To illustrate, our Lord, in Luke 12:48, says, “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.” In other words, the greater the responsibility a man has, the greater is his culpability and guilt. In Leviticus 4, the laws of sacrifice set forth this same premise: the sin offering of a priest or prince is a greater one than that of a commoner. God says that, in His sight, the greater our responsibilities, the greater is our sin in His sight. A logical inference is that the sins or crimes of important people deserve more punishment. Before God, guilt is greater, according to Leviticus 4, but this greater punishment is not a law for man to enforce, although it is a sound inference. Notice too that in Luke 12:48 our Lord says that, in such cases, men “will ask the more.” While it can be done, it is not mandatory. How God enforces His law is not always what He requires of us.

The problem becomes even more serious where unwarranted inferences are made, I recall as a student at the university listening to an off-campus Christian speaker who laid down the “law” in unequivocal terms; the text he used for his particular “mandate” was very familiar to me, but I had never seen such a meaning in it. My immediate reaction was one of anger; then I thought that perhaps there was a meaning in the Greek text that I was ignorant of; I later learned there was no such meaning, only his inference, and a wrong one. The trouble with inferences is that, when repeated over and over again, they become a part of the meaning of the law, and people read them into the text.

There are many who resent the strange and alien ways in which the U.S. Supreme Court routinely interprets the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Government Printing Office periodically issues a revised edition of a heavy tome entitled The Constitution of the United States, Analysis and Interpretation, which gives us, line by line, the Constitution with all the interpretations thereof, sometimes of a single word, made by the Supreme Court. At times, by inferences, the original meaning is turned around.

Chief Justice John Marshall was known for his ability to take a statement and make it mean what he chose. His cousin, Thomas Jefferson, said: “When conversing with Marshall I never admit anything. So sure as you admit any position to be good, no matter how remote from the conclusion he seeks to establish, you are gone. So great is his sophistry, you must never give him an affirmative answer, or you will be forced to grant his conclusion. Why, if he were to ask me whether it was daylight or not, I’d reply, “Sir, I don’t know. I can’t tell.”

We have many people who are vehement strict constructionists with respect to the U.S. Constitution who are at the same time looser than loose constructionists where the Bible is concerned. They erect a vast structure of inferences and call it God’s law. What amazes me is that these same people are strongly hostile to theonomy, to God’s law! If the law itself is no longer binding, how can strange inferences be made binding?

Operation Rescue builds its case on inferences; so too do those who oppose birth control, smoking tobacco, and interest, and so on and on. In his personal life perhaps a man can seek ways which his conscience feels are important, but can he bind the conscience of other men? God’s law is very plain, so that all may understand. Inferences take us into the realm of human conclusions. Anything important enough to be a law and bind our conscience is plainly stated by God: it is not left for men to discover.

Inferences can be very, very dangerous, not only to the life of faith but to our standing before God. People who major in inferences wind up trying to be holier than God, a particularly evil state. (See Otto Scott’s essay on “Easy Virtue,” pp.7-8.) Sadly enough, the world of inferences is peopled by persons who began at times with earnestness and a sound zeal.

In the time of our Lord, the Pharisees were the result of an earnest and dedicated development of inferences. Their inferences in time became more important to them than God’s law-word. Our Lord attacked them and their misinterpretation with particular intensity, because He knew how evil their methodology was.

Phariseeism not only continued as Judaism itself, virtually supplanting other parties, but, over the centuries, it has had a powerful influence in Greek Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and Protestantism. Its appeal is a supposed super-piety and a super-holiness. It appears to offer a greater purity and strength.

When our Lord attacks “the tradition of the elders” (Matt. 15:2), He attacks the tradition of inferences. One example He gives of this brings together the law requiring that one honor his father and his mother, and the law, Thou shalt have no other gods before Me, i.e., God’s absolute priority. The Pharisees said that one could cease supporting one’s parents if the money were dedicated to God instead. This was a logical inference! Yet our Lord called them “hypocrites” and said:

"Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth and honoureth me with the lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" (Matt 15:7-9).

Was it wrong for the Pharisees to draw inferences, and is it right for churchmen to do so? Did it make the Pharisees hypocrites, while it makes churchmen super-faithful saints? Will the Pharisees triumph again, and destroy civilization in the process?

Remember, God’s law is always very plain, even too blunt and plain! Mark Twain was right when he said that what bothered him in the Bible was not what he could not understand, but what he did understand.

If it is not plainly written as law by God Almighty, let no man bind your conscience with it.

Our Lord said of the Pharisees of His day that they were hypocrites, because they gave as God’s word that which was their own inference, and they bound men by them. Beware of the Pharisees. They are with us still. (April, 1989)

(From Roots of Reconstruction by R.J. Rushdoony, c.1991. pp. 434-436. Used by permission of Ross House Books, Vallecito, California 95251)