Living by Faith - Galatians

Grace and Law Versus Mechanical Religion

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Living by Faith

Lesson: 17-19

Genre: Talk

Track: 17

Dictation Name: Tape 09A

Location/Venue:

Year: ?

Let us worship God. Thus saith the Lord, ye shall seek me and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. Jesus said blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, we give thanks unto Thee that Thou art ever mindful of us, even though we are so often mindless of Thee. We give thanks unto Thee that Thy mercies never fail, that Thy government is ever sure, and Thy purposes ever just and holy. Grant oh Lord that we walk day by in the confidence that Thy kingdom governs all, and that Thy word prevails, and that all things shall fulfill Thy holy purpose. Bless us ever in Thy service, and now by Thy word and by Thy Spirit make us strong for Thee. In Christ’s name we pray, amen.

Our scripture is from Galatians 6:1-5. Galatians 6:1-5, and our subject: Grace and Law Versus Mechanical Religion. Grace and Law Versus Mechanical Religion, Galatians 6:1-5.

“6 Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.

2 Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.

3 For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.

4 But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.

5 For every man shall bear his own burden.”

Paul in Galatians has indicted the Pharisees within the church for their externalism. For these Pharisees in the church, circumcision had replaced the entire law of God, and had been made equivalent to salvation. Moreover, physical decent from Abraham was seen as a saving fact, and Paul says that Abrahams true seed is Jesus Christ.

The Law of God must be written in all man’s being, but it is not the way of salvation but sanctification. The holiness required by the law is manifested, Paul makes clear, in a life governed by the Holy Spirit; so that the fruits of the Spirit are the results of faithfulness to the law with all our heart, mind, and being. Phariseeism, because it was externalism, reduced the law of God in its meaning and focus. Our Lord accuses the Pharisees of doing what God requires in a superficial sense, including also charity, but with ulterior motives, replacing what should come from an inward grace with an ulterior motive.

In Matthew 6:1-4 our Lord declares:

“6 Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.

2 Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

3 But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:

4 That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.”

Our Lord here makes clear how this ulterior motive is a form of externalism, and this was the sin of the Pharisees. Things are done not with reference to God, not with reference to the fact that we do them out of a necessity because we are a new creation; but we do them to make an impression upon God. It was a scholar of some years ago, (Whyte?) who in a study of the Renaissance said that it brought about a tremendous change in the world, in that before that, man whether good or bad knew that he was moving in the sight of God; now with the Renaissance, and since then, man is on stage performing for other men.

Castiglione of course, in The Courtier, gives us a classic of that externalism, that Phariseeism, because he made it clear that a man in battle should save his heroism for those moments when he was sure the prince or the general could see him; that everything that he did should be done with an eye to being seen, to being observed, so that it would have its effect. And this was what our Lord was talking about, the Pharisees were given to making a display. He does not mean that they literally had somebody blow a trumpet when they gave charitably to someone, but that this in effect was the way they gave; they gave for its social impact. And this is the Phariseeism which marks the modern age and our time.

Some few years ago I spent a day at the request of a person with someone who was one of the top persons in intelligence in the world; and I learned a very interesting thing, that these corporations, and she rattled off the names of most of the major corporations, were funding 99% of the sabotage and terrorism in the United States and the western world. They were doing it by giving to left wing causes which funneled these to other agencies, they had documented it, they had taken it to these various corporations, and had only a sickly smile in return. They knew what they were doing, they were giving to things which had intellectual respectability with the media; even though they knew that some of it was coming, as in one case with an oil corporation, in actual sabotage to their installations. But it made no difference. Not being Christian, they were Pharisees. They were giving with an external motivation.

Phariseeism has been as successful in the church as in Judaism; both Catholics and Protestants have been guilty of it. Thus, as one historian, B.J. Kidd has noted, “The later Medieval era gave a quantitative, assignable, and so marketable value to each mass.” Those were his exact words.

Another historian, B.L. Manning, said and I quote: “The popular view of the mass was distinctly mechanical.”

The great Catholic historian, Ludwig von Pastor, said the same of John Tetzel’s preaching of indulgences, which precipitated Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses, he declared it was clearly mechanical, although he said the “Papal bill of indulgences gave no sanction whatsoever to Tetzel’s proposition.” Tragically they then supported him.

Within Protestantism, mechanical religion prevails on all sides. Among the modernists, a formal subscription to the liberal agenda passes as holiness, no matter what the person may be. For some Evangelicals, superficials are often seen as equivalent to salvation. Arend ten Pas’ in The Lordship of Christ which Ross House books published, shows how for some ‘saying yes to Jesus’ or going forward at an altar call obligates God permanently, and allows the person to do as he pleases; this is mechanical religion, this is Phariseeism, it says that an external act assures salvation. And this is what Paul is attacking in Galatians, as he deals with the Pharisees within the church.

The Bible in Psalm 14 says: “The fool hath said in his heart there is no God.” Now, David in that Psalm does not tell us the fool is a professing, atheist; quite the contrary, he is a professing believer, but in his heart he says, in effect he acts, as though there were no God. This is the Biblical definition of a fool. It is not the truth of God, but external circumstances which govern fools, and this is Phariseeism, externalism.

Paul in these verses sets down the implications of true faith, of loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and being; and our neighbor as ourselves, of being members one of another in Jesus Christ. He begins by saying: “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.”

With this verse as with so many verses, there have been perversions. The word that is translated ‘a fault,’ “if a man be overtaken in a fault,” a fault means in the Greek a falling aside, a slip, a lapse; it does not refer to a willful, high handed, and a malicious act. So, what Paul is saying: ‘The weaknesses of our fellow believers should not move us to dislike or contempt, but to a desire for their restoration; we are sinners saved by grace.’ We can also, he said, be tested or tempted and found to be weak. Thus this text cannot be used for malicious acts, those in contempt of Godliness. Such acts the Bible tells us to deal with differently, and they are by the way particularly well described in Proverbs 30:20, where Solomon says: “Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness.” Moffat in the paraphrase brings out for us perhaps the meaning more idiomatically, translating: “This is the way of an adulteress; she gratifies her appetite and calmly says: “No harm.” Just as a little food on the corner of the mouth is no big deal and easily wiped off, so too, Solomon says, is adultery for all such. The law is seen as a trifling matter.

Paul is not dealing with such people here. He is dealing with those who are weak, who are frail, who have much growing to do; and this is the kind of people, the kind of person that Paul had to deal with, for example, in more than one church such as in Corinth, a church where the background of these people as Corinthians was hardly anything commendable; after all, Corinth was a prominent trade center, a city where the chamber of commerce in Paul’s day maintained at city expense 2,000 prostitutes for visiting salesmen, it was a city where anything was acceptable, except of course, morality.

So, Paul knew that he had weak people there, people whose background was a radically undisciplined one, and although he does lay down the law, he is also gracious and ready when they make amends, to be forgiving. So in terms of this he says: “Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.”

The law of Christ refers to the whole of the Bible. The whole of scripture is the word of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. So he is not referring simply to the sayings of our Lord, but to the whole of scripture.

“For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.”

Thus to be members one of another means we forsake self exaltation for the work of the kingdom of God. Self promotion, he tells us, is lawlessness. Some of the paraphrases of Paul’s sentences are interesting, for example Paul says in verse 4 according to Moffat: “Let everyone bring his own work to the test. Then he will have something to boast about on his own account, and not in comparison with his fellows.” Phillips renders it thus: “Let every man learn to assess properly the value of his own work, and he can then be glad when he has done something worth doing, without depending on the approval of others.”

Again, we are to work for the Lord, not for the approval of men. “For every man shall bear his own burden.” We are told in verse 5. We each have our own responsibilities, and this should be our essential concern.

God, Paul tells us in Romans 2:6, will render to every man according to his deeds. Many like passages deal with the same fact, for example in Job 34:11 “For the work of a man shall he render unto him, and cause every man to find according to his ways.” Then Psalm 62:12 “Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy: for thou renderest to every man according to his work.” Proverbs 24:12 “If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?” “I the Lord search the heart,” According to Jeremiah 17:10, “I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.” Then in Jeremiah 32:19 “Great in counsel, and mighty in work: for thine eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men: to give every one according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings:”

Of course, some say: “This is the Old Testament.” But the New tells us, Matthew 16:27 “For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.” Paul in Romans 14:12 “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” And in 1 Corinthians 3:8 Paul says: “Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.” Again Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:10 “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” Our Lord in Revelation 2:20 says: “Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.” And again in Revelation 20:12 and 22:12, we have the phrase: “According to their works,” “according as his works shall be,” and so on.

Thus we are plainly told that salvation is an act of sovereign grace, an act of law whereby Christ in His atonement pays the death penalty for our sin. Then in the verses cited above we are told that there is a judgement, and it is according to works, and all of us must face it. In other words, there is a necessary link between grace and works. Our justification as God’s saving grace through Jesus Christ and His atonement. It is a juridical, a legal act in God’s court, taken by itself it is an example of externalism, but in scripture it cannot be taken by itself. It is accompanied always and every time by regeneration, whereby we are made a new creation in Christ. Regeneration is an inward act in our lives by the triune God, it manifests itself in works; regeneration evidences itself in sanctification, in our faithfulness to God’s every law word.

If we could have, which we cannot, justification and regeneration each without the other, we would have only externalism. The justified man would then be without righteousness or justice. A man cannot be regenerate or holy or sanctified without justification, for he would then be a guilty sinner before God, neither free from sin nor free from death. Only the fact of justification and regeneration coming together can enable man to avoid Pharisaic externalism. Externalism reduces salvation to a mechanical affair, it unleashes no regenerating force in society. The commandments of God’s law require us to perform a series of external acts, but these acts are meaningless unless they have their roots in a redeemed heart. This is the meaning of the Sermon on the Mount, and of so much of the Old Testament, as for example what the Pharisees regarded as the key act of externalism, circumcision, the Old Testament tell us is much more. Moses declared that God’s grace means that and I quote: “The Lord Thy God will circumcise Thine heart, and the heart of Thy seed to love the Lord Thy God with all Thine heart, and with all Thy soul, that Thou mayest live.” This is Moses speaking in Deuteronomy 30:6.

This union of law and Spirit, of faith and works, of grace and obedience, is set forth by our Lord as the summation of the scriptures: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind; this is the first and great commandment, and the second is like unto it: thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Thus, precisely because there is grace, there are works, the works of the Spirit in us in faithfulness to the law. Because we are members of Christ, we bear one another’s burdens.

Thus Paul requires us to believe the whole word of God; not to wrongly divide the word of truth. Grace requires works, justification and regeneration go together, and result in sanctification. Mechanical religion, Phariseeism, is condemned by the whole of scripture. Let us pray.

Thy word oh Lord is truth, and Thy grace through Jesus Christ makes us whole, delivers us from Phariseeism, from performing for men rather than serving Thee with all our heart, mind, and being. Give us grace day by day to cast off every relic of Phariseeism, of that which is our old nature, and more and more to grow in Christ, to be re-made daily in His image, that we might manifest that we are the people of grace in all our works. Bless us to this purpose in Christ’s name, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Otto Scott] Well, I think the question of work is misunderstood, most people seem to think it means some special product, but (Hanna Aren?) pointed out that the work that most men do is similar to the housework of women, it leaves no trace, is modest, leaves no record, and yet if left undone everything would fall apart. So, is it true that in this particular set of passages works means actions, your behavior?

[Rushdoony] It means obedience to the law of God, which involves action. It involves thought, it involves the whole frame and conduct of our lives, as we deal with our duties to God and to man. So it is the totality of our lives as it manifests the grace of God in faithfulness to Him; it’s a total thing.

[Audience Member] Is that why Christ said “By their fruits shall ye know them?”

[Rushdoony] Yes. By Their fruits shall ye know them, in the broadest sense of the word. Phariseeism reduced it to certain external acts which could be performed by anyone, and it made one pass as acceptable. Just as today I cited the example of the corporations; you present an image to the world, a public relations policy whereby you conform to the accepted image of what constitutes an intelligent, a good man; and that is Phariseeism, and it is that in every form that Paul is striking at, it is using man as the audience before whom we perform, rather than being faithful to God.

[Audience Member] Would lifestyle be a works, by what you are saying, too?

[Rushdoony] Yes, lifestyle is a good term because today a lifestyle stands for what is acceptable to the general public. Yes?

[Audience Member] Well the verse always sticks with me that David was forgiven for adultery and murder, and therefore it seems to me that grace is one of those sovereign prerogatives that God chooses to let fall.

[Rushdoony] Yes, God reserves the right to do that. Nathan pronounced judgement on David, and then God made clear through Nathan that David had his forgiveness, but a judgement was going to fall all the same, of death on the nation; and you had the judgement that struck the entire nation, because they too had been involved in sin at the same time, in an adultery of a spiritual sort. And David had the grievous burden of deciding how that judgement would fall; whether at the hands of enemies or at the hand of God, and so he said that he would choose judgement directly from the hand of God, because as he said in one of the most magnificent sentences of scripture: “Let us fall into the hand of God rather than into the hands of men, for as great is His judgement, so great is His mercy.”

[Audience Member] When he is saying there, we have put in this term where it is how we respond, because we are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God, it is not that we live righteous lives, there is none righteous no not one; so it isn’t that the Christian lives a righteous life and the non-Christian lives an unrighteous life, I think it is that relationship with God that makes the difference, it is our response to our sin like David; he responded to then repentance, because one that is not, that is one of the fruit there, repentance is one of the fruits of righteousness, and then un-repentance is the other which would not be the lifestyle of his that he justify, the one justifies and the other responds, and desires to live this life, and the other is oblivious to whether its right or wrong, and puts a good front, but their heart is evil. (?)

[Rushdoony] That’s a very good point, because David is king, and Nathan coming to him directly could have suppressed everything- he could have executed Nathan as well. But instead he not only respected Nathan, but he subsequently named I believe, a son after him, to indicate his respect for that, and his humility. So it tells us something about the greatness of David.

[Audience Member] The parallel would be Saul and David, see, Saul did not repent, he went farther and farther away into the occult; and David repented and received forgiveness from God. Then in the New Testament Peter and Judas are the two examples, the one hung himself, he didn’t go to repentance to God, and the other repented with tears, and Peter denied Jesus Christ.

[Rushdoony] That is a good point, because as someone back in the twenties, a British scholar who wrote on the subject, that, (and he being a modernist logically said that) for him Saul was the more appealing figure, that Saul did not have the flagrant faults that David had. But in the sight of God David was the greater man, because while his sins were particularly conspicuous, adultery and murder, and also he was not the best of fathers; he was a very poor father, there was a greatness in David in the ability to recognize his sin, and an ability at key points to be faithful to the ‘nth degree. So in a sense we have to say it cannot be quantitative, we cannot Egyptian fashion pile up the sins and the balances of judgement and say the sins outweigh the virtues; it is the heart of man that determines it, but the heart of man will show itself also, and there was never the recognition of his faults in Saul except very briefly and then he would be sorry he’d said what he had.

[Audience Member] The thought came to me while you were talking, between Saul and David, Saul sinned the spiritual sins, like the sacrifices and so on and so forth, in other words the relationship with God, he was negative; David was a physical sinner, but his spiritual was always in relationship with God.

[Rushdoony] Well, I don’t think it was necessarily that; the spiritual sin preceded his physical sin.

[Audience Member] That’s what I am saying, one had a spiritual life and the other didn’t have a spiritual life, so it was evident by the sins were in the spiritual grossly, and the other was mostly gross physical.

[Rushdoony] Mhmm. Yes, you had a comment John?

[Audience Member] Yeah, just a couple quickies, we were talking about work earlier, verse 2 and verse 5 deal with burdens, would you say that the sins in which they are dealt with is that broader sense in which work was dealt with, that it has to do with burdens not necessarily just in the work place, but that which is in the totality of life?

[Rushdoony] The fact of burden there means to be a community; in other words this was the significance of being members one of another, it was being a community in Christ, helping one another in need, not being ready to push the other one down. This is why the early church almost immediately got into the business of charity on a major scale, establishing justice, elevating need wherever it was, bearing one another’s burdens; so that one of the things they did that was immediately effective was to require members of a family to help one another, in immediate family, and then the family of faith, and then those outside. So burden-bearing was something that had practical consequences.

[Audience Member] But my question though was about the extent of the burden, it is not just a physical burden, it can be a spiritual burden as well, it permeates all of life. The other, maybe as an observation but I would like your comment on it, in verse 1 it talks about a man being overtaken in a fault, obviously we have passages like Matthew 5 and Matthew 18 in terms of talking about offense, but isn’t this really an admonition to the whole of the Christian community, to the body of Christ, to aid people when they are caught in problems and faults?

[Rushdoony] Yes it is, and we should recognize: “Ye which are spiritual” doesn’t refer to our nature, too many people think they are ‘spiritual’ today who are not, because it means ‘ye who are of the Holy Spirit’, so it has trans-personal reference, it means ‘you who are directed of the Spirit.’ Yes?

[Audience Member] About this works, you know, the rewards, because everyone will be judged according to his works; what is the extent of that? I mean, if salvation is of grace, it is unmerited, then the works that we do is because of an obligation, in other words if I am an unworthy servant, no matter what I do I am still an unworthy servant; now, is there, some believe that there is going to be works that are going to be rewarded, and others believe that the reward is salvation which is the gift of God, is our reward is eternal life with God, and that’s everything and why do we need anymore? Do we work for rewards?

[Rushdoony] Yes, well, as I indicated by the number of verses that I read, it is a constant theme, and there are many long passages that deal with it. For example, in the parable of the talents there is a reward according to works. We must recognize that the new creation is the kingdom of God, it is a community, that all who are saved will be citizens of it with varying responsibilities, and putting it in human terms because we don’t fully comprehend the nature of that eternal kingdom, some will be ruler over ten cities, some over five cities. Now this will be in terms of our works, so we are rewarded, we are saved by grace, but when we get there in terms of the background and training and what we have been able to do, we will have a commensurate reward. So we can, as many theologians from the early church to the present pointed out, we are in training here for office in the eternal kingdom of God.

Well, our time is up, let us bow our heads now in prayer.

Oh Lord our God, Thou hast made us for Thyself, for Thine eternal kingdom, and for Thy government of all things, world without end. Grant that as we face our day by day burdens and problems that we be ever mindful of their eternal frame of reference, that we recognize how great Thy purpose for us is in time and in eternity. Give us grace therefore to grow in Thee, to know Thy will, to rejoice in it, and to be not weary in well doing.

And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and… [tape ends]