Systematic Theology – The Land

The Holy Spirit And The Tithe

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: 13-19

Genre: Speech

Track: 13 of 19

Dictation Name: 13 The Holy Spirit And The Tithe

Location/Venue:

Year:

All glory be to Thee oh God who of Thy grace and mercy has made us Thy people and has spared us from the folly of our own ways. Lord as we face a world in folly make us ever mindful that only Thy power can redeem it, Thy power change fools into saints, and therefore our Father we wait upon Thee. Make us strong and zealous in thy word that we may hold aloft the power of Thy word and Thy spirit unto men and nations. Grant us this we beseech Thee in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Our scripture is from the eighteenth chapter of Numbers, verses twenty one through twenty four and our subject The Holy Spirit And The Tithe.

“And, behold, I have given the children of Levi all the tenth in Israel for an inheritance, for their service which they serve, even the service of the tabernacle of the congregation.

22 Neither must the children of Israel henceforth come nigh the tabernacle of the congregation, lest they bear sin, and die.

23 But the Levites shall do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation, and they shall bear their iniquity: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations, that among the children of Israel they have no inheritance.

24 But the tithes of the children of Israel, which they offer as an heave offering unto the Lord, I have given to the Levites to inherit: therefore I have said unto them, Among the children of Israel they shall have no inheritance.”

A chronic and very serious problem which has plagued biblical faith from ancient Israel to the present has been over prescription. Men have taken God’s very simple laws and converted them unto an unbearable yoke. Peter said in Acts 15:10 of the Pharisees conversion of law unto a means of salvation that it was a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear.

Peter was not speaking of God’s law per say but of the Pharisees use of it and called it tempting God. That is, testing or challenging God by a misuse of God’s own law. Let me give an example of what this over prescription involves. One of the great commentators in the tradition of Israel has been Maimonides, the medieval scholar who usually was very, very discerning in his treatment of the law. However, this weakness of over prescription infected him not a little. For example, when discussing the laws of heave offerings and tithes he turned dispensational and he limited their validity to Israel and the adjacent areas. Moreover, and how he ever found this in scripture I don’t know, he said that if a thief had stolen a beef he could give a heave offering and it would be acceptable to the Lord from that beef unless the owner were in hot pursuit. Now when the stolen goods became acceptable to the Lord in scripture I don’t know but let’s go a little further. In discussing the rite of a woman who was a member of a priestly family to eat of the heave offering Maimonides held that she could eat after having sexual intercourse only if she had avoided, quote, ‘violent motions during intercourse’, unquote. And he goes on with pages of such over prescription. Now, lest we feel very, very self-righteous in surveying this kind of thing in Maimonides, let me say that Catholic and Protestant professors of moral theology through the generations have done the same kind of thing. Over prescription. I know that I regularly meet someone who says well I was brought up a Catholic or a Protestant but I got fed up with the priest or the pastor telling me thus and so and then they proceed to recite a tale of horror. Over prescription. Rules and regulations laid down of such a detailed and fantastic sort that the common sense revolts against it.

And this has been routine throughout the history of biblical faith from ancient Israel to the present. Moreover, this kind of evil is not limited to formally religious circles, in fact some very great absurdities today are commonplace in the psychotherapeutic circles. The kind of counseling given by psychoanalysts and psychiatrists is sometimes truly horrifying. So much so that in the modern world the only kind of spontaneous and free thought required and action as well are those that are anarchistic, lawless; because modern psychotherapy is very, very strong on over prescription. What this involves is [unknown], man-law. Autonomy means self-law, [unknown] is man-law, they are very closely related except in autonomy we pay attention to no law but our own. In [unknown] what we do is to take the word of man instead of the word of God, the word of God being theonomy, theo, God, nomos, law. To understand how this problem has hurt the life of the faith let us look at Martin Bucer’s On The Kingdom of Christ, one of the great Reformation classics. It is a book that has much good in it, I reread it recently when Ann Harris gave me a copy for my own library. The book is full of a great deal of biblical wisdom and insight, it is easy to understand why Bucer was respected by Calvin and Luther and others as well. He was a man of very gentle spirit on the whole, he was in negotiation with Catholic churchmen towards a meeting of minds and a possible reunion on sound grounds. He wrote his book On The Kingdom Of Christ for Edward VI of England to give him a model for kingly rule. At that time Bucer had become a professor at Cambridge.

Now in His views of church and state Bucer is particularly interesting. He had an equivocal view of God’s law so he left the door open for statist law. But Bucer’s problem was that he saw the status of church and state as essentially the same. His definition of the work of the church and that of the state are virtually identical. He saw both as having the religious care of the people, the ordering of their families and lives, the care of the poor and so on and on. Bucer was sound in that he believed that the kingdom of God had to be recognized in its sovereignty here on earth and established here. [unknown], by the way, had essentially the same faith. Bucer was in line with most protestant and medieval thought as well as Jewish thought. The kingdom was to be established from the top down; that was the way Bucer and all the others saw it. It was to be institutionally established, it was to be a product of church and state working together. Now it was to the credit of Bucer who was a very superior man that he began to see that perhaps he was thinking a la Plato. So at one point he said and I quote:

“Further those who think that what I have presented is too different from present ways of doing things and the thinking of modern man, a matter of wishful thinking rather than practicality and that I want to design some so called platonic republic I earnestly ask for the sake of the kingdom and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and the salvation of all of us that we have in common that they would judge and estimate what I have preferred and suggested not only on the basis of the judgment of men, of this or an earlier age, but by the eternal and immutable word of God.” Unquote.

Well, when he thinks about the word of God Bucer is usually very sound. But what he does then is to say well, now, this is the word all right let church and state get busy and enforce it from the top down. Both Bucer and [unknown] in his Fundamental Theological Themes neglect the doctrine of the Spirit. At one point [unknown] touches on it very astutely and then drops it. Neither gives the Holy Spirit His due. Now, when you fail to give the Holy Spirit His due in the life of man you replace the power of the Spirit with institutions and the power of man. Then you require some top down reformation, top down restructuring of society, top down remaking of man. This is what Marxism is. Marxism, socialism in any form, welfare economics, the whole of our modern political theories, hold to the top down imposition of social order. Do you want reform? Well then join us these people say. Because it can only be established if the state or a power church, some institution, controlling society can impose it…but neither the church nor the state have ever affected a reform in history. Godly men alone have done so, sometimes they have used the church or the state, but more often in spite of those institutions. Bucer’s approach was institutional, it was a prescription for tyranny. He wanted Christian philosopher kings and he hoped Edward VI would be one and this is what modern man wants. Not salvation through the Holy Spirit, through God’s remaking of him but by imposition. Now it is significant that when God speaks about the tithe in our text He says the tithe is to be given to the Levites.

It was thus not given to the priests nor to the state, the basic tax in society, God’s tax, was not to go to church or state. It was to go to the Levites. In the same place where we are told that the Levites are to receive it we are also told that they shall bear their iniquity and they are barred from entering in and taking part in what was the priestly task. The levite therefore was given the task of instruction as Deuteronomy 33 :10 makes clear. Moreover, we know from various passages that the Levite was loosely interpreted for those carrying on an educational ministry. Elisha, for example, when he established the school for the prophets as well as others who are non-Levite who became prophets were the objects of the tithe so that God said those who I call to my work of instruction, they receive the tithe. One tenth of the tithe was to go, as Numbers 18:26 makes clear, to the priests, to the church. So that very clearly God intended His tithe to be used to restructure society from the ground up, beginning with the ministry of the word, instruction in the word, so that men and their lives might be changed so that the Holy Spirit might have the freedom for government. But church and state alike have sought to impose order from the top down whereas God’s government and God’s basic tax are to go hand in hand with the power of the spirit to remake society from the bottom up. One leads to over prescription, the other leads to freedom.

All we have to do is to look at church history to see what happens when the tithe is chained to the church, it prevents reform, and when the medieval church no longer allowed the tithe to go to the reforming orders it led to the explosion of the Reformation and modern Protestantism is beginning to chain the tithe also with unhappy consequences. The Holy Spirit and God’s word possesses more wisdom than man, more wisdom then church or state. All things can be provided for through the tithe, this has been done before and it can be done again. God’s government spells freedom. At this point [unknown] was right in declaring something he failed to develop. He wrote and I quote:

“Christianity is freedom. The Holy Spirit is nothing else then the living will of God and its being in action. The law is not laid down for the just according to Paul because the law is the activity of the life giving spirit.”

And he went on to say that those without the Spirit cannot obey the law but those in the Holy Spirit now find the law to be their way of life. So he made it clear that imposition from the top down did not work and that he failed to develop the implications of that. In fact this was a note which reformers failed to develop and now it must be done. It is men whom God regenerates, it is men in whom the Holy Spirit brings faith and obedience to work. Over prescription pins the hopes of a good society on rules and regulations. It is the essence of humanism. All the absurdities that once functioned of the kind I referred to in Maimonides were now getting in federal regulations. Read through the regulations for any industry or rather you cannot read through them they are too many, they are a library in size.

Pick some up and thumb the regulations and you will realize that over prescription is the order of the day. To the point where industry finds it difficult to function, to the point where one area of life is being strangled and production is ceasing or declining. Over prescription is the way of man, not the way of God. The Holy Spirit and the word give us the guidelines. The Holy Spirit believes in government from the heart of man outward, working its way in every direction. The earth is the Lords and so too is man and therefore God is able to work in the earth and man to accomplish His purpose. Out of the increase of God’s earth, God’s government is to be financed. To bypass the Holy Spirit and to depend on humanistic statism is a fallacy. Over prescription, over regulation is a contempt for the word of God and the Holy Spirit. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God we live in an age when men trust in their word rather than in Thy word and in the spirit of elite men rather than in Thy Holy Spirit. Free us oh Lord from ourselves, free us from men and the rules of men and make us a free people in Thy Spirit and by Thy word. Give us strength oh Lord to break the bands which hold us down, which enslave us and make us the subjects of men. Grant oh Lord that Thy spirit may work in the hearts of Thy people to make them a people of power and victory. Grant us this we beseech Thee, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Are there any questions about our lesson? Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] We’ve had a slight trend lately of deregulation in one or two industries but with the industries themselves complaining. Right now the airlines are weeping and wailing that what they need is more regulation not reregulation as though that were the answer. On the whole regulations are increasing, they are increasing not only over Christian schools but over churches, we are going to see the progressive increase in the next year or two of the regulation of the internal life of the church, the freedom of the church to discipline or to excommunicate and we have as I mentioned before the meeting began examples of that already. So the regulations are increasing, they will not be turned around, they will not be dropped until men are free in Christ and until they believe in the freedom that the Holy Spirit confers.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes. The parallel is very, very strong one, Israel wanted a king because they wanted to be regulated like all the nations round about them and we want regulators, we want agencies to take care of everything. No sooner does a new trade or vocation or calling come into being then it demands a department to be created to regulate it. Barbers, beauticians, gardeners, landscapers, all of them. So far the computer people are remarkable in that they have not asked for regulations governing programmers and owners who have their own computers. But I wouldn’t be surprised if we have something like that and the excuse will be all the computer related crimes. Any other questions or comments?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] The heave offering was the portion of the beef that when it was slaughtered was given to the priests. Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] No.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] No, the courts are determined to control the churches, therefore by changing classifications we will not do more than postpone for another trial the essential problem. The essential problem is that most people want to be regulated, that’s it. And they don’t want to be regulated by the word of God and the Holy Spirit. Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Well, men are creatures. They are either going to be governed by God or they will be governed by men or themselves. There’s got to be a governing word, either the word of man or the word of God. So if they deny God they are going to seek to be governed by man. They don’t want anarchy. Any other questions or comments? Well if not let us conclude with prayer.

Oh Lord our God we give thanks unto Thee that though the nations take counsel together against Thee and Thy anointed though they seek to impose their rules and regulations upon the world, the earth is Thine. And Thou shalt in Thy own good time destroy them and their regulations. We look unto Thee oh Lord that by Thy spirit Thou wouldst work in our hearts, strengthen us in our most holy freedom, make us faithful warriors of Thy kingdom to the end that the restraints of men may be cast down and the freedom of Thy spirit and Thy word may prevail. Bless us to this purpose in Jesus’ name, Amen.