6. The Holy Family (Remastered)

The Holy Family

R.J. Rushdoony

Our Scripture this morning is St. Luke 2:1-20, ‘The Holy Family,’ Luke 2:1-20:

“And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Beth-lehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Glory to God in the highest,

And on earth peace,

Good will toward men.

And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Beth-lehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.”

Last Monday, when I spoke to Valley Research, I made reference to a poem written before many of us were born, a poem by William Butler Yeats entitled, “The Second Coming.” Yeats, while not a Christian, as he faced the future, was filled with fear and foreboding. And he witnessed against himself and his generation in this poem because, he began, 

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; 

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

And he saw the world moving to another Bethlehem, another birth, but this time the birth of the beast, of a monster, of an age of chaos and anarchy and terror, the time of the beast. And so, the last two lines of his poem read:

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Indeed, men today are doing everything possible to bring about that birth of the beast and a new Bethlehem, the birth of total terror, total anarchy, total chaos.

But the sad fact is that those who should be witnessing against this are afraid to speak out, or are too ignorant of Scripture to speak up. Not too long ago I had a long conversation by phone with one of the most prominent ministers in the country, and let me add one of the most prominent conservative ministers in the country. He was in agreement as to what’s going on. He was in agreement as to the breakdown of law and order. He was in agreement that capital punishment needed to be enforced and it was a sorry thing that there was scarcely an execution in the country last year, even though numerous men have been sentenced for execution. But he was not ready to say that the law of God required capital punishment, that was placing us under law and we’re not under law any longer, he said. And so he said, “I am for it, but I will not preach about it because I don’t’ feel as a minister I should preach about anything but grace.” And how can you have grace in a lawless world, in a world that despises God’s Law? This is to move toward the position which St. Paul condemns:

“Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?”

Romans 6:1.

But we are told in the Christmas story that the reason why the holy family moved to Bethlehem was in fulfillment of the law of the day; in other words, they respected Caesar’s law concerning the census, and in fulfillment of prophecy because the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem, the City of David, “because he was of the house and lineage of David.” 

Jesus was born into a Hebrew family, an heir of a royal line, in terms of prophecy, in fulfillment of prophecy and in terms of the laws of the family and the laws of inheritance. He did not come, He said, to set aside the law, but to fulfill the Law, to establish it, in other words, more firmly. 

Let us examine certain aspects of Christ in the family, in its relationship to Law.

First of all, our Lord was born of the lineage of David and as heir to the throne of David and in fulfillment of promises concerning the future meaning of the throne. In 2 Samuel 7:12, God declares to David:

“And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom.” 

In Psalm 89 and 132 this promise is further repeated. And notice that the kingdom is defined, not as ‘thy kingdom, David,’ but as ‘His kingdom.’ It is Christ’s kingdom and it is to be set up in terms of His kingship, His calling and His purpose so that it will be no longer David’s kingdom, Israel’s kingdom, but the Messiah’s kingdom in fulfillment of His prophetic plan.

Secondly, the prophecies concerning the coming of our Lord emphasize that Christ’s kingdom is the beginning of the restoration of authority and of law and order. In Isaiah 1:26, the declaration is made, 

And I will restore thy judges as at the first,

And thy counsellers as at the beginning:

Afterward thou shalt be called,

The city of righteousness, the faithful city.

In other words, the Messiah will bring about the fullness of the meaning of the judges, that is, civil rulers and counselors as they were ordained at the Mount when the law was given to Moses. So that in His coming He fulfills the Law, He restores the meaning of authority and of law and of order. And so it is, the Messiah is spoken of as the one under whom law and order are brought to fulfillment. 

He is the:

Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God,

The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end,

Upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom,

To order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice

From henceforth even for ever.

So declares God through Isaiah 9:6, 7. In other words, judgment and justice are the cornerstones of Christ’s reign, of Christ’s kingdom. He comes about to bring in the fullness of law and order. 

Again, Isaiah declares that He is the shoot of the stock of Jesse, who shall with righteousness judge the poor and reprove with equity the meek of the earth. And we are further told in 11:4, He comes to bring justice and to slay the wicked. 

In the Psalms we read earlier in our Psalter reading speak of His coming in answer to the prayer of those who are under injustice, to put down the evildoers, to slay the wicked and to restore paradise, so that figuratively the wolf and the lamb dwell together, that is those which in sin and a state of sin are tearing one another apart or fleeing at the weak are brought together in Christ so that as Isaiah declares in 35:1, 

The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them;

And the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.

As the work of Christ is proclaimed unto all peoples, and as all people submit themselves and the whole of their lives; their farming, their schools, their government, their science—everything—to the Word of God, the very fertility of the land is restored and the parched land blossoms and the desert blooms.

This is a part of the Christmas story. It is sung every Christmas. Go back over the words of some of the hymns we sang, one of them “Joy to the World, the Lord is Come!” And what shall happen? 

No more let sins and sorrows grow,

Nor thorns infest the ground;

Why? Because as His grace moves out, His dominion and His law and order are brought in, and the curse is removed, and the earth blossoms. 

The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them;

And the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. ⁱ

Third, Christ’s kingdom is not limited like David’s to Canaan, it covers the earth. “Blessed are the meek,” our Lord declared, “for they shall inherit the earth.” “Blessed are they who are tamed by me or humbled and become broken to harness by my grace, for they shall inherit the earth.” 

And as St. Paul declared in Romans 4:13:

“For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.”

And when St. Paul here speaks of law, he means not by the law of inheritance, not by blood, not to Israel after the flesh, but to the Israel after the Spirit who inherit by faith. 

“And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” ⁱⁱ

There are those who seek to deny Christ’s kingship over the earth. In fact, not too long ago, the editor of one of the major publications in evangelical circles wrote me a long poison pen letter in which he claimed I was perverting people by teaching that Christ’s kingship was over the earth. And he cited this verse, John 18:13 when our Lord said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” And I wrote right back to him and cited all the great commentators who declared that this means that it is not derived from this world; He does not owe it to this world because it is derived from God, it is of God and over this world. And that the very verse he cited against Christ’s kingship has always been known by every Greek scholar of any stature to mean that it is from God and over the world.

And fourth, by His virgin birth, Jesus Christ was a new creation, a new Adam. Like the first Adam, a miracle, a creation directly from God. But unlike Adam, the very Son of God on the one side and on the other side, linked to the old humanity borne of Adam by his birth from Mary. 

And St. Paul speaks of Christ as the second man or the last or second Adam, and as such He is the fountainhead of a new humanity. 1 Corinthians 15:45-47, the great passage in which He speaks of our Lord as a second man or last Adam. As the new Adam, He is the fountainhead of the new humanity, a new human race to replace the old Adamic race. This, then, is the purpose of God. The old humanity is to be converted or cut off, and the new humanity is to replace it. The first Adam was tempted in paradise and fell, the second Adam was tempted in the wilderness, signifying what the world had become under the first Adam, and He triumphed. And as the true Adam, He now exercises dominion. He is the lawgiver. He declared this in the Sermon on the Mount.

Now to proclaim law is the function of kingship, of sovereignty. And kings, in ancient times, proclaimed the law in the name of their god. Moses proclaimed the law in the name of God, the King of Israel. And so he said, “Thus saith the Lord.” The Babylonian monarchs proclaimed the law in the name of Marduk. But Jesus Christ said, “I say unto you.” He proclaimed it as God and King. And He cited the law as it had been given unto Moses and then interpreted it as His own Word. “I say unto you,” declaring Himself to be the Lord and giver of the law, very God, and as the true Adam, would come to fulfill it and to exercise dominion, kingship over the earth. And by His Great Commission, He sent forth His disciples saying, “All power, all authority, is given unto me in Heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations. Bring all nations and all peoples of those nations under my dominion under my kingship. Convert them, and bring them in subordination to my Word, to my law and order.”

Then, fifth, we must say that Jesus Christ as king of the earth has the right of dominion. This means that He attacks and overthrows all those who deny His dominion. And thus, God in Ezekiel 21:27 signified the function of the breaking up of history as its overturning.

“I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him.” 

Sixth, Jesus Christ by His birth in Bethlehem into the holy family was born under the law and into the law to fulfill the law. He began from birth by His membership in the holy family where He kept the whole of the law, including family law.

Let’s look at that family law. We have seen how He kept it from the Cross. We studied some weeks ago the significance of His words from the Cross. A dying man, by his words, created a binding will. And all who were there when a man was being executed were duty-bound by law to see that those words were fulfilled, were executed. And so He said to His cousin, John, “Behold thy mother.” “Woman, behold thy son.” 

Earlier, when His mother and His brethren came to prevent Him from speaking because they were fearful of the cost of His words, that it would lead to the cross, He made it clear that they were not His family if they did not believe in Him. And so He turned to those who believed in Him when He was told His mother and brethren were outside. And He said, “Behold everyone who doeth the will of my Father in Heaven is my brother and my sister, my family.” But in spite of that, He fulfilled His responsibility to His mother, even from the Cross. 

And this brings out an aspect of heirship that is now forgotten. In terms of Biblical Law, true heirship means not only possessing an estate, but inheriting the responsibilities that go with it. And so, Jesus Christ, as the heir in the holy family, inherited the responsibilities of the family. So that, while there was probably no estate, Joseph being a humble carpenter, Jesus Christ inherited the responsibilities, the care of His brothers and sisters until they are of age, the care of His mother to death, and provision for her after death. And He handed her over, His responsibility, over to His cousin John, who came from a family of some means. Heirship is responsibility, and no one has a right to make an heir of anyone if they have not both faith and responsibility. 

Jesus Christ, then, as the son and heir in the holy family, assumed His responsibility in the family, taking over the role of the father, taking over the care of His mother, as heir to the Throne of David, fulfilling His responsibilities in terms of the kingdom, establishing the law and order and summoning all of us to carry forth that dominion unto all corners of the earth, fulfilling His royal responsibilities and His racial responsibilities as the head of the new humanity.

Thus, the good news at Bethlehem. When the angels came and proclaimed to the shepherds:

“Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”

Luke 2:10–11.

That good news was that the king, the true heir comes to fulfill His responsibilities, to establish dominion in the name of God and law and order over all the face of the earth. And all who received His grace are to partake of that dominion over the earth. 

Blessed are the meek: [those who have received His grace - RJR] for they shall inherit the earth. ⁱⁱⁱ

And shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. ^iv

“For unto [us] is born… a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” ^v

Let us pray.

* * *

Our Lord and our God, we thank thee that Jesus Christ is our King, our Lord, our Savior, and that He is at work now to destroy the false one and to establish His kingship, and that the world is not moving to the birth and triumph of the beast, but to the victory of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Make us ever strong, our Father, in this faith, faithful in His praise and service, ever mindful that the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ. O Lord our God, how great thou art, and we praise Thee! In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Are there any questions now, first of all with respect to our lesson?

Yes…

[Audience member] Are we to discriminate against lawbreakers?  ^vi

[Rushdoony] Very definitely, we are to discriminate against people who break the commandments by seeing that they are punished. Now, that’s a form of discrimination. If a person commits murder, you must discriminate against him by having him executed. But you also extend to him the grace of God in that you seek to convert him. But in seeking to convert him, you don’t set aside the law.

Yes.

[Audience member] I’ve heard people talking about Judas recently as if he were not so bad after all.  Is there any truth in that? ^vii

[Rushdoony] No, Judas is being made into more and more of a hero continually. In fact, there have been some things written in which Judas is made out to be the best disciple of all.

Judas did not believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Judas wanted someone who would lead, yes, perhaps against the Romans, some kind of a revolution. It was his thesis that perhaps someone with that much miraculous power should put it to use in terms of revolution. But basically, Judas was a thief. He had his hand in the treasury, and he was out for what he could get. And a man who has his hand in the treasury is a man who can be bought. And so he was bought by the Sanhedrin to betray Jesus. So the first and foremost thing in Judas’ mind was to profit by something or other.

The basic motive for Judas, whatever other considerations, and we do know that some of the disciples apparently were infected by the revolutionary trends of the day. One of them is actually surnamed ‘the Zealot’ which, and the Zealotswere the revolutionary party. But the basic motive with Judas was, first, unbelief, and second, the monetary aspect. He was a thief, he was ready to move in terms of that fact. 

Yes.

[Audience member] Satan used him, then?  ^viii

[Rushdoony] Satan made use of him because he was already of Satan, and he was called “the son of perdition.” 

Yes…

[Audience member] Question about the nature of the sin of Adam and Eve. 

[Rushdoony] Right. Scripture tells us that before the foundation of the world, Christ was decreed to be the savior of the world. 

Now had Adam and Eve lived ten thousand years and then committed one sin, the whole world would have still ended up as it did. So that in the providence of God, their fall was decreed. And now our salvation does not depend on ourselves, but on what Christ has done. So that our salvation is not our work, but God’s work. This is what was necessary in the providence of God. And now we keep the law not to be saved, but in obedience to our Savior.

Yes.

[Audience member] Was King Saul a forefather of Jesus Christ?

[Rushdoony] Saul was of the tribe of Benjamin and he was the king the people chose, and was set aside, and the Davidic line was established. There was no blood tie between the house of Saul, which was of the tribe of Benjamin, and the house of David. 

Now, of course, St. Paul, whose original name was Saul, was of the tribe of Benjamin and named after the great man of his tribe. 

Yes.

[Audience member] Was Jesus Christ in His incarnation the second coming of Adam?  ^ix

[Rushdoony] No, no, He was not the Second Coming of Adam, He was another, a second Adam, according to St. Paul. In other words, the old humanity fell, so God began with a special miraculous birth, again a new race. So that the Christians represent the new race. In fact, in the Early Church, and you find this, oh to the third, fourth, fifth century almost, the phrase used for the Christians, “the new race,” as against “the old race.” So that we are new humanity with a new Adam. We were born under the old Adam, but now we have the new Adam, because through Him we are born again so that we belong to a new humanity which is to replace the old humanity. 

[Audience member] Could Christ have fallen as well as Adam did?  ^x

[Rushdoony] The temptation was real, but He could not, in the providence of God, even though it was real. Now, this is difficult for us to comprehend. The first Adam was sinless, but he could fall, and did. The second Adam was tempted in all points like as we are and felt the temptation but in the providence of God, He could not fall. He was ordained before the foundation of the world to be the Savior.

Yes..

[Audience member] Do we know when Joseph, Mary’s husband, died?  ^xi

[Rushdoony] We don’t know when Joseph died, but he obviously had died sometime well before our Lord began His ministry, because our Lord appears as the head of the household and assumes the responsibilities thereof. So we don’t know how long Mary was a widow. 

Then in Matthew, we have the genealogy and we have it again in St. Luke, the genealogies differ. Both Mary and Joseph were of the lineage of David, and one gives the legal line, and the other gives the bloodline.

Yes…

[Audience member] I heard on the radio, heard someone explaining quite seriously that the age of people before the flood was calculated in months. 

[Rushdoony] Now, you often hear that, that the age of people before the flood was calculated in months. That’s just a silly idea to do away with the idea of the fact that they lived such long years. They don’t want to take the Bible at face value.

Just a few things I want to share with you. 

We were dealing last week with the fact of the disciplined mind, and from the church fathers, the post-Nicene fathers, there’s an interesting exchange of discussion in some of the conferences with the Abbot Serenus. Now, the young man is saying he finds it very hard to concentrate. He’s placed himself under the discipline and teaching of Serenus, but he says, “I try to concentrate on things and my mind wanders off in a hundred and one directions. How is it possible every to discipline the mind to do all these things that are being asked of us?”And Abbot Serenus gives us this answer which I think is very, very much to the point. He says of the mind:

“…in accordance with its nature can never remain idle, but unless provision is made where it may exercise its motions and have what will continually occupy it, it must by its own fickleness wander about and stray over all kinds of things until, accustomed by long practice and daily use—in which you say that you have toiled without result—it tries and learns what food for the memory it ought to prepare, toward which it may bring back its unwearied flight and acquire strength for remaining, and thus may succeed in driving away the hostile suggestion of the enemy by which it is distracted, and in persisting in that state and condition which it yearns for.” ^xii

I think that’s very much to the point, because as the abbot said, the mind can never remain idle. And that’s why you’re having the problem. You’re trying to think about what you should be studying, but your mind drifts off here and there. The mind is always active in this, but it is undisciplined. The mind requires discipline and prospers under it.

A couple of things to share with you, one which one of you very kindly passed on to me, dated December 2, 1968 from a school here in our community,

“To: The teachers

From: The principal

Subject: What is a student to [the name of the school]? 

A student is the most important person in our school. A student is not dependent on us, we are dependent on him. A student is not an interruption of our work; he is the purpose of it. We are not doing a student favor by serving him; he is doing us a favor by giving us the opportunity to do so. A student is not an outsider to our school; he is a part of it. a student is not a cold statistic, he is a flesh and blood human being with feelings and emotions. A student is not someone with whom to argue or match wits, he is the lifeblood of our school. A student is a person who brings you his wants and needs. It’s our job to handle them to his satisfaction. A student is the real boss of our school.”

Now I‘d like to see what that principal says a teacher is! Not much, one would gather.

Then this, which one business firm in the community passed out. I think it’s a good satire on the kind of rules and regulations they get from the government. 

“Interoffice memorandum to all managers:

Re: Decorating plants for Christmas.

We have been informed by the Office of Health, Education and Welfare, Washington, D.C. that a white Christmas would be in violation of Title 2 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Therefore, the following steps are to be taken to ensure that we comply with the act during the Christmas season in the plants.

1. All Christmas trees must have at least 26.4% colored bulbs, and they must be placed throughout the tree and not segregated in the back of the tree.

2. Christmas presents must not be wrapped in white paper. However, interim approval can be given if colored ribbon is used to tie them.

3. If a manger scene is used, 20% of the angels and one of the three kings must be of the minority race.

4. If Christmas music is played, ‘We Shall Overcome’ must be given equal time. Under no circumstances will ‘I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas’ be played.

5. Care should be taken in party planning.

a. Use pink champagne instead of white.

b. Turkey may be served, but only if the white and dark meat are on the same platter. There will be no separate platters of white and dark meat, this is not permitted.

c. Use chocolate ripple ice cream instead of vanilla.

d. Both chocolate and white milk must be served. There will be no freedom of choice planned. Milk will be served without regard to color. 

A team from Health, Education and Welfare will visit us on December 25 to determine our compliance with the act. If it snows on Christmas, we are all in trouble!”

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), Is 35:1.

ii. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Ga 3:29.

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

iv. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Ps 37:11.

v. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Lk 2:11.

vi.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

vii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

viii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

ix.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

x.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xi.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xii.  John Cassian, “The Conferences of John Cassian,” in Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lérins, John Cassian, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. Edgar C. S. Gibson, vol. 11, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1894), 363.