2. Direction of the Law (Remastered)

The Direction of the Law

R.J. Rushdoony

[Rushdoony] Our scripture is 1 Corinthians 9:1-14, and our subject is ‘The Direction of the Law.’

“Am I not an apostle? am I not free? have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? are not ye my work in the Lord? If I be not an apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am to you: for the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord. Mine answer to them that do examine me is this, Have we not power to eat and to drink? Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas? Or I only and Barnabas, have not we power to forbear working? Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things? If others be partakers of this power over you, are not we rather? Nevertheless we have not used this power; but suffer all things, lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ. Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar? Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.”  1

We began last week a study of the Mosaic law, of biblical law. As we continue our study this week, we shall deal with certain basic characteristics of biblical law.

First of all, the law gives us certain basic premises, broad basic principles. The Ten Commandments are such declarations. The Ten Commandments are not laws among many other laws of the Bible, but they are a summation of the basic principles of the law. To understand what the law means here, let us examine very briefly (later we shall spend a few months going into each of the laws) one of the commandments; “thou shalt not steal.” This, we find in Exodus 20:15 and in Deuteronomy 5:19.

Now, as we analyze this commandment, a basic law, there are certain things that appear. As we analyze it, we find, and to enumerate them under the broad heading of

1) Basic Principles, A.

The commandment, thou shalt not steal establishes positively private property, and negatively it declares that there are punishments for offenses against property. So, we have here an area, a basic area of life, declared to be under the protection of God’s Law, to be a law area, property. Property is, thus, of the ordination of God himself. It is not something that man chooses and says, “Now, I like the idea of private property therefore, I’m going to have laws respecting private property.” On the contrary, the law says this is of God’s ordination. Therefore the laws that govern it must be from God. Because if man himself says, “I establish private property because I like the idea,” then man also, or some human institution such as the state, can also say, “I abolish private property because I have now decided I don’t’ like it.” But biblical law says, “thou shalt not steal.” This is God’s Law. Therefore anyone who tampers with private property is tampering with what God has ordained.

This, of course, leads us to our second point.

A.

This commandment establishes an area of life as God’s ordination, private property.

B.

The establishment of property issues now from man or the state, but from God, because all commandments have their origin from God to govern His realm because He is the king. And as king, He declares, “My law has jurisdiction. I do not tolerate other laws.”

It follows from this:

C.

Since God issues the law, any offense against the law is an offense against God.

Now, when David committed both murder and adultery, and confessed it in Psalm 51:4, he declared:

Against thee, thee only, have I sinned,

And done this evil in thy sight

In other words, first and last, the offense was against God. Indeed  he had committed adultery and he had killed a man and David was fully aware of the damage he had done to human beings. But he knew that because it was the Law of God, first and last, the offense was against God. So that when a man steals he is offending God, first and last. It is he who is offending you also, but in offending you, he is also offending, primarily, God.

And finally:

D.

It follows that lawlessness is, thus, sin. Any civil or familial, or ecclesiastical, or other social action of disobedience is also a sin, unless the prior Law of God requires us to disobey because we have been commanded to disobey God by obeying church, or state, or any other institutions. So that all civil disobedience is not only lawlessness, it is also a sin, unless a prior obedience to God requires it.

Now, we have seen our first basic characteristic of biblical law, that certain broad principles are declares, and one of these that we are dealing with very briefly today is the commandment, “thou shalt not steal.”

2.

Second, the major portion of biblical law is case law, and when we go through the law, we are dealing almost entirely with case law. Now, what is ‘case law?’ The idea of case law comes from the Bible. We do have case law in the courts of the United States. Today, the case law has become lawless. But in origin, in the American legal tradition, case law stems from the fact that the biblical law was the common law of the land.

Now, case law is illustrative of the basic principles of the law in terms of specific cases. Case law takes a minimal example, and says, “Now, this principle applies here therefore it applies anywhere above this.” It does this to prevent us from misunderstanding the law.

Now, let us examine a case law from the Bible. First, we have the basic law, “thou shalt not steal.” Next, a case law illustrative of this. There are hundreds of case laws with reference to theft, but here is one that we’re going to deal with, Deuteronomy 25:4:

“Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.”

Now, this is an illustration. It is a case. In other words, if you have an ox and you are using it to tread out the corn, that is, to thresh it, the ox is entitled to some feed out of that grain. In other words, you are robbing the ox if you are not feeding it properly. This is what the law means.

Now, if theft involves denying an ox his wages, and an ox has a property in his wages, in his labor, it follows that man does too, doesn’t he? So you have a basic principle illustrated.

Now, in our Scripture, we saw a further application of this case law by St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 9:9, 10 and 14, he declared:

“For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope.

Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.”

Then again, St. Paul deals with this in 1 Timothy 5:18:

“For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward.”

Now, St. Paul has cited two case laws. One,

“Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treddeth out the corn.” And the other:

“Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning.”

This is from Leviticus 19:13 and Deuteronomy 24:14.

“Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates…”

So, how is the commandment, “thou shalt not steal,” illustrated? There are, as I’ve said, hundreds of case laws. You have a right to your property that is ordained of God, this applies to your land. It applies to your possessions, and as we shall see, the right to your land includes the fact that it is immune from taxation or confiscation. Now, that’s the biblical law. We shall see later why this is so important some few months hence.

But, it also says you have a right to your labor. It is your property. You cannot defraud the ox without robbing it, and you defraud it if you do not feed it properly. Your ox still has a property right established by God.

“The laborer is worthy of his hire.”

Now, Jesus quoted that, thereby himself putting his stamp of approval on this law. He quoted it in Luke 10:7. So, Paul says, “If the ox has a property right in its labor, how much more have I as an Apostle of God, of Jesus Christ? I have full title to be paid and to be paid well by the churches I serve.”

Now, let’s go a step further. We have seen that what applies to the ox applies to man. You cannot rob the ox, how much less have you a right to [rob] man? This is the minimum instance, the ox. We shall see it applied even to birds later on when we come to the commandment. What right do birds have? God says He is mindful in my law through my servant Moses of the least of my creatures. And the ground, we cannot rob the earth, we must use it under God. The law, you see, through case laws, has such a total application, but if we cannot rob the earth, or the birds, or the ox, we certainly cannot rob man. How much less can we rob God? And Malachi makes this point. In Malachi 3:8-12,

Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me.

But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee?

In tithes and offerings.

Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me,

Even this whole nation.

Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse,

That there may be meat in mine house,

And prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts,

If I will not open you the windows of heaven,

And pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes,

And he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground;

Neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.

And all nations shall call you blessed:

For ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts.

So, it applies to the ground, to the bird, to the ox, therefore, to man and certainly to God.

Now, we see the necessity of case law, do we not? It’s not enough to say, “thou shalt not steal.” The Buddhists believe that it’s wrong, the Moslems do, every culture has laws against theft, but these are humanistic laws. So first, it’s defined by the culture and the state, and it can be redefined to take away your rights, and all it means basically is simple theft, taking what somebody has, and even that can be changed by law.

But when God defines it, first to the basic principle, then the series of dozens upon dozens of case laws, we see the extent of the law, and the full meaning of it. And those who deny biblical case law, who say, “Well, the only part of the law that is still meaningful is the Ten Commandments,” end up with no real knowledge of what God means when He says, “thou shalt not steal.”

1.

Thus, first, the law gives us a basic premise or principle. “thou shalt not steal.”

2.

Second, it gives us case law to illustrate this. First, we have seen “thou shalt not muzzle the ox,” and second, “Will a man rob God?”

3.

Now third, what is the purpose of the law, the direction of the law? The purpose and the direction of the law is the restitution of God’s order.

Now, this is very different from what the law sees as its purpose now. I took down one of the better, I would say one of the very best of modern legal philosophers to see how he would define justice, and this is what he declared.

“Justice, in its true and proper perspective, is a principle of co-ordination between subjective beings.”  2

Now, you can see the total relativism there, can you not? It is a principle of coordination between subjective human beings. In other words, there is no objective law, there is just a coordination. And when 99 out of 100 define coordination as expropriating what you have, and they say, “Well now, you’re not coordinating,” and you are the lone troublemaker. “Why don’t you get with it? Why don’t you be a good boy? After all, coordination is what we want.” And this is exactly what’s happening today. And those of you who don’t like a property tax, and who don’t like expropriation, and who don’t like the fact that people can come in and rat and rob you, and what are the policemen there for now? To protect the robbers, not you and your property. Isn’t this what the Attorney General has made clear? Isn’t this what they have done? Well, you’re not coordinating, you see, with the trend of the time.

But when we hold that God has ordained law, and law either comes from God and His Word or it is not law, we are saying there is an objective order, an absolute order, and it’s not what we like. We may like communism, or we may likeprivate property, but that is totally irrelevant, because the law has nothing to do with what we like or what our preference is. The law has to do with the absolute righteousness, with the justice of God. God ordains private property, “Thou shalt not steal.” And God doesn’t care whether you like it or not. He says, “This is the law.” And so the law and the justice of God’s Law deals with a basic objective order, with a law that doesn’t change because men change.

Now, humanism can have restitution, and we said that the third basic characteristic of biblical law, which gives us the direction of law, is restitution. Now, you can have restitution in humanistic law, but it still is not sufficient. We do have restitution in our laws today, incidentally. We’ll come to that later also. But since the law today is the law of the state, if you rob do you have to repay? Only if you’ve robbed the state. In other words, somebody can pass a bad check on you. the state may send him to prison, but you don’t get your money back. But if somebody robs the Federal government, they have to repay. Restitution is required, because the state says, “It’s our law and you have to restore to us.” So you see what the state is saying? “We alone have private property. We alone have rights.”

But biblical restitution is of God’s order and everything God’s order covers. And because God has said, “thou shalt not steal,” if anyone steals $100 from you, according to the biblical law, they must restore that $100 plus $100, the exact amount they were going to profit by, so they restore $200. If they steal a cow because the cow can increase, they restore not only the cow but four, because the cow can increase and multiply. And so restitution must be at least double, and it can be fourfold and fivefold according to the Law of God as given through Moses.

According to the biblical law, restitution must be required by courts of all offenders. And the purpose and direction of the law in its entirety is the restoration of God’s order, a glorious and a good creation which serves and glorified the creator. God’s sovereign law, moreover, moves at all times in terms of restitution. And so there is judgment in history, and God declares, “I will be patient more than most are patient, but I will bring a curse upon that nation which violates my law.”

We saw in Malachi, did we not that if a man robs God and if a nation is given over to the robbery of God, what happens? I will curse their field. “Cursed shall be their going out and their coming in. Cursed shall be the fruit of their basket and the fruit of their body, and the fruit of their cattle.” But if a man gives God His due, what happens? “Blessed shalt thou be and the fruit of thy body and the fruit of thy field. Blessed shall be thy going out and thy coming in. Blessed shalt thou be from this time forth and forever.”

And did you notice the expression used by Malachi? He declares that God says, “If ye obey my commandments I will open the windows of Heaven and pour out unto you a blessing.” You’ll not be able to receive it will be so great, open the windows of heaven.

Now, where do we encounter that expression in the Bible? It’s the same word used in the English and in the Hebrew as in the flood. And God declared that the windows of Heaven were opened in judgment, in a flood, in total destruction upon the world of Noah’s day. So will be the blessings, like a flood, it will be forced out upon us.

Now, to return to the basic law, the basic premise, “Thou shalt not steal.” Property rights are established. Basically, God’s property right over his whole creation as the Lord, the property right which extends as God gives it even unto the earth, to the ox. The property right of man, and second, the case law, and third, restitution. Restoration of God’s order as the purpose of the law.

We’ve seen this illustrated in the New Testament. Remember when Zacchaeus became converted? He invited Jesus to his house, and Zacchaeus stood up and he said, “Everyone I have defrauded I will restore fourfold and fivefold,” and then, when he made that statement, Jesus said, “This day is salvation comes to this household.” Then, did Jesus pronounce him to be saved.

Restitution is referred to in the Sermon on the Mount. In Ephesians 4:28, Paul declares:

“Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.”

And how was this understood by the early church? There was no mistake in their mind. The thief had not a work  in order to restore, and if he couldn’t restore to those whom he had robbed because they were dead and gone, and there was no one to restore to, what did he do? He gave it to the poor, that’s what Paul said. It was given in charity to the deserving poor, in terms again of the Law of God.

And the word “restitution” appears in relationship to God in the New Testament, as calling for the restoration of God’s sovereign law by proclamation. Thus, what I am doing now is an act of restoration, restitution. What is being restored? The proclamation of God’s Law-Word. And so it is that when Jesus himself interpreted the coming of John the Baptist, he said:

“Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not…” 3

Now, what was the restoration? The proclamation of the Law-Word of God had been absent from the land, and John the Baptist came and restored it. And second, it speaks of it as restoration or restitution by subjecting all things to Christ and establishing a godly law-order, and in Matthew 28:18-20, our Lord said:

“And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you…”

What does that mean? Bring them all unto the law-order.

1 Corinthians 10:5, Revelation 11:15,

“The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ…”

And finally, on the day of Pentecost, Acts 3:21, how does St. Peter speak of the last days of the earth of the Second Coming? He calls them “the times of restitution.” The restoration of God’s Law-order.

Now, we saw last week that man was called by God in the beginning to exercise dominion over the earth, and to subdue all things. This was God’s covenant with man, God’s basic commandment to man, in Genesis 1:26 following. This commandment has never been revoked. And God declares and our Lord affirmed, Scripture cannot be broken. The declaration is in John 10:35. Scripture cannot be broken.

Therefore, what is our function and our calling? To exercise dominion over the earth and to subdue all things to Christ in terms of His Law-Word. Hence the necessity of studying and of knowing the Law-Word of God. This shall be our purpose in the months ahead.

Let us pray.

* * *

Our Lord and our God, we give thanks unto thee for this, thy Law-Word. We thank thee that thou didst create us to exercise dominion over all things unto thee, and having fallen away from this purpose in Adam, though hast restored us to it in Jesus Christ, and commissioned us to be king, prophets, and priests unto thee in Jesus Christ our Lord. Bless and confirm us to this most holy purpose and calling by thy Word and by thy Spirit, and grant that we may exercise dominion in thee and unto thee. In Jesus' name. Amen.

* * *

Are there any questions now, first of all on the lesson?

Yes?

[Audience] Could you comment on the meaning of the word ‘existentialist,’ and the import of that term for today’s society? How was David able to make restitution for his murder and adultery?  4

[Rushdoony] Yes, two very good questions. First, our society today is existentialist. To be an existentialist means, by their own definition, to live in terms of the biology and dictates of your own being. In other words, whatever you want is your own law.

Now, in Paris this past week one of the inscriptions painted on the walls by the rebelling students at the Sorbonne was, “It is forbidden to forbid.” In other words, there can be no law that prevents us from doing anything because every man is his own law. This is existentialism.

Second, how could David make restitution? Well, first of all, it was impossible to make restitution for murder except by death, and that’s the restitution. But in this case, God did not exercise it against David. He did bring  about the death penalty in a secondary sense on the newborn child, born of that adultery whom David loved deeply. So Je brought punishment upon him.

And because the whole nation had been involved in even greater offenses, judgment upon the nation in the form of a plague. So that David had to see judgment called upon the child whom he loved and upon the nation whose king he was, in judgment against himself.

Now, this was a special case, this was an act of God, but the normal requirement for such a crime, the restitution would be death.

[Audience] Are the farmers robbing God by taking subsidies not to plant anything? 5

[Rushdoony] They are. Your farmers today are sinning against God, because when they go into the… bank, they are robbing you. They are taking your money in order to plant nothing. Now, this is theft.

They are also guilty of theft when they mine the soil without taking proper care of it, and God makes clear his judgment upon this. Now, we know, of course, from the Scriptures, that God, because of a variety of offenses against Him and against the soil, required the land to remain idle for seventy years by taking the people into captivity, into Babylon, so that the land might recuperate.

Yes?

[Audience] When to taxes cease becoming taxes and become theft?

[Rushdoony] Good question. Well, God dealt with this in Samuel’s day. Because when the nation decided to choose a king and Samuel was quite upset, because he was, you might say, the president of the commonwealth. In those days, the terms was ‘judge’ or ‘governor,’ it means the same thing. God said:

“…they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.” 6

And he went on to say that what would a monarch do now that they had rejected God as their king, they would have a monarch and he would play God over them, and one of the things he would do would be to take a tenth, in the form of taxes, and that constituted robbery.

Any time a state took as much as God requires, a tenth, it’s robbery. Well, you can see what that makes governments today. They’re robbers. In the sight of God, they are offending because they are claiming as much right to your property as God requires. And the tithe, of course, is God’s rent. He is the basic landlord. We hold title in Him, on a trust, it’s a kind of a trust agreement. We have an absolute right to that property as against men. We do not have an absolute right to anything in relationship to God. So, if the state takes ten percent or more, it is guilty of theft. We’ll get to that and the various implications, what the Bible has to say about taxation, later.

Yes?

[Audience] Could you comment on the rights and wrongs of the property tax, Dr. Rushdoony? 7

[Rushdoony] Yes, first of all, the property tax is immoral. It was brought in, in this country, by Deists and Unitarians who were trying to overthrow a godly law-order and make man subject to the state. Now, they wisely restricted, at the beginning, the conservatives or Christians of the day, the vote to only those who own property. And of course, Karl Marx said the easiest way to communism is to give people who do not have property the right to vote, because then they can vote taxes against property and communize it. He said that’s the easiest route.

Now, we still have to say, “Whatever the motives, a property tax is immoral.” We should be against it. Certainly, at it stands, because local government has tied itself to a tax that’s basically wrong, it still doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t vote it out. Otherwise, we’re facing confiscation in the near future. Then, we need to reorder the whole of taxation in terms of what God requires in the way of taxes. We’ll deal with that later, because this is a big area to get into. But by neglecting the biblical law, you see, we simply have no standard as we confront the present situation. We know what we don’t like, but we don’t know what should be. So we’re helpless.

Yes?

[Audience] What about common law?  8

[Rushdoony] Yes. Well, the common law properly is biblical law. In other words, in the English tradition, and to a degree in the Germanic tradition, all of the biblical law was simply made the law of the state. And I have, for example, at home, I’ve cited this before, a New Hampshire court decision from 1834 in which the judge simply goes to the Bible and cites the appropriate passages and then gives his decision. Why? Well, because this is common law. This was the law recognized as the basic law, the basic premise for everyone.

Now, common law has this validity, and this is why, since the Civil War, it has been steadily subverted. Supposing someone steals from you. You don’t have to have, under common law, an exact statute covering that kind of theft, or that kind of murder, you see.

So, you simply take the case, it goes to a jury of men who are your peers, who in terms of the basic principles established by God and the case laws that illustrate the extent of the principle, give a decision. But in the last year, a man in Michigan was set free when he not only murdered two boys but admitted it. He was a Federal official, but he knew the law well enough to know that that particular type of crime had been not covered by the statute provisions. So, there was no law under which they could convict him. And men have actually robbed and have gone free, because the crime didn’t fit the statute book. So, every time there’s a new act of criminal aggression by these rioters, they figure, “How can we pass a law against this to cover it?” Well, then they come up with a new variation and it isn’t covered by it. When you get to the kind of law that we are moving it, the humanistic, Roman law, you have to cover every jot and tittle or else the man goes free.

Now, it is impossible to right enough wrongs to cover every particular variation of theft, or murder, and so on. So the law begins to break down. But when you have the common law, you have the broad principles and case laws which illustrate the minimal principles, so it certainly applies to anything else, and you go in terms of that.

Now, common law is still, technically, a part of the law of the land, but you don’t have any attorneys who know common law, because they’re not taught it, they can’t practice it, the judges wouldn’t know what to do with it.

….

This is the consequence of departing from biblical law, which was the common law of the land. This departure began, as I say, after the Civil War when the radical republicans began their devastation of our land. When Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. went to the Supreme Court, this was made a part of the basic decision of the courts. Today, because all our law schools have been teaching it for two generations, or more, it is now the law of the land. The new humanistic statutory law.

Well, our time is up and we are adjourned.

1. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), 1 Co 9.

2. Giorgio Del Vecchio, Justice, An Historical and Philosophical Essay, edited with additional notes by A. H. Campbell (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1956 [1952, 1924 Italian edition]), p. 2.

3. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Mt 17:11–12.

4. Question modified for the sake of clarity and brevity.

5. Question modified for the sake of clarity and brevity.

6. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), 1 Sa 8:7.

7. Question modified for the sake of clarity and brevity.

8. Question modified for the sake of clarity and brevity.