Miscellaneous

Blessed is the Man

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

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Genre: Speech

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Dictation Name: RR302A1 – Blessed is the Man

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I have in my bedroom on my dresser a leather-bound New Testament which includes the Psalms. How many of you have a copy of such, yes, several of you do. Now it’s very interesting why they were published together.

One reason is obvious. The Psalms were the songbook of Israel, and still are, but another is very important. The Psalms begin and end with an emphasis that is typical of the whole Bible. Now, the Bible from beginning to end is written for the believer. When I say that, what I mean also is the Bible assumes that, in one sense, there are no unbelievers. All men know the truth of God in their hearts. In their wickedness, they may suppress it, they may deny it, but they know, “Thus saith the Lord,” and so, the Bible never tries to persuade anyone to believe in God. It speaks to people who, as sinners, refuse to accept God’s word or to those who do accept it.

Now, people, over the centuries, have read the Bible differently in terms of what they believe or do not believe. For centuries, until Luther, the Bible was read first in a Platonic, or a neo-Platonic sense, as the Eastern church still does. The result is a totally different meaning. On the other hand, in the latter part of the Middle Ages, the Western church began to read the Bible in an Aristotelian sense. Now, again the focus they brought to it, the glasses they wore, in effect, gave a totally different meaning to the words. When you consider Romans and Luther’s experience in reading it, you are inclined to ask if you think about it, why did no one before Luther come to the same conclusion? After all they read it, and many of the monks recited it constantly. They did not, because they began with different presuppositions in their mind.

Well, when we come to the Book of Psalms, the songbook is Israel we are told, we forget because we were never so taught, that it repeats a pattern of the Bible. There are the five books of Moses. The Psalms as a hymnbook of Israel, are divided in all Hebrew thinking, into five sections. One for each of the books of Moses. It begins by the presupposition of faith. Then, in the concluding song, or Psalm, it celebrates victory. In fact, as you read the concluding Psalms, again and again, what must impress you is the tremendous note of victory that echoes throughout. Psalm 149, which is very closely tied to 150, says, “Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand; to execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people.” That’s a celebration of victory.

In Psalm 150, praises God for that victory. “Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.” Well, again and again, we have that note in scripture. You can see it in Revelation, which very definitely ends with a resounding praise of God.

One of our problems today is that, whereas other ages saw the Bible in Platonic or Aristotelian terms, ours sees it in Darwinian terms, even though we may not believe in Darwinism. Why? We don’t see it as tied together, as a unit. Instead, it’s a miscellaneous collection of books. Oh, we believe they are revealed, but we don’t take them as unity, and yet, if you go back, you find that the Hebrews saw the Psalms as replicating the five books of Moses. In fact, in their version of the Psalter, it is clearly and plainly divided, and once you read it so, it’s apparent. It is in five books. It self-consciously parallels Moses. It ends in a note of victory.

Well, we have biblical scholars who tell us that even Matthew can be divided into five books to parallel the books of Moses. I could go on and on and call attention to things that, in my lifetime, have been forgotten and were once commonplaces. We have forgotten the unity of the scriptures, except in a vague, in a general sense, and we miss a great deal of the meaning. Just as people once read the Bible, knew Romans by heart from chanting it day after day, and yet never understood what “The just shall live by faith,” means. So, too, we are very often ignorant of the note of victory. The note of victory resounds in all of scripture.

Now, the Psalter begins with a blessing on “the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.” As we go on to read the early Psalms, we find again and again that note. God, as our Creator, he has given us his law and we prosper like a tree planted by the rivers of water when we live in the Lord, but the ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. When God gave the whole of the Bible, and it has an unmistakable unity, so that what we have very clearly given to us at the beginning of the Psalms is God as the Creator, who has given us his law, who has declared that if we live in him, and in obedience to his law-word, we as a people shall flourish, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

It’s a magnificent beginning, and then as you continue, you find the same note in the early Psalms stressing the fact of God’s law, God’s blessing on his people who live in terms of it, and so, it prepares us for our daily life. It requires of us obedience to the law-word of God, and it tells us over and over again, this is the way of victory, so that when you come to the end of the Psalter, it’s not an accidental choice that increasingly in the latter Psalms, the theme is victory, and it builds up more and more. We are told, “Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power. Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness..” Why are we to praise him? Because we have been faithful to him. We have executed upon the ungodly, the judgment written. This honor have all his saints. Praise ye the Lord. It’s a tremendous statement. We are to praise God.

We have the honor of overthrowing the enemies of God. How many Christians think of that now a days? An honor conferred upon us by God to triumph over his enemies. Genesis through Exodus, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Then we are told that God, in due time, sent his only begotten Son, that we are told the conclusion, the magnificent victory. When God shall create a new heaven and a new earth.

So, we need to see the Bible as a unity. It’s sad that we no longer mark the end of each of the five books of the Psalms. They are more discernable than the divisions of Matthew, but you cannot escape the fact, no matter how ignorant you are of the biblical literature, it builds up to a mighty victory. Revelation, the last book of the Bible, tells us of the new heavens and the new earth. You see, just as the priests and monks before Luther recited day after day, by the hour, large sections of the Bible, knew them by heart, and yet never for a moment understood what justification by faith means. So we, too, however well we may know the Bible, if we do not pay attention to the fact that it is a unit, it begins and ends with victory, that the various individual books do the same. Isaiah, for example. So, we have the Gospel in miniature again and again, in summary, because the keynote of the Bible, the keynote of the writers of the Bible is victory, and when we see it as it was meant to be read, not in terms of Plato and Aristotle, nor in terms of Darwin, but in terms of God the Son, why, it is a magnificent book of victory.

Then, what Proverbs tells us, and what the Psalms tell us is victory. Proverbs is a commentary, from beginning to end, on the law of God, and yet, when we say that, we have not described Proverbs, because it is not only a commentary on the law of God, but a declaration of the victory that God promises to the people who believe and obey him. We cannot read the Bible if we do not read it as a unity. It’s not an accident. It isn’t just a collection of books. It is a collection that, by the providence of God, sets forth the beginning and the end, with clarity and power, and so it’s fitting that the little leather-bound Psalter and New Testament that I have is such a unity, because we are to celebrate it from the beginning to the end of the Bible, and the songs of celebration do go well with the account of the victory. We need, therefore, to believe and obey, that God has given us these songs of victory, because the victory is inevitable in history.

Now, we live in a time of considerable trouble, and it is easy to be discouraged. At eighty-four, going on eighty-five, I can remember when virtually everybody went to church, and to some degree knew their Bible. That’s no longer true. You can go up and down a neighborhood and only a very small minority will go to church, and yet, we know that this, however much it may worsen in this century, is not the whole story. The whole story is that we are to praise him, “Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.” Why? Because his victory is assured. It is declared from beginning to end of the Bible, and we are to remember it and live in terms of it.

Now, as we read the latter part of the Psalms, we do see some interesting verses that set forth what he shall do. We have only to go back a couple of Psalms, and we are told of how God can send what he chooses. “He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes. He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold?” That verse is especially memorable to me because much ahead of time, I had prepared a sermon for a particular Sunday that included much of Psalm 147, and when that Sunday came, there was a storm like none other across the length and breadth of the reservation. The roads were all closed. It was impossible to get warm, even with a fire going full blast in any stove or fireplace, and I was in church to preach and here was this verse. “He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes. He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold?” Well, “He sendeth out his word,” the Psalm continues, “and melteth them: he causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow.” This is the note of victory. We have much to be joyful in, and we can be more joyful if we read the Bible as a unity, a unit created by God, a unit to tell us what the history of the world is, a unit that is designed to give us joy.

Therefore, “Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.” Let us pray.

Our Father, we praise thee. We rejoice in thee. We know that thou who didst create heaven and earth, and all things therein didst create them for thy holy purpose, for an eternal victory, and for a place wherein thy people should joyfully gain and celebrate their victory in Jesus Christ our Lord. In his name we pray. Amen.

Are there any questions about our lesson? Well, if not, let us remember as we read the Bible, never to see it as a miscellaneous collection, but as the every word of God, given to us to rejoice because we are the people of victory, and this is why the presupposition of the Bible, from beginning to end, is not that there are unbelievers, but there are people who reject what they know, and if you reject what you know, then you are a fool and a loser, but if we live in terms of what we know, we are the people of eternal victory. Let us conclude with prayer.

Lord God, how great and glorious is thy word. Bless us as we yield ourselves unto thee, as we hear and read, and obey thine every word, and grant us thy peace. 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.

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