Systematic Theology - Church

Training for Government

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: Government

Genre: Speech

Track: 05

Dictation Name: 05 Training for Government

Year: 1960’s – 1970’s

Our Lord and our God, it is good for us to be here. Thy word is truth, and thy word speaks to our every need and our every condition. We thank thee that our times are in thy hands who doest all things well. Speak to us the word that we need. Hear and answer the prayers of our heart, and make us strong by thy spirit. In Jesus name. Amen.

Our subject this morning is Government. Last week we dealt with the subject of Training for Government, and today we shall concern ourselves with how are men to be trained, boys to be trained, to exercise the kind of government that scripture requires. Let us turn, first of all, to Exodus 13:8 and 14. “And thou shalt shew thy son in that day, saying, This is done because of that which the Lord did unto me when I came forth out of Egypt.”

And verse 14, “And it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? that thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage.”

Now, this has to do with the Passover service. Let us turn now to Psalm 78:1-8. “Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old: which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments: and might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God.”

Now, there are many references in the Bible, in the New Testament, to the home as the locale of church meetings. Prior to the Fall of Jerusalem, the church was not illegal in the Roman Empire because it had the protection that was given to all Jewish groups. After the Fall of Jerusalem, secret meetings were necessary, so the church continued to meet in the home, but in very small groups, lest they be discovered, but before it became a necessity, the church was meeting in the home. The qualifications of the officers of the church were also family-oriented. Read sometime what 1 Timothy 3:1-13 has to say. The church officer must be a man who has proven his character by his headship of a family, by demonstrating his capacity to rule in the product, that is, in godly children. The very terms for church officers are derived from the family. Elder, an elder in biblical times was the head of a family. Deacon, a family servant, so that both deacon and elder are family-oriented terms.

Even more, training for government in not only the church, but in the state, but in every area of life is, in the Bible, seen as essentially a training within the family. There are two key texts that reveal this. First, in Exodus 13:8 and 14, we are told that in every Passover service in Israel, beginning with the very first in Egypt, instruction and participation were basic, participation by the sons. Now, every religious festival in the Bible has a strong element of instruction as a part of it. It was essential in all things that the children be reared in the essentials of the faith, but in the Passover service, the child, and normally the youngest male child capable of understanding was required to ask the question as the beginning of the service. “Father, what is the meaning of this that we do?” and then the child was instructed by the father in the meaning of the Passover. God’s salvation, the history of salvation, its implications for the child. So that the Passover service was oriented to training the child in the meaning of redemption.

Now, it is interesting that in the early church, this was continued. As a matter of fact, there was a memorized prayer taught to every boy, and the children offered, in unison, the prayer that preceded the communion service, a prayer that set forth the meaning of the service, and communion was served to the children. This practice prevailed for the first eight centuries. It was only terminated when, in Charlemagne’s France, they rules against this, but it persisted in many portions of the church, into the 14th century.

Moreover, it is interesting that the term “Passover” was retained for the communion service for centuries. In Scotland, not only was it called the Christian Passover, but it was celebrated with the use of a lamb, and a Passover supper. It was, in other words, seen for centuries by the church, beginning in the New Testament era, as essential that the covenant child understand the meaning of salvation as early as possible, and to share the responsibilities of the redeemed. He was taught to ask the question, because it was his responsibility to give an answer for his faith from his earliest years, to be able to say, “I believe, and we do these things for these reasons.” We see this kind of teaching device elsewhere in the Bible.

For example, when Joshua and the Israelites entered into the Promise Land and crossed the Jordan, they erected there a pile of stones, and Joshua said, in time to come, you shall bring your children, have them ask the question, “What mean these stones?” and then you shall tell them how God delivered us, and by his wonder-working power, gave us a great and mighty victory.

Then second, as we saw last time, in Deuteronomy 6:4-7, verses 20-25, the child was to ask, “What is the meaning of these laws of God? Why did God give us these laws? What is their purpose,” and they were to say, “The Lord God gave us these laws for our good, because he separated us unto himself and made us his people.” So, first the child was to ask concerning the meaning of salvation in every Passover and Communion service, and second, the child was to ask the meaning of the law, and they were required to make clear the meaning of how they lived, why they did the things they did, to talk of them continually, to instruct their sons in the meaning of God’s salvation and in the meaning of God’s law.

Psalm 78 is given as a part of that function. It is over seventy verses long. Read it in its entirety when you go home. This was to be taught to children. “We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done,” and then, having spoken of the law and the necessity of knowing the law, then it goes through the whole of the history of Israel, how God had delivered them, and yet they sinned more against him by provoking the Most High in the wilderness, and they tempted God in their heart by asking meat for their lust. So they did eat and were well filled for he gave them their heart’s desire, but for all this, they sinned still, and believed not for his wondrous works.

The Psalmist gives us a picture of cycles of judgment, again and again, smiting Israel. Why? Because they forgot God’s salvation and they forgot God’s law, and so the child is to memorize this so that he might understand the pattern of history, that these things will befall men if they depart from God’s salvation and God’s law. So, the Psalm was to be memorized as a teaching device, even as they were to be taught the law.

History, the child was to know, illustrates God’s judgment, that the wages of sin are always death, that life must be built upon the law of God and the law must be taught to children. God requires it. But it is not merely knowledge that is to be taught, but faithfulness. The goal, as the scripture makes clear in this Psalm, verse 7, that they might set their hope in God and not forget the works of God but keep his commandments, and might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that set not their heart aright and whose spirit was not stedfast with God.

There is still another aspect of the training for government. The meaning of salvation and the meaning of the law is to be taught, but also, as these text indicate in this Psalm: responsibility. That because they are called to be elders, because they are to be men, they are to be responsible. This is taught repeatedly in scripture. For example, in Leviticus 4, we have the graded sacrifices. The greater the responsibility, the greater the sacrifice a person had to offer, and our Lord summed it up thus in Luke 12:48, “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required, and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.” In other words, the more God gives us, the greater our responsibility. The more gifts we have, the more money we have, the more honor and position we have, the greater God requires of us in the way of fruits, and the greater our culpability and our punishment if we go astray.

The Bible makes clear that men are judged more severely than women. We used to have the double standard, now we have none. The double standard said that women had to be virtuous and men could sow their wild oats. Actually, that was altogether wrong, because the Bible requires the same standard of both, but judges men more severely for their sins, and God makes it clear repeatedly as in Hosea 4: 12-14, that he will not judge the sins of the wives and daughters because they are guilty. Rather he will bring judgment upon the entire nation, because when the heads of households go astray, God says the culture is gone, because they are the key and when they sin, the whole culture collapses. We have today, child’s liberation movements underway because we’ve had women’s liberation, because men have sought liberation from God’s movement. The one follows after the other. If the one is going to be irresponsible, the others will also.

The attitude of modern man is that status is a license for irresponsibility, and if you are a man, you can get away with things that women supposedly cannot, but this is anti-scriptural. The greater the position, the greater the responsibility. The greater the requirement that there be a discipline in word, thought, and speech, and our culture has reversed the whole thing. Children should mind. The parents should have freedom. This is why children do not mind, because we’ve broken the cornerstone of responsibility.

In Antiquity, in pagan culture, the same thing prevailed which prevails among us now. The man was the law. He could do as he pleased. He had total power over everyone. He could sell his wife and his children. They became virtual property. In Rome, a man had the right to sell his children, but the Bible says, in the law, “Do not prostitute thy daughter to cause her to be a whore, for the land will be accursed.” The curse that God pronounced upon the world will be enhanced when men are so irresponsible, and we are also told, “Fathers, provoke not your children unto wrath.” Teach them so that they grow and they rejoice in God’s law. They rejoice in the way of righteousness. Even as man is God’s property, so, too, is all that man has God’s property and man must see himself as God’s possession.

Thus, training for government means that boys must not only be trained to be good and to be responsible, but to be able to rule themselves and everything that is under their jurisdiction. One of the key texts concerning men in the New Testament is in 1 Timothy 3:5, where Paul says, “If any provide not for his own, and especially for them of his own house, he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel.” In other words, the essence of being a man, and a Christian man, is that you are responsible for everything in your house and every person. You provide for them. You take care of those of your household, outside your immediate family, too. You have a responsibility under God. You are a governor, a ruler, and you learn within the family what it means to be an elder under God, and if you do not provide for your own, the most elementary function, then you’re worse than an infidel.

Now, you can understand the biblical pattern of government. Men, trained to be responsible, every head of a household a responsible man. For every ten families, an elder over those ten families, and then over fifties and over hundreds, and every area of life, church and state, governed by elders. The alternative to this is what we have today, centralization, totalitarianism, and tyranny, government at the top instead of in the family. We can understand why, in Bible times, when this form of government was practiced, there was almost no government at the top of the state. Virtually no state. In fact, one leader of libertarianism, or anarchism, a generation ago, said the perfect anarchistic society was Bible society.

Now, he was partly right in that it was, virtually, a society without a state, but it was not totally without a state. There was always some government there, but he was right in that there was virtually no civil government governing things. It was done on the local level, and we know from archeology that in the prosperous times of the Hebrew commonwealth, the houses which were built of stones had no doors, just a canvas door, because it was easier to throw it aside and keep the place cool, and the reason for it was, that when you had this kind of government, every family was responsible, and you did not have problems of crime. When the family system broke down, heavy barred doors and windows replaced the earlier order. Today, the family has broken down. It is in a state of collapse, not only in the ghetto, but in the middle class neighborhoods, and in the best neighborhoods, and there is nothing the police can do to cope with it. It’s the family that is the key to government, and God says, “This is the way to govern. Rear up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord that they may be rulers in the kingdom of God.” Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we thank thee for thy word. Thy word teaches us the way. It tells us how we should live. It gives us the answer to the problems of our world. O Lord, our God, we beseech thee, open the hearts of this generation to hear and obey that we may again be a God-fearing land, ruled by thine elders, obedient to thy word. Grant us this, we beseech thee, in Jesus name. Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] Maybe you can just throw more light on this, but it seems to me that when less is given, as you state in the sermon, there is a corresponding test that goes with it. I mean, it’s just automatic.

[Rushdoony] Very good point, yes. Every faith is tested, and the greater the responsibility, the greater the testing to prepare us to meet that responsibility. In other words, if you are taking a test in the first grade, the test is on one level, but if you’re taking a test for an M.D. degree, the test is much more severe. Even so, God, in this life, tests every one of us, and the greater the responsibility he is giving us, the more he puts us through, that we might be prepared for our calling. I’ve often referred to this sentence, because I read it when I was a student at the university, it’s in a poem by Lowell, and it had a profound impact on me. In this poem, Lowell spoke of us as people who by shipwreck only find the shores of divine wisdom. “Who by shipwreck only find the shores of divine wisdom.” Those words leaped out of that poem at me. I knew they were true, and I think all of us who have grown have known a few shipwrecks en route, and that’s how we have grown, being sinners, the Lord has to put us through that that we might learn, and I think the more he has in store for us sometimes, the more he puts us through the paces. We are tested. Any other questions? Yes?

[Audience] {?} pursue once more the matter of biblical government. I understand the ten and the fifty, and the hundred and so one. Two questions. How were the ones above the ten elected? Were they elected by the ten of each ten? Did each echelon elect those above them, and were the ones above them members of the lower echelon, or were they without {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, that’s a good question, and we don’t know the details of exactly how the election was made. We do know that it was by election, that it was so in the early church, but the details we don’t know, but you can see however, the details, it did create an order where the basic government was at the grassroots. Any other questions of comments?

[Audience] Wouldn’t you say that the old way in their country of electing United States Senators was closer to that, in that the State Senate collected their Senator, so that the elders collecting the higher elders rather than direct {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, as the Constitution was set up, the House of Representatives was to be by popular election, and the Senate by the State Legislature, two from each state, and the purpose of that was that there be a popular representation, and a representation of a geographical entity. That was very important. Now, of course, we’ve done away with that on the state level. It used to be, for example, that Calaveras County has a Senator. Every county did, but now the State Senators are in terms of population like the Assemblymen, and this has meant that an area can be exploited because it no longer has any representation as a geographical area. It means, for example, what we almost had happen during the drought, and would have happened if the drought had continued another year. An area like the Bay Peninsula could come up here and buy up our water rights, or expropriate them through the Legislature, and Palo Alto and some of the other cities were seriously considering doing that. Well, that is what becomes possible when you take away the representation of an area.

Well, if there are no further questions, let’s bow our heads now in prayer as we conclude.

Our Lord and our God, we thank thee for our fellowship in thee. Bless each and every one of us, and our loved ones, watch over them, we beseech thee, and guide them into all truth and righteousness in Jesus Christ. We thank thee for one another. We thank thee for the joy of salvation, and the privilege of growth in and through thy Holy Spirit. Bless us now in our fellowship, and prosperous us in thy service. In Jesus name. Amen.

End of tape