15. Uncovering the Springs (Remastered)

Uncovering the Springs

R.J. Rushdoony

Our Scripture is Leviticus 20:18, and Ezekiel 18:5-9 and our subject, ‘Uncovering the Springs.’ Leviticus 20:18, and Ezekiel 18:5-9.

“And if a man shall lie with a woman having her sickness, and shall uncover her nakedness; he hath discovered her fountain, and she hath uncovered the fountain of her blood: and both of them shall be cut off from among their people.”

Leviticus 20:18.

“But if a man be just, and do that which is lawful and right, And hath not eaten upon the mountains, neither hath lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, neither hath defiled his neighbour’s wife, neither hath come near to a menstruous woman, And hath not oppressed any, but hath restored to the debtor his pledge, hath spoiled none by violence, hath given his bread to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with a garment; He that hath not given forth upon usury, neither hath taken any increase, that hath withdrawn his hand from iniquity, hath executed true judgment between man and man, Hath walked in my statutes, and hath kept my judgments, to deal truly; he is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord God.”

Ezekiel 18:5-9.

One of the problems today in the church is that an unholy prudery has kept the church from dealing with many laws. Add to this an unbelief, an antinomianism, whereby the laws are regarded no longer as valid. The law that concerns us today is an example of one of these neglected laws. 

Now obviously this law deals with something significant. The law here, several times in the Books of Moses, in Leviticus 20:18 which we read, in chapter 18:19, and chapter 15:24, there is a reference also to it in Ezekiel 18:5-9 and again in Ezekiel 22:10. Much of Leviticus 15 deals with the same subject or aspects of it.

First of all the law, to cite it briefly, forbids sexual relations with a menstruous woman for a period of seven days, or with a woman who has not fully recovered from childbirth. If the relations, that is with a menstruous woman are done unknowingly, there is no moral penalty, merely purification. If deliberate, then excommunication is the penalty. This offense is listed as one of those, according to Leviticus, that pollutes the land, which leads to a sickened land and a revolt of nature around man.

Now obviously this commandment is an important one in Scripture because it appears repeatedly, and because particular stress is laid upon it in Ezekiel, and because it is cited as one of those things which pollutes the world round about us. It has therefore, something to do with our attitude towards the entire world, that when you find this you also find simultaneously a destruction of the world of nature.

Now as we analyze this first, rather briefly, it is very clear, first of all, that this act is classified as an aggressive act, it is willful. Second as we have already pointed out, it is an act which pollutes the land. The Bible holds there is a relationship between man and nature. Third, an aspect cited by Ezekiel in Ezekiel 22:10 is that it is an act of perversity, that there is a deliberate perversity about it. On this last point, I think there is abundant conformation. In my own personal experience counseling people over the years, I have found that this is an aspect of perversity, that very often a man will insist upon it if it is repellent to the woman, or the woman will insist upon it if it is repellent to the man. In other words, its appeal is precisely its offensiveness.

Now, the text literally read, “uncovered her fountain,” or “exposed her fountain,” or “she hath exposed the fountain of her blood.” Now, what does this mean, literally? ‘Fountain’ can be translated, our usage for the word fountain is an artificial one representing the construction of fountains in relatively modern times as well as in ancient Rome, but in the Old Testament times a fountain was a natural spring, a natural source of living water. It is very interesting to note that the word ‘fountain,’ also ‘spring’, is the same word in Scripture as ‘eye;’ the eyes of a man. It is used symbolically also of God. It is also used symbolically as a source of grace, also used of Israel as the father of his people, of a good wife, she is spoken of as a spring or an eye whereby a man has living water, or you can also say, a greater vision, his sight is increased by a godly wife.

Now in our text it obviously has both a literal and a symbolic meaning. A fountain is a source, a place on earth where living water comes forth. Now, of course in the literal sense this obviously has an analogy to the woman’s ovulation. Now, what is its symbolic meaning? Why is the law stressed so heavily in Scripture?

First, to analyze the implications of this law so we can understand its symbolic meaning, this law places the woman beyond the man’s use for a regular period of time, regularly. Similarly, the woman cannot submit or commit herself to a man without limits or without reservation. In other words, man is God's creature, God is the ultimate fountain of life. Man cannot transgress in any area because every area of life is to be seen in terms of God and His Word; man’s lordship is under God.

This means that a man cannot exercise unreserved lordship over anyone or anything, nor can anyone permit unreserved lordship over him or her. Thus, in everything there is a private domain, a domain that is exclusive between the individual and God, an area where man cannot trespass; and this private domain belongs to God, and every other domain is subject to God's control.

Very obviously therefore no man can thus make a woman his creature, or any woman make herself man’s creature; the relationship is covered by God's Law, and we cannot go further than God's Law. God's Law, in other words, does not permit the transgression of the privacy of another person. Our relationship, even in the intimacy of marriage, is always under law so that it is never subject to our feelings, but only to God's word. We can never use ourselves or one another in terms of our desires, but always subject to God's Law because our fountains are in God. God is the source of our life, He alone, therefore, has total right and power to unrestricted knowledge, unrestricted use, and unrestricted jurisdiction over us.

No man can claim that right without striking at God. No matter how deeply we love someone therefore, we can never have a total relationship with them, we cannot enter totally into their life. Only God can have a total relationship with us. God knows everything about us, every thought, every fiber of our being, the very hairs of our head, we are told, are all numbered. God has this total access, this total government over our lives. But this law declares that not only are there actual physical limits to the relationship between man and wife, but that symbolically there is a relationship, bounded by law at all times, so that no one can have a total relationship with anyone else. Ultimately and essentially we are always the Lord’s. We can never totally belong to anyone else, or have a total relationship with another.

Now consider the implications of this law. As I indicated, this law obviously has a symbolic content. Very obviously it is important and has far-reaching implications. These implications have been lost because for untold generations people have just foolishly walked around this law and read it and passed on without thinking. But consider its implications. If a man feels that he has total relationship with his wife or a woman with her husband, the total right of use of one another, then certainly in other areas they are going to feel that they have a total right of use, are they not? They can use nature as they will. So that a person who feels he can use, say, his wife, or a wife who feels that she can put herself at the use of her husband totally, is going to feel no restraint as they approach the world of nature. Nature is there just to be used, to be exploited. And so there is no law governing or restricting our use of the world around us. We can uncover the springs, the fountains of nature, lay it waste, because we are the Lord’s thereof, without reservation. That is the attitude that follows. And we should not be surprised, therefore, that when God's Law is despised, nature is despised. And today we have the radical exploitation of nature that is leading to the destruction of the world around us.

It is interesting that when the atomic age began, the atomic scientists were fully aware of how radical the pollution of the world could be from fallout and how it could, in a couple of generations create a devastating problem. They knew it, and they went ahead saying, “When that time comes we will think of something.” In other words, “Uncover the springs of life, use and abuse them as total Lords.”

Another implication of this law. If man and wife have no right to total claim over one another or total knowledge or relationships with one another, then certainly the state has no right to total knowledge over its citizens, nor total obedience from them, nor total jurisdiction over them. We are creatures of God only, not of the state nor of one another. But it is characteristic of ungodly man that he seeks to use man in terms of his own will rather than God's Law. 

We saw earlier the military laws of Scripture some few months ago, the very real restraints they place on man’s ability to use his enemy, and also to use nature. No permission even to destroy the fruit trees of the enemy. But what happens when this attitude disappears? In the Thirty Years War, for example, Germany was devastated in a radical way. The absolute horrors of that war are staggering. In the Thirty Years War, both sides felt that they could destroy, not only whole cities and villages, orchards, vineyards, everything, level them, but that they could use men as they saw fit. And so, it became a popular pastime on both sides during the Thirty Years War to take the farmers and peasants and the villagers as soon as they captured them and to geld the men in the presence of their wives and daughters, and then to have a massive rape of them, this was great sport. And this kind of thing has happened through the ages whenever a man feels that there is no God over him to govern him. And this is why we are today on the verge of total lawlessness again because man is throwing off the yokes of God's Law, the restraints of God's Law, and feels that he can do as he pleases.

For example, to cite another instance of the kind of total control men feel they have; Louis XIV, when he wanted to break the back of the Huguenots in France, quartered his troops on them. Now, the troops in those days were usually the lowest kinds of people, the dregs of society. Even the French dreaded to see their army, just as the English did, to see their own army move into their area because the troops were so lawless. And to quarter the troops on the families meant that it was to commit the women of a household to the use of the man with a gun who was stationed on them. Our history books no longer say much about it, but can you understand why the Americans resented the quartering of troops on them by Parliament? If that alone was not grounds for war, then I don’t know what is right and wrong. But the textbooks pass over this now. Of course it doesn’t mean much to the historians in this modern day and age because anything goes.

God places a restraint on man in every area by His law. It is to Napoleon’s credit that whatever his sins were, at this point where warfare was concerned, he had a godly respect for the enemy. On one occasion he sentenced to death one of his top officers because when stationed in a certain area, he wrote an insulting letter to one of the citizens of that area, making unreasonable demands and insulting demands. And as he gave the sentence, he said to the entire assembled officers of his army: 

“Understand this gentlemen. One kills men, but one never puts them to shame. Let him be shot!” ⁱ

It took the persuasion of his general staff to lead him to alter that order. There was a sound perspective there that we must respect in Napoleon, whatever his other sins were.

Thus this law is important. It means that the relationship even in the intimacy of marriage, the most personal, the most intense relationship on this earth is severely restricted by God's Law, that no man can claim total jurisdiction over a woman or a woman give herself totally to a man, that this area is an area of privacy that is reserved to the individual under God, even as the rest of our lives is subject to the Law of God.

Scripture gives us no power to go further than it allows. If a husband and a wife can go no further, neither than can he church, which has so often in the past and in the present attempted to transgress; nor the state, nor the school today, which is entering into domains where it has no jurisdiction, nor anyone else. It is wickedness when they seek to do so.

No person, no institution can ever claim any jurisdiction beyond that which Scripture allows. We are at all times under God's Law, never directly under man’s will.

Let us pray.

* * *

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto thee for the certainty of thy law. We thank thee that thy Law puts a hedge around us and protects us from ourselves, from our loved ones and our enemies, from all things. And we thank thee that those who transgress thy law are under thy judgement, and that thy deliverance is nigh unto thy people. In this confidence, our Father, we face these days of lawlessness, knowing, O Lord, that thy judgement is sure, thy deliverance certain, and thy grace aboundeth. Our God we thank thee, in Jesus' name. Amen. 

* * *

Are there any questions now first of all with respect to our lesson?

Yes?

[Audience Member] Even in going to the Moon they had to rely on God’s Law, and yet at each point they tried to use the Moon landings to mock God and say that He doesn’t exist. ⁱⁱ

[Rushdoony] You are right in that going to the Moon they had to go in terms of God's Law, they were bound by it at all times. But of course in going there, what they were trying to do is to overthrow God's Law, and this is the whole purpose of their attempt here. It’s a vast boondoggle because it has no practical consequences by government and science in an attempt to prove that evolution is true, and there is no God. But as you have so well pointed out, all they have done is to illustrate that at every point they are bounded by law.

It is ironic that even as they must operate in terms of physical principles and laws, they work to deny that any such thing exists. The most influential work today in university circles among scientists is a work by Dr. Kuhn, who insists that there is no such thing as law, there are only paradigms; ideas and concepts which work for a while, and then you find out they are false so you pick up another thing that will work for a while, but there is no such thing as truth, no law. This is a luxury they can afford when they lecture, not when they work in the laboratory, ideas like this.

Yes?

[Audience Member] I’ve heard it said that if there is no law, then there is no guilt and that this is the principle underlying ‘no fault divorce.’ ⁱⁱⁱ

[Rushdoony] Yes, I did comment on it a few weeks ago, and the gist of the whole law is that there is no guilt. And if there is no guilt, there is no innocence either. And of course the whole purpose of the law then is to break down the integrity of marriage, it is just a matter of choice to break up the marriage, and the guilt not being designated, and no attempt being made in the hearing to discover a guilt, the disposition of the children is purely arbitrary, which is an exceedingly serious fact.

If there are no further questions, I would like to pass on something to you connected with what our subject was last week when we dealt with homosexuality. Since then there has been another little item in Ann Landers’ column which is revealing of her attitude. 

“Confidential to heartbroken mother of a boy with a twisted mind. Yes I recommend psychiatric help, not for him but for you. Your son has learned to live with his homosexuality. In fact he seems to have adjusted very well. Now, you must learn to accept him how he is and stop torturing yourself.”

This of course puts the finger on what modern psychotherapy is. It has no sense of right and wrong, you learn to live with what you are, and to accept it because there is no right and wrong. And so, what is wrong, if we can use that word, because they can’t escape the concept? Why, it is the mother here, because she is distressed at her son’s perversion. And of course, whether she knows it not, she is here echoing the thesis of a letter Freud wrote many, many years ago to a mother who wrote in considerable anguish about her son’s homosexuality. And he rebuked her for her feelings, and said that her son could be helped. “How?” “He would learn to accept himself.” And that was the purpose of psychoanalysis. And there, of course, is its great evil.

One little footnote to our subject of last week, homosexuality, the most interesting thing to me was the reaction. Both here and in the past in the evenings there are many children and young people from pre-teen age to college age who listen. There were for the first time a number of comments from them last week. It was startling how many of them talked to me after the meeting to tell me that this was a problem on the school grounds and off the school grounds of considerable dimensions. Some of the college students said that they were aggressively solicited by card-carrying perverts, who very proudly flashed the cards of their organization and threatened people, so that they were very glad to hear a subject that has never been discussed before in any religious group. It was a start to me to realize how many of them had extensive knowledge of the subject from very aggressive actions on school grounds and off the school grounds as well. It does indicate how serious our present situation is.

Yes?

[Audience Member] Can you comment on the present ‘troubles’ in Ireland? ^iv

[Rushdoony] The war in Ireland, about the most I can say for it is a plague on both their sides. I think the people on both sides who are involved in this are hoodlums. I have no use for the Reverend Mr. Paisley, I think he is a troublemaker, and his associations in this country with certain of our leaders are not ones I have any respect for. Now supposedly what they are afraid of, the ‘Protestants’ so-called there, is that in Union with Ireland, if such a Union is ever affected, the Protestant minority will suffer. While the reality is that there are Protestants in the rest of Ireland, and there is no persecution of them. 

The real issues go deeper, the background of the problem in Ireland is not religious as much as it is between different branches of the same racial group. Both the Scots and the Irish are Gaelic in background. Now, the people of North[ern] Ireland are predominately what is called ‘Scotch Irish.’ The Scotch-Irish are Scottish settlers who some few centuries ago were brought in by the English. These Scotch-Irish settlers have no desire to be a part of the rest of Ireland. The rest of Ireland feels very strongly that Ireland should again be united and be free as an entire unity. This is the real basis of conflict, and I think this is the background and the façade under which the religious aspect masquerades itself because some religious exploiters are using the situation. This is the real problem, there are many Irishmen from the rest of Ireland that are in North[ern] Ireland which is an industrial area working, and naturally they are for union, and the Scotch Irish element is very hostile to it, they want to maintain their unity with Great Britain.

Of course, you can add to the situation and the problem now that the Scots in Scotland are increasingly in favor of independence, and the Welsh in Wales. So Great Britain has its problems, and many of them are of its own making through singular disrespect for these groups. I think the Scotch in particular were offended when Elizabeth was crowned and she insisted on taking the name Elizabeth II, but she is not as far as the United Kingdom is concerned, she is Elizabeth the II of England, but Elizabeth the I of the United Kingdom. But she in effect said, “Scotland doesn’t matter.” And of course this climaxed of a long period of contempt as it were for Scotland and Wales, as though the only part of the United Kingdom that counts is England itself. So, it has a long, involved history, And I have barely scratched the surface.

Yes?

[Audience Member] The Irish are over here with sob stories.  ^v

[Rushdoony] Well, of course the reason for that appeal is to get the sympathy of the Irish in the United States. There is a long history of appeals to the United States on the part of Ireland. When the Civil War broke out, we had a fair-sized Irish population, and one of the little known aspects of the Civil War that at the time created a lot of tension with Great Britain, was that Union agents were apparently in Ireland recruiting soldiers. ‘Come over to the United States and fight, and get you citizenship.’ And the Irish were ready to do it, and did it in considerable numbers, although some Irish fought on the side of the South, because they wanted the military experience so that they could then go back to Ireland and fight the English!

There is a long, as I say, and involved history in this connection that led to a lot of trouble. One of the attempts after the Civil War was on the part of the Irish who had gained military experience to invade Canada from the United States, and they actually organized towards that end, so that the British would be forced to send troops to Canada, and meanwhile there would be a revolution in Ireland.

I give this as a background. It’s a long involved history, and the United States, because of its Irish population, has always been important to Irish politics. And when there is a speech either in North[ern] Ireland or Ireland proper, there is usually a great deal of it said with an eye on the United States. There are more Irish in New York, for example, than there are in Dublin, so when you consider the Irish population of the United States, the Irish politicians on both sides talk with the American patriots in mind.

Yes? 

[Audience Member] Dr. Rushdoony, how was it that Adam and Eve knew the Law of God? ^vi

[Rushdoony] There was an oral revelation to Adam and Eve at the beginning, so they obviously had a knowledge of the Law quite extensively. We do know that they observed, for example, the distinction between clean and unclean animals, we do know that they observed a number of other laws and regulations, so that they appeared for example in the early and later chapters of Genesis before the Law was given. So that a very large amount of the Law was apparently known by people at that time orally.

Yes?

[Audience Member] Can you comment on the long lifespans of men on earth before the Flood? ^vii

[Rushdoony] Yes, there is an obvious abnormality about man’s lifespan, because the lifespan of most mammals can be very simply computed; you take the period of their maturity, multiply it by five and add it on to their period of maturation. So that if an animal takes a year to mature, then it has six years as a lifespan. Well, man’s period of maturation is roughly twenty years, so he should live approximately a hundred and twenty, in terms of this kind of computing. And obviously man’s lifespan is radically shorter.

In the world before the flood, man did have a very long lifespan. After the flood it began to drop very steadily. Some fifteen to twenty years ago a statistician took a chart of this, and he said (I don’t know enough about statistics even though I took a course in statistical method) that in terms of an exponential curve this was a valid curve, indicating that the facts were true facts until man’s lifespan became what it is today. Now, Isaiah declares that the time will come again when under a godly world order, when the sinner dies at a hundred he will be accounted to have died young.

Yes?

[Audience Member] Does the Law of God forbid men from eating pork?  ^viii

[Rushdoony] Yes, the law against the use of pork of course is very definitely and very firmly stated in Scripture. And we know that the law has a sound background because I saw a list once of over two hundred diseases that can be communicated through pork. The prohibition is firm, it is there. 

Now in the New Testament we are told that while there is a difference now in our relationship to these regulations, they are there as a principle of health that while we are no longer bound to abide by them in the sense that we cannot eat with another person who uses pork, and Paul and Peter when they went around, in their personal diet they maintained the dietary law of the Old Testament, but they never made it an issue if they ate with another. So that if they were guests in those homes of other people, they ate their food, including pork. This was no longer to be a principle of division because Christ is. However, they maintained it on the whole in their personal living. In the world round about them, pork was very heavily used.

Now, it is significant that there was a religious prohibition against pork in the Bible, but there was a religious requirement of pork in the world round about them. And this is a very significant fact. In other words it would appear that precisely because God had prohibited it, other people made it a requirement, in a sense, to say religiously, “You see, this is where we stand on the whole matter.” And you find, for example, in some of the countries that the meat that was used for offerings at the temple had to be pork. So it was really a deliberate counter-offering as it were. I think the avoidance of pork is a good, sound, health principle as well as a good requirement of Scripture.

[Audience Member] Some say that eating meat is bad, period.  ^ix

[Rushdoony] There are those who claim that it is the meat that most readily communicates, even with extensive cooking, other ailments. I don’t know, I have no confidence in this area. I do know that it is listed as something like beasts of prey that is forbidden to us, it is a scavenger animal, and scavenger animals are forbidden. That is the principle.

[Audience Member] Are chickens unclean like pigs? ^x

[Rushdoony] No, chickens are not because of certain aspects of their digestive tract. You see.

One thing more and our time is up. 

A few months ago our newsletter, the Chalcedon Report, was written by Gary North with an introduction by myself, dealing with the college student movement, and in particular Gary North reported on the YAFF conference at Long Beach. A conference at which the anarchistic element predominated, in which the backslide of anarchism was flaunted. 

Now, at the conference because of the kickback and the opposition by many adults who were present, the YAFF claimed that it was not a YAFF conference, they disowned it. Now, that the dust has settled it is interesting to see that they are again calling it a YAFF conference. They made their explanations to every big contributor to YAFF; they have smoothed all ruffled feathers. And this week I received a letter, a form letter, from California Young Americans for Freedom signed by the executive director, commending Rampart College, and stating: 

“Rampart college has become our main arsenal supplying this weapon which is so crucial in the fight for freedom.” 

And it goes on to speak of Mr. LeFevre, and also the important part he and Rampart played in setting up the conference June 16-18. So now they are boasting of their part. If anything this proves that they lack elementary honesty because first they put on a conference, and when there is a kick back they say they have nothing to do with it, and now they are boasting of their part in the conference. So, they are appealing here for funds in their fight for freedom. Well, how much freedom can liars gain for us?

Well, with that our time is up.

i. Jean Savant, Napoleon in His Time (New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1958), p. 223.

ii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

iii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

iv.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

v.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

vi.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

vii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

viii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

ix.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

x.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.