Living by Faith - Romans

Christ as the Perfect Expression of the Law

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Living by Faith

Lesson: 42-64

Genre: Talk

Track: 042

Dictation Name: RR311V42

Location/Venue:

Year: ?

Let us worship God. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. Oh come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our maker. Let the words of our mouth and the meditation of our heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh Lord our strength and redeemer. Let us pray.

All glory be to Thee oh god the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, who has blessed us all the days of our life, who has surrounded us with Thy mercies and Thy loving kindness, who has given us the assurance that Thou art He who dost make all things work together for good to them that love Thee, to them who are the called according to Thy purpose. Make us ever thankful, joyful, and obedient. Give us grace to serve Thee with all our heart, mind, and being all the days of our life. In Jesus name, amen.

Our scripture this morning is from Romans 10:1-4, and our subject: Christ as the Perfect Expression of the Law. Romans 10:1-4. Christ as the Perfect Expression of the Law.

“10 Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.

2 For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.

3 For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.”

It is interesting to note that while most of us as we deal with Paul and his letters speak of the Jews, Paul speaks of Israel. “my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.” There are two reasons for this, first of all a minor one; Paul was of the tribe of Benjamin, not Judah. However the tribe of Benjamin had been so closely associated with Judah that the difference was not very great. The real reason was that Paul writes religiously, not politically. He writes in terms of Gods covenant. The covenant was not with a particular tribe, but with Israel. It had been broken, and judgement, as Paul knew, was soon to come. Hence his desire was that Israel be saved, and he prays with an intense love of his own people.

But his concern is still radically religious. Paul knew full well that Jerusalem and Judah were to be destroyed, that they were moving towards rebellion, that Rome would not tolerate it; that our Lord had predicted the total destruction of the nation and of Judah, not one stone left standing upon another. But Paul’s concern is not the survival of Israel as a people, but their salvation. And this is an important difference, it tells us a great deal about Paul. He was not like a modern man in his loyalty. He acknowledges that Israel has a zeal for God, but then goes on to say: “But not according to knowledge.” At this point, a great many people have criticized Paul. They have insisted that the knowledge of the scriptures in Judea was phenomenal, that you had entire groups of people dedicated, like the Pharisees, the Scribes, and so on, to a knowledge of the scriptures. But Paul is emphatic. It is not according to knowledge.

The word he uses for knowledge is not ‘Gnosis’, which means ‘seeking after knowledge’ but ‘epignosis,’ ‘full knowledge, correct knowledge.’ So, they might have a great deal of gnosis, but they do not have epignosis, full knowledge, true, accurate knowledge. This is Paul’s point, they knew about God, but they did not know Him.

Now, as we have previously seen, Paul was fully aware that there was a religious superiority of Israel as against the Gentiles, but the test was: ‘did they know God truly?’ As Calvin said and I quote: “It is better, as Augustine says, even to go limping in the right way then to run with all our might out of the way. If we would be really religious, let us remember that what Lactantious teaches is true, that true religion is alone that which is connected with the word of God.”

And so Paul begins with this premise: They do not have knowledge, true knowledge. He continues, that they are ignorant of God’s righteousness, or justice. A strong statement. What is its meaning? Well, as we have seen, Paul strikes at the whole concept of independent universals. Greek universals, the idea that there can be a doctrine of justice which is not derived from God, but free-floating in outer space. His concern is that the doctrines of justice, of mercy, of love, of truth, of all things, be rooted and grounded in the nature and being of God, because anything else is a man-created myth.

The point he is now going to make is that Israel, like the Greeks, has a doctrine of justice or righteousness that is not derived fully from God, and so he says that they are ignorant of Gods righteousness.

Now Israel had a doctrine that was unlike the Greek, it was not an abstraction; its error was in the opposite direction. For example, in the exceptionally fine Encyclopedia Judaica, published in the early 70’s in many volumes, Louis Jacobs writes and I quote: “Righteousness is the fulfillment of all legal and moral obligations. Righteousness is not an abstract notion, but rather consists in doing what is just and right in all relationship.”

Now, we can agree that this is a good statement, very clearly so, that Jacobs has begun with pointing out correctly that the Biblical doctrine of righteousness as he says, bears a distinctly legal character. However, as we study the history of the Judaic doctrine of law, of righteousness or justice, we begin to see what Paul was talking about, because it becomes progressively more and more obvious. In fact, later on in Maimonides, one of the greatest of their scholars in the Middle Ages, righteousness came to, as Jacobs recognizes and I quote: “To embrace the Greek ideal of harmony and balance, in choosing the middle way.” However, we can say that the Torah still remained the governing law. But there was a shift, even though the Torah was used, from righteousness as the revelation of God, the revelation of Gods nature and being, to a stress on righteousness or justice as the right human relationships.

Now this is what Jacobs himself pointed out. God’s law then became a resource for human community life. The focus was now on man’s life, and man’s choice of good and evil. For example, in one of the greatest of the rabbinic commentaries: The Fathers according to rabbi Nathan, it is not God’s providence or God’s predestination, but rather man’s own act of will in law keeping that is determinative in history. We are told: “By ten sayings was the world created, and what does the scripture teach thereby? Could it not have been created by one saying? But this was to requite the ungodly which destroy the world that was created by ten sayings, and to give a goodly reward to the righteous which sustain the world that was created by ten sayings.”

In other words, what this rather involved language, and it requires getting into the stream of rabbinic thought to fully comprehend, was this: man can destroy the world or sustain it. God started it in the beginning, and now man can either wipe out everything or sustain all things.

But, we can begin to understand the nature of this changed emphasis even more clearly in the world of Saadia Ben Joseph whose dates were 882 to 942, the greatest scholar of his era. When he was asked a question about the resurrection of the righteous of Israel, he declared that, and I quote: “They have the power of choosing between obedience and disobedience.”

Now, Paul stresses man’s responsibility and mans choice, but also the divine decree and ultimacy, and we must recognize that there is a mystery here, human responsibility, God’s absolute predestination. But Saadia, however, limited God to foreknowledge Quoting again: “He knew that they would choose to obey and not to disobey Him.”

What he was insistent on was the ultimate decision making in the universe is in man’s hands. As a result, the contemporary Rabbi, Sandmel, Samuel Sandmel, has correctly summed up the difference between Judaism and Christianity in these words, and I quote: “The Jewish view is: man sins, man can atone, God can forgive. The view of Paul is: man is under bondage to sin, the divine Christ atones for man, and then man is ‘forgiven.’” Sanmeld’s view is an accurate rendering of what Judaism has been since our Lord’s day.

Now as we have seen, the Greek view of justice and of truth, and of other things, was one of abstract universals unconnected with God. All that whatever God existed in the Greek scheme of things did was to start things. Philosophically they recognized a need for a first cause, and so it was God. But He didn’t create out of His being, but out of abstract universals that are above and over God and man.

Judaism on the other hand, has a concrete universal in man, the ultimate factor is the individual man. So, it has had a proneness to humanism. The essence of justice from our Lord’s day to the present has been social justice. As Jacobs said and I quote: “it consists in doing what is just and right in all relationships.”

Now, to indicate how far this goes, let me quote from George Horowitz’ The Spirit of Jewish Law, published in 1953, and very influential in this country, heavily used by our courts; often cited in decisions at all levels, one of the most influential books in legal circles from a religious perspective, if not the most influential.

Horowitz’ cites with approval Maimonides and others who said that God’s law can be set aside by human need. Now this temper went so far as to alter scripture. Psalm 119:126 reads: “It is time for Thee Lord to work for they have made void Thy law.” The psalmist invokes God to do something, because men are rendering God’s law, God’s justice, null and void, and the interpretation came to be very early, that the correct rendering of this verse is: “It is time to do something for the Lord, so make void Thy Torah.” In other words, God’s law should be set aside, and you can do something for God with a human doctrine of justice. Determination, ultimate determination, was placed in the hands of man.

Now, Paul was trained very strictly the school of Gamaliel. He was familiar with all the thinking, so that when he says: “They are ignorant of God’s righteousness or justice” he meant exactly what he said, and he went on to say: “They go about to establish their own righteousness, and have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness or justice of God. They have created another doctrine of righteousness or justice.” Well, we have got to say that what Paul said of Judaism in his day we must say concerning the church of our day, largely antinomian, denying the law of God, being content to go to humanists, statists, for their concept of justice, ready to say that: “Well, justice is what these lawyers and courts say it is.”

Israel, said Paul, was going about to establish their own righteousness, and had not submitted themselves to the justice of God. They failed to understand that there is no righteousness or justice apart from God, and this is a problem in our modern courts of law. The rabbis of old took the law and made it mean what they wanted by their reinterpretation. They actually said: “The Torah is water, but our interpretation is wine.” Superior. And this is what the courts today do with the law, and what almost all churches with their seminaries do to the word of God. There is scarcely a seminary in the United States today which is not an enemy of God and of Christ.

Then in verse 4, Paul concludes: “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. The atonement is the great, the consummate expression of God’s justice.

Now, when Paul uses the word ‘end’ even in English, end can mean purpose. We can speak of our end being to attain something, or we can speak of it as the termination. In a sense of Christ being the end of the law, one meaning of the Greek word, ‘telos’ or telos. We have it in the English: ‘teleology.’ TELOS. One meaning is termination, but even more in Koine Greek it meant the purpose, the success, the perfection, the accomplishment. Christ in other words is the perfect expression of the law. In Him the nature of God, of God’s righteousness, is manifested; and everyone that believes recognizes this fact, that Christ is the perfect expression of the righteousness, of the justice, of the law of God.

He is righteousness incarnate. He is God made flesh, love made flesh, truth made flesh, righteousness or justice made flesh. We, who cannot make atonement for sin, find our atonement in Christ. He is the new Adam, the head of a new humanity; as against the humanity of Adam, lawless, the new humanity is righteous, law abiding, and believers are not dedicated to their own righteousness, but to manifesting the righteousness of God their savior.

Of course, the misinterpretation of this passage and of Paul rests, (and some of the commentators are very clear in so stating) on Matthew 5:17-20, and insisting on one interpretation of that, they insistently find the same thing elsewhere in scripture. Because, what we are told in Matthew 5 in verses 17-20 by our Lord: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” They read it: ‘I am not come to destroy but to end it.’ Well, that is destroying it, is it not? And the word ‘fulfill’ means ‘to put into force’ to bring to perfection. “For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of the least of these commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” Our Lord’s plain words there have been turned upside down, to say: ‘Those are great in the kingdom who set the law aside.’ And that Christ came to destroy the law. In terms of this, Paul is re-read.

But we are told by Paul that Christ is the perfect expression of the law. For righteousness to everyone that believeth. Everyone that believes is someone that has been remade in Christ, created in a new image. Moses tells us that Adam begat after his likeness, Genesis 5:3. Everyone born of Adam after the fall was born with the same fallen nature, but the new Adam begets us, we are born again in Him, by His supernatural power, after His likeness to be covenant keepers, and we recognize Jesus Christ as the perfect expression of righteousness, of God’s justice, of God’s law, and therefore because we are in Him, and born again by His power, members of His new human race, seeing Him as the perfect expression of God’s righteousness and law, we seek to grow constantly in that same image; and we seek to be faithful, to be obedient, to every word of God.

Man shall not live, man cannot live, by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God. So said our Lord, quoting Moses to Satan, and so must we all say, and live.

Let us pray. Oh Lord our God, we thank Thee that Jesus Christ is our savior, and that recreated in Him, we have been recreated into His perfect image, in knowledge, righteousness or justice, law keeping, knowledge, truth, dominion, holiness, all things whereby we can express His nature in us. Bless us oh Lord as we seek to be faithful to our new image, that we might be the people of justice, the people of law, the people of truth, of love, of grace, of power; and that all things might be brought into captivity to Jesus Christ our Lord. In His name we pray, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience Member] Does the term ‘begotten’ mean the only begotten son, or…?

[Rushdoony] Begotten means ‘to give birth to’ it is an old fashioned word, begat and begotten. Any other questions or comments? Yes Otto.

[Otto Scott] How do you explain the use of Horowitz, when the use of the Bible is practically outlawed?

[Rushdoony] That is a good question. Horowitz’ influence has been both good and bad; because in many areas Horowitz does give a very telling interpretation of Old Testament law. For example, in the area of liability the fact that the law of God required parapets around flat roofed houses and buildings so that no one fall off; and that law establishes liability. It has been influential in the courts, in that it has been used to point out, since Biblical law has a long past in our history, this is its meaning, and this is the interpretation going back to Old Testament times. So Horowitz did a service which Christian writers were not doing, he called attention to some things like this. But Horowitz also called attention to that aspect that I pointed out, that the law can be set aside by human need.

So, its influence has been both good and bad, and it has depended to a considerable extent on the courts, because it was the only book available that dealt with these things. One can say that Clarks Biblical Law written in the last century or at the beginning of this century had some influence, and it used to be used to a considerable degree, but Horowitz was such an improvement on Clark in many respects that it superseded the use of Clark. Clark used to be printed by law firms or law publishing houses.

Yes?

[Audience Member] When you say ‘you set aside the law for human need’ is that the same thing as situation ethics?

[Rushdoony] Yes, a good question. It is the same thing as situation ethics. So, we have had the disaster that both Judaism and Christianity have so extensively gone into situation ethics.

[Audience Member] So you wouldn’t call that arbitrary, necessarily; they have a reason for what they are doing?

[Rushdoony] Yes. It is the same old pagan premise that you had in Rome, where the fundamental law of Rome was: “The health of the people is the highest law.” In terms of that you could do anything if you said that it was the health of the people that required it.

[Audience Member] And that is why they are not going to be consistent.

[Rushdoony] Well, if you define the health of the people, you are consistent to what you believe, but if you are on the receiving end, you will find it inconsistent.

[Audience Member] …our courts today.

[Rushdoony] Yes, very much. The courts today are following after the Roman premise and the rabbinic interpretation of Psalm 119, 126, they are following after Fletcher, the fiscal theologian, and situation ethics; they are ready to go after this type of things. Yes?

[Audience Member] Is there any reference at all in scripture to any kind of insurance as remotely connected to what we have?

[Rushdoony] To insurance? Yes, the dowry system was a form of insurance. If a man had to supply a dowry to his prospective wife, and while the amount was not specified it was normally the equivalent of three years salary, it was an insurance that he wasn’t going to walk out on her and leave all that money. And in fact, the first insurance company in the United States was a result of the dowry system; the ministers were the ones who could not accumulate dowry’s in the early days of the colonies, and so the first insurance company, the Presbyterian Ministers Life Insurance was established in the very early years in order to enable a man to provide his wife a dowry. He would pledge to make payments on that policy as long as he was alive, and that was her dowry. Any other questions or comments?

[Audience Member] You mentioned that the Lord created the earth, and then let man decide to keep it or destroy; if man decided to destroy, then what does that do to Gods plan of the end days and Christ coming back?

[Rushdoony] Oh, of course it meant that history was totally in man’s hands. Yes. That was the whole implication of the Rabbinic doctrine that man could destroy or sustain history. You have the same doctrine among many Arminians, too.

Any other questions or comments? Well, if not, let us bow our heads in prayer.

Oh Lord our God we give thanks unto Thee for Thy word and the light it provides for our way. Make us ever joyful in Thy word, and ever faithful and obedient.

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.