Professor: Rushdoony Dr. R.J.R.

Subject: Systematic Theology

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 11 of 19

Track: #11

Year:

Dictation Name: 11 The Purpose of Authority

[Rushdoony] This is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will heareth us. Having these promises let us draw near to the throne of grace with true hearts in full assurance of faith. My voice shalt Thou hear in the morning oh Lord, in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee and will look up. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God unto whom all power, glory and dominion belongeth we come unto Thy presence rejoicing that as we face a world of men dedicated to their own ways it is Thy way that shall prevail; Thy kingdom that shall triumph and Thy will that shall be done. Strengthen us then by Thy word and by Thy spirit that we may go forth in Thy name to conquer, to bring all things into captivity to Jesus Christ our Lord; that we might know that we have been called to victory. Bless us therefore in Thy service, grant us Thy peace and give us always joy in Thee. In Jesus name, amen.

Our scripture this morning is Matthew 23:13 ; our subject The Purpose of Authority. Matthew 23:13 is the first verse in a long passage going on to the end of the chapter in which woes and maledictions, curses, are pronounced upon religious leaders and all who follow them into a way that is not of God. Matthew 23:13 The Purpose of Authority.

“But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.”

This symbolism of keys as representing authority is an ancient one, and quite a natural one. Keys after all do unlock wealth. They do unlock knowledge, property, and a great deal more. Wherever there is something of importance, a treasure, there are keys to protect it. The symbol of the key is used in many, many ways. We speak of a key man – the important one, a keyboard- controlling a type writer or computer, we speak of a keystone in the arch – the last stone that is set that binds all things together. We speak of a key note in music and keynote speaker at political conventions. We have of course the familiar symbol of the Phi Beta Kappa key and much, much more. 

Our Lord uses this symbol when he speaks of the keys of the kingdom in Matthew 16 verse 19. In this passage Matthew 23:13 he refers to the keys without using the word. The image here is of an irresponsible key holder who locks people out by misusing authority. The purpose of keys is to unlock doors. But false authorities use their keys, not to lead people into knowledge or wealth or whatever it is they are custodians of, but to bar them. One scholar, Sherman E. Johnson, has said concerning Matthew 23:13 that it tells us that these false authorities have taken away the key of knowledge. They have made the law of God difficult and abstruse, and they have formed exclusive brotherhoods of experts to lock out all except themselves.

Now some time ago we dealt with the distinction between Elitism and hierarchy, and we saw that Elitism means something Humanistic an exclusive group of men who are self-styled leaders, self-appointed experts, self-appointed philosopher kings. The classic document of elitism is Plato’s Republic according to Plato’s Republic most men are to be in a position of slaves, to be manipulated without knowing that they are manipulated while the philosopher kings were exempt from the rules they set for all others. Govern and manipulate the great masses of people. This of course is political reality of the modern world. In varying degrees every modern state because it has departed from Christianity is elitist in principle. hierarchy means, literally, sacred rule. Rule according to God’s law. Now there’s no question that some that have been religious of our Christian hierarchies have abused the office, and there is no question also that the word has fallen into disrepute as a result of a misuse by persons and by enemies of the concept of hierarchy. All the same the distinction is an important and an essential one between elitism and hierarchism. 

Our Lord’s comment is that keys which are created to unlock doors, and open up treasures, are being misused. After all if you don’t have keys the thing to do is to bury whatever you have, or to seal it over, to make it permanently impenetrable. The purpose of keys is to protect and to unlock; the purpose of the keys of the kingdom is to unlock the doors of knowledge too, of membership in, and service in and under God, and His kingdom. God’s kingdom is His law and his government. We are emphatically told both in the Old and the New Testaments that the people of God are called to be a royal priesthood. That is, people with authority in the world. Now the kingdom keys are given to the church and are thus keys to the knowledge of God’s law and God’s calling so that all may become a royal priesthood. This is the whole point of the keys of the kingdom. Our calling is to be under authority, but also to exercise authority each in our appointed sphere. And the whole point of having the keys of the kingdom, of being an authority in the church of Christ, of being a teacher, of expounding the word of God, is to enable others to grow in authority, not to lock of knowledge and authority and the ability to govern from people. Our calling, let me repeat, is to be under authority and also to exercise authority and government. 

Now more than once we have dealt with the meaning of the word government, and it is important again to review it briefly in this context. It is so important a subject you’re going to hear about it over the years, many more times. In our day the word government has been dangerously misappropriated and wrongly defined. When we say government we think of Sacramento or Washington D.C. or London, or Moscow, or some other Statist center. Such a use of the word government is totalitarian. It absorbs the totality of government into the state. But historically in Christian thought the basic government is the self-government of the Christian man. This is the essential government together with a family. The family is a government, and important, a key government. Then another government is the school, a training place where people can learn, and grow in their self-government. The church is a government, our vocation governs us and is a government, the society in which we live is a government, and finally the state is civil government. Of course the many institutions that are created by Christians and others, tithe agencies for example, also governed. And in a Christian culture most government is outside the state which has only a limited amount of it. Now this is important, Godly, hierarchal authority and government work to bring others into their rightful and God-ordained authority and government. Whereas on the other hand elitism works to exclude people from authority and government, it limits it to a small segment. 

One professor recently gave a speech, the gist of which was that they day of the philosopher kings has arrived. It should be government by experts. After all we had this introduced into politics via Daniel Bell when some years ago President John F. Kennedy said that the day of moral questions had ended, we had reached a technological era in which all the questions were simple products for experts to expedite. The implication of that was that really the voting process and the judgment by individuals was obsolete. Experts no should dominate the human scene; the purpose of elitism is to exclude people from their authority, from their self-government. Where-as the true purpose of hierarchism, sacred rule, rule under God in terms of His law word is to enable people to grow in their authority. Our Lord attacked and condemned all who used authority to shut the doors of knowledge and to trivialize God’s law.

For example, as a instance of the trivialization of God’s law, and one could spend several hours just skimming the surface of what existed in our Lord’s day. One of the laws set forth by the Pharisees was that it was unlawful to kill a flea or fleas on the Sabbath because it meant taking life on the Lord’s Day. Now God’s law concerning the Sabbath is very simple, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Was a man more holy getting flea bites all day long on the Sabbath instead of killing the fleas? Another law said it was unlawful to eat eggs laid on the Sabbath unless it was laid not by a laying hen but one that was being fattened for the table. Again what relationship is their between this and “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy”? 

Now, as I indicated, the Pharisees had a library full of regulations like this concerning the Sabbath, endless regulations. But the church has been very definitely given to the same kind of thing. To give one illustration, during the middle ages and in early Protestantism, in Puritan New England the belief prevailed that a child was born on the same day it was conceived. So if it was conceived on a Monday, it was born on a Monday. Well if it was born on Sunday it meant that the child had been conceived on Sunday and it meant that the couple, the parents, had labored on the Sabbath. They therefore had to do penance. In fact one puritan pastor in New England was quite a bear on the subject and made several couples make public confession of sin, although they kept protesting privately that they had not broken the Sabbath, and then low and behold his wife gave birth to twins on the Sabbath. He had to make a public apology, but I suspect he didn’t change his mind ab