Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Kinist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture . Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.

Psalm 2:1-3

I. The Nation’s Rebellion Observed (2:1-3)
 
A. The Psalmist Sees The Nations Rising Up for Revolution (1)

1.) Note the presupposition of the Psalmist

The presupposition of the Psalmist is that it is unnatural for the nations to rage, plot, and conspire against the Lord. The operating assumed premise throughout is that the nations ought to know better. They ought not to take up against the Lord and His anointed. The fact that they have seems to strike the psalmist as a great oddity. Do you hear it in his voice?

Why do the nations rage?

It’s almost as if he is asking, ‘why whatever has gotten into them. Don’t they know better?’ His presupposition is that what is going on here is something that is altogether contrary to nature. What is true of the nations was true of Israel at one time,

“The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.”


2. Why do the nations rage?

b.) Note NationS

We’ve spoken many times on the idea of ‘nations’ in Scripture so we won’t take a great deal of time here. Suffice it to say, once again, that throughout the Scripture, it is the nations as nations God deals with.

Dutch American Theologian Geerhardus Vos offered this insight as it relates to God’s dealing with Nations,

“God’s decree is not exclusively concerned with individuals but also comprises nations and establishes the bond between generations. The destiny of a nation is weighed by Him, as is the destiny of a person. There is not the slightest interest, indeed is completely impossible on Reformed grounds, to deny national election or whatever it may be called.”

Geerhardus Vos 
Dogmatic Theology Vol 1. — pg. 111

This reality that God deals with nations clearly prohibits the New World Order agenda of erasing the Nations and turning the world into a vast melting pot. If God elects nations then nations are God’s means whereby he elects persons from those nations. To advocate positions that would destroy nations is to resist God.

As it was the Nations that mocked God and His anointed in Psalm 2 so it was the Nations that Christ commissioned His disciples to gather in Matthew 28 and so it is those Nations which come into the new Jerusalem (Rev. 21:24). Everywhere in the Bible, it is nations as nations that are dealt with.

We mention this again only to note that the modern impulse to erase all distinctions from national distinctions to racial distinctions to gender distinctions is an anti-Christ agenda.

c.) disposition of nations

Rage … conspire,
so angry
in an uproar
Rebel

The Hebrew word here is ragash (raw-gash) and means

1. (Qal) to be in a tumult or commotion
2. (TWOT) to conspire, plot

Here what seems to be communicated is that the nations have as their rallying p0int a rage against God that is channeled into a joint effort to conspire and plot Revolution against God and His authority. The way the Psalmist speaks you almost get the sense of a mob scene as the nations are gathered for the purpose of dethroning God and His anointed.

Of course, this has been the motif of fallen man since the fall. He will not have God rule over him. For God’s order fallen man would replace a utopian order. So man rages, plots and conspires against God and His anointed.

We should note here that from this Scripture we can assert that conspiracy theory is true. Fallen man conspires and plots. And we see that testified to throughout Scripture.

I Kings 21 … the conspiracy of Ahab against Naboth
II Samuel 11 … The conspiracy of David against Uriah
Acts 23 …  Paul’s nephew uncovered a plot to assassinate Paul, and his knowledge foiled the attempt
John 11:47-49 … Conspiracy to kill Jesus
Matthew 28 … Conspiracy to lie about what happened to the body of Jesus

And fallen man continues to conspire against God.

Much that we see around us is the consequent of men conspiring against God seeking to implement their order over God’s order? You really don’t think, for example, that Sodomite marriage, or gender blenders, or the flourishing of transhumanism, or the Robots for intimacy craze have at its roots the reality that men are conspiring against God and His anointed?

Conspiracy is one mark of fallen man and the Christian who refuses to entertain conspiracy theory as revisionist explanation for any number of historical events is not wise.

Alexander MacLaren rightly said here,

“the conspiracy of banded rebels… set before us with extraordinary force … all classes and orders are united in revolt, and hurry and eagerness mark their action and throb in their words.”

2. Why do the peoples (Rulers) plot a vain thing?

a.) There is a little humor about this Scripture. Here you have all these rum rulers running around plotting and conniving against God and His anointed and their rule. And all the while they are meeting in secret to cast off God’s rule, God is omniscient. No wonder God holds them in derision and laughs.

That vain thing they plot is the dethroning of God and the enthroning of themselves.

Many have envisioned the soon success of this plotting.

Voltaire offered,

“Before the beginning of the 19th century, Christianity will have disappeared from the earth.”

Some years later, in the same space where Voltaire uttered this prophecy, a depository of Bibles existed.

“Change is always one generation away. So if we can plant the seeds of doubt in our children, religion will go away in a generation, or at least largely go away. And that’s what I think we have an obligation to do.”

Lawerence Krauss

 Foundation Professor of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University.

Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue with that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first – rock and roll or Christianity.

John Lennon

So the plotting and predictions continue and will continue until the already present p0stmillennial kingdom expands to the point of exposing the fools who plotted in vain.

And this plotting happens in every field.

a.) In the area of Law men like Christopher Columbus Langdell, Roscoe Pound, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and Benjamin Cardozo moved the discipline of law away from its Biblical moorings evinced in Puritan Commonwealth documents like “Abstract of the Laws of New England,” towards standards that evinced a humanistic, evolutionary, naturalistic and Statist paradigm. In the late 1800’s Langdell did yeoman’s work moving law training away from a century of Lawyers in America concentrating on what the Constitution said to Darwinian inspired notions of where the law was perceived to be moving (case law training). By Langdell’s work, the Constitution came to be seen to be evolving under the guidance of an imperial judiciary. Legal positivism, being rooted in an evolutionary basis thus was part of the vain plot to overthrow God.

b.) In sociology, the Father of Sociology plotted in vain against God.

August Comte spent his life seeking to abolish Christian worship and the Christian religion and when he was finished he established a new religion and proposed a hierarchy with himself at the top of the food chain and the soul of his deceased mistress as a sort of Queen of Heaven, and not being satisfied with that he created a liturgical humanist calendar by which to mark days and seasons.

c.) In politics

you have a variety of plotting. Ultimately all versions of Marxism, whether Fabianism, Syndicalism, Fascism, National Socialism, Communism, Trotskyism, Cultural Marxism, etc. are all just so many political plottings against the Lord and His anointed. They are ways by which the plotters seek to overthrow God and His order in favor of their utopian order where the State is God.

Having said that, there is good news here also that points to the rest of the Psalm.  All this plotting is in vain. All this energy … all the time spent … all the anxious energy is in vain. The Christ hater spends his life in vain because consciously or unconsciously he has spent his life plotting in vain against the Lord and His anointed.

Well,  this takes us from vs. 1 to vs 2-3 where the Psalmist is a little more detailed in his ponderings.

B. The Psalmist’s details the plotting as (2-3)

1. Against the Lord and His Anointed…

a. The kings of the earth set themselves

b. The rulers take counsel together

First note that this text is taken from a time when the King of the Hebrew people was seen as God’s regent over the earth. So closely was the King identified with the Lord that opposition to the King was opposed to God.

Now, we know that the anointed mentioned here as a higher and fuller meaning than just the King of Israel at this time. We know this because this Psalm is quoted in Acts 4:25-26 and applied directly to Christ. Jesus Christ is the greater King than any of Israel’s Old covenant Kings. He is the one whom the nations and rulers rage and plot against.

He is called the anointed

Because he has been ordained by God the Father,
and anointed with the Holy Spirit, 1
to be
our chief Prophet and Teacher, 2
who has fully revealed to us
the secret counsel and will of God
concerning our redemption; 3
our only High Priest, 4
who by the one sacrifice of his body
has redeemed us, 5
and who continually intercedes for us
before the Father; 6
and our eternal King, 7
who governs us by his Word and Spirit,
and who defends and preserves us
in the redemption obtained for us.

But the focus of this passage is of Jesus Christ as the great King to whom the loyalty of all other Kings must be given.

A great deal of time and energy has been spent on Christ anointed as our high priest and that rightly so. But Jesus Christ is also our great King and as King His command must be adhered to.

Presbyterian A. A. Hodge understood a Kingship of Christ that has been lost in much of the Reformed Church today,

“A Christian has no right to separate his life into two realms… to say the Bible is good for Sunday, but this is a week-day question, or the Scriptures are right in matters of religion, but this is a matter of business or politics. God reigns over all, everywhere. His will is the supreme law. His inspired Word, loyally read will inform us of His will in every relation and act of life, secular as well as religious; and the man is a traitor who refuses to walk therein with scrupulous care. The Kingdom of God includes all sides of human life, and it is a Kingdom of absolute righteousness. You are either a loyal subject, or a traitor. When the King comes, how will He find you doing?”

A.A. Hodge

Indeed, if a candidate for the ministry took Hodge’s words into his ordination service I wonder how many Presbyteries around the country might refuse to ordain him for that conviction?

But, Presbyteries notwithstanding Christ is anointed King and He rules all things as the Lord’s appointed man.

2. Against the Lord and His Anointed they say…

a. “Let us break Their bonds in pieces”
b. “(Let us) cast away Their cords from us”

What else can these bonds and cords be except God’s law?

The Hebrew word for “break” here carries the idea of snapping a chain apart. Here it would have to do with the intent of snapping the chain of God’s purpose or plan as expressed in God’s Law.

H. Rondel Rumburg offers in his work in this Psalm,


“There is no respect for the Anointed King whose truth challenges their desires. They evidence this by rejecting His role for men, by rejecting His role for women, by rejecting His role for nations, by rejection His role for families, by rejecting His role for the unborn, by rejecting His role for the Church, by rejecting His role for justice, by rejecting His role for the ministry, by rejecting His role for the Lord’s Day.”

How bizarre is this mindset? The one who provides breath and life is revolted against in favor of death. The only one who can provide meaning is tossed in favor of irrationality.

This is the culture we live in and these are the times we have been given. We live in a culture enraged against God and His anointed. But we are not to despair. We are to recognize they are involved in vanity. They can no more successfully pull down God than you can pull yourself up while standing in a bucket.

Conclusion

Here is the conclusion of the matter. The more these people are successful in their plotting the more they will fail.

“Just as all truth rests upon the truth that is from God, so the common foundation of all rights and duties lies in the sovereignty of God. When that sovereignty is denied or (what amounts to the same thing) banished to heaven because His kingdom is not of this world, what becomes then of the fountain of authority, of law, of every sacred and dutiful relation in state, society and family? What sanction remains for the distinctions of rank and station in life? What reason can there be that I obey another’s commands, that the one is needy, the other rich? All this is custom, routine, abuse, injustice, oppression. Eliminate God, and it can no longer be denied that all men are, in the revolutionary sense of the words, free and equal. State and society disintegrate, for there is a principle of dissolution at work that does not cease to operate until all further division is frustrated by that indivisible unit, that isolated human being, the individual—a term of the Revolution – naively expressive of its all-destructive character.”

– Guillaume Groen Van Prinsterer
Mentor of Abraham Kuyper

Hell; Then and Now

Go to Hell
To Hell and back
What the Hell?
Give em Hell
Come Hell or high water
We’re proud that our Preacher doesn’t preach  “Hell, fire, and brimstone”
The Road to hell is paved with good intentions
“Hell is other people” — Jean Sartre (No Exit)
Going to hell in a hand-basket
People will say of the soon to be deceased, “They will split hell in half.”
Hell hath no fury like a woman’s scorn.

So the idea of “Hell” is much in our lexicon but increasingly we as a people don’t believe in Hell.

We know that because in a 2007 Barna survey it was revealed

that only 32 percent of adults see hell as, “an actual place of torment and suffering where people’s souls go after death.”

We know that Hell isn’t in our belief system much because as Dr. Paige Patterson, President of Southwest Baptist Seminary has said,

“You can traverse the entire United States on any given Sunday morning, and you very probably will not hear a sermon on the judgment of God or eternal punishment. Evangelicals have voted by the silence of their voices that they either do not believe in (the doctrine of hell) or else no longer have the courage and conviction to stand and say anything about it.”

Because Hell is so little spoken of and because it is one of the themes in Scripture, I try, every couple of years to preach at least one sermon on Hell and that in the Summer time because there is an easy to connect corollary.

First, we must note

I) The reality of Hell

A.) The New Testament speaks openly and repeatedly regarding the reality of Hell. It is,

The final abode of those condemned to eternal punishment (Mt. 25:41-46, Rev. 20:11-15)

Described as a place of fire and darkness (Jude 7, 13)

Described as a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mt. 8:12, 13:42, 50, 22:13, 24:51, 25:30)

Described as a place of destruction (II Thes. 1:7-9, II Peter 3:7, I Thes. 5:3)

Described as a place of torment (Rev. 20:10, Luke 16:23)

B.) Jesus Himself repeatedly speaks of Hell

HADES — Abode of the Dead

(1)  Capernaum exalted to heaven, then brought down to hell (hades) Mt 11:23 / Lk 10:15 …two mentions on SAME OCCASION
(2)  Lord says He will build His church: Mt 16:18 …one mention, ONE OCCASION
(3)  Parable of Rich man & Lazerus:  Lk 16:23 …one mention, ONE OCCASION

GEHENNA…

(1) Sermon on the mount: Matt 5:29-30,22 and Mark 9:43,45,47… all 6 on the SAME OCCASION reported by both Mark and Matthew…
(2) Warning the Apostles to fear: Mark 10:28 / Luke 12:5  two mentions…SAME OCCASION…
(3) Upbraiding the Pharisees:  Matt 23:15, 33 …2 mentions …SAME OCCASION
(4) Warning against offending little ones: Matt 18:9 …one mention, ONE OCCASION

The Greek word for Hell here is significant. Gehenna or the valley of Henna was a deep, narrow slight valley south of Jerusalem. Here the ancient idolatrous Jewish Kings and people would offer up their children in sacrifice to Molech ( 2 Chronicles 28:3 ; 33:6 ; Jeremiah 7:31 ; 19:2-6 ).

Later in time this same valley  became the Jerusalem dump. Here the corpse’s of animals and of criminals, and all kinds of filth, were cast away and consumed by a fire forever stoked and smoldering. The Gehenna dump thus in process of time became the image of the place of everlasting destruction.

This is the word used for the place of the wicked. It is the word used to speak of the Devil’s residence along with his servants. Because of the constant burning fire of the Jerusalem dump we easily understand the connection to everlasting fire as associated with Hell.  However, there might be more observed here about the nature of Hell with the usage of the word Gehenna. The Gehenna in Jerusalem like all city dumps was a place where no order existed nor meaningful relationship between objects exist. Hierarchy was non-existent.  It was a place of utter chaos and destructiveness.

Contrast that with this sanctuary or with your own homes. There is order here. Everything is in the place it is in for a reason. All is in a meaningful relationship with all else. The pews are faced in all one direction. The Cross, in the center, is ever before us. The pulpit is in the center thus communicating the centrality of God’s Word. The acoustics are designed for sound. The Windows for the movement of air. All is in order and all is properly related to everything else. Even our brass Church mouse speaks of meaning as it speaks of the necessity for quiet in God’s house.  (Quiet as a Church Mouse.) So there you have it. As humans we thrive on order, hierarchy, and meaning but a city dump as standing as metaphor for Hell there is no order… there is no natural relationship between objects. There is no meaning in the dump. There you find a once priceless Grandfather clock next to some old tattered sheets next to an old tennis shoe, next to a empty box of Frosted mini flakes, next to used kitty litter. The city dump is meaningless chaos. The city dump is total destructiveness.

In the words of Rushdoony,

“This tells us then something about Heaven and Hell. Heaven is that realm where all people and all things have a meaningful, loving fulfillment, one in another. There is a totality of meaning, a totality of purpose, a totality of fulfillment; whereas in Hell, there is a totality of isolation. There is no community between one person and another. There is a total isolation, so that everyone is his own world, his own universe, his own god.”

Well, what might we say here? We might note that as man constantly flees from God he at the same time integrates downward into the Gehenna dump with the result that he creates cultures of Hell where meaninglessness is prized as meaning. Where order is surrendered in pursuit of chaos. Where hierarchy is given up in favor of equality.

“Hierarchies are celestial. In hell all are equal.”

~Nicolás Gómez Davilla

One thing that is certainly true in a dump is that all the refuse and junk is equal … equally useless.

So, hell in Scripture is a place of endless burning. This stands in contrast in Scripture to heaven which is a place of endless blessing. Hell, like the Gehenna Jerusalem dump is a place of chaos, equality, and meaninglessness. Heaven, to the contrary, is a place of perfect order, eternal hierarchy, and total meaning. Hell is a place of total isolation whereas heaven is a place of complete community.

Here we can find a measuring rod for our family, churches, and communities. Do our community relationships take on the flavor of heaven or do they take on the character of the city dump — everything in isolation, nothing unique, all equally rotten and corrupt?

II.) Church History and Hell

For the Augustinians…….“They who shall enter into the joy of the Lord shall know what is going on outside in the outer darkness. . .The saints’. . . knowledge, which shall be great, shall keep them acquainted. . .with the eternal sufferings of the lost.”

Augustine, The City of God

SECTION 1.“In order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned. . .So that they may be urged the more to praise God. . .the saints in heaven know distinctly all that happens. . .to the damned.”

Aquinas
Summa Theologica

“The view of the misery of the damned will double the ardour of the love and gratitude of the saints of heaven.”

The sight of hell torments will exalt the happiness of the saints forever. . .Can the believing father in Heaven be happy with his unbelieving children in Hell. . . I tell you, yea! Such will be his sense of justice that it will increase rather than diminish his bliss.

Jonathan Edwards
[“The Eternity of Hell Torments” (Sermon), April 1739 & Discourses on Various Important Subjects, 1738]

“God shall not pity them but laugh at their calamity. The righteous company in heaven shall rejoice in the execution of God’s judgment, and shall sing while the smoke riseth up for ever.”

Thomas Boston, Scottish preacher, 1732

III.) Hell and the Character of God

A.) Lose the Doctrine of Hell, and you lose the Justice of God

1.)  The denial of the eternality of Hell is another example of putative Christians or unlearned Christians or immature Christians attempting to make God out to be nicer than He makes Himself out to be. It is an attempt to save God from being God. It is sentimentality trying to rescue the alleged mean glowering character of God. It is another example of do gooders, who by doing their good, end up making Christianity crueler then any Devil could. This denial of the eternality of Hell is taken up by those who, at the very least think, “My God would never be that mean.” It is the argument which attempts to make God “reasonable.”

But God is not “reasonable.” At least not by modern man’s standards. This is something the Reformed Evangelist Rolfe Barnard understood. Barnard quotes two Psalms,

Psalm 9:17: “The wicked shall be turned into Hell, and all the nations that forget God”

And in Psalm 7:11, we find these words: “God is angry with the wicked every day.”

Despite everything we hear today, Hell, God’s eternal penitentiary of the damned, is a terrible reality that men need to be faced with these days. I am aware of the fact that the popular “god” of the popular Christianity today is not the God of the Bible. Like a dead trunk, the popular “god” has no eyes to see, no ears to hear, and no arms to punish the ungodly. But the God of the Bible had fire in Sodom. He had a rod of iron for Samaria, for Tyre, for Jerusalem, and for Belshazzar. The God of the Bible dashed to pieces entire nations like a potter’s vessel. However, the modern “god” has no judgment in his hand; according to the popular gospel today, the modern “god” has sheathed the sword, and sits down as an indulgent weakling. His arm which used to visit vengeance upon impenitent sinners, now hangs nerveless and paralyzed–that is the popular “god” of today. I refuse to worship such a “god”–such a “god” is the creation of man’s wishes, but not the true God of the Bible.

Rolfe Barnard

 2.) Denials of Hell do not seem to comprehend that by altering the anchor example of God’s eternal justice (The condemnation to Eternal punishment for those who rebelled against God and His Christ) that the effect is a relativizing of temporal justice and punishment. If the anchor of justice is set loose and diminished in the Cosmic Divine realm the effect is to set adrift any ideas of absolute justice in the temporal realm.  If God’s justice is altered in terms of Hell and / or its duration then justice is the realm of man can be relativized and altered as well. One reason why we see so much injustice around us is that the Church no longer upholds the justice of God, by affirming the doctrine of Hell.
3.) Those who insist upon the conditionality of Hell or deny the eternality of Hell are those who will, in themselves or in their generations, become those who rebel against the whole concept of fixed Justice. When we deny the proper required Justice applied (eternal Hell) against those who commit crimes against God’s character and who do not find forgiveness in Christ, we will, over the course of time, deny the proper required justice against those who commit other lesser crimes. If the required proper punishment is denied, in our thinking, against those who commit the greatest of all crimes (unrepentant rebellion against the Character of God) then the consequence of that will eventually be the denial of justice implemented against all other lesser crimes.

So … getting rid of the eternal character of Hell guarantees the eventual arise of Hell on earth.

  4.) The Holiness of God is infinite and as such rebellion against God’s Holiness requires eternal punishment for those who do not close with Christ. The denial of the eternality of Hell is a denial of the august and majestic character of God. Low views of Hell insure, and in turn cause, low views of God.

The doctrine of Hell is a case where the punishment fits the crime. Any lesser punishment would suggest a lesser crime. The suggestion of a lesser crime would suggest that an offense against the person of God is somehow an offense that shouldn’t have the fullest possible consequences.  The eternality of Hell corresponds to the Majesty of God and His Law.

B.) And here we round off in speaking of Christ.

Christ is the who bore the Hell of God’s elect that that we might know God’s favor. If we deny Hell, we are denying at the same time the monumental importance of Christ’s work. If Hell, is not real … not eternal, then why is Christ dying for sins that merit the punishment of Hell?

A denial of Hell, ends up being a denial of the meritorious finished work of Christ. On the Cross Christ takes my punishment but if there is no eternal punishment why should I be grateful that He took it?

 

 

 

A Satanist Prayer … A Christian Rebuttal

After complaints from several community members that only prayer or religious groups can give the invocation at the Grand Junction City Council meetings, council members decided to allow a satanic invocation at their August 2 meeting.
 

“We beseech all those present to shun primitive hatreds and superstitions, bigotry, prejudice and atavism and instead seek equality and justice and thereby safeguard all world views and treat them equally and with respect. So say we all in the name of reason, in the name of free inquiry and in the name of rebellion against theocracy. Hail Satan.” said Andrew Vodopich with the Western Colorado Atheists and Freethinkers.

http://www.kjct8.com/content/news/GJ-City-Council-allows-satanic-invocation-at-meeting-438227943.html

 

Notice that the Satanists are Classical liberals. They want to “safeguard all worldviews and treat them equally and with respect.” Here we learn

1.) Egalitarianism is a doctrinal plank which Satanists approve.

2.) Satanists support absolute libertine freedom when they invoke “the name of free inquiry.” “Free inquiry” is the call for absolute freedom. Absolute freedom is to man what freedom is to a goldfish outside its bowl. Absolute freedom is to man what freedom is to a train once off its tracks.

3.) Classical liberalism is Satanic in origin. Satanist are perfectly good with God getting a vote as long as all the other false gods (including Satan) gets a vote as well.

The Satanists pray for all worldviews being treated equally and with respect. However, this is a prayer request as coming from those who have a worldview that allows only their worldview to be treated with respect. This worldview that, “all the Gods should be equal” is a worldview that does not treat equally any other worldview besides their own. Their egalitarian god rises above all competition from any other god. Any God who insists that He-they are God above the Satanist (classical liberal) god is a god that the prayer of the Satanists is not treating with respect.

Another way to say this was framed by a friend of mine,

“It’s as self-contradicting as it can be. They want their world view – in which all world views are treated equally and with respect – to dominate. If their world view dominates, then they can’t say that all world views are equal. Domination negates equality.”

4.) Satanists enshrine reason as an autonomous source of knowing. This is consistent with Satan’s temptation in the garden of Eden. “You shall be as God determining good from evil.” However, their appeal to reason is shipwrecked by the “reasoning” in this prayer.  What good is reason if you are involved in repeated contradiction as we noted above?

5.) The Satanist pray in favor of rebelling against Theocracy. Yet, their belief system has provided the evilest theocracy that man has ever seen. So, the Satanists are for rebelling against theocracy all the while affirming a theocracy that forces all worldviews to be treated as equal.

McAtee contra Wolfe

“If it is the case that fallen, unregenerate man can attain civil righteousness (worthy of praise among men, even from the regenerate) and if regeneration necessarily effects a radical change in the one regenerated, then the principal effect of regeneration cannot be civil righteousness, political, social, or anything related to the basic elements of civil or domestic life. The principal effect must be something else. It must be, then, the restoration of one’s immediate relationship to God, one’s orientation to the spiritual (yet-to-be-visible) kingdom of God, and true worship of God. In short, the principal effect is the adventitious infusing of heavenly gifts and the outward change in religion. The Gospel then is not essentially political, social, or anything earthly other than the true public worship of God.”

Stephen Wolfe

I don’t know Mr. Wolf well at all. He is an acquaintance.  I’ve heard he is a student working on a terminal degree. This quote comes from a piece where Mr. Wolf quotes several theologians demonstrating their belief in Natural Law. Many of those quotes spoke about how the heathen could do “good” works of civil righteousness. The quote above seems to form his conclusion if we stipulate that pagans can do “good.”

We need to keep in mind our Augustine here. Augustine called the so-called good works of the heathen, “splendid vices.” Augustine remains notorious for his insistence that the “virtues,” so-called, of pagans, are not genuine virtues at all. Luther echoed and restored this Augustinian sentiment during the Reformation.

In order for any human action in any area inclusive of civic Righteousness to be considered “righteous” that action must be done for the glory of God. If actions are not done for the glory of God those actions are splendid vices because they are being done for the glory of self. We grant that comparatively on a sliding scale, the pagans can do righteous deeds. Pagans can and do build burn hospitals. Pagans can be philanthropic. Yet any “good” action that an unconverted man or woman can do is not good considered absolutely as according to God’s standards.

So, if Augustine is correct about splendid virtues than Mr. Wolfe is incorrect in suggesting that regeneration does not touch “anything related to the basic elements of civil or domestic life.” The “noble” pagan upon regeneration may do the same types of works in his civil or domestic lives but now they are doing their doing on a different axis. Whereas before their “noble” acts were for their own glory, now their noble acts are for the glory of God. Because of regeneration, this is a monumental shift.

There may be a bit of a false dichotomy going on in the opening quote. It is true that the primary impact of regeneration is “the restoration of one’s immediate relationship to God, one’s orientation to the spiritual (yet-to-be-visible) kingdom of God, and true worship of God,” but because one’s orientation is changed in such a fashion the effect is that one’s orientation to everything from domestic life to civic righteousness to all things earthly is changed as well. This results in all things that are performed by regenerated man to be an expression of public worship of God.  

So, contra Mr. Wolfe, unregenerate man cannot perform civil righteousness per an absolute standard. All the civil righteousness of the unregenerate are just so many splendid vices.

We would also quibble with Mr. Wolfe’s intimation that the Kingdom of God is completely “yet-to-be-visible.” The Kingdom of God is already visible and according to the will of God goes from visible unto visible until such a time that it becomes visible in all of its splendor.

Mr. Wolfe strikes me, with this quote, to be close to a kind of unfortunate dualism as seen in his willingness to suggest that  “the Gospel then is not essentially political, social, or anything earthly other than the true public worship of God.” Now, the key word here is “essentially.” I would be more inclined to say that “the Gospel, in its broadest definition, then is essentially a totalistic claim that calls a man to bring the good news to every area of life including political, social, or anything earthly, especially including public worship.” 

 

Dr. Rev. Joe Morecraft’s Curious Argumentation

Peter was a racist because he was a coward….

So and so what do you think finally and ultimately defines a man; his race or his religion? 

He said, “I really don’t know,” and I said, “then you really don’t know the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for what finally defines a man is not the color of his skin, nor his social level, nor his educational level, nor his financial level. What finally defines a man is his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ….
 
“But racism has crept in (to the Church) in other ways. There is a new movement called “Kinism,” and it is basically a new word for racism that says the races should be kept separate, There is a superior quality to the white race. The color of your skin does make a difference. If a white man and a black woman should marry the black woman is guilty of adultery. In the Reformed world, there is a lot of Kinists. They’re smart. They know how to use the internet. They can out argue you. They know how to twist scripture.
 
Rev. Dr. Joe Morecraft
Excerpt from Sermon — 30 July 2017

The Battle for the Gospel

Just today someone pointed me to this excerpt from Dr. Morecraft’s most recent Sunday morning sermon. I am going to interact with it a bit below but first some prologue,

1.) I think that Dr. Morecraft has done some fine work over the years. Overall, he has been on the side of the angels. I’ve listened to much of his work and have read some of his material. The Reformed Church is all the richer for Dr. Morecraft’s work over the years.

2.) I am not a Kinist and the reason I disavow Kinism is sermons like this. If this is what Dr. Morecraft honestly thinks that all Kinists believe there is no use trying to rescue the word or identify with the label. This is why I have chosen my own word. I am a “familialist.” By choosing my own word I get to define it and I don’t have to keep correcting over and over again the relentless and constant freaking out over the word “kinist.”

Now on to the matter at hand.

1.) In this sermon on Galatians 2 Dr. Morecraft calls Peter a “racist.” This charge is pretty standard fare in the pc post-modern Reformed Church today and Galatians 2 is often brought forward as an example of racism.

However, I am convinced that Dr. Morecraft is not exegeting the passage properly. Peter’s sin in Galatians is not that he was a racist. Peter’s sin in Galatians is that he was an Alienist. This is seen in the fact that he gave into the Judaizing demand that the Gentile Christians Peter had been having table fellowship with had to become culturally Jewish before they could be considered Christian. The Gentiles had to eat like Jews, and be circumcised like Jews in order to be considered Christian. The desires of the Judaizers in Galatians 2 was that all would be put into the Judaizer blender to become culturally one. Peter’s sin was Alienism… not racism. If the Gentiles had agreed to all the Jewish stipulations to lose their Gentile culture and identity than the Judaizers would have had no problem with Peter having table fellowship with those Gentiles. It wasn’t the fact that Peter was having table fellowship with Gentiles that bothered the Judaizers. (If that had been the problem then perhaps the accusations against Peter that Peter was a racist might be sustained.) No, the problem with Peter was that the Gentiles were not culturally Jews. It wasn’t their ethnicity of the Gentiles that bothered the Judaizers. It was their culture. Peter fell into their trap and was guilty of Alienism … of refusing to insist that the Gentiles had to be just like the Jews culturally before they could be considered Christian.

Dr. Morecraft is in error in this passage on this point.


2.)Dr. Morecraft asked his friend,

“For what finally and ultimately defines a man; His race or his religion?”

To be honest this is a bit reductionistic. Dr. Morecraft knows that man is a being that is composed of body and soul. A man is not ultimately defined by either his soul (religion) or his body (race). A man is finally and ultimately defined by both. Would Dr. Morecraft seriously ask, “what ultimately and finally defines an airplane, the wings or the engine?” He wouldn’t ask this because of how obvious such absurd reductionism is in error. 

Dr. Morecraft knows we can’t divide a man in two and say only one part ultimately defines him any more than we could do the same type of thing in regards to the person of Christ without falling into major heresy. The similar error here would be asking, “What finally defines the person of Christ, his God nature or his man nature?”

Obviously to answer that question is to fall into heresy. In the same way, it is to fall into heresy which ever way Dr. Morecraft’s question is answered. To answer Dr. Morecraft’s question by saying, “his race” would have the respondent fall into the heresy of materialism. To answer Dr. Morecraft’s question by giving the answer “his religion” would find the respondent falling into the heresy of Gnosticism.

Dr. Morecraft hasn’t thought this through as well as he usually thinks matters through.

But if we were forced to answer this question there are several alternatives we might offer up,

a.) “The answer is obviously religion Dr. Morecraft, but if you’re going to suggest now that such an answer means that the way God created men… the way God enfleshed men isn’t worthy of paying attention to or honoring, why then Dr. Morecraft, I can’t help but wonder how you escape the Gnostic briar patch.

b.) “Well, Dr. Morecraft, for the black man what finally and ultimately defines him is his religion and for the White man what finally and ultimately defines him is his religion. Every man regardless of what people group that man belongs to is finally and ultimately defined by his religion. You ask about a man in the abstract but man doesn’t come in the abstract. A man comes in the concrete and it is the concrete man that we must deal with.”

Now let me ask you a question, Dr. Morecraft,

Isn’t it Gnostic of you to suggest that the way our Creator God created a man is unimportant and that all created differences can be whisked away by appealing to the “spiritual?”

c.) “Dr. Morecraft, I’ll answer that question if you will answer this question; What finally and ultimately defines a person? Their gender or their religion?”

“Now, be careful Dr. Morecraft, because if you answer religion I am going to take that as meaning that you’re contending that just as race doesn’t make any difference between people neither does gender make any difference between people. After all if skin color doesn’t make any difference why should plumbing?

d.) Dr. Morecraft, God created man with both a spiritual and physical nature and while we are spiritually united with all the Elect in Christ, we retain our unique, diverse identities in our physical attributes: gender, ethnicity, disposition, etc so that both man’s race and his religion finally and ultimately define man.

Obviously, the import in all this is that Dr. Morecraft is practicing a danger anthropological reductionism here that isn’t consistent with our Christian theology.

Dr. Morecraft ties his answer of “religion” to knowing the Gospel of Jesus Christ but I can’t help but wonder how his answer doesn’t tie him to some kind of creeping Gnosticism; that first great heresy that the Church had to contend with. Man remains a modified unichotomy (the integrative reality of body and soul) and to suggest that his soul is finally and ultimately more important than his creaturely fixity is a curious position for such an esteemed Pastor as Dr. Morecraft.

Now to end just an observation. Much of what Dr. Morecraft says about Kinism just isn’t universally true. As one example, most kinists I know insist that all the diverse races have both superiorities about them and inferiorities about them. Kinists are not White Supremacist. This is just one example of why I no longer claim the kinist label. When esteemed men like Dr. Morecraft spread this kind of libel and slander it is just not possible to rescue the term.

Another observation to end that is only related to Dr. Morecraft’s comments in a tertiary fashion. Those One Worlders out there are the hardest on those who still insist that ethnicity and race matters. Yet at the end of the day, One Worldism is its own kind of KINISM. Their allegiance is to their tribe of an ethnically coffee cream colored people who have the racial distinction of not being racially distinct. This One Worlder Kinism will support a universal non-descript dishwater nondistinct culture which will find it’s distinction in its being universal. Likewise, the One Worlders have the religion of no religion which is unique to their tribe. One Worlders are, without a doubt KINIST, in every way. So the One Worlders attack a form of Kinism they don’t like while at the same time advancing a form of Kinism they do like.

Kinism or something akin to it thus is an inescapable category.

I’m not advocating for it. Remember … I’ve disavowed the label. I’m merely saying that something like it is impossible to escape.