SONSHIP, INHERITANCE, AND IMMIGRATION And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, To keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good? Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD'S thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is. Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked (Deut. 10:12-16).
The fear of God is the theocentric focus of this passage. Covenantal faithfulness begins with fear (Prov. 9:10). Fear, obedience, and love were united in this passage. Israel was told to obey God. The basis of this fear was legally grounded in God's status as Creator: "Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD'S thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is." The backward logic was sharp: from man's obedience to God's ownership. The logic of the passage is that man's absolute obedience is required by God because God is the absolute owner of the universe. This ownership included Israel, which owed a special debt to God as God's chosen nation. "Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day" (v. 15). God's cosmic ownership identifies this law as a universal law. It was not a seed law or a land law.
The fourth generation would soon be circumcised at Gilgal (Josh. 5:7). The circumcision of their flesh would visibly bond them with Abraham, but this circumcision of their flesh would not be sufficient to maintain the kingdom grant. They would have to obey God's law. Moses referred to this as the circumcision of the heart.
Paul made extensive use of this metaphor in his development of the New Covenant's extension of the Old Covenant's promises and inheritance to the gentiles. The central issue is ethics, Paul insisted, not circumcision. "For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. Therefore if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law? For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God" (Rom. 2:25-29). This is exactly what Moses told them in this passage. It is not who you are but what you do that determines how God deals with you. God does not regard persons in declaring His formal judgments. "For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward" (Deut. 10:17).
Sonship and Inheritance Moses was making a crucial covenantal observation. It was in fact the most important aspect of the Mosaic Covenant: the mark of true sonship is the circumcised heart. Ethics is more important than ritual. The true son is the son who obeys his father. It was this message that the Israelites forgot or denied by their actions, generation after generation, culminating in the nation's consummate rebellion: the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Jesus drove home Moses' message in his parable of the two sons: "But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to day in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not. Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him" (Matt. 21:28-32). The true Son of God, the true heir of Abraham, was murdered by the would-be heirs. Jesus' next parable revealed that He knew exactly what they would do to Him: the parable of the husbandmen who killed the heir (Matt. 21:33-46).
Circumcised Sons
Circumcision was the physical mark of subordination to the Mosaic covenant. Circumcision was the Old Covenant's oath-sign.(1) Every biblical covenant must be ratified by an oath, and this oath invokes negative sanctions on the covenant-breaker.(2) The negative sanction of the cutting of the flesh was the judicial equivalent of invoking negative sanctions on the oath-taker for disobeying God's law. The covenant's oath-sign invokes positive and negative historical sanctions in terms of the covenant's stipulations. Circumcision did not guarantee Israel's inheritance; it merely invoked positive sanctions for obedience, which in turn would ensure the inheritance.
Moses was warning his listeners: obedience to God was a more important sign of sonship than circumcision was. Circumcision invoked God's sanctions, but these sanctions were applied in terms of God's law. Point four of the biblical covenant model -- oath/sanctions -- refers the oath-taker back to point three: ethics. The physical mark of the Old Covenant was circumcision. But the other visible mark was of much greater importance: obedience to the law. Circumcision without obedience brings God's negative sanctions. Jesus warned: "Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven" (Matt. 7:19-21). Circumcision without obedience is a curse, not a blessing.
Moses' words in this passage reflect the biblical covenant model. God, as the sovereign owner of heaven and earth (point one), established His covenant with representatives (point two): the patriarchs of Israel. He has placed Israel under His law (point three), to which are attached sanctions (point four). These sanctions are invoked by circumcision; they are applied by God in terms of obedience or disobedience. Corporate inheritance is the ultimate positive sanction in history: the kingdom of God on earth.
His soul shall dwell at ease; and his seed shall inherit the earth (Ps. 25:13).
For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth (Ps. 37:9).
But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace (Ps. 37:11).
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth" (Matt. 5:5).
While Israel's inheritance is not specifically mentioned in this passage, this is the central theme of the Book of Deuteronomy. Moses did identify that generation as part of Abraham's promised seed, "even you above all people, as it is this day" (v. 15).
Israel could not rely on circumcision as the judicial basis of its national inheritance. Maintaining the kingdom grant is always an ethical task.(3) Israel's rituals were symbols of cleansing and restoration, but they were useless if they were not accompanied by a change of heart and behavior. Circumcision would condemn Israel if the nation committed the sins of Canaan. Circumcision would bring the Mosaic covenant's negative corporate sanctions. Deuteronomy is the second reading of the law because the Mosaic law was the written testament that specified the terms of the national inheritance.
Sons and Strangers Sons inherit; strangers in the household do not. This had been Abraham's dilemma. "And Abram said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?" (Gen. 15:2). The judicial question is this: Who is the true son with a lawful claim on the inheritance?
The true sons of God are those who obey Him. This raised a major question for Israel, one which they never answered correctly: Can a stranger become a son? The answer was covenantally obvious but repulsive to Israel: yes. The stranger, if he acts as a son should act, is entitled to become the lawful heir. The son, if he acts as a stranger to the covenant, is to be disinherited. Adopted sons replace biological sons as the lawful heirs. This is the message of the New Covenant. The gentiles could become sons on the same basis that the Jews could: obedience to God's covenant, i.e., adoption. Both Jews and gentiles need adoption, Paul wrote to the Galatians: "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (Gal. 4:4-6). Adoption had always been open to gentiles in Israel, but it took up to ten generations for the heirs of some strangers to achieve this (Deut. 23:3). Under the New Covenant, adoption required a new oath-sign, baptism, and a new Passover, the Lord's Supper. As had been the case with the Mosaic Covenant's rituals, these new oath-bound rituals were not to be regarded as substitutes for obedience.
And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him (I John 2:3-4).
And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight (I John 3:22).
And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us (I John 3:24).
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments (I John 5:2).
The true son does the will of his father. By identifying a man's works, others can identify his covenantal father. This covenantal concept of sonship was why the circumcised stranger was a threat to the self-esteem of covenant-breaking Israelites. The visible obedience of covenant-keeping strangers testified against the sonship of covenant-breaking Israelites.
Those who were the biological heirs of the conquest generation had an inheritance in the land. Immigrant strangers could not inherit rural land except through their adoption into a family line of the conquest generation. But they could buy houses in the cities, and they could become full citizens in the cities after several consecutive generations of circumcised heads of households. They could become full sons of the covenant even though they could not inherit rural land. This eventually placed a heavy social and psychological premium on the possession of a claim to rural land. Land rather than ethics became the chief differentiating factor in the minds of covenant-breaking heirs of the conquest generation.
Sacrosanct Land
The land became sacrosanct in the thinking of those Israelites who placed formal title to land above obedience as the true mark of sonship. "The land, the land" became their cry. The supreme mark of their disinheritance would be their removal from the land. Recognizing this sinful outlook in advance, Moses warned: "And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone. And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the LORD shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind" (Deut. 28:63-65).
Assyria removed Israelites from the land in the Northern Kingdom in 722 B.C. In 586 B.C., Babylon removed most of those living in the Southern Kingdom.(4) A comparative handful returned from the Babylonian captivity in 538; the vast majority remained behind in Babylon. Moses saw this, too. "And ye shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude; because thou wouldest not obey the voice of the LORD thy God" (Deut. 28:62). Only a remnant returned to Israel, as Jeremiah had foretold: "And I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries whither I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase" (Jer. 23:3). Rome removed most of them permanently from the land in 135 A.D. after Simon bar Kochba's abortive rebellion (132-35).(5) The diaspora had begun.
Without the laying on of hands (semikah), which could be done lawfully only inside the boundaries of the land of Israel, a Jewish court under Phariseeism had no authority to impose the punishments mandated in the Bible. The development of an alternative system of sanctions became a major task of Judaism after the failure of Bar Kochba's rebellion.(6) The problem of rule outside the land had appeared earlier, however, with the destruction of the temple. The holiness of Israel could no longer be based on the presence of the temple in the land. The Jews became in their own eyes the holiness of God, replacing the temple. This meant that all Jews everywhere participated in this holiness. To attest to this separate judicial condition of holiness, they needed to be judged by Jewish law, and this law could invoke sanctions that were valid only inside the boundaries of Israel.
The holiness of the Jews had been a major doctrine of the Pharisees even before A.D. 70. This placed the Pharisees in a dominant position within Judaism after A.D. 70.(7) The Romans placed Gamaliel -- the son of Paul's teacher(8) -- at the head of the Jews' local system of patriarchal rule.(9) From the fall of Jerusalem until Bar Kochba's rebellion, the Jewish leaders began the work of codifying the Pharisees' oral law, but it remained oral.(10) The greatest early codifier was Rabbi Akiba, born around A.D. 50, who as an old man died at the hands of the Romans after the failure of Bar Kochba's rebellion, which Akiba had supported.(11) He had publicly identified Bar Kochba as the messiah.(12) Late in the second century A.D., Rabbi Judah Ha-Nasi ("the Prince" or "the Patriarch") completed the codification of the Pharisees' oral tradition. This was the Mishnah.(13) The Talmud, a detailed and seemingly unstructured series of comments on the Mishnah, was completed in Babylon around A.D. 500.(14)
These developments, which sealed off Judaism from the surrounding Roman culture, moved in a direction opposite from developments in the early church. The New Testament's inclusion of gentiles into the kingdom's inheritance was an extension of Moses' original principle of sonship through obedience. Baptism merely speeded up the process of inclusion: from several generations (Deut. 23:3-8) to immediate covenantal membership. Inclusion became definitive at the time of baptism; the Mosaic law's multi-generation progressive inclusion process for immigrants was annulled along with the jubilee law.
Visible Economic Evidence of Civil Justice Moses went from a warning regarding stiffnecked rebellion to a discussion of God as the judge: "For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward" (Deut. 10:17). Here is a God to be feared. He cannot be bought off. An attempted bribe brings no benefits in God's court.
The proof of God's imperviousness to any attempt to deflect His judgment is His treatment of those who are in no position to offer a bribe. God executes righteous judgment for the afflicted: orphans, widows, and strangers. "He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment" (v. 18). These three groups were the Mosaic law's symbols -- its representatives -- of the judicially defenseless in Israel. Members of these groups could not execute judgment in Israel. Who, then, would represent them in a court of law? God would, Moses warned. And since He would, His earthly judges had better do the same. "Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt" (v. 19). By reminding them of their stay in Egypt, Moses recalled the penalty of injustice: national destruction. He also reminded them of the positive historical sanctions shown by God to covenant-keepers who are unrighteously afflicted by covenant-breakers: "Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons; and now the LORD thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude" (v. 22).
This was a clear prophecy of what would happen to Israel if the nation's leaders handed down corrupt judgments that respected persons or bribes. Israel's fate would reflect Egypt's fate. If Israel's judges did not honor the rule of law in its courts, treating strangers the same as Israelites, then Israel would be brought low.
Israel had been a stranger in Egypt. At first, Egypt had treated Israel well. This had been manifested by Pharaoh's elevation of Joseph as second in command. Egypt had survived the famine because the Pharaoh had honored Joseph's advice. Egypt received a blessing through the stranger in her midst. Had Pharaoh returned Joseph to prison, where he had been brought under negative judicial sanctions unrighteously by Potiphar, Egypt would have suffered a disaster. Egypt's treatment of this stranger within her gates would determine Egypt's fate.
In a later generation, a new Pharaoh brought the Israelites under bondage. This arrangement seemed to be profitable for a time. The Pharaoh gained the benefit of cheap slave labor for at least a generation. But this could not become a permanent relationship under the law of God. The debt relationship for this evil -- the negative sanctions -- compounded over time. The debts came due at the exodus. Egypt was destroyed.
When had Israel's population growth taken place? During the good times, the days of liberty in Egypt. The multiplication of Israel was what had frightened the Pharaoh of the oppression (Ex. 1:9). That is, strangers flourished in Egypt. This is an important mark of a righteous society: strangers flourish. The rule of law, if the law is just, provides the judicial framework for economic growth. Immigrants are notoriously thrifty and hard working compared to those who stayed behind in the old country. What we call the Puritan work ethic, which includes future-orientation and thrift, enables the immigrants to prosper. A society that oppresses strangers is unjust. The blessings of justice can be seen in communities of immigrants who prosper and eventually grow wealthy enough to move out of their cultural ghettos in a generation or two. This has been the experience of the United States.(15) It has made the United States unique in modern history, especially prior to 1924, when the immigration laws were drastically tightened.(16)
Moses warned Israel to deal justly with orphans, widows, and strangers. Yet if Israel did this, resident aliens would flourish economically according to their talents and their work ethic. If Israelites resented their success, as Egyptians had resented Israel's success, and began dishonoring God's law by perverting justice to strangers, then the days of vengeance would come. On the other hand, Israel's covenantal success would be manifested by the economic success of resident aliens. The Mosaic law even provided for the sale of poor Israelites into household servitude to resident aliens (Lev. 25:47-52). The sign of God's blessing would be rich strangers in the land. To attempt to tear them down through judicial discrimination would call forth God's judgment against the nation.
The essence of envy is the desire to tear down someone else merely because he is superior. Envy was the motivation of the Philistines in filling in Isaac's wells with dirt (Gen. 26:15). They did not confiscate these wells for their own use; instead, they destroyed his inheritance from his father. They were not made richer, but Isaac was made poorer. This is the heart, mind, and soul of envy. When a society compromises the rule of law in order to tear down economically successful people, it slays the judicial goose that lays the golden eggs. When a society knows this and does it anyway, it has become consumed with envy. Its earthly reward will be an increase in judicial arbitrariness, bureaucracy, and poverty, as well as class resentment. It will grow worse, for the sin of envy cannot be placated. There is always someone who is superior in some respect.(17)
The Open Invitation The uncircumcised alien could prosper in Israel when God's law was enforced. This was another indication to Israel that physical circumcision was not the heart of the matter; ethical circumcision was. The covenantal issue was obedience to God's law. If a resident alien producer served Israelite consumers efficiently, he would prosper. The Mosaic law invited aliens to come to Israel and serve those living in Israel by producing on a free market. The Mosaic law's promise of equal justice would recruit productive people to Israel -- clearly a benefit to consumers in Israel. Political envy and jealousy were held at bay by the Mosaic law. The stranger's wealth would not be extracted from him by coercive, arbitrary civil laws. Private property would be secure when the Mosaic law was enforced.
This open invitation to immigrate to Israel was a means of increasing Israel's wealth. Attracting productive people is even better than discovering valuable raw materials. Human creativity is more valuable in the long run than raw materials are, whose prices tend to fall in relationship to the price of labor in a growing economy.(18) Again and again in history, societies that find themselves in possession of valuable raw materials have fallen behind economically within a century or less because governments extract the mineral wealth. The State grows larger, strangling the productivity of its citizens. The monarchy of Spain is the classic example. It controlled access in and out of its American empire. It controlled the choke points of commerce. This way, the king made sure that he received his 20 percent share of the precious metals mined in his American colonies.(19) Spain's government and monopoly controlled all aspects of commerce.(20) Spain's monarchs misjudged the source of Spain's continuing wealth. The goose that would lay the most golden eggs in the Americas was not Spain's mining monopoly; rather, it was the system of economic liberty that prevailed above the Rio Grande River. Curtis Nettels, a specialist in American colonial history, concludes regarding South America: "In the end the stifling effects of regulation contributed a major cause of the successful revolt of the colonies during the Napoleonic wars."(21)
Spain enjoyed the wealth of the South American and Mexican gold mines for almost two centuries, but by the end of the seventeenth century, Spain's economy had visibly begun to fall behind England's and even the Netherlands', whose national income rested on trade rather than mining. The absence of gold mining above the Rio Grande in early North America made its economic triumph far more likely in the long run. Men seeking liberty and individual economic opportunity came by the tens of millions to the United States. Liberty made the difference economically, not gold. A nation's gold mines eventually run out; liberty need not run out. Whether it does or doesn't depends on a society's ethics.
Immigration and Membership Oaths The possibility of immigration raised the issue of economic inheritance. Strangers in Israel could become legal heirs through adoption by Israelite families. Blood-line inheritance was not the basis of the Mosaic Covenant. The Mosaic Covenant was not a blood-line covenant. It was an ethical-judicial covenant. Men were by oath consigned, not by blood consigned. Israelites could not lawfully pass laws or make judicial decisions that discriminated against strangers. They could not lawfully place discriminatory judicial penalties on strangers. Legislated envy was illegal in Israel. The gentile had a protected position in Israel's legal code. He could buy a lawful inheritance inside Israel's walled cities (Lev. 25:29-30). Ultimately, he had a possibility of becoming a co-heir through adoption.
One mark of a free society is that strangers can flourish economically. The encouragement of immigration is part of biblical law. The problem comes when the national civil covenant establishes citizenship apart from a confession of faith, i.e., a covenantal oath of allegiance to the God of the Bible and His law. When inheritance is by mere physical presence, or by a pledge of allegiance to a secular State, immigration becomes a covenantal threat to those who are already dwelling in the land. When the State is used as a means of coercive wealth distribution -- e.g., the modern welfare State -- then the immigrant becomes an economic threat: a potential drain on the wealth of present residents.
The ultimate form of immigration is birth. The abortion movement in the United States was founded on class hatred by dedicated racists and eugenicists such as Margaret Sanger, who cried out against the foreign-born working class because its members were "benign imbeciles, who encourage the defective and diseased elements of humanity in their reckless and irresponsible swarming."(22) "More children from the fit, less from the unfit" she declared; "that is the chief issue of birth control."(23) Sanger and her ideological associates wanted to reduce the flow of immigrants: crossing borders and crossing birth canals. The first step in their legislative agenda was achieved through the legalization of birth control devices (the elimination of a negative judicial sanction on voluntary exchange); the second was the 1924 U.S. immigration law (the imposition of new negative sanctions against immigrants); the third was the legalization of abortion by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973 (the removal of negative sanctions against abortionists and the imposition of permanent negative sanctions against infants).
Adoption in Family, Church, and State
Biblical inheritance is by sonship. Sonship is attained by means of covenant oath and obedience. Biblically speaking, sonship is legally open to anyone who is willing to affirm the covenantal oath: in family, church, or State. The biblical model for sonship is adoption.
In family affairs, the head of the household initiates the adoption offer at his discretion. Adopted sonship is not automatically granted to everyone who seeks it. The family is a private institution grounded in biology (Gen. 2:24) as well as by a covenant oath of mutual intimacy and sexual exclusivity. With respect to the Adamic family's civil status, the terms of its confession are private even though the State lawfully regulates certain aspects of membership, such as its biological heterosexuality, and also enforces inheritance. No child is a bastard under biblical civil law on the basis of his married parents' refusal to confess the faith established by God's law for the two other public covenantal institutions, church and State. Neither is a child who was not born into a family entitled to membership merely because he confesses a married couple's confession. Family covenant membership is automatic through birth.(24) There must not be legal discrimination against the Adamic covenant family based on the issue of confessional content other than the promise of exclusive mutual bonding. This is not true of church and State.
In church and State, an open membership offer -- the offer of adoption -- is automatically extended to the general public with the original incorporation of either of these covenantal organizations. These two institutions are public monopolies: the monopoly of the sacraments and the monopoly of life-threatening violence. God has established rules governing both of these monopolistic institutions. Those who have gained early access to the benefits of membership are not allowed by God to close these benefits to newcomers. Membership is open to all comers on the original terms of the covenant. In neither church nor State are officers allowed by God to discriminate against anyone who seeks membership through covenant oath. A racist Trinitarian church has violated God's law. So has an anti-immigration Trinitarian State. So has anyone who seeks to substitute a covenantal oath in either institution that denies the theology of the Athanasian creed. Sonship is by oath. Public sonship is by public Trinitarian oath. To substitute a new oath is to substitute a new covenant.(25)
This does not mean that Christians' opposition to immigration is illegitimate when the State has adopted a non-Trinitarian confession. Christians may legitimately seek to substitute a Trinitarian covenant, which will require votes. If they see that certain immigrants who confess a rival and highly aggressive religion are becoming eligible for citizenship, then as a defensive political strategy for the sake of the extension of the kingdom of God, they may legitimately seek to work politically to cut off such immigration as part of their goal of establishing a Trinitarian confession for the nation. But for those Christians who deny the legitimacy of a Christian nation -- the vast majority of Protestant Christians today -- any opposition to immigration is made in terms of non-confessional considerations. This constitutes discrimination based on economic, racial, or other considerations. The Bible condemns all such judicial discrimination except against citizens of enemy nations during a declared war, which would in effect constitute an invasion, or against immigrants afflicted with contagious deadly diseases, which would also constitute an invasion.
Conclusion The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It is also the beginning of wealth. The circumcision of the heart -- obedience to God -- is the basis of maintaining God's inheritance and expanding it. The circumcised heart is the mark of legitimate sonship.
This opened the possibility of inheritance to strangers in Mosaic Israel. The immigrant, if he consented to circumcision, could look forward to urban citizenship for his heirs. Even if he remained uncircumcised, he was entitled to civil justice in terms of the Mosaic law. The rule of law mandated by God: "One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you" (Ex. 12:49). The Mosaic law's protection of private property was universal.
This was a major incentive for productive strangers to immigrate to Israel. They could enjoy the fruits of their labor despite their alien legal status. There is no question that this aspect of the Mosaic law was an aspect of Israel's evangelism to the world (Deut. 4:5-8).(26)
Footnotes:
1. Meredith G. Kline, By Oath Consigned: A Reinterpretation of the Covenant Signs of Circumcision and Baptism (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1968), ch. 3.
2. Ibid., pp. 40-43.
3. James B. Jordan, Covenant Sequence in Leviticus and Deuteronomy (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1989), p. 9.
4. Not all, however: "But Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard left certain of the poor of the land for vinedressers and for husbandmen" (Jer. 52:16).
5. Jewish historian Heinrich Graetz reports that Bar Kochba persecuted no one except Jewish Christians, who refused to take up arms against Rome. Heinrich Graetz, A History of the Jews, 6 vols. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1893), II, p. 412.
6. George Horowitz, The Spirit of Jewish Law (New York: Central Book Co., [1953] 1973), p. 93.
7. Jacob Neusner, An Introduction to Judaism: A Textbook and Reader (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991), pp. 160-61.
8. Paul Johnson, A History of The Jews (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), p. 150.
9. Neusner, Introduction to Judaism, p. 159.
10. Ibid., p. 158.
11. Ernest R. Trattner, Understanding the Talmud (New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1955), pp. 101-2.
12. Ibid., p. 137. The source for this is the Jerusalem Talmud, Ta'an 4:7, 68d.
13. Graetz, History of the Jews, II, pp. 460-61.
14. Trattner, Understanding the Talmud, p. 55.
15. Thomas Sowell, Ethnic America: A History (New York: Basic Books, 1981).
16. America's problem, unlike Mosaic Israel's, is that the civil oath does not pledge citizens to obedience to God and God's revealed law. Thus, the immigrant can gain citizenship while maintaining the religious oath which he brought with him. Because Western nations impose only secular oaths on their citizens, immigrants who retain their alien religious oaths undermine the remnants of the Christian social order that created the West. They are allowed to impose political sanctions in terms of religious worldviews hostile to Christianity. The experiment in secular civil government is not yet completed. It will end badly.
17. Helmut Schoeck, Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, [1966] 1969), pp. 251, 336. The novel by L. P. Hartley, Facial Justice, is a classic statement of the insatiable nature of envy (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1960).
18. Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1981).
19. Curtis P. Nettels, The Roots of American Civilization (2nd ed.; New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1963), p. 43.
20. Ibid., p. 45.
21. Ibid., p. 47.
22. Margaret Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization (New York: Brentano's, 1922), p. 125; cited in George Grant, Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood (Franklin, Tennessee: Adroit Press, 1992), p. 27.
23. Sanger, "Birth Control," Birth Control Review (May 1919); cited in idem.
24. What distinguishes the Christian family from the Adamic family is infant baptism. Children are supposed to be baptized as infants, thereby transferring to the institutional church covenantal authority over the children through the parents. Baptists and non-Christians deny this validity of this legal arrangement.
25. Gary North, Political Polytheism: The Myth of Pluralism (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1989), Part 3.
26. See Chapter 8, above.
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