The way of Holiness

I have it in my head that the Pharisees were sticklers for the law. Don't you? This is what most people think of when they think of the Pharisees...legalism! However, what the Pharisees had in mind, what they were so legalistic about, was not so much the law of God as it was their interpretation of God's law, and even more specifically, their own man-made traditions. Man-made laws.

Mark 7:8 "For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do."
Mark 7:9 "And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition."

In this light, one can view the behavior of much of Churchianity today as being rather legalistic, much like the Pharisees, in that they cling tenaciously to their own laws, customs and rituals, (legalism!) and deny that God's law (moral, ethical, civil) is still binding for us today. Not even the Pharisees dared attempt to completely do away with God's law.

"Ye shall be holy; for I am holy", said God. Leviticus 11:44 But how in the world do we do that? Through God's law, the way of holiness.

Grace & Peace,
Joshuah

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RJ Rushdoony, Vol. 1, The Institutes of Biblical Law, p. 6-7

"In analyzing now the nature of biblical law, it is important to note first that, for the Bible, law is revelation. The Hebrew word for law is torah, which means instruction, authoritative instruction."

"The law is the revelation of God and His righteousness. There is no ground in scripture for despising the law. Neither can the law be relegated to the Old Testament, and grace to the new."

"There is no contradiction between law and grace. The question in James' Epistle is faith and works, not faith and law. Judaism had made law the mediator between God and man, and between God and the world. It was this view of law, not the law itself, which Jesus attacked.. As Himself the Mediator, Jesus rejected the law as mediator in order to re-establish the law in its God-appointed role as law, the way of holiness. He established the law by dispensing forgiveness as the law-giver in full support of the law as the convicting word which makes men sinners. The law was rejected only as mediator and as the source of justification. Jesus fully recognized the law, and obeyed the law. It was only the absurd interpretations of the law he rejected."

The Religious origins of Law

I want for those Christians who say that we do not need to follow God's law any longer, but emphasize that we do need to follow man's law, to carefully consider the following:

"Law is in every culture religious in origin. Because law governs man and society, because it establishes and declares the meaning of justice and righteousness, law is inescapably religious, in that it establishes in practical fashion the ultimate concerns of a culture. Accordingly, a fundamental and necessary premise in any and every study of law must be, first, a recognition of this religious nature of law." RJ Rushdoony, Vol. 1, The Institutes of Biblical Law, p. 4

Also:

"Modern humanism, the religion of the state, locates law in the state and thus makes the state, or the people as they find expression in the state, the god of the system." Ibid. p. 5

I am truly saddened to have realized while typing this paragraph that many Christians today, Christians who will say on the one hand that we are no longer required to follow God's perfect law, will, when confronted with something completely biblical yet illegal according to humanisms current, rather fluid law systems (such as homeschooling in the recent past, or perhaps plural marriage in the future), run off and grab their bibles, ruffle through the pages, and find the verses from Paul (Romans 13:1-7) that tells us that we must obey the law of the land! Have they forgotten Daniel? What about Acts 5:27-29? Whom is it that they really serve, God or man?

Grace & Peace,
Joshuah

The Validity of Biblical Law

"A central characteristic of the churches and of modern preaching and Biblical teaching is antinomianism, an anti-law position. The antinomian believes that faith frees the Chrsitian from the law, so that he is not outside the law but is rather dead to the law. There is no warrant whatsoever in Scripture for antinomianism. The expression, "dead to the law," is indeed in Scripture (Gal. 2:9; Rom. 7:4), but it has reference to the believer in relationship to the atoning work of Christ as the believer's representative and substitute; the believer is dead to the law as an indictment, a legal sentence of death against him, Christ having died for him, but the believer is alive to the law as the righteousness of God. The purpose of Christ's atoning work was to restore man to a position of covenant-keeping instead of covenant breaking, to enable man to keep the law by freeing man "from the law of sin and death" (Rom. 8:4). Man is restored to a position of law-keeping. The law thus has a position of centrality in man's indictment (as a sentence of death against man the sinner), in man's redemption (in that Christ died, Who although the perfect law-keeper as the new Adam, died as man's substitute), and in man's sanctification (in what man grows in grace as he grows in law-keeping, for the law is the way of sanctification)."

RJ Rushdoony, Vol. 1, The Institutes of Biblical Law, p. 1-2,

Unholy Prudery

The first time I heard the phrase unholy prudery, I chuckled heartily. Now that to me seems to be quite the oxymoron! Credit must be given to Rushdoony for it. He wrote in Vol. I of "The Institutes of Biblical Law" that "An unholy prudery prevents the church today from reckoning with many laws." He was referring to Lev 20:18 etc, and his 'today' is not our 'today", but the principle remains the same.

Without a doubt, there is an "unholy prudery" that keep the church from dealing with things such as polygamy, incest (Cain's wife, Levirate marriage) slavery, and a host of other things outlined in the bible. With polygamy, they think of the word, and immediately conjure unholy images in their head, and equate it with sexual immorality, when in fact it is a rather clear biblical form of marriage, as equally valid as monogamy.

Truthfully, I feel as though many people are ashamed of the scriptures, because they tend to look at things from todays definitions of good and evil, right and wrong, and thus end up avoiding, if not outright rejecting plain biblical truth, simply because people dont think that way anymore. You can practically see their jaws drop, and hear the gasps for air:

"Egads, your talking about polygamy, and we all know this to be wickedness and sinful, and we have much better things to do with our time than to focus on immorality (like patting each other on the back for protecting each other from plain biblical teaching.)"

Unholy prudery indeed.

Lunchtime Rant

Reading Rushdoony at lunchtime is inspiring and rewarding.

In the bit I read today concerning the 8th commandment "Thou shall not steal", he says that "God's order clearly includes private property" and also includes godly wealth. He provides Deut 8:17-18 and Proverbs 13:11 as scriptural evidence for this - here we find a warning against the pride of wealth, and not of wealth itself, Rushdoony points out.

Can we not say, however, with an equal degree of certainty, and with an equal amount of Scriptural authority, that God's order also clearly ordains "godly marriage" which includes both polygamy and monogamy ? Yes, we can likewise rest on the solid footing of Scripture when it comes to equally valid and ordained marriage, with 2 Samuel 12:7-8 being only one of many helpful scriptural references.

Isn't it interesting that to people, even to Rushdoony, on whom I rely in some ways, some things are so "clearly" ordained, and yet they argue that other things which were just as "clearly" ordained in Scripture are not so any longer, or never were so clear. This indeed is an inconsistency on his part, as it is an inconsistency on most other people's part too. We must accept all of Scripture to be God's infallible and eternal word, otherwise we are hypocrites... According to James, if we fail in one aspect of the law, we fail in all (Jas 2:10).

So here is, in short, the result of my lunchtime ranting:

• Can wealth be godly? Yes, as a tool of godly dominion (Gen 1:28).
• Can plural marriage me godly? Yes, again, as a tool of godly dominion.

And besides, women are a form of wealth, as are children, so godly wealth includes wives and the fruit of their wombs, as we can see in 2 Sam 12, if we are only willing to read what it says.

Let him who has ears, hear.


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