Systematic Theology - Church

Government

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: Government

Genre: Speech

Track: 04

Dictation Name: 04 Government

Year: 1960’s – 1970’s

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we gather again in thy name to rejoice in thy mercies and blessings. They are new every morning. Thou hast set thy seal upon us and made us thy people, and given us great and glorious promises in thy word and through Jesus Christ. Give us grace day by day, and move in obedience to thy word, to stand firm upon thy promises, and to go forth as more than conquerors in Jesus Christ. In his name we pray. Amen.

Our subject this morning is Government, and our scripture is Exodus 18:13-37. “And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses sat to judge the people: and the people stood by Moses from the morning unto the evening.”

Let me stop a moment here. Any of you who have gone to a doctor’s office and sat for a couple of hours waiting, know the problem. Now, Moses is judging all the problems in Israel, and we are told that people were waiting from morning until evening, and Jethro, Moses’s father-in-law sees this and he says, “What in the world is going on? This is no efficient way to handle it.”

“And Moses said unto his father in law, Because the people come unto me to enquire of God: when they have a matter, they come unto me; and I judge between one and another, and I do make them know the statutes of God, and his laws. And Moses' father in law said unto him, The thing that thou doest is not good. Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone. Hearken now unto my voice, I will give thee counsel, and God shall be with thee: Be thou for the people to God-ward, that thou mayest bring the causes unto God: and thou shalt teach them ordinances and laws, and shalt shew them the way wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do. Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens: and let them judge the people at all seasons: and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee. If thou shalt do this thing, and God command thee so, then thou shalt be able to endure, and all this people shall also go to their place in peace.

So Moses hearkened to the voice of his father in law, and did all that he had said. And Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people, rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. And they judged the people at all seasons: the hard causes they brought unto Moses, but every small matter they judged themselves.

And Moses let his father in law depart; and he went his way into his own land.”

There are three main types of polity, or forms of government in the church. Each justifies itself by beginning with the present, and it seeks antecedents in the past. It is easy to succeed this way since the present has developed out of the past. So, these three types of polity; Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Congregational, simply go to church history and to the Bible, and they pick out that which agrees with their particular form. Naturally, they can prove their case, but the question is, how faithful are these three, and other variations, to the original standard? Another important question: where is the standard? In the early church? In tradition? If in the Bible, in all the Bible or simply the New Testament?

Now, the origins in the church has been placed by theologians in the Old Testament. Some go back to Enos, when we are told “men first began to call upon the name of the Lord,” Genesis 4:26. Well, if the church goes back to the Old Testament, why not church government? After all, the name of the Old Testament officers appears in the New Testament church: elders. There are some who have held that church government is not talked about in the Bible. This is a persuasive argument, but on second thought, it has a serious fallacy. God is the sovereign. He is the governor of all creation. Could he, the supreme governor of all things, neglect government? Obviously not.

Moreover, this passage which we read concerning Jethro is too often overlooked because we are told, “That was Jethro’s advice. It’s not of God, but Jethro spoke as a priest of God. He told Moses to ask God and confirm what he had counseled, and we are told, “And he did all that he had said.” All that Jethro counseled. Moses went to the Lord. In Deuteronomy 1:9-18, Moses gives us this same material that Jethro gave him, from God, and he says this is the commandment of God. Very obviously, he had gone to the Lord for confirmation of what Jethro had said, and so he had established government according to God’s counsel.

Now, the word spoken concerning rulers is czar{?} prince, in the Old Testament. It is translated variously as ruler, as captain, as elder, as bishop, and so on. This form of government goes back to an already existing pattern of government: family government. In fact, there were elders in Israel before Jethro counseled him, to use elders for government, from bottom to top. In Exodus 3:16, we have reference to the elders of Israel. God took a form of government he had already ordained for the family, and used it for every area of life, but the question now is, does this office relate to church or state? When Jethro gave the counsel, and when Moses ordained, declaring God required it, that elders be used in Deuteronomy 1:9-18, was he talking about a form of government for the church or for the state? Very obviously, it applied to every area of life. Certainly, the civil government is Israel was patterned on this structure, just as obviously, the synagogue later and the church were patterned on this, and we have the use of this word “elders” in the New Testament for church government. It is the pattern in every area of government.

For example, in the Old Testament, we have reference to the elders of the priests, so that government within the ministry was by elders. We have reference to the elders of the city who had a local family jurisdiction, and their duties were blood redemption, expiation of murder by an unknown culprit, the judgment of delinquents and criminals, the cases of defamation of virgins, and the laws of the levirate. Then we have reference to the fact that judges were elders so that justice was administered by elders. We find also that civil government was by eldership, and they are called elders of the people. There were others, specialized elders, but these were the main forms of government by elders. The pattern, of course, is also given by Moses. For every ten families there was to be an elder. Then there was to be an elder chosen over every fifty families, over every hundred, over thousands. This was God’s pattern of government.

Now, to what extent was this applied? Let us add, by the way, that over the nation there was a counsel of seventy elders, with Moses as the seventy-first. This pattern, of course, was continued in Israel: the Sanhedrin. This same pattern was continued in the early church and developed into the College of Cardinals, seventy elders plus the bishop of Rome. This same pattern was reestablished, or it was the pattern which they sought to reestablish in Scotland after the Reformation. They did not entirely succeed, but to a great degree, government by elders was the pattern in the church in Scotland. John Eliot, the great missionary to the Indians in Colonial America in the 17th century, took this pattern and the whole of God’s law, and applied it to the Indian communities, villages, as they were established, so that there was a systematic government in terms of tens, hundreds, and thousands. This was destroyed when Charles II returned to the throne, and Eliot’s book about this was ordered burned by the public hangman. Very few copies survived. Chalcedon hopes, in the near future, to have that reprinted.

However, the extent to which this was applied after the Fall of Rome is very seldom realized. While the Roman Empire still existed, there was a move toward centralization, Roman style, and a great deal of authority concentrated in the Episcopal office. With the Fall of Rome, however, the biblical pattern of hundreds and thousands was reestablished, so much so that, for some time, government in every sphere in England was in terms of this. After all, if you go back to the early government of England, you encounter the Hundred Courts, the Shires were the Thousand Courts, and in church and state alike, government was by elders. In fact, we have a word for that which still survives and, in a few cities, is still used: alderman. Elders.

To tell you how ignorant historians are of the Bible, if you look up the officer of alderman, or the Hundred Courts, or the Shires, you’ll find that humanistic historians say they do not know the origin of this pattern. Perhaps it came out of the Anglo-Saxon peoples, but they have not been able to find it among the pagan Anglo-Saxons. In fact, I have actually seen cases where citations of biblical law by the Hundred Courts quoting the Bible verbatim, are called by historian probably a relic of Anglo-Saxon law. They do not know the Bible, but this is where the Hundred Courts and the Shires and their courts came. The Shires later were obliterated by the monarchs who wanted to supplant biblical law with royal law. As a result, the county and the sheriff replaced the Shire and the alderman. So, once this type of government was basic to the Christian West, and very definitely in England.

Now, the significance of this is that the family must be governed to train. The family is the basic unit of government. In the New Testament, what Paul does is to stress this, because when in 1 Timothy 3:1-7, Paul speaks of the qualifications for an elder, or bishop, and for a deacon. He stresses his leadership in the family, that he is a family man who is strong and successful in the exercise of his headship in the family. Thus, what the Bible tells us about government in church and state, and every area of life is this: government is not primarily a function of a remote state official, or high ranking church officers, but of every man in his place. Instead of a concentration of government at the higher levels, we have a diffused and a localized form of government in church and in state. The family, the local church, the local government and court, these are basic. The free man is a governing man. This is why, in scripture, any man who is not the head of a household as a free man, is not a part of the tens. Because he is subordinate, a bond servant, he is not one of the tens.

Moreover, if he chooses permanent security, to be permanently a bond servant, he had to go and stand at the doorposts and have his ear pierced to signify a subordinate status, as of a woman. He now belonged to the house. He was no longer the head of a house. The sad fact is that modern men are largely slaves. They leave government to their wives. The government of the household economy, and of the children, or they leave it to the public schools or to the church. They are not exercising their God-given duty and function to be men. The eldership is thus a means of recapturing the government for God. It means that we have to train men to be men under God, to exercise authority in their homes, to be instrumental in restoring government in church and in state to its God-given dimension: government by elders.

The pattern thus, in the church was that it took ten men who were heads of households to constitute a church, and each of them had to be a governing man in his own house, and for every ten families, there were to be elders, one elder for each ten, who were to govern. This is the God-given pattern in church and in state. It is also the starting point for dominion. It is the essence for godly government. The wife is a helpmeet to the man, to the elder, in this form of government, so that her function is an important one. God has given us the pattern.

Apart from it, as men forsake government, it concentrates at the top and you have the development of tyranny and totalitarianism. God’s way is the only way that works in any sphere of life. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, thou hast called us to serve thee, to be faithful to thy word. We beseech thee, O Lord, to send a revival across this country among men, to make of them again elders, elders who will rule wherever they are, and that again we may restore government to thine ordained pattern. Grant us this, we beseech thee, in Jesus name. Amen.

Are there any questions now? Yes?

[Audience] How were the elders, the heads of ten, the heads of a thousand, how were they chosen?

[Rushdoony] At the beginning, Moses chose them. Subsequently, it was a choice made by the heads of households with confirmation apparently by those above. In other words, we don’t have too much knowledge there, except that any ten men, we know in time, from historical records, let us say, any ten Hebrews who might be, during the captivity, in a particular neighborhood of Babylon, came together and they would elect one to be the ruling elder to settle disputes among the other ten. This is, of course, the reason why the Hebrews of the Old Testament, and the Jews in the Christian era have survived.

We know that in many parts of Europe in the early Middle Ages after the Fall of Jerusalem, both before the Fall of Rome and after the Fall of Rome, Jewish merchants and families migrated, many into areas of Barbarian tribes. These people did not have rabbis, so that sometimes, for generations, they went without any rabbi to instruct them. Yet they survived. They not only passed on the faith, but they provided biblical law as the basis for the cities, because these people, let us say one or two Jewish families, moved up into Germany, what is now Germany, settled among the Anglo-Saxons and they survived because they were traders and they needed them, these tribes did, and little by little, a few others came there, usually at the ford of a river. That was a favorite place for a settlement. A little later, or about the same time, a Christian missionary would come there also.

Now, these settlements of Jewish traders simply took the Old Testament, the law, they made it the law of that little village, and as it became a city, it became the law of the city, and they governed themselves for generations using simply the Bible before there was ever a rabbi in their circle. So, it was a remarkable demonstration of how the biblical pattern could provide for effective government.

[Audience] Is there any evidence that they were chosen by election?

[Rushdoony] Yes, the evidence indicates, historical evidence, that they were chosen, and in the New Testament, after the first incident when Judas was replaced by Lot, thereafter it was by election. The elders in the New Testament were by election.

[Audience] Then the republican form of government is biblical, and that clarifies, for me why you say that freedom is biblical.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] We have to go to God and to the Bible for free government which I had not been clear on before.

[Rushdoony] Now, we were talking earlier about what the church can do for reconstruction. Here, in what we’ve studied today, is something that is basic, so that this you can carry to Hawaii with you to tell them, this is the foundation. They can begin to train the laymen there to be rulers. Any other questions? Yes?

[Audience] Since Moses was such a great man and {?} of God, and so knowledgeable, why didn’t he see himself why he should delegate authority?

[Rushdoony] Why didn’t Moses see this himself, that he should delegate authority? Well, first of all, none of us are perfect. Second, probably Moses had so much to do. Here he was, sitting from morning till evening, and a lot of the people didn’t get to him even at evening, trying to settle cases. The poor man didn’t have a chance to think, he was so busy. Yes?

[Audience] You mentioned that it takes ten elders to constitute a church. I’m confused on that because what is meant by Christ’s words, “Where two or three are gathered together, there I am also.”

[Rushdoony] Yes. “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Christ is there talking about the church in the religious, the spiritual sense, as his body, his community, but the requirement of ten men has reference to the institution, you see. There is a difference. So, for the institution, ten men are required. As I indicated, the synagogue still does require this, and there is a sorry tale about that. When Las Vegas was first being made a center of big-time gambling, the man who was there to bring the Mafia into the gambling picture in Nevada was Bugsy Siegel, and apart from him there were nine Jewish men. So they brought in Bugsy Siegel as the tenth to start a synagogue, which doesn’t say much for the character for that synagogue, but they were desperate so they used him, unhappily.

Now, the fact is, to this day, it does not take a rabbi to make a synagogue, but the ten elders. That’s a very important point, very important, and it’s biblical.

[Audience] You mentioned some sects, picking and choosing from the bible, and then of course, they can prove their thesis by referring to that. I’ve had occasion recently to know of a case where the Seventh Day Adventists and the Mormons are considered a cult by a Christian school which require the children to attend a Christian church or Sunday school, and one of the mothers lied and said that her child attended a Christian school and not a Mormon school, although they were Mormons, and they found out that she had lied and the child attended a Mormon school, and so this brings to mind this and what you just said. What is the actual definition of a cult?

[Rushdoony] The definition of a cult varies from one scholar to another, but usually a cult will stress a particular point to the exclusion of much else in the faith, or it will have a leader who claims to have special revelations or a special pipeline to God, so he has something above and over what the Bible has to teach, so that the sect or rather, the cult tends to be dissatisfied with the whole Bible as it is and wants something in addition to it in a great many cases. Yes?

[Audience] {?} This explains me why and even to this day, in particular rural areas you’ll find an area that’s known by a local people as something’s hundred, so that name still carries on {?}.

[Rushdoony] Yes, and it’s sad that although the term “hundred” still exists in England in some isolated areas, historians have no awareness of its meaning. This is how remote they have become to biblical faith. If they only had read the Bible with open eyes, they would see that this is its origin, or if they’d gone back and studied some of the early kings like Alfred, thoroughly, because Alfred was, for the systematic application of this kind of thing and the whole of God’s law to all of England, and he worked to that end. Yes?

[Audience] I asked a lawyer who I thought had a pretty good historical knowledge, some years ago, where did the number twelve on a jury come from in English common law, and in particular {?} looked in books and consulted other lawyers and said they did not know, and later I just happened to stumble across something that Sir Edward Coke{?} had said, Coke{?} was at the time of Queen Elizabeth, and he said it came from the twelve tribes of Israel, twelve disciples, that’s where English common law had taken him. So that certainly shows the pervasiveness of the biblical law in the European, particular, the British tradition, that even in terms of the number of persons who served on a jury.

[Rushdoony] Yes. With the Fall of the Roman Empire, the Roman pattern which was being imposed on the church, because so many of the leading converts were lawyers, and these lawyers brought a great deal of good and bad to the faith, but one thing they did bring in was a Roman pattern of centralization. Well, with the Fall of Rome, that aspect began to wane, and people went to the biblical pattern again which was already present to a degree, and so this kind of pattern became very strong throughout Europe, and it was important in the civilizing of Europe, because it put the responsibility where it belongs, on the local level.

Some day, perhaps some scholar will make a study of English history in the early era, just from this perspective. It’s sad that they don’t see fit to do it.

Well, if there are no further questions, let us bow our heads now.

We thank thee, our Father, for the joy, the truth, and the majesty of thy word. Thy word and thy grace are sufficient for all things. Make us ever joyful in Jesus Christ, triumphant in his service, and faithful in all things to our calling. In Jesus name. Amen.

End of tape