One Characteristic Of Babel Humanistic Statism

Ironically, at the same time that humanistic statism de-personalizes life and man, it speaks often about ‘the Brotherhood of man’ a term from family life. This doctrine of brotherhood, however, is an intellectual concept and an abstraction. It has nothing to do with family life, even though the term ‘family of man’ is often used. This idea of the brotherhood refers to the statist integration of races, nationalities, and cultures to form a homogeneous blend in which all the distinctives of each are lost. The God given personal identities and ways of white, black Oriental, and other peoples are all offensive to these statists. They seek to create a humanity which has no personal identities but acts, responds, and functions in terms of social evolutionary plans. Theirs is a plan for death and they call it life.”

R. J. Rushdoony
The Roots of Reconstruction — pg. 323

What RJR is noting we might call “universal racism.” Universal racism would be that racism that treats people in an unloving way who do not agree that “integration of races, nationalities, and cultures to form a homogeneous blend in which all the distinctives of each are lost” is a good thing. Actually, the problem of Universal Racism is far more prevalent today then any other kind of racism

McAtee Dissects Leithart’s Call For Protestantism’s Burial

Recently, the Cambridge learned Rev. Dr. Peter Liethart opined over at first things,

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2013/11/the-end-of-protestantism

that Protestantism is over.

I am taking the opportunity to poke some holes in his thesis.

The Reformation isn’t over. But Protestantism is, or should be.

Leithart is a Master at linguistic deception. Here he tells us that the Reformation lives on while Protestantism is dead and yet the Protestantism he describes in his article sounds a good deal more like your average epistemically self conscious Reformed congregation then it does the Methodists, Nazarenes, Lutherans and Independent Baptists I know of. So, while Leithart says we need to throw the dirt on dead Protestantism, the corpse he describes as dead reads to be a description, in many respects, of historic Reformed theology.

Peter J. Leithart (PJL) writes,

When I studied at Cambridge, I discovered that English Evangelicals define themselves over against the Church of England. Whatever the C of E is, they ain’t. What I’m calling “Protestantism” does the same with Roman Catholicism. Protestantism is a negative theology; a Protestant is a not-Catholic. Whatever Catholics say or do, the Protestant does and says as close to the opposite as he can.

Dr. Leithart claims that Protestants define themselves as “not Catholic” and yet I find most of Protestantism has a great deal in common with Roman Catholics. Rome teaches a Universal Atonement, so does most of Protestantism. Rome teaches justification by faith plus works. So does most of Protestantism. Rome denies irresistible grace and unconditional election and total depravity. So do the Wesleyans, many many Baptists, most modern Congregationalists, as does your garden variety Pentecostal. What JPL should be arguing is not that Protestantism needs to be buried but that Protestantism embrace its inner Roman Catholic self. It is not a burial that is needed in terms of Protestantism but a marriage. Those are much more fun to market.

However, if we posit that there is some linguistic deception going on here then what we read PJL advocating is the burial of the epistemologically self conscious Reformed Church. It is that Church which understands that its worldview and identity stands in contrast to both Roman Catholicism and to contemporary Protestantism.

PJL writes,

Mainline churches are nearly bereft of “Protestants.” If you want to spot one these days, your best bet is to visit the local Baptist or Bible church, though you can find plenty of Protestants among conservative Presbyterians too.

Protestantism ought to give way to Reformational catholicism. Like a Protestant, a Reformational catholic rejects papal claims, refuses to venerate the Host, and doesn’t pray to Mary or the saints; he insists that salvation is a sheer gift of God received by faith and confesses that all tradition must be judged by Scripture, the Spirit’s voice in the conversation that is the Church.

Bret responds,

PJL’s Reformational Catholicism sounds a great deal like just garden variety Reformed thinking except for the conspicuous absence of the nasty word “alone.” It is true we Reformed people don’t do Papal claims, host veneration, or Mary and Saint praying, but what we Reformed people do do when we talk about salvation as a gift of God is that we do say it is received by faith alone. We also insist that also say that all tradition must be judged by Scripture alone. When Dr. Leithart loses these “alones” we Reformed types — those very chaps that Dr. Leithart insists need to be buried — begin to smell a Papist in the woodpile.

In these “alones” is the difference between both the Reformed Faith and Roman Catholicism and the Reformed Faith and the Reformational Catholicism that PJL is championing in his First Things piece.

When PJL suggests that “all tradition must be judged by Scripture” and then seemingly describes Scripture as “the Spirit’s voice in the conversation that is the Church” all kinds of red lights go off and bells start ringing. First of all as sons of the Reformation we insist that all tradition must be judged by Scripture alone and we have always been suspicious about “the Spirit’s voice in the conversation that is the Church” because one of our founders spoke about how Pope’s and councils can err. Our understanding of the Church is that it is ministerial in these matters and not magisterial. Perhaps that is what PJL intended. Perhaps it isn’t. Either way the absence of those “alones” makes us about to be buried corpses nervous.

PJL wrote,

Though it agrees with the original Protestant protest, Reformational catholicism is defined as much by the things it shares with Roman Catholicism as by its differences. Its existence is not bound up with finding flaws in Roman Catholicism. While he’s at it, the Reformational catholic might as well claim the upper-case “C.” Why should the Roman see have a monopoly on capitalization?

A Protestant exaggerates his distance from Roman Catholicism on every point of theology and practice, and is skeptical of Roman Catholics who say that they believe in salvation by grace. A Reformational Catholic cheerfully acknowledges that he shares creeds with Roman Catholics, and he welcomes reforms and reformulations as hopeful signs that we might at last stake out common ground beyond the barricades. (Protestants also exaggerate differences from one another, but that’s a story for another day.)

A Protestant believes (old-fashioned) Roman Catholic claims about its changeless stability. A Reformational Catholic knows that the Roman Catholicism has changed and is changing.

Bret responds,

I quite agree with PJL that the Reformed faith is the alone Catholic faith. I also agree that we share some words, creeds and concepts with Roman Catholicism. However, I must insist that as those shared words, creeds, and concepts like it distinctly different worldviews (Augustinian vs. Pelagian) that those shared words, creeds, and concepts end up having diametrically different meanings.

And yes it is true that we are skeptical of both Protestant (for example, Free Methodist, Church of God — Cleveland Tn., Assembly of God, etc.) claims to salvation by grace and Roman Catholic claims to salvation by grace. A denial of the doctrines of Grace as well as a denial of the “Solas” lead us to being skeptical because in claims to salvation by grace we always find salvation by not grace. So, again, the burial that PJL is looking for is not the burial of Protestantism but the burial of the Reformed Church.

PJL wants to get beyond the barricades but until we can agree on those “alones” the barricades will remain. To give up those alones as being absolutely necessary is to give up our reason for existence. It is to give up everything. It is to be buried.

PJL writes,

Some Protestants don’t view Roman Catholics as Christians, and won’t acknowledge the Roman Catholic Church as a true church. A Reformational Catholic regards Catholics as brothers, and regrets the need to modify that brotherhood as “separated.” To a Reformational Catholic, it’s blindingly obvious that there’s a billion-member Church of Jesus Christ centered in Rome. Because it regards the Roman Catholic Church as barely Christian, Protestantism leaves Roman Catholicism to its own devices. “They” had a pedophilia scandal, and “they” have a controversial pope. A Reformational Catholic recognizes that turmoil in the Roman Catholic Church is turmoil in his own family.

Bret responds,

I absolutely insist that many Roman Catholics are Christian. At the same time I equally insist that Roman Catholicism, as expressed in the Council of Trent is not Christianity. Rome, with its council of Trent likewise anathematizes me. Oddly enough, though I agree with PJL that a scandal in the Roman Church hurts us all but only because Joe Sixpack doesn’t distinguish between Roman Catholic Churches and Protestant Churches today.

PJL seems to suggest that all because 1 billion Roman Catholics exist therefore they must be a Church. Has it really gotten to the point that counting noses determines what is and isn’t a church? Mormonism has 14 million members and insist that they are part of the Church. Should we include them as well? Mormons talk about Jesus. They talk about sin. They use much of the same language. Why not include them?

PJL writes,

A Protestant views the Church as an instrument for individual salvation. A Reformational Catholic believes salvation is inherently social.

A Protestant’s heroes are Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and their heirs. If he acknowledges any ancestry before the Reformation, they are proto-Protestants like Hus and Wycliffe. A Reformational Catholic gratefully receives the history of the entire Church as his history, and, along with the Reformers, he honors Augustine and Gregory the Great and the Cappadocians, Alcuin and Rabanus Maurus, Thomas and Bonaventure, Dominic and Francis and Dante, Ignatius and Teresa of Avila, Chesterton, de Lubac and Congar as fathers, brothers, and sisters. A Reformational Catholic knows some of his ancestors were deeply flawed but won’t delete them from the family tree. He knows every family has its embarrassments.

Now, we have an agreement with PJL. Protestantism is hopelessly atomistic. However, I don’t need to go to the artificially re-imagined Reformational Catholicism to find covenantal (social) categories of salvation. I only have to look to the Reformers. The whole individualistic thing marks Protestantism as being different from both Roman Catholicism and Reformed covenantalism. I would welcome the burial of datable conversion, decisional regeneration, walking the sawdust trail, the mourners seat, that “askingJesusintoyourheart” Protestantism. But I can do that without embracing PJL’s Reformational Catholicism.

I have learned from many of the names cited by PJL, however, I think we must be careful who we include and how we include people in that list. Will we also include the Borgia Popes, Tomás de Torquemada, Pope Leo X, Bloody Mary, Mary Queen of Scots, Cardinal Reginald Pole, House of Valois or any number of other “Christian” villains of Church History?

PJL writes,

Protestants are suspicious of a public, “Constantinian” church. While acknowledging the temptations of power, a Reformational Catholic views public witness as an expression of the Church’s mission to the nations.

A Protestant mocks patristic and medieval biblical interpretation and finds safety in grammatical-historical exegesis. A Reformational Catholic revels in the riches, even while he puzzles over the oddities, of Augustine and Origen, Bernard and Bede. He knows there are unplumbed depths in Scripture, never dreamt of by Luther and Calvin.

Bret responds,

Constantinianism is an inescapable category. All nations are formed with implicit or explicit State churches. The Crown and the Mitre always walk together. Most Protestants and many Reformed are too dull to understand that.

PJL argues for a maximalist hermeneutic. But how maximalist shall we go and how shall we know when Alexandrian hermeneutics have gone to far?

I agree that the pseudo scientific historical-grammatical hermeneutic is sometimes insufficient but we better know the dangers of other approaches before we go to them. I’ve read some of Leithart’s family members hermeneutics and it is a Alice in Wonderland experience all over again.
blockquote>PJL writes

A Protestant is indifferent or hostile to liturgical forms, ornamentation in worship, and sacraments, because that’s what Catholics do. Reformational Catholicism’s piety is communal and sacramental, and its worship follows historic liturgical patterns. A Protestant wears a jacket and tie, or a Mickey Mouse t-shirt, to lead worship; a Reformational Catholic is vested in cassock and stole. To a Protestant, a sacrament is an aid to memory. A Reformational Catholic believes that Jesus baptizes and gives himself as food to the faithful, and doesn’t avoid speaking of “Eucharist” or “Mass” just because Roman Catholics use those words.

This is where PJL gets kind of creepy. To a Reformed person this all sounds like smells and bells religion. PJL insist that it is an aid to memory but how many Roman Catholics can tell you what the incense at a Roman Catholic funeral is supposed to do to the memory? The Reformed have always centered on the clarity of the Word. This doesn’t mean that high liturgy is necessarily evil but it does mean that high liturgy better be overshadowed by the centrality of the spoken Word. If Reformational Catholicism is going to take us off the centrality of the Word then Reformational Catholicism can keep re-imagining the Reformation all it wants.

PJL writes,

Protestantism has had a good run. It remade Europe and made America. It inspired global missions, soup kitchens, church plants, and colleges in the four corners of the earth. But the world and the Church have changed, and Protestantism isn’t what the Church, including Protestants themselves, needs today. It’s time to turn the protest against Protestantism and to envision a new way of being heirs of the Reformation, a new way that happens to conform to the original Catholic vision of the Reformers.

Bret responds,

Here we get to the nub of what Peter is about. Peter wants to rethink, re-articulate, and re-apply the Reformation. He says it is about Protestantism but it really isn’t about Protestantism except in a very minor way. It really is about those blasted Reformed Churches that won’t go along with all his high worship, alone-less Christianity, and the non Roman Catholic friendly opposition. I quite agree that Protestantism needs buried but I would say it needs buried because it has to much in common with Reformational Catholicism which has to much in common with Roman Catholicism.

Perhaps Peter sees the mounting opposition to the Church in the public square in the various shades of humanism that is pressing down on us and so thinks that a new coalition has to be built to stop that. As such, he is willing to give up many of the central tenants of the Reformation in order to build that new coalition. Even if he succeeds he will fail if that is the case.

Reformational Catholicism, as championed by PJL has to many jagged un-tucked in corners in order to make a cohesive worldview. It may be the case that it will draw many people in but its incoherence combined with the fact that it does not correspond with reality will assure that it never becomes what the Reformation was and continues to be.

Random Thoughts on Covenant, Baptism, and Acts 2:38f

We come this morning to speak about a subject which many erudite Theologians have insisted is the Theme of Scripture. One prominent theologian once said that covenant theology was the architectonic principle of Reformed theology. As such the time we are able to give to it is totally inadequate to the immensity of its subject matter. Our subject matter this morning is the Biblical motif of covenant, specifically as to it’s sign and seal of initiation — Baptism. Narrowing it down even further we will spend some time considering the place of God’s children’s children in the covenant.

It is not to much to say that until we start thinking rightly again on this matter of covenant the Church will remain hopelessly compromised in its identity and mission, just as it currently is.

We will start with our cursory examination today by looking at Acts 2, though in doing so we will be coming in at a point in the story of covenant that has already long been told for centuries. However, working from Acts two we will work backwards in a kind of retrospective movement to consider the long roots of covenant.

As we come to Acts 2 we have the fairly familiar story of God’s gathering of His Church on the day of Pentecost. The Disciples receive the Promised Holy Spirit and the immediate consequence is that Peter Preaches a Sermon. At the end of his sermon the hearers cry out, “Men and Brethren, what shall we do?”

In vs. 38 Peter, speaking as the mouthpiece of God, and calls on them to Repent, (that is to turn to God out of sorrow for sin) and be Baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. Peter then tells them the consequent of this action will be the receiving of the gift of the Holy Spirit. in vs. 39 Peter tells them that the “promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”

We want to examine these words of vs. 39 a bit more closely. Peter speaks of “the promise,” and we are suggesting this morning that “the promise” that Peter speaks of is another way of speaking of “the covenant.”

Before we go any further then we should try to get in our minds first what this promise is and then what a covenant is and then the relation between the two.

Now as to the promise that Peter speaks of I believe we must identify as God’s age old promise to the Israel of Israel that He would be their God and they would be His people. Peter speaks of this Promise to these Jews who were cut to the heart in conviction as a warrant for why repentance and baptism is extended unto them. So, when Peter references “the Promise” the repentant Jews present would have known this is what he was speak referencing. This Promise of God to the Church in the Old Covenant is littered throughout the pages of the Old Testament.

Genesis 17:7-8 “And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”

Exodus 6:7 “I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.”

Exodus 19:5-6 (with 20:2) “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Theses are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel…. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”

Exodus 29:45-46 “I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God.”

Leviticus 26:11-12 “I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people.”

Deuteronomy 4:20 “But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own inheritance, as you are this day.”

Deuteronomy 7:6 “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”

Deuteronomy 14:2 “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”

Deuteronomy 26:18 “And the LORD has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments,”

Deuteronomy 29:13 “That he may establish you today as his people, and that he may be your God, as he promised you, and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”

2 Samuel 7:24 “And you established for yourself your people Israel to be your people forever. And you, O LORD, became their God.”

1 Chron. 17:22 “And you made your people Israel to be your people forever, and you, O LORD, became their God.”

Jeremiah 7:23 But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’”

Jeremiah 11:4 “That I commanded your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Listen to my voice, and do all that I command you. So shall you be my people, and I will be your God,”

Jeremiah 24:7 “I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.”

Jeremiah 30:22 “And you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”

Jeremiah 31:1 “At that time, declares the LORD, I will be the God of all the clans of Israel, and they shall be my people.”

Jeremiah 31:33 “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

Jeremiah 32:38 “And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”

Ezekiel 11:20 “That they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”

Ezekiel 14:11 “That the house of Israel may no more go astray from me, nor defile themselves anymore with all their transgressions, but that they may be my people and I may be their God, declares the Lord GOD.”

Ezekiel 34:24 “And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the LORD; I have spoken.”

Ezekiel 34:30 “And they shall know that I am the LORD their God with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, declares the Lord GOD.”

Ezekiel 36:27-28 “And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”

Ezekiel 37:23 “They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. But I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”

Ezekiel 37:27 “My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

Hosea 2:23 “And I will sow her for myself in the land. And I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people‘; and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’”

Zechariah 8:8 “And I will bring them to dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in faithfulness and in righteousness.”

Zechariah 13:9 “And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people‘; and they will say, ‘The LORD is my God.’”

2 Corinthians 6:16-17 “What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you,’”

1 Peter 2:9-10 “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

Revelation 21:3 “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”

Revelation 21:7 “The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.”

So, when Peter speaks of the Promise that was to them and their children he is giving them God’s warrant that repentance and Baptism is for them.

Now, this, in turn, allows us to speak a little more concretely about the idea of covenant. We have said that when Peter speaks about “the Promise” it is a short-hand way of speaking of God’s covenant. The idea of covenant then means a coming together to form an alliance of a people who will remain distinct from those who are not part of the alliance. It presupposes two or more parties who come together to make a contract, agreeing on promises, stipulations, privileges, and responsibilities.

We still enter into covenants though we seldom use that language. The covenant most widely known yet today is the covenant of marriage. A Bride and a Groom come together to form an alliance. The two of them who have formed the alliance will remain distinct from those who are not part of the alliance. In the Marriage covenant promises are made, privileges set forth and responsibilities are owned. In this Marriage covenant there is a relational reality between husband and wife but that relational reality has a legal foundation. That legal foundation is covenant.

So, when Peter speaks of “the Promise” he is speaking of God’s covenant Promise that He would be their God and they would be His people. This promise was the foundation of the covenant where people were gathered as a people who were distinct from those people who had not been gathered into this covenant. In this covenant between God and His people there is a relational reality between the People of God and the Lord Christ but that relational reality has a legal foundation.

Thus far we have established that “the Promise” that Peter speaks of is the God’s Promise that forms the Covenant. We noted what that Promise had always been through Scripture. When Peter calls on them to repent and be Baptized what is being formed then is a covenant community. The community of the people of God. Sometimes called “the Church.”

We have said that the covenant means a coming together to form an alliance of a people who will remain distinct from those who are not part of the alliance. It presupposes two or more parties who come together to make a contract, agreeing on promises, stipulations, privileges, and responsibilities.

Here in Acts 2 Peter calls on convicted men to be confident that they can enter into this covenant as God’s distinct people based upon the fact that the Lord Christ’s death and resurrection forms the legal writ whereby they can escape the rebellion against God that was manifested in their crucifixion of Christ. Most simply put that legal writ whereby we can come into the covenant where God’s favor exist is the truth that Christ died as our substitute.

Two things to note before we move on

Notice the continuity we find between the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament God had made Promises and those Promises are being referenced in the collection of the post Pentecost Church. Whatever is going on in Acts is not a going on that is unrelated to the goings on we find in the Old Testament. To understand Acts 2 you must understand the Old Testament.

Second, notice the legal quality of covenant. The modern church forever has on their lips the idea of “their relationship with Jesus,” but whatever personal relationship exists between the believer and the Lord Christ is a personal relationship that is defined by legal categories such as substitution, reconciliation, redemption, ransom, propitiation, expiation, atonement, justification, imputation and covenant. And the fact that you may not be familiar with those terms indicates that we the Clergy — that I as clergy — have failed you. The modern church today is all about the relationship as seen by their constant sappy “God is my girlfriend” choruses but there remains among us precious few who understand that the relationship with Jesus, which is so incessantly spoken of, is only as legitimate as the legal foundation upon which it sits.

So, thus far we’ve identified the “Promise” that Peter refers to and we’ve attached that to the idea of covenant. Subsequently we have spoken a bit about the idea of covenant.

Let us briefly consider Baptism at this point.

Following Jesus’ words in Mt. 28 to Baptize the Nations Peter calls for the Hebrews to be Baptized.

Baptism then becomes what is known as the “sign of the covenant.” It is the means by which God marks out those that are uniquely His as distinguished from those that are not His. I have, in the past, likened this sign of the covenant as akin to ranchers branding their cattle. When they see their brand on a Steer they know it is theirs.

Previous to Baptism the sign of the covenant was circumcision but that sign in changed to Baptism in the new covenant. This change of sign is consistent with what Jesus said when He taught that one does not put new wine into old wineskins. Circumcision was part and parcel of the old wineskin that had to be replaced. It was replaced with Baptism. In the replacement we see that the bloody rite was set aside for a bloodless rite. This is because that with the work of Christ all bloody rites had been fulfilled. Circumcision had been a picture of Christ’s work but now that Christ had been cut off there was no longer a need for a rite that reminded of blood.

And so enters the waters of Baptism. Scripture puts the highest regard on Baptism calling it in Titus the washing of regeneration. St. Peter can even say that “Baptism saves us.” St. Paul can remind the formally pagan Corinthians of their Baptism saying, “but ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God,” thus providing linkage between baptism, sanctification and justification.

Something else we should note here. The fact that all of Israel’s rites were changed or set aside reminds us again that God is done with Israel as a Nation. National Israel is no more God’s people then I am a Rothschild. In point of fact Scripture can refer to National Israel as a “synagogue of Satan.” National Israel as been as thoroughly set aside by God as circumcision has been set aside by Baptism, though we anticipate great numbers of individual Hebrews being in the Kingdom of God.

Now we are ready to look at more of vs. 39. When Peter speaks of this “Promise” and, by way of implication, this covenant, Peter also says in terms of the Promise that it is for not only to those hearing Peter’s sermon but it is also for their children.

Now we have to try to hear Peter’s words through the ears of a covenant people who had been shaped by centuries of living in terms of covenant categories. A faithful Hebrew could only have heard these words “and to your children” as meaning the Promise of the Covenant long established was a promise that included all who were underneath the authority of the head of the household. It is the way it had always been in Scripture.

Indeed, it is the witness of Scripture to believe that since we are not our own and since we belong to God then our children belong to God as well since the Scriptures teach that children are a heritage FROM the Lord, the fruit of HIS reward. We believe that when Peter announces that ‘the promise is to you and to your Children and to as many who are afar off’ that a Believing mindset (Hebrew at that time) would have heard those words in light of how God had ALWAYS historically dealt with families, and we find nothing in Scripture that suggests that in the New Covenant God deals any differently with His people on this issue. Nowhere do the Scriptures teach that children are not to be given all the privileges of what it means to belong to God. Nowhere in the Scriptures are we taught that children must wait for covenant privileges and covenant signs. We believe that all men are either in the Kingdom of Darkness or the Kingdom of God’s dear Son (Colossians 1:13) and we do not believe that God has given His Kingdom people children who do not normatively partake of both covenantal and Kingdom blessings.

We believe with Scripture that whenever God made covenant with man He always included the children of whom He made covenant with in that covenantal arrangement. This is true in the covenant of Works with Adam as seen in the curse upon Adam’s posterity that followed Adam’s fall. It wasn’t just Adam and Eve who fell but all their posterity. We see this family solidarity in the Covenant with Noah, in the Covenant with Abraham, and in the Covenant with David. The general principle of children going with the parents is seen in the delivery of Lot with his daughters, in the curse on Sodom, in the destruction of the Canaanites and Amalkites, and in the destruction of Achan and his family for Achan’s sin. In all of these the infant children go with the parents. It seems that it be requisite that if in the New and Better covenant this common thread were to be reversed there would have been a clear demarcation that the contrary was now expected. There is not a hint in the New Testament that the children no longer are the recipients of the covenant Promise which Peter speaks of here.

Now, we might ask, why might this idea be so unnatural to us that children are included in the covenant?

I can’t answer that with certainty but I can hazard a guess or two.

Guess #1

America was formed on the social theories of John Locke. Locke’s social contract theory is posited on the idea of the sovereign individual and teaches that human beings are isolated and abstracted egos. Before we are anything else we are sovereign individual integers. These sovereign individual integers may make alliances so that “us” and “we” are uttered but those alliances and the corporate structures that result (i.e. – general will) are all based upon the notion of the sovereign self.

According to the Lockean social contract myth human beings are isolated Egos. Each of us have a will of our own, and each is free to make choices on our own. We are sovereign “I’s” first and foremost, though we may, for various selfish reasons, combine with other I’s into a political society

If this is really what is going on, then the most effective argument for infant baptism may be the creation account which teaches that man in isolation is not fully man. It is not until the creation of Eve, and so the inauguration of the community whole, that man is fully self. In short, man only finds the meaning of the individual self in the context of community. The vast majority of the contemporary Church denies this insisting that man as the individual must give assent to the community whole – The Church with Christ as King – before the community whole can recognize the individual as a member of the whole community.

The reality that people develop as members of community before they choose the community to which they will belong is part of the warp and woof of life. We don’t wait for a baby to accede to being part of a family before it is part of the family. What we concede to family life the contemporary Church denies to God and His family-Church. Lee didn’t embrace being a McAtee before he was a member of the McAtee family. In point of fact Lee’s self-understanding will only develop in the context of his understanding and place in the community whole. With that reality being true for all people it strikes me as past curious that the the great majority of the Church today requires their children to embrace being a member of the covenant before they can be acknowledged as a member of the covenant. The only thing that can explain such a mindset is a basic presupposition that insist that the sovereign self is prior to the community. This notion we do not find to be a truth drawn from Scripture.

So, epistemologically self conscious Reformed people bring their children to the Baptismal font because we don’t buy into the deeply embedded American notion of social contract theory. We are not Lockeans. We are Christians.

Guess #2

My second guess as to why we find it so difficult to think of children as being in the covenant receiving God’s covenant promise to be their God is because we forget that our response to the Gospel Promise is not the Gospel. The very dubious argument goes that since children can’t respond to the Gospel by repenting and believing (a very questionable assertion) therefore the Gospel can’t reach them. But the Gospel Promise of God that He shall be our God and we His people is not dependent upon our response. Rather our response is dependent upon His Promise.

It is true … Babies can’t respond in ways we can catalog, to the covenant Promise.

And let us all thank God that is true because what better imagery could you possibly have that God does a solo act when it comes to determining who is and who isn’t in the covenant and so a recipient of the Promise then a helpless child who is only capable of receiving the promise?

Don’t get me wrong. I look for the proper response in the people I am charged to keep. Proper responses to the Gospel promise, in terms of ever increasing walking in obedience to God’s law, is to be expected along the way of ever increasing maturity in the faith. But as necessary as our proper responses are to the Gospel they are not the Gospel. The Gospel is that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself not imputing their trespasses unto them. God does all the saving. We are all just passive recipients in our reception of the covenant Promise and helpless babies being baptized is the best picture we could have of that.

Perhaps this is why Christ said that “one must become as a little child in order to enter into the Kingdom of heaven.” Perhaps it is the case that when we require a response to the Gospel from our babies in order to give them the liquid Gospel of Baptism we have at that moment turned God into the one who waits on our initiation before He responds as opposed to our confession that God always initiates before man responds.

I must say a word here about the purpose of this covenant community.

The covenant community has been formed as the Church militant. We will have plenty of time to rest when we are on the other side gathered as “the Church at rest.” Christ has told us that we are a army when He told Peter that the Gates of Hell would not prevail against us.

The Church, as God’s covenant community, is God’s activist community. We are commissioned to make our own long marches through the institutions. In Christ we are already have the guarantee of victory. But we still must fight.

Our orders are to fight
Then if I win
or bravely fail
What matters it?
God only doth prevail

The servant craveth naught
Except to serve with might
I was not told
to win or lose
Our orders are to fight

We’ve been placed into the covenant community with the Promise of God to be our God with the purpose to be His shock troops. Yes, it is true that we have internal enemies to contend with (pride, selfishness, envy) but let us not so concentrate on those enemies that we forget that we have external enemies to contend with as well.

If the covenant community prays “Thine Kingdom come” then they should work to that end as well. The covenant community must repent of its retreatism, its quietism, and its pietism, and become once again a people who in taking every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ, seek to extend the present Crown Rights of the Lord Christ into every area of life.

On this score O. Palmer Robertson could say,

“The total life involvement of the covenant relationship provides the framework for considering the connection between the ‘great commission’ and the ‘cultural mandate.’ Entrance into God’s kingdom may occur only by repentance and faith, which requires the preaching of the Gospel. This ‘gospel,’ however, must not be conceived in the narrowest possible sense. It is the gospel of the ‘Kingdom.’ It involves discipling men to Jesus Christ. Integral to that discipling process is the awakening of an awareness of the obligations of man to the totality of God’s creation. Redeemed man, remade in God’s image, must fulfill – even surpass – the role originally determined for the first man. In such a manner, the mandate to preach the gospel and the mandate to form a culture glorifying to God merge with one another.”

O. Palmer Robertson
The Christ Of The Covenants – pg. 83

I told you at the outset that the time we give to the idea of covenant this morning will be totally inadequate to the subject matter at hand. And now I’ve proven it. I’ve possibly left you with more questions then I have answered. I am ever ready to receive questions if people should have them. If some of this sounded confusing I can only ask you to join with me in my constant prayer that God would open our eyes to even more of His covenant truth.

The Nations As Nations Have Their Place In The Kingdom Of God

http://chalcedon.edu/…/audio/inheritance-and-possession/

Question (Somewhat garbled)

One point of Scripture is it speaking of the unity of God’s people. How does that compare to the Nationalism of today?

Rushdoony Answers

The Bible is not saying it is going to be a one world order governmentally. That is the only way the modern mind can think of a world united — governmentally. It means rather, united in Christ without destroying the integrity of the various national groups because they have their place under God. Thus, there is no reason to believe that in God’s Kingdom on earth there will be no longer any Russians or Chinese. It does mean emphatically that they will be alike governed by the word of God. The principle of unity is Christ. It is not a World state. And this of course is where many groups like Armstrong’s group and others go sadly astray. They are insistent on seeing a one world state to come through either Christ’s premillennial return or through some kind of human agency with the British Israelites or the British Empire. These are all heretical views I believe.

RJR Lecture — Law and Life

http://chalcedon.edu/…/audio/inheritance-and-possession/

Go to the point where there is 3:45 left on the lecture

William Graham Tullian’s Washington Post Article

In the below link,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/wp/2013/10/17/the-missing-message-in-todays-churches/

William Graham Tullian (WGT) offers some good points and some points I’m not sure of. Because it is all confused and jumbled together the article could be confusing. I won’t be interacting with the whole article, so I encourage the reader to access the whole article to make sure and get the whole context.

WGT opens

America’s churches came back into the media limelight a few weeks ago after a well-publicized Pew study showed a meteoric rise of Americans claiming no religious affiliation, shooting up from seven percent in 1990 to 16 percent in 2010. The percentage more than doubled for those under the age of 30, reaching almost 35 percent. The group is now being referred to as “the religious nones.”

Bret offers,

It might have been helpful here had someone noted that it is impossible to be a “religious nones.” Now, certainly people may not self identify with a religion but that doesn’t make them any less religious then the person thought to be the most religious person on the planet. Part of what it means to come to intellectual maturity is to realize that religion is an inescapable category and that the lives of all people is conditioned by their religion. The flight from religion never happens apart from a flight to religion.

WGT

There has been no lack of theorizing to account for the numbers. Some chalk it up to a more visibly secularized society, others to doctrinal confusion, and others to the social media-fueled culture of distraction among today’s youth. Some dismiss the charge as alarmist, claiming that young people have always had a distaste for organized religion. The list goes on.

Bret

If my above paragraph is true (and it is) then it follows that societies never become more secularized as it is as impossible for societies to be a-religious as it is for individuals to be irreligious. If more secularized societies means that the society as a whole is operating apart from a religion foundation then the notion that societies become more secularized is ridiculous. Man, rather considered as a individual or in his societal role, is a hopelessly religious being.

WGT

In a recent column for CNN, Rachel Held Evans opined that, “what millennials really want from the church is not a change in style but a change in substance.” Speaking as someone who has spent the past forty plus years in the bosom of American Evangelicalism, she is certainly onto something. The “what” is the issue, not the “how.”
You don’t have to be a sociologist to know that we live in a culture of asphyxiating “performancism.” Performancism is the mindset that equates our identity and value directly with our performance. It casts achievements not as something we do or don’t do but as something we are (or aren’t). The money we earn, the car we drive, the schools we attend, aren’t merely reflective of our occupation or ability; they are reflective of us. They are constitutive rather than descriptive. In this schema, success equals life, and failure is tantamount to death.

Bret

If WGT is correct about “performancism” then what the culture needs above all is the law preached to them to remind them of their performance failure. The last thing these performance hounds need to hear is that God accepts their failures apart from a confessed recognition that all their performances (even the best of them) are as filthy rags before God. They should be told that their schema is correct. Success does equal life and failure is tantamount to death and the fact is that the most successful of them in the congregation are failures.

You see my problem with WGT is I sense that WGT wants to rush to the Gospel solution before setting the law hook. WGT’s message leads people to conclude, “It’s ok if my performance isn’t good enough because God isn’t exacting.” But God is exacting and God does demand performance.

My next problem is that the performance hounds are only self disappointed regarding their performance. An awareness needs to be opened to them that they need be more concerned about the fact that God is disappointed with them. The good news of the Gospel is not they have no need to be hard on themselves but rather that because of the Lord Christ God is no longer hard on them. This is not an unimportant distinction because, with notable exceptions, the emphasis on WGT’s article is how self is hard on self. The problem that those who refuse to attend church have instead is that God is more hard on them then they will ever be on themselves.

The fact that WGT’s article is anthropocentric regarding people’s performance issue makes me wonder about the article as a whole.

WGT,

Performancism leads us to spend our lives frantically propping up our image or reputation, trying to have it all, do it all, and do it all well, often at a cost to ourselves and those we love. Life becomes a hamster wheel of endless earning and proving and maintenance and management, where all we can see is our own feet. Before long we are living in a constant state of anxiety, fear, and resentment. A few years ago, Dr. Richard Leahy, an anxiety specialist, was quoted as saying, “The average high school kid today has the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the early 1950s.”

Bret

Naturally self is always concerned about self. This is a succinct definition of sin. The last thing we need to tell the performance hounds is that God gives them permission to not be concerned about performance. In point of fact what they need to be told is that God is more demanding of them than they will ever be of themselves. Of course when they become convinced of their inability to live up to God’s standards then we give them the good news of Christ performance for them and that God is satisfied with Christ’s performance for them.

WGT

Sadly, the church has not proven immune to performancism. An institution theoretically devoted to providing comfort to those in need is in trouble because it has embraced the same pressure-cooker we find everywhere else.In recent years, a handful of popular books have been published urging a more robust and radical expression of the Christian faith. I heartily amen the desire to take one’s faith seriously and demonstrate before the watching world a willingness to be more than just Sunday churchgoers. The unintended consequence of this push, however, is that we can give people the impression that Christianity is first and foremost about the sacrifices we make rather than the sacrifice Jesus made for us – our performance rather than his performance for us. The hub of Christianity is not “do something for Jesus.” The hub of Christianity is “Jesus has done everything for you.” And my fear is that too many people, both inside and outside the church, have heard our “do more, try harder” sermons and pleas for intensified devotion and concluded that the focus of the Christian faith is the work that we do instead of the work God has done for us in the person of Jesus.

Bret

I’m going to need a list of all these pressure cooker Churches because I don’t know where they are at.

Still, there is much to like in this paragraph. I only wish we didn’t need to create false dichotomies as if emphasizing Christ’s performance for us means that our performance doesn’t matter. Even St. Paul could say,

“by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not found vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

Obviously Christ performance is what is central — and the centrality of that needs to remain central — but the effect of Christ’s performance for us is dimly reflected in our performance for Christ and if we care not about our performance for Christ then we must ask ourselves if we care about Christ’s performance for us.

WGT

Furthermore, too many churches perpetuate the impression that Christianity is primarily concerned with morality. As my colleague David Zahl has written, “Christianity is not about good people getting better. It is about real people coping with their failure to be good.” The heart of the Christian faith is Good News not good behavior.When Sunday mornings become one more venue for performance evaluation, can you blame a person for wanting to stay at home?
As someone who loves the church, I am saddened by the perception of Christianity as a vehicle of moral control and good behavior, rather than a haven for the discouraged and dying. It is high time for the church to remind our broken and burned out world that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a one-way declaration that because Jesus was strong for you, you’re free to be weak; because Jesus won for you, you’re free to lose; because Jesus succeeded for you, you’re free to fail.

Bret

Again, we must beware false dichotomies. It is true that Christianity is not primarily concerned with morality but that doesn’t mean that Christianity isn’t proximately concerned about morality. Certainly St. James was concerned with morality. If one reads St. John’s epistles you can see that he is concerned about morality. St. Paul is concerned about morality when he asks, “What shall we say? Shall we go on sinning that grace might increase? God forbid! It is just not helpful when Christian ministers write as if morality is not a concern of the Christian God.

And the Zahl quote just isn’t accurate. Christianity is about good people getting better. It is true that none of our “good” in an absolute sense but by God’s grace alone we are transformed from glory unto glory (II Cor. 3:18). Christianity teaches that we are not what we will be, but it also teaches that we are not what we once were.

The fact that Christians do begin, with serious purpose, to conform not only to some, but to all the commandments of God indicates that by God’s grace alone we are being changed.

The fact that Christianity is seen about Christians being moral is seen in Paul’s words to the Ephesians,

But ye did not so learn Christ;

21 if so be that ye heard him, and were taught in him, even as truth is in Jesus:

22 that ye put away, as concerning your former manner of life, the old man, that waxeth corrupt after the lusts of deceit;

23 and that ye be renewed in the spirit of your mind,

24 and put on the new man, that after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth.

25 Wherefore, putting away falsehood, speak ye truth each one with his neighbor: for we are members one of another.

26 Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:

27 neither give place to the devil.

28 Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have whereof to give to him that hath need.

But of course it is not only about good people being constantly renewed by Grace alone. It is also about comforting the afflicted who see that they are not yet what they are called to be. Christianity is also about helping real people cope with their failure of not being good. The Christian faith encourages people to press on

13 Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before,

14 I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

15 Let us therefore, as many as are mature, be thus minded: and if in anything ye are otherwise minded, this also shall God reveal unto you:

So the Church has a word of hope and comfort to the floundering and it has a word to those who are not floundering. To those who are floundering the word is, “It is true you are a great sinner, but Christ is a greater Savior.” To those who are not floundering the word is, “further in and farther up.”

WGT

Grace and rest and absolution–with no new strings or anxieties attached–now that would be a change in substance.

Was The Lord Christ attaching strings when he spoke of the necessity to deny one’s self, take up his Cross and follow?