3. The Altar and Capital Punishment (Remastered)

The Altar and Capital Punishment

R.J. Rushdoony

Our Scripture is Exodus 27:1-8, and our subject, ‘The Altar and Capital Punishment.’

“And thou shalt make an altar of shittim wood, five cubits long, and five cubits broad; the altar shall be foursquare: and the height thereof shall be three cubits. And thou shalt make the horns of it upon the four corners thereof: his horns shall be of the same: and thou shalt overlay it with brass. And thou shalt make his pans to receive his ashes, and his shovels, and his basons, and his fleshhooks, and his firepans: all the vessels thereof thou shalt make of brass. And thou shalt make for it a grate of network of brass; and upon the net shalt thou make four brasen rings in the four corners thereof. And thou shalt put it under the compass of the altar beneath, that the net may be even to the midst of the altar. And thou shalt make staves for the altar, staves of shittim wood, and overlay them with brass. And the staves shall be put into the rings, and the staves shall be upon the two sides of the altar, to bear it. Hollow with boards shalt thou make it: as it was shewed thee in the mount, so shall they make it.” i

We have in this passage the directions for the construction of the Altar, and then in passage after passage we have prescriptions, laws, with respect to the sacrifices of the Altar. Obviously, the Altar and sacrifice are of central importance in Scripture, because there are whole segments of the law given, in chapter after chapter, to an analysis of the details of the regulations governing the Altar and sacrifice. It is important for us, therefore, in studying Biblical Law to understand the meaning of the Altar.

First of all the Altar clearly sets forth the act of atonement, of the God-provided sacrifice. The animals that were offered on the Altar typified Christ, whom St. John declared to be:

“[T]he Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” ii

And Revelation declares that Jesus Christ is:

“[H]im that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood…” iii

Those who came to the Altar came believing that God’s Word was true, that God has provided in the Altar a place of sacrifice so that they who were under sentence of death for their sins found atonement and new life, found salvation from their sins. And as St. Paul, in writing to Timothy, summarized the significance of it he declared:

“….for there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.”

1 Timothy 2:5.

Jesus Christ Himself spoke of His life in these terms; that He had come to give His life a ransom for many; and the Cross was His Altar, and He was the great High Priest as well as the sacrificial lamb. The Altar therefore signifies Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice.

Thus far we are speaking in terms that all Evangelical believers affirm and understand. But unfortunately, too often the church stops at this point in its interpretation of the Altar. But the Altar has a tremendous significance, not only in terms of the church, but in terms of the state and all of life. So that we must say, second, with respect to the meaning of the Altar, the Altar sets forth the law and the justice of the law. Why was the Altar necessary? Why was it necessary for Jesus Christ to die upon the Cross as the fulfillment of all the types which the animal’s sacrifices on the Altar typified? The reason, clearly, in terms of Scripture, was this; that man, having sinned, being guilty of treason against God, is under sentence of death, and there is no escape for him from this sentence. But God has provided the vicarious sacrifice, the substitute, Jesus Christ, who came and both kept the law perfectly, and also as our substitute, our representative, went to the Cross and there gave His life as a ransom for His elect people. So that, very clearly, the Altar signifies the Law of God, the absolute claim of the law, the absolute requirements of justice are upheld by the Altar and the Cross.

If we deny the fact of the absolute and continuing claim of the law, we are denying the Cross. The blood of the Altar, therefore, through the centuries was a grim and sustained reminder of the inflexible and demanding nature of the law that the justice of God must be fulfilled. So, the second meaning to the Altar is that it sets forth the demand of the law, the unwavering, the inflexible justice of the law.

The third meaning of the Altar is a very obvious one once we recognize it. The Altar sets forth the fact that basic to the law is capital punishment. If God considers the law so important that He could not set it aside for us, but had to fulfill the requirement of the law; capital punishment against all sinners by the death of His only begotten Son, how then can any man dare to set aside capital punishment?

Now, very commonly, people do not, when they study the Ten Commandments, discuss capital punishment until they come to the sixth commandment, “thou shall not kill.” Certainly, it is involved in that commandment, but it is wrong to limit it to that commandment, because its foundation is in the second, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.” Man cannot provide his own way of approach to God which is a graven image, which is a man-made way of salvation. The God-ordained way is the Altar, the second commandment tells us, and the Altar declares capital punishment against man for his treason, for his rebellion against God, that every violation of God’s Law must be atoned for. And if we deny capital punishment, we are saying Christ died in vain, that there was an easier way of dealing with capital offenses, and that God didn’t know better, and Christ didn’t know better when the penalty of capital punishment upon us was assumed by Jesus Christ.

Capital punishment is either basic to the law, or else the Altar was a horrible and bloody mistake, and Christ’s Cross was indeed then foolishness. But the Altar cannot be bypassed, and the death penalty cannot be bypassed. Indeed we are told in the law in Numbers 35:31:

“Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death [that is, first degree  murder, or any capital offense - RJR]: but he shall be surely put to death.”

In other words, in any capital offense the law declared there can be no pardon.

Now what does the law say about capital punishment? Because the Altar affirms it. Now, what are the capital offenses according to the law? It must be inflicted, the law declares, for murder. Not accidental killings, which are classified as manslaughter, but for murder. Again, we are told that it must be inflicted for incest, for bestiality, for sodomy or homosexually, for the rape of a betrothed virgin, for bearing false witness in a trial where the offense was a capital offense. At this point it is important to point out that the law provided that in any case, whatever the penalty was against the accused person, the person who bore false witness had to assume that penalty. So that if, let us say, restitution of a $1,000 were at stake, and a man gave false testimony, then he was fined $1,000. If the penalty would have been death, the man who gave false witness died.

Again, capital punishment is required by the law for kidnapping, for witchcraft, for offering human sacrifice, for striking or cursing father or mother, for incorrigible juvenile delinquents, which meant of course, habitual criminals also; for blasphemy, for prophesying falsely or propagating false doctrine, for sacrificing to false gods, and a few other grounds, but most significantly of the others the provision for the death penalty for those who created conditions of lawlessness and a breakdown of law and order. In other words, student rioters today and Civil Rights revolutionists would, in terms of the law, be guilty of death; it constitutes revolutionary activity against law and order, an attempt to destroy it.

This, then, is the law with respect to capital punishment. This law is very clearly grounded in the fact of the Altar, in the fact of the death penalty, which was required by God against us and assumed by Jesus Christ. Sin is treason to God, there can be no remission of the penalty, and Jesus Christ assumed it, and He did not come to set the law aside, He declared, but to fulfill it, to establish it. Not one jot nor tittle was to pass away. Thus, the third meaning of the Altar is very clearly that it affirms the death penalty; capital punishment.

But the fourth meaning of the Altar is equally significant. The Altar is a declaration of life because it witnesses to death. Our life rests in the death of Jesus Christ. By His atoning sacrifice we are new creatures. We have been saved from the penalty of death and we have been given new life. Moreover, the Altar, because it witnesses not only to the sacrifice of Christ, but to the death penalty, is a witness to life because it declares that our life’s safety is hedged in and walled about by the fact of capital punishment, by the fact that evildoers must be punished, must perish. So that it guarantees life to us by decreeing death to those who strike against God’s Law and our safety. If God’s Law is despised, if capital punishment is set aside, the Scripture declares:

“And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.” iv

The godly exercise of capital punishment, therefore, cleanses the land of evil and protects the righteous. How fearful, therefore, the judgment overtaking the world now when we realize how extensively God’s Law is set aside!

Recently some murderers were on sentence of death in Rhodesia. They were vicious and degenerate murders. They called themselves ‘freedom fighters,’ but they indulged in unspeakable crimes and torture and murder of innocents, not only those who were fighting against them. They were sentenced to death and what happened? Virtually every Protestant religious leader, the Pope, heads of nations including Queen Elizabeth, sent letters to Rhodesia beseeching that the lives of these men be spared. “The land is defiled,” God says, “therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it and the land itself vomited out her inhabitants.”

To deny the death penalty is to insist on life for the evil. It means that the evil man is given the right to kill, to kidnap, to rape, to violate law and order, and his life is guaranteed against death. But the life of his victims; past, present, and future are not guaranteed against death.

Many people speak about the fact that we should believe as Christians in ‘unconditional love.’ This past week I had a letter from a Lutheran minister who felt that I was apparently misleading people because I denied the doctrine of unconditional love. And so his thesis was I was leading people astray. But of course, he is deluding himself if he believes that unconditional love is possible, or he is a liar. Because ‘unconditional love’ and mercy are impossible. If I am loving and merciful to a murderer, I am merciless and unloving towards his victims. If I am loving and merciful to a criminal, who should be condemned, then I am merciless to those who he robs, rapes, and defrauds. Every act of love immediately creates a difference. There is no such thing as ‘unconditional love.’ These people are saying not that they believe in unconditional love but that they believe very definitely in a love for the evil.

But God declares as He enforces the law of the Altar “death!”

“So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.” v

“Defile not therefore the land which ye shall inhabit, wherein I dwell: for I the Lord dwell among the children of Israel.” vi

This comes from Deuteronomy 35:33,34, all of Leviticus 26, and many another chapter declares the consequences when the fact of the Altar, atonement, and the death penalty are set aside. It is especially fearful when Christians deny the Altar in its full meaning as leaders today in church in state are denying it. For as St. Paul declared:

“For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.” vii

This, then, is the meaning of the Altar. It sets forth the fact that God’s judgment against evil is death and men find either refuge in Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice, and then in that new life uphold the law, or they despise the law and incur upon themselves the full weight of the judgment of God.

Let us pray.

* * *

Our Lord and our God, we give thanks unto thee that through Jesus Christ we have atonement, newness of life, and the blessed assurance of thy protecting care in time and eternity. We pray, our Father, that in terms of this thy Word we may stand fast, rejoicing in thy law, rejoicing, O Lord, that thine Altar provides for death against all iniquity, and that thou wilt purge this land and the world of its iniquity, and thou wilt establish thy righteousness in and through Jesus Christ thy Son, our Savior. And so, our Father, teach us day by day to walk in the confidence that the Altar of Jesus Christ is our pledge and security of life, and the certainty of law, and the certainty of judgment and death upon evildoers. Our God we thank thee. In Jesus' name. Amen.

* * *

Are there any questions now?

Yes?

[Audience member] I’ve heard that we don’t live any longer under Old Testament law, but live under a new law. Could you comment on that?  viii

[Rushdoony] Yes this is a familiar thing and it’s antinomianism. The next time someone tells you this, and you will hear it over and over again from antinomians, tell them, “Does this mean that I am free now, and you are free to go out and kill, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness and covet, is this your life now?”

[Audience member] Well, the people in Christ are against all those things. ix

[Rushdoony] Yes, yes but the point is you know they don’t believe in going out and doing things so tell them, “Then, if this is not a law to you, what is it? Do you deny that this is a law?”

[Audience member] Well, is this a law?

[Rushdoony] It’s a law. You see, what these people are doing is to reproduce the ancient Gnostic sin which said that the Old Testament God was the God of justice and vengeance and law and wrath and the New Testament God is the God of love and mercy and grace, and this is Manichaeism. It’s as though there were two different ‘Gods.’ There is one God, one Savior, Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. God does not change. So it is either a law or it isn’t.

[Audience member] Yes, but this is what I hear people saying. x

[Rushdoony] Oh yes it’s very common, but it’s a wicked opinion because they are setting aside the law. So don’t you let them push you, you push them and say, “Now, do you believe in doing these things? Are you in favor of doing them? Well, is it a law, or isn’t it? If it isn’t a law it’s an option, you can do it if you please, it’s just a matter of taste then.”

[Audience member] Isn’t there some truth in the opinion that the old law is done away with? xi

[Rushdoony] No, there is no such thing that says that the old law is done away with, and we are now under a new law.

[Audience member] What about where it says, “A new commandment I give unto you?”

[Rushdoony] Yes, we are told, “A new law I give unto you, that ye love one another.” But this is in respect to Christians and their personal relationships. But He also goes on to say this is the old law.

Now, over and over again we are told that the law still stands, St. Paul makes it clear. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery, these are all still valid, nowhere in the New Testament is it denied.

[Audience member] Is there a good scripture from the New Testament that can help drive the points home that you are making? xii

[Rushdoony] Romans 8:4, “That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us.”

[Audience member] What about the verse where it says, “If we wilfully disobey after having received salvation…?”xiii

[Rushdoony] Hebrews 10:26,27. Well, can you be a good American and be a lawless American? And can you be a good Christian and be a lawless Christian? It’s that simple. They are violating all common sense.

Yes?

[Audience member] What about, “Turn the other cheek” and, “Love thy enemies” and so on? xiv

[Rushdoony] Yes, right. Now, we went into this some time ago, but I’ll go into it briefly because I think this is extremely important. First of all, we use ‘love’ in very emotional terms. Now, over and over again the love of neighbor and love of enemy is defined for us in Scripture. We first meet with the commandment to love our neighbor in Leviticus 19, then we meet with it again, then there it is identified as the same as loving our enemies. Then we meet with it in Matthew 19 and in Romans 13. At each point it is identified with the second table of the law. What is it to love our neighbor? “Thou shalt not kill,” respect his right to life. “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” respect the sanctity of his home. “Thou shalt not steal,” respect his property. “Thou shalt not bear false witness,” respect his reputation. “Thou shalt not covet,” do these things in word and deed but in thought also.

Now, if you respect your neighbor’s right to life, home, property, reputation, in word thought and deed, while you may think he is a stinker, and you don’t like to associate with him, in the Biblical sense you have loved him. This is what it means in terms of the scriptural definition.

Now then we have the passage in the Sermon on the Mount about if any man compel thee to go one mile, go with him twain. If he take your tunic give him your cloak also, and so on. What is the meaning there? Well again, to summarize it briefly, the key word there in the Greek is ‘compel.’ Each of the words refers to the fact of a forced draft or a forced conscription or seizure. They were under Roman rule, at any time in time of emergency the Roman government could tap you on the shoulder and say, “Alright, you’re needed for a mile or two miles to do some work, to do some hauling, to do some road work, we have an emergency.” Or “We’re confiscating what you have because it is needed.” And our Lord’s attitude was, “In such a case you don’t resist, you go along with it, be realistic, and you’re far better off if you cooperate.”

Now, to give you a very realistic illustration, when I was in Nevada I faced this sort of thing in that, in case you’re not aware of it, anytime in any area where there is a forest fire, you can be tapped on the shoulder, and they can take you and command your services absolutely, and you’re on duty, no matter what. And if you have a business suit on or whether you are fishing or hunting, you’re put on the fire line and you do what you’re told or it’s a serious Federal offense.

Now, I’ve seen many a man, in fact I’ve been on the line. Of course, I always went immediately because I knew if I didn’t I would have been asked. So what happens? Alright, some Californian is up there and suddenly there’s a fire, a time or two they caused it, and they’re told they’ve got to drop everything and fight fire, and they bellyache, and they grumble, and they act as though it’s an imposition. What happens? You should see the work they’re assigned to do! They get it in the neck! They work them! They work them deliberately, they give them the roughest, the toughest, the dirtiest jobs! Well, I found out very quickly, because I was one of the first volunteers to turn up, because I felt a person should fight the fire, it was a menace to everyone, very often you got the easiest jobs because you were a volunteer.

Now our Lord was saying, in effect, the same thing. “Don’t be stupid, you’re living under an oppressor, be realistic in the circumstances, turn the other cheek, you’re going to get a lot further. If they compel you to go a mile, go with them twain. If they have you to come on the firing line for so many hours say, ‘Surely, I’m glad to help out.’ You’re better off doing it.”

[Audience member] What if you are being forced to do something immoral?

[Rushdoony] Now, this is different where there’s a moral issue at stake. This is in dealing realistically with power; whether it’s good or evil, you deal with it realistically.

Yes?

[Audience member] Should the state be given such absolute laws over life and death? “Dead men tell no tales, after all?!” How do you handle the story that if all the Revolutionary heroes like George Washington had have lost the war, they would have been hung by Great Britain? xv

[Rushdoony] To start with that, that is a lot of propaganda that is circulated today, but there’s not a word of truth in it. If Britain had done it, it would have been in violation of all British law. There’s no doubt that probably a few Britishers did talk about it, and they may have had designs.

[Audience member] But they were guilty of treason.

[Rushdoony] They were not guilty of treason, they were not guilty of treason. Because what was the so-called American Revolution? It was not a revolution; it was The War of Independence. Every one of the American States was an independent country, they had their own constitutions or charters, they issued their own money, they had their own courts, their own government, they had no connection with England, they were not under the British parliament. They had in common with England the same monarch. King George III was the King of New York, he was the King of Virginia, he was the king of Massachusetts, and they all paid their respects to him as king of their particular realm, not as king of England, he was their king, he was a feudal king.

Now, what happened? Each of these independent countries, which had only one link with England, that is the royal governor who was not under parliament, he was under the King, he was the king’s representative and he had certain veto powers. Parliament tried, in the mid-seventeenth century, to take over and run the colonies and the colonies resisted, and at that time they won, they refused to abide by it, this was during the Commonwealth period. Later on, during King George III, during his reign, and King George III was a well-meaning man but a good deal of the time he was a very seriously ill man and insane. Parliament took over, the king co-operated with this a good deal of the time, so that parliament tried to destroy and set aside all the colonial governments, and replace them with the rule of parliament.

Now, parliament had nothing to do with the Colonies. But, after the French and Indian War, they tried to do this and the Colonies resisted, so they moved in troops, they tried to set aside the courts, the assemblies, the laws, it was an armed invasion. You can understand what it was if you compare it with the situation in Canada today. If tomorrow the British parliament said the Canadian parliament no longer had any rights, it was abolished, they could no longer have their own judges, that they were going to move troops in and quarter them in the Canadian houses and take over the country, what would it be? It would be an invasion, be the English parliament of another government, because the only connection between England and Canada is a common monarch, which constitutes them as fellow-members of the British empire, and a royal governor with very limited powers.

Now, that was the constitutional situation, they had every constitutional right on their side, they were resisting an armed invasion by a foreign power. The Declaration of Independence never mentions parliament or England because they had no connection with parliament or England. It is a declaration of Independence from King George III because King George III had violated the terms of his contract with each of the colonies as monarch. Now, everything you hear to the contrary is propaganda. If we tomorrow went into Canada and said, “We’re taking over Canada and we’re hanging everyone who resists as treason,” it would be about the same level as their attempt to say that Washington and the others were traitors. They have no legal leg to stand on, and you had a sizable element in the English Parliament throughout the entire War of Independence that maintained it was a thoroughly illegal war. And of course, Edmund Burke headed up the group in Parliament that fought this from start to finish.

Now the other part of your question and our time is running out, there are a couple of things I want to bring up, first of all God requires it. So whether we like it or not we have to go along with capital punishment. Second, God lays down the terms of it; the witnesses required, the kind of testimony required — where the Law of God is respected then the terms will be respected. I do not believe this myth that the courts in the past have executed countless numbers of innocent people, I think this is a barrage that we have been subjected to for a long, long time to break down the integrity of our past courts. I think the courts are being broken down now by this humanistic sentimentalism. God’s Law says if a society does not protect itself by killing murders and other criminals deserving of capital [punishment], it will defile and destroy the land, and I do believe that. And the land today is being defiled and destroyed because there are too many people who have no right to life under God’s Law, who are ruling the land.

Now our time is almost over but there are a couple of things briefly that I do want treat. First, very briefly, this last week I think was extremely significant in the economic realm and I think it is important to go into because we shall be subjected to this more than once. We saw, first of all, two weeks ago on the weekend, this so-called ‘loan’ to Britain to save Britain. First of all the loan is nonsense, second it is an insult to Great Britain because it virtually asks the country to go into receivership to the IMF. If they do not then they cannot be considered for the loan, so there’s no likelihood of it going through. But it had its desired effect on the people because they began to feel, “Well, there is no gold crisis.”

Then second, at the same time we were subjected to a barrage stating that South Africa had a $1 billion in gold that it was going to dump on the market, it had not sold gold for some time, that the Soviet Union had not sold gold since the wheat crisis of ’66, and it was ready to dump a vast amount of gold on the market, and every day and sometimes twice daily the ticker tapes in stockbrokers’ offices were busy giving this bad news about how gold and silver were going to hit the bottom. And of course, it was nonsense because the Soviet Union cannot buy internationally with Rubles, they’re worthless, so it has always been selling gold, it mines it as fast as it can because it’s the only thing it can use in foreign trade, except with us because we’re foolish enough to give them credit.

So, this barrage of propaganda this week began to take its toll with these various reports saying that gold was going to go way down to next to nothing. So that by Wednesday afternoon people began to panic, the report came over the wires that gold had dropped to $36 at closing time; later this proved to be false it had only gone to $37.75, but this was typical. And there were radio reports to the same effect and buyers in Europe began to panic and tried to sell their gold desperately.

Well, of course, the whole thing was a barrage of psychological warfare. Meantime in Japan gold was going up to $69 but you did not get this in the papers; $69 an ounce, and very high throughout the Orient. That night, however, South Africa revealed the fact that it had sold all the gold it was going to sell, perhaps for the rest of the year, on the free market at a very high price, $40 - $42 an ounce. Moreover, that it had sold a very sizable amount to the various governments so it had a very favorable trade balance with all the big powers, they were in debt to South Africa. Just the day before, of course, the treasury was saying South Africa was on the ropes and was going to have to dump its gold, and we would perhaps consider buying it to bail them out. So the next day, of course, the price of gold began to climb up again and the treasury claimed credit for it saying that they had worked hard to save the price

Now, this was nothing but psychological warfare, a vast barrage of lies. This we will get again and again, the only people who will stand up are those who stand in terms of real knowledge, principles, and this is important to remember. The psychological barrage will get worse as the economic crisis deepens.

The other item I do want to bring up someone brought up a couple of weeks ago, the matter of these machines that will be practically human. I finished reading early this morning a book that deals with it, Richard R. Landers, Man’s Place in the Dybosphere. I think I can best describe the contents of the book by dealing with a little bit on the jacket. What is the ‘Dybosphere?’

“What is the dybosphere? It is a world of mechanized men and humanized machines. It may be described as the “crossover point”; it marks the end of a man-dominated world (the biosphere) and the beginning of a machine-dominated world (the dybosphere).” xvi

In other words, the purpose is to mechanize mankind and humanize machines. So of course, he’s confident that man is going to be converted progressively into a kind of a machine with all kinds of spare parts, surgery, manufactured parts so you’ll be half-machine, and maybe entirely machine sometimes, and the machines will become human and self-perpetuating, self-repairing.  What is the goal? This explains why the hippies and the student revolutionists believe what they do. It’s going to be a work-free world in which man can live this kind of hippie existence, and it’s just around the corner. Why do they want it? Well, the cloven hoof comes out here. The author writes:

“However, while complex machines do make mistakes and can be destructive, I have no fear of avarice, deceit, cupidity, fraud, guile, and all the rest from machines. Unfortunately (or in this context fortunately) these are strictly human traits. I am certain that machines will remain morally pure.” xvii

In other words here they are coming up face-to-face with the fact that man is a sinner, and they cannot change him with all their psychiatry and psychology and mental health clinics. So what are they going to do? They are going mechanize man, and humanize the machine, and the machine, which will rule the world, will remain morally pure.

Now of course, when they talk about these machines they’re talking with a pipe full of hashish, really. But the point at which all of this becomes very serious and deadly is this, and this is the deadly part of this book. In which area are they really most successful? It is medicine. The medical profession has become almost totally converted to this idea of mechanizing man through medicine, through surgery, through their full approach to man. So much so now that a hundred of the top doctors are also now engineers, they have degrees in both fields, and they are trying to draw the two fields together.

And he speaks of this one M.D. whom they brought in on their rocket work;

“(His friends, who spent the summer conventionally interning in hospitals, jokingly called him an MD—a Missile Doctor.) One day in connection with a rocket launching, he overheard the comment, ‘We had an abortion due to a twisted umbilical cord.’” xviii

Notice how they talk of the rockets as humans,

“Quite surprised he asked, ‘Are you speaking biologically?’ ‘No,’ I answered, ‘Dybologically.’” xix

I’m tempted to say, “Diabolically.” But this is the significant point, and this is why medicine is becoming more and more a frightful thing, it has, and very few doctors are aware of where they’re being led by their leaders, going down the path in this business of mechanizing man. Man is a machine, spare parts surgery, mechanized parts, he is no longer human. So that he can be talked about in mechanical terms derived from engineering, whereas the machine can be talked about as, “Having an abortion due to a twisted umbilical cord.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if they hoped that eventually the machines will program people. There are trends in that direction.

Yes?

[Audience member] What about ‘robotic’ prosthetic arms that enable men who have, say, lost an arm fighting a war, to work again?  xx

[Rushdoony] That aspect of it is because this is just giving the man something to handle. But this goes much, much deeper. Building hearts out of artificial components and so on, to the point where, as this writer makes it clear, they are dispensing totally with the idea that man is a creature of God, that he is divinely created. This is their goal, so they exploit everything to try to give the idea that the machine is becoming a thinking thing.

Now I don’t have time for more questions, but you see this is very easy to do because by abusing language you can. For example, when I was a boy, hot water heaters, which were all gas then, had to be lit. You had to light it and then turn it off because otherwise it would ultimately boil, it was not automatic. So then, of course, they learned to build them with thermostats so they would go on and off at will. Now, if you want to think as these scientists are, then you would have to say that an automatic hot water heater is a thinking machine, but of course, it isn’t. It represents the thought of a man, but this is the way they are abusing language. Their goal is precisely this, they want a sin-free world and they’re going to get rid of man in order to have it.

Well, our time is up.

i. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Ex 27:1–8.

ii. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Jn 1:29.

iii. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Re 1:5.

iv. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Le 18:25.

v.  The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Nu 35:33.

vi. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Nu 35:34.

vii.  The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Heb 10:26–27.

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.

xii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xiii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xiv.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xv.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xvi. Richard R. Landers. Man’s Place in the Dybosphere. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966, rear dust jacket.

xvii. Richard R. Landers. Man’s Place in the Dybosphere. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966, p. 24.

xviii. Richard R. Landers. Man’s Place in the Dybosphere. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966, p. 19.

xix. Richard R. Landers. Man’s Place in the Dybosphere. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966, p. 19.

xx.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.