Systematic Theology – The Land

The Covenant And The Land

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: 11-19

Genre: Speech

Track: 11 of 19

Dictation Name: 11 The Covenant and the Land

Location/Venue:

Year:

Any other questions or announcements, there are some chairs right up here and right here and right here and here. Let us begin with prayer.

We praise Thee oh God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, and we acknowledge that Thy mercies are new every morning. We are surrounded by Thy grace, Thy loving kindness and Thy providence. Open our eyes that we may see the chariots on a thousand hills, that Thy protecting hand is ever with us so that we need not fear nor be afraid for Thou Lord art ever near and Thou wilt never leave us nor forsake us. We thank Thee our Father that underneath all the experiences of life are Thine everlasting arms. And so we come again to cast our every care upon Thee, to commit ourselves into Thy omnipotent hands and to hear Thy word and to rejoice therein. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Our scripture is from the Book of Joshua 1:1-9 and our subject: The Covenant And The Land. Joshua 1:1-9, The Covenant And The Land.

“Now after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord it came to pass, that the Lord spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' minister, saying,

2 Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel.

3 Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses.

4 From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast.

5 There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.

6 Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them.

7 Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper withersoever thou goest.

8 This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.

9 Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”

We have been dealing with the theology of the earth, of the land and we have seen that an obvious but neglected fact of the bible is that God’s covenant with man is land based. At the time of creation God entered into a covenant with man. Man was given stewardship over the Garden of Eden which was to be a pilot project for the whole earth, that there man might learn the pattern and apply it. But when man fell this calling was not set apart, set aside. The covenant was renewed with Noah. Again it involved the earth and it had a natural sign of the earth, a rainbow. Abraham was promised a specific promise of the earth and the whole earth to those who were his descendants by faith. The covenant made with Moses and Israel gave them the Promised Land. With Joshua this promise was renewed in the little commission which we just read. In the Great commission given by our Lord which is a summary of this commission to Joshua the commission is extended to all the earth. The church entered the world as the covenant people with the covenant law. They had a calling, it was in terms of the whole earth, all nations, all men, the whole of the earth. Through the generations the church saw this aspect of its calling. When we read Aquinas we find that he attacked antinomianism vigorously and affirmed the covenant, the law of God. Luther has been invoked by many antinomians because of his grace only position so let us for a few moments examine Luther’s position here.

What very few people are aware of is that Luther wrote a tract entitled ‘against the antinomians’. It was addressed to Dr. Gasper Guttil and Luther wrote and I quote:

“I assume that you received some time ago a copy of the disputations against the new spirits who have dared to expel the law of God or the Ten Commandments form the church and to assign them to city hall. I never expected that such false spirituality would occur to the mind of man, much less that anybody would support it.” Unquote.

Luther thus spoke out against the idea that the law and the concern with the land, the concern with legislation belonged to civil government. He saw it primarily as a concern of Christendom, of the faith. He went on to say and I quote:

“This doctrine is not mine but Saint Bernard’s. What am I saying? Saint Bernard’s? It is the message of all Christendom, of all the prophets and apostles.” Unquote.

Luther said until now it has been uniformly the doctrine of the church, he could have added except for heretical groups none had ever affirmed antinomianism. He also said and I quote:

“Does anyone imagine that there can be sin where there is no law? Whoever abolishes the law must simultaneously abolish sin. For according to Romans 5:13 where there is no law there is no sin and if there is no sin then Christ is nothing. If a man permit the law, er, sin to stand he must also certainly permit the law to stand.” Unquote.

Luther said that people who became so spiritual they extracted themselves from the world around them, from the earth, from politics, from economics, were looking for a sweet security he said which most certainly he went on to add will sink them gently into hell. So he said the law must be preached wherever Christ is to be preached and he added and I quote:

“To preach grace first and then mention God’s wrath later and to omit the law is contrary to scripture.” Unquote.

Now antinomianism sets in when people forget the religious dimensions of the physical creation, of the earth around us. When the land is left out of the faith little by little everything else is left out of the faith except an empty spirituality. One of the things that marked this country in its early years was that whenever a community was established before it was established a covenant was drawn up. Men gathered together and only those could settle in the township who became a part of the covenant. To give you an example of a covenant which is only about a hundred years old, the signers promised and I quote:

“In love to watch over one another and by all means in our power to promote the honor of Christ and the peace and happiness of the whole church.” Unquote.

This was the United States, a century ago and I’m sure examples could be found since then into the late years of the last century when communities were established in new areas as people settled and all came together and signed a document agreeing to abide by the every word of God, to be a covenanted people.

The sad fact is that in this century the covenants continued but on radically different grounds. They become racial covenants, entering into covenants and the old covenants were dropped, new ones substituted, but this area will be restricted to whites or to Protestants or to some particular group and then finally covenants were struck down by the Supreme Court. But the covenant deteriorated sadly, from a matter concerned with the faith to a matter concerned with race. But in the process while these covenants which became racially restrictive something else happened in that most of the covenants which were religiously oriented gave way to another concept. From seeking the glory of God and binding one another to an obedience to the every word of God and to love one another in Christ and to seek the glory of His kingdom, men began to replace the covenant doctrine with a concept of seeking together the common good and the common good was humanisticaly defined. At first the realization of the common good was political. The country became a shift from theology to politics in its orientation. Covenants of a theological source and theological character began to disappear after 1860. Little by little the political hope which was already dominant with politicians began to permeate downward and salvation was now identified with the political order. The modern era had been born with a rash of dystopian books, visions of a non-Christian society and salvation now came to be identified not as the regeneration of man but of society.

The political dream then began to change, it took on economic overtones. It was to be a political economic order and of course Marxism has been the key expression of that. Salvation for all mankind by reordering the political order. In scripture the regeneration of all things begins with man’s regeneration. The world fell because man fell, the process must be reversed, man must be regenerated so that he can regenerate all things by applying the ever word of God. God’s covenant is with man but it includes the earth, the whole earth. Deuteronomy 28 makes it clear that as man is so too is the earth, either blessed or cursed. The path to restoration must begin with the recognition that we are whether we admit it or not a covenant people. Man was created to be a covenant creature and he is either a covenant keeper or a covenant breaker. There is no other choice. All assets are to be used whether real, intellectual or personal to further our covenant life and calling. Our Lord makes clear in Matthew 4:4 ‘man cannot live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God’. Man cannot live without bread. Our Lord makes that clear but neither can he live by bread alone. It must be the every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God which governs us. Now this is the heart of both commissions, they are land based. In the lesser commission given by God to Joshua what is required first of all of the covenant people is a radical faithfulness to the every word of God as the life of faith. In verses seven and eight we are told:

“Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper withersoever thou goest.

8 This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.”

Given this faithfulness the Lord goes on to say we shall be conquerors. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you as I said unto Moses. Moreover we are promised victory, there shall not be any man able to stand before Thee all the days of Thy life as I was with Moses so I will be with thee. I will not fail thee nor forsake thee. And again in verse nine:

“Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”

Isaiah tells us in Isaiah 30:15:

“In returning and rest shall ye be saved. In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength. “

In returning to God’s covenant grace and law the word that is translated as rest means a settling, finding one’s foundations, resting with security in something. In returning and rest shall ye be saved. Men must settle themselves and rest in God’s covenant. In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength. We rest in God’s covenant, in quietness and confidence we know that God’s word is true. We take hands of our lives because we are established in Him. To despise God’s covenant means to move into dispossession. It means to move into conflict, judgment and destruction.

And as men have set aside God’s covenant and made their own covenants which scripture tells us are always covenants with death the world is moving into a suicidal era. It is self-destructive. It is becoming an area of increasing conflict and anarchy. The conflict will continue until men in terms of God’s covenant require of themselves a total obedience to the every word of God. Until they recognize that the covenant is land based, that there is not an atom of creation that is outside of God’s government and outside the requirements of His covenant. That we have a total God and we must have a total faith. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we thank Thee that Thou hast made a covenant with us and confirmed that covenant through the blood of Jesus Christ. We pray that we may be Thy grace covenant keepers, that we might bring every area of life and thought into captivity to Christ. That we may establish Thy dominion over the earth and ourselves and that we might be a people whose righteousness exults Thee. Bless us to this purpose in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Love in the bible we are told very plainly in Romans 13 is the fulfilling of the law. Read Romans 13:1-8, that to love someone means to respect his life, his home, his property, his reputation and not to seek his harm by lawful or unlawful means. Love is the fulfilling, putting into force, literally, of the law. We cannot therefore say we love someone if we are lawless towards him.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Another person speaks]

[Rushdoony] Why not hate them that hate thee, yea I hate them with a perfect hatred, the psalmist says. He doesn’t say thereby that he’s doing harm to anyone, but that he is representing the righteousness of God. If you don’t hate injustice there is something wrong with you. So we have an obligation to hate that which is evil but we have no right even towards an evildoer to do evil. We must love them, that is keep God’s law in relationship to them because to love someone is to put God’s law into force in relationship to them. Look at it this way. If I say I love someone on my terms my terms are trifling, my standards are trifling. What am I giving to somebody if I claim I love them humanistically, by my own light. Nothing good. But if I love them as God requires me to by keeping his law in relationship to them then that’s real love. It’s manifesting what God requires of me, His righteousness, His grace, His mercy, His peace, His law. Yes John?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes. Our Lord said if ye love me keep my commandments, that was it.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] If you love a child you chastise the child when he needs it. So if God says we are to keep His commandments to prove our love towards Him certainly it’s the same standard towards our neighbor. We keep those commandments that deal with our relationship to our fellow men. Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes you use with the rise of pietism doctrine first of all was replaced with emotions, with experiences. You could actually show a contempt for doctrine and say that that was for precisionists and for intellectuals but you loved the Lord because you could emote very well and come up with a lot of pious gush and shed tears at the right time and so on. Well step by step what pietism did was to substitute for the plain word of God humanistic and emotional definitions for everything so that love has an emotional definition, forgiveness which means charges dropped because satisfaction has been rendered, or charges postponed for the time being has been given an emotional context and so on and so on.

So that doctrine has been eroded by pietism because it has redefined everything in emotional terms. And our politics has similarly been redefined. We look at politics now in terms of emotional questions. How is this going to affect the old folks, you see, and we’re supposed to bleed because we are more interested in a just law than expropriation to give something more to elderly people. And the appeal in politics is precisely the emotional one, would you buy a used car from this man or a used motorcycle as we heard the other day. Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Well, the words in the Greek , there are three of which two are used, one is eros, erotic sexual love, phileo which is brotherly love as in Philadelphia, it is human love, and then there is agape which is almost like grace, it’s the divine love, God’s love for men reaching down. Now none of these, either of the two terms phileo or agape, are antinomian as they are used in the bible. And the context of both is with reference to the law of God. Neither is contrary to the law, both are in terms of the fulfillment of the law. Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Some years ago a social worker who sometimes had some good sense to him told me that he had a very difficult time helping someone who did need help until he faced up to the fact he disliked him. And then he realized I still have a duty to do in relationship to this man and he proceeded on that basis and things worked out beautifully and the results were better than were routine for him, was one of his best cases. But he realized it couldn’t be personal. Yes Otto?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] That’s right.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Question Unintelligible] [Much laughter]

[Rushdoony] Any other questions or comments?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Any other questions or comments? Well if not let us bow our heads in prayer.

Our Lord and our God give us grace to take hands of our lives and commit them into Thy care. To know that it is Thy will , Thy law, Thy grace that is our sufficiency, that how we feel is not important, but our faithfulness to Thee and our government by Thy word is that which we must do. Make us movers and changers in Thee and grant that day by day we be changed and conformed more and more unto Jesus Christ our Lord. In His name we pray, Amen.