8. Restitution or Restoration (Remastered)

Restitution or Restoration

R.J. Rushdoony

Our Scripture is Exodus 21:18-25 and our subject is ‘Restitution or Restoration.’

“And if men strive together, and one smite another with a stone, or with his fist, and he die not, but keepeth his bed: If he rise again, and walk abroad upon his staff, then shall he that smote him be quit: only he shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall cause himto be thoroughly healed. And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money. If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.^”

God’s purpose in redemption is the restitution or restoration of all things in, through, and under Jesus Christ our king. This is very plainly summarized for us in Acts 3:21. The goal of all history is, according to Matthew 19:28, the general regeneration, or to use the Greek very literally, the ‘new Genesis’ of all things in Jesus Christ. The consequences of sin are removed and God’s Kingdom established. This is not only the goal of history, it is declared that it must be our primary petition in all prayer. 

“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.” 

This is at the heart of the Lord’s Prayer, it is the first petition. Restoration means that humanity is to be restored to blessedness and the earth to be blessed together with men. 

Now, the principle of restitution is basic to Biblical Law. It is especially forcefully brought out in the Sixth and Eighth Commandments, but it is present in all the law. It is the tragedy of our time that this basic principle of Biblical Law has been neglected and virtually forgotten. Briefly summarized, restitution means that if a man steals a $100 from you, he must restore the $100 plus another $100; the exact amount he hoped to profit thereby. 

Now the summary statement of this principle of restitution,                                                                                which appears in law after law throughout the whole of the Mosaic legislation and elsewhere in Scripture, is given to us in the statement: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth…”  this means restitution. It is revealing that, not only the modernist scholars who are trying to discredit the Bible, but also so many evangelicals, insist that this means that in the early days of the New Testament and through much of the Old Testament, if, by accident, you knock out the eye of someone else then your eye had to be gouged out!

Now of course, this is evolutionary thinking applied to the Bible. There isn’t a shred of evidence that this is what the Bible ever meant. In fact, it goes directly contrary to all the evidence. We can understand why the evolutionists insist that this is what must have been the case, even though there is no evidence for it. But why should the evangelicals, like Meryl Unger of the Dallas Theological Seminary, insist on the same meaning? It is, of course, to discredit law. Because they are antinomian, they do not want law to stand. And so at this point they join ranks; premillennial dispensationalists with the unbelievers to try to undercut the Bible. But the principle; “eye for eye, tooth for tooth,” simply sums up the legislation which we have read, the laws from verses eighteen through twenty-three, the laws with regard to damages, injury, and abortion. 

As we understand clearly the principle of restitution, and analyze the various laws, not only these which I’ve read but a number of others; for example, Leviticus 24:19, Leviticus 24:18, 21, and a variety of other laws. We find that certain principles of liability appear in Biblical Law requiring restitution. First, the guilty party was liable for the medical expenses of the injured. We saw this in our Scripture reading. 

“[H]e… shall cause him to be thoroughly healed.”

The law declares in Exodus 21:19, which we read. Moreover, in that same verse we find, second, that the guilty party is liable for the time lost from work. Third, the guilty party was liable to damages, to a general compensation for the injury. Fourth, the guilty party was liable if it were his animal that had done the damage, and he had greater liability if his animal had a previous record of violence.

Now, when we deal with the principle of restitution or restoration, we have to say that, of course, we find it in non-Biblical Law, and of course, we find it in the law today. The term as the law uses it today is ‘compensation’ or ‘damages.’ Thus, restitution is still with us to a degree. But there’s a radical difference, a radical difference in our use of the idea of restitution which undermines the Biblical purpose of the law. Compensation and damages as we mean it in law today is simply a hangover from the Biblical principle. It has been basically undermined and supplanted, it is a survival. 

What is the difference? Criminal law now works to imprison the man. It regards his offence as an offence against the state, so that the primary concern of the court is not restitution, but the punishment and imprisonment of the guilty party. As a result, if you have been the object of any offense, and you want damages, and they refuse to pay, you have to go to court; not to a criminal court, but to a civil court, and sue at your own expense. Now, this is reversing the whole procedure. Under Biblical Law, the criminal court, if we can use that term for Biblical court, declares that the punishment for the criminal is restitution, it did not sentence him to prison, but it sentenced him to repay. If we go back, for example, to early American law, which was Biblical, a man was guilty of any kind of offense towards another when he was taken to court had to pay, and the normal American principle was triple. In other words he paid, if he had done damages to the tune of $500, he paid $1500, and if he failed to pay, then he became a bondservant and worked it off.

What happened to the Biblical Law of restoration, or restitution? To understand what happened, we have to realize that this was made by the Early Church in terms of Scripture the principle for all Christians and for all Christian societies, for all law. But as the Middle Ages progressed towards the latter parts, the Feudal barons and the Medieval church stepped into the picture. And they said to themselves, as it were, “Here is a tremendous area of profit for us. If we collect it for ourselves as the penalty against the person, if we say it is an offense against the state rather than against the person!” And so, the Feudal barons and the church, well, they began to hail all offenders into their courts and throw them into prison and say, “You’re not getting out until you pay us!” And so they began to imprison them for ransom. And they either confiscated all their property, or their relatives paid up a certain sum as was laid upon them. The victims in the process were neglected. The state collected, or the church collected, but not the victims. 

Thus, the theory developed out of this that is now the theory of every modern state, that crime is an offense exclusively against the state. It is an offense against, say, California, or against Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, or against the French government, whatever the case may be. The rights of the victim, thus, are neglected, and he must start a civil suit to get compensation.

Now, to sum up this entire history, the transfer of law from restitution to imprisonment, we must note, first, what we’ve already stated that the shift from restoration and restitution to imprisonment has its roots in the seizure of power by the church and the state which was originally a shakedown with imprisonment as part of the shakedown. In the process, of course, the church has lost out and the state has taken over entirely. Second, the state made imprisonment its criminal law and relegated restitution to civil law with little care to enforcing the results of its own decisions in civil courts.

About fifteen to eighteen years ago, an attorney in the state of New York checked out all the civil suits for damages; cases involving restitution, and he found that only about ten percent of all the judgments awarded were ever collected. And there is reason to believe the percentage is much lower today. What does this mean? You go the court, to a civil court, and institute proceedings at your expense to gain restitution. The court awards it to you, but the court does not work to collect it for you. You then must start proceedings again to collect it, with almost little or no cooperation from the state. As a result, what compensation can you get? Increasingly the percentage of collection on such suits is less and less. 

A part of the Biblical Law of restitution or restoration we must then say third, was the right of self-defense against an aggressor. Anyone who was an aggressor against you and trespassed against you, a part of your power of restoration, that is, to restore your status quo, was the right to self-defense. So that if a man invaded a property, you could move against him with violence. After dark, if he invaded your home, you could kill him and you were blameless before the Lord. This right of restoration of the status quo by protecting your property from those who trespass against it, is steadily being taken away. 

Fourth, we must say further that the system of imprisonment and of ‘rehabilitation’ or whatever you want to call it is, is in fact, a subsidy to the criminal. He robbed you, and then you support him in prison so that you are again robbed. 

Fifth, we must note further that there are only two possible sources of civil power; God and the people. If power is from God, then God’s Law must prevail and God’s Law is restitution. If it is from the people, then the people’s will shall prevail because there is no higher law than the people. Restitution then becomes alien to democratic society, since it has reference to a higher order. Restitution says there is a Law of God, an order that is from God, and this order must be maintained and developed, and anything that violates it calls for a restoration. Thus, restoration is a theocratic principle, and this is why our society is more and more indifferent to restitution. 

Now, restitution as a theocratic principle involves three things. First, very obviously, restitution to the injured person. Second, restitution must be made to God because anyone who has stolen or committed an offence against a person, an injury, has not only violated the person or the property of that injured party, but also God’s order. And so, Numbers 5:6-8 declared that when there was no surviving person to whom restitution could be made, for example, the injured person died and restitution had to be made, it was made then to God, and in some cases a fifth part was added anyways as restitution to God.

Third, restitution is, according to the Scriptures, always mandatory, always required for a society to be healthy before God. Thus, when there is no person to make restitution, the state must make it, where no guilty part is found, then the state, for having failed to make the law punishable in this case, for having failed to locate the criminal, must restore to you that which was stolen. In other words, there must be restoration or else the society faces God’s judgement. 

Thus, the goal of society is clearly spelled out in the law of restitution, it is the restoration of God’s law and order; the evil must be punished or penalized, the godly defended, and godly law and order developed. This is what is involved in part in our prayer: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.” If we pray that prayer, then, we have a duty to live in terms of the principle of restitution, and to bring all of our society into conformity to it, because God’s will is declared, in Scripture, to be restitution. 

Thus, to be faithful to the Lord’s Prayer, we must work and pray for a law-order in which restitution is again basic.

Let us pray.

* * *

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we confess and acknowledge before thee that our world today hast forsaken thy Law, that it despises thy Word, and instead of making restitution or restoration, it tears down those things which art of thee. We thank thee, our Father, that in the face of these things we have the blessed assurance that thou in thy sovereign power dost undertake the work of restitution, that thou wilt bring judgement upon these wicked ones, that thou shalt restore the earth, that thou shalt restore godly law and order and confound and overturn those who are workers of iniquity. Give us faith, our Father, day by day in the certainty of thy work, and in the glory of thy restoring it hence and confidence, our Father, in the day of adversity knowing that thy Word shall prevail. Bless us in thy service. In Jesus' name. Amen.

* * *

Are there any questions now with respect to our lesson, restitution?

Yes?

[Audience member] Question regarding the relationship between premillennial dispensationalists and antimonianism. 

[Rushdoony] Yes, right. The fallacy of Dr. Unger, who was a very able scholar, is this; that as a premillennial dispensationalist, he believes that there are various dispensations. So that the law would belong to one dispensation and therefore it has no application for us. So that the law is of no significance to him, whether it’s a law that I read, the Ten Commandments, or any other law. In fact, because most premillennial dispensationalist are logical, they do not believe in using the Lord’s Prayer. And I’ve known pastors who absolutely refuse to have the Lord’s Prayer in their services. In fact, I know of one Episcopal congregation which had, not too long ago, had such a pastor, he is still there is that community, who refused to use the Lord’s Prayer in the services. And his reason was a logical one, because someone told me that she had challenged him and this was the answer that was given. 

Now we, since we do not hold to dispensationalism, we believe that God has had one way of salvation throughout all of Scripture, it’s always been of grace. In the Old Testament it was set forth through the sacrificial system which typified Christ. So that salvation was always through Christ and through the blood of the atoning Lamb. And the obligation of the believer both in the Old and the New Testament has been that they have been saved to keep the law. As St. Paul declared it in Romans 8:4, the purpose of our salvation is that, “The righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us.” Thus, the whole Bible is one book for us. 

But the systematic premillennial dispensationalist says, “The law applied to theocratic Israel, it has no meaning for us and neither do most of the gospels, most of the epistles, just a few passages really in the epistles have any meaning, and a few passages in the gospel. The rest of it has no meaning until the millennium and the Jewish kingdom is restored, and then again the world will be under law.”

Now of course, this, I believe, is wrongly dividing the word of truth and there is no warrant for this, and it goes clearly against so much of the teachings of the whole Bible, against all of it. And Dr. Unger is simply being consistent when he bypasses the law as he does, and he’s not as extreme as some are, some go much further than he does.

Yes?

[Audience member] It seems that insurance policies have replaced the increasingly non-existent practice of restitution. ⁱ

[Rushdoony] A very good point. Yes. We have had to develop insurance policies to cover the whole process which was once basic to the law. In other words, because the law will not effect restitution, the insurance company has to do it for us, and we pay and pay! So that again, we are the losers! Supposedly, our insurance policies do that. For example, because in this State the matter was becoming so serious with respect to traffic accidents, laws were passed to make insurance mandatory, or more of less mandatory. Those of you who are in insurance know more about this than I do, because I’m rather vague here. But a few years ago the problem was very serious so we had this State law and of course the problem immediately was that many of these people could not qualify for insurance, they had a bad record. 

Now, did we say then these people cannot drive a car because they are obviously irresponsible? On the contrary! The law then required that insurance policies be issued to these drivers who were really incompetent. And it required that the companies accept them, so now the companies accept them and pass them around, assign so many to each company and you pay their premium because your premium is raised proportionally to take care of them. So that supposedly this law was to help make restitution, but actually it penalizes you all the further!

Yes?

[Audience member] Was rehabilitation considered in Biblical Law?

[Rushdoony] No. It was not considered. The purpose of Biblical Law was to effect restitution. Rehabilitation was the responsibility of the individual; either he changed his ways, or he effected restitution by being executed to restore order. 

Incidentally, some States still require mandatory execution of habitual criminals, but this is at present going up the Supreme Court and will almost certainly be knocked out, especially because the habitual criminal in this case is a negro.

Yes?

[Audience member] Could you comment on the legislative reforms undertaken in Ancient Greece? ⁱⁱ

[Rushdoony] Yes, in Ancient Greece you had a number of so-called ‘legislative reforms.’ Well, let’s bring the previous question and this one together. Is it the purpose of the state to rehabilitate the criminal? When we make it the purpose of the state to rehabilitate the criminal, what are we saying? We are saying that the state is the father, the parent, so the state exercises a parental function. Now, when the state exercises a parental function, it then becomes the caretaker as the father of all the people in the state, they are now its children. 

So, while it seems heartless to say that the state cannot be involved in rehabilitation, but this is the duty of the individual and it is the duty of Christian agencies in the state to work at this and then if the person fails, “off with his head!” as it were! He’s finished! For the welfare of society, he has to go. 

The consequences of making the state the parent, as it were, are very deadly, and this is where all the Greek reforms fail because basic to all the Greek reforms was this whole concept of the parental function of the state. So that, periodically, they would have a serious problem, and they would have a legal reform and, they had a number of them, but none of them affected anything, except through brute strength briefly they would manage to stabilize the situation, and then it would get out of hand again. But their answer was always the wrong one. It was, “The state is going to do something about this as the father of the people.” So, even when in individual laws the Greeks sometimes had a sound principle, the basic orientation was wrong. 

Now, the Greeks had a number of times the principle of restitution, but never in the Biblical sense, in that always the offense was against the state essentially, rather than against the person.

Yes?

[Audience member] Why do some of these ‘New Testament Christians’ so-called, claim that the law of restitution is set aside? ⁱⁱⁱ

[Rushdoony] Yes. To understand this thinking you have to realize that they’re looking at the Bible with colored glasses, as it were. If you have green-tinted glasses and look out at the world, the world is green. And this is the trouble with many people; they come to the Bible, as it were, with tinted glasses. 

And what are these tints? Well, they go back centuries, and in the studies I’m giving first Wednesday of each month in San Reno on the great thinkers and the development of philosophy, this Wednesday I’ll be calling attention to the Abbot Joachim of Fiore, whose thinking has influenced the modern world, modern theology, modern fundamentalism, Marxism, Hegelianism, almost anywhere you turn, and especially the ‘Death of God’ school, you find the Abbot Joachim’s thinking. 

Now, the Abbot Joachim held that there were three ages in the world. The first was the age of the Father and the age of law, the age of the God of wrath and so on. Then this passed away and you had the new age, the age of the Son, Jesus Christ. And in the age of the Son, you had grace, and salvation by grace, rather than by law, as in the age of the Father. It was an age of missions and evangelism and of the offer of peace and so on to the world. And then the age of God the Son gives way to the age of the Spirit. And in the age of the Spirit, you are beyond the Father and beyond the Son, and you have the unification of all religions, and you live now in the Spirit and the guiding principle is no longer law, as in the first age, nor grace, as in the second age, but it is love, the spirit of the third age. 

Doesn’t this sound familiar? Don’t you get it from all sides? And God is now dead, God the Father and God the Son, and it’s God the Spirit which is in all men. So you have this One-World Order and this one-world religion, and this is what we’re all working towards. 

Now, this you encounter everywhere, this kind of thinking. As I say you find it in the far left, you find it in fundamentalist circles, you find it, as I did recently, in a so-called ‘Christian college,’ so-called.  You find it everywhere you turn. This, of course, it echoes itself in a lot of the literature of the day, the ‘third world’ thinkers, the ‘third world’ revolution, this is what we’re in the midst of, so that this is the gospel today according to almost every spokesman. Incidentally, it’s the gospel according to Playboy. So this is why you find that this universal emphasis on love rather than on Jesus Christ in so many circles.

Yes?

[Audience member] How do we interact with people who call themselves ‘spiritual?’ What can I say to them? ^iv

[Rushdoony] Yes. And we must say to them, “You know, Satan is a spiritual being too. What kind of spirituality are you interested in?”

Yes?

[Audience member] Not all premillennialism is, in fact, dispensational in its teaching.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Not all premillennialism is dispensational. I thank you for that correction. A good deal of it is, but not all. The Schofield system is dispensationalist, but there are some reformed thinkers who are premillennial so there is an element of premillennialism which is hostile to dispensationalism.

Yes?

[Audience member] From where are the powers of the Federal government derived? What is the source of its sovereignty? ^v

[Rushdoony] Well, today in our thinking the powers of the Federal government are derived from the people, but this was not so when the Constitution was written, and the key to that was this; in no part of the Constitution was the word ‘sovereignty’ ever used, never! This is what makes it a unique document as far as political documents go. Because they believed that sovereignty belongs to God, never did they use the word with respect the political order. Fifty years later, when some southern thinkers began to talk about ‘State sovereignty,’ John Quincy Adams in a famous Fourth of July oration spoke against it, and said it was alien to everything that was American, alien to everything that was constitutional. I quote a portion of his address in my book This Independent Republic.

Yes?

[Audience member] The criminal has a better defence at law than the victim, it seems, Dr. Rushdoony. ^vi

[Rushdoony] Yes. And of course, the criminal is now given an attorney at public expense. Now, what does this mean practically? Well, as I pointed out not too long ago, virtually every criminal who is arrested for a criminal offense is guilty. With the law being as it is, they are almost all guilty. But what has happened? Since an attorney is provided, the attorney can now dicker in the case of obvious guilt for a lesser term by threatening to tie them up.

I sat in on some sessions recently, these were preliminary hearings of people who were caught, caught in the commission of a crime. The first date of the hearing, the attorney appointed at our expense deferred the hearing, claiming they needed more time to prepare their case and get further evidence. This meant that when the complaining witnesses, the people who were robbed and so on appeared and waited around for an hour or two for that case to come before the court  and it was dismissed, they lost most of the morning from work. Then the second time the preliminary hearing was held, and it took a good deal of the day, they tied up an entire courtroom for all of the morning and a good portion of the afternoon, and of course, the logical conclusion was that these persons were bound over for trial. 

Now, again, when it came to the actual trial, they could play the same game, endless delaying tactics, which meant that by the time those persons were actually convicted. which was a forgone conclusion, the expense of the taxpayers would be tremendous, and the expense of the individual persons who were robbed, plus the witnesses would be considerable, because they would reappear day after day and there would be a number of postponements. 

So with this in mind, what happened? On the day of the trial, the attorneys appeared, and they tell the prosecuting attorney, “Well, we’re going to need more time for this or that, and we’ve got a long case, but if you will reduce the charges we will have our client plead guilty.” So that the charges are dropped significantly, and instead of something that would prison for five to ten years, it’s something that will give them say thirty or sixty days and they plead guilty to that and get out. Why? For the simple reason that at your expense and mine, and the courts know it, every court in Los Angeles and across country can be so tied up that the whole of our criminals procedures will grind to a halt, they couldn’t begin to process all these things! So you see, this means an effective breakdown of law and order, and this is what we’re getting under this present system, which is a logical conclusion of something that is begun by denying God’s provisions.

Yes?

[Audience member] I wonder whose side the ‘public defender’ is on, Dr. Rushdoony.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Well, it’s interesting that we have a public defender now who defends criminals, a ‘public defender.’

Well, our time is up, but I’d like to call to your attention the lecture tomorrow night, the flyers are in the back, by Dr. Bolton Davidheiser. The last of his four Chalcedon lectures, ‘Critique of Evidences for Evolution.’ Those of you who have attended thus far can witness to how very interesting they’ve been and last Monday evening how very amusing it was, a thorough delight! I trust you will be there. 

We’re adjourned. 

i.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

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vi.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.