Systematic Theology – The State

Intercession

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: Government

Genre: Speech

Track: 32

Dictation Name: 32 Intercession

Year: 1970’s

Let us bow our heads in prayer.

O Lord, our God, we give thanks unto thee that thou art raising up in this day and age men who are ready to fight for thy kingdom, ready to go to jail for the integrity of Christian schools and churches. We pray for thy blessing upon them and thy delivering hand. Grant, O Lord, that here in this country, in Canada, in Australia, and all over the world thy saints be delivered from the hands of the enemy, that humanistic statism be confounded and defeated, and the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. Grant us this, we beseech thee. In Jesus name. Amen.

We continue our studies in the theology of the state tonight, by dealing first of all with Intercession. There is a very interesting verse, or passage, in 1 Timothy 2:1-3. “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour.”

It’s curious how verses are very often turned upside down by people and given an entirely different meaning from that which they originally h ad. So often, as I travel across country, I find that people who are against any resistance to the powers of the state, who are against Christian schools refusing to be certified, accredited, controlled, and licensed, will say that our duty to the state is simply obedience and to pray for all the rulers. Is that so? Is that what Paul was talking about here? Does this text advocate unconditional submission to civil authorities? The surprising fact is that these lines were an offense to Rome. It involved subversion as far as Rome was concerned. How is that possible?

Well, the historian, Perrone{?}, has said, “Of the attitude of Christians to the state, this was in brief that while they were ready to pray for Caesar, and as their master had taught them, to render unto him the things which were his, they refused to pray to him. This attitude simply confirmed the belief that they were a seditious and subversive organization.” Interesting. As far as Rome was concerned, the fact that Christians were praying for Caesar was subversive. Why? Caesar was the emperor. He was a religious figure. He would become a full-fledged god with his death. In his life, Caesar was the high priest over Rome. People were to pray to him, not for him, and the difference is tremendous.

Let me illustrate a little further. In the film, Fiddler on the Roof, the students asked the old rabbi, “Rabbi, how shall we pray for the czar? And the old rabbi says, ‘Pray for him this way. God bless the czar, and keep him far from us.’” Now, in a sense there is this in what Paul says, but far more, because the rabbi’s statement is negative, but Paul’s words are very positive. To pray for rulers that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty is a radically different thing, because while it recognizes the place of Caesar, and it recognizes his importance on the human scene, it also recognizes that he is under God, and that his situation under God is one of being totally under the authority of God. We are told by Paul that we must give thanks for all good government which the civil rulers provide, but we must also be intercessors for them.

Now, the Greek word for “intercession” is a technical word for approaching a king. This is very important, because it further emphasizes the offense to Rome. If you are an intercessor, you were a priest, and if you are interceding with Christ, Christ is the king and not Caesar. So, to bypass Caesar in your prayers and go directly to Christ as the intercessor, means that both as god and high priest, Caesar is set aside. Moreover, he is treated as a needy soul, and the praying Christian appeals to a higher power, the Great King, for Caesar. The implications are enormous. I wonder what would happen suddenly if Christians, in the past ten years had, instead of being so happy that Carter was a born again Christian, supposedly, and so pleased that Reagan is a born again Christian, supposedly, had said instead, after seeing what they were doing, and notified the White House, “We are praying for your salvation. We are praying that you get right with the Lord,” I think it might have shook them up a bit. I know that Pastor Bob McCurry{?}, in East Point, Georgia, in the Baptist Temple there, put in his church bulletin, a summons to the people to pray that God would remove the IRS and the IRS was very upset with that church bulletin, and wrote a stiff note to the church, and to Pastor McCurry, protesting such prayers.

Now, these are the kinds of prayers we need today with regard to rulers, and do you think the Christians, to whom Paul was writing, were saying, “Lord, we thank thee for Nero?” No. On the contrary, they prayed that God would deal with him, that God would open his eyes and if his eyes were not to be opened that he be judged. The Christian was an intercessor, a priest, continually praying to the Great Intercessor “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.” This is why to pray for Caesar was an affront to Caesar and a derogation of his authority in the eyes of the Romans, but today, people do not pray that way, nor do they see Paul’s words in their proper context, because their position today is not truly scriptural.

I encountered these words recently in one of the liberation theologians, a Marxist, and he said, “We give the name of socialism to a political regime in which the ownership of the means of production is removed from individuals and handed over to higher institutions whose concern is the common good.” Now, the sad fact is that if you took out the word socialism, almost every Christian would agree, because they see, as the higher institution, the state. As the higher power, the state, and so the state is seen as the agency which transcends the greed and limitations of men, and whose concern is the common good. The state, in their thinking, has replaced God as the transcendent power. It is held that the state’s concern is, by nature, good, and the state is interested in the welfare of all, when the fact is that the state has no superior concern for good than anyone within the state. The state is fully as capable of being greedy, power-oriented, and evil. Can we expect the state to transcend the character of the people?

Ever since Plato, we have seen the identification of ethics and politics, as though the state were the source of all morality. Concerning the ancient state, Willoughby pointed out a good many years ago, eighty years ago in fact, dealing with the state in the ancient world, “In such a political philosophy is this, the idea that the state existed solely, or even chiefly for the protection of the private rights of its citizens, of course, found no place. Rather, it was held that without the state, the individual would have no rights at all. Not even natural or moral rights. For without the education and order which the state affords, he would have neither the disposition nor the opportunity to lead a moral, rational life. A further consequence followed from this extended idea as to the scope of the state was to make politics and ethics practically one science. As we shall see later in the writings of Plato, the two are completely identified. Aristotle distinguished between them, but in conformity with the principles which we have been stating, made politics the master science, with ethics one of its subdivisions.” Thus, the state is automatically the right. What the state does is right, and therefore, the state has to increase its power to increase its righteousness in the social order.

This is exactly what we face today. The whole purpose of these trials of churches and Christian schools is to increase the power of the state on the presupposition that this is necessarily good, that the public interest and the state interest are one and the same, and the state interest is the moral interest. To oppose the state interest is evil.

To quote Willoughby further, “It was not so much that the state interfered in almost everything, but rather that everything was absorbed in the state. Religion was the state’s religion, and anyone who announced new gods had to drain the fatal cup. The family was only a means to the end of the state. The state might prevent trade and traffic with foreign countries, and fetter the full activity of the economy of individuals. It acknowledged no society but itself. That state was only the logical consequence of the same political idea which prescribed to music its melodies, to instruments, their tunes, and even ventured to forbid the Hellenes to read Homer.” His point is well taken when he says everything was absorbed in the state. That same absorption into the state is taking place again, and the presupposition is that only what the state absorbs into itself can be good.

The state is infallible. The state is moral, and the private interests are not only immoral, but imbecilic. This has become the thinking of the modern liberal. In some form or another, whatever the variations in theories, the liberals come up with the same conclusion. Morality and the state are one.

Moreover, at the same time, they make another identification. They identify the state, the right and the people, and so you have these men in politics always talking about a non-existent entity, the people. The people do not exist. Individuals exist, but you have men running for office, politicians who are always saying that “the will of the people,” “the good of the people” requires such things, which is what they want, which is an increase in the power of the state, when the simple fact is that when they say, “the people,” they are talking about what they want.

As Louis J. Halle said, “Today when the Premier of the Soviet Union addresses a communication to the president of the United States, he undertakes to express the view of the Soviet people on a matter in question. When the president of the United State replies, he gives the answer of the ‘American people’ to the contents of the Premier’s note. At San Francisco, in 1945, at the organization of the United Nations, sixty individual persons, vested with the authority with as many sovereign states, some of them what we call dictatorships, and a few what we call liberal democracies, drew up and agreed upon a document that begins, ‘We the peoples of the United Nations.’” The people, in their thinking, represents the oppressed of the earth, and they seek to achieve their perfect realization in the state. If the state does not do what they want for the people, then the state is evil. It is Fascist. It is reactionary, or some like monstrous entity. The people represent the logos of history, which seeks to incarnate itself in the state.

Anytime a politician starts representing himself as “for the people,” you can be sure you have a quack. “The people’ do not exist. There is no such entity. No one has the right to speak for the people, but one of the sad facts is our own Constitution began with an early form of that myth, “We, the people of the United States.” The whole idea goes back to Rousseau on the general will, and the concept of the people as an entity has been behind every dictatorship in the modern age. The real political Judases of our day are those who speak for the people. Robespierre, in his day, said the people are the law, and so he, as the voice of the people and the voice of virtue, beheaded all who opposed him. Anyone disagreeing with Robespierre died, and he said, all is permitted. Those who act in the revolution are a direction. Why? Because then they’re acting for all the people. It must have been comforting to those who went to the guillotine to know they assented to it, because it was done in their name, as the people.

And of course, the whole of the 1960’s Youth Movement was “for the people.” The Nuclear Freeze Movement, environmentalism, zero economic growth, Zero population growth, abortion, homosexuality, all these battles are waged in the name of the people, a non-existent entity.

And so we have, today, the identification of morality, the people, and the state. So, if you stand against the state, you’re against morality, and you’re against the people. You are the epitome of evil. Nothing is more obvious than the self-righteousness of these statists as they go to court against Christian churches and schools, and parents. They can pull all kinds of shady maneuvers in and out of the courtroom, but somehow it is morally right because they’re fighting for the people.

The Christians offended Rome by praying to God, not to Caesar. Now, humanism is offended if we do not invoke the people, and instead, invoke God. You see the same thing. Today, they are priests representing the people, and they resent our invoking God. I have seen Christians rebuked in court when to explain why they make their stand and resist the state, they quote scripture. I have heard judges flare up in anger at that. All well and good to cite the state and the people, but not God. The doctrine of intercession is thus an important one in political theory. For whom are we intercessors? For the people or for God? Whom do we invoke when we speak of authority, of righteousness, and of the mandate for action?

End of tape