Systematic Theology - Sin

Sin and False Perfectionism

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: Government

Genre: Speech

Track: 08

Dictation Name: 08 – Sin and False Perfectionism

Year: 1960’s – 1970’s

We dealt in our first session with “Sin and Matter.” Now we’re concerned, continuing our study of I Timothy 4:1-3, is with “Sin and False Perfectionism.”

A false perfectionism leads to a condemnation of earthly life. It leads people to look down on this world and to act as though they do not belong here and have no responsibility to the daily problems of this world. A false perfectionism is thoroughly unbiblical. It is wrong, moreover, to assume that a false perfectionism is a part of the Christian heritage. It is true, that in past centuries, there was a great deal of Asceticism, Monasticism, and the like. But this does not mean that all Christians share that perspective.

I’m going to read a few passages which are the conclusion of a long poem entitled “The Dispute Between Heaven and Earth.” This was written by an Armenian clergyman and church leader, Nerses Mokatsi. The time of writing was the very, very troubled 16th century. As a result, we cannot say that he wrote under peaceful circumstances. It was a very difficult time. The poem presents heaven and earth as brothers arguing their relative merits, and I’ll read the conclusion.

Heaven: The nine orders of angels are all here with me.

Earth: But in my realm are the apostles and prophets.

Heaven: I am the heaven of seven regions, the sun, the moon, and the creator God sitting

on His throne. All have their abode in me.

Earth: Your seven regions will be shaken from their foundation. The sun, the moon,

and the stars will be cast into the darkness and your creator God with His throne will

descend to me. The judgment will be held in my domain.

Heaven then bent down its head in adoration. You, too, children of the earth, bow to her

in adoration. What is higher than the earth? Praise and love bring to enwreathe her, for

Today we walk on her, and tomorrow, sleep beneath her.

Now this poem shows a very healthy respect and a regard for the earth. It rightly sees the future of creation in terms of a new heaven and earth which are one, and in which all the glorious potentialities of this earth are fulfilled and realized for all eternity. It is very wrong then, not to delight in creation.

It’s a sad fact however, that especially since the 18th century, there has been a revival of ancient ascetic views. Many Evangelicals today are tainted by this. They reason thus for example, with respect to marriage. In heaven, they say, there is no marriage or giving in marriage and this means that marriage is a lower earthly condition, only for those who burn. It is not a high spiritual condition. While we are forbidden to forbid marriage, we must see it as unspiritual and a lesser way. Now this perspective is beginning to gain grounds in Protestantism. And it’s very thoroughly unbiblical; however, it is widespread outside of the Christian church. For example, one of the classics of Science Fiction is a book from the 20s, Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World. The perspective of Huxley now is a part and parcel of a great deal of science fiction thinking and scientific thinking. A world of the future, with test-tube babies, with no marriage, with no sexuality; supposedly the human race has gone beyond that condition.

Now this is nonsense, and it is completely anti-biblical. Again, as I pointed out, some hold that the enjoyment of good food, of clothing and of housing is unspiritual. A very large group now, having a great deal of influence in this country is against church buildings. It’s a waste of money. It’s worldly. As a matter of fact, there is a very widespread movement now to say that Christians should not make more than so much money a year. I’ve had a number of reports from people on our mailing lists across the country as to what the limit is. It usually depends on how much the minister is making. [Laughter] In some places they preach that anyone who makes more than $40,000 a year cannot be a Christian. In other places it’s $25,000 and in other places it’s lower. Now that’s nonsense, and yet it’s a powerful opinion.

Let me read to you a news dispatch recently, because it deals with the religious conference in which these ideas and doctrines were set forth. “Hertfordshire, England: a strong challenge to evangelical Christians in affluent circumstances, to simplify their lifestyles was a major theme of a statement adopted by the International Consultation of Simple Lifestyle here. Sponsored jointly by subunits of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization and the World Evangelical Fellowship, the statement also called for Christians to take part in political action to bring about a radical change in the present unjust trade and economic structures. The 2,500-word statement endorsed by 85 participants from 27 countries was termed the strongest call yet by evangelicals to take a stand against economic injustice and to support a redistribution of world wealth. The statement said we intend to re-examine our income and expenditures in order to manage on less and give away more. We laid down no rules and regulations for either ourselves or others, yet we resolve to renounce waste and oppose extravagance in personal living, clothing and housing, traveling, and church buildings. We also accept the distinction between necessities and luxuries, creative hobbies and empty status symbols, occasional celebrations and normal routines. But the statement also made clear the group’s conviction that the issues of poverty and wealth are not merely matters of individual concern, but are issues of power and powerlessness. Without a shift of power through structural change, these problems cannot be solved.” Let me add that everyone at that conference was an evangelical, claimed to believe the Bible from cover-to-cover. Some of the people there are ready to say God is a Marxist.

Now notice their solution to the world’s problems and to sin is not regeneration, but it is a simple lifestyle. Now that’s Paganism. All the problems of the world are going to be solved by a simple lifestyle. They want people to go back to necessities instead of luxuries. Well, what’s the difference? After all, everything that you and I would classify as a necessity would be a luxury to the people of India or to the people of Egypt, the peasant farmers of Egypt. The whole term is {?}ed.

Moreover, it sees salvation in political action. It calls for a redistribution of wealth. The statement says that godly wealth is an impossibility, that wealth is wrong. What are we going to do with the many godly men of scripture whom God made wealthy, such as Abraham? What about Jesse, David, Aquila and Priscilla and many, many others? We are never told by God that wealth is a sin. We are never told by God that we should live meagerly, but that we are to live without sin and to be content with our lot. We are forbidden envy, not wealth. Moreover, neither Asceticism nor redistribution can increase the world’s wealth. As a matter of fact, they can limit (very seriously limit) the available resources by limiting or destroying capital. It is work and capital that increase goods. But of course, these people at Hertfordshire, England would have said that this is an unspiritual perspective.

False perfectionism demands an end to human ails, not by God’s salvation through Jesus Christ, but by humanistic equalitarian means. You will never make a man richer by giving away everything you have. That enriches no man.

The Bible tells us very specifically that all these ascetic and perfectionist doctrines come from seducing spirits and the doctrine of devils. Now it’s important to understand what is meant there. Seducing means wandering, deceiving, off-base. Demons or devils is a word in the Greek which means pagan, inferior gods. So when Paul uses these two words, he is saying that this is a doctrine that belongs to Paganism, to pagan gods, that it is not of the Lord. Paul says in Hebrews 13:9, “Be not carried about with diverse and strange doctrines, for it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace, not with meats which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.”

Today one of the best sellers in evangelical circles (unfortunately) is a book by a man who claims to be an evangelical, Ronald J. Sider. The title is Rich Christians in a Hungry World. Sider asks the question in that book very openly, ‘Is God a Marxist?’ And his answer is essentially ‘yes.’ He calls for a redistribution of wealth. He has since written a pamphlet which is circulating all over the country, or rather a tract, and what is the message of this tract? Does it say salvation is through Jesus Christ? No—through government welfare. In fact, he says, private welfare should be forbidden. It is demeaning. It is degrading. We should abolish all private welfare. It should only be government welfare.

Now this is the kind of doctrine that is passing today as evangelical. It is not. It is another gospel. Paul is right when he calls it the doctrine of seducing spirits and devils. We must define sin as the Bible does. I John 3:4 makes it very clear. Sin is the transgression of the Law, the Law of God. We do not dare define sin in terms of anything else. If you break any law of God it’s a sin. Having a lot of money is not a sin. Being poor is not a sin. Giving help to someone, (charity to a friend in need) is not a sin. But every time people depart from the word of God, even though they may claim to believe it, they are giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the Law of God. Sin is the transgression of God’s Law, not a violation of the rules and prescriptions of men.

We need to be on our watch against these false doctrines. I’m sorry to say that it is Intervarsity Press, which has put out Ronald Sider’s book and others like it. It is being circulated on college and university campuses. It is exerting a powerful influence all over the world. It is a part, it is an expression of Liberation Theology. And Liberation Theology is simply Marxism on the church scene.

We have a battle on our hands today because we have a tremendous variety of false doctrines that do not deal with sin scripturally. Sin, the Bible tells us, is the transgression of the Law of God. Never allow anyone to make you feel sinful for any reason except the violation of God’s Law. When men define sin apart from the Word of God, they place you in their power. They seek to make you guilty because you have too much or too little, because you’re not following their rules and their regulations, and they will never give you a clear conscience because they will perpetually increase their rules.

To be in sin is to be in captivity. But Christ came to free us from captivity. These men at Hertfordshire and R.J. Sider are telling Christians all over the county, people who’ve been born again, people who’ve been saved from sin by the blood of Jesus Christ that they are sinners for things the Bible never taught. They preach to make them feel guilty and to bind their conscience to their word and to their pronouncements. This is not Christianity; it is the doctrine of devils and of seducing spirits.

Are there any questions now?

[Audience] Have you written to Intervarsity Press on this subject at all?

[Rushdoony] Have I written to Intervarsity Press? No because their whole perspective has shifted. They’re in that camp now. Very definitely they are proclaiming that type of thing. They have a few books they’re putting out that are still very good, but increasingly they’re moving in this direction and it’s not for lack of criticism.

Yes…

[Audience] Do you see change coming in the future, as far as the missionary aspect in {?}, the world being hungry, {?} third-world countries and so forth? {?} reach a generation rather than--

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] --the liberation

[Rushdoony] Third-world countries are not interested in Liberation Theology. At one seminary, an Ethiopian student wrote a very sharp and powerful paper condemning Liberation Theology. He was the only student who dared do that. This is a supposedly Bible-believing seminary. I think if he had not been an Ethiopian, he would have been clobbered by the professor. He said it is not Christian, and he said you do no one in any of the countries in Africa any good by telling them that instead of being sinners, they’re victims and the white man owes them something.

It is interesting, today, in spite of all this nonsense, the gospel is growing by leaps and bounds in Africa. 1900, 3% of Africa was Christian. Today it is close to 50%.

Any other questions? Yes…

[Audience] I see the same sort of problem in the, in this country today like with the Negroes and so forth like that. Do you see any signs of any kind of change, or do you see it {?} going downhill, getting worse and worse as far as this trend of Liberation Theology and so forth?

[Rushdoony] I would say there are dramatic evidences of change. One of the things that I think is very encouraging is that, whereas a few years ago, most of the Negro churches in this country were in the hands of liberals, evangelicals are beginning to come to the fore in these churches so that there are some very good signs of health in the Negro churches.

The modernist churches by and large in this country are dying on the vine right now. They are less and less able to keep doing. Recently in my travels, I was taken past a beautiful church, magnificent structure, of one of the modernist denominations, and I was told that they are having trouble paying the salaries of the staff. Now, this is a church that once had membership in the thousands. This is increasingly the picture all over the country.

Yes…

[Audience] The Neo-Platonists you talked about earlier, you think that was widespread among the churches, or was it just an isolated… with people like Gurnall and that sort of thing? Think that was a trend or just an exception?

[Rushdoony] Very good question. To what extent was Neo-Platonism prevalent among the Puritans?

In the early years, there was virtually none. What happened was that Cambridge was the center of Puritan education. Cambridge went Platonist and it very quickly destroyed Puritanism. That’s why Puritanism collapsed. Its heart was eaten out by Neo-Platonism.

Now Gurnall by the way was not a Puritan. It tells you something about the so-called contemporaries who claim to be children of the Puritans who go to Gurnall. The Puritans never regarded him as such. He at every turn compromised and played ball with the State church and never once showed any interest in anything the Puritans stood for. If anything, we would have to say Gurnall was anti-Puritan.

Well, if there are no further questions, let us bow our heads now in prayer.

Our Lord and our God, we thank Thee for one another, for Jesus Christ our Lord and the certainty of our salvation in Him. We thank Thee, our Father, that all our times are in Thy hands who doest all things well, that Thou hast prepared a place for us and Thy hand is upon us all the days of our life. Give us joy in our salvation, strength in our service and make us ever mindful that we have been called to be more than conquerors through Jesus Christ our Lord. In His name we pray, amen.