The Gospel of John

False Priorities

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 30- 70

Genre:

Track: 030

Dictation Name: RR197R32

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us worship God. The hour cometh and now is when the true worshipper shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Let us pray.

Almighty God our Heavenly Father we give thanks unto Thee that the ends of the earth shall serve Thee. That all things were made for Thy glory and for Thy glory they shall be. Even the wrath of man shall praise Thee. Give us grace therefore to know the end and the beginning of Thy ways, to know that thy word shall be fulfilled and every joy and tittle of Thy word shall have its due weight and shall bring that which Thou hast ordained. Teach us to wait on Thee, to serve Thee and always to rejoice in Thee. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture is John 9:17-34. Our subject: False Priorities. John 9:17-34.

“They say unto the blind man again, What sayest thou of him, that he hath opened thine eyes? He said, He is a prophet.

18 But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind, and received his sight, until they called the parents of him that had received his sight.

19 And they asked them, saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? how then doth he now see?

20 His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind:

21 But by what means he now seeth, we know not; or who hath opened his eyes, we know not: he is of age; ask him: he shall speak for himself.

22 These words spake his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.

23 Therefore said his parents, He is of age; ask him.

24 Then again called they the man that was blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner.

25 He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.

26 Then said they to him again, What did he to thee? how opened he thine eyes?

27 He answered them, I have told you already, and ye did not hear: wherefore would ye hear it again? will ye also be his disciples?

28 Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple; but we are Moses' disciples.

29 We know that God spake unto Moses: as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is.

30 The man answered and said unto them, Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes.

31 Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth.

32 Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind.

33 If this man were not of God, he could do nothing.

34 They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out.”

(Or excommunicated Him). A very stubborn fact faced the religious leaders. For a man born blind to have gained sight when a mature man was an unheard of miracle and the miracle worker was Jesus. Was he really born blind? Or was this a pretension the leaders asked. Then second if indeed the man was born blind their goal was then to separate the miracle from Jesus. They questioned again the man who had been born blind. What was his opinion of the man who healed him? The answer was clear cut, he is a prophet. Whatever more he may have believed the answer was enough to anger them. They refused to believe anything he said until they called in his parents. The parents were in fear of excommunication from the synagogue confirmed his blindness from birth but as for his healing they said, he is of age, ask him. The fact of his blindness from birth was thus confirmed. This meant that a miracle had taken place. Now the approach of the religious leaders was to separate the miracle from Jesus. Give God the praise, we know that this man is a sinner. They were denying causality. Somehow Jesus had nothing to do with the miracle because He was for them by definition a sinner. This rejection of causality should not surprise us because it is very much with us. For example the homosexuals are insistent that AIDs was caused by Christians not by their sins. They’ve published that statement. They’ve done it even in learned journals. More than a few boast of their infection as a battle wound incurred in the battle against Christianity.

Their insistent denial of causality is commonplace in their thinking. Again and again in history men and nations have forsaken rationality, denied causality and insisted that reality be redefined to suit them. Well this is a mark of original sin. The will to be God and to know and establish truth, law and morality in terms of one’s own will. It is especially prevalent in modern times since Emmanuel Kant who denied that there could be any valid knowledge of the outer world and our idea of reality, he said, is what we think of it in our minds. Hagel said the rational is the real, all of this is the formula for insanity, mass insanity. We also see in this text that the religious leaders are again called the Jews by John who was a Jew. Perhaps the key reason for this was the self-identification by the religious leaders of themselves as the people. They were the only real Jews in their eyes. They regarded the Galileans who were unconcerned about the ways and goals of either Pharisees or Sadducees as not really true believers or true Israelites. The Jews who did not follow them were equally seen as not the people. John knowing them well calls attention to this self-identification. In our time we see similar sects, both the right and the left in the United States tend to see themselves as alone true Americans. Well the healed man whether he be a sinner or no I know not but one thing I know that where I was blind now I see. He insisted on keeping the miracle in the forefront. Trying to breakdown his witness the Pharisees asked him to recount what had happened. The healed man answered I have told you already and ye did not hear, why are you asking again and again? Do you want to be His disciples? This statement brought out their malice and anger.

Then they reviled him and said thou art his disciples but we are Moses’ disciples. Jesus had again and again called attention to their betrayal of Moses and the law but they were determined to pit Moses, safely dead, against Jesus dangerously alive. They continued, we know that God spake unto Moses, as for this fellow we know not from whence He is. Both in verses four and twenty nine the religious leaders are determined to deny any causal relationship between Jesus and the miracle. William Hendrickson some years ago called attention to the syllogisms employed by the religious leaders. Syllogisms are methods of deductive reasoning. They consist of a major premise, a minor premise and a conclusion. A dictionary example is every virtue is praise worthy, kindness is a virtue, therefore kindness is praiseworthy. Now that’s what the unabridged dictionary says but unfortunately they’ve given us a false syllogism because kindness to murderers and rapists is not a virtue! You see what the difference is between a false and a true syllogism. An obviously false syllogism is all men are mortal, dogs are mortal, therefore my dog is a man. Now the religious leaders had two faulty syllogisms in mind as Hendrickson pointed out. Their major premise, people who are from God keep the Sabbath. The minor premise, this Jesus does not keep the Sabbath, the conclusion, Jesus is not from God, very neat. Seemingly conclusive and so much of what passes for good thinking and logic today is similar. The other syllogism the Pharisees had, the major premise: the ungodly alone suffer great affliction. The minor premise: this man was born blind and grew maturity blind. The conclusion: this man is therefore wicked and ungodly.

Basic to the thinking of these religious leaders was a presupposition which excluded Jesus Christ. Our thinking is always presuppositional. We begin with a pre-theoretical, pre-reflective faith which governs our faith and thinking. Only as man’s presuppositions are changed can they be changed. And this conversion from the premise of fallen man to that of redeemed man is an act of God. It is important for us to understand what is at stake. If you begin with a false premise as the Pharisees did you are going to have a false conclusion which you believe is entirely a matter of logic. A good many years ago I read a very interesting work on psychiatry which had a great section on paranoia and it said that the paranoids were the elite of the mentally sick. Their logic was superb. They can defeat anyone with their logic if you didn’t see the false premise at the basis of their thinking. And if you saw that then you could deal with them. I asked a psychiatrist about that once and he said it’s very true, he said they can out argue almost anyone, they reveal so in their logic but it begins always with a false starting point, a false premise or presupposition. Well the healed man argued back with a wisdom beyond himself. Why here is a marvelous thing which you know not from whence he is and yet he hath opened my eyes. He went on to say that this was a new event in history for a man blind from birth to have his sight restored.

You are right, he said, that God does not hear sinners, He hears those who worship and obey Him. If this man were not of God He could do nothing. Well, they were confronted with a logic better than their own and this from a man who until then had been a blind beggar without education so their response was a furious one. You were totally born in sin they told him, do you think you are fit to teach us? They therefore excommunicated the healed man. They could not answer him so they excommunicated him. The conflict was a religious one it could not be solved by a rational discourse. The religious leaders began with a radically different premise and the discussion simply hardened them in their resolution. The miracle had not made Jesus more obviously a prophet or the Messiah as far as they were concerned but rather a threat to religion, a stumbling block for naive people and so they planned to move against Him. This episode should help us understand our own lives. How very often when we have done nothing but good to people they turn on us because they begin with a false premise. They have determined beforehand what we are and therefore whatever we do will only add up to evil in their sight. The healed man was in the eyes of the religious leaders an obvious nobody, a person of no account, but they saw the nation as made up of too many such nobodies, all potentially dangerous if Jesus made them His followers. As a result the conclusion was soon stated openly by Caiaphas. You know nothing at all nor consider it expedient for us that one man should die for the people then that the whole nation perish not.

The preservation of the political entity was of primary importance to them it would be wrong to say that such a goal was not important. The world is full of important things but they all pale before the mandate ‘seek ye the first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you’. The Pharisees saw themselves as good men, the best of men but their priorities were false and beginning with that premise we are the people, we are the good ones, therefore anyone who opposed them had to be defined as evil. Because the people of Galilee which was the area of the northern kingdom originally did not care for the Pharisees and the Pharisees could never make any headway with them, they were obviously stupid, they were animals. They used all kind of derogatory terms to describe the Galileans. Well then a very large percentage of the people of Judea were intensely interested in Jesus. Obviously they were also animals, stupid, but how were they going to preserve the nation, they alone were not enough to constitute a nation.

Well what they had to do was to eliminate this man. Better for this one man to die than the nation to perish. We can lead those stupid sheep and we’d better eliminate anyone who prevents us from saving them with our wisdom. Such is the essence of Phariseeism in every area and every era of history. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we give thanks unto Thee for this Thy word. Ground us oh Lord on Jesus Christ that our thinking may not be falsified by our sin, that we may begin and end with Him who is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the ending, Jesus Christ our Lord. We thank Thee our Father that age after age Thou art He who dost heal men’s blindness, physical and spiritual and we thank Thee that Thou hast in Christ given us a vision of Thy truth, of Thy word and of Thy kingdom. Grant that we grow therein and increase and abound in Thy service. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Unintelligible Question]

[Rushdoony] That is a very great premise on the part of the liberals that without them we would not be capable of self-government or freedom. Our self-government and our freedom means that we move under their direction. It is interesting that as a result of such liberal thinking we’ve had a great deal of interesting experimentation and research into certain phases of psychology and one of the things they found was the power of peer pressure. That if you have a certain type of thinking that is heavily promoted through the media, through entertainment and through the schools it will have the status of absolute truth in the eyes of people. Of course the classic example of that is Sweden.

And at the beginning of the 1960s an English writer after having spent I think some twenty years in Sweden wrote an account of the new totalitarians, that’s the title of the book. And he pointed out how the ideas of John Dewey had best been put into practice in Sweden and peer pressure there was such that nobody dared deviate from it. And of course they were pleased with the results, nobody leaves their lawn or yard unkempt or their house unpainted because that would have the disfavor of the community upon them, peer pressure would be very great, so everything is neat and clean. But it also means that no opinions or ideas are tolerated if they deviate from the established norm. If you were to gather in Sweden for an independent bible study because you were really interested in the Bible you would immediately incur the disfavor of all your neighbors. And one of the things you would have to do is as act as though it was just friends gathering and shift your location each week. There are not that many groups in Sweden but they are under pressure. Well, in this country they’ve shown the impact of peer pressure among students and among adults in some detail. There’s one thing they’ve left out: before you had this peer pressure syndrome, before people were group directed, you had people who were inner directed. Who were not pleasure oriented as the group directed are but religiously governed. So this psychology has been partial because they know that those who have a strong faith cannot be governed by peer pressure, it can hurt them but they are going to stand in terms of what they know to be true.

So we are now in a time of great peer pressure when people are group directed, pleasure oriented rather than directed by their faith and work and production oriented. But there are signs its crumbling already, so what the Pharisees represented we have in the liberal establishment of our time. Any other questions or comments?

Well if not let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father we give thanks unto Thee that Thou hast called us to be Thine. And even as Thou didst empower an ignorant blind beggar having received his sight and having known Christ to stand up to the leaders of his day so Thou art empowering men, women and children in our time as always be witnesses to Thee and Thy power and Thy kingdom. Make us strong in Thee that we may be fearless against the world. 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.