Systematic Theology – The State

Procession

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: Government

Genre: Speech

Track: 33

Dictation Name: 33 Procession

Year: 1970’s

Let us continue now with still another subject, and this time our subject is the doctrine of procession.

Doctrines do not go away, nor do they cease to exist when men neglect them. The simply manifest themselves illegitimately in another sphere. What is the doctrine of procession? It is one which is rarely mentioned in our day because we have grown so weak in doctrine that we have reduced the world of doctrine to one or two things like, the doctrine of the person of Christ, the atonement, infallibility, and anything beyond that is getting a little too complicated and technical, and we really shouldn’t bother with it, but the doctrine of procession is basic to the doctrine of the Trinity and of the Holy Spirit. The great expression of it is in John 15:16, “But when the Comforter is come whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.”

The procession of the Spirit from the Father and of the Son speaks of the work of the Spirit, for the Father and the Son. It is to communicate truth and power to the believers, and also knowledge, as 1 Corinthians 2:12-16 makes clear. The essence of procession then is the manifestation and communication of gifts, of supreme power to those whom God favors. It can also mean the communication of negative gifts, such as judgment. So that judgment is also a manifestation of procession. God’s power goes forth in judgment.

Now, historically, processions have manifested physically what the doctrine manifests spiritually. Palm Sunday was a procession. It declared that God the Son had come in his incarnation to redeem his people. The ark was moved, in the Old Testament, in a procession. When Rome’s generals went forth and conquered, when the returned to Rome, there was a great processional, a triumphal entry into Rome in their honor and an arch erected to commemorate their victory and they were, in effect, divinized.

Thus, we have two aspects to procession. One from the Supreme Power, God. Gifts and power and knowledge proceed and are communicated to me, or judgment. Then, on the physical scene, there are processions which manifest some aspect of the spiritual procession. Thus, there are processions, or used to be, to executions. The man who was to be executed was carried in procession. Christ was in such a procession, carrying the cross upon which was written his offense. In the life of the church there have been processions, especially in the medieval era. First processions of persons, dignitaries, and their staff, such as of a bishop, or of a pope. Second, processions of images and icons which are carried, and third, of hosts, of the host, or of the communion wafer, and fourth, extraordinary processions of people, of petitioners, in times of famine and plague, war, disaster, and also of thanksgiving, honoring God, or thanking him, or beseeching him.

Now, because in Antiquity, the state was seen as God, and the ruler as God walking on earth, there were processions of the god, or the ruler, to manifest his power, and to bless a people. We call them parades, and in the Middle Ages when the kings or emperors entered a city, there was a procession with simulated palm branches and people crying, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” A profession made visible a belief of a people in their supreme power, and what we have seen in the modern age is that church processionals have receded. Catholics have a few, but other processions have flourished, and the state has, to a great extent, preempted the processional, because the state is the supreme power for most people in the modern age, and so what is it that moves people? It is a parade. Of course that is waning now, but not too many years ago the thing that stirred people was a parade, because to them it was the manifestation of the greatest power on earth.

In the Middle Ages, there were two kinds of processionals. First, the royal procession and the church’s procession, and then a third kind of processional developed, the academic processional. As the universities, beginning with the University of Paris, began to claim to be the voice of God on earth. The ones through whom power was to go and to speak to men, and so they presumed to tell the pope what he should do, and the kings what they should do, and to proclaim academic freedom, to be beyond the control of anyone in the world. That’s what the doctrine of academic freedom is all about, and so today, we have to this day, the gowned and robed processionals at the universities every year, at least once, whereby they declare their freedom from all earthly control, and that they are the true bearers of power in this world. They should be the philosopher kings.

Processionals now are almost entirely either civil or academic, even though both are losing ground. In this country, a processional by the church would get virtually no response, because not many people would take it seriously. After all, the church is nothing compared to the state in their eyes.

The processional was not always a formal march. It could be a public honor as, for example, in the Greek Olympics when the winner came forth and was crowned with a laurel wreath, divinizing him. That brief coming forward was a processional. We still have that in the Olympics today.

Moreover, today, the charismatic figure around whom a kind of spontaneous processional develops is a political figure or an athlete. We no longer have crowds coming around a religious leader when he appears in public as was once the case. The appearance of a John Knox in our midst would not create a great gathering of people around him. But the appearance of Reagan on a street creates a great gathering. The appearance of some prominent athlete brings people together, and you have a spontaneous procession, because people follow the source of power, of authority in a society, and you have a spontaneous procession. Power is worshipped by the people.

Moreover, it is interesting that the direction of the processional has changed. In the Bible, the procession is from God the Father and the Son, through the Spirit to man, and it changes men. In John 1:13, we are told that as many as believed him, received power, “to become the sons of God,” not by the will of man, “not of blood,” not by anything from the human scene, but entirely of God, but the modern processional is from man to God, upward. Man divinizing and seeing a humanistic kind of incarnation, of power in an agency or in a person. The faith of the Tower of Babel, in other words, ladder, buildings, a ladder, elevation of people, so that when they reach in eminence, they represent a concentration of some kind of supernatural or charismatic power.

A procession is related to a sacrament. It is a visible sign of a fact of being. It celebrates either man or God. The Christian procession has receded because man’s faith has waxed cold, and no attempt to create a physical procession can alter that fact. Because a processional is personal, and to restore the Christian procession, we must first recognize that God is gracious and forgives our sins, and second, covenant man, in faithfulness, must obey the mandate of God, the mandate of the procession, to see life as marching orders to go forth from God to himself into all the world in obedience. Our Lord says, “But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”

The state’s processional is now central, but when the state moves, proceeds, with its power and with its authority, it can only manifest brute force. The only gift it can give is money, subsidies, welfare, grants. It cannot give grace. It cannot give power.

Moreover, as the coercive procession of the state increases, the public appeal of the state’s procession diminishes, and so, as the procession of the state has become more and more powerful, the authority of the state has progressively weakened, and the reason is very obvious. A morally bankrupt power has very little to parade except its guns, and the modern state is a morally bankrupt power. It is significant that, in our day, not always altogether correctly, we have a tremendous concern with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. This means that we have a reviving concern with the doctrine of procession, that men are hungering for the procession from the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit to this world, that power be manifested in our day. This is why the doctrine of procession is important. It is only as the Christian procession, the procession of scripture, of the Spirit, becomes again central in our society, that the processional of the state and of the university will recede to their proper place, will not longer be rivals to the processional of the Spirit, but will only serve God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

We will take a break now for about ten minutes and resume then with our third subject of the evening, and then a question and answer period on all three of the talks.

End of tape