Professor: Rushdoony Dr. R.J.R.

Subject: Systematic Theology

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 13 of 19

Track: #13

Year:

Dictation Name: 13 Authority – Primary and Secondary

[Rushdoony] Let us worship God. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. Oh come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our maker; for He is our God and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God we give thanks unto Thee, for the freedom with which Thou hast blessed us in the years past. Give us grace and mercy and strength that we might pass on to those to come a like heritage. That we might cleanse this land of ungodliness, that we might again be a free people in Jesus Christ. Bless us through Thy word and by Thy Spirit. Make us strong in Thee to the destroying of the things that are against Thee and the establishing of Thy kingdom from pole to pole. Bless us to this purpose in Jesus name, amen.

Our scripture is from the gospel according to Matthew, the fifteenth chapter verse one through nine. Our subject, authority primary and secondary, authority primary and secondary Matthew 15: 1- 9

“1Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying,

2 Why do Thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they wash not their hands when they eat bread.

3 But he answered and said unto them, why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?

4 For God commanded, saying, honor thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.

5 But ye say, whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me;

6 And honor not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.

7 Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,

8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.

9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. 

The word authority has been in disrepute for many, many generations. This should not surprise us. Man having rebelled against God’s authority is certainly going to rebel authority in any human sphere. He will not be inclined to respect man’s, having rejected God’s authority. A couple of centuries the liberal Anglican Bishop Hoadly said, and I quote “Authority is the greatest and the most irreconcilable enemy to truth and argument that this world ever furnished. All the sophistry, all the color of plausibility, all the artifice and cunning of the subtlest disputer of the world may be laid open and turned to the advantage of that very truth which they are designed to hide. But against authority there is no defense.” What we must say is that Hoadly had reference not to true authority but to man’s authoritarianism. Men have authoritarian pretensions that is a part of man’s sin to be as God.

Now in the history of the church the question of authority has never been a simple one. Two extremes have plagued the church, and we have touched on these before. First, there has been the insistence on the authentication of God’s word and authority by the church. The church says “we are the authenticating institution.” The danger in this is the tendency to exalt the church into...