Systematic Theology - Church

Ritual

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: Government

Genre: Speech

Track: 13

Dictation Name: 13 Ritual

Year: 1960’s – 1970’s

Let’s bow our heads now in prayer.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we thank thee that in this day thou hast called unto thyself a people from the far corners of the earth. We thank thee for the growing church in Africa, and we pray that thou wouldst deliver thy saints there from persecution, and give them a mighty victory so that they may become indeed rulers and governors of things in that continent. We pray, our Father, for thy persecuted saints in this country. We beseech thee, O Lord, to deliver the churches and schools that are under attack, and to make of us again a free people, strong in thy word. Bless us this morning as we give ourselves to the study of thy word that we may behold wondrous things out of thy law. In Jesus name. Amen.

Our scripture this morning is Numbers 15:4-10, and our subject is Ritual. “Then shall he that offereth his offering unto the Lord bring a meat offering of a tenth deal of flour mingled with the fourth part of an hin of oil. And the fourth part of an hin of wine for a drink offering shalt thou prepare with the burnt offering or sacrifice, for one lamb. Or for a ram, thou shalt prepare for a meat offering two tenth deals of flour mingled with the third part of an hin of oil. And for a drink offering thou shalt offer the third part of an hin of wine, for a sweet savour unto the Lord. And when thou preparest a bullock for a burnt offering, or for a sacrifice in performing a vow, or peace offerings unto the Lord: then shall he bring with a bullock a meat offering of three tenth deals of flour mingled with half an hin of oil. And thou shalt bring for a drink offering half an hin of wine, for an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.”

We have seen that the distinction between the word and the sacraments is not valid from a biblical point of view. As we saw the Passover, the communion service of the Old Testament, was a ritual, but it was a ritual which was replete with meaning, and the emphasis throughout was on the meaning. So that the youngest male child capable of speaking and understanding would ask, “What is the meaning of this that we do?” and then there was an explanation of the meaning of the service. So that in scripture, a sacrament is a teaching service. It is inseparable from the word.

The distinction between word and sacrament, as though these were very different things, is a humanistic distinction with rationalistic overtimes. Rationalism loves deception, endless distinctions are made. Sometimes fruitful, very, very often, clearly unwise and wrong. For example, a distinction that is centuries old now is one that divides the law into the moral law, the civil law, and the ceremonial law, and most people who think about biblical law automatically think of it as existing in three categories, but these are artificial distinctions. How can you call anything moral and separate it from the civil? Can you say, “Thou shalt not kill” and Thou shalt not steal” are moral laws and not civil laws? All civil law is a moral standard which has been enacted. You may disagree with the morality behind the law, but law is the enactment of a moral code.

Then the third category in this traditional separation is ceremonial. Now, let us examine the meaning of ceremonial. It is defined by dictionaries as a formal act or a series of formal acts conducted in terms of an authority, tradition, or perspective. The definition of ritual is almost identical, with the additional statement that these acts are religious in nature. Now a days, it is customary to call something ritual or ceremonial in order to dismiss it as irrelevant or trifling, but Paul’s letters are full of references to the Old Testament ritual, to their present reality in Christ, and their reality in the life of the church. We cannot disregard the meaning of the Old Testament rituals, nor the fact of ritual.

Moreover, the definition of ceremony and ritual reflect a Greek perspective, not a biblical one. Greek thinking, Greek religion, Greek philosophy was dialectical. All reality was divided into form and matter, or spirit and matter. The world of form, or spirit, was the real, the superior world. The world of matter was lesser, and for some, actually unreal. These were the two essential substances. God in Greek thought was only a limiting concept.

Now, form is basic to Greek philosophy. For modern man, matter is the only reality. As a result, in terms of the lingering dialectic, modern man sees ritual, form, as meaningless, worthless, because he looks at it in terms of the form/matter dialectic. Hence, ritual today is under attack on every side, by Catholics as well as Protestants. A Calvinist who recently attended, within a short time, two successive funerals, one a Presbyterian funeral and the other a Catholic funeral, was amazed. He found that they were very similar, both, to his great surprise, were evangelical in content. He said the difference was that the Catholic funeral included guitars and was more informal, but it also used a better hymn, a Calvinistic one, John Newton’s “Amazing Grace.” Ritual is gone in many Catholic churches, and I have heard from Catholic friends many horror stories of new kinds of sensationalistic practices within the service. Ritual, however, has not been abandoned. It has been cheapened.

Ritual is not abandoned when we abandon an old form of ritual. The hippies of the 1960’s, for example, rebelled against authority, against conformity, but very few people in the twentieth century have been more rigid in their conformity, both to dress and to speech. They had a set pattern of speech and a very identifiable way of dress. You could not miss a hippy. It would be easy to mistake a Catholic and an Episcopalian, and a Presbyterian. There was nothing about their clothing that identified them. There was nothing to identify someone as Middle Class, or Upper Class, but a hippy followed a set pattern. He had become formal, and ritualistic in his rebellion against form and conformity, but it was a debased conformity. The same is true of churches also. One very large evangelical church, one of the more prominent fundamental churches in its area, prides itself upon being free. They are not past-bound. They are not given to conformity, but the simple fact is that they are. They’re conforming to the modern age.

I had a discussion with the music director, a very brilliant, very capable man. The only kind of music he says that he will use is “throw away” music. “Throw away” music. He has a magnificent choir, but he only uses “throw away” music. What does he mean by that? It is music which reflects the modern mood, to the very minute. It will be written in terms of the most current popular music that youth responds to, but since there is a change, let us say, even in rock, so his music has to change year by year to catch the modern mood. He feels that the music of the church must speak the idiom of youth. They do have a tremendous congregation with a very strong emphasis on youth. Now, he recognizes that their church is highly ritualistic, as much so as any old fashioned Catholic service, or an Episcopal service, but it is a “now” ritual. So, no one recognizes that it is a ritual, because it is such a “now” ritual, but the sad fact is that the ritual he follows is not determined by a Christian faith. He is right in his critique of the ritual of many churches to a degree when he says it is obsolete. It is, he says, elitist. It’s something like opera for a minority, but we’re dealing with the now, but where do you get your imperative? From the age, from say, current rock music, what is the most popular thing with youth? Or do you get it from God? In other words, a ritual should not reflect the past nor the present, nor the future, but God. It should reflect the word of God, the truth of God.

The Bible is full of ritual, obviously God sees it as important. He does not view it casually. Ritual is not gone in our day. It has simply become humanistic instead of theocratic. We have a rebellion against any ritual that is God-ordained, and in terms of God’s law, because the ritual of the Bible is a part of the law.

For example, in Los Angeles area, one very highly antinomian fundamentalist pastor has declared that the marriage ceremony is a form of legalism. It is ritualism and therefore, he trusts that before too long, Christians will outgrow these relics of ritual and law. He is right in seeing ritual and law as interrelated, but he is wrong, of course, in feeling that he is getting away from ritual. He is simply adopting a humanistic premise for ritual.

Now, both law and ritual rest on a prescription, a prescribed form. God says, “Thou shalt not do thus and so.” God says the high priest alone can enter into the Holy of Holies. That’s prescription. God says something must be done, and you cannot depart from my will. The prescription comes from God. It is set forth in the Bible. In humanism, prescription comes from man. It is humanistic. The world is full of prescriptions and rituals which are not within the church.

For example, I recall once, well, more than once, but in one case especially, a wife who was very upset because her husband had left to go to work, and two or three times within a week, because he was late in getting up and in a hurry, had not kissed her good-bye when he went out the door, and her attitude was, “He doesn’t love me.” Well, she would have had a point if that had continued over a time, because it was a ritual between them that meant something. Ritual means something, but it was a purely humanistic ritual that was her concern. Now, God takes ritual even more seriously. There are great penalties in scripture for the omission of certain things. If God says something is important to him, it is, whether we think so or not, but let’s go a step further.

Ritual and typology are closely related, and both rituals and types are now slighted. What is a type? A type is something someone or a material object which conveys a vivid meaning. This meaning is one which first, indicates a resemblance between the type and that which it symbolizes, and second, God appoints the type and the thing typified, and third, the type prefigures something in the future, and ties it to the past. Types are persons, institutions, offices, events, and actions. Actions as types includes rituals. Well, the Bible is full of types. Adam is a type of Christ. So are others like David, Moses. The Bible is full of typology.

Now, baptism and communion are clearly rituals. They are also typical in nature. They are no less full of meaning than a reading of the Bible. A man can listen to the reading of scripture and witness baptism, and see no meaning in either. This does not mean that the Bible reading was empty, nor the service, but rather that he was the empty one.

Nor, ritual cannot be limited to the sacraments. All worship involves ritual. Grace before meals is a ritual. The essence of ritual is that it is a means of communication between God and man. The key reason for the neglect of ritual is sin. The sad fact is that because ours is a humanistic age, man is more interested in being heard by God than hearing God, so that when men go to church, they go to hear not God, but to be heard by God. “See Lord, I’ve got points. See Lord, I’m praying. I want this and that.” So, the emphasis is very heavily on what God can do for me, not what God requires of me.

We’ve been dealing rather generally thus far with ritual. Now, we’re going to look at one very minor ritual in the Bible, very closely, to see something of what ritual means in scripture, and why it should be meaningful today, to us. Why we cannot neglect it. Perhaps the least read book in the Bible is the Book of Numbers, and perhaps one of the least studied rituals in the Book of Numbers, which has many, is the one which we read in Numbers 15:4-10. As we look at this text, what do we see? First of all, the amount of sacrifice. Well, economically, this ritual was an expensive one. A young bull, ram, or lamb, this was required as part of it, or there was also required two an three-fourths pints of wine that had to be poured out as a part of the service. The same amount of oil. Now, part of the animal sacrifice went to the priests. The wine was poured out. The meat or meal offering of flour and grain, together with the oil and wine, amounted to a considerable financial cost. These were the flour, and the grain, the oil, and the wine to accompany the burnt offerings which symbolized dedication, the peace offerings, signifying gratitude and communion, and the sin offering, signifying expiation.

What did the meal offerings, which included the pouring out the libation of wine mean? It meant that he who accepts the Lord’s sacrifice for sin must also show the good works and generous deeds, the holy conduct, which are evidences of a living faith. The wine libation had a typical meaning. It symbolized the outpouring of animal blood. In fact, of his own blood. It portrays the worshiper dying for his sin and giving himself totally to the service of God, of living for him, because life signifies blood, even as blood also signifies death. The worshiper thus, is symbolically offering his whole life and work to the Lord. Now, this is a ritual, this libation of wine. It sets forth the God-centered nature of worship. It is a generous outpouring. For a poor man, or for a rich man, it doesn’t come easily to pour out two and three-fourths pints of good wine, it had to be a good wine. On top of that, the sacrifices. On top of that, the tithes. It meant that man, through these things, was recognizing God’s priority.

Now, for humanists, this is wasteful, and humanists are not interested in this kind of thing. They do not see it as important, but it does not bother a humanist to put flowers on a grave. That means something to him, no reason why it should not, but any symbol required by God is, to him, meaningless.

Now, let’s look through the Bible very quickly to see some other uses of this wine libation. For example, in 1 Chronicles 11:15-19, we have a dramatic episode. David is holed up in the mountains. His hometown, Bethlehem, is surrounded, occupied by the Philistines, and as he tastes the very insipid, flat-tasting water that is available to him there, he said, “Oh, what I wouldn’t give for a drink of that well water at Bethlehem. That’s good water.” There out of his men, out of love for David, crept through the lines of the Philistines at night, went to the well, hauled up some water, filled a jug, and brought it and very proudly gave it to David, and David was very deeply moved, and he said, as he poured it out to the Lord and would not drink it, “My God forbideth me that I should do this thing. Shall I drink the blood of these men that have put their lives in jeopardy, for with the jeopardy of their lives they brought it, therefore, he would not drink it.” David saw that at the cost possibly of their own lives, their blood, his three men had brought that water to him because they loved him so, and he said, “I don’t deserve such a sacrifice. I will pour it out like a libation of wine to the Lord.”

Let us go to another episode which we find in John 12, among other places, verses 1-8, and Mark 14:9. Here it is our Lord involved in a like episode. “There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him, Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein. Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.”

And again, in Mark 14:9, “Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.” The ointment was poured out on Jesus as both the altar and the sacrifice. It was done as he himself says, in anticipation of his shed blood, his death. It is an example of the wine libation performed outside the sanctuary, and our Lord declares that it shall be remembered wherever the Gospel is preached. To Judas, especially, it was an empty ritual. As a humanist, like all humanists, he put more value on things done for man than things done for the Lord, but then every humanist, like Judas, is a thief in that he robs God of God’s due. To praise the Lord is ritual, but it is not empty. A biblically governed ritual is basic to our faith, basic to communication with the Lord, basic to our daily life.

Today, it is the rituals of humanism, of statism which govern our habits and our dedications. It is time for a change. We give much to ourselves and much to the state. The Lord God demands his libation of wine and more. Shall we see it all as an empty ritual and waste, or shall we see those things which take time, which may cost us something, which set forth our dedication to the Lord God of Hosts as revealing something about the nature of our hearts? Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, give us grace day by day to come unto thee to praise thee as we ought, to make of ourselves, our time, our lives, a libation of wine to be poured out to thy glory. O Lord, our God, thy word is truth, and make us ever mindful that thy truth shall prevail. In Jesus name. Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] In talking about ritual, I was thinking about the man who, let’s say, walked two miles every morning before breakfast as a ritual.

[Rushdoony] A health ritual, yes.

[Audience] So, people do that. I mean, but on the other hand, doesn’t it provide a measure of security in their lives? Don’t they do it as a feeling of security? Or the other word that came to mind, a discipline.

[Rushdoony] Yes, a ritual is a discipline, a discipline of worship and a discipline of life, and our lives are full of rituals and disciplines, but we try to avoid those that are godly because we feel somehow our faith will be more direct if we avoid them. Now, the Bible specifies that those who try to approach God apart from his prescription were to die. They could not be casual with God, but today it’s the essence of what people regard as godly to be very casual and easy-going, as though God were always there on tap so that whenever I feel like it, I can reach him, when the rest of the time I pay no respect to the requirements he has of me, and what ritual does is to impose a disciple of requirements upon us. This is why the ritual at grace at the table, to cite one of the most minor of rituals, is important, because it is a continual reminder to us of the necessity of thanksgiving and of grace. Any other questions? Yes?

[Audience] {?} in the example that you gave, that ritual is turned into reality, the way that we represent that ritual is by living a life given to the Lord, so that that ritual, has that ritual been replaced by what it represent, and what I am asking is when do you keep a ritual as {?} and when do you go beyond it and live it?

[Rushdoony] Yes, that’s a very important point. Now, the ritual of the libation of wine to a very real degree, is now a part of that kind of thing which was fulfilled in Christ, and yet I would say there is a place for something like it in the church today, and it was, in varying degrees, continued in the church, because while it doesn’t set forth atonement, it sets forth our response to atonement. Now, every time a believer poured out that much wine, good wine it had to be, to the Lord, the thought would occur to him as a result of being a humanist through Adam, “This is expensive, this is costly,” but it would also remind him that the Lord requires something of him. There’s nothing today in the service of any church that emphasizes to the believer that, “My faith has to cost me something.” All it does in almost any church you go today, all the service does it to emphasize, “Look what the Lord can do for you. Only believe and all these benefits will be forthcoming.” So, I do believe, and that’s why I selected a very minor ritual, but one which I feel has a meaning that is important for our time. I don’t pretend to have the answer, but I do say there is a need here, and this libation of wine was very important, because libation of wine required a great deal of preparation. There is effort into the making of wine, the cultivating of vineyard, the ripening of the grapes, their harvest, their pressing, and then their aging to produce the wine. Wine always has been a somewhat expensive item, and now you have this good wine to be poured out. Nobody missed the point of that, and so you see, David caught the meaning of it. We cannot, as humanists, sacrifice too much for each other. It’s wrong. It belongs to the Lord. I submit we’ve lost something by losing rituals. Yes?

[Audience] In the Catholic church when they ate fish on Friday and practiced Lent, and that sort of thing, did they have the proper foundation for that, that relates to anything that you’re talking about?

[Rushdoony] The question is with regard to the former practice of fish on Fridays and the observance of Lent. Now, granted that there is no biblical ground for either, and the Catholic church has abandoned that practice as a mandatory one, nonetheless, I think one of the things that happened when those were dropped was that a great deal of decline set in among the average Catholic. There was at least a reminder once a week, that a man did not live for himself. Now, I’m not saying I would agree with those particular forms, but I think something similar should be developed. In other words, I can cite it best by something a man I knew, who was a Catholic, once said. He said, “Of all the things I like, I like fish least of all,” but he said, “Eating it and having to eat it once a week, and acting as though I enjoyed it so the children would not become rebellious and create problems for my wife, made me realize that I didn’t come first, where religion is concerned.” Now that tickled me. There’s a point there, you see, and we have separated from our lives everything in the way of ritual that smacks of God, smacks of the Bible. Even grace at meals has become a very minor thing in most families, observed more often in omission than commission. So, we’ve lost something as a result. We do need the discipline of ritual, because ritual is a reminder of something more than ourselves. It compels us to conform. This is why that music director, in dealing with ritual in his church, and a very highly intelligent man, was altogether wrong, although very capable and brilliant. He was conforming it totally to the modern age and felt, because no one recognized it as ritual, that made it a virtue, but it was so merged with the sin of the age that it was meaningless. There was nothing to stop them short and say, “Here, I’m doing something that goes against the grain, that shops me short and reminds me of a claim God has on me.” Yes?

[Audience] I think you’ve sat in on more than one occasion, the practice of the Armenian church, of continuing with animal sacrifice.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] Do they still do that?

[Rushdoony] Yes, they do. Very good point. The church of Armenia continued the sacrifice of animals at the door of the church and still does in Soviet Armenia. When a farmer is going to kill a lamb or a calf for family use, he goes to a stone near the door of the church and he kills it there, placing his hands on it and says, “Lord, I know that it is not the blood of bulls, nor of goats, nor of lambs that gives remission of sins but the blood of Jesus Christ, and in shedding this blood, I remember the shed blood of Jesus Christ, shed for my sins,” and then he would give a portion to the pastor and take the rest home for family use. Now, this was a continual way of remembering in terms of the Old Testament, every single time he killed an animal for family use, the atonement of Christ, and of course, the libation of wine was also practiced. So, there is a point in these rituals.

Now, just consider what you were going to do if you, tomorrow, were required to go to the door of the church and pour out say, two and three-quarters pints of wine. You’d be tempted to say, “Well now, I don’t like this particular wine on my shelf, maybe I should pour this one out,” and then your conscience would tell you, “No, the Lord has to have the best.” You see, there was a point to this. Yes?

[Audience] I was thinking about the time when certain men were writing, going to coffee or scribe scripture, they had to take a bath, I think, and change their clothes before they even wrote the words of God. Was that a ritual?

[Rushdoony] Yes, it was. The ritual of preparation for the very copying of scripture, and the old idea of the Saturday bath, to prepare for the Sabbath was a ritual. It didn’t mean they didn’t bathe during the week, contrary to the idea some people today have, but it was because this was in particular, preparation for the Sabbath. Everyone wore clean clothing and bathed. Yes?

[Audience] The father of Professor John Bailey of New College and Professor Don Bailey of St. Andrews who was ministered a free church {?} taught me a long time would never read the scripture without putting on long black gloves, all the way up to his shoulders. He put those on before he’d open the Bible in the church to read scripture, or at home.

[Rushdoony] Yes, that’s very interesting. I had forgotten about that. My father had told me about that. He was a classmate of both Donald and John Bailey. Well, let us conclude now with prayer.

Our Lord and our God, it has been good for us to be here. We thank thee for thy word. Give us grace to make of our lives a libation of wine poured out unto thee. In Jesus name. Amen.

End of tape