Living by Faith - Romans

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Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Living by Faith

Lesson: 41-64

Genre: Talk

Track: 041

Dictation Name: RR311V41

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Year: ?

Let us worship God. Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, who art maker of heaven and earth and all things therein, who hast ordained all things in Thy wisdom, and who knowest all our days, the very hairs of our head; we come to Thee rejoicing in Thy mercy, Thy grace, and Thy blessings. We thank Thee our Father, that thou who doest all things well dost govern our lives, dost take even our sins, our shortcoming and our follies, and dost make them work together for good. Now Father we come to Thee to be blessed by Thy word and by Thy Spirit, that we may serve Thee more bravely, boldly, and joyfully in the days to come; that we may rejoice in Thy word and Thy will, and might know that Thou who dost choose our inheritance for us, doest so in Thy wisdom. Bless us ever in Thy service, in Jesus name, amen.

Our scripture is in Romans 9:30-33. Romans 9:30-33.

“30 What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith.

31 But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness.

32 Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone;

33 As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.”

Paul has been very much misrepresented in the modern age especially. We have been told, and books have been written, supposedly to demonstrate that Paul was introducing the mystery religions, the cults, into the simple gospel of our Lord. Others have held that Paul complicated the faith with a great deal of theology which had no place in it. Again we are told by both Jewish and Christian commentators, that Paul repudiated the law. They say this in part to make room for their own repudiation. They pay no attention to the fact that Paul says: “Do we make void the law? Nay rather, we establish the law.” They are determined to see Paul as the one who complicated the faith, so that now as we go to the New Testament, it is simply a grab bag of contradictory ideas, and one can pick and choose in this very heterogeneous mixture, of what one wants. So Paul is very often used as a whipping boy, as an excuse, and a pretext.

Paul however is intensely faithful to the Old Testament, and to the gospel. He begins in this passage in verse 30 by declaring: “What shall we say then?” If God has not annulled His word, if the force of the covenant still stands in the law, what has happened? Why have the Jews been set aside? Paul has made clear that the covenant is all of grace, that it is not a natural privilege or right, or birth; moreover he says emphatically: “That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness,” (or justice) “have attained to righteousness,” (or justice) ‘even the justice which is of faith.’

“But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness or justice, hath not attained to the law of righteousness or justice.”

What is he saying here? He makes it clear that indeed, the gentiles have been justified by God through Christ. Even though they had no interest in justice. Now, at this point a great many commentators start telling us that something is wrong with Paul’s statement here, it is hyperbole, he does not mean exactly what he says, he is exaggerating, and so on. Because after all, they tell us, there was a great deal of love of justice among the pagans, and they cite Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and many others; and they say that to make such a blanket statement that the gentiles did not follow after or pursue justice is simply not true.

But remember, as we have seen, Paul has exploded the myth that justice is an abstract concept, a platonic idea floating out there in outer space somewhere, and that the ideas of justice, truth, love and so on are something by which we can judge God and man. The fact is, God is justice, God is love, God is truth, God is life. None of these things can be abstracted from God, and so the pagans who sought after justice according to these commentators, were not seeking after true justice which can only be found in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Moses. Justice is what God declares in His law. Our modern term justice and the old term righteousness are one and the same, no difference; the Hebrew and the Greek words can be translated either way. But there is no justice outside of God.

Now consider the harm that this doctrine has worked. If there is a justice and a truth outside of that which God declares in His word, why then you don’t have to be a Christian, you don’t have to believe the Bible, to know what justice is. Then the people living in the jungles, in the remote places of Asia, know justice as well as the rest of us.

But our culture knows justice from God and His word. They do not know it on their own, and the quest of justice now apart from God is destroying our civilization. We have men who stand in the pulpit and proclaim the infallible word of God from cover to cover, and yet when they walk out of the church they are ready to accept humanistic doctrines of justice. This is why we have so much socialism, fascism, you name it, alien concepts of justice that have nothing to do with true justice. Paul is right; the gentiles did not seek justice, because they were saying: “Justice is what we say it is.”

Now, if justice is what men say it is, then you have a Soviet Union, then you have what is taking place in our courts today, and you have the destruction of society as a result. The gentiles did not seek justice. And yet, by God’s grace they have gained His favor, and have been justified.

“But Israel which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not obtained the law of righteous. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law.”

They turned the whole of God’s justice, His law, into a way of salvation, when it is the way of sanctification. They lost the way, they denied grace, they insisted that man can save himself and atone for himself.

It is significant that by our Lord’s day the meaning of sacrifice had been lost, the temple service was an empty ritual. When the temple was destroyed in the Jewish Roman war of 66-70 A.D. there was no attempt to start up with sacrifice again, to practice it as it had been practiced before the temple, or to reestablish in any way anything that would in terms of the law provide atonement. It was a ritual. They wanted to rebuild a temple again, and it was the dream of the faithful, but only because it was the symbol of national unity, not because it provided atonement. As a result, they very quickly developed precisely what Paul is talking about, a religion of works; salvation by morality, humanistic morality. And all of this places God in debt to man. “I have done something” is the fundamental premise of salvation by works: “Therefore God, you owe me something. I have been good in this respect, therefore you have to be good to me in this and that respect.”

It creates a book keeping mentality, and a book keeping morality. But our Lord says very plainly in Luke 17:10 that when we have done everything that is commanded of us, so likewise ye when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say: “We are unprofitable servants, we have done that which was our duty to do.”

Paul goes on, and he says: “they stumbled at that stumblingstone; As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.”

The last verse here, the 33rd as it is written, has reference to this verse as it appears in Isaiah. Isaiah 27:16 and also Isaiah 8:14. The foundation, the stumblingstone, it Jesus Christ. He is the foundation of the kingdom. But to those who reject Him, He is a stumblingstone and a rock of offense. It is significant that Isaiah uses the term ‘rock’. Every time in scripture save one, where the rock is used symbolically, it has reference to God. The only time where it refers to anything other than the living God is when it refers to false Gods. “Their rock is not as our rock.”

When our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount says in the conclusion that He compares men to those who build on sand, and to those who build upon, and it is literally: “The Rock” although it reads in the King James “a rock” he is saying, upon God, upon Himself.

The term rock is always so used, and so Isaiah says that he is establishing, he is laying down in Zion, a stumbling stone and a rock of offense. Now, the Hebraic targum made clear that these verses in Isaiah referred to the messiah, and the reference is plainly to a person. A rock is laid down, a stumbling stone, and whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed.

As a result it is a person. Paul quotes this statement, which is an Old Testament statement, which sets forth salvation through the messiah, and declares: “This is He, Christ. He is the stumbling stone. And men who seek after justice apart from Him, men who seek after salvation apart from Him, or who seek after truth apart from Him, men who attempt to find anything apart from the living God and His Christ, are doomed. They stumble at the rock of offense.”

Paul echoes in these words an old rabbinic statement, in fact many old rabbinic statements about Isaiah’s words. Moreover he is citing what our Lord says about Himself, for example in Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:10, Luke 20:17, and what Peter says also: Acts 4:11, and 1 Peter 2:7. There is a difference however in the versions, Hebrew and New Testament. In Hebrew the translation in the Septuagint is: “Whosoever believeth on Him shall not make haste.” And this is also part of the Hebrew meaning. Paul says: “Shall not be ashamed.” That is, he will not be confounded.

Now, the Hebrew meaning means also he will not flee in disappointment; so that both meanings are apparently there, ashamed, confounded, make haste to flee away in confusion, and so on. As John Gill noted, and I quote: “The targum is: ‘shall not be moved when trouble comes’ being founded on the rock of ages, who is proof against all storms and tempests. The apostles Paul and Peter agreeably to the Septuagint version render it: ‘Shall not be ashamed or confounded.’”

Moffat gives it still another reading which is to a degree in the text: “He who has faith in me will never flinch.” And others have suggested: “Will never hasten about” or “hasten away.” In other words, when we believe in Jesus Christ, we shall not be ashamed, confounded, put to flight, or flinch in the face of adversity.

Paul thus makes it clear: Righteousness and Christ, they are inseparably linked. The blessings of God and Christ, inseparably linked. We cannot find anything apart from Him. As Francis Thompson in his poem Hound of Heaven said: “All things betray thee, when thou betrayest me.” So we must say also. We find nothing apart from Christ except confusion.

Paul thus strikes against the humanistic reasoning of his day, and we cannot import humanistic ideas into the Bible. For example, one term which comes straight out of paganism and from the enemies of the faith in the Greco Roman culture is ‘free will.’ The Bible never uses it. The Bible says we are responsible, but it never uses the term ‘free will.’ The reason of course is very clear. The term ‘free will’ rests upon the assumption that man is the absolute. If man is the absolute, if man is his own God, then he is totally free. Nothing can put any restraint upon him. But not even God is spoken of in terms of that Greek philosophical concept of free will. God does not have the freedom to be the devil tomorrow, God is what His nature is, which is all holy, all righteous; and we are what our nature was created to be, and we have the freedom to be ourselves. Freedom is not an absolute concept in any realistic sense, and to talk about free will is to talk about an absolute that does not exist in heaven or on earth.

All who insist on free will must limit God to free themselves; man then gives God permission to work. ‘I go forward, I say: “Lord, you can come into my life now, I give you permission.”’ Now, it isn’t done in those words, but it is done in the same spirit. God waits upon your yes, your permission. Sovereignty is then transferred to man.

Now this position is basic to modern man. God and Christ are options for man, not the foundation; and Paul says: “Behold I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, and whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed.”

In other words, no life apart from Him. “All they that hate me, love death.” The whole universe, the whole of creation, is turned upside down when God and Christ are made into options for man, something man can say yes or no to. Salvation is then turned upside down. The good life and the good society are possible without God, man can create his own idea of justice, or adopt the platonic one, and create a fine social order without Christ. He can have a good life personally without Christ. This being the case, we have to ask: “Of what value is God? Of what value is salvation?” Well, it is icing on the cake then. God is the insurance agent who gives you security about heaven.

Now the Bible has a doctrine of security, but the security is in the sovereignty of God, not in our sovereignty with an insurance agent to back us up. And people who have this false perspective are not motivated to dominion and conquest in Christ’s name. Their position is retreatist. They are ready to surrender one are of the world after another to the enemy, because they can take care of themselves and establish truth and justice without Christ, they create an area that is outside the dominion of the kingdom.

“Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed.” And today Christians have cause to be ashamed. With the numbers who confess to believe the Bible from cover to cover, the whole of the Western world, certainly the United States, should be a model area of the kingdom. But it is not. Because the Church is something in a corner, unrelated to the life around it, unwilling to speak to the life around it. I have never forgotten the statement that Otto Scott made after his conversion, he went to church, to good Reformed Congregations as well as to others I imagine, and found that their sermons could have been preached in the 17th century, and had no relationship to the reality of the world we live in. No relationship, and that is true in the overwhelming majority of churches, they are not geared to dominion. They do not see Christ as the foundation of all things, as the Alpha and the Omega. They see only salvation as the province of Christianity, and justice, truth, and all things else, including law: “Let the world devise its own ideas and go its own way.” The world has done so, and the result is the hell that is increasingly rising up around us, and the judgement that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost are bringing upon us.

Let us pray. Oh Lord our God, unto whom vengeance belongeth, we thank Thee that Thy word shall be made the ruler over nations, shall govern all things, and that justice shall flow and bring its judgement upon the ungodly and vindicate those who are Thine. Keep us our Father from looking at the power of men, and keep our eyes ever firmly fixed upon thee and Thy omnipotence, knowing that Thou shalt prevail, and Thou shalt triumph, and we shall also in Thee. Bless us in Thy service, in Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes Howard?

[Howard] I could think of two things, but one of them is that there is indeed like those who have yes, to some extent did know (?) and the fact that they knew it and they fell short of it, and that was the basis for their conviction. That was one of the two questions, that people have argued from that line, and the other one is an interesting argument that developed from the Hebrew lack of distinction between justice and righteousness, and it was this point that was made by many of the evangelical left, because if there is no difference between justice and righteousness, therefore whether we are giving charity to someone in need, we are only giving to him that which he has a juridical claim on; a dangerous argument to advance to its presuppositions.

[Rushdoony] Very dangerous as you have described it. Well, of course, even a century ago, Girdlestone in his classic reference work Synonyms pointed out that there is no difference between the two words. One of the problems we face is that while there are some who have begun to see what Van Til and others have pointed out, that we cannot separate justice and law and truth or anything from God, some men had a partial vision of this but held it without full appreciation.

Now Abraham Kuyper both affirmed it, and also went overboard in some respects on the Greek platonic ideas. This was true of C.S. Lewis and others. But there is a growing awareness that all of these are dead ends, that they lead us nowhere, just as the humanistic law doctrines and natural law doctrines which see it in a naturalistic sense; lead nowhere. And of course Paul tells us in the 1st chapter of Romans that men hold the truth in unrighteousness, in other words they know it because they were created in Gods image, but apart from Christ they hold it back or suppress it, or deny it, in their injustice; because fallen men are dedicated to injustice, they want a law apart from God. Genesis 3:5 says that the temptation and the great premise of original sin is: Ye shall be as God, every man his own God, knowing, determining for yourself what constitutes good and evil, what constitutes right and wrong, what is law; so, men have systematically denied God’s justice. Any other questions or comments?

Yes?

[Audience Member] There was a movie that came out entitled Peter and Paul, recently, well, I think several years ago but they ran it again recently, and its theme was to point out the intense conflict and competition between the apostle Peter and Paul, and one of the church conflicts, one of the conflicts that came out in that was the imposition of the law of another culture, the Hebrew law, on a gentile culture, and I think they even raised dietary applications, which the one church was trying to bring onto the other, and I remember explicitly that in the movie Paul said: “I am not saying don’t keep the law, uphold the law, just don’t impose it on the gentiles.” That was a radical statement to the movie.

[Rushdoony] Yes, well, I didn’t see the picture, but the idea that there was a conflict between Peter and Paul is pure myth. On one occasion Paul did rebuke Peter, and tells us he did so, but that does not mean that there was a conflict with them, and the point of the rebuke was that he was manifesting a double standard, that when some Judaizers came he immediately separated from the Gentile believers, and Paul’s point was that the dietary laws were not to be the point of division, but Christ. It is interesting that God chose Paul, the great student of the law, a Pharisee of the Pharisees in his background, who had studied under Gamaliel and others, to be the apostle to the gentiles, and Peter a Galilean to be the apostle to the Jews. So it would be exactly the opposite of what we would have done had we been directing things. Yes?

[Audience Member] The whole point of that Peter and Paul movie though was an attempt to interpret the New Testament consistently with the humanistic perspective, in the sense that the humanists do not want Christians taking God’s law seriously, because they may then seek to impose it on reality, I.E. the humanistic state. And that was the whole point of that conflict between Peter and Paul, it was that there were two separate ideologies at work, and Peter represents the modern Roman Catholic position, and Paul represents the Ayatollah Khomeini to a certain extent.

[Audience Member] Will Derrant put in one of his comments, Protestantism represents the triumph of Paul over Peter, and fundamentalism represents the triumph of Paul over Christ, the latter statement I think in the case of the some of the dispensationalists is not entirely out of line.

[Rushdoony] Well of course, Paul warned against the church saying “We are of Paul” or “We are of Barnabas” or of Cephas, or anyone else, or of Apollos. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Otto Scott] Well, it seems to me that since the apostles were individuals, as were the prophets and everybody else cited in the Bible, there is always going to be a difference of emphasis, and that is what makes the gospels so interesting, because if the gospels were all… if they all agreed in every particular, you would know it was a frame-up.

[Rushdoony] Yes, and God used each person in terms of his own background, character, and preparation to bring forth a particular emphasis and truth.

Well, if there are no further questions or comments, let us bow our heads in prayer.

Our Lord and our God we thank Thee for one another. We thank Thee that Thou hast called us to be Thy people, and given us a relationship to Thy Son, and to one another throughout all eternity. Give us growth, give us strength, give us faith and patience that we may do what Thou wouldst have us to do.

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.