1. The Second Commandment (Remastered)

The Second Commandment

R.J. Rushdoony

Our Scripture is from Exodus 20:1-6. We begin this morning, the introduction to the second commandment, the lawful approach to God. Exodus 20:1-6,

“And God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thingthat is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lordthy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.” i

The first commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” prohibits idolatry in the broad sense of the term. Idolatry is a very broad term and every commandment in some sense deals with idolatry. For example, “Honour thy father and thy mother,” definitely means do not worship them and ancestor-worship was common in Moses’ day. “Thou shalt not covet,” covetousness is defined by St. Paul in Ephesians 5:5 and Colossians 3:5 as idolatry. We can go on and cite the aspects of all Ten Commandments which touch on idolatry. The first commandment, “No other gods before me,” prohibits idolatry in the broad, general sense. In the second commandment, idolatry is specifically forbidden. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything. It is specifically forbidden with respect to worship.

Now, in analyzing the second commandment in broad terms before we go into the details of the laws with respect to it on subsequent weeks, we must say, first of all, that the literal use of idols is strictly forbidden. This is emphatically stated, not only in the commandment, but in parallel legislation; Leviticus 26:1,2, Leviticus 19:4, Exodus 20:22-26, Deuteronomy 4:15-24, Deuteronomy 11:16,17, Deuteronomy 27:15,  and a number of other passages.

Now, this commandment does not forbid artwork within the church. Some have so read it, but it definitely does not. The priest’s garments, for example, had all kinds of embroidered work, including the picturing of pomegranates. There were two cherubim of gold on the ark and the mercy seat and a variety of other things were depicted in the Tabernacle, in the sanctuary. The point, however, is that while these were used to declare the glory of God and that His sanctuary might have the beauty of holiness, these things cannot be used as a mediation or a way to God as helps to worship. Man needs no aid to worship other than God’s provision.

Now the rationale of idolatry is a very logical one. For example, if we go to the exponents of Hinduism, we find a very rational and intelligent argument for idolatry. And they will tell us, for example, that the idols or images in the Hindu temples that have six arms are depicting, symbolically, for the limited mind of the Hindu peasantry, the omnipotence of God. Similarly, the idols which show several eyes or many eyes in the forehead of the image show the omniscience of God, that God is all-seeing and so on. The rationale that is given by the Hindu philosophers of their idolatry is thoroughly intelligent and thoroughly logical. But it has one weakness; it is entirely contrary to the Word of God. It is not permitted by His Word. It constitutes man’s way to God, so it is a reversal of the entire point of worship, the entire point of our relationship to God. If man establishes the terms to his approach to God, then man is in a position to [dictate] the terms of which God is to bless him. He lays down the law, then, to God, because he makes the way. And it is not surprising, therefore, that in Hinduism where man says, “We will worship God according to our imagination in ways that we deem are intelligent and logical,” they also end up stating the terms of the morality in terms of which they can please God. And so you have in Hinduism equally acceptable, total sexual license, total immorality, as one way to God, and total asceticism as another way to God. In other words, every man can set his own pattern of worship and his own pattern of morality. And the result is practically moral anarchism. It is not surprising that India is a symbol of moral depravity. Its rationale is logical, but it is still totally false.

This then brings us to the second aspect of the second commandment. The lawful approach to God is entirely at God’s ordination. Because God is sovereign, He gives the terms of man’s approach, the moral law, the ceremonial law. Every aspect of man’s approach to God is governed by God because God is sovereign. Man does not dictate the terms of their relationship, God does in its entirety.

A third aspect of the second commandment is this; that even as literal idolatry is forbidden, so, when we see this commandment developed in detail in Leviticus 26, the entire chapter, literal blessings and curses ensue on obedience or disobedience. This means, therefore, the true religion cannot be simply a matter of voluntary choice for society. The life of the society rests upon its religion. Obedience is a question of life or death.

Therefore, fourth, we must say in terms of Leviticus 26 that social health requires the prohibition of idolatry. According the Bible and Deuteronomy 17:2-7, it is a capital offense. It is treason, and idolatry was punishable by death.

Now, the laws of humanism, which ultimately say that man is the source of his own law, lead either to “do what thou wilt,” anarchism, or totalitarianism. When you deny an absolute law-order and you refuse to affirm the religion which is the foundation of law-order, then you are inviting moral and social anarchy.

I was interested yesterday to see a leaflet put out by the Peace and Freedom Party, the Riverside County Branch, circulated widely on a campus of the University of California. The leaflet called for voting for Eldridge Cleaver for President. Now, if the name Eldridge Cleaver is not familiar, it is because you’re not too well acquainted with the leadership of the Black Panther party. Now, in part this leaflet reads:

"Now consider Eldridge Cleaver. His ‘American history’ can be told quickly. First he was invisible and irrelevant—a slum kid in Little Rock, a ghetto expendable in Watts. Then he was a local nuisance—in 1954, when he was busted for the first time, aged 18, for smoking pot. Then he became a Savage Menace—that was when he was jailed for the second time, in 1958, for disturbing the beauty sleep of some of suburban Los Angeles’ white goddesses. Later, when in his own beautiful way and against incredible odds he achieved his own distinctive manhood, what was he then?—A political prisoner, in a nation that pretends not even to know the meaning of these words. And today he is a candidate for president of the United States…” ii

Now, notice the utter contempt with which his record of rape is cited, “...disturbing the beauty sleep of some of suburban Los Angeles’ white goddesses.” How dare they complain? The total moral anarchism implicit in this leaflet passed out by white intellectuals. And why not? If there is no absolute law, there is no God, there is no right or wrong in any absolute sense. And who is a better candidate for president then the man who defies totally in all lawless living God's moral law? Moral anarchism is the consequence of idolatry. And so it is that we do have the society we have today.

A few years ago one of England's great jurists, in a lecture, made a number of very surprising statements, but indicative of this fact that this man was beginning to be seriously distrubed by the moral anarchy which was overwhelming his country and the entire world. Sir Patrick Devlin, in his lecture on jurisprudence declared:

"I think it is clear that the criminal law as we know it is based upon moral principle. In a number of crimes its function is simply to enforce a moral principle and nothing else. The law, both criminal and civil, claims to be able to speak about morality and immorality generally. Where does it get its authority to do this and how does it settle the moral principles which it enforces? Undoubtedly, as a matter of history, it derives both from Christian teaching. But I think that the strict logician is right when he says that the law can no longer rely on doctrines in which citizens are entitled to disbelieve. It is necessary therefore to look for some other source.” iii

What Devlin is saying is this; that the law, because it enunciates moral principles, rests on religious doctrines. Now, if people can disbelieve the religious doctrines, if they are given legal freedom to disbelieve them, then they are actually given legal principles whereby to disbelieve the law. Because the law rests on these doctrines, and if these doctrines are not upheld by law, then the moral principles are not upheld. And what do you have? You have either moral anarchy or the need to believe some other doctrine. The state then must all believe in humanism or you must all believe in Marxism or Fabianism, some new doctrine must be required by law then of everyone or you will have no law. And so Devlin concludes:

"A man who concedes that morality is necessary to society must support the use of those instruments without which morality cannot be maintained. The two instruments are those of teaching, which is doctrine, and of enforcement, which is the law. If morals could be taught simply on the basis that they are necessary to society, there would be no social need for religion; it could be left as a purely personal affair. But morality cannot be taught in that way. Loyalty is not taught in that way either. No society has yet solved the problem of how to teach morality without religion. So the law must base itself on Christian morals and to the limit of its ability enforce them, not simply because they are the morals of most of us, nor simply because they are the morals which are taught by the established Church—on these points the law recognizes the right to dissent—but for the compelling reason that without the help of Christian teaching the law will fail.” iv

And so Devlin says, “The matter is simply this; you must either teach the doctrine or you cannot enforce the law. You must therefore have a religious education of the people. They've got to believe the doctrine or they cannot live the law. And if you want the old law,” he says, “you've got to teach Christian doctrine and require it. Or else you're going to end up with a new doctrine which you're going to require and teach because you cannot enforce the law otherwise.” And of course, this is exactly what we have done.

Today we are progressively teaching a new doctrine, humanism, in all the public schools. Increasingly we are pushing out the old doctrine. It is banned, the Bible is banned from the public schools, and ultimately it will be banned from the whole society. After all, how can you have the new law if you permit another law, the Christian Law, to be taught. If there is a law, the doctrine behind the law has to be required. This is the point Devlin is making. And this is the point he is saying of everything in modern society. It is not accidental, therefore, that the Bible is abolished from the schools, and any form of humanism; whether it be liberal humanism or Marxist humanism, is legal in the schools. It is the new doctrine, the new doctrine of the new law. It is mandatory in the schools and soon it will be mandatory in all of society unless there is a change. The laws of the society cannot raise a people above the level of its faith and morality. A people cannot legislate themselves above their own level. And if their faith is humanism, they will reveal the law structure of humanism; every man his own law, doing that which is right in his own eyes. If men hold to a Christian faith then they can establish godly law and order.

Therefore the question is basic: what constitutes treason in a society? Is it idolatry? Or is it disloyalty to the state? Now, this was a problem that concerned the founders of the Constitution and therefore they tried far more than any other country to define treason very narrowly as, “Giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” Well, what happens even with this limited definition if the enemy, as is increasingly the case, becomes the Federal government? Can you define treason then in terms of the state? Must not your definition of treason be basically theological, both to protect the state and its law-order? Thus, idolatry is defined as treason by Scripture.

Fifth, idolatry, however, is also broadly defined. This I pointed out earlier when I cited Ephesians 5:5 and Colossians 3:5, when it speaks of covetousness as idolatry. Idolatry involves any and every way by man to be guided by his own word rather than God's Law-Word. So that whenever we try to approach God on our own terms, or to deal with God, to have a relationship with God on our own terms, we are guilty of idolatry.

Now, we all do this very often piously and, we believe, very devoutly. One of the most common ways this is done is by parents as they deal with wayward children or husbands with wayward wives or wives with wayward husbands. And they fail to move in terms of godly law or discipline. And I’ve heard many a parent say, “I am praying his conversion or her conversion, and all things are possible with God.” But what does that mean? All things are indeed are possible with God, but we cannot move in terms of God’s possibilities, but in terms of the realities, in terms of God’s Law. God does not ever tell us or give us permission to move in terms of what is possible with Him, but always in terms of what His Word requires, what is Word declares. Only in terms of that do we have permission to move. To move in terms of our hopes is to substitute our hope for God’s Word, and is to be rebellious, and as Samuel said to Saul:

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft,

And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. v

The only lawful approach to God, the only way of having any relationship to God, is the way He provides and that way is summed up in the person of Jesus Christ who kept the Law-Word of God in perfection and upheld it every jot and tittle of the law. Any other way is idolatry, even when it is presented in the name of the Lord. “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,” and that graven image we can make not only out of wood, stone, and gold, but out of our hopes and out of our dreams. “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.” Man must live by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

* * *

Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we give thee thanks that thou hast provided the lawful way. We thank thee, our Father ,that by thy grace thou hast summoned us to the way. We pray, our Father, that day by day we may worship thee, not in idolatry, but in faith and obedience in Jesus Christ our Lord. We pray, our Father, that thou wouldst use us to recall this nation to its foundations in thy Word, that thou wouldst cleanse this people of idolatry and make us again a God-fearing land, a people responsible, godly, law-abiding, faithful unto thy Word and rejoicing in thy so-great salvation. Bless us to this purpose. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

* * *

Are there any questions now?

Yes?

[Audience member] Can you comment on the same chapter, verse twenty-four:

“An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me…”

[Rushdoony] First of all, an altar of earth or an altar of stone is required which is without any handiwork of man, it is the natural. In other words, to indicate that man does not provide the altar, God does. It is simply there as God created it. Now, the significance of that was this; the Altar set forth Christ and His atoning sacrifice. Man, therefore, had nothing to contribute to that, it was entirely of God’s doing. Therefore it could not be made by man. Now, in the church there can be properly no altar, because an altar has no function in the church. The Altar and its function ended with the atoning death of Christ. Some churches do have altars. This is a hangover, more or less, of the Catholic mass. Properly, the church has a communion table to set forth the new covenant and the new center of orientation. No longer an altar, but a table.

Yes?

[Audience member] What are the limits to one’s obedience to authority? vi

[Rushdoony] Yes. First of all, every commandment of obedience to man, that is to husband, to parents, to masters, to rulers, is conditional not absolute. Only God can command absolute obedience of us. Therefore, no one in authority has authority to command us to sin, has authority to command us above and beyond their due authority. The state has the authority to be a ministry of justice. It cannot command us legitimately beyond that. It is guilty of sin when it transgresses its due boundaries. The husband is to be obeyed, and what is his authority? It is to be responsible to provide for his own, which means for his parents as well as for his wife and children, to be their protector from the world and from the evil, and to set the pattern of moral responsibility in the family. Now, this is his authority.

Authority, you see, is Biblically never irresponsible authority. Now, our Lord speaks of this kind of authority, He says of the Gentiles, they love to lord it over you. In other words, the authority is their sheer manifestation of power. Biblical authority is the manifestation of responsible power, and between the two there is a world of difference. Similarly, the authority of parents over children is the exercise of responsible power, nothing else.

[Audience member] Can you comment on mixed marriages? vii

[Rushdoony] Yes, right. Alright, now mixed marriages were forbidden in the Old Testament law. This was restated in the New Testament. But many people, for example, a case came up in Corinth, 1 Corinthians 7 deals with it. When they were converted their husband or their wife was not converted so here was a person who was married to an unbeliever. So they raised the question, “Is this marriage legitimate?” and Paul said, “Of course, it is. It is the making of such a marriage by a believer which is forbidden, but for an unbeliever to be in such a marriage already and then converted is an entirely different matter. You are therefore to remain in that condition, but if the unbelieving partner breaks it then you are free.”

Now, the question, of course, has come up over and over again through the centuries is, “What constitutes the breaking of this relationship?” And it has been extensively debated. It was, for example, debated by the company of pastors of Geneva in Calvin’s age. And very few people are aware of what was decided there, including most Reformed people. It has been translated recently, the minutes of the presbytery we would say, or the consistory or church conference, the terms would vary. Now, this was their conclusion; the departure of the desertion can constitute failure to support, it can constitute alcoholism, it can constitute flagrant behavior of various forms. Because there is an actual desertion then, they ruled, they had a number of specific cases of the responsible authority of the household, or of the woman’s place. So, The Register of The Company of Pastors of Geneva in the Time of Calvin goes into this in great detail, and is perhaps the most extensive commentary on such a point. It’s well worth getting and reading because it’s a very detailed and specific analysis of the subject.

Yes?

[Audience member] So you’re saying then that the husband should fall under those categories. Then does that follow that the wife should be the head of the household under certain circumstances? viii

[Rushdoony] As long as the father is in the household, he is the responsible person, whether he exercises it or not.

[Audience member] Whether he acts irresponsibly or not!? What if he’s nutty?  If he’s that irresponsible, he doesn’t belong in the house.

[Rushdoony] Yes?

[Audience member] [Question concerning toleration.]

[Rushdoony] Yes, we should not compromise. This matter of toleration is actually, in 99 cases out of 100, a requirement of surrender. Second, in public schools, since the public schools are anti-God, I question whether any Christian would find it worthwhile to have any part in public school exercises. Because when they do stipulate, as they generally do, that the name of Jesus be left out it isn’t a prayer. What business does a minister have praying? If he can freely, as in a few cases still, pray or speak without dishonoring Christ, then it’s a different matter. But in most cases, such severe limitations are put on him that he is in effect cooperating in something that is anti-Christian.

Yes?

[Audience member] [Question about someone questioning the legitimacy of the Christian faith and the role of the emperor Constantine.]

[Rushdoony] Yes, well, of course, this is so nonsensical that there is hardly any point in dignifying such a person because any examination of the historical documents takes you right back to the first century and gives you an abundant evidence of the entire truth of the Christian history and claim. And of course, at no point have the Scriptures ever been contradicted by any archeological findings, at every point they’ve been confirmed which a is marvelous thing.

Now, the role of Constantine is a very insignificant one in Christian history. Constantine, as an emperor, has been both maligned and unduly praised. He was, truly, Constantine the Great. That title does honestly belong to him. Constantine came to power at a time when the empire, for a long time, had been persecuting the church savagely. In fact, it had determined that it would exterminate all Christians. We have an abundant amount of records of the martyrdom, the all-out effort to wipe out the Christians.

Constantine realized the empire was all but finished, that the people of the empire, by and large, were degenerate and far-gone. And so, as one concerned for the future of the empire, he decided the empire should go Christian. This was the only element in the empire that had any character and faith. So, he, very realistically as a politician, decided that the empire must be Christian.

What his personal faith was, it’s a little hard to determine. He himself did not become baptized until he was dying. But he did make Christianity the religion of the empire. He did realize that there was not much future left in Italy, that it was too far gone and too degenerate, so he established a new capital at Byzantium, Constantinople, named after himself, and made that the center of the Roman empire. And it lasted a thousand years. He was, therefore, a very far-seeing ruler. He did see the potentialities for the future there, and that there was none left in Italy and in old Rome. The Byzantine Empire was the continuation of the Roman Empire and Rome fell, of course, a century or so later.

Yes?

[Audience member] Does God work now through dreams and visions?

[Rushdoony] No, God now works directly through the Scriptures and we have an all-sufficient Word. Until the Revelation of God was finished God spoke to individual men and gave them revelations which are written up in Scripture by the grace and infallible guidance of God. But man does not need revelations now, and any revelations are false, pretended ones.

Yes?

[Audience member] Some people are suggesting, because the state is grabbing for power, even in the Christian school, that the Christian school needs state accreditation. I disagree. What is your take on this? ix

[Rushdoony] I would definitely agree with you. The state today is moving towards total power. Accreditation is the surrender of any Christian or independent school because it acknowledges another board as the higher board, the accreditation board, and they will ultimately govern the school. The accreditation committees make it easy for a school to gain accreditation. Then, little by little, they say, “To retain your accreditation this and that must be done.” Finally, they are governing the school, lock stock and barrel. I think it is definitely wrong for a school to seek accreditation. It is suicidal. A school that has accreditation should sever accreditation because in the long run it will do it a great deal of damage.

Yes?

[Audience member] I know some people who had very powerful visions, they tell me they were from God. What would be your assessment of such matters? x

[Rushdoony] Well, I don’t regard them as real visions. I’ve, over the years, had people tell me all kinds of visions that they have had of things that were going to happen. And I haven’t ever heard one that had any semblance of reality to it, and the people that had the visions usually were very emotionally unstable. A great deal is made of what these visions supposedly said that came true, but you notice that always this is always after the date. And you will not find in the accounts of these visions prior to an event any accounting of that event.

I collected, in particular, over the years, books on the pyramid. The pyramid, supposedly, in its structure according to a great many cultists prophesied that history of the world indefinitely and had prophesied World War I and Hitler and Stalin and Mussolini and so on and so forth, it’s all there in the structure of the pyramid. It’s amazing how accurate the prophecy is when you read about it after the event. But you go back to the pyramidologists of their books in 1910 and 1911 and there’s not a hint of anything in the future. But read their books in 1935 or ‘36 and it’s marvelous how it prophesied all these things!

Well, the same is true with some of these prophecies from Spain and Portugal, the visions they’ve had, they’re marvelous in telling you what happened that already happened, but I’ve never seen a one that revealed anything of the future. Incidentally, did you know that according to one of the greatest of the quacks of America, Cayce, Edgar Cayce, the whole of California was supposed to have slipped off into the ocean by this time?

Now, Cayce is a prime quack. Everything that you read about him has been written about him after his death. Before his death there was nothing that anyone could cite that was verifiable about all these miracles he supposedly did. And this is true of a lot of others. There’s another one, now living, Ford, who is supposed to be so marvelous. But Ford has been in and out of mental institutions, I believe, and has a very bad record of mental disturbances.

When we get off into these visionaries and seers and seeresses, we’re getting into a very shaky area, which very commonly borders on mental disturbances and also bad moral character. I think it is significant that The Society for Psychic Research, which believes that there is a great deal of truth in this sort of thing, has nevertheless said that of all the people they’ve worked with over the years, only two can they say with any reasonable degree of certainty were not deeply involved in all kinds of fraud, that is, of bad moral character. And I would say there are grounds for suspicion with regard to those two.

Yes?

[Audience member] Jeane Dixon and Taylor Caldwell, they claim to be Christians…

[Rushdoony] Yes, Jeane Dixon claims to be Christian, but some of her ideas are occultist to the core. So that, while she is nominally a Catholic, I question whether she is a Christian. It is very convenient for many of these people to parade under a Christian name because it gives them wide acceptance. Her so-called prophecies, if you read what she writes, it’s all so vague that I would say you and I have more often been accurate in calling the future then they have.

I know that it’s been lately reported that two or three of the seers or seeresses foretold Kennedy's death and I recall reading their predictions in January and I didn’t see anything that indicated it. What they did say, “There may be dark shadows over this and that prominent person’s career.” Vague things like that and after it’s happened, they prophesied it.

As far as Taylor Caldwell is concerned, she herself, while a very fine conservative, nonetheless has ideas that are definitely not Christian. I don’t think she has done herself or her peace of mind any good by dabbling in these things, and I understand in her recent appearance here it was as hopeless a speech as anyone could deliver and that’s not surprising. If you have the kind of faith she has, you’re not going to have any hope.

Yes? One more. Did you have?

[Audience member] Can you offer a good definition of religion? xi

[Rushdoony] Yes, I think the best definition of religion comes from a man I don’t know whether I could agree with him on anything else and that’s Paul Tillich. Paul Tillich defined religion as “ultimate concern.” That is, whatever you regard as ultimate.

Now, I like this definition because it brings out the fact very clearly that most religions are not concerned with God. In fact, practically no other religion is other than Biblical faith. Most religions are man-centered; humanism, animism. shintoism. Practically all your religions do not have a god. Ancestor-worship is a religion, you see, but it’s not concerned with God. So this is the best definition. Ours is a theistic religion. That is, it is concerned with God; basically and centrally, totally.

Yes?

[Audience member] Could you expand on the meaning of ‘ultimate concern?’xii

[Rushdoony] Ultimate concern? That which is ultimate, that which is basic, that which is your foundation. In other words, the source of your absolutes. Is your absolute from this world or from God? In all other religions, while one or two other religions talk about “God,” they are truly man-centered or of this-worldly. Buddhism, for example, is an atheistic religion, but it is a religion. For Buddhism, there is no God, there is no truth, it is total atheism.

i. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Ex 20:1–6.

ii. Peace and Freedom Party, Riverside County Cleaver for President Committee, Eldridge Cleaver for President (Riverside, Calif., 1968). For more on Cleaver, see Peace and Freedom News, Special Issue (May 6, 1968), Berkeley, Calif.

iii. Sir Patrick Devlin, The Enforcement of Morals, Maccabaean Lecture in Jurisprudence of the British Academy, 1959 (London: Oxford University Press, 1959, 1962), p. 9.

iv. Sir Patrick Devlin, The Enforcement of Morals, Maccabaean Lecture in Jurisprudence of the British Academy, 1959 (London: Oxford University Press, 1959, 1962), p. 25.

v. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), 1 Sa 15:23.

vi. Question added for clarity and brevity.

vii. Question added for clarity and brevity.

viii. Question modified for clarity and brevity.

ix. Question added for clarity and brevity.

x. Question added for clarity and brevity.

xi. Question added for clarity and brevity.

xii. Question added for clarity and brevity.