2nd Corinthians – Godly Social Order

Grace and Law

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Godly Social Order

Lesson: 25-25

Genre: Talk

Track: 25

Dictation Name: RR41613B

Location/Venue:

Year: 1998-2000

[Mark Rushdoony] Let us worship God. Praise ye the Lord, sing unto the Lord a new song, and His praise in the congregation of the saints. The Lord taketh pleasure in His people, he will beautify the meek with salvation. Let us pray.

Almighty God and heavenly Father we give thanks to you for your so great salvation that has brought us here together to worship and to share our unity in the faith, in Jesus Christ, and His atonement for our sins. We pray that you would help us never to lose sight of the fact that we are first of all Christians, that we are believers in Christ, that we are redeemed and regenerated to live a new life. Help us to orient every fiber of our being towards this awareness that we must now stand before you as our heavenly Father; that we must stand secure in your salvation and secure in our knowledge that our obedience is first of all to you, and that every aspect of our life should be measured in terms of your revelation to us. We pray that you would forgive us when we go astray, we pray that you would forgive us for the evil thoughts that we think and the deeds that we do. We pray that you would give us an awareness of our responsibility, and recall our sins to us so that we might as repentance for them. We pray that you would encourage us in your service, we thank you for this opportunity we have to worship you. We pray that you would with each and every member here, we pray that you would encourage them in their needs; you know our needs far better than we, we pray that you would encourage us therein. We pray that you would now bless us as we join together in worship and in song, and in study of your word. We pray that you would help us to apply your word to our lives so that we might further glorify you by exemplifying what you would have us to be. We ask this in Christ our saviors name, amen.

The scripture reading for this morning’s sermon is 2nd Corinthians chapter 13, verses 1-14, the entire chapter. 2 Corinthians 13 1-14

“13 This is the third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.

2 I told you before, and foretell you, as if I were present, the second time; and being absent now I write to them which heretofore have sinned, and to all other, that, if I come again, I will not spare:

3 Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, which to you-ward is not weak, but is mighty in you.

4 For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you.

5 Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?

6 But I trust that ye shall know that we are not reprobates.

7 Now I pray to God that ye do no evil; not that we should appear approved, but that ye should do that which is honest, though we be as reprobates.

8 For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.

9 For we are glad, when we are weak, and ye are strong: and this also we wish, even your perfection.

10 Therefore I write these things being absent, lest being present I should use sharpness, according to the power which the Lord hath given me to edification, and not to destruction.

11 Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.

12 Greet one another with an holy kiss.

13 All the saints salute you.

14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.”

[R. J. Rushdoony] We come now to the conclusion of Paul’s two letters to the Corinthians. These letters have been powerful in their insistence on the grace of God and also the law of God. We see this in the very first verse. There are two sentences, and they seem to be unrelated.

“This is the third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.”

Now the second sentence quotes the law. The quotation is from Deuteronomy 19:15. This law requires that there be no conviction of any man in any kind of court, without 2 or more witnesses, or to put it in more modern terms, the guilt evidenced in two ways. One can be circumstantial, the other a witness, or both can be one or the other. This law is basic to God law. It is referred to in Matthew 18:16, 1st Timothy 5:19, John 8:17, Hebrews 10:28, and 1st John 5:8.

The law of God is the framework of reference in both letters to the Corinthians, so that Paul is stressing both the law of God and the grace of God. When he says: “This is the third time I am coming to you” And then cites the law, the two sentences are closely related. He comes to them in the law of God. He comes to them in the grace of God. He does not in the slightest set aside God’s law. Then he goes on:

“I told you before, and foretell you, as if I were present, the second time; and being absent now I write to them which heretofore have sinned, and to all other, that, if I come again, I will not spare:”

He will not spare them from the weight of Gods law. Now, the Corinthians had falsely stressed the grace of God exclusively, so that they were willing as 1st Corinthians 5 tells us, to tolerate a sin that is plainly condemned in the Bible. If you have a gospel all of grace, it must be a grace then that does not condemn sin! It simply says: “If you want grace you can have it.” And of course that is not the gospel.

“Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, which to you-ward is not weak, but is mighty in you.”

The proof of Christ is there. It is His witness to His law. The law cannot be separated from the Lord. It is the expression of the Lords being. So that, for anyone beginning with the Corinthians on to anyone today, who tries to separate Christ from the law, and say: “Christ is grace and the law is an Old Testament thing that has passed away.” They deny both grace and law.

“For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you.”

Again, Paul stresses the close connection of God’s grace and Gods law. The law tells us the power of God to condemn sin, to reveal that it is totally separate from sin. And the grace of God redeems us from the curse of the law, from the penalty of the law; it does not set aside the law.

“Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?”

So he continues by saying: ‘If you are in the faith, then you will know that what I am saying is the truth. You will know that the word of God gives us both God’s law and grace. We can never separate the two. Unless you are reprobates, you will affirm both Gods law and God’s grace.” That is a strong statement. Think of what it says concerning many people and many churches that insist on denying the law of God. They have denied also God’s grace. Because we cannot affirm one part of the law or the word of God, and deny the other.

We have today modernists who insist on the law of God, but not the wrath of God. How many of you who are parents have ever felt angry towards you children? Well, we all have at one time or another. Why? Because we love them, and we hate to see them sinning. Unless we are reprobates, we should know the unity of the faith. So Paul says: ‘Examine yourselves. Are you truly rejecting the law of God?’

“Now I pray to God that ye do no evil; not that we should appear approved, but that ye should do that which is honest, though we be as reprobates.”

Paul says the issue is not: ‘Is Paul wrong or right?’ Their attitude was Paul was all wrong, that Paul was virtually a reprobate, and Paul says the issue is Jesus Christ. The issue is, are we approved by God for what we are and what we believe.

Then comes the great sentence in verse 8:

“For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.”

Whatever we do, we affirm Gods word. We demonstrate that God is truth, that God tells the truth about sinners. We are perpetually within the government of God. Every aspect of our world testifies to Him.

“For we are glad, when we are weak, and ye are strong: and this also we wish, even your perfection.”

Paul says with some irony: ‘I am happy to be weak by comparison to you if you are strong in the faith. This is what I want. Not my vindication, but your strength and character, your adherence to the faith.’

“Therefore I write these things being absent, lest being present I should use sharpness, according to the power which the Lord hath given me to edification, and not to destruction.”

Paul says: ‘I am writing sharply to you. I am ticking you off as it were. But I am doing it by letter because when I come and I am in your presence, I might be far stronger in what I say about you, and what you are.’ After all, if you are having an argument with somebody and they are in the wrong, it is very, very much easier to state only what you must state if you do it in writing. In person, we can become irritated and blow up, and speak so sharply that there is not too much chance of healing the breech. And so Paul says he is glad that he has the opportunity to put this down in writing before he goes to Corinth, because he wants their edification. He wants their conversion or repentance and growth.

“Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.”

He bids farewell as he approaches the end of the letter, but he wishes them well. He very prayerfully hopes that they will conform themselves to God, but instead of thinking: ‘Well, Paul may have been too angry here, or he may have gone overboard in his discipline,” They think instead of: ‘What does God require of me? Is that what Paul wants of me? To be in conformity to God’s being?’ So he says:

“Greet one another with an holy kiss.”

This was common place in antiquity, and still is in some cultures. Men greet one another, and women greet one another, with a kiss on the cheek and a hug. In the early church, because this was the custom all over the world, this was especially stressed. The holy kiss. They were members one of another, one family.

“All the saints salute you.”

Paul conveys again and again in his letters the greetings of other churches, other believers, to the church he writes to. He tries to keep them informed one of another. We have an element of this in some church magazines; they will have a little article from each of the churches, and the article will tell what they are doing, and they used to convey their prayers and greetings to all other churches. This is a relic of what was done in the New Testament, although we have forgotten the connection.

But the churches need to be close together. Think how strengthening it would be if for example, we heard regularly from a church in Zambia. It would deepen our faith, as we realized their problems and their growth in grace. So the greeting of the brethren, and the salutation of one group of saints to another, has been an important part of the faith.

Then Paul concludes with the benediction:

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.”

His last word to the Corinthians is a benediction. This is the wonderful thing about the gospel, and this is why we have to say: “We have some growing to do in our time.” Most churches today do not want a pastor that will be any kind of an offence to them by his plain speaking. Paul would never get a church today, unless it were some out of the way church that could not get anyone else. Because he tried always to bless them by speaking the word of God in all its clarity to them, to rebuke them when they needed a rebuke, and to bless them when they needed a blessing. The church today wants to be assures of salvation, and then continue its way like the Corinthians did. But the Corinthians had Paul to stop them.

I began the study of 1st and 2nd Corinthians by saying it was to me the most difficult thing of all, in all the Bible, to preach on. Not that it was hard to understand, if it comes to the difficulty of conveying the meaning, perhaps Ezekiel would qualify at the top of the list. But Paul’s letters, especially to the Corinthians, speak to the sins of Christians. It does not allow Christians to say: ‘Glory to God I am saved, and now all my troubles are over.’ It says: ‘No. Glory be to God for your salvation, but now you have to grow in grace. You have been reborn; what happens when you are born? You grow. You have to attain maturity. To be perpetually children in Christ is to be mentally defective, and there are too many in the churches who can be called spiritual defectives. There has been no growth in their lives.

Well, Paul’s letters to the Corinthians permit no believer to sit still, and to think: ‘Well, I have got it made, heaven is my destination, I don’t have to worry about all these odds and ends in the Bible and the law, I don’t have to worry about the fact that I may be sinning here and there, after all, I am under grace; and therefore, that takes care of all these problems.’

Not so. This is the greatness of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians. They speak to us with a very great clearness. They summon us to grow in grace. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we give thanks unto Thee for Thy word. We thank Thee for Paul, for his work, for his letters. We give thanks unto Thee that day by day we have the opportunity for growth in grace. Give us always a spirit of growth, in Christ’s name, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson?

Now that we have finished Corinthians, we will begin next time with the letters of John. These three letters, two of them very short, have as their theme, love. This is why the modernists are so partial to them, because they have reduced the whole of the gospel to love. But of course they have radically warped the meaning of John. John makes very clear that the foundation is the law of God. That we cannot separate love from Law, or love from the atonement, from Christ’s sacrifice for us.

Therefore to study the letters of John in terms of the theology of the whole of the New Testament is all important. We will begin that next time.

Let us conclude now with prayer: Our Father, it has been good for us to be here. Thy word is peace. Thy word is truth. Thy word is law, it is grace, it is all things needful. Thy word expresses Thy being, and we thank Thee for this revelation of Thyself. Bless us this day and always in our service to Thee.

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, now and forevermore, amen.