Institutes of Biblical Law

Introduction to the Law

by R.J. Rushdoony

When Wyclif wrote of his English Bible that "This Bible is for the government of the people, by the people, and for the people," his statement attracted no attention insofar as his emphasis on the centrality of Biblical law was concerned. That law should be God's law was held by all; Wyclif's departure from accepted opinion was that the people themselves should not only read and know that law but also should in some sense govern as well as be governed by it. At this point, Heer is right in saying that "Wyclif and Hus were the first to demonstrate to Europe the possibility of an alliance between the university and the people's yearning for salvation. It was the freedom of Oxford that sustained Wyclif."[1] The concern was less with church or state than with government by the law word of God.

Brin has said, of the Hebrew social order, that it differed from all others in that it was believed to be grounded on and governed by the law of God, who gave it specifically for man's government.[2] No less than Israel of old, Christendom believed itself to be God's realm because it was governed by the law of God as set forth in Scripture. There were departures from that law, variations of it, and laxity in faithfulness to it, but Christendom saw itself as the new Israel of God and no less subject to His law.

When New England began its existence as a law-order, its adoption of Biblical law was both a return to Scripture and a return to Europe's past. It was a new beginning in terms of old foundations. It was not an easy beginning, in that the many servants who came with the Puritans later were in full scale revolt against any Biblical faith and order.[3] Nevertheless, it was a resolute return to the fundamentals of Christendom. Thus, the New Haven Colony records show that the law of God, without any sense of innovation, was made the law of the Colony:

March 2, 1641/2: And according to the fundamental agreem(en)t, made and published by full and gen(e)r(a)ll consent, when the plantation began and government was settled, that the judiciall lawof God given by Moses and expounded in other parts of scripture, so far as itt is a hedg and a fence to the moral law, and neither ceremoniall nor typical nor had any reference to Canaan, hath an everlasting equity in itt, and should be the rule of their proceedings.[4]

April 3, 1644: Itt was ordered thatt the judiciall lawes of God, as they were delivered by Moses .. . be a rule to all the courts in this jurisdiction in their proceeding against offenders. . . .[5]

Thomas Shepard wrote, in 1649, "For all laws, whether ceremonial or judicial, may be referred to the decalogue, as appendices to it, or applications of it, and so to comprehend all other laws as their summary."[6]

It is an illusion to hold that such opinions were simply a Puritan aberration rather than a truly Biblical practice and an aspect of the persisting life of Christendom. It is a modern heresy that holds that the law of God has no meaning nor any binding force for man today. It is an aspect of the influence of humanistic and evolutionary thought on the church, and it posits an evolving, developing god. This "dispensational" god expressed himself in law in an earlier age, then later expressed himself by grace alone, and is now perhaps to express himself in still another way. But this is not the God of Scripture, whose grace and law remain the same in every age, because He, as the sovereign and absolute lord, changes not, nor does He need to change. The strength of man is the absoluteness of his God.

To attempt to study Scripture without studying its law is to deny it. To attempt to understand Western civilization apart from the impact of Biblical law within it and upon it is to seek a fictitious history and to reject twenty centuries and their progress.

The Institutes of Biblical Law has as its purpose a reversal of the present trend. It is called "Institutes" in the older meaning of that word, i.e., fundamental principles, here of law, because it is intended as a beginning, as an instituting consideration of that law which must govern society, and which shall govern society under God.

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Introduction to the Institutes of Biblical Law – English – PDF - 790KB

Introduction to Biblical Law – Part 1 – MP3

Direction of the Law – Part 2 – MP3

Institutes of Biblical Law – English – Book - Chalcedon Store

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