given thee.

18 Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, throughout thy tribes: and they shall judge the people with just judgment.

19 Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift: for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous.

20 That which is altogether just shalt thou follow, that thou mayest live, and inherit the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

21 Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the Lord thy God, which thou shalt make thee.

22 Neither shalt thou set thee up any image; which the Lord thy God hateth.”

The word image can be rendered as either statue or pillar. Verses sixteen and seventeen give us a summary of the law of the three festivals, the feast of the unleavened bread, the feast of weeks and the feast of tabernacles. Every covenant man is to go to the sanctuary to observe these festivals. In verses eleven and fourteen, the families, servants, widows and orphans, aliens and Levites are included. There is no contradiction here, men as heads of families are the ones to whom the commandment is given. Males must observe the festivals. They are the authorities in the family and under God time moves to their requirements with respect to work and rest. Therefore the commandment is addressed to males. It is mandatory for them, then they are to establish the authority in their realm. The festivals celebrate God’s control of time. To cite the two great days of the Christian calendar Christmas and the day of resurrection, these tell us that god has entered history in the person of Jesus Christ and through Him God has destroyed the power of sin and death. The world is sinful, fallen and immature. Therefore time is a necessity because time means change and a potential development of that which is good and holy. Because sin and death are totally obliterated by Christ’s second coming there is no change in the eternal kingdom. The fullness of Christ’s victory means the perfection or full maturity of all things. The goal of fallen man is to attain the perfection or maturity of the eternal order in time by means of a political order. So eternity, the changeless realm is to be achieved in time through politics. This is why the political utopia beginning from antiquity in Plato’s republic through [unknown]’s utopia and that of more modern writers all become timeless. They achieve in effect eternity through politics.

But within history the only changeless state men and nations can attain is death. So that if men and nations seek to attain the eternal changeless order, the timeless order, in time, they attain death. It is interesting how many, many of the utopians have used, including some of the Russian Marxists, the beehive as the symbol of perfect communism. Because there is no change in a beehive, it always remains the same, people are replaced in this utopian order and bees are replaced in the hive but the hive continues. And this is their goal. It is also the goal of many secret societies and the beehive is their symbol. It is interesting that it is a symbol of a religious group, the Mormons. So we have this dream of overcoming and abolishing time again and again repeated in history. There is no true change in the grave, only decay. The quest apart from God by men for the perfect political order is a quest for death. No tower of Babal can stand; man’s concern should be rather the godly society, the kingdom of God. There are two key steps necessary for the attainment of the kingdom of God in some degree. First, every man shall give as he is able to the Lord’s work, Ruth 17. This means the tithe and free will offerings. The government by God’s kingdom requires financing. Then second in all the gates, meaning towns and cities there must be Godly judges and officers. These men must apply God’s law which verse eighteen tells us is alone just judgment. Justice must not be compromised or falsified. This means no respect for persons and no bribery. The good life requires the administration of justice, that thou mayest live, verse twenty says. Without justice life becomes untenable and difficult. The festival law requires the observance of holy days and holy living. Honest judges and officers of the law mean life is blessed by God’s laws.

This fallen world is reclaimed by God’s covenant people through God’s saving grace and His governing law. That which is all together just shalt thou follow, according to verse twenty. That thou mayest live and inherit the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. In verses twenty and twenty one we have laws against fertility cult worship and against idolatry. The use or planting of a grove of trees as an altar was to provide the setting for fertility cult rites and practices. The use of images in any form was related to this. Both have to do with holiness. In paganism man sees the divine force in the natural order and also in himself which he can in various ways harness for his own use. Man sees himself as the center of the world or at least related to it. As Bryan R. Wilson pointed out and I quote:

“The Navaho traditionally saw the gods as existing for man’s benefit. And Navaho traditionally saw the gods as for man’s benefit. He need not a base himself as conversionist Christianity with its strong preoccupation with sin demanded.” Unquote.

And of course that faith has been wide spread all over the world. The cargo cults of the south pacific believed that ships would come bearing all kinds of gifts for them and bring in a millennium. Again in Wilson’s words writing of the cargo cult believers:

“Their own time sense in these respects was often hazy but must have fed the immediate expectations of the natives which conceived of creation as occurring for only three or four generations in the past and for whom the millennial future was imminent.” Unquote.

Now, the interesting thing is is that studies of various peoples done a generation ago made clear that the peoples of Africa had no sense of the future and very poor sense of time and that this was true among peoples all over the world before Christianity comes to them. It is very interesting that in the past fifteen, eighteen, twenty years perhaps there has been a vehement reaction against all such scholarship, a denunciation of it as bigotry, as anti-native and so on. And yet some of the key works were written by African scholars who are now being relegated to the memory of [unknown]. For these people time is not seen as an arena for growth and maturation but as the place for the gift of utopia. Our political millenialists as well as some premillenialists in the church have in common with the cargo cult peoples no theological awareness of times meaning. Again with the Navahos they have a thoroughly man centered view of time and history. There is an interesting parallel between verse seventeen and some ancient near eastern treaty requirements. As J.A. Thompson has written and I quote:

“It was a common practice for [unknown] to require their vassals to report to them periodically and in some cases three times a year in order to renew their allegiance and to bring tribute.” Unquote.

That was prevalent in a great deal of the world and certainly in the ancient near east. So what god was making very clear was I am the Sovereign, I am the King, not these men. You will report to me three times a year and you will bring gifts. Of course with the New Testament it was changed to a weekly basis. A people must be linked to their sovereign. Since the [unknown] is their source of protection and order the people must pay tribute or taxes to him and their lives must be ordered by him.

Since God is our king the sovereign over all creation and certainly over His redeemed covenant people their presence at His sanctuary or throne room and their tithes or taxes acknowledge His sovereignty. Failure to worship and to tithe means no recognition of His lordship. Furthermore, to acknowledge God’s sovereignty means to recognize His law as binding for us and to make it the law of the land. Antinomians are guilty of treason to God and His kingdom by setting aside His law. No ruler is sovereign or Lord if his law does not prevail and govern all things. Antinomian people churches and nations are traitors to the triune God and will in due time be judged by Him. We cannot understand time and history apart from this fact. Bribery, verse nineteen tells us, is also a form of treason because it subverts God’s law. A bribe violates the workings of the courts of law, it introduces a factor alien to justice and in fact confirms man’s fallen nature. The court instead of furthering justice denies it, instead of being God’s representatives on earth the judges then become sons of Belial and agents of the fall. There’s no standing still in history, we either move forward in terms of the kingdom of God and the great regeneration or we move in terms of the fall and the tower of Babal, the kingdom of man. Because this is a fallen world we dare not confuse law and justice. Fallen man routinely makes laws but true law and justice comes from God alone. We must therefore recognize that man’s law reflects his fallen nature, not God’s justice. As manmade laws abound so too does injustice. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we give thanks for Thy word. We thank Thee for the gift of time and for the promise of eternity. Teach us therefore to work in Thee, to acknowledge Thee as our sovereign, our Lord our King all the days of our life. To know that it is Thy government alone that shall prevail. Our God we praise Thee, in Christ’s name, Amen.

Are there any questions or comments now about our lesson?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] No, none. The most laws that have been issued again and again in history by various monarchs have a very limited history. The longest in endurance by a very considerable margin was the code of Justinian and the code of Justinian which is usually treated as a kind of redaction of Roman law was actually sometimes an enacting of Roman law but essentially an application of Biblical law. It governed Christendom until fairly recently. What we are seeing now as I’ve pointed out on other occasions particularly with regard to laws governing sex and marriage is the area of final revolution against Justinian and his law and therefore against a biblical law order. Other law codes have been promulgated in antiquity and since then but they usually change very rapidly even though the pretense is made that there is a continuing code. So biblical law has the longest history and I think it’s great day is ahead of us. Any other questions or comments?

One of the things about the Ten Commandments that is so interesting is that it was the common law of this country as I’ve pointed out more than once, juries decided cases in terms of the bible and up through the 70’s in many, many states the Ten Commandments were still posted in classrooms. I was involved I believe in two cases where the state was challenged by the ACLU for having these laws posted. One case was very interesting, in Kentucky, I’d been there on a Christian school case previously where the state sought to control Christian schools and lost the case and now the same men were fighting to defend the retention of the Ten Commandments in the state schools. And one of the state attorneys who cross examined me and I was his witness recognized in conversations apart from the formal hearing that they needed the Ten Commandments in the schools to save the public schools. So he did have an awareness of the realities of the situation. Well if there are no further comments or questions let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we thank Thee that Thou art our King, our Sovereign, our Lord and Savior. We thank Thee that Thou art ever near, closer to us then we are to ourselves. Thou knowest us totally, work in us that which is well pleasing in Thy sight, to make us conform more and more to Thy son Jesus 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.