Systematic Theology – Work

Work and the Curse

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 2 of 19

Track: #2

Year:

Dictation Name: 2 Work and the Curse.

[Rushdoony] Oh Lord our God who art the author of all good, whose mercies never fail, we come into Thy presence to cast our every care upon Thee who carest for us. We thank Thee that underneath all the experiences of our lives, we thank Thee that underneath all the experiences of our lives are Thine everlasting arms. Guide us oh Lord in the days ahead, strengthen our hearts for the tasks we have to do. Make us joyful in our calling in Christ, confident unto victory, and every ready to serve. In Jesus name, amen.

Our scripture this morning is from the third chapter of Genesis verses 14-19 and our subject continuing our series that we began last week on the theology of work is this week Work and the Curse. Genesis 3:14-19.

“14 And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

Work was commanded by God in the dominion mandate to Adam; we find this clearly set forth in Genesis 1:26-28 and Genesis 2:15-20. Work before man’s fall was blessed work; it was work which was responsible and successful in achieving dominion. This is not to say that the labors of Adam in the Garden of Eden were not hard, physical, work. But there was joy in it, and a blessing. The realization of mans image of God, of its potential, Adam was defined through work and we too in Christ are to realize the potential of the image of God in us through our labors. With the fall however the peace of Eden and the peace of work was shattered and we learn of its consequences in our text. There was a triple consequence. First of all there was now enmity between man and the animal world, no longer peace and harmony, no longer living together as creatures under God with man exercising his rightful dominion. Now man and the animal creation were at odds. Then again there was a second consequence between man and physical nature. There was now no longer a harmony, it was out of the sweat of his brow; with thorns and thistles, with contradiction, with problems, with failing harvests, with bad weather. There was a problem between man and the physical universe.

Then there was to be a problem between human beings; in this instance at the very beginning, between male and female. So that not only would there be a generational conflict so that children would bring sorrow from their conception on, but we are told that, of her husband Adam, “He shall rule over Thee”. This means that while headship originally was given to man, it was something that was exercised cooperatively, while man was the head his rightful and full partner was Eve. Now it was ungodly dominion, because of sin, which the man would exercise.

Thus there was in every association of man’s life now a curse. Sin was working out its effects so that in a fallen world every relationship, however close, however distant, is still infected by the fact of sin and the curse that sin produces. It follows of course since all things are infected; work is also in a fallen world, marked by problems, frustrations, and troubles. And to expect otherwise is foolish. We must live in the expectation that in a fallen world there will be problems created by sin, problems which reveal, which manifest the curse, the curse that God has imposed upon a fallen world. But people fail to see the ramifications of that curse and of the workings of sin.

Let me illustrate, this month, November 1983, and incident is taking place in Williston North Dakota which is typical of incidents occurring all over the United States. A young man, Ray Pierce, is losing his home on the edge of Williston. It was the home he grew up in, his parents had owned it, it had been debt-free, it was a modest house. But now the city was moving into that area, had apparently annexed it, and improvements were being brought in. Storm sewers, curb gutters, paving, a new water storage facility, and all of this came to a total of assessments of 21,881 dollars and .65 cents. As a working man Pierce did not have the means to pay for it. Then of course there was added an assessment for street lighting. He went to the bank to borrow 20,000 against his house, then he was in an accident and was in a hospital for several months. And he found that the back payments and the interests were something he could not catch up with. As a result his debt free house now is being taken over this month by the bank. On top of that, at the same time, he ran into a problem because the city placed the sewer line to high, not deep enough in the ground, and there was no way his house could hook up to it; and they would not allow any further use of septic tanks. So a house that he grew up in, that was debt free, is now being lost. At the same time he found that a city commissioner lived down the road who was not assessed anything, although everyone else was. As a matter of fact over 120 homeowners have simply turned back their deed or been foreclosed upon and their number is continuing to climb, and nobody is concerned.

Now this is a consequence of the fall. Paul says in Romans 13 that civil government is to be a terror to evil doers, the statistics indicate that very few evil-doers wind up in prison. Civil government is becoming a terror to the Godly, and very destructive. Now this is the working of the curse, this is what happens when civil government ceases to be Christian and becomes ungodly. What I have described is common place, since I read about this a week ago I’ve encountered episodes in other periodicals of like things across country; in fact most of this the world over never gets into the press. Our social order, because it is not under God, is under a curse and when people are under a curse and continue in their sin, they themselves become a curse, so a civil government such as the government of South Dakota or North Dakota or Alabama or California or Oregon or the Federal government can become a curse. And when you and I move out from under the Lord, and we do not seek to serve Him with all our heart, mind, and being, we move back under the curse and we become a curse progressively to those round about us.

Prior to the fall man was under his Lord and God’s word. All relationships that man had were mediated through God and His word, through God’s covenant word. There was no direct one-to-one relationship between man and man, between man and the earth, and between man and animals. The simple fact is that God made all things, the gospel of John the first chapter the third verse says “by Him were all things made, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” This means that the meaning of all things, including my own meaning, your meaning, is only ascertainable through God and his word. So that if I have a relationship with anyone, whether it be my wife, or children, a friend, an enemy or a neighbor, a person I love, or a person I hate, apart from God’s work I am seeking a one-to-one relationship, one that is not mediated by God and His governing word.

But the whole point of the fall is that man seeks, apart from Christ, an unmediated relationship. He says “I can have relationships with people without the word of God governing my perspective. I can use myself in terms of my own will and my own word, or my husband, or my wife, or my children, or those who work with me or for me or above me in terms of my purposes, my word, in terms of a one-to-one relationship, unmediated.” And that’s sin because every relationship under the sun, ever relationship not only in this world but in the world to come, has to be a mediated relationship. We have the relationship only under God, in Christ, in terms of His law word. To be in that was paradise, to be in that will be heaven, to be out of that is to be in sin and under the curse. The world of men is not our creation, we are not our creation, the earth and the animals thereof are not our creation, we cannot have an unmediated relationship to them governed by our own word.

Now what I am saying is very obvious, but it is also something that is not said today. The assumption is “believe in Jesus, accept Him as your Lord and Savior,” in other words, “sign on the dotted line by going forward, and you have your life and fire insurance and you can go on having an unmediated relationship with anyone.” We’re going to put out a journal on Christian reconstruction in the world of business. As a matter of fact I handed a very important article to John Saunders just before the meeting, that someone sent it. And yet when Dan Maxwell was asking a number of prominent Christian, or so called Christian, businessmen, leaders in ostensible Bible believing churches, if they would be interested in writing an article on Christianity in their business sphere, Dan called be long distance and said; “Rush the answer I keep getting over and over again is ‘what the hell does Christianity have to do with my business?’”

Now that is to put yourself under the curse. It is to seek to have an unmediated relationship and to say that Christ’s mediation only applies to my salvation, to my life and fire insurance, and it is a sin. Hell is the place where there are no mediated relationships. The mediation of Jesus Christ doesn’t exist in hell and that’s why there is no communication in hell, because the curse there is total. Everyone is his own world because he wants a one-to-one relationship in terms of his deity. They sit there as little God’s in hell, totally, eternally, isolated.

Now the more mediated our relationships are in Christ, the more productive is our life and work because the mediated relationship is the governed and directed one. So, as we place our relationship to the earth, to animals, the members of our family, to people around us, under the mediation of Christ we become more productive, it does lead to conflict very often. Because the last thing the person who wants no part of Christ, or who wants Him only for fire and life insurance wants, is to have every relationship governed by Jesus Christ; and so it leads to problems because the world rebels against Christ as the total mediator in every sphere of life and thought, over the very ground beneath our feet, whose word must govern every thought and ever relationship.

When we move out from under the curse into the world of blessings we are moving into the world of Christ’s mediation, Christ as mediator; and then the total power and providence of God are linked to the total activities of our life. We are then in the covenant of our God. God says, speaking through Isaiah in 55:11, “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing where-to I sent it.” The infallible results when we are the Lord’s, he makes all things work together for good.

Paul says the same thing in another way in I Corinthians 15:58; “Therefore my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. For as much as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” Nothing is futile, nothing useless, nothing in vain. When we work in the Lord, when He is our mediator over our ever relationship, we move out from under the curse into blessings and to the degree of our growth and faithfulness, to that degree we move out from under the world of the curse into the world of blessings. Now we don’t accomplish that without tension, without conflict very often. Because we’re turning our back on a world that does not want mediation, and we are saying Christ is our total mediator in all things. The two realsm, the realm of curses, and the realm of blessings exist side-by-side in the same office, in the same street, in the same home very often.

When we are converted we begin our move from one side to the other. From the old humanity of Adam to the new humanity of Jesus Christ, the last Adam; in Him we are born rich and as we move progressively under His mediation we lay hold of our inheritance by our faithfulness. The blessings and curses in their premises and consequences are set forth for us repeatedly in scripture, as in Deuteronomy 28. As we saw earlier, civil government is ordained by God to be a terror to evil doers. Today it is becoming a terror to the Godly, because it is moving under the curse. We are told of Godly children that they are an inheritance from the Lord, and a blessing; but an ungodly seed, a curse. Marriage is intended to be a crowning joy, according to scripture, but it is a disaster with the ungodly, and a curse. Work should be man’s life and blessings, wonderfully productive; but for the ungodly it is under a curse. As a result today the world of the curse looks forward to retirement, to the weekend, to the holiday, to escape from work. But then when it gains leisure or leisure, however you wish to pronounce it, it finds that a curse too, and so takes to resort in liquor and drugs, or a variety of other forms of escapism, or in blanking out ones min; one way or another.

Our task as Christians is to move ourselves and our society from the realm of curses to the realm of blessings. Each of us as we work more and more in faithfulness to God, in terms of His meaning, in terms of His law word, in terms of His mediatorship in every relationship, we’re going to have conflicts, we’re going to have problems and tensions, but we’re going to move also from the world around us which is under the curse, into the world of blessings; and we shall know in the midst of all things the peace that passeth understanding. Paul and Silas in prison shook everyone because in the midst of a Roman dungeon, a very unpleasant place, they were singing the praises of God because they were of the realm of blessings.

Thus as we go into the theology of work we need to recognize what great promises there are in scripture concerning it, and what curses there are upon it when we are not under the Lord. Therefore let us so work that under Christ we may be blessed and we may be a blessing to those around us, let us pray.

Glory be to Thee oh God who has called us to work in Jesus Christ and given us such gracious promises concerning the blessings that flow from our service. Give us joy therefore in Thy service, make us ever mindful that Thou art faithful. That all things may fail us, but Thou Lord art ever faithful. Thou hast exalted Thy word, Thy promises to us, above Thy very name Thine hast given us as a pledge of Thy word Thine only begotten Son to give His life for us, to live for us as our federal head, and to be present with us and in us. Our God how great Thou art, and we thank Thee and we praise Thee, in Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson?

Well if there are no questions let us bow ours heads now in prayer.

Our Lord and our God it has been good for us to be here. Thy word is truth, Thy word is a joy unto our hearts and a lamp unto our feet. Dismiss us now with Thy blessing. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, amen.