5. Oath and Authority (Remastered)

The Oath and Authority

R.J. Rushdoony

We continue our study in Biblical law with Exodus 21:12–17, ‘The Oath and Authority,’ Exodus 21:12-17

“He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death. And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand; then I will appoint thee a place whither he shall flee. But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbour, to slay him with guile; thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die. And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death. And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death. And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.” i

We have here a series of laws with respect to the death penalty. The first of these has to do with murder. Capital punishment is required by Scripture for murder. On the other hand, verse thirteen makes clear, if it is manslaughter, that is an accidental killing, then there is a point of difference and therefore a place of refuge is appointed for such a person.

Then in the midst of these laws with respect to capital punishment, which include also in verse sixteen, kidnapping as a capital offense; kidnapping that is, for purposes of enslavement or any similar purpose, we have two unusual laws that strike the modern mind rather strangely. Verses fifteen and seventeen.

“And he that smiteth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death.”

Striking parents; a capital offense. And seventeen, even more:

“…he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.”

There’s a long history behind these laws. They were, as I’ve pointed out on previous occasions, enacted into law in the United States in the Colonial period.

What is the significance of this particular legislation? In particular, verse seventeen:

“…he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.”

The oath or curse is an appeal to God to stand with us for righteousness and against evil. So that, when one takes an oath, whether it be an oath of office or an oath on a witness stand, it is a declaration that they are standing in terms of the truth against evil. Similarly, a curse summons God’s judgment upon evil. It is a serious matter, it declares that we arraign ourselves in the battle against evil. And we summon God to stand with us.

To stand against evil is an important thing, it is a godly thing. Physical resistance is also such a stand. Whether it be a personal stand against someone trying to assault us, or a corporate stand in warfare, it is godly. In an evil world, such resistance is often a necessity.

Some people immediately will call attention to Matthew 5:39 which tells us: “Resist not evil.” How do we square this with the many passages in Scripture that call upon us to resist evil, that speak of the right to defend ourselves against someone for example, who trespasses in our home? The law declares, the Biblical Law, that if someone after dark trespasses, we have the right to kill him. It declares also that we have the right if someone is assaulting us, to kill us, to defend ourselves even to killing him. How do we square this with the words, “Resist not evil?”

The passage, of course, makes clear the point of reference. Because in the concluding verses in the fifth chapter of St. Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount, when our Lord speaks of this, the words used in the Greek have reference to military compulsion by a superior power. Our Lord was warning against revolutionary resistance to the Roman power. It was a warning, repeated by St. Paul in the thirteenth chapter of Romans, verses one and two, that we are not to resist the superior powers. Thus, both Paul and our Lord had reference to a duly constituted legal government in the discharge of its duties. The words in the Sermon on the Mount had reference to a compulsory draft by the Roman power, which sometimes could be an evil thing.

On the other hand, St. Paul never tells us that we are to obey men rather than God. And St. Peter and the other Apostles declared in Acts 5:29:

“We ought to obey God rather than men.”

There is no conflict between these passages. Respect for duly constituted authorities is required both as a religious duty and a practical policy in Scripture. The world cannot be bettered by revolutionary anarchy or disobedience. Evil men cannot produce a good society. The key to social regeneration is personal regeneration. All authorities are therefore to be obeyed whether they are parents, teachers, husbands, masters, rulers, pastors, but always subject to our prior obedience to God. All obedience to human authorities is under God.

Therefore, the covenant-people, the people of God cannot violate any due obedience without taking the name of the Lord in vain. And the Third Commandment says, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” Disobedience to any duly constituted authority at any level is disobedience to God and for a Christian to do it is to take the name of the Lord in vain. To strike a parent or assault a police officer, or any due authority is to strike at God’s authority and to abuse the right of self-defense for an aggression against authority. And to curse one’s parents, however evil they may be, is an attempt to place God on the side of rebellion against God’s central authority; the parents, and God’s central institution, the family.

In murder, a man assaults an individual or a group of individuals to take their life. But in every anarchistic assault on authority, the assailant attacks the life of an entire society and the very authority of God. Thus we see how serious this offense is in the sight of God. And the family being the center of all authority, the central institution of society, the one institution created in paradise, in the Garden of Eden, any attack upon this is an attack directly upon all social order and upon God and therefore it constitutes a capital offense. It is thus the supreme assault on any human authority, any authority in this world. Hence, whether it consists of striking or cursing, the death penalty is required.

Now when men attack authority, whether it be that of the parents or of the police officer, or any duly constituted authority, their excuse is conscience. What is conscience? Since the Enlightenment, we could put it back at the Renaissance, men have claimed for conscience an absolute and autonomous authority. In the United States, of course, the great advocate of this absolute autonomous authority for the conscience was Thoreau. Thoreau, of course, has been progressively magnified into a great philosopher and thinker. A better description of Thoreau would be that he was an anarchistic fool. If all men lived as he proposed they should live, there would be no society, life would be an impossibility. But Thoreau is the hero of the modern student generation in his contempt of all alien outside authority other than the individual.

Now conscience means responsibility. When you plead that something is against your conscience you are saying that it goes against that which you believe constitutes responsible action in terms of right or wrong. Conscience, therefore, implies creaturehood and subjection to a higher authority. You cannot honestly speak of conscience without implying a higher law, a higher authority. Conscience must be under authority or it ceases to be conscience and becomes God.

Now, the humanistic desire, which characterizes the present generation, is to live beyond good and evil. That is, to live beyond responsibility and beyond conscience. And so the heart of the modern mood is, it wants to live in a world where there is no right and wrong. The man who is, according to our college professors and high school textbooks, the great American poet, Walt Whitman, declared that everything which is called good is perfect and everything which is called evil is perfect. Now, this was the essence of his poetry and his philosophy. In other words, everything is perfect as it is. Why change anything? So that those who say there is good and evil in the world are wrong; everything which they term good and evil is in itself and of itself perfect. What is, is right. Therefore, let no one call the pervert or the prostitute or anyone else evil. And Walt Whitman made that point, also. He, like Nietzsche and many others, wanted a world beyond good and evil, beyond morality. This is precisely the world that the present generation of students, of teachers on all levels are attempting to create. It is a world then, also, beyond conscience.

And so under the facade of conscience, in the name of conscience, in contempt of conscience, they are assaulting all conscience and authority. The appeal, therefore, of our anarchistic generation, our anarchistic revolutionists of conscience is a lie and a fraud. What is conscience in terms of the modern mood, the modern philosophy? It is defined in terms of Freud. And for Freud, the conscience is the superego. The ‘superego’ is simply the collective teachings of parents, of teachers, of priests and preachers, of authorities which is dinned into the young mind until it becomes internalized. And internalized in this fashion it tells him, “You shouldn’t do this and you shouldn’t do that.” It is a form of tyranny and oppression. And therefore the superego must be broken because it is the enemy of the ‘id,’ which is the pleasure principle or the will to live. Conscience in terms of Freud and all modern thinking has no standing except when it is useful as an appeal against law. But true conscience, godly conscience, is under authority, godly authority. It is governed by Scripture, it is never a judge over God and His Word, nor the voice of God, it is at all times under God.

Now the death penalty of Exodus 21:15,17 for striking or cursing parents makes it clear that no evil can be used as an excuse for more evil. Even when parents are most evil, they cannot be attacked or cursed by the child. The child is not asked to obey evil parents by doing evil. But “honor must be given must be given to whom honor is due,” St. Paul declared in Romans 13:7. And honor is at all times due to parents, even when obedience cannot be rendered.

Thus, we see certain restrictions placed upon man. Men must work for righteousness. Men must work against evil. But there is a limit to the extent against which any man can war against evil. “Vengeance belongs to God,” Scripture declares. This is one of the most often repeated declarations of Scripture. We find it throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament as well.

Now what does Scripture mean when it declares that: “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord I will repay?” How is the vengeance of God exercised? In two ways. First of all, God exercises His vengeance directly in history, and in eternity by means of judgment. God brings His vengeance to bear on nations that defy Him and despise Him. And history is littered with the ruins of nations that have defied God.

Similarly, God’s vengeance is exercised through His duly constituted authorities. The vengeance of God, therefore, must be exercised by God’s chosen authorities. Parents exercise the vengeance of God against any rebellious or disobedient child. School teachers exercise that same judgment. Similarly, in the church, the church authorities exercise the vengeance of God against evil. Civil authorities, as they bring to bear the various punishments and capital punishment for evil, are exercising, Scripture declares, the vengeance of God.

Man cannot take into his hands that which belongs directly to God or is mediated by men in the name of God. In other words, man cannot take the law into his own hands. If parents are evil, the child cannot strike at them nor curse them. Either God judges them directly or through the civil authorities or you do nothing. In other words, godly men cannot expect perfect justice in this world, perfect vindication.

One of the worst evils that a man can fall prey to is to expect perfect justice. Nothing shocks me more than to find people expecting perfect vindication when they have sometimes been unjustly treated. Why? Because we are not set here to demand perfect vindication for ourselves in all things, but to do our duty under God. Sometimes we shall be vindicated. When it can be so done, well and good. But men who concern themselves with their personal vindication, who feel that what they want is so important that they have a right to demand it come what may, become ultimately lawless and revolutionary.

Isn’t this the essence of the demonstrations in Chicago recently? The young men who went there represent this modern kind of idealism which says, “If the world does not meet the standards of my imagination, my ideals, I have the right to vindicate myself by any kind of lawlessness because I can say all else must go if my vindication, if my justice, if my standard is not met.” There are times when we must recognize that we cannot expect justice because the days are evil, we must do our duty and wait on God.

Consider, for example, the life of Joseph. Now, the Scripture sometimes reports to us when men were vindicated. And they were, by the grace of God able to exact vengeance and to do it legitimately. But what about Joseph? Potiphar’s wife accused him falsely of attempting to rape her. He went to prison for that, attempted rape, his record was never cleared. He became Prime Minister of all Egypt under Pharaoh through a series of providential circumstances. But do you think he was ever able to clear his name on that score? What would have happened in Egypt if Joseph had said to Pharaoh after he had been made Prime Minister, “I want to clear my record, I was really innocent then and I want the record set straight.” Pharaoh would have regarded him as a fool and would have doubted that this was the man to choose. Why? “Do you mean to say you were there in charge of Potiphar’s estate and his wife was making a play for you and you chose to go to prison rather than to play along with it? Why, man, you’re a fool!” That would have been the attitude. Joseph would have destroyed himself, he would have accomplished nothing. But God had called him and God had declared that he was going to do great things through him. And he had a purpose there, to prepare Egypt and to save his own people in terms of the days of famine that were coming. Did he have time to think about vindicating himself? No doubt, as long as Joseph lived, there were some jealous and ugly-minded Egyptians who said behind his back, “Well, he may be high and mighty, but there’s one thing he ought to know about him; he has a conviction in his background for attempted rape.”

This is the reality of the world we live in. And Joseph served God, not himself. And Joseph did not try to overturn everything just to vindicate himself. Joseph was a man under authority, God’s authority. And he had been called to be Prime Minister of Egypt to serve God in terms of the future purposes of God. At one point Joseph did seek vengeance against his brethren. He put them through the most severe of tests, and punished them to determine whether or not they had changed; or were they still the evil men who had sold him into slavery? But he did it; not in terms of satisfying himself, but to put them through the test in terms of knowing, could he trust them, could he deal with them, and with an eye to his father’s welfare and security.

Now do you begin to see the significance of this law and its importance?

“He that curseth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.”

No man has the right to call on God to destroy authority. In particular, the central authority of the family. We work only through legitimate and lawful means. We are not, as Christians, revolutionists and revolution is not the American tradition. Lest someone say, “What about the American Revolution?” let us recall the original name of it, ‘The War of Independence,’ it was not a revolution. Every one of the Colonies was a free and independent state. They were resisting an armed invasion by an alien power, Parliament, which had no jurisdiction over them. They were not under Parliament, they were under the king. And the king attempted to transfer his rule to Parliament, and each of the Colonies had its own legislature. They resisted an armed invasion and defended their independence. They were independent to begin with, they never declared their independence of England, only of King George. The Declaration of Independence had reference to King George III.

God has established authorities, they are often sinful. The most central authority is the family, the parents. It is the bedrock of civilization, it is the central institution of all society. Men cannot endanger it without destroying themselves, and without having the judgment of God brought full force against them.

When we come to the Fifth Commandment, “Honour thy father and thy mother,” we shall see the full significance of the family in the purposes of God. But here in the Third Commandment it is clear; no matter how evil the parents may be, to curse father or mother is to take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, and the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain. ‘Guiltless,’ the word can also be rendered, or translated equally well as ‘clean.’ The Lord will not hold him clean, morally clean, that taketh His name in vain.

Let us pray.

* * *

Our Lord and our God we give thanks unto thee for thy Word. We come to thee to submit ourselves to the authority of thy Word, to thy authority, wherever manifested, in church, state, school, parents, rejoicing Our Father in thy provisions for a godly society, delighting, O Lord, in the order which thou hast created, beseeching thee to give us grace to reconstruct godly order and to make of men and nations thy disciples, to make of the family that which thou did purpose it to be, of church, state and school, that which thou doest ordain for them, that godly authority may prevail again in our society unto the end, that the kingdoms of this world might become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. Bless us for this purpose, In Jesus’ name. Amen.

* * *

Are there any questions? Now, yes, first of all, on the lesson.

Yes.

[Audience member] What does the word ‘honor' mean in this context?  ii

[Rushdoony] We’ll go into that when we get to the Fifth Commandment. It has quite a broad and significant meaning. It would bring us over into a treatment of the Fifth Commandment. So we’ll postpone that.

[Audience member] In 1 Peter 2:13 it says,

“Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors…”

And it goes on to say “for the Lord’s sake.” Does that mean of man and according to his laws?

[Rushdoony] Yes. It means that we are in all subjection under God first of all. For example, the commandment in Ephesians, “Wives obey your husbands in the Lord,” that is, not absolutely, but “in the Lord.”

It must be under the Lord. The only, the whole issue of what can be done in the case of a breakdown of authority has been gone over again and again in the past by theologians in terms of Scripture and the answer always was, “only a magistrate can lead any kind of warfare against another magistrate.” In other words, if there is a breakdown and an anarchy, men cannot as individuals or under illegal forces move against the situation, it has to be some duly constituted authority, who, in the name of the law says, “We will uphold the order.” In other words, “We will maintain the Constitution and we will resist those who are trying to destroy us.” So it has to be duly constituted authority.

[Audience member] Anarchists so often cite the Boston Tea Party as justification for their own lawlessness.  iii

[Rushdoony] No. You see, this is the thing that our textbooks have very definitely hidden from us. As I said earlier, each of the Colonies was an independent country. It governed itself. It had its own courts, it taxed itself, it had its own legislature, it was a Crown colony. That is, it was under the king of England. It was established by charter from the king. Now, the king was a feudal or constitutional monarch of each of the colonies. He sent over a royal governor who had the right of veto on legislation. And the king had the right to veto the governor if the governor passed it.

Now, Parliament had nothing to do with the Colonies. Nothing whatsoever. England had no rule over the Colonies. But what began to happen? Well, New England in a sense was responsible for it because New England went into shipping. Very, very early within a few years after the settlement of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, by 1635 the General Court of Massachusetts gave a seven-year’s tax grant, or exemption from taxation to anyone who went into fisheries or ship building. So a lot of these hard-headed settlers went into ship building. And they started to build some good-sized ships. They began to trade with the West Indies, then before too long they were trading with the Near East, with Europe, and especially with China. They became the merchant marine to the whole world. Well, this meant they were competing of course with all of the British corporations, the British East India Company and all the others. So, Parliament decided they would have to do something about this colony, these colonies, and bring them into line. And because the king’s first loyalty was to England, rather than to each of these separate domains where he was king, he was in New York as king of New York. He was not the king of England to the New Yorker’s, he was king of New York, he was king of Virginia, he was king of Massachusetts.

Now, because his primary loyalty was to England, he conspired with Parliament to subjugate these colonies, to wipe out their courts, to appoint judges from England and send them over. To eliminate their legislatures. And because they resisted the attempt by Parliament to tax them, by Parliament to govern them, Parliament sent over troops and said, beginning in Boston, “We’re going to quarter them on all of you people, we’re going to put troops in your homes.” You see, it was an invasion. An armed invasion. And they resisted the invasion. They resisted the attempt to say they could not bring tea in, the only tea that could come in would be this tea that Parliament said had to come in with a special tax. Or, at a subsidized price. In other words, the first shipment of tea was designed at a giveaway price to wipe out the American seamen, the American traders.

So you see, the whole thing was an armed invasion and it was an attempt to force on them something which was against everything in terms of law and order here.

Yes.

[Audience member] What of the Yankees and their dealings with piracy?  iv

[Rushdoony]

Yes. There was a great deal of piracy and the Yankee ships had to put up with a great deal of it. Ah, this gets into a complicated matter. Letters of mark and reprisal were legal in those days. In other words, you could be a legal pirate. Your government could give you a permit to indulge in acts of piracy against an unfriendly power. And of course, some of those that had such letters of mark and reprisal from England were going after American ships, too.

Yes.

[Audience member] I’m always to say in response to the who criticize and compare the Boston Tea Party. I always point out the fact that they didn’t take that tea home with them to drink they threw it away.

What of Rev. Wurmbrand? Was he duty-bound to bow to authority?  v

[Rushdoony] He was not attempting to disobey any law. In fact, they were claiming to guarantee religious liberty. So he could say to them, “Where is the liberty you profess is mine?” But he was saying, “I must proclaim the Word of God. I must obey God, rather than man.” But actually, they were professing religious liberty there.

Our time is just about up. Last week I was sharing with you some delightful bits from my reading in William Andrews’ Curiosities of the Church, a book published in the last century about some of the old practices in the Church of England. And, ah, one aspect that delighted me no end was the account of what was once a routine piece of furniture in every church, on the pulpit. It was a holder with an hourglass in it to time the sermons. And the sermons were often two and three hours long.

“It is recorded in Frosbroke’s  “British Monachism,” that it was the practice of a rector of Bilbury, Gloucestershire, to take a couple of hours in the delivery of his sermons. The squire of the parish had no taste for his wordy expositions; and after hearing the text given out, withdrew to enjoy his pipe, returning to be present at the benediction. Sir Roger L’ Estrange tells a good story of a tedious preacher. On one occasion, after listening for an hour and three-quarters to a sermon, the assembly were tired out, and also suffered from cold. The sexton, observing their distressed condition, determined to deliver them from their trying position. He accordingly addressed the minister as follows:

‘Pray, sir, be pleased, when you have done, to leave the key under the door.’

He then quietly departed, and shortly afterwards the preacher, profiting by the hint, closed the service.

A famous divine, named the Rev. Daniel Burgess, frequently preached for three hours at a time. One day he was directing all his eloquence against the sin of intemperance, and after two turns of the glass he noticed that many of his hearers were restless and yawning. But he was fully resolved to continue his sermon, observing that he had much more to say against drunkenness, and, turning the hour-glass, said, ‘We will have another glass, and then.’  He pleasantly secured their attention for some time longer.” vi

Then again,

“It is related of the celebrated Dr Isaac Barrow, a minister who flourished in the reign of the second Charles, that one day he preached out a large congregation, which included the Lord Mayor and other members of the Corporation of London. When he had completed his sermon, only an apprentice remained to keep him company. ‘He was,’ writes his biographer, ‘intolerably tedious in his sermons, and was three hours and a half in delivering a sermon on charity before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen; and on one occasion, when preaching in Westminster Abbey, the servants of the church caused the organ to be struck up against him, and he was fairly blown out of the pulpit.’ Some preachers find it difficult to bring their discourses to a termination, and to this class must be referred a minister of Kilellan, who preached one day from eleven o’clock until six without a break.

Lord Macaulay, in his ‘History of England,’ writing about Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, under the year 1687, alludes to the hourglass. “He was,” says the historian, “often interrupted by the deep hum of his audience; and when, after preaching out the hour-glass, which in those days was part of the furniture of the pulpit, he held it in his hand, the congregation clamorously encouraged him to go on till the sand had run off once more.” vii

I can’t imagine a congregation today asking that in any Episcopal Church or any other kind of church.

Now to close with one incident of a very serious nature, which some of you may have read about in your reading of John Bunyan. And this incident reported by John Bunyan in his Life of Mr. Badman, actually occurred, and we have the death of the woman in question in a church register where she was dug up and buried. This is from the register at Ashover Derbyshire. It runs thus:

“1660. Dorothy Matley, supposed wife of John Flint, of this parish, forswore herselfe; whereon the ground open, and she sanke over hed March ist ; and being found dead she was buried March 2d.

Bunyan introduces this remarkable record into his ‘Life of Mr. Badman,’ first published in 1680. It is stated that ‘Dorothy was washing one day upon the top of a steep hill, about a quarter of a mile from Ashover, and was there taxed by a lad for taking of two single pence out of his pocket, but she violently denied it, wishing the ground might swallow her up if she had them. She also used the same wicked words on several other occasions that day.” Then follows the narrative of one George Hodgkinson, “ a man of good report.” He says that he saw the woman, and her tub and sieve, twisting round, and sinking into the ground. She cried for help, and when the man was thinking how he might assist her, it is asserted that ‘immediately a great stone, which appeared on the earth fell in upon her head, and broke her skull, and then the earth fell in upon her and covered her. She was afterwards digged up and found about four yards within the ground, and the boy’s two single pence in her pocket, but the tub and sieve could not be found..” viii

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), Ex 21:12–17.

ii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

iii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

iv.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

v.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

vi. William Andrews. Curiosities of the Church: Studies of Curious Customs Services and Records. London: Methuen & Co., 1890, 100, 101.

vii. William Andrews. Curiosities of the Church: Studies of Curious Customs Services and Records. London: Methuen & Co., 1890, 100 ff.

viii. William Andrews. Curiosities of the Church: Studies of Curious Customs Services and Records. London: Methuen & Co., 1890, 171.