3. Oath and Society (Remastered)

The Oath and Society

R.J. Rushdoony

Our Scripture is Leviticus 24:10-16, and our subject, ‘The Oath and Society.’

“And the son of an Israelitish woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel: and this son of the Israelitish woman and a man of Israel strove together in the camp; And the Israelitish woman’s son blasphemed the name of the Lord, and cursed. And they brought him unto Moses: (and his mother’s name wasShelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan:) And they put him in ward, that the mind of the Lord might be shewed them. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Bring forth him that hath cursed without the camp; and let all that heard himlay their hands upon his head, and let all the congregation stone him. And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Whosoever curseth his God shall bear his sin. And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death.” i

The Third and the Ninth Commandments are very closely related. Both are concerned with speech. The Third Commandment:

“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. For the Lord will not hold him guiltless who taketh his name in vain.”

The Ninth:

“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”

Both are concerned with speech, but one has reference to God, the other, to man.

Usually, commentators and preachers who deal with the Third Commandment act as though this had primary reference to bad language. This is a misinterpretation of the text. Its primary reference is to the oath, the legal oath in particular. And yet the misunderstanding here is very prevalent. When Reverend Robert Ingram in his The World Under God’s Law wrote on this commandment:

“The foundation for all legal procedure involving so-called civil disputes is clearly in the Third Commandment, and it would certainly carry over its importance into the realm of criminal law.” ii

Many ministers (and I heard this from a number of them who otherwise thought the book was a very fine one), refused to recommend it to their members because of this statement. They wanted the Third Commandment to have primary reference to the use of bad language. But as Ingram pointed out, an entire conformity with everything that the Bible and Church history has taught us, its primary reference is to the legal oath, the oath of office, the oath of witnesses. This is that which the commandment refers to.

The stability of any society depends upon a common regard for truth. The stability of any church depends upon the faithfulness of the clergy to their ordination vow or oath. The stability of marriage, which is the foundation socially of any society, depends upon the faithfulness of man and wife to the marital vows or oaths. We can immediately understand how far we’ve come. With respect to marriage, it used to be the standard practice that in case of divorce, the guilty party suffered legal penalties; punishment. They had committed an offense against society, this has long-since disappeared. So that the law today in effect says in the event of a divorce that both parties are innocent or both parties are guilty, it makes no difference. It was once mandatory that when a pastor had any change of idea with respect of Scripture after his ordination vow, he was duty-bound to report it to the conference, to the synod, to the presbytery, to the bishop or whatever the jurisdiction in his church. This has long-since disappeared and today they casually violate their ordination vows, almost from the beginning.

I shall never forget, when I had just entered seminary, listening as a senior classman returned from his examination before a Methodist committee. And he was asked how he had done, and he said, “I came through with flying colors, both according to their scoring, and mine. I affirmed all the articles of religion without believing a one of them.” This young man, a Methodist, has since gone very far, and is now a prominent scholar in one of the most important universities in the United States.

And today in our courts of law, the witness’s oath means nothing. The most flagrant kinds of lies are routine. The oath of office to uphold the Constitution, again, means nothing. But the oath is important. It is basic to society. In the oath, man promises to live by his word, by the oath he has taken, as God keeps His Word; absolutely. In taking an oath, a man invokes all the judgments of God for violation of that oath. And although men today may have no regard for the oath, God declares He: “…will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.”

Sometimes we hear people say that there is no reference to Biblical faith in the Constitution. This is, of course, a mark of ignorance. The oath of office. And when they required an oath of office they knew exactly what it meant, it was the legal recognition of Biblical faith and of the God of Scripture and of the Savior of Scripture. And in taking that oath, they invoked all the penalties of the law upon themselves for violation of the oath. George Washington felt very strongly about the significance of the oath, and he referred to it in his farewell address. Let me quote.

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

When Washington wrote the farewell address, to which he gave a great deal of pains and attention, and in the writing of which he consulted at great length with some of his cabinet members, he had his eyes on the French Revolution. The French Revolution had overthrown Christianity and had substituted reason as god. And Washington was fearful that this kind of atheism and anarchism would spread to the United States. And what future would there be for any country when Biblical faith disappeared? What would happen to the courts if the oath had no significance? If a man solemnly swore by his reason in terms of his thinking, in terms of what he called ‘truth,’ to tell the truth?

Washington was rightly concerned. Because to despise the views or profane the oath is an offense which denies validity to all law and order to all courts and to all offices. It is an act of anarchy and revolution. We’re going at it backwards, are we not? We’re treating the symptoms. We’re upset because there is anarchy in the streets, revolutionary anarchy. We are distressed because the Supreme Court is despising the Constitution. We are only interested in the symptoms, but you can never heal a man by treating symptoms instead of the disease. And Washington put his finger on the disease; destroy religion and you destroy the oath which is the cornerstone of any kind of security for life, for liberty, for property. And, he said, for reputation.

Now in terms of this, let us turn to our Scripture. Leviticus 24:10-16. This is a difficult one for the modern mind to understand. Because, of course, we have lost the sense of blasphemy, of cursing, false cursing, having relationship to the oath, to the legal oath.

Now, let us read a portion of this from the ancient Chaldean version, which is, to an extent, a paraphrase and which will tell us from pre-Christian times how the Hebrews understood this.

“And while the Israelites were dwelling in the wilderness, he [this half-Danite, half-Egyptian man - RJR ] sought to pitch his tent in the midst of the tribe of the children of Dan; but they would not let him, because, according to the order of Israel, every man, according to his order, dwelt with his family by the ensign of his father’s house. And they strove together in the camp. Whereupon the son of the Israelitish woman and the man of Israel who was of the tribe of Dan went into the house of judgment.” iii

Now, do you see the context? There was a set place for everyone to pitch their tent as they moved through the wilderness according to the of their father. If your father was a Danite, then you pitched your tent in the area assigned to Dan. But this man’s father was Egyptian, and so there was a separate place for those that were of an Egyptian background to pitch their tents. His grandfather was Danite and he sought to pitch his tent among the Danites but he was told, “This is not your place.” They quarreled. Therefore, they went into the house of judgment, into court. The judgment was given by the court. And he denied the validity of the judgment. He denied the validity of the oath. He denied the validity of the courts, he blasphemed. He declared, in effect, that it made no difference what they said, their law, their oath meant nothing to him. This was an act of anarchy. He denied the entire structure of Israelite law and order, the entire principle of society. In other words, he declared, “I am in effect at war against you. Your law doesn’t mean a thing to me, I will get away with what I can.” He was immediately arrested, tried, and sentenced to death. What he had affirmed was total revolution, absolute secession from any society which denied him his wishes. And no society can long exist with permits such subversion.

Can you allow people to deny the oath, to walk out of a court and declare they have no intention of abiding by the law, who declare that they are going to overturn any society that denies them their wishes? You have revolution. And you either execute the person or you are executed. And this is why we, as a society, are headed for execution, because we extend total tolerance to these people when they deny the principle of law and order.

Did we not see this in Chicago? Over and over again, day after day they met. And there were persons, informers, attending the meetings; some of the documents were secure. And what did they say? “We will work to provoke the police, to destroy law and order, if we are arrested, we will lie. We will say that the police clubbed us without any offense. We were marching peaceably.” In other words, they said, “We will deny the principle of law and order.” They were guilty of blasphemy, they should die. They have affirmed total revolution, total secession, total anarchy. And what have we done? We have treated those who tried to enforce the law against them as though they were the criminals, as though they are the persons to be investigated.

Now let us examine another aspect of this passage. The fifteenth verse, God declares through Moses:

“…whosoever curseth his God shall bear his sin.”

Now, this is an interesting passage. I’ve never heard anyone discuss it, but it is central to what Scripture teaches. Any and all Gentiles, in other words, who despised or violated the oath of their religion, of their god or gods, were subject to the laws of their religion, to whatever penalties whatever their law imposed for such an offense. At this point, and at this point only, the Bible affirmed the validity of any other nation’s law. So that, if an Egyptian violated his oath in terms of religious principles in the Egyptian religion, whatever the penalty was according to the Egyptian law, he suffered that penalty, or the penalty of the Babylonian law, or the Syrian or Assyrian, or Philistine law. At this point, and at this point alone, the oath, the Bible recognized to a measure the validity of other national laws and other religions.

Now, the modern mind sees good in all religions because it doesn’t see any truth in any of them. It says they’re all equally good, which means they’re equally bad because they contradict each other. The Bible declares that there is only one true religion and all the others are false, for all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the Heavens. The Bible, therefore, recognizes only Biblical faith as the one true faith, it does not give any other religion an iota of ground as truth. But in terms of law and order, in terms of society, it declares that the oath of these religions binds a man in our country so that if they violate their oath, they suffer the penalties of the country of their citizenship. In other words, the Bible is tolerant to a degree of other social orders, although it recognizes that the only true law-order is founded on Biblical faith. But it knows that the key to remedying the situation is not revolution, the key is regeneration, the Gospel. And in the meantime, the existing law-order must be respected as far as possible without offense to that faith. And so it is that Biblical faith at this one point recognizes other laws, which again emphasizes the extreme importance, the centrality, of the oath.

Moreover, in Leviticus 5:1-7, the law declares that if anyone witnesses a false oath if they are in court and they hear someone under oath make a statement that is false, and they do nothing about it, they are guilty before God and must offer a trespass offering. Proverbs 29:24 says:

“The partner of a thief hates himself; he heard the curse [that is, pronounced on the thief on taking the oath - RJR], but says nothing [that is, he himself gives false testimony - RJR].” iv

In a sentence, the position of Scripture with regard to the Third Command meant is this; that a false oath is an assault upon the life of an entire society and an offense against God and therefore the godly must hate false swearing and they must oppose it with all their might.

Heresy, also, we must add, is false oath-taking. When a member joins a church, he goes forward and he declares before God and the members of the church that he accepts the faith of that church and to depart from that faith or attempt to subvert it is to take a false oath. The same is true of the clergy. We cannot say, in these circumstances, that I have only been disloyal to a church, or I have only been disloyal to the doctrines of a church, true enough. But the oath is taken, the ordination vow or the affirmation of membership, before God. And so it is first of all an offense before God and God requires that if a person depart from the faith of that church, they leave it for another. Not to violate their oath--because they have taken an oath under God to be faithful, and their first loyalty therefore is to abide by that oath.

Someone recently reported to me a case where a man entered a church and took ordination vows and then promptly refused, because he was Scofieldian, to read the Ten Commandments, which was a part of the order of Holy Communion, during the service. And he believed himself to be a good, God-fearing Bible-believing man. He was guilty of blasphemy and God regards him as a blasphemer because, while he claims to believe the Bible from cover to cover, he has deliberately violated the Third Commandment. He cannot say, “But I believe in terms of my interpretation of Scripture, and I believe the Bible from cover to cover, that this particular church is wrong in using the law because we are no longer under the Law.” This is his position. But, it is more than a loyalty to that church, it is a loyalty to God. And if he so believes, he is under obligation to depart from that church, then he is true to the Lord. He doesn’t stay within the church when he finds he can no longer abide by what the church is.

A false oath is an assault on the life of an entire society and an offense against God. But today, in more and more of the United States, perhaps virtually all of the United States by now, when you go to court or you take an oath of office, it is without any reference to the name of God. This is true in California. You simply say, “I solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” no reference to God.

Now what does this mean? A man swears, then, by himself. And what is the reigning philosophy of the schools and of the courts? Progressivism, or Deweyism, or the teaching of Holmes in the courts which is Deweyism, which is pragmatism. Truth is what works. So, when you testify, you tell that which works for you. Is it any wonder our courts are in the bind that they are, that they are breaking down, that the liar has an advantage, that there is no prosecution any longer for perjury? After all, how can a man perjure himself in terms of a pragmatic philosophy?

The oath, when it is removed from the courts, removes God from society, and it removes truth, because the oath in God’s name establishes God legally as the ground of society and God’s definition of truth as the definition for that society. The removal of God from the oath, and the light and dishonest use of the oath is a declaration of independence from God and a declaration of warfare against God. A declaration in the name of the new gods; apostate man, and his totalitarian state.

Thus we see why Scripture so profoundly emphasizes the importance of the oath.

Let us pray.

* * *

Our Lord and our God, we give thanks unto thee for thy Word. We thank thee that thou hast declared that thou wilt not hold him guiltless that taketh thy name in vain. And so, our Father, we await thy judgment upon this generation. We thank thee, our Father, that thy judgment is sure and it shall not fail. Give us grace, therefore, to rejoice when judgment falls, and to know that thy judgment is our deliverance. Therefore, our Father, increase our faith, make us strong in thyLaw-Word. Make us zealous in the proclamation of thine saving grace. Make us valiant in the defense of those things which are true and make us confident in the knowledge that if God be for us, who can be against us? Our God, we thank thee. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

* * *

Are there any questions now?

[Audience member] The Scriptures say:

“Blessed be the Lord out of Zion, which dwelleth at Jerusalem.” v  vi

How literally are we to take that ‘dwelling?’

[Rushdoony] Yes. The meaning of that passage in terms of the Old Testament was that God, the Triune God who was dwelling in the most Holy Place, even while dwelling in the Heaven of Heavens, in the Temple.

Now, in terms of today, it means, since ‘Zion’ has reference to the City of God, to the true Kingdom of God, God dwells in the true kingdom, wherever it may be, and in Jerusalem, the true Church, and people of God wherever they are. Therefore, today God dwells in our midst and wherever God is honored and obeyed.

Yes.

[Audience member] Was the Catholic Church behind the massacre of the Huguenots in France?  vii

[Rushdoony] Not entirely, no. The massacre of St. Bartholomew’s was primarily the work of Catherine de’ Medici, and it was a political scheme. At the same time that this was engineered, the Catholic Church (so-called) within France was being converted into into the Gallican Church, and independent body more or less, similar in some respects to what Henry VIII did in England. And as a result, for some generations, the Gallican Church was separate from the rest of the Catholic Church, later on it reunited. So this was a de’ Medici plan to unite the country in terms of the Gallican Church, and to eliminate a strong element within their midst of whom they were afraid. It was a vicious and ugly act, and it did lead to serious economic troubles for France, because they did destroy some of their real leadership economically as well as politically.

Yes.

[Audience member] In the fifteenth verse of the passage it says:

“And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Whosoever curseth his God shall bear his sin.”

Surely this passage has reference only to children of Israel and has nothing to do with any other gods or religions?! viii

[Rushdoony] No. All the commentaries are clear at this point. And the next sentence says, “He that blasphemeth the name of the Lord,” you see, “Whosoever curseth his god shall bear his sin. And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord.” So it deals with both kinds of offenses against the god of any witness, and the God of Biblical faith.

So that, for example, if a Confuscian came over here and took an oath in terms of the penalties of China and he violated that oath, he perjured himself then the courts here would have to impose upon him the punishment that is imposed in China.

Yes.

[Audience member] We no longer do that, we don’t recognize people’s laws. ix

[Rushdoony] No, we no longer do. We no longer do. But this was earlier the case quite generally. I don’t know how many years ago this was abandoned, but in Colonial America this didn’t come up because Colonial America and Early America, for example, take around 1800, in the United States at that time, there were perhaps (this is a very large estimate), 3,000 Jews. Most estimates are closer to about 1,500 or 1,600. There were perhaps 20,000 Catholics, and when you number the Catholics at 20,000, you are including, not only the women and children, but the slaves they owned. So, you see, ah, the number of male Catholics, again, was very limited. You didn’t have people of any other group. Most of the country was Scots, Irish and English, with a handful of ah Swedes, and a fairly large number of Dutch in New York and some Germans in Pennsylvania. So, this problem never came up and the law never dealt with it.

Now, the Jew, when he went to court at that time, swore in terms of the Old Testament, this was the only variation. But a person who was an atheist, and they were very, very few and far between and almost unheard of. In fact, until well after the Civil War, if anyone declared they were an atheist in most of the country outside of a few big cities, you were assumed to be insane. No sane person ever disbelieved in God, and they were actually locked up at times as an insane person. But in the cities, on the rare occasion that it happened that someone was an atheist, he could not testify as a witness in any case. If he himself were on trial, he could take the stand, but not under oath, and his testimony had very little value. It was virtually, totally discounted. Now, that was the legal situation.

But previously, if a Muslim were, say, in Italy, centuries before, he took a Moslem oath, and if he denied it, he suffered the penalty, even if it meant that he was torn apart by horses or whatever the punishment was in the country from whence he came. They were duty-bound to enforce that law. And it was similar in other countries. The oath was once one of the most sacred things in all society, because law and order depended on it. And almost anywhere in the world, a violation of oath was regarded as a revolutionary act. You see why we have the anarchy we do today, simply because the oath is gone. The anarchy in the streets is not as bad as the anarchy in the courts and the anarchy in Washington and in the administrations. Because, what does the oath mean? They can do as they please. And of course we’ve heard a government official, Sylvester, tells us that he has a duty to lie.

Yes.

[Audience member] Are we guilty for supporting people who turn around and violate their oath to uphold the Constitution?  x

[Rushdoony] No. Because, if we know that they have done wrong, and their offense is against God, and we mourn this, and we ask for God’s judgment upon these people, we have cleared ourselves of guilt. But if we go along with them and say, “They’re good people, what’s wrong with it, they’re doing what they think is best, and a man should be guided by his own conscience and whatever he thinks is right?” a lot of clap-trap that gets away from the fact of the oath, he’s not elected to go by his conscience, he’s elected to go by the Constitution, that’s his oath of office, if we don’t separate ourselves from it by denouncing it and praying for judgment, we too are, as it were, under the same guilt. Of course, when we are voting, if we have no choice, we vote for the lesser of two evils.

There are times when I have refused to vote for either, but if you’re going to get a horse thief or a murderer in as your President, I’ll take the horse thief.

Yes.

[Audience member] How does the ____ treaty apply to what you are saying here?  xi

[Rushdoony] A very good question. This is quite a departure from the tradition of Western Civilization. I don’t know how much to say here, because we may take some time on this later. But very briefly, in the Middle Ages if you were in Paris as a student, and you were guilty of rioting, which happened in the latter part of the Middle Ages, you were arrested and turned over to English authorities. You were under English law, you belonged to the English nation. And there would be an English court there to try you. And they tried you, under their law. So that, you were under the law of your peers, and you were judged accordingly. What we are doing is in effect surrendering any sovereignty or jurisdiction over our citizens. At the same time, we refuse to rescue them either, you see, when they were unjustly prisoned. So that I think it’s a very serious thing.

Our time is just about up, but I’d like to share with you something with regard to Chicago. I’ll just read a portion of this article. It’s quite a long one.

“Early in April a typed notice was posted on a bulletin board in the Olde Town Ale House in Chicago’s North side. It asked for female volunteers to march in a ‘Bare Breasts for Peace Brigade’ to the Democratic National Convention later this month. The brigade was conceived as a frivolous put-on by Worthly N.L. Burbank, Jr., a 35-year old Chicago writer, and opponent of the Vietnam War. But in the next few weeks, Burbank received calls for more than 30 women offering to shed their brassieres in the name of peace and to recruit others for the cause. Suddenly there was talk of mobilizing 1,000 freedom-loving women for a march on the International Amphitheatre where the convention was to begin…

Well, the thing caught fire, and they decided against it finally because they realized the police could legally then arrest these marchers and they didn’t want to give the police any legal ground for action. They wanted to provoke them and go as close to the law while despising the law totally and so they decided against it.

Now, I cite this not only because it’s ridiculous, but because it tells us the caliber of these people. They’re stupid,and they’re childish. And when you have a situation where such stupid and foolish people come close to overthrowing a nation, as they are doing, we are indeed far gone and we need to get back to something fundamental in the way of faith. So that you can view these people for what they are, punish them as they deserve, and not have any qualms, wondering about ‘conscience,’ which is today a synonym for anarchy.

Conscience is an important word in terms of true faith, but today the idea of conscience is being used to say that anything a man desires to do and declares that his conscience asks him to do, he should be free to do. It is an synonym for anarchy.

Well, with that, we are adjourned.

i. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Le 24:10–16.

ii. Robert T. Ingram. The World Under God’s Law; Criminal Aspects of the Welfare State. St. Thomas Press, 1962, 44.

iii. C. D. Ginsburg, “Leviticus,” in Ellicott, I, 451.

iv. Proverbs 29:24 - Gerrit Verkuyl, trans. The Holy Bible, The Berkeley Version, In Modern English. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1959.

v.  The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Ps 135:21.

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.

xi.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.