Though He Slay Me
One of the greatest lessons of my life was to recognize the absolute priority of God and His law and His Word, which is what Calvinism is about. I never doubted the Bible, but, as a child, the Lord was there like my parents for me to love and obey and for them to help me.
- R. J. Rushdoony,
One of the greatest lessons of my life was to recognize the absolute priority of God and His law and His Word, which is what Calvinism is about. I never doubted the Bible, but, as a child, the Lord was there like my parents for me to love and obey and for them to help me. As I matured, I began to understand the Faith better when I reread Job, a decisive experience for me. A key verse was Job 13:15, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." I suddenly saw the true meaning of our faith. God has absolute priority. I live only to serve Him, and it is a sin to put oneself at the center of things.
No matter what, I must trust the Lord. I am simply His creature. I live to serve Him, not me. The heart of the Faith is not what the Lord can do for me, but what I must do for Him.
My faith must be God-centered, not self-centered. To the very end, I must love, obey, and praise Him with all my being.
We can never take precedence over the Lord. It is a sin to make our hopes too important. "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." Nothing in my life can take precedence over that faith.
We are not Calvinists until we affirm that faith. The Reformed Faith is not merely assent to certain sound doctrines, but radical submission to the God Who is absolutely Lord over us. I have wanted so much in my life that I did not get, but I have gotten what the Lord has willed that I should get. Not all of this has pleased me, but it has pleased and has served His holy purpose.
My word has meant nothing to God. Again and again, He has driven me to His Word. It is a blessed word, but sometimes a terrifying word as it undercuts my hopes and my word.
It is not easy to trust in the Lord when He is destroying our hopes and undercutting our stands, but the alternative is terrifying. We can safely stand only on God's ground.
Memorize that simple sentence of Job 13:15 and repeat it in your private trials. It will give you strength because it will teach you true trust. It is a verse to live and die by.
That verse tells us Who is God, and how to serve Him. It speaks of the priority of God and confounds our pretensions. Believe and obey; believe and live.
- R. J. Rushdoony
Rev. R.J. Rushdoony (1916–2001), was a leading theologian, church/state expert, and author of numerous works on the application of Biblical law to society. He started the Chalcedon Foundation in 1965. His Institutes of Biblical Law (1973) began the contemporary theonomy movement which posits the validity of Biblical law as God’s standard of obedience for all. He therefore saw God’s law as the basis of the modern Christian response to the cultural decline, one he attributed to the church’s false view of God’s law being opposed to His grace. This broad Christian response he described as “Christian Reconstruction.” He is credited with igniting the modern Christian school and homeschooling movements in the mid to late 20th century. He also traveled extensively lecturing and serving as an expert witness in numerous court cases regarding religious liberty. Many ministry and educational efforts that continue today, took their philosophical and Biblical roots from his lectures and books.