4. Sabbath and Authority (Remastered)

The Sabbath and Authority

R.J. Rushdoony

Our subject is, ‘The Sabbath and Authority,’ and our Scripture is Ezekiel 44:23,24.

“And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean. And in controversy they shall stand in judgment; and they shall judge it according to my judgments: and they shall keep my laws and my statutes in all mine assemblies; and they shall hallow my sabbaths.”

There is a description of marriage in the Bible that sometimes causes woman to snort. In the book of Ruth, Naomi, as she speaks to Ruth concerning her plans to find a husband for her, declares, this is in Ruth 3:1:

“My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee?”

Now the word that is here used for ‘rest’ is not exactly the same word as the word ‘rest’ which is translated as ‘Sabbath,’ so they are two different words for rest, and yet there is a relationship between the two. Marriage here is spoken of as a rest for the woman. Now, of course, the woman is inclined to snort at that and call attention to all the chores she has to do and to say, “Well, it may have been a rest for Ruth, after all she was out gleaning in the fields, working hard to earn a living for herself and her mother-in-law, so to have a husband certainly was going to be a rest by comparison.” But this is not the point. Her rest was not that she later married Boaz, a wealthy man. It would have been a rest if she had married a poor man and worked just as hard. The concept of marriage as rest, meant to be under the care and authority of a man, even as a man’s rest is to be under Christ and His authority. For St. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11:3:

“… the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man…”

Rest, therefore, means here to be under authority. We can understand the meaning of ‘rest’ in this sense if we stop for a moment and consider our world today. One of the things that makes it difficult to feel at rest is the growing lawlessness. The fact that there is no law and order, the fact that our very capital today has block after block that is still a shambles, here store owners do not feel that they can reopen their places of business so that whole streets stand vacant and burnt out certainly does not make us feel able to rest, does it? There is no principle of authority and the lawless of the land, the criminals, the hoodlums, the rioters, they know this. And this fact certainly does not make for rest for us. But if there were a principle of authority we could rest.

We are told that in the early centuries in England, when it had been a situation of utter lawlessness, a strong Christian king took over, and he dealt with such authority and threw such terror into all evildoers because, of course, St. Paul declared that rulers should be a terror to evildoers, but it was said that a virgin could walk from one end of the kingdom to the other with a bag of gold without any guard, and be unmolested. Now, in such a situation a good man could rest, there was authority. And this is why when Scripture speaks of marriage as rest for a godly woman, the whole point is it is rest because she is under authority. An authority that protects her, that provides for her, that gives her a position of freedom and dignity in that care, in that rest.

It is true rest, therefore, even though she may be working hard, because she is under authority and walks in the confidence of that authority. This, of course, is the meaning of that text in Corinthians that nowadays distresses a lot of women. The verse which speaks of the woman’s long hair on the covered head. It is, of course, a proper attribute of worship that in some churches to this day, a covered head, a kerchief or a hat is required. What does it signify? That long hair and a covered head were signs of submission to authority, to the authority of the husband. And that authority St. Paul said is power on her head. 

Now, that’s a curious phrase “power on her head” what did it mean? It meant that in the ancient world and until fairly recent times, in recent generations. This was still true on the frontier here in the West not too many years back, a woman with a covered head and long hair could walk down a Western town that was lawless, secure. Why? It was “power on her head,” it meant she was a protected woman, she had the authority of a man behind her, so that no one dare touch her but her husband, or her father if she was a younger girl, would be a man they had to reckon with. If they touched her, their life might be at stake, it was “power on her head,” she was protected. If she went without it, which prostitutes did, it meant she was open game and advertising the fact.

Thus, marriage could be spoken of in Biblical terms as a rest for the woman, because she was under authority, and that authority gave her power and it gave her freedom, she could rest, rest in that position. What she could not be on her own, she was under her husband. 

Now, this is closely related to the concept of the Sabbath. It is a rest to the godly, and it is spoken of as a “holy rest” and the Sabbath is spoken of as “holy to the Lord” or a “rest unto the Lord,” because it is the covenant sign, a sign of our subjection to God, and our acceptance of God’s authorities on God’s terms. We are under authority, we can rest, we know that we have God’s protection; that we have God’s care when we walk on God’s terms and under His authority. So, the Sabbath is to us a sign of power, of authority, of rest in the Lord. And God declared in Ezekiel 20:12:

“Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.” 

Again in Ezekiel 44:23-24 our text, God says “they shall teach my people” speaking of the Levites, the religious leaders “The difference between the holy and the profane,” that which is under God, and that which is ‘outside the temple,’ because that is the literal meaning of profane “and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean, and in controversy they shall stand in judgment.” They shall bring authority to bear on controversy, the authority of God and His Word “and they shall judge it” every controversy “according to my judgments, and they shall keep my laws and statutes in all mine assembly,” and by way of summing it up, “and they shall hallow My Sabbaths.”

How are the Sabbaths hallowed? Only when before they come to the Sabbaths they have made the point of discernment between the holy and the profane, the clean and the unclean, when they bring the Word of God to bear on every controversy. When they keep His laws and statutes in all His assemblies, these are the preliminaries, the necessary ingredients to hollowing the Sabbath, which is a sign of subjection to God and to His authority. 

Thus, while rest, in the sense of cessation of labor, is a part of the Sabbath, it is not the entirety of it. As a matter of fact, when we go through the various Sabbaths of the Old Testament, we find first of all the weekly Sabbaths, which did require a cessation of work, the new moon Sabbaths and the Feast of trumpets, when labor was not forbidden, but sacrifices and family observances were required. The sabbatical year and the year of Jubilee, the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost, the Feast of Tabernacles, these were all Sabbaths. Most of them required a cessation of labor, but not all. But all of them required alike, submission to the authority of God. So that when we are told to “keep the Sabbath day holy,” this means far more than no work. Holiness in itself implies authority; it means separation and dedication to God and living under Him. This means, therefore, that the rest of the Sabbath comes from the fact that the covenant man is under authority, and he can rest in that fact. He keeps the Sabbath therefore as a Sabbath to the Lord our God as a sign of the covenant. He keeps it “holy unto the Lord.” He recognizes the basic fact of the sovereignty, and the authority of God. So that his Sabbath rest must set forth God’s sovereignty and authority, not our rest. Our rest is an important aspect of the Sabbath, but the authority of God recognized is primary.

Now from this it is apparent that the development of the synagogue and the church out of the fourth commandment is logical. We saw that originally the Sabbath was not a day of worship, it was a day of rest. There were no congregational meetings in Israel. The Sabbath was not kept as a day of worship until sometime during the captivity it began, and after the captivity it became a formal life of the life of Israel. But while not a part of the original Sabbath, it was still a logical development because to be under authority requires knowledge. How can you be under authority unless you know the nature of that authority, what that authority requires of you? And so, Israel having been apostate, came together during and after the captivity to know the nature of God’s authority, to study again the Word. The Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15:21 declared:

“For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.” 

Israel, having been lawless, turned again to the law, that they might know the Lord. A growth in the knowledge of God and His Law-Word is thus important to the celebration of a Sabbath. And all the evidence of the New Testament indicates that the Christian Sabbath is geared to knowledge of Scripture, and that this is basic to Christian rest. The saved man, to serve God, gathers to study His Word.

Then we must say that while the Christian Sabbath is linked to Israel’s Sabbath, it has undergone a change in view of Colossians 2:16,17, which says that the old Sabbath ordinances are now altered. The form which was required in the Old Testament gives way now to the meaning, St. Paul says, which meaning is Christ. So that the woman is no longer bound to avoid even starting a fire on the Sabbath, but she is bound to recognize the authority of Christ every day of the week, and supremely on the Sabbath. The form gives way to an emphasis on the meaning. So that Calvin, as he analyzed the passages of Scripture, and pointed out the works of mercy, the works of necessity, went on to say nonetheless:

“…the Sabbath is violated even by good works, so long as we regard them as our own…” i

We are the Lord’s, we are all times under authority. So that whatever good work or work of necessity we may do on the Sabbath and every day of the week, we do because we are extending the authority of God and His reconquest of the kingdoms of this world, bringing all things, extending His salvation, His health, into all corners of creation. The essence, therefore, is our rest in Christ and our growth in the knowledge of that salvation by His grace.

The first day of the week was, in Palestine, a workday, and it was a work day throughout the Roman empire. This is why the Christians in the Early church Worshiped in the evening. Go through Acts and you will find that they met in the evening. The men worked during the day, they had to, it was a work of necessity, they were compelled to or they would lose their jobs. They met in the evenings and we know on one occasion a young man fell asleep sitting in the window and fell to the ground floor dead and was raised up by Paul.

If work had been under the same ban in the New Testament as the old, Paul would of spoken of it. But Paul spoke of the: 

“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is....” ii

But then we must say that the Christian Sabbath as a day of rest can, in a sense, only be observed by Christians. Because the Christian alone is truly capable of resting. Scripture says:

But the wicked are like the troubled sea,

When it cannot rest,

Whose waters cast up mire and dirt. iii

God works in the believer by His Word and by His Spirit to bring growth in grace and wisdom as they rest in Him. And the godly man, as He walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, or the lawless, but in the Word of God, flourishes. Psalm 1 brings this out. This Psalm has not been properly translated by most translations, and a Biblical archeologist and Hebrew scholar, who unfortunately is not well known for the area of his specialty, Dr. Theodore Jackman, has brought out this aspect of the first Psalm in his translation of it. 

“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the lawless, nor standeth in the way of the unlawful, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of YAHWEH; and in His Law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall flourish.

The lawless are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the lawless shall not stand in The Judgment, nor the unlawful in the Congregation of the Righteous. For YAHWEH knoweth the way of the righteous; but the way of the lawless shall perish.” iv

True obedience, thus, rests in true knowledge and true knowledge places us under authority. To be under authority, therefore, is to rest, and he who truly keeps the Sabbath is the man who places himself under the authority of God. 

Let us pray.

* * *

Our Lord and our God, we thank thee that thou hast separated us unto thy Son and hast placed us under authority so that there is power upon our head. Give us grace therefore day by day to walk under authority that we may truly rest in thee knowing, our God, that thou wilt never leave us nor forsake us so that we may boldly say, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not fear what man may do unto me.” Our Lord and our God, how great is our rest in Jesus Christ, and we praise thee. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

* * *

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

[Audience member] What does it mean to ‘rest in the Lord,’ Dr. Rushdoony? v

[Rushdoony] Yes to rest in the Lord means to rest in His authority, to rest in the confidence that God is God. So this is a deeper sense of rest you see then we usually think of. When most people say, “I’m going to rest” they mean “I’m going to stretch out and do nothing, or I’m going to go out and indulge in a little recreation.” But the rest here is in its deepest sense, in its truest sense, resting in the Lord, that is in the confidence of His authority and His sovereignty.

Yes?

[Audience member] Question about those under authority who submit to human authority whilst disobeying God.

[Rushdoony] No, they cannot disobey God and obey man. You see, the authority of the husband or of a mother or of a court, or of a civil magistrate in any area is at all times limited by the Word of God. So that they have no authority when they go beyond Scripture. A father who commands theft at that point has no authority. He has authority only under God, never independently. Similarly, let’s put it in another way. A pastor has no authority apart from the Word of God, and a pastor can never command any respect or any authority when he steps out and speaks where he has no authority to do so, or goes beyond the Word of God. Any authority is at all times conditional and limited, except God’s authority, which is absolute.

[Audience member] Question about a situation where children disobey the ungodly authority of a father. 

[Rushdoony] You don’t have a breakdown of the family on the part of the children, you have a breakdown of the family on the part of the father. He is destroying it because he is destroying the foundation of authority, you see. He is abdicating the legitimate ground of authority. In other words, what has happened today in our country, it’s precisely because officers in civil government have destroyed the legitimate ground of authority which is in God and they are playing gods (which is exactly what they are doing) that authority is collapsing all around us. You see; either authority is godly authority, or it ceases to be authority and you have anarchy. So, the father who transgresses the ground of his authority has created anarchy. It isn’t the children who do it, he has done it.

[Audience member] Question about differing interpretations on this issue of authority.

The question of a discrepancy of interpretation is an exaggerated one because when it comes to the commandments, they are very plain, “Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not bear false witness” and so on. These, it’s pretty hard, short of being deliberately perverse, to have a differing interpretation here you see. So that when God commands His commandments are simple. All we have to do is to set ourselves to them and we can understand them. They are so worded that a child can understand. St. Augustine said concerning all of Scripture, that the Word of God is, “Deep enough for an elephant to drown in and shallow enough for a child to wade in.” In other words, the profundities are so great that the greatest philosopher cannot exhaust the depths of the word, and yet it’s simple enough for a child to grasp. So, the problem is not one of an intellectual difference of interpretation, but sin whereby the father, or whatever authority may be involved, perversely, wickedly, misinterprets.

Yes?

[Audience member] Question relating to obedience to ungodly ministers.

[Rushdoony] Yes, such ministers should not be obeyed, in fact they should be disobeyed, and they should be rebuked because they are no longer ministers of God, they are ministers of Satan.

[Audience member] Question relating to authority and the Vietnam war. 

[Rushdoony] The Vietnam war is a good illustration. Now, as Christians we can say that the Constitution embodied certain varied godly and Biblical principles when it said that draftees could not be used outside of the boundaries of the United States, that they could only be used for three purposes; to suppress insurrection, to repel invasion, and to enforce the laws of the union. Now, we do have an unconstitutional war in Vietnam, very clearly. And I think it is our duty, when occasion requires it, to say so. But what is the point of these clergymen who are indulging in this civil disobedience? They’re not interested in the fact that it’s an unconstitutional war, they certainly said nothing about our unconstitutional war, World War I, World War II, why? Because they were fighting for what they wanted. And if tomorrow we should have a war against South Africa, they certainly would not call it an unconstitutional war. So, they are not interested in principle, they are interested in preventing any Communist from being attacked. So that there is no principle of law they are defending, they are trying to overthrow every legal principle here to disrupt the law. If it were not Vietnam, it would be something else. When the war ends in Vietnam these same men will be counseling Civil Disobedience about a number of other things, as they already are; with regard to property rights, with regard to any number of other things. So, their council is basically one of lawlessness because they believe in no law except the will of man. So, you cannot equate their action with regard to the Vietnam war with the action of those of us who believe that we should have never gotten in there in the first place, but that we cannot leave except under honorable terms.

The basic gospel of a lot of these clergymen is anarchism and with a lot of the others it’s Marxism. This is about the only gospel you get, with some of the rest, it’s just plain foolishness.

Yes?

[Audience member] I’ve been told that after people’s death that the people who have made themselves right with God will be sitting in judgment on other people, and I don’t know if this is true or not, I’ve heard this. If it is true, don’t you think that some Christians feel almost gleeful about this? I mean, they look forward to this?

[Rushdoony] No, we are not going to sit in judgment on others, Christ shall. But I don’t see anything wrong in being gleeful about seeing some of these people get it in the neck! I certainly am going to enjoy seeing some of these people get it in the neck in the days ahead, they have it coming. I’m not going to cry, I’m not going to cry.

Our time is just about up. There is something that I’d like to read to you from the paper of Wednesday, October 16, 1968 “Found Father’s Role in Violence.”

“In a way the founding fathers are responsible for the wave of violence that has swept over urban black ghettos and college campuses during the past few years. That’s a view of a man who has made a career of seeking out the causes of revolt. Dr. John P. Spiegel director of the “Lundberg Center for the Study of Violence,” at Brandeis University. ‘The founding fathers’ Spiegel says ‘made a fateful decision to set up The United States as a limited democracy. Participation in its power structure was limited initially by six ground rules; you had to be: 1, white, 2, Anglo-Saxon, 3, Protestant, 4, Middle class or better, 5, Adult, and 6, Male. Over the past two centuries, there have been repeated outbreaks of violence resulting from the efforts of excluded groups to gain admission into the power structure and the efforts of insiders to keep them out. One by one, the barriers have crumbled. Today, the main groups still excluded from real participation in American democracy are negroes and young people. And they are now battering at the door simultaneously.’”

Then he goes on at great length and concludes thus: 

“In every head-on clash between insiders and outsiders Spiegel has found the outsiders have tended to direct their violence against property. They burn, seize, or loot property in an effort to disrupt a system which they find hostile and oppressive. The insiders invariably retaliate with violence directed against persons. They shoot, club or gas the trouble makers demanding admission to first-class citizenship. Because they control the police and armed forces, the insiders may manage to hold off the latest wave of outsiders for a considerable time. But there always seems to come a point when the insiders either recognize the justice of the outsiders’ cause, or simply grow tired of bloodshed and disorder. At any right,’ Spiegel says, ‘the outsiders eventually have won every struggle in American history.’”

Now that is your new mythology as it is developing and being taught. And of course we are being told now that they burned millions of witches in the Middle Ages and subsequently, and in Europe they are being told that in America millions of negroes were slaughtered under slavery, this is the new mythology. 

Now for something in a little lighter vein. This from Lichty’s cartoon comic, “Grin and Bear it.” A public speaker addressing a group of voters says: 

“Why should the oppressed American voter be forced to choose the lesser of two evils? Our new party offers you a choice of at least three.” 

And that is just about our situation today. Now, this from ‘Smidgens,’ the husband, as his wife is on the scale, says, “See there I told you, you were putting on weight, you’d better get back on your diet, fatso.” And her rejoinder, “Oh yeah? Well, I don’t really weigh this much, it’s just that I’ve got a lot on my mind today.” 

One last thing before we are adjourned. If any of you are not on the newsletter list, please give me your name and address before you leave if you would like to receive a newsletter. And with that we are adjourned.

i. John Calvin and Charles William Bingham, Commentaries on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony, vol. 2 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 436.

ii. King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Heb 10:25.

iii. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Is 57:20.

iv. Trans. by Theodore M. Jackman, Psalms for Today (Taylors, S. C.: 1968), p. 7.

v. Question added/modified for the sake of clarity and brevity.