Systematic Theology – The Land
The Law of Divers Kind
Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony
Subject: Systematic Theology
Lesson: 5-19
Genre: Speech
Track: 05 of 19
Dictation Name: 05 The Law of Divers Kind
Location/Venue:
Year:
Well, if there are no other comments or questions let us begin with prayer.
Oh Lord our God we give thanks unto Thee that Thou hast called us into Thy service in the day of battle, that Thou hast armed us by Thy spirit for this warfare, that Thou hast given us the blessed assurance that ours is the victory in Jesus Christ. Make us ever zealous in battle, constant in prayer, faithful to Thy law word and in all things we may be more than conquerors through Jesus Christ our Lord. In His name we pray, Amen.
Our subject today is the Law of Divers Kind and our first scripture is Leviticus 19:19. The Law of Divers Kinds, Leviticus 19:19.
“Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.”
Then Deuteronomy 22:9-11. Deuteronomy 22:9-11.
“Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds: lest the fruit of thy seed which thou hast sown, and the fruit of thy vineyard, be defiled.
10 Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together.
11 Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together.”
And then finally 2 Corinthians 6:14 following to the end of the chapter, 14-18. 2 Corinthians 6:14.
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
15 And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?
16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.
18 And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”
The law of divers kinds is basic to agricultural law in scripture. The word kinds we first meet with in Genesis 1. It means literally a portion or a species. It is a biblical word of classification. It is important for us to recognize that this is an important scientific word. It has been very much criticized by people who refuse to take the bible seriously and they say that the word species such as is used by scientists is a better word, however, the term species is very difficult to define and we find that in various textbooks it is variously identified so that things are called species by one which are not so called by another scientist. I do believe that the term kind or kinds meets scientific investigation and study because its usage in scripture is of particular value and precision. Now Paul in the 2 Corinthians chapter makes a general application of these laws to human relationships. He does not thereby eliminate the agricultural and the daily dress code application of the Old Testament law. Rather what Paul does in 2 Corinthians 6:14 following is to call attention to their extended application. We can understand something of these verses by examining the classification of these laws by a medieval Jewish scholar, Moses Maimonides who devoted an entire volume in his studies to the agricultural laws. Maimonides discussed in detail the five kinds of commandments set forth in Leviticus 19:19 and Deuteronomy 22:9-11.
They are as follows and I quote:
“One, not to so divers kinds of seeds as it is said: thou shalt not sow thy field with divers seeds. Two, not to sow grain or vegetables in a vineyard as it is said, thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds. Three, not to crossbreed cattle, one species with another, as it is said: thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a divers kind. Four, not to do work with beasts of two species joined together, as it said: thou shalt not plow with an ox and with an ass together. Five, not to wear garments of wool and linen mixed such as idolatrous priests wear: as it said, thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts.” Unquote.
Now these verses ironically have in recent years gained a great deal of attention from non-Christians while they continue to be ignored by Christians. For example, a volume written about a year or so ago by a non-Christian, in fact by two non-Christians, dealt with clothing and with health. It called attention to the fact that synthetic garments are increasingly shown to have deleterious effects on the skin or on the health of the wearer. And so they predicted that in due time such garments might have to have a label reading: warning, this garment may be hazardous to your health.
In the process just in passing, they cited these verses from Leviticus and from Deuteronomy. It is interesting that others are picking up these verses referring to them as some kind of ancient wisdom derived from practical experience or some such like statement. At the same time churchmen continue to ignore these verses. It has been seen that sowing vegetables in a vineyard, for example, can be harmful to vines. That planting vines or vegetables too close together can at the very least be harmful to the production of seeds. It is known of course that crossbreeding of donkeys with horses which produces mules produces a sterile species and it is something that is forbidden in scripture. To work differing animals together is to work them unsuccessfully and to play God as well, because it is a failure to recognize the creaturely limits which God places upon man and all creation. But today we have a systematic contempt for these laws. For example, homosexuality and abortion are seen as human rights, as legitimate options according to many for all people. Behind all such thinking of course is a militant anti-Christianity. The roots of it go back deep in western thought, moral concerns in Greek philosophy were limited to the world of mind, to spiritual concerns and Platonism saw the material world as value free. What one did with material things was not a moral concern because morality dealt purely with mental or spiritual matters.
This perspective became basic with the enlightenment and increasingly the material realm was seen as a realm of physical laws, mechanical laws in the minds of many, totally devoid of any moral concern and morality was purely a matter of the spirit, of the mind, but increasingly modern man began to rule out mind and spirit as irrelevant, as mythical. I know that the textbook in the thirties that I had in psychology simply referred to mind once, to call it an epiphenomenon and to dismiss it from consideration. In other words it was something that seemed to be there but did not really exist. As a result that entire textbook by a professor of psychology at Columbia University dealt with psychology purely in terms of physical categories. Now, this perspective eliminated value and morality from the life of man, from all creation, because if mind or spirit is an epiphenomenon, and not real, and if matter is value free then morality and law as well disappears. Accordingly morality has become a matter of taste and we have things like this in the history of our time: Henry Miller, the pornographer, apologizing because he had never experienced any homosexual relationship. He made it clear it was a matter of taste and not of any lingering moral prejudice. We have increasingly seen law regarded purely as an arbitrary act of state, not an eternal order created by God. As a result value today is gone from the world except as the environmentalists have reintroduced it as the standard whereby the integrity of the material world cannot be tampered with.
Thus, we have the fact that the environment as the environmentalists imagine it, an ideal state without man, must not be tampered with and we must somehow restore it to that ideal state. Or we have the fact of the Nobel Prize winning scientist ridiculing western man and it becomes clear in his two volumes that it is Christian man he ridicules. Why? Because western Christian man does not like dirt. He bathes. He feels that the presence of life on man in the form of various little mites is unpleasant. This means he does not accept the natural world as it is. He approaches nature with critical eyes and therefore cannot appreciate it. I will not describe the full length of his requirement for accepting nature as is, because it would hardly be acceptable language. But we have this kind of value reintroduced. Nature as is, whatever is is right and therefore there can be no criticism of nature. Red in tooth and claw or nature with all its fleas and other mites. The material world is the only value. Moreover, this has meant in the form of existentialism that to deny the existential impulse is immoral. Because if we deny the impulse of the moment we are saying there is a standard that can govern the impulse of the moment and therefore we cannot accept what our body requires of us at the moment. We have as a result a primitivism, value is seen to meant the abolition of religion and of all standards but God created all things and the framework of all things, material or mental, is God’s law.
This is true of man and it is true of the world in which we live. Men are unwilling however to concede this fact. I recall after World War II when farming in California was booming and every farmer was anxious to get in on the good prices after the depression and the lean years, some farmers tried planting vegetables between the rows of young vines and I recall seeing fields, for example, with young vines planted and in between tomatoes. And what they found was that the tomatoes somehow adversely affected the growth of the vines and serious problems resulted. Now this is exactly what the law of God declares. That we are not to plant the vineyard with other seed. But no one was ready to concede that the bible was right. That somehow this represented a God ordained order that was binding when God spoke to Moses and is binding in the fields of California or Texas or Georgia today. Man does not want a God ordained order established in the universe. It prevents him from playing god. Ironically even Maimonides who wrote an entire book on agricultural laws and a long chapter on the law of divers kinds restricted the application of these laws to Palestine and to Syria. We cannot criticize Maimonides when Christians have been ready to go so much further and abolish its relevance to any part of the world. It is interesting however that Maimonides was ready to extend the implication of this law to say that grafting was forbidden. This is an area that needs studied. All these laws should be studied and their implications explored scientifically. What we do know and what experts in the field told me is that seedlings have a strength that grafted trees do not have. They have a resistance to blights and infections and of longer life.
Now Maimonides in his law said that anyone who violated these laws paid a penalty in the consequences and also should be publicly flogged for presuming to know better than God. We do know that hybrids are vulnerable to blights. Let me say that the term hybrid as it is used today is a very unscientific one because hybrids can mean crosses between two kinds of tomatoes which produce seed or they can mean crosses which are sterile and there is a world of difference between the two. But we do know that hybrids do produce a vulnerability. For example, in the 1970s hybrid corn throughout the Midwest suffered from a blight which came close to wiping out the entire United States harvest of corn. It is well known that hybrids have a high degree of vulnerability, that the potentialities for a blight which can produce famine are very great. On the other hand, non-hybrids have a greater resistance to blight and are rarely subject to blights. These laws, therefore, represent conditions God has established in creation. If men were to work within those conditions rather than against them there would be greater progress within the realm of agriculture. I’ve never forgotten the comment of the geneticist who won eleven international prizes in genetics and believed very strictly in six day creationism. The man told me it was easy for him to have an advantage over other geneticists because, he said, I take the bible very literally. And therefore I’m not trying to do the impossible, genetically, I know the limits within which I can work and this puts me years ahead of all others. I do believe that when scientific research in the area of agriculture genetics becomes again Christian we will see dramatic progress.
Now Paul uses these laws to show their further application within the realm of human thought. Mixed marriages, he says, are forbidden. The meaning of these laws, he says, is religious. God is telling us that we cannot do the impossible, we cannot cross the barriers He has laid down, we cannot mix divers things, therefore in human relations this means that an unbeliever and a believer cannot marry. Such a marriage is wrong. The meaning of mixed marriages, Paul makes clear, is religious. In our time we have given another meaning to the term, we have said interracial marriages and marriages between say, someone who is upper class and lower class are wrong. They may be inexpedient but they do not come under this category of wrong. Mixed marriages are religious. Marriages which violate God’s ban between unequal yoking of believer and unbeliever, it is this which Paul calls an unclean thing. Now in terms of this, the Corinthians wrote Paul a letter and this is what we have in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul’s answer to this inquiry. Many of the Christians were already married when they got converted and so they raised the question, I’m a believer, I’m married to a man or a woman who is an unbeliever. What am I to do? Am I to depart from this marriage? Am I under a religious obligation since this constitutes a mixed marriage to break it up and Paul said no. There is a difference between entering into such a marriage and being converted when you are already in a marriage and so he said stay within that relationship, but if the unbelieving partner depart, then are ye free.
Paul does not spiritualize the law of divers kinds. He reveals its full scope. He points out that God’s principle of order is valid in every realm. That God’s word governs all realms and spheres of life. But today unequal yoking is extended beyond that. I saw recently a statement that in effect said that Christians should live at peace with abortionists and homosexuals. This does not mean this writer said that we approve of what they are doing, but let’s give them the right to practice abortion and homosexuality because their lifestyle and we cannot interfere. But God’s word governs every realm and it is unequal yoking to say that we should live at peace with abortion. Or to carry it further that we should live at peace with murder and with robbery, saying that these things represent the lifestyle of a class of people and they are entitled to their lifestyle. The law of divers kinds has far reaching implications. It asserts that the material world is not value free. It is governed by God’s law and we can only live in it in terms of God’s law. To transgress the law of God in any sphere of life has its penalties. Let us pray.
Our Lord and our God we thank Thee that the whole of our life is circumscribed by Thy law word which is given for our peace, our protection and our growth in Thee. Give us grace and wisdom to know Thy way and to walk in it. To rejoice that Thou hast called us and by Thy saving grace made us a part of Thy created order. Give us grace therefore to work to further that order, to strengthen it in every area of life and thought to the end that the kingdoms of this world might become the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Yes?
[Question Unintelligible]
[Rushdoony] Strictly speaking, no, because there is no moral value in the world, of any absolute or binding sort. The only morality some of them will concede is that you do nothing that will harm one another, in other words, any act between consenting adults is permissible provided no harm is done to the other. But if you argue with some who hold that on what ground do you establish that as the one moral value, they cannot give any reason, in other words, it’s purely arbitrary. Moreover, they will admit that they see no reason on occasion for such a value to stand. As a result, you have on their part increasing violence, for example, that’s the most common argument among homosexuals against children. You have societies now formed to try to eliminate laws against child abuse because their basic position is there is no value. The Marque De Sade was the most honest in affirming that and logically their position leads to the Marque De Sade and this is why his works are undergoing a major revival in our day. The only value for De Sade was to destroy God, the enemy of man.
[Question Unintelligible]
[Rushdoony] Not if you follow the logic of the existentialist humanistic position to its logical conclusion. Yes, Otto?
[Question Unintelligible]
[Rushdoony] Yes. Very true and this type of thing is increasing, I have had a call recently about a similar case where a young woman was going to be disciplined by the church because she was planning to marry a non-believer. Someone who made it clear they were a non-believer. And she felt the church had no right to discipline her. Now this kind of thing is going to be in the courts more and more in the days ahead because the courts are ready to pass judgment on the bible, ready and willing to do so and more and more people are asserting that no moral value has a right to impose itself upon any man.
[Question Unintelligible]
[Rushdoony] I don’t believe the cases are contrived, I believe that when they occur they are exploited, yes. Yes?
[Question Unintelligible]
[Rushdoony] That’s a good question. It’s very difficult to get natural fibers now and most of us are stuck with some that are not. And the evidence is mounting that these do have a disturbing effect on the health. What we are beginning to see is as there is a recognition of what is happening shops that specialize in natural fibers are becoming common in urban centers. So there is now the growing availability of natural fiber clothing and materials. I believe this will increase, at present the shops are expensive, these garments which were commonplace not too many years ago, natural fibers, are now becoming garments for the wealthy. However I do believe they will increase. We’re finding too that it is hard to get natural fiber carpeting, natural fiber coverings on furnishings and in a number of instances in the past years it has been demonstrated that in hot weathers these synthetics emit gases which are harmful and in the San Bardibino [sp??] fire of a couple of years ago one very wealthy subdivision when surrounded by a ring of fire and a great deal of heat building up a house spontaneously exploded because the gases that came out of these synthetic materials ignited and the houses exploded and fell inward.
[Question Unintelligible]
[Rushdoony] What?
[Question Unintelligible]
[Rushdoony] Mhhm…
[Question Unintelligible]
[Rushdoony] Yes. So there are problems and I do believe we’re going to see a change here but in the present there will be difficulties for people. Yes? Well, Richard you haven’t…
[Question Unintelligible]
[Rushdoony] I do believe that a great deal of the research in this area is marked by dishonest claims and a geneticist told me that that was his opinion, that so much of the genetic engineering today was dubious in its claims.
John?
[Question Unintelligible]
[Rushdoony] Yes, but they are so determined to play God that they will do that sort of thing. Yes?
[Question Unintelligible]
[Rushdoony] Yes, I didn’t say I necessarily agreed with Maimonides on grafting, what however Paul has reference to there he also calls adoption elsewhere, so he’s using a figure of speech to indicate that we are not the natural children of God but the adopted children of God.
[Question] Which only shows that God is capable of doing whatever He wants to do. Now another thing… [laughter] another question, I find it interesting that the, that the commandments dealing with diverse kinds, are there in the negative as with the Ten Commandments. Any particular significance to that, in other words He doesn’t tell us you shall do this, you shall do that, and so on and so forth but He says you shall not.
[Rushdoony] What God does is to set the boundaries, then within the framework of those boundaries man is to work, to explore, to develop, to investigate. But the boundaries are established. Yes?
[Question Unintelligible] To change the subject a little, on this one of the marriage with an unbeliever, the unbeliever partner departs, the marriage may then be dissolved. There’s a lot of thought to be put on that versus the commandment against adultery and when you bring children into that I think, I don’t know, I think I would have to study it a lot in order to understand the full import of it.
[Rushdoony] Yes I touch on that in the first volume of Institutes and I won’t go into that because it is a whole new subject but Paul there wrote to prevent the breakup of the marriages because they were married to an unbeliever and they felt they were bound by the law to break up the marriage and he said no, it only applies if you enter into it, not when unconverted you marry and then you are subsequently converted, yes John?
[Question Unintelligible]
[Rushdoony] It would be hard to comment briefly on that except that the nature of law if it is to be a law that preserves man’s freedom has to be negative. It is when you get bureaucratic law which really is not law which is prescriptive and goes on and on and makes clear just what you can do that man’s freedom is destroyed. But law which is in the negative simply says here’s a fence, you have all this area but you don’t go beyond the fence. So…God’s law is a charter for freedom, our laws today are first not based on God’s law and second they’re prescriptive. Regulatory and increasingly through bureaucratic agencies have one function: to limit our freedom. You cannot as I said before we began decide as the farmer [unknown] to harvest seed instead of harvesting your garlics. The United Farm Workers says you cannot do that because labor makes less. The net result is he has a huge fine which is going to wipe him out. Now that’s bureaucratic regulatory law. Well our time is up let us bow our heads now in prayer.
We praise Thee oh God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost who of Thy grace and mercy has given us the law. Has have set forth our lives and given us so wide a room in which to work, to establish righteousness or justice, to develop the implications of our freedom under Thee and to create here upon earth the instruments and agencies of Thy kingdom. Bless us in that task and give us grace to walk in Thy appointed way. In Jesus’ name, Amen.