Systematic Theology - Church

The House of God

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: Government

Genre: Speech

Track: 10

Dictation Name: 10 The House of God

Year: 1960’s – 1970’s

Let us begin with prayer.

O Lord our God, who hast made heaven and earth and all things therein, we rejoice that thy hand is upon us for good, that thou hast ordained all things in terms of thy holy purpose, and even the wrath of man shall praise thee. Strengthen our hearts, therefore our Father, as we face the wrath of the enemy, that we may know that it is thy will that shall be done, thy purpose that shall prevail, and that the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. Great and marvelous are thy ways, O Lord, and we praise thee. Bless us now as we give ourselves to the study of thy word, in Jesus name. Amen.

Our scripture this morning is from Genesis 28:10, and our subject is The House of God. “And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.

And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. And he called the name of that place Bethel: but the name of that city was called Luz at the first. And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God: and this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.

Our subject is The House of God. The word “house” in the Hebrew comes from a root which means “to build” or “to have children.” Its usage in the Bible is usually quite literal, meaning the house, or the family, or the household, as in Genesis 7:1 where it refers to the house of Noah, in Genesis 17:23, where it speaks of the family, or the house of Abraham.

Now, this is also the word which is used here in our text, when Jacob says, “this is the house of God.” It refers to the dwelling place of the Almighty. In this episode, we have Jacob fleeing from his home, his brother, Esau, plans to kill him. He goes into another land to find refuge for a time until it is safe for him to return home. Jacob had sought the covenant birthright which his brother had despised, and he had gained it from Esau. Now God, in this vision, gives him the covenant status by grace. He tells Jacob that he is the Lord God of Abraham, thy father, a very interesting statement, because he passes over Isaac, although he refers to him. He said, I am the God of Isaac, also, but Abraham, being the covenant head, he identified Jacob as belonging to the covenant father, and the child of the covenant. Now it is Jacob who is the covenant man.

Jacob’s reaction to this vision is, “This is indeed the house of God,” just a place in the countryside, but he calls it the house of God, and names it Bethel, “house of God,” and he promises to tithe “of all that thou shalt give me.” By committing himself to the tithe, Jacob recognizes his total dependence on God, and he makes a triple vow. First, he says the Lord shall be my God. Second, Bethel shall be a sanctuary to him and to his people, henceforth, and third, God, having promised the whole land to Jacob, Jacob promises to return a tithe “of all that thou shalt give me.”

Of the term “Bethel,” the house of God, Bannerman{?}, in his classic work on the scripture doctrine of the church, written almost a century ago, said, “From the period of the wilderness sojourn onwards, the tabernacle and the temple are constantly referred to both in the history and prophetic books as the house of God, or of the Lord. The tent which he pitched among men, the place where his immediate presence was to be recognized, where his glory was to be seen, and where especially he met with men and spoke to them in grace. Yet ever and anon such references were accompanied with an emphatic testimony to the fact that God’s presence was also in every place, and that the heavens and the earth were full of his glory.”

Now, Jacob’s vow is not given to us merely as a bit of history. It is given as the necessary response of faith which goes before God’s covenant and membership in his house. Before there was an institution called the church, we have the house of God. So that we have to see that the house of God is not primarily an institution, but it is a relationship. Long before the tabernacle was built, and long before the temple was built, scripture speaks of the house of God. Now, it does so in the same sense that the word is used concerning the house of Abraham, and the house of Noah; the family, or the household. So, the primary meaning of House of God is not to a building. It is to a family relationship, and this is basic to the life of the church.

Thus, our usage of the church, that term, as an institution and a building is wrong. As it grows, indeed, it becomes an institution and must. It needs a building and God, in time, ordered the construction of a building, but it must above all else, and primarily, be a family relationship. The family, or the household, of God.

Thus, before there was a building or an institution, there was a family relationship, and a loyalty, and tithing. What we see here in Jacob’s vow was summarized in the offertory hymn of William W. Howe{?} who wrote about a century ago, and it is used in many churches still.

“We give thee but thine own,

Whatever gifts may be.

All that we have is thine alone,

A trust, O Lord, from thee.

May we thy bounties thus

As stewards true receive,

And gladly as thou blesses us

To thee, our first truths give.”

Too often this is sung mindlessly and formally by congregations when their hearts are closer to Nebuchadnezzar who said, “Is not this great Babylon that I have built, for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty,” but what the covenant relationship, the family relationship, requires us to recognize is, “We give thee but thine own.”

Now, notice the family imagery. We are a family, and in a family, we are what we have received. We have the inheritance of our father and our mother. We have the aptitudes, the blessings, that we inherited. We are heirs. We did not make ourselves. Now, this is an important fact because there is a world of difference in the psychology of Christians today who will say, “We give thee but thine own,” but boy, I earned it. I did it with my own efforts, and I’m a self-made man, but the bible requires us to think of ourselves as heirs. We are called heirs in Christ, heirs of God, a word that we have come in the modern world to despise. We have a hostility to heirship. We legislate against it. We have estate taxes. We have inheritance taxes. We have a psychology today where, if you’ve inherited something, what right do you have to hold it? Whether it is money or property, or social position, whatever it may be, there is a hostility to heirship.

Now, this goes hand-in-hand with the humanistic free-will tendency of our age. “We did it ourselves,” but God says we did not. One of the most important verses in scripture is Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 4: 6 or 7 when he says, “What have we but what God has given us? Who made us but he? We did not make ourselves, and if we are what he made us to be and what he gave us, how dare we glory as though we had not received all that we are?” And so Paul there strikes at the heart of all human pride. We are heirs. We have received what we have.

Now, of course, if you believe that God created all things, and God ordained all things, God predestined all things, then you’re going to believe in heirship. You are going to recognize that we are heirs of the past, heirs of the centuries. We did not create this continent. We came here to a land already developed, our generation did. We inherited homes, or we inherited aptitudes. We have received something. We did not come into an empty world, but our modern age is hostile to the concept of heirship, and heirship imposes a responsibility. It says that we have received something from the past, a God-given past, that God ordained all things and we are primarily heirs of God, and we can be heirs of men, too, but it is all of God, and it is a responsibility from God, and it strikes at human pride, and so a humanistic pride strikes at heirship to make the heir feel guilty, to say to the person who is a Christian that somehow, he is making himself an aristocrat of grace, because he says it’s God who saved me. If there is any salvation, man’s got to do it himself. He cannot be an heir of salvation. He cannot be an heir of anything, but the whole imagery of the family in scripture is tied up with the biblical doctrine of the family, and the family today does not mean to us what it once meant, what it meant in Bible times.

People once spoke of their family as house, their house. That was once common usage. IN fact, my last name is an evidence of that, and this type of last name was once commonplace. “Rushdoony” means “the house of Rush.” Doon, we have today, is town, same word, and most people were once identified in terms of their house. Von-something, belonging to. In almost every language, there was originally such a designation, identifying someone as belonging to a house, a family, and a man without a family was an untrustworthy man, because if his own family wanted no part of him, why should anyone else want any part of him? He could not be hired or received by anyone else. This is why, when Jacob left his family, he went to his mother’s relatives in Haran. There was no place else for him to go but to a relative, because to be a family-less man, was to be, to all practical intent, a dead man. For us, a house means a building. In the Bible, it means a family, and it is synonymous with life.

In Bible times, we find that when people had any devastation occur to them. Death, {?} or slavery to any family member, they spoke of it as the ruin of the house, the destruction of their building, because they conceived of the building, the structure, as the family, and so, too, the Bible. It is the family of God, and so the Bible sees humanity as belonging to two families. The family of Adam, the fallen world, or the family of God, the family of Christ, the redeemed house. The house of God is given the covenant law. The word of the Father that all are to abide by, and they are to proclaim this to all men and nations, and to summon them to the family of God. God’s law is the standard. God the judge, he is the accuser and the prosecutor. He gives the law, and he requires obedience to it.

We have seen a tremendous revolution in law take place, not only in our time. John Whitehead is working on an excellent book on the Second American Revolution, the legal revolution that has taken place in the courts, but there is an older revolution which is behind the present one, and it goes back to the period about 1220 to 1230 A.D. At that time, Frederick II of the Hohenstaufen Dynasty was the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and Frederick Hohenstaufen wrought a real revolution in the law. At that time, there was no prosecution under the law which was essentially biblical, unless there was a plaintiff, and the plaintiff could only be a citizen, a person within the realm. Whether a foreigner traveling through or a resident, it had to be a person who was a plaintiff against another person, and the plaintiff made his charge in the name of the law of God, in the name of God I charge thee in terms of this or that in his law,” but what did Frederick II do? Why, he said the state can now charge a man, so the state will be the plaintiff. This was the greatest single revolution in law. It meant now that it was no longer the people instituting prosecuting with the state merely providing the court. The state now said, “We will be the prosecutor and we will make the law.” Now, they knew it was a revolution, and by the way, the inquisition was born as a result of Frederick II did, but it was so radical, people recognized it, and one of the contemporaries, a Christian, said that this change in law was an instrument, “To propitiate the state God, to secure a satisfaction for the transgression of state ordinances.” They recognized that the state was now making itself God, and that it was the beginnings of totalitarianism.

Well, we see it in its implications today. About 95% of all the cases that are heard on appeal by the U.S. Supreme Court have, as the appellant, either some branch of state government or some branch of the federal government. Your chance of ever getting a hearing with the Supreme Court are very slight. Very slight, because the state has made itself God. It is the accuser, and its courts have become a means of oppressing the people, an instrument of totalitarianism. So, we’ve had a dramatic change. In a family, the father gives the law, and God declares he is our Father. He gives the law, and the law of nations which call themselves Christian is not to be statist law, but his law, so that it is not the propitiation of the state, but of the father. He is the head.

That very word “father” has changed its meaning. Today, it’s the one who pays the bills and who does the siren{?}. He’s the breeder and the person who pays the bills, and the state is now the house of man and it’s our Great White Father in Washington, to use the language of the Indians about two generations ago, but in the Bible, the usage of father is very different, as in the Lord’s prayer. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”

Now, in the Bible, there is no law of treason against the state. Do you know, as late as the approximate time of the French Revolution, or the American War of Independence, it was not uncommon for generals to change sides in a war if they didn’t like what was happening? A little earlier, one of the relatives of Louis XIV, a prince, Prince of Savoy, who was a very small man in size, but a brilliant man militarily, fought both for Louis XIV in almost every country of the day. I think the only one he didn’t fight for was England, and it was perhaps because the English were never in a position to make an offer for him. The idea of treason did not exist. You didn’t owe that loyalty to any civil government that didn’t give you justice. Treason, in the Bible, is against God, against the Great Father, and you can understand the meaning of the word “Father” in the scripture when you read this verse, which most people kind of skip over and think, “That belongs to days when people were kind of backward and Barbaric.” Exodus 21:17, “And he that curseth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.” We’re in a different world of that verse, but we’re in the world of scripture, of the family of God, a family in which the father says that, “I will care for my children to the point of dying for them.” “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son (God the Son), that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

Now, that’s what a family means in the Bible. It means a loyalty to death on the part of the father, and on the part of the children. That’s why, when the Bible speaks about the sin of a father prostituting his daughter. It regards it as so grievous a thing, because in the family there is that kind of a faithfulness, by the father to the children, and by the children to the father, and of the husband and wife, one to another. To break that is treason in the Bible. Too many churches today, you see, are children of Frederick II. They can see obeying the state. They cannot see obeying God without any reservation. When their heavenly Father speaks, they think, “Well, that’s interesting. That’s a beautiful passage of the Bible,” but when it comes to taking it seriously and obeying it word for word, it’s a different matter.

Men today, churchmen, are to often faithful to the state, and treasonable to God, the Lord, to God our Father, and to his house. Our Lord said concerning the Jews of his day, speaking in Revelation 2:9 and 3:9, who took his name in vain, who professed to be of God but were not, that they were the synagogue of Satan. These people said, “God (in the Old Testament, and our Lord in the New) are near to me with their lips (with their verbal professions) but far from me in their hearts,” and can we not say that today of churchmen who will not obey the every word of God? Who serve Caesar and his law while denying the every word of God?

This is what it means to be the house of God. It means that we are heirs, a very important doctrine, proud to be heirs by God’s grace, that we have a great calling in him, and that we are not only heirs of that which we have received, but we are heirs of all things, of all things in heaven and on earth, and as heirs, we are to dedicate ourselves and all that we are and that we have to the requirements and calling of our Father and of his house. Let us pray.

O Lord our God, we thank thee for thy word, and we thank thee that thou hast, by thy grace, made us members of thy family, called us to be heirs of all things. Make us joyful in this, ever faithful, knowing that we are what we have received, and we have a duty to be faithful servants in thy house, faithful sons and daughters of the King of kings. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] In the covenant with Abram or Abraham back in chapter 17, it was obviously initiated by God, but Jacob here in verse 20 sounds somewhat like a spoiled brat. He sounds like he’s coming to God and saying, “If you’ll do this to me, if you give me these things, then I’ll give you back ten percent, and if you’re really lucky, God, I’ll let you be my Lord.”

[Rushdoony] Yes, in the English it does sound though he is making it conditional. Actually, this is not the true sense. He is staggered by the implications of the whole thing. Here is something that has happened to him that he can scarcely believe. He is running for his life. He knows that he has been dishonest. He has deceived his father. True, at the request of his mother, but still, the whole thing has been something of a mess, and now God reveals himself to Jacob. Jacob doesn’t feel that he’s earned anything like that. He knows he hasn’t, but even then, the grace of God in this situation is staggering to him. So that we are told he was afraid. He could hardly believe this has happened to him, but if it’s really true, if God has really done this to me, this is what I’ve got to do. So, he is stunned and fearful. So, it’s not a kind of a bargaining situation. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Audience] Do you have any specific advice to those of us who have become somewhat spiritually estranged from our own families?

[Rushdoony] Yes. What the Bible requires of us it “Honor thy father and thy mother.” Not obey, because we are to obey God, and in him, we obey fathers and mothers. We obey civil authorities. We obey church authorities, but only in him. We honor them. We obey God. We must obey God rather than men. Moreover, our Lord makes it clear that it is necessary at times to separate ourselves from father and mother, brother and sister, and to follow him, because at times there is a requirement of separation, of a prior loyalty, but granted those things, we are to try to establish, as far as possible, a peaceable relationship with those who are kin to us, recognizing at the same time that, although we have a responsibility to make a witness in the faith to them, we are often the person who can do it least of all. Our Lord himself said, “A prophet is not without honor save in his own country.” In other words, those who know you the best are going to treat you with the least respect. So, it is not an easy situation. We live in a world where division is a constant thing because of the faith, and men want us to submit all too often on their terms. Their attitude is, “I’m ready to be friends. I’m ready to be your brother, or sister, or your cousin, as long as you don’t allow Christianity to come into the picture.” In other words, “De-Christianize yourself when you come around to me.” Now, we’re not called to try to ram our faith down their throats, but we cannot accept that kind of imperative from them. Is there anything else you’d like to add? I’ve given it kind of a general statement.

[Audience] Well, the closest {?} it gets {?} daughters are still living are a step-mother who might be a Christian. She has a Catholic background, and two first cousins who are not, and you know, I feel kind of a burden for them, but I never know exactly what to do with, we’re not enemies at this time.

[Rushdoony] Well, as long as the relationship is cordial, all you can do is to pray for them, to let them know what your faith is, and to let them see what you’re doing with your life. In time, that will make its impact. Not with all, but with some. I think I’ve seen that myself, because there was a time when my stand on things separated me from some that I had been very close to. Yes?

[Audience] From reading I’ve done in {?} I’ve heard from, in the Asiatic countries, I think specifically more of China and Japan, when a member of the family accepted the faith and became a Christian, they were cast out of the family. Was that {?} that this would happen to them, I mean, prior to this event in their lives? Was that a type of their attitude toward him, in relationship to {?}?

[Rushdoony] Yes, very good question. It was commonplace and still is in many parts of the world, when anyone in the family accepts the faith, for them to throw them out immediately, irrespective of their age. They may be very elderly and feeble, or they may be quite young. Now, this is because, while their concept of family life is very often wrong, involving say, Buddhism, or family worship, or Hinduism, or whatever the case may be, what they are right about is that the family is a religious unity, and it has to be one. Well, this did create a problem for missionaries and their first reaction was a very bad one. It began in China. You mentioned China. The first converts were kicked out by their families. Now, put yourself in the place of the missionaries, and here is an elderly mother or father who is suddenly pushed out of the door into the streets, or a girl of twelve who has picked up say, a Gospel portion somewhere and read it, and decided she’s a Christian. She’s pushed outside, no longer a part of the family. What you did was to take them in, and that was a mistake the missionaries did. They took them in, and the result was, what was known in China, was “Rice Christians,” people who are totally dependent on the missionaries, and it produced a very weak and unstable church. This is why the China Inland Mission, which changed its name after the war, and began to work in Southeast Asia, and Vietnam and elsewhere, and in Thailand, said under no circumstances were they going to repeat that mistake. Anyone who was thrown out had to be taken in by other Christians. They had to recognize that they were now a family in Christ, and it did produce some very anxious moments.

I recall one missionary couple in Thailand, the Faulkners were their name, stopping as they went up and down one of the rivers in their missionary boat, to pass out the Gospel portions, and to take at the marketplace, to the Thai’s there, and one school girl of about fourteen or fifteen, read one of them, became very excited, asked questions, and then there made it clear that she believed in Jesus Christ, and she was simply radiant. She went home to tell her family about it, and they threw her out, wanted no part of her. Well, it was getting late. What were they going to do? This was against their stated policy, and here was this girl who had no place to stay. When it got dark she would have been picked up by some of the hoodlums and taken to a house of prostitution. All they could do was to pray about it, and suddenly they saw someone coming by and they recognized. It was a Christian from another community who was there with his boat to do business, and with his family, and as soon as he learned the plight of this girl, he and his wife said, “Oh, we’ll take her in. She’s our girl now.” Well, that’s how they solved all the problems, you see. It had to be a family and the family had to be united in the faith. So, this is why inheritance in the Bible is in terms of the faith. You do not leave anything to a godless child. You do not recognize those outside the faith as being anymore a family with you because you’re a family with Christ.

Well, our time is up. Let’s conclude now with prayer.

Thy word, O Lord, is truth, and we rejoice in thy truth. We rejoice that thou hast made us thy family, and made us heirs of all things in Jesus Christ. Teach us, our Father, to walk not with a sense of poverty, but with the knowledge of our wealth in thee as heirs of all things. In his name we pray. Amen.

End of tape