Professor: Rushdoony Dr. R.J.R.

Subject: Systematic Theology

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 17 of 19

Track: #17

Year:

Dictation Name: 17 Authority, Justice, and Men

[Rushdoony] Thus saith the Lord “Ye shall seek Me and find Me when Ye shall search for me with all your hearts.” Jesus said “blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God whose grace and mercy we’ve all been made rich. We give thanks unto Thee for the joy and happiness of our lives, for the blessings with which Thou dost daily surround us. For the land of our birth, for the homes in which we live, and for our fellowship one with another. Make us ever mindful how rich we are in Thee. Give us grateful hearts that we might praise Thee with all our heart, mind, and being and serve Thee with gladness and thanksgiving. Make us ever mindful of all that Thou hast given to us, chiefly Jesus Christ Thy Son our Savior, who came to be made sin for us, destroyed the power of sin and death, and now sitteth at Thy right hand ever to intercede for us. Therefore we praise Thee, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In Jesus name, amen.

Our scripture this morning is from Deuteronomy 17 verses 8-13, and our subject Authority, Justice, and men, Deuteronomy 17 beginning with the eighth verse.

“8 If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates: then shalt thou arise, and get thee up into the place which the Lord thy God shall choose; 9 And thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and enquire; and they shall shew thee the sentence of judgment: 10 And thou shalt do according to the sentence, which they of that place which the Lord shall choose shall shew thee; and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee: 11 According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do: thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall shew thee, to the right hand, nor to the left. 12 And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the Lord thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel. 13 And all the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously.” 

God in His law stresses repeatedly the untrustworthiness of men. As a result in the courts of law according to scripture, which has set a pattern for many nations, corroboration of evidence was necessary for conviction. According to Deuteronomy 17:6-7 there had to be two or more witnesses, this law is very strongly stressed, more than once, as witness in Numbers 34:30 and in Deuteronomy 19:5 it is made clear that it applies in any case for any crime. The New Testament also stresses this requirement of corroboration. In cases Ecclesiastical as well as civil and criminal, as witness Matthew 18:16 , John 8:17 , II Corinthians 13:1, I Timothy 5:19 , and Hebrews 10:28 . In other words the Bible makes clear that no man, however important, however great his position and authority in the realm, can convict anyone by his testimony alone. 

This distrust of authority goes through the law. In our text the law deals with appeals in courts. First these appeals were up to Moses, later to the governing judge, and then to the king. In Exodus 18:21-23, Numbers 11:16 & 17, and Deuteronomy 1:12-17 are some of the texts that deal with this matter. But there was more to this, beside the system of appellate courts the Supreme Court, final court of appeal, had to have sitting on the bench at least three men of three classes. One, a priest who knew the law and ruled in terms of it; another a Levite, also one who was the educator of Israel, and knowledgeable in the law, and the third the civil judge. Moreover the priest and the Levite dealt with the problem cases and the application of God’s law to the particular case. For example verse eight cites cases between blood and blood, in other words was it man slaughter, or was it murder? Between plea and plea and stroke and stroke Exodus 22:1-15 for example gives us illustrations of these: theft, embezzlement, and other cases involving restitution, what kind of restitution. Moreover the decision of the Supreme Court was always final, and failure to obey was punishable by death. This was a Supreme Court as God provided for it in Israel. 

The court as we have seen had to include three classes, priest, Levite, and judge. 

Now in modern terms we would call this checks and balances, and of course it was clearly the influence of Old Testament law that led to our system of checks and balances, however we have a more radical kind of check and balance then the constitution provides. In the constitution it is between three separate branches of government, but here within the judiciary as elsewhere, (but that’s not our concern now) there were checks and balances. Three types of judges had to sit on the court. The judges also were covenant men, as were the priests and the Levites. Now it is true this law was often disobeyed in the history of Israel. In fact it was later ruled that disobedience to the words of the scribes was more serious then disobedience to the words of the Torah. In other words, the lawyer had greater weight than God. This was the development of Phariseeism. As George Horowitz in the Spirit of Jewish Law points out, in fact Horowitz says that Psalm 119 verse 126 which reads “it is time for Thee Lord to work, for they have made void Thy law” was totally reinterpreted and turned upside down to mean “it is time to do something for the Lord, so make void the Torah.” In other words, the plain meaning was set aside pragmatically by the Sanhedrin, and yet the Torah was formally held to be beyond tampering with. Now it was this development that gained the wrath of our Lord, it was the heart of Phariseeism. Of course we have had like developments in this country with regard to our constitution.

Thus when God gives us the provision of Deuteronomy 17 verse 8 – 13 he does not give us an infallible means of preventing injustice. What we do get is a dilution of human authority to protect the judicial process. Now in terms of these things we must make certain observations. First, as we have already seen even a God provided law cannot prevent injustice. On the human level there is no infallible justice, man is a sinner and he perverts the best possible law structure as Phariseeism did. The Sanhedrin turned the law upside down and gave man’s word priority, the rational was “well God’s in heaven and we’re here, and we see the situation better than God does.” But a yardstick which is a rubber yardstick is no yardstick at all.

Second, having said that we must observe that the history of Israel is without equal in antiquity; in fact is compared to a great deal that has followed since, it is without equal. Despite periodic dereliction it had a remarkably long history of justice. God’s law was a break on the sin of man. The Sanhedrin which condemned Jesus met illegally; pragmatism had by then become the order of the day. All the same, even given that the high point of injustice in all history, there was still a residue of sound thinking and justice in the Sanhedrin because when the apostles shortly after Pentecost were brought before the authorities, Gamaliel spoke judiciously and gained the release of the apostles as Acts 5:33-40 tells us. The tyranny of the pagan states was constant because they did not have God’s law, and that respect in Israel, having this law it was always possible and it happened. But man stood up to the authority and said as our Lord supremely did that they were wrong, that there was a higher law than their word. 

Then third we have called attention to the fact that this law provided a form of checks and balances. The three kinds of justices made sure that the perspective of God’s law was maximized. But this was not all, the work of the prophets was as a spokesmen for the covenant law, as the defenders of the covenant people in terms of the word of God. And so the word of the prophets was “Thus saith the Lord” to kings and to people, to judges and to priests. To this day where the church exercises its prophetic task there is a check on injustice, and we have to say that our condition is largely due to the failure of the church to be prophetic. The Bible tells us that where priest and prophet go astray, there too will the people go astray. We read for example in Isaiah 28:7&8 concerning false priests and prophets, that they also have erred through wine and through strong drink are out of the way. The priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink, they err in vision, they stumble in judgment, for all tables are full of vomit and filthiness so that there is no place clean. The very people who should lead the nation in righteousness or in justice are filthy pigs Isaiah says. The tables which should be places to eat and to keep strong in God’s service are tables of filth. Jeremiah makes a like indictment. He says that instead of justice the priests and prophets manifest sin, according to Jeremiah 23:11 that the false leaders give the people what they want to hear.

The prophet Micah also makes the same statement. For example in Micah 2:11 “11 If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink; h