20. Faithfulness (Remastered)

Faithfulness

R.J. Rushdoony

Our Scripture is Psalm 23, and our subject, ‘Faithfulness.’ We conclude our study of the seventh commandment with this study. Psalm 23, Faithfulness.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:

He leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul:

He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;

Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:

Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

The commandment, “Thou Shalt not commit adultery” has as its positive expression a requirement of faithfulness of husband and wife. The word faithfulness is repeated very extensively in Scripture; in fact it is one of the most common words we encounter in the whole of the Bible. As a virtue it is stressed throughout the Law and all Scripture as a religious and a moral necessity.

When ‘faithfulness’ is spoken of with respect to husband and wife, the word however has far broader connotations than the merely physical faithfulness. Faithfulness is seen first of all as an aspect of God's character, and therefore a character of His people, a moral attribute, which reveals itself in our relationship to God and His Word, and in our relationship to our day-by-day responsibilities, to the people of God; to husband and wife; to all duties under God. 

It becomes apparent, therefore, why we have been reading the twenty-third Psalm because the twenty-third Psalm is the Psalm which speaks of the faithfulness of God, and this, of course, is the essence of the peace that this Psalm communicates. The poem, or song, or music of this Psalm, because it is here poetry and it has a music even in speaking, communicates a tremendous calm, and yet, that calm peace is… set against the background of trouble. It speaks of the valley of the shadow of death, of evil, of enemies, of severe troubles and trials. And it was written in the context of tremendous difficulty by David, but it speaks to us of peace and calm and has been a Psalm of comfort precisely because it stresses the faithfulness of God. 

Because God is our faithful shepherd, we shall not want. He leads us, and causes us to lie down in peace and safety. He restores us. He leads us safely through the valley of the shadow of death. He is faithful to us to defend us in the presence of our enemies, to the point of giving us a banquet table in the place of battle, of making even the worst opposition work together for good unto us. So that we are indeed anointed by His blessing and can say with confidence that goodness and mercy will follow us to the end of our days, and throughout eternity we dwell in Him. The faithfulness of God, of this the Psalm speaks, and therefore it gives comfort. 

But this Psalm speaks also of the faithfulness of man. In the third verse it declares: 

He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Too often the meaning of this verse is not properly understood. “The paths of righteousness,” what are the ‘paths of righteousness?’ Very literally, in ancient times, this referred to the hard, wheeled tracks or ruts, of righteousness. A road way, a path was something that wagon wheels had gradually hammered down to a hard base. And a path was something that was cut through a field or through a mountain side, so that the path represented hardened, firm ground, on which a man walked without deviating. 

When I was a boy, my sister and I played constantly with the children of a neighbor who lived on the farm in back of us. And both those children and my sister and I would go back and forth several days across a considerable acreage. As a result, we beat down a path between the two farmhouses. It was the easiest way to walk, because if you moved off of that path, you moved onto plowed ground, soft ground, difficult ground. The path was so well beaten that, even after the field was plowed and irrigated and cultivated, the path would still appear. It was a hardened path, the ‘wheel tracks,’ as it were, of our feet constantly making a way, so that it was difficult to walk out of it.

Now, according to David, God's path of righteousness means a habit, a fixed pattern of continual obedience, so that God leads us when we follow Him, into the sure, the established, the hardened, the safe paths of righteousness. There is a way, and we are summoned to walk therein. 

Moses summoned Israel to obey God without turning to the right hand or the left. If they did walk in obedience, it would be well with them, and their days would be prolonged. Believers are called in the Scripture repeatedly, “the faithful.” This characterizes them; they are dependable, they are faithful.

Moreover, repeatedly in the Bible it appears that the word ‘faithful’ either as a noun or an adjective is given as the highest praise, for example in Proverbs 20:6, Revelations 17:14, Matthew 25:21 and elsewhere. Faithfulness, thus, is important in Scripture; sanity, character, stability, dependability, these are aspects of faithfulness. Irresponsibility is the reverse, it is the outcome of unfaithfulness, and of course unfaithfulness, instability, irresponsibility, are ultimately insanity. Insanity is the rejection of responsibility. It is the unwillingness to be faithful, to maintain the established habits of righteousness, it is a fleeing from our responsibilities.

It is significant that modern philosophy, because it has proclaimed its freedom from God, has seen so many of its leading figures marked by incredible instabilities, and even outright insanity because to be free from God, to be unfaithful to God, is to be ultimately irresponsible, and finally insane. But, the non-Christian mind, the anti-Christian mind and the pagan mind are characterized by this studied war against faithfulness. 

Recently, a very elaborate, expensive, and profusely illustrated book dealt with Indian religion and art, and the title of the book is: The Cult of Desire. The thesis of the book, which simply pointed out the religious background of India, and of much of the sculpture of India, was simply this; that the cult of desire is the “road to release,” to happiness, to deliverance from the burden of life.ⁱ In this cult, according to the author, 

“…the other world and this were made one…” ⁱⁱ

A very significant fact. In other words, there is no standard out there. The other world and this are made one so that whatever is, is right; all things are of equal value. Moreover, the author continues:

“Life and liberation ceased to be separate entities.” ⁱⁱⁱ

If you are alive, you are saved. If you are alive, you are perfectly good. If you are alive, you can do no wrong. As a result, the author declares that salvation meant the total acceptance of life as holy, precisely the point that Ginsberg in his famous poem, Howl, made, and he made it as a result of his study of Oriental faith. The author concludes: 

“...the holiness of desire would … sanctify any vehicle: and if the mind is pure, all else, whether woman or man or animal, is but means.” ^iv

The individual should:

“…indulge in desire irrespective of the mate, divine, human or bestial.” ^v

In other words, the creed is one of total faithlessness, total unfaithfulness, to everything except what the person desires. To accept every act as holy is, as we have seen on previous occasions, to deny the principle of discrimination between good and evil. Faithfulness is ultimately adherence to the absolute God and to His Law. But unfaithfulness is made to be the systematic unfaithfulness of man to every obligation; human and divine, as man’s life, joy, and pleasure.

One of the proverbs of the African tribes in Africa, which cannot be literally repeated, has as its point that the greatest comfort a man can have is being unfaithful; comfort. In other words, their religious principle being unfaithfulness, their comfort is in acts in violation of the law. Whereas Psalm 23, celebrating the faithfulness of God, rejoices that God leads us into the paths, the wheel tracks, the ruts of righteousness, of faithfulness to an established pattern.

It is interesting what the logical implications of this position are. Certain books written on this same philosophy in the South Pacific among the natives there tell us that because there is no concept of faithfulness (and they tell us this is a marvelous thing, they are delivered from our puritanical inhibition) there is therefore no attachment to any individual, and as one writer Danielson writes:

“There was therefore no reason to prefer any particular man or woman.” ^vi

And this, we are told, is the greatness of the way of the South Sea people; no sense of faithfulness to any particular man or woman, let alone their husband; total unfaithfulness. Is it any wonder that they are people who have to have someone taking care of them? They are unfit to govern themselves, and before the coming of custodians in the form of imperial powers, they did little except to kill and to eat each other, sometimes wiping out the entire population of an area.

The need for unfaithfulness as a principle of life has been an organized movement in modern times. It began almost two hundred years ago, and its name is romanticism, romanticism. We have touched upon the evils of romanticism before, but it is so inexhaustible a fountain of evil, effecting every area of life, that it is important to consider it again.

One scholar, and the scholars whom I am citing are not Christians, one scholar Geoffrey Scott, identified the essence of beauty for romanticism as something that is strange, different, or perverted.^vii And if you are looking for something strange as beautiful, ultimately you are going to define it as something so different that it is perverted. So the stranger, the more perverted the object the person or the act, the better it is for the romantic. Eric Newton, another scholar, declares: 

“The romantic … can never rejoice in the normal. What interests him must be the exceptional.” ^viii

This means, he goes on to say: 

“Mystery, abnormality, and conflict…” 

“[Romanticism] dislikes whatever is law-abiding, whatever conforms to a pattern.”

“The romantic… refuses to acknowledge the existence of law as applied to self-expression.”

“‘Thou shalt be exceptional and follow that which is exceptional’ is his only commandment.”

“Abnormality is the negative of law. Its very existence depends on its refusal to conform to law-abiding behaviour.” ^ix

In other words, our modern world being totally conditioned, virtually, by the romantic movement, identifies freedom with doing evil. It makes unfaithfulness a principle of life in every area, and most certainly with respect to marriage; unfaithfulness as their principle. This leads to, of course, progressive uncleanness, acts of perversion. It identifies artistic ability with violations of standards, it identifies character with instability, and we see as faith declines, the growth of perversion and a religious principle of unfaithfulness.

In fact, not only is there greater unfaithfulness but a developing pride and boastfulness therein. Some people are so convinced that this the way of life and the wave of the future that they are writing autobiographies in which they boast of their practice of various perversions to establish in the mind of the reader how free they are. For them, health, vitality and character are associated with sexual license and perversions. And some, for example, now are actually writing books as Eglis has, declaring that faithfulness and morality mean repression and crime. ^xEglis charges that all the assassinations recently; Oswald the assassin and his act, the assassination of Bobby Kennedy and the assassin all represent orthodox Christian faith, and that these men were ostensibly, according to Eglis, orthodox believers; and therefore they committed these horrible crimes. It was Christianity acting in their system as a virus and a force.

This is the ridiculous extreme they go to in trying to prove that faithfulness is an evil. Their thesis of course is that if these assassins had been immoral men, they would have felt no impetus to create such horrible crimes. Where they ever got the idea that any of these assassins and others I’ve not bothered to name had any moral character, I don’t know. Certainly there is no evidence of it.

Faithfulness, as we have seen, is an attribute, first of all, of God, and all of Scripture declares it. God is faithful, Scripture declares, because He is the absolute sovereign, totally self-conscious, totally expressive of His character. We, because we do not have total self-consciousness, because we do not fully know ourselves and all our aptitudes, are never fully able to speak and to conform totally to that which we have declared. We may believe in controlling our temper and declare the intent to do so, but we do not always do so. We make laws that we do not always keep. We declare friendships which we do not always maintain. Because, first of all, we do not wholly know ourselves, and second because we are not omnipotent. But God, being omnipotent, and God knowing Himself wholly, is able to declare His Word and to keep it absolutely.

Now, man was created in the image of God and called to be faithful even as God is. This means perfect sanctification. Our faithfulness cannot make us omnipotent, our faithfulness will make us mindful of our limitations and obedient, faithful, within limitations. Man fell; man became faithless to God and faithless to all his obligations. But redeemed in Jesus Christ we are reestablished in the image of God and therefore are recreated into faithfulness.

As man grows in the image of God, in grace, he grows in faithfulness and in self-conscious awareness of his calling under God. To maintain that faithfulness to God, which God requires throughout His word, to maintain his faithfulness to the Word of God, to the people of God, to husband and wife in God, maintaining that law, that loyalty, that allegiance which is required of us in the faith. Faithfulness is stability, strength, character. And as the name indicates it is a manifestation of our faith. He who has called us is faithful, and we are called to be faithful. 

Faithfulness, moreover, is closely related to dominion. A man who is unfaithful has no dominion over himself. He is not capable of exercising authority in any realm. But when we are faithful to God and faithful to all our obligations, we are responsible people, we grow in our ability to exercise dominion and therefore we can understand why God in His Word terms believers ‘the faithful’ and makes it a term of high praise for His elect. They are the faithful because they have been reestablished and have grown in their responsibility to exercise dominion and to subdue the earth.

Thus, we can understand the meaning of faithfulness in marriage. In its truest sense it means sexual fidelity and much more. It means our faithfulness to God and to one another in the Lord, our faithful discharge of duties, of love, of dependability, of trustworthiness, of character, of strength and loyalty in adversity, of cleaving one to another in the Lord. It means initiative and ability because it is an aspect of dominion, and dominion means strength.

So that our positive requirement to be faithful in marriage as in all things means to exercise dominion under God in our respective places. The word of our Lord to those who exercise dominion with the talents they had was, “well done, thou good and faithful servant.” Faithfulness is a communicable attribute of God, a mark of strength and character in man. Whereas unfaithfulness in any realm is a mark of weakness and sin. When we reveal faithfulness therefore, we manifest an attribute of God, which God has first of all manifested and communicated to us.

Let us pray. 

* * *

Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, we thank thee that thou art the faithful one, that thou who art omnipotent, and who cannot lie, has been faithful unto us, thy people, faithful unto thy Word, and has called us to be thy faithful ones. Make us, O Lord, by thy grace, mindful of our responsibilities that we may be ever faithful in the discharge of all our duties, and that we may show forth the dominion and the faithfulness unto which we have been called. Bless us to this calling. In Jesus' name. Amen.

* * *

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

[Audience Member] How can anyone who denies the moral law turn ‘round and condemn the killing of a man? ^xi

[Rushdoony] You are very right, if he denies of course any moral law, he cannot call assassination wrong. But you see, on principle, there is one evil for these people; it is Christianity. If Christianity is abolished from the world, then all evil is gone. So, he is violating his principle, but of course, the position of the ungodly is one of total self-contradiction; we cannot ask for consistency in a position that is inherently wrong.

Yes?

[Audience Member] Even a pragmatist can be faithful to his wife. ^xii

[Rushdoony] Yes, the pragmatist is very often faithful for pragmatic reasons. For example, a few years ago Esquiremagazine had an article on the subject, is it advisable to have a mistress or be engaged in adultery? They made it clear that it was a very desirable thing, but as they reviewed the matter and dealt with the law and the liabilities and the problems you could get into, and how messy it could be, they finally concluded it was pragmatically a rather dangerous and a difficult thing. That very definitely maintaining a mistress was a surefire way of getting into trouble because it was too established, too obvious, too conspicuous a thing. But you could commit adultery on the fly as it were, here and there hastily and you might get by, it could be a lot of fun, but again, think of the trouble if you were caught. So pragmatically they decided that it was very difficult to get away with, so it wasn’t much fun being faithful, but it was a lot of nuisance being unfaithful.

Now that is pragmatism, but the trouble with pragmatism is that it doesn’t work. Because pragmatism has no binding power on the person who practices it. And so, the pragmatist may say this, but he is incapable of moving in terms of it. He always figures, “Yes, it’s wrong in principle, but I can get away with it this time,” so it doesn’t work.

Yes? 

[Audience Member] Does Satan possess people? ^xiii

[Rushdoony] Yes, I believe that Satan possesses people. I think far more often he influences them. I like the expression of one poet, who when he described this some generations ago [John Milton] spoke of “Tempting Satan to tempt us.” In other words, such a person is asking Satan to influence him.

I was very much interested some years ago when I heard the political cartoonist for the Chicago Tribune, Vaughn Schumacher, give a talk. He has since I believe retired to Carmel, but Schumacher was a prizewinning cartoonist, and he frankly stated that God had very often led him and guided him and influenced him in the work he did, including leading him into his calling. And he said, “I know some people find this difficult to believe,” but he said: “I believe in such influences, I know that before the Lord began influencing me, and sometimes afterwards, I’m sure that the devil was putting ideas into my head; of course I wanted those ideas, but he was certainly giving me a shove.” And he said, “Now that I am working for the Lord, it stands to reason that the Lord’s going to give me some ideas too.” Which I think is a good common sense approach; you get your ideas from where you want them.

Yes?

[Audience Member] What are the results of this pragmatic principle in practice? ^xiv

[Rushdoony] Yes, a good question. What have these pragmatists done? Here is their requirement of faithfulness, you get into trouble if you violate it. What has been the answer? There is quite a history here, and it is an ugly, sordid history, so I haven’t bothered to go into it; but, those who have studied, the sociologists and psychologists, the history of the wife-swapping cult in the last ten, fifteen years, have found this; one of the major reasons for the cults is in order to practice adultery without trouble because the thesis is, if you both do it together with mutual knowledge, then there is no cause for complaint. And of course, there is no grounds for legal action when both are equally guilty. And this has been a steady practice; both must involve themselves, both must be agreeable to it, then pragmatically neither has grounds for complaint against the other or any legal action, so the pragmatic principle has been applied.

Now, this pragmatic principle has been carried further down the road to justify perversions that are introduced in these cults and a great deal more. So, the basic principle is a humanistic one, “There is no Law of God out here, there is only the law of man, so if you get the consent of the persons involved in this law situation to set aside the law, then you are perfectly moral.” So these people justify adultery and every perversion that they get into on the grounds that it is entirely legal since they agreed to it formally beforehand. So that the conclusion of pragmatism is the gutter. 

Any other questions?

If not, I would like to share a little item with you from the creation seminar yesterday in La Mirada. It was, incidentally, an excellent seminar. But the thing that interested me was this; during the question and answer period, a number of questions were put forth, written questions, signed. It was interesting to see the source of those questions, I went forward later and asked the chairman for permission to go through them because I was interested particularly in one. One of those questions came from a scientist at one of the major research institutes in the United States. It was a very respectful question, raising a question, and the man was satisfied with the answer.

Then there was one long question, insulting to the nth degree. Insulting all the persons involved, naming one by name. I believe not all of the question was read by the chairman. It concluded by saying that, instead of attacking evolution, these people should “show the love of Christ in their hearts.” Now, it was as loveless and hate-filled a letter as anything I have read for some time. It was signed by a student who was on the staff of the school paper at that particular school.

Now, to me this is most revealing, that the youngest of the questioners was the only insolent one, and his insolence and hatred was revealed in the name of ‘love.’ Most of these people who go around shouting about other people not having love are among the most hate-filled people you can encounter; they demand total love so that they can indulge in their total hate. And I think this letter is so interesting I am going to keep it, I am considering writing a letter to the president of this school and ask that he have this young man commit to counseling because he needs it. I think that is the best way of putting the young man in his place, which he definitely does need to do.

…

I might add that Dr. Davidheiser’s book is now out, Evolution and Christian Faith, and it is an excellent study of the picture from the standpoint of the biologist. The Genesis Flood by Whitcomb and Morris is an excellent work from the standpoint of the physical scientist, and Davidheiser’s book from the standpoint of the biological scientist. They do complement one another beautifully.

Well, our time us up, and we stand adjourned.

i. Kanwar Lal, The Cult of Desire (New Hyde Park, N. Y.: University Books, 1967), p. 48.

ii. Kanwar Lal, The Cult of Desire (New Hyde Park, N. Y.: University Books, 1967), p. 78.

iii. Kanwar Lal, The Cult of Desire (New Hyde Park, N. Y.: University Books, 1967), p. 90.

iv. Kanwar Lal, The Cult of Desire (New Hyde Park, N. Y.: University Books, 1967), p. 90.

v. Kanwar Lal, The Cult of Desire (New Hyde Park, N. Y.: University Books, 1967), p. 90.

vi. Bengt Danielsson, Love in the South Seas (New York: Dell, 1957), p. 79 f.

vii. Geoffrey Scott, The Architecture of Humanism, A Study in the History of Taste (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1954), p. 41.

viii. Eric Newton, The Romantic Rebellion (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1963), p. 59.

ix. Eric Newton, The Romantic Rebellion (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1963), p. 64.

x. Arsene Eglis, Sex Songs of the Ancient Letts (New York: University Books, 1969), pp. 1–5. Eglis blames a variety of murders, including that of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, on the supposedly devout Christian background of the murderers!

xi.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xiii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xiv.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.