4. Offenses Against Neighbors (Remastered)

Offenses Against Our Neighbor

R.J. Rushdoony

Our Scripture is Deuteronomy 5:21 and our subject, 'Offenses Against our Neighbor.’ Deuteronomy 5:21. 

“Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbour’s wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbour’s house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or any thing that isthy neighbour’s.”

There are certain differences in the statement of the tenth commandment between Exodus and Deuteronomy. In Exodus, the original declaration of the Law, the tenth commandment reads, 

“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.”

Exodus 20:17.

In Exodus, we see that the only verb used is ‘covet,’ and as we have seen, the word ‘covet’ means to desire and to take, to appropriate, and it refers to both legal and illegal appropriation of that which is properly, according to God, our neighbor’s. 

Now, in Deuteronomy, two verbs are used. The first is ‘desire,’ and it means simply that; to desire, to delight in, to want. The second is ‘covet;’ to desire and to take. Now, this is an interesting fact, and a very important one. The law cannot deal with the heart of man. The law cannot legislate against thought; man’s law, civil law. And the Ten Commandments are given to deal with the acts of men. But the Ten Commandments also, in the final commandment, as well as in the first, link the heart of man to his actions.

Thus, Moses, to emphasize that this linkage is there, that we worship God with all our heart, mind and being, so that the heart is brought into our relationship to God, and it is brought into our relationship to our neighbor, used the word ‘desire’ as he restated, under the direction of God, the Ten Commandments, in his closing address to Israel. Now, the sad fact is, that the word covet has been reduced only to desire. But Moses, in this commandment, was trying to say it is not only taking, it is also desiring. 

Moreover, in this, the tenth commandment as given in this particular version, Deuteronomy, the word ‘neighbor’ appears three times. The second half of the ten commandment deals with love concerning our neighbor. The word ‘neighbor’ is elsewhere used only once however, in the ninth Commandment. 

“Neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour.”

Deuteronomy 5:20.

But in the tenth commandment the word is used three times, so we have a very interesting statement here. First it links the act of man with the mind and the heart of man, and second it emphatically reminds us of our neighbor and our duty to him.

Now why has the meaning of ‘covet,’ and this commandment, been limited to one aspect, the mental attitude? The result of this, we have seen, is pietism and pietism works tremendous havoc in the history of the Church. 

Let’s go a step further and analyze what lies behind this kind of misinterpretation, behind pietism. We’ve touched on it before, and it comes to the fore in this commandment. It is the basic dualism of all pagan, of all Greek, thought. What is dualism? Now, dualism holds that there is basically a division in reality, that there are two kinds of reality, or two kinds of substance. On the one hand, you have the world of the spirit, of the mind, of right. On the other hand, you have the world of matter, of darkness, of evil, and so reality is basically dualistic; mind and body are separated. In fact, as we saw some months ago, are divorced. And the consequences of actions have been separated from the consequences of thought. Sometimes acts have been seen as irrelevant because man has been defined in terms of his mind. 

Thus, Socrates was a man who was irresponsible, did not support his wife, he was a homosexual, he was guilty, and the evidence was clear-cut in his trial, of corrupting many youths, and yet there were many, many Greeks, even then, who regarded him as a shining light. And many people since then who have disregarded all of this aspect of Socrates to say that he is comparable to Christ. And I can cite many such statements, even from men who teach in seminaries. 

Why? For the same reason that in Corinth it made no difference whether a man committed fornication or not because that had to do with the material world. And a man was defined in terms of his mind. “But, Socrates had a great mind.” Thus, the Corinthians could spout noble thoughts in a house of prostitution, and that made them noble men of heart. Their act didn’t matter because that was the other world that was worthless anyway. This of course is a schizophrenic position. 

At other times, men have defined mankind in terms of the body only. And the mind has been allowed to be totally irresponsible, to indulge in every vagary and thought because responsibility has only been ascribed to acts. And you have this position advocated by many people today in the name of freedom of ideas, in other words, anything, including pornography, including every kind of perversion, can be advocated. Why? Because, “Well, there should be freedom of ideas. Those things aren’t important, they don’t lead to perverted acts.” And so you have, for example, the champions of pornography continually saying that, “Well, these aren’t going to lead to actions, that’s an unprovable assumption,” because for them it is unprovable that there is any real relationship between the world of mind, and the world of body. They are dualists. This kind of dualism has always led to a basic irresponsibility. 

As a result, the Bible, in this commandment, strikes out against this because it links the mind of man, his desires, with his acts. And here it grounds a particular variety of lawless action in the mind, and in the intent of man. Immoral acts begin with lawless thoughts, the two are inseparable. 

Recently I was reading a very interesting book by Dr. Virgil G. Damon M.D., in the course of which, as he described his practice and his experiences, he made this passing observation:

“Boys are gossips; believe me, I know. They boast about their sexual triumphs. In secret, they may feel guilty if they have been the first one with a girl; this leads them perversely to tell another boy about how willing she was and urge him to ‘try her out.’ He wants someone to share his blame. Soon a girl who allows intimacy or intimacies, even if she is lucky enough not to get pregnant, finds herself paying a terrific penalty: she becomes cheap. Even if she leaves one school and goes away to another and tries to bury her mistakes, a rather tawdry past has a way of catching up with her.^” i

Now this of course is a very telling observation. Anyone who’s been in the pastorate or a doctor, or worked with people, knows that this is true. Guilty men and women want to reduce others to their level. And so, having a guilty mind, they proceed to compound it with guilty acts, and one guilty act leads to another. And this is a basic aspect of their being; a guilty thought leads to a guilty act, and that guilty act must lead to other guilty acts. If there is no repentance, there is a continual increase of guilt and a desire to involve others in guilt, in order to eliminate responsibility. 

Now let’s take another illustration. In a very recent issue of Harpers magazine, which is supposed to be as respectable and intellectual periodical as almost any in the country, but one writer, John Corey, wrote about the sexual life of Washington D.C., talking about Senators and Congressmen and men in high places. He gives two or three examples of some of the didoes of men in Washington, but his basic point is that there is too little sexual sinning in Washington, and that’s the trouble with the country, and the capitol. His answer to the world’s problems and to national problems is that we need more sexual sins on the part of our leaders. They’re too busy, he feels, to have enough time for sinning. And if they sinned enough, there would be fewer standards to divide us, he says. Without standards, we would have more peace. After all, if we know that we are guilty, and the next man is guilty, there’s not going to be divisions between man and man. And we’re not going to look down our noses at other countries, and we’re not going to look down our noses at other people. A common guilt is, thus, for John Corey, the means to a common peace. And so after developing this thesis, he concludes:

“It could be a spectacular thing for the country if the President, his Cabinet, and any number of other important men in Washington, J. Edgar Hoover coming quickly to mind, were from time to time locked up in a whorehouse, not a fine whorehouse on the Upper East Side of New York, but something sweatier and more imaginative, where someone like Jean Genet was the idea man. [And you know who Jean Genet was - RJR] This would not make the important men in there any smarter, but it could make them more sympathetic to the rest of us. Washington does not take for granted the weaknesses of the flesh, and sometimes it does not even recognize them. Important men in Washington are not accustomed to feeling guilty the way the rest of us do, worrying all the time that we are doing something wrong, but if they did it could turn the country around, and the important men might know more about us, too. Guilt makes you kinder and more tolerant of others, and a real case of whorehouse guilt could work wonders on, say, the Justice Department. Strom Thurmond would bleed for the black man, the liberals would lay off the labor unions, and everyone would want to get out of Vietnam tomorrow.” ⁱⁱ

He says:

“Guilt makes you kinder and more tolerant of others…” 

It’s strange that history gives no evidence of this. Guilt has, as Dr. Damon saw, produced, instead of kindliness, greater guilt. Guilt leads to more guilty acts and increasing guilt and ever-increasing actions to work out that guilt. Guilty men lead to a radical tyranny. But Corey’s positions rests on dualism. He fails to recognize that a guilty mind will continue to produce guilty acts. He feels that a guilty mind has no connection with the world except that the guilty mind will be at peace with other guilty minds. 

This is as schizophrenic a position as you can possibly imagine. ‘Schizophrenic’ means to be a divided personality. And because Corey’s position, and everyone who holds this kind of position, rests on dualism, it is by definition, schizophrenic; inescapably so. 

But the tenth commandment does not permit such a dualism as Corey represents. It says ‘covet,’ ‘desire and take.’ And Moses, in spelling it out in Deuteronomy, says neither shalt thou desire, neither shalt thou covet, that which is thy neighbor’s. In other words, what the law here does is to rivet mind and body together. And it not only links the mind and body one to the other, but it links the two of them to the law. And it ties man’s law keeping to covenant-keeping with God.

This is very clearly brought out in the book of Common Prayer, very clearly. One or two of you here know of a situation where a man, supposedly in charge of an Episcopal congregation, eliminated the reading of the law from the Communion Service, a very fearful act because the book of Common Prayer emphasizes the unity of thought and act. In fact, the prayer or collect, which precedes the reading of the Law, is simply this. 

“ALMIGHTY God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid; Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.” ⁱⁱⁱ

This must, in the book of Common Prayer, precede the reading of the Law. Then, when the Law is read, the response of the people is similarly grounded on this unity of mind and body, of intent and act because the response of the people must be:

“Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law.” ^iv

The unity of mind and body, of intent and act. 

Now Judea was Hellenized, paganized, in the two centuries before Christ. And this kind of dualism had infiltrated Judea. As a result, part of the Sermon on the Mount was given by our Lord to rejecting this dualism, to reestablishing this unity of intent and act that the Bible speaks about. What did our Lord do? He linked hatred in the heart with murder. With lust in the heart to adultery. He rejected dualism in the name of the Law. On another occasion He said

“…that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.”

Matthew 15:11.

The disciples were surprised at that, because the disciples too had been infected by the Hellenistic, the pagan thought around them, and so they asked him to explain that. And He went on to say:

“…those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man…”

Matthew 15:18–20.

Therefore the lawless thought is not an inconsequential act. It is a first step into unified life of men. It affects our neighbor. What we desire in our heart has an effect on our neighbor, on the world around us. As a result, the tenth commandment is important. It presupposes, it embodies and sets forth an important philosophy of man and the Law. 

* * *

Let us pray. 

Our Lord and our God, we give thanks unto thee for thy Law-Word. And we thank thee that our hearts are open, and our desires all known, and no secret’s hid from thee. We beseech thee therefore to cleanse the thoughts of our hearts, by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, obey thy Law, and in all things magnify thy holy name. Through Christ our Lord, Amen.

* * *

Are there any questions now, first of all about our lesson?

Yes.

[Audience] What about the distinction between manslaughter and murder? ^v

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. The Bible has the answer to that, in that it deals with two categories. Manslaughter, and murder. Now, the illustration used by the Bible is, if two men are working, and the axe head breaks and flies and kills the other man, that is manslaughter, not murder. But if there is carelessness on the part of the man, if the axe head were loose or defective, then the man is guilty. 

In other words, the intent may not have been to kill, but his intention was a carelessness, his mind is responsible for the carelessness of his equipment, and therefore he has a full liability, you see. In other words, today, unless a man has actually planned murder, he isn’t a murderer.  The present law involves proving forethought too often. In other words, it divides the mind and the body. 

Yes.

[Audience] Isn’t is schizophrenic to say, “hate the sin but love the sinner?” ^vi

[Dr. Rushdoony] A very good point. That involves a schizophrenic, a dualistic position. Because how can you ‘hate the sin and love the sinner?’ The sin isn’t something separate from the man. The man and his sin are one. The sin is a product of his mind, of his heart, of his being. So if you hate the sin, you’re going to hate the sinner, unless he repents. And that’s altogether important to emphasize. 

While we’re on that, I brought something which I think, yes, deals with this. I won’t give the name of the author because I don’t want to get him into trouble. This is one of the group of students whom I’m having an influence on, and they’ll get into trouble if it’s known I have any association with them, but in a big city they are carrying on a mission to people who are without Christ. It’s a down to earth, nitty-gritty kind of missionary work. 

They have a little quotation with which they’ve begun this leaflet. It’s written by one student in particular, a very fine young man, and the quotation is from Bishop J.C. Ryle, a Church of England Bishop of a hundred years ago. Very wonderful man. A very saintly man, a very fine scholar who wrote innumerable books, many of which are still in print. And he was so outstanding a man, so many of the Bishops were just political Bishops, they felt that to gain a little respect for the Church, let’s make Ryle a Bishop. So they made him a Bishop in one of the worst slum areas, and he lived there in a very little house, which was crawling all the time with his many children and innumerable books, so you could hardly find your way in and out. Unlike other Bishops, he lived on a pittance, but he was the shining light of the century. It’s a sad fact that the Episcopal Church today pays no attention to him. But any rate, this quotation from reads:

“I fear much for many professing Christians. I see no sign of fighting in them, much less of victory. They never strike one stroke on the side of Christ. They are at peace with His enemies. They have no quarrel with sin.—I warn you, this is not Christianity. This is not the way to heaven.” ^vii

Then this student goes on to write:

“The Gospel of Christ crucified is not only a message of glorious salvation, but of burning denunciation of men in their sinfulness. Men who mocked and put to death the only begotten Son of God. You are right now whole heartedly at war if you are not a Christian. You are opposed with every ounce of your being to the clear facts of the entire universe around you, which all testify to God’s character and power. You hate God. You hate Christ. You are in league with the Devil and his legions. And this warfare of yours takes expression in your emotions and desires and your thoughts and your every action.

Now on the other hand, if you are a Christian, you rightly oppose with heart, mind and body, all would-be usurpers of God’s throne. You are battling sin in your life, in the church, in society. Since everything; nature, man, beauty, evil, speaks of God and His righteousness, goodness and wrath against sin, you are jealous to claim every square inch of the cosmos for Christ’s rule. In fact, this world is His, for He made it. You are a warrior for Christ and his kingdom and his spiritual battle is more real, more important than any world war fought in this century.”

As you can see, I’m skipping parts. He opposes this bit of loving everybody and telling everybody “God loves you.” He says, “No, God hates you until you repent.” Then he goes on to say:

“Some wonder why Christianity seems so vapid, so ineffectual, so dull, today. Revival they say, we need revival. Yet for all the millions who have come forward to make their decision for Christ, where is the sweeping change in our nation such activity should apply? Why are Christians giving them the benefit of the doubt? So utterly placid and lukewarm in the fact of rampant evolution, the Bircher’s Bugle concluded, materialism, both the dialectical and capitalist varieties, humanism, moral and existentialism, pragmatism, American public education, politics, business. And all the other weird cults and idiocies of our times. The dish water in our veins in the result of garbage from the pulpit. Rank Arminianism, to be polite about heresy, has been in control of American evangelism for the past one hundred and fifty years. Look at the results. Liberalism, another polite word, dominating all major denominations, and the cultural ghetto of schizophrenic fundamentalisms, sentimentalism, plus sadism with its barbershop quartets and Bible schools. Are you a man or woman of the Reformation, of Augustine, of Apostle Paul, of Jesus of himself? Or are you a Pharisee, honoring these men with your lips, yet believing in salvation by works? Man is only partially depraved, God is only a semi-sovereign. This is no matter of dry doctrine, this is no dead issue which we have progressed beyond. This is the very heart of truth as opposed to error, life as opposed to death. Christ’s power as opposed to the principalities and powers of the air.”

And then, just a few sentences more:

“Reformation is not like a sewing circle or a gin rummy game. It’s not so leisurely, so calm. It is rather like an earthquake or a tidal wave or a hydrogen bomb explosion; it will turn the world upside down. 

And in the process, if by His grace God does pour out of His Spirit, and out of His Spirit in our age we as believers will be persecuted, hated, perhaps killed, but how amazing to know that we are the cutting edge of the greatest movement in the universe, the sovereign working of the triune God, as He brings men and women back to Himself.”

Isn’t that tremendous? And these are the kinds of students who have trouble in a seminary.

Yes.

[Audience] This Corey business is just like sensitivity training. ^viii

[Dr. Rushdoony] Right. What this man is calling for, John Corey, in his Harpers article, and it tells us something about our time, that a magazine like Harpers would feature such an article, is precisely what sensitivity training is calling for. Let’s have a common peace and a common guilt. 

Today in the churches this is required of all seminary students. Just about two weeks ago, at the evening meeting, an Episcopal seminary student gave a report of one such sensitivity training course that he was required to attend. This was a part of his seminary training. It was held here in Los Angeles, and it included Episcopal, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, and other seminarians from any and every church you can think of, virtually. 

Yes.

[Audience] Is confessing your sins to other people part of the same movement? ^ix

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes, that is a form of sensitivity training because it is destructive of people. Confession is to God. It is to a person if we have offended against him and must make restitution, but it is otherwise to God.

Well, our time is running out. There is a few things I’d like to share with you.

One is a clipping from August the 4th, 1957. I’ve hung onto it all these years, and occasionally I’ve wondered whatever happened in this case, and if anyone here knows, I’d appreciate knowing it, because to me it’s a good example of statist bureaucracy. 

“Free of charge, Mrs. Nelly Dorn has donated to California, most of her land near Soda Bay, for the creation of a clear lake State park. This is in Northern California. She had kept only 5 acres for her own use, a small plot that had been in the family for more than four hundred years. Last week, state park officials that added some four hundred and twenty-five acres to the original part of the land, including the five acres owned by Mrs. Dorn. And they’d notified residents of the area that they might be subject to condemnation proceedings if they refused to sell for a fair price. Mrs. Dorn, away in Europe, had not yet learned the news. Said Lake Counties District Attorney Frederick Crump, ‘I’m glad I’m not the person who’s going to have to inform her.’” 

Now, that’s a good example of how our great white father in Sacramento and Washington proceed.

Then a couple of other things in a different vein. This very interesting letter from John Quincy Adams on June the 2nd, 1777, to his father, John Adams, who was, during those years of course, away on diplomatic missions for the United States. This is from his son, writing to his father. 

DEAR SIR,

I love to receive letters very well [this is when he was nine years old]; much better than I love to write them. I make but a poor figure at composition  My head is much too fickle. My thoughts are running after bird's eggs, play and trifles, till I get vexed with myself. Mamma has a troublesome task to keep me a studying. I own I am ashamed of myself. I have but just entered the third volume of Rollin's History, but designed to have got half through it by this time. I am determined this week to be more diligent. Mr. Thaxter is absent at Court. I have set myself a stint this week, to read the third volume half out. If I can but keep my resolution, I may again at the end of the week give a better account of myself. I wish, sir, you would give me in writing, some instructions with regard to the use of my time, and advise me how to proportion my studies and play, and I will keep them by me, and endeavor to follow them. With the present determination of growing better, I am, dear sir, your son,

John Quincy Adams ^x

Then this. This is from Eric Sloane’s The Second Barrel. And it’s in a little chapter on the women of America in bygone days. 

“Now, as we regard the backbreaking chore of being a pioneer woman, we immediately pity her. But any psychologist will tell you that for centuries, the prime joy of womanhood has been her awareness of being useful. And of the national sickness of woman today lies in their feeling useless. Actually, man has a touch of the same sickness of the day because everything is now done for us. We are robbed of the pleasure of making or creating, even finding out things for ourselves. The fops and aristocrats of yesterday chose their wives as they might choose their waistcoats. But the farmer’s wife knew she was a part of the farm equipment, and she enjoyed being that important. Secretly I’ll bet she knew she was more important than her husband. The golden age of farming is about done with, so the pretty housewife of today can breath a sigh of relief. Only a few cases come to mind, like an ad I saw recently in an Ozark newspaper. 

‘Farmer, 40 years old, seeks woman about the same age, with serviceable tractor. Object, matrimony. Send photo of tractor.’

I recall a scene, in I remember Mamma, in which Mamma, waiting for a doctor’s report on her child, found a scrub pail and started scrubbing the hospital waiting room floor, to relieve her nervous tension. More recently, I heard that an abandoned mother of six, finding herself without rent money, baked pies and cakes all day Friday. On Saturday morning she set up a little table on the town green. By noon she had sold everything, and had enough to pay the rent and a bit left over towards next month’s rent too. If you study the old tin-types, you will notice the man always sits, and the woman stands. She usually has her hand on the man’s shoulder, as if to comfort him. Perhaps the man did the most sitting, and anyway, that was his stock position in pictures. Most times, he looked pretty silly in those pictures, with a lot of whiskers and a stovepipe hat on his head, but those women were subjects for any sculptor. They had a world of character is their faces, and their hands were as strong as they were gentle.

The only famous pioneer a man I knew of, who didn’t have a woman doing most of his work, was Johnny Appleseed. And he went around with a tin pot on his head, according to the legend.”

I think that’s a good statement, and a very lovely one. 

Let’s bow our heads now for the benediction. 

And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always. Amen.

i. Virgil G. Damon, M.D., and Isabella Taves, I Learned About Women From Them (New York: David McKay Company, 1962), p. 243.

ii. John Corry, “Washington, Sex, and Power,” in Harper’s Magazine, vol. 241, no. 1442 (July, 1970), p. 68.

iii. The Book of Common Prayer: And Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church (New York: The Protestant Episcopal Church, 1892), 534.

iv. The Book of Common Prayer: And Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church (New York: The Protestant Episcopal Church, 1892), 534.

v.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

vi.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

vii. J. C. Ryle, Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties and Roots (London: William Hunt and Company, 1889), 336.

viii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

ix.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

x. John Quincy Adams. Life and Public Service of John Quincy Adams. Edited by William H. Seward. Auburn: Derby, Miller and Company, 1849, pp. 29,30.